Fabricated Chapter 10

[companionwolf]

 “Isn’t Denny’s cursed?” asks Espeon as they exit the house.

Davey stares. “You’re really talking, aren’t you?” he says, looking at Pillow Central and then at Espeon again. “You’re really alive.”

“Answer the question,” she says.

“It’s not that cursed,” he mumbles, seemingly off guard.

“Our human says it’s got demonic energy,” she explains. Davey frowns. 

“What’s demonic about pancakes?” he asks. “What kind of human do you live with?” A pause. “Wait isn’t Bradford your—“

The horn honks at them, cuts him off, and Pillow Central is grateful. He clambers into the back seat after Davey. 

“Hey, guys, is Denny’s demonic?” Davey asks as Tulip pulls out of the drive way.

“What the fuck kind of question is that?” asks Alex, as Tulip answers, “Band kids are demonic, not the restaurants they go to.”

“I knew band kids were evil!” Espeon shouts, making the humans look at her with a mix of concern and amusement.

“I don’t think they’re evil,” says Alex, who is holding a handkerchief to their bleeding nose, “just chaotic.”

“Says the former band kid,” Davey answers.

“Ssssh!”

“Yeah, everyone shut up,” Tulip says. “I’ve got a headache and I’m googling the closest Denny’s and I need to hear the directions or I will drive us into a lake.”

“Ew, water,” says Espeon.

“Of course the cat hates water,” Davey says under his breath.

“Fuck you I’m a Pokémon,” she answers. 

“A Pokémon cat,” he says.

“Can both of you be quiet?” Alex asks.

“Legally I have to say at least 200 words a minute or I die,” says Espeon. 

“You stole that from the Owner,” Alice says, and her voice is tinged with exasperation. 

“Their thing is kvetching, not just talking,” Espeon says.

“Can y’all shut the fuck up?” Tulip asks, voice raising. “Damn stuffed animals are more talkative then people, like Hell guys be quiet!” 

The GPS rings out its directions in the silence that follows. They pull into the mostly empty Denny’s parking lot and leave the car, taking a large empty booth in the back. Pillow Central sets Alice and Espeon on the table, which earns a soft ‘oh that’s cute’ from the waitress as she takes the drinks orders. She gives Alex a extra handful of napkins, which they replace the handkerchief with.

As she walks away, Tulip sets down her phone onto the table, which is playing back the recording of Pillow Central and the Elder.

“So,” she says, “you’re a seasoned ghost hunter.”

Pillow Central stares at her. “I’m sorry?”

She points at the Elder. “Floaty purple thing that came out of the doll. It’s a ghost,” she says. 

“Nah, dude, that’s a alien,” Espeon says.

“It’s incorporeal, how is it a alien?” Alex asks. “Incorporeal means ghost.”

“It’s a Psionic alien,” she says, lolling her head slightly in the absence of eyeballs to rolls. 

“Not everyone has played XCOM 2, Espeon,” Alice says, “be nice.”

“There’s a second X-COM?” Davey asks.

“I thought that was Interceptor,” Alex says.

“No, that one’s fucking bad, the only good one is UFO Defense,” Tulip says. 

“Have you— have you not seen the Firaxis remakes?” Pillow Central asks.

“What’s Firaxis?” asks Tulip and Alex, as Davey says, “Oh I know them, they make Civ.”

“Holy shit,” says Pillow Central.

“Language.” Alice gives him a glare.

“Let! Central! Swear! Let him say fuck!” Espeon says.

“Wow,” Davey says, “you’re not a kid’s toy.”

“I know many bad words,” she says, and puffs out her chest. “ I am the baddest bitch in the Hoard.”

“The Hoard?” questions the humans in unison, and then quiet as the waitress returns with coffees and waters and a notepad for their food orders.

After she leaves, Pillow Central takes a long breath, and says, “That’s what we call the collection of stuffed animals our Owner has. I’m part of it too.” He turns slightly, so that only the trio can see, and unzips his coat- he stares out of ink eyes at them, blinking a few times deliberately. 

“Holy fuck,” says Davey.

“Language,” says Alice again.

“You’re not our mom,” Espeon says.

“I am not his mom, but I am a woman of high society, and swearing is frowned upon,” she says.

“Our home is covered in Oreo packages and ginger ale bottles and our Owner swears like a sailor; you wish you were high society,” Espeon says.

“Did we all just decide to ignore this guy is a body pillow?” Davey says.

“I mean, good for him,” says Tulip. “You’ve got longevity. You could be a anime girl if you wanted to. Is that how that works?”

“I-I could be,” Pillow Central says, taken aback. “I mean, I guess I could. The Owner doesn’t like anime though.”

“Where’d they get... you?” Alex asks, a little hesitant. “Is that offensive? And, uh, nice ribbon too. Very...blue.”

“I’m from one of the Japan Pokémon centers,” Espeon says. “I’m official.”

“You were a gift from the father,” Alice says, “and that is not a good thing.” She sighs as she adds, “I was from Target. Autumnal sale.”

“Good old target, full of shit you don’t need; peak capitalism,” Tulip says with a sigh as Alex asks, “Bad dad?”

“Very,” Alice says. “We have considered smothering him, but that would probably lead to a wrongful arrest.” 

“Back to sentient body pillows for a second here, guys, I’m still not over this—“

“Davey, get with it, it’s 2019 and the world is on track to end. Who gives a shit if stuffed animals and body pillows are sentient?” 

“I think the body pillows care,” says Alex quietly. 

“Yeah, I got lucky,” Pillow Central says. “My Owner isn’t... weird about it. The being a body pillow thing I mean. They don’t know about Awakening. You’re not supposed to.”

“But then everything changed when the aliens attacked,” Espeon says.

“You know ATLA?” 

“We know lots of pop culture. What do you think we do when you humans leave for work and school? Just sit there? ... I mean that’s what the non Awakened ones do but I mean the rest of us.” 

“Toy Story was true all along...” 

“Not really,” says Alice. “Plastic toys rarely Awaken. And we rarely have astral limbs like PC here. Those are special. He’s special.”

Tulip gently takes Pillow Central’s hand in her own. “So this isn’t real?” she asks.

“Not really,” he says, suddenly self conscious. “It’s a — a lot of them have limbs, but I don’t, so the magic is a — it’s like a assistance device.”

He zips his coat back up and shakes his false head. “Look, none of this really matters.” He taps the screen of Tulip’s phone, and it begins to play silently— on screen, past him shoots green Psionic energy. “This matters. Your world- our world- is in danger.”

“No shit,” says Tulip. “A madman’s in the White House.”

“I’m not talking about the screaming yam,” says Pillow Central, and then sighs Alex and Davey snort. “Look that’s what the owner calls him, I’m just lifting from them, please listen.”

“We’re listening,” says Davey through giggles, “go on.”

“These beings, these Elders, they’ve been hiding and studying humans for god knows how long, and that’s bad, because not only do they understand you better, they know about their game,” he says. “XCOM, and XCOM 2, was supposed to be fiction. It wasn’t supposed- there wasn’t supposed to be Elders. But there are, and they’ve seen how we win, how you win, and now they’re on track for making sure no one can get even close to making the resistance side of that narrative a reality.” 

“Wait, wait, do we even have a XCOM?” Tulip asks. 

“What’s that stand for, XCOM?” Alex question as he exchanges bloodied tissues for new ones. 

“X-treme composting,” Espeon says.

“Espeon, I will throw you out of this restaurant,” Pillow Central says. 

To the humans, he says, “Extraterrestrial Combat. In the story, the nations of the world come together and active a international army known as XCOM, which is funded worldwide, and which fights the invasion. Narratively, they lose, which leads to the second game with resistance against the occupation by the Elders and their administration ADVENT. We’re in first game territory, and we don’t to move to second game, especially since this earth probably doesn’t even have a equivalent to XCOM in the first place.”

“So why are you all up in arms? You’re a pillow, they’re toys, it’s not gonna affect you,” Davey says.

“The Elders hid in our kind to avoid our government,” Alice says. “I believe that the magic of Awakening was enough life power to sustain their sleeping forms until they felt ready to move forward with their invasion. Which is now, apparently.”

“We’re trying to get to the White House,” Pillow Central says. “Tell the people at the top directly, get them to do something before Earth falls and ADVENT moves in.”

“I think I’ve seen bits and pieces of the cutscenes from 2; isn’t ADVENT, like, they have really good healthcare,” Alex says. 

“It’s a lie,” Pillow Central says. “All the gene therapy, the housing, the jobs- it’s all to corral humanity and set them up to be processed into this... substance that helps create the vessels the Elders need to survive.”

“So they’re dying?” asks Tulip. “Why don’t they just ask nicely?”

“Because they’re fucking stupid,” Espeon says.

“Because they’re prideful, and arrogant, and believe humanity is lesser,” Alice says. “And because they’re a little dumb, but they’d never admit that.”

“How many elders are there?” Davey asks. 

“Well, there was the one hiding in our Hoard,” Pillow Central says, “and now this one, so at least two. The game wasn’t very clear, so I can’t give you a exact number, sorry.”

“I’ve not deleted my footage,” Tulip says, taking her phone as she speaks, “and I’m not going to.”

“That’s... that’s fine,” Pillow Central says after a moment. “Keep it. Just don’t... share it unless things go down the drain. We really don’t need the government going after stuffed animals when there’s a alien invasion starting.”

“They’ll come after you next, though,” Alex says.

“Humanity first, we can worry about that when it comes,” Pillow Central says.

“That’s pretty selfless,” Tulip says. “Not that I expect anything less from a pillow.”

“Thanks, I think that’s a compliment,” Pillow Central says.

“So what are you going to do?” Alex asks. “Yo can’t just walk into the White House.”

“We haven’t figured that part out yet,” Alice says. “But we have something to investigate before we head there anyway. Remember?”

“I remember,” Pillow Central says. “A woman I met had a corpse of a alien in her fridge,” he explains, “and sent off prices of broken alien teach to her engineer friends. We need to secure that tech before it reaches any other human hands.”

“Oh, yeah, definitely,” Tulip says, “we humans love our toys, and we’ll take them from anybody. Reverse engineering.”

“Exactly,” says Alice. “Your kind really does like to make death weapons. It’s quite harrowing, actually.”

“We’re trying to fix that,” Tulip says. “Normal people, I mean, not the government, not where it matters.” 

“You sound like the Owner when they talk about climate change,” says Espeon.

“Oh god, don’t get me started,” Tulip says.

“Anything we can do to help?” Alex asks; the bleeding is finally stopping, and they don’t hold anything to their face anymore.

“I’m not sure,” Pillow Central says. “I don’t want to leave you alone though- I feel like that Elder might... I don’t know, come back, try to hurt you.”

“What was that thing you did when it tried to attack us anyway?” Davey asks. “It was green, and it broke a wall.” He blanches. “Shit, well have to pay for that.”

“Put it on our tab; that goes for food too,” Espeon says as the waitress returns with pancakes, eggs, and bacon for the humans.

“Espeon,” chides Alice, but Pillow Central cuts her off. “No, she’s right, we can pay for it.”

“Damn, stuffed animals be loaded,” Tulip says.

“Awakening provides,” says Alice.

“You still haven’t answered my question,” Davey says.

“Weren’t you listening when the alien was yapping?” Espeon asks. “It’s called psionics, or the gift, or space magic, and it’s fucking cool. I have it now too, because duh. I am a psychic Pokémon and I deserve it.” 

“I still can’t figure out how you managed to survive that,” Alice says. “You should have been destroyed.”

“As if I’d let a Elder of all things kill me,” Espeon says with a huff. “Like everything else inexplicable, it was probably Awakening- at least some part. The rest was my raw power.”

“Are you doing winter classes? You could come with us,” Pillow Central asks. “I mean, us with you, since our car... kinda... got in a accident.”

Tulip nods. “I’m free,” she says. “Davey? Alex?”

“I have a online class, but if you let me swing by my apartment I can grab my laptop and I can work from there,” Alex says. They give Pillow Central a quirked eyebrow. “How do you kind of get into a crash?”

“Look I’ve only been driving for one day, and a bunch of things happened, it wasn’t my fault,” he says.

“That’s two outta three,” Espeon says, interrupting them. She looks at Davey expectantly; he shifts under her embroidered gaze.

“I was hoping to get more hours at work, but if you really think this Elder thing is a threat, and you want me as a witness, I guess I can come,” he says. “It’s my car anyway.”

“Sick,” Espeon says, “we have a adventuring party.”

“Espeon, this is not a game,” Alice says.

“Yes it is and I’m winning.”

Pillow Central flags down the waitress for the bill, pays, and the group heads back to the house for the night. The humans fall asleep quickly enough, but Pillow Central lies awake, staring at the dark ceiling.

Alice, perched on his backpack nearby, speaks softly. “You are concerned?”

“They’re only human,” he says. “How can I protect them?”

“Fuck them, they can protect themselves,” Espeon says from the crook of his arm. “Only human we’re beholden to is the Owner.”

“And how do we protect them when we’re so far away?” he asks.

“The hoard will make sure they are safe,” Alice says. 

Pillow Central wishes he could agree. Wishes his loyalty was not locked by magic and mother duck imprinting (not to say he hates the Owner, and wants them harmed; only that the convention of protection of the first is limiting).

Wishes and wishes and wishes.

But wishes aren’t action, he thinks, and action is what he does, and what he will do. 

(He likes to think it would make the Owner proud.)