{"id":2814,"date":"2025-09-20T16:43:19","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T23:43:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.evardsson.com\/blog\/?p=2814"},"modified":"2025-09-20T16:43:19","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T23:43:19","slug":"dont-believe-the-network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.evardsson.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/20\/dont-believe-the-network\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Believe the Network"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

prompt: Include an unreliable narrator or character in your story.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

available at Reedsy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Humans are a noisy bunch of apes, that goes without saying. The fact that they broadcast their noise to the universe at large, well, it was bound to have consequences. Whether those are net positive or negative remains to be seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou weren\u2019t part of any contact team.\u201d The disbelief was plain in Orl\u2019s voice and feelers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI told you,\u201d Lir replied, \u201cI was a maintenance tech two on the contact ship. I wouldn\u2019t want<\/em> to be on the contact team. All politics and shit \u2026 boring.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut you said you saw humans?\u201d Orl\u2019s feelers flicked in confusion. \u201cHow does a maintenance tech\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGrade two,\u201d Lir interrupted. \u201cI had some down time and found it wandering around near the officer\u2019s lounge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat did it look like?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lir\u2019s feelers pulled in close. \u201cDisgusting. It was walking around with one of those things between its legs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t covered up?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo. And it was big, too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe thing?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, that was like in the archives. The human. It was as tall as two of me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI thought,\u201d  Orl said, \u201cthey were more like our size or smaller.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis one was huge!\u201d Lir waved off the less interesting part of the encounter. \u201cBut it looked at me and said, \u2018Advantageous day-start\u2019 plain as if it was hatched in my home cr\u00e8che.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow did it know our language?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen the universities began decoding their languages and translating the human network, the academia shared all that back on the human\u2019s network.\u201d Lir\u2019s feelers waved in annoyance. \u201cAcademia always making things more dangerous for the military.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut why was it wandering around unguarded?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know. I didn\u2019t ask. I was more interested in learning everything I could from it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLike what?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou know those Artificial Intelligence things they have? I had to know how those work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd this one knew?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lir\u2019s feelers flicked in an affirmative motion. \u201cIt said that\u2019s common knowledge. Something they call a Machine-ical Jerk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orl\u2019s feelers again flicked in confusion. Beyond that, a slight tilt of the head segment got Lir talking again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA Machine-ical Jerk is a human trapped in a box and forced to perform some task over and over. The first one was forced to play a strategy game, but the new ones answer questions and make up stories and stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy? Is it a punishment?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know. Maybe it\u2019s something they enjoy. Some sort of fetish or something, you know how humans are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orl tapped a foot on the floor. \u201cI still want to know why it was uncovered.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUgh. Well, I got around to asking that. I wish I hadn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orl\u2019s feelers made a \u201cget to it\u201d motion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou know how there\u2019s a lot of them doing weird things with each other when they\u2019re uncovered? It\u2019s compulsory. Every human has to do that with at least one other human and post the results on the network.\u201d Lir leaned in close and whispered, \u201cIt said it\u2019s a huge experiment to make magic real for humans.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat does that have to do with anything?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lir leaned back. \u201cThat human was one of their \u2018Champions.\u2019 It was famous on the network for doing the \u2018research\u2019 with a full million other humans. It was looking for one of us to do it with.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIck! Really?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cReally. It waved its thing at me, so I just said, \u2018No\u2019 and showed it my ovipositor was far more impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat did it do?\u201d Orl asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt did that thing where water comes out of the orb-slots on its head, then it kicked the door to the officer\u2019s lounge so hard it ripped the wall free on both sides.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey can\u2019t be that strong.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHaven\u2019t you been studying their network? You should look it up.\u201d Lir handed Orl a chit with a lookup link for the translated human network. \u201cThis has all sorts of information about them, and the human I talked to proved a lot of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat happened after it mangled the door?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI thought it might be dangerous after that. It was twice my size and probably four times my weight, but I couldn\u2019t let it rampage through the ship. I told it that it would have to fight me before it could do any more damage.\u201d Lir struck a fighting pose. \u201cIt didn\u2019t know that I\u2019m an advanced master instructor of kannat, both standard and purtet-karnon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAdvanced<\/em> master?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah. It didn\u2019t know, but then again, almost no one does. I\u2019m trusting you with it because you seem like the sort to keep a secret. I used to be in the records as the youngest master, youngest advanced master, and youngest instructor until the military hired me to train special forces. They wiped all my records and put me in as a maintenance tech for cover.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHm. Then what?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis.\u201d Lir swept through some clumsy movements, until ending off-balance and panting. \u201cI used its size against it, with the purtet-karnon techniques.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI see.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah, when it ended up on the floor, with its head stuffed between its two legs, it gave up.\u201d Lir posed. \u201cIt told me I was the toughest thing it had ever come across and gave me a chit with its comm info. As I walked it off the ship, it kept begging me to stay in contact.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWait\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orl\u2019s head-part tilted. \u201cIf it was uncovered, where was it carrying the chit?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know. I threw it out, anyway. Those humans don\u2019t impress me, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Orl\u2019s feelers waved in a pleading motion. \u201cIf you can think of anything else about the humans you can help me with, I\u2019d appreciate it. I\u2019m shipping off to the embassy on the human home world in the morning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know enough about human politics to be much help.\u201d Lir made a noncommittal gesture, said, \u201cCheck that network resource I gave you,\u201d and left.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orl didn\u2019t find the time to look at the network right away. Instead, the first chance came while in transit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being in transit with over a dozen humans, though, Orl was too busy looking for any of them that were anywhere near the size that Lir had described. No such luck. None of them were uncovered, either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One sat beside Orl and began tapping on a comm device. A mechanical voice came from the device. \u201cHi. I\u2019m <strange-sound> with the human ambassador\u2019s office. Are you part of the new embassy your people are setting up on Earth?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m just a security guard,\u201d Orl answered, and watched as the device translated his speech to human symbols.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSorry I\u2019m not speaking your language directly,\u201d the human said through the comm\u2019s voice, \u201cbut we don\u2019t have the right physical characteristics to make the sounds you do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orl thought about Lir\u2019s claims. Maybe the human champion was using a translation device? Whatever. With a secret unlock sequence of feelers, Orl opened the device that had been assigned and inserted the data chit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The human looked over and began making the strange noise that humans make when they find something humorous. \u201cWhat?\u201d Orl asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The human pointed at the screen. \u201cI can\u2019t read the text, but I know that site. That\u2019s Reddit. I wouldn\u2019t believe anything you read there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orl looked at the top entry. \u201cHuman Champion Accidentally Destroys Alien Embassy Ship,\u201d the headline said. The next said, \u201cHumans Will Mate With Anything \u2014 It\u2019s Magic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orl looked back at the human. \u201cAll the articles on this site are untrue?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The human moved its head up and down. \u201cPretty much, yeah. Oh, I see the subreddit in the link. That one\u2019s a fiction writer\u2019s group.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFiction, you say.\u201d Orl looked up Lir\u2019s service record. Dishwasher, lower class, joined after<\/em> First Contact, busted twice for disobeying orders and drummed out of service. Closing the device, Orl said, \u201cI believe I must make up my own mind about humans.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGood idea,\u201d the human said through the device.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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