My name is Butch Kissimmee IV and I’m going to die soon. Soon is the operative word, as I have only just turned the big 8-0-0-0, well below expectation of others in my family. For example, my great great grandfather proper lost his battle with life at the ripe age of fourteen thousand, six hundred and twenty. My great grandfather proper is still alive, at a robust twelve thousand, two hundred and forty-eight. My father proper, Butch Kissimmee III, just celebrated his ten thousandth birthday. By the time I was to reach ten thousand, I may have been immortal or so close I could never tell the difference. My grandfather proper you see is noticeably absent.
I won’t reach eight thousand because I am going to be executed.
#
I should start by saying my death is justified, and when I am gone there will be much said, likely true, likely exaggerated. One such truism is my death will finally bring an end to Galactic War II, as I’ve been told several hundred times. One such exaggeration is I am a monster.
#
My grandfather proper is noticeably absent because he has been dead these past six thousand years, though I brought him back to life and sparked the war for which I am now held prisoner.
In life and death, my grandfather proper had been my favorite person in the universe.
#
My grandparents proper lived in a cozy home on Palixan, a planet eighteen thousand light years from the galactic center. Their house floated seven thousand feet above the surface, just beyond the once-toxic mist that made Palixan unlivable to early human explorers, before the advent of Palixanian neck respirators.
The rhythm of my arrival had always been the same—my grandmother would get up from the kitchen table, stroll through the dining and living rooms to the tiny foyer where I wiped my feet, kiss me on the cheek, and say, “He was just talking about you, Butchie.”
She’d then disappear in the backroom. When their house was bombed, she was fortunately very far away. Her MBF died in the explosions.
I always sat opposite my grandfather in the kitchen. Every day he’d listened to a radio tuned to a frequency that only made sense to his cybernetic neurons. He’d wave his hand back and forth, belting out notes as if he wrote the song himself.
I admit back then I was more curious than wise and vastly interested in the way things worked. “Pop Pop, why do we have to die?”
He turned the radio up, as he was one to do. He never liked these types of questions. “How the hell should I know, Butchie?”
I leaned closer to yell. “You’ve been around a long time.”
He shook his head, flipped the radio switch, leaving an eerie silence. “Too long if you ask me.”
I understood his flippantness with death. He had been a veteran of Galactic War I, when machines fought to destroy the natural order by usurping humanity six thousand years before I was born.
He spotted my staring. “What do you want from me, Butchie? A secret?”
I smiled. “Just some guidance. You know so much.”
He considered, shook his head.
As young as I was, I understood death’s role in life, though I’d argue it hadn’t borne its full weight until the 280th century. J.U.B. Raliont—the oldest human in history at twenty-one thousand, five hundred and two years galactic standard—once said her death should be considered the most tragic in human history, as she had survived the worst of the human experience.(1) I envy I won’t ever get the chance.
(1) Raliont has been dead almost a thousand years. She had been drafted into the war. The guards said, Funny enough the old hag was snuffed out by her MBF.
My grandfather shook his head again. He chose his appearance to be about forty years galactic standard, rugged, with a stubble that was literal steel so as to look the same forever. The giant bolts on his neck had once been crucial for humans to breathe on Palixan—now they were for show, mere symbols of where you came from. My grandmother, who received her respirators shortly after marrying my grandfather, said the bolts made her feel so Palixanian.
The only change was to my grandfather’s eyes, which held the weight of his many thousands of years. Or so he said. To me, they were just brown.
“Here’s a secret, Butchie. Your ass and your mouth spew the same shit.”
“But you have so much to teach me.”
He smiled, or grimaced. “Christ, Butchie. Maybe it’s so we can enjoy it here. Maybe not think about what’s not important. Maybe so we can love. How should I know?”
“But you know something Pop Pop.”
He waved me away. “All I know about death is when it’s all said and done, there’s an order. I go first then your dad then y—” He fiddled with a drink on the table. “Well maybe that’s where it’ll end and you won’t have to think about it anymore.”
I raised an eyebrow. “That’s not something you know.”
“Well, I know I’d prefer it that way.”
I wondered. “What if I die first?”
He balled a cybernetic fist and slammed it through the table. “Oh hell no, Butchie. There’s no way that’s happening.”
“Why not? It would be as natural as your going first wouldn’t it? People perish all the time in and out of order.”
He jabbed a finger at me. “I’ve been in this galaxy so long that just my very existence is more than that little pea brain of yours can handle. Acts of God, sure. I’ll deal with them, hard as I might curse God. But you asked me what I know about dying and I know I’m dying first.”
“But why Pop Pop?”
“Butchie, if you think I’m going to hold this grief, then you have another thing coming. I mourn my folks, you mourn me. I’ve done my mourning.”
“But your father is still alive. My parents are still alive. If I went first you’d have them.”
“Butchie here’s a real secret: Enjoy the ignorance of your youth. You’ll be happy and healthy for so long after I’m gone I’ll be as large as a speck of dust in the expanse of the galaxy.”
“That’s impossible, Pop Pop. You’re my favorite person in the universe.”
He leapt from the table and yanked me by my shirt. This, believe it or not, was normal. He shoved me out the door, back out to my ship, only, I turned just in time to see the gleaning whites of his teeth and the shiny reflection of tears welling in his eyes.
In the blink of an eye, five hundred years later, my grandfather was dead.
#
Perhaps clarity is better off through perspective—prisoner though I am, I live in what previous generations would consider a paradise. Imagine living in the Era Before Expansion, when seventy years pre-galactic standard was considered a long time. Even with my cybernetic mind, I struggle to fathom it.
At the time of my capture humans hadn’t needed to eat in eleven thousand years. They hadn’t needed to drink in ten thousand.
The galaxy isn’t low on resources because the physical and ambitious needs of humanity have dwindled in the face of thousands of years of living. Even with hundreds of trillions of people in the galaxy, there is much to go around. The uber-rich have enough room to be uber-rich, while the rest of us have enough room to live as our own versions of uber-rich. Which is to say without the need to do anything we don’t want to do.
In fact, the possibilities of humanity have become so near-boundless that the only sense of progress comes from direct combat against the human condition, such as when Maya P. Schallnock invented Human Only.(2)
(2) Existential Crisis(8125-9871): For millennia humans combatted the animalistic bits of their minds, centered around war, sex, and dopamine. Schallnock believed humans could be beyond that. As such, she created Human Only, which squelched those feelings. Unfortunately, without animalistic distractions humans became acutely aware of their only unique trait: the crushing knowledge of mortality. Billions subsequently committed suicide, driven to insanity by an unhideable truth. Existential Crisis ended when Loa P. Moran invented Human And, so humans could once again feel animalistic, which returned the defensive walls against the knowledge of dying through phrases such as, “At least my death is would be for a good cause” and “Please slow down or I’m going to come.” For her part in contributing to an incredibly large amount of deaths, Schallnock was imprisoned but ultimately forgiven by humanity. She had a wife and three kids and died of natural causes at seventeen thousand years galactic standard.
That is, all to say, except dying. And, along that same line, dying in a supposed order of fairness. I imagine many people believe my death should happen out of order, so no one will have to die before knowing I’m dead, too.
#
My cell is four walls with a bed, table, light, and no windows. My only visitors are guards who appear to update me on my war on humanity. I’ve started to breathe, two sets of ten times, as a way to keep my mind off things. It’s tough to stick with considering I’ve never done it before.
Time inside my cell doesn’t exist in the realm I am used to. I know time passes because I exist. I know the exact amount of time passing because over ninety-nine percent of my brain is cybernetic—it’s been seven hundred and fifty-one years since I was captured.
#
I am writing with pen and paper, a low-maintenance form of record as technology (outside of my being) is forbidden. I have to admit that writing in this archaic way fills me with the nostalgia of simpler times such as the Weeping Laughter.
#
Seliipp is the guard who speaks during visits. He just told me the death toll reached one trillion on each side.
He sneered. “Soon enough Butchie, you’ll be part of those trillions.”
The other guard laughed.
“Oh and one more thing. You can also count on dying right next to that grandfather of yours.”
Seliipp told me the MBFs continue producing machines despite not having my leadership and guidance, thanks to their new leader, My BF. He is their most wanted being in the galaxy.
#
I can see after recounting the story how uncomfortable the situation may have been for my grandfather proper. Of all the things a grandson would ask, why was death so close to my mind? I had let the curiosity of the one thing humans hadn’t conquered consume my thoughts and many of our conversations.
But that conversation would become my inspiration. I had been born during a time of action, when ideas could be made whole. Ideas that fundamentally changed humanity, such as Urum A. Buxoite’s invention to eliminate grief from the human psyche. They called it a dam to dam that damn sad button. (3)
(3) Great Silence (10264-10800): Humans lived for so long that the subsequent grief became too much to handle. As Buxoite once said,To live alone for thirty, even forty years is doable. To live alone for twenty thousand is asking too much. As such, Buxoite removed grief entirely. Unfortunately, humanity became unable to pinpoint the cause of the gaping emptiness inside them. To make matters worse, humans couldn’t mask the emptiness with dopamine and other feel-goods, such as war and sex, until Pierpont Malacion determined the best way to avoid emptiness was to maximize the feel-goods by providing every square inch of the human body with pleasure nerves. Now, a graze on the elbow from a shirt sleeve would create seismic orgasm, leading to an era known as Euphoria (10900-11900). My grandfather proper said he saw “the gods themselves” for a thousand years. Unfortunately, Euphoria led to what became known as the Flatline (11900-13000) because humanity had been so strung out on pleasure that they couldn’t function. Flatline ended when Murrys A. Alimen realized it was better if humans had pleasure centers, which she split into separate sets of genitals she called penis and vagina. For their crimes, Buxoite was awarded the Galactic Prize in Science for their attempts to “tackle the human condition.”
So it should be no wonder that after my grandfather died I wanted to do something similar, to create a new era of humanity.
#
I joined the rest of my family in orbit above Earth proper. While the ansible allowed for instantaneous transmission—I found out not even ten seconds after my grandfather died—it still took us a hundred years galactic standard to reach the Wormhole Highways.
The Highways saved humanity’s expansion in the early 4000s after humans had occupied all the habitable planets best suited for non-cybernetic bodies. Eventually, they ran out of room, and humanity needed more humans to increase the population, keep the workforce strong, and justify the need to continue expanding. Ultimately, they supplemented expansion with machines, which led to Galactic War I.
As historian Milder T. Asiioiiva once said, Humanity has shown through its incredible grit and determination that it is wildly dedicated, teetering the line of insanity and admirability, to ensuring not a single piece of the universe can overcome them, lest they have to accept the universe wasn’t made with them in mind.
As thanks for his service during Galactic War I, my grandfather had a suite aboard the Primordial Soup, the first ship built in orbit, eventually repurposed into a galactic funeral home. We fit his casket into the rails so that his husk could look down into the big, blue marble.
Viewings lasted three hundred years on the Primordial Soup and required family to be available for mourners. My grandfather had plenty—war buddies, past lovers, and even members of the Neutron Stars arrived to offer condolences.
One woman arrived clad in black and had long, mechanical legs bent like a minotaur. She walked up to my great-grandfather and patted him on his large stomach. “Big Butch, I’m so sorry to hear about Butch.”
My great-grandfather dropped his head. “Thanks Miriamol. You know how tough it can be to lose a child.”
Miriamol dotted her eyes and sprang away. I never saw her again, but I did build her MBF.
My great-grandfather tilted his head as Miriamol walked away. He told me her legs had been shaped that way due to a mountainous planet called Elemon. The legs allowed her to scale mountains without any need for a hold and without losing speed. Like the neck respirators on Palixan, Miriamol’s legs had long been unnecessary.
My great-grandfather grinned after Miriamol turned the corner. “You should see Miriamol balance on a—.” He shook his head. “Nevermind, Butchie. Forget I said anything.”
#
When the three-hundred-year window ended, we Kissimmees took turns saying goodbye. When I stepped to my grandfather’s casket, I merely glanced at his husk. I was unable to offer more, lest I had to accept he was gone.
I hugged my great-grandmother and managed to get my arms around my great-grandfather’s belly. He carried the heft of a human born on a hostile planet known as Firheim. He donned a fireproof red beard and had fireproof skin and organs and, due to the mountainous regions and excess amount of rock, stood almost nine feet tall to properly distribute the size and strength of his hands. Were this a Firheimen funeral, my great-grandfather could’ve grabbed my grandfather’s casket and crushed it into powder. When you grow up around fire Butchie, he once said, you don’t see the spirituality of burning things.
“Hey Pop, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Pop Pop’s my favorite person in the universe.”
His giant hands wrapped around me. “He never stopped talking about you, Butchie.”
I felt a lump the size of Firheim grow in my throat. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s quite alright.” He smiled, or grimaced. “Never thought I’d live to see the day I outlived my boy.”
I tried to swallow. “I imagine he’d prefer it this way. I once asked him what he thought if I went before him and he wasn’t too pleased. I imagine living with the loss of even one person he cared about was too much.”
My great-grandfather put one slab of his hand on my shoulder. Even with my cybernetics the weight nearly buckled my knees. “You should enjoy the ignorance of your youth, Butchie. That’s not the way this is supposed to work.”
“That’s what Pop Pop said. He mourns his folks and then I mourn him.”
“That’s how it always should be. You live first, you enjoy life first, you die first.”
“But then that leaves everyone after you alone.”
“That’s why you build your own life. That’s what you don’t get.”
“I don’t get much of anything. Pop Pop explained that to me.”
My great-grandfather sighed. “That’s certainly true, Butchie. You don’t have that guide anymore.”
My father tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to find his face so close to mine our noses touched. He lived on Qiliam, a planet famous for its mile-thick ice sheets. To combat the frigid temperatures and the potential freezing of their internal organs, inhabitants had elongated necks described as the best air warmers in the galaxy. These days they were fashion statements.
His head slithered in front of me to see everything. “Go on now, son.”
I scooted down the line and heard my father’s cries the moment he thumped against my great-grandfather. I swallowed the lump in my normal-sized throat and disappeared into the backroom.
My fingers itched. They sought work or anything to do. I closed my eyes, miming while in my mind I built something as memorable as Pruma Falintinax’s Happy Grief. (4)
(4) Weeping Laughter (13000-14250; 15100-15800): After Flatline humanity again had to deal with grief. That is until Falintinax invented Happy Grief. He argued after people lost a loved one, they deserved a burst of feel-goods when thinking of them. Unfortunately, humanity soon discovered the euphoric juice of familicide, as children murdered parents, sisters murdered brothers, lovers murdered lovers, and on down the line, eventually leading to what became known as Blood Bath I (14480-14988).In the early 15000s Weeping Laughter returned, only this time as a switch, which allowed happy grief to exist but only at the behest of the bereaved. Naturally, no one wanted to feel bad, which led to Blood Bath II (15801-16250). Falintinax rotted in a prison cell until the end of Blood Bath II and was ultimately exonerated after the galaxy determined his “intentions were good.”
Sometime later my father knocked at the door. His head floated about four feet past the threshold, while his body braced against the door to counter the weight.
He slunk his long neck down to me, resting it on my shoulder, face mere inches from mine. “Son, I know it’s hard but if Pop Pop had his choice, it was this. He couldn’t imagine a universe without you in it.”
I didn’t turn to face him or our noses would collide again. “I can’t imagine one without him in it.”
But I did try. Please believe I did.
#
The custom for Earth proper cremation went like this: The body would be harvested for parts for those who would be born later. I have a cybernetic kidney given to me for my eighth birthday. Inscribed on the kidney had been a message that said, May this kidney last until the Big Freeze. I cried because I wanted eyeballs that shot lasers.
However, humanity still had soft spots for the idea of human—which I’d learn the hard way—meaning the husk had been all-natural tissue with only a sprinkle of cybernetics.
My grandfather’s husk, devoid of all its major organs and bones and muscle, was filled with a solution that allowed him to remain three-dimensional. Inside the solution was a mixture of fertilizer that seeded Earth proper and kept it lush and vibrant. (5)
(5) I’ve learned the solution in the husks clogged the atmosphere and created mile-thick ice sheets, forcing Earth proper into another Ice Age. Casualties of Galactic War II have been filled with a solution of nickel and iron to bombard the poles.
My family and I stood shoulder-to-shoulder as a voice in the suite counted down to when grandfather’s chute would cast him into the atmosphere.
When the countdown passed five minutes my father mentioned the time the Neutron Stars fumbled on the doorstep of making the playoffs for the first time since interstellar space travel.
Crushed by the loss, my grandfather threw his Gameday Set out of the window. It tumbled thousands of feet to the surface and miraculously crashed into the field of play. The players and fans alike dashed out of the stadium from the subsequent meteor shower of other fans doing the same. It had been a tried and true story over the years. That day no one laughed.
A bell rang, the rails raised, and my grandfather’s casket slid down the chute. I watched it catch fire in the atmosphere.
All told, my grandfather had been dead eight hundred years. I was just about to turn one thousand.
I tried to not think how much time had passed since we last spoke, or how that paled in comparison to the eternity of our never speaking again.
#
Seillipp told me the war has consumed eleven of the Seventeen Corners. One more corner and it will be the longest, largest, costliest, and bloodiest war in human history.
The way he said made it seem as if I enjoyed all of it. “Looks like your head gets to stay on that neck of yours a little longer.” He and his partner wore the navy blue of the Galactic Army. “Plenty more time to think on your demise, Kissimmee.”
The other guard shook his head and spit at the bottom of the door to my cell.
I sunk. “Believe me it’s all I think about.”
#
As my grandfather’s husk seeded Earth proper, I drifted inside his home on Palixan. My grandmother had sifted back to live with my Aunt Janees on their home planet Wixken, twenty-thousand light-years from the galactic center. Wixken has been famous for its being entirely under water, so prior to leaving my grandmother had her gills returned, hands and feet remade webs, and fin reattached to the top of her head. She said they made her feel so Wixkenien.
For a hundred years galactic standard I laid on the kitchen floor and stared straight through the hole my grandfather punched in the table. I sought the ceiling in hopes of any sign my grandfather still existed.
I didn’t hear a noise or see a single thing.
For seventy years, I tried to reason through my emotions and move on.
Here’s what I came up with—I am incapable of broaching such a subject.
Why hadn’t I called my grandfather more or visited more often? Why did I insist on digging into his knowledge of life and time instead of enjoying his company? Why hadn’t I watched the Galactic Football League? I could’ve participated better by saying something other than, The GFL? Sure, I’ve heard of it!
As the list of whys grew, I longed for the days of the MV Travelers—a group from the year 10,785,210, in possession of a device called B#$RTE @$%\>G. The device opened the gateway to the multiverse and offered anyone the ability to reach a specific point in time and redo any moment. As an added bonus nothing happened to your own continuum. (6) But I couldn’t could come up with a moment because I couldn’t find the moment that would allow me to have all the moments.(6)
(6) Immorto Dynasty (17000-18060): Humanity grew to enjoy the multiverse, constantly coming and going. As such, the universe was ripe for the taking, which it was, by a man named Immorto J. Monir, hellbent on conquering the multiverse. That was until a woman named Immoro J. Monir returned to our universe. So enamored by the beauty of himself as a woman, Immorto attempted to woo Immoro, who in turn slit Immorto’s throat, as she herself had conquered much of the multiverse. Immoro was then executed by another Immorto, who hated women, who was executed by another Immoro, who hated men, who was executed by android Immorto, who hated humans, who was executed by Immoro, who hated androids, who was executed by Immorto, who blamed Immoro for the death of his love Immoro, who was executed Immoro, who blamed Immorto for the death of her love Immorto, who was executed by Immorto, who didn’t travel back far enough to end the cycle, who was executed by Immoro, who didn’t travel back far enough to end the cycle, until a gang of rebels murdered both Immorto and Immoro simultaneously. The rebels then murdered the Travelers in this universe and destroyed their machines.
Even if I did have the exact starting moment, how could I relive them in another universe, when I’d have to return alone, back to my empty void?
Or, how could I exist alongside a version of my grandfather if he were one degree different? What if his steel stubble were clean shaven? Or worse, what if I stumbled upon a universe where I was a much better grandson, one who loves Galactic League football and whose grandfather would be in no rush to die?
I would learn I could live without my grandfather proper, but I couldn’t live with seeing the possibilities of what might have been. There was a universe where my grandfather lived and cherished life and wanted to be around for my entirety of it. And there was a universe where I was the ultimate grandson, a reason why my grandfather proper wanted to be around for all of it.
Why did I exist in the one where he embraced his inevitable death instead of fighting against it every day?
And that’s when the idea hit me.
I had just finished a century of watching every Galactic League game, from the Eagles’ run of six thousand straight championships to the Neutron Stars’ famed oh-for-twelve thousand from 14000 to 14880. I still understood nothing about galactic football, namely why teams didn’t use hyperspace to score a touchdown every play instead of utilizing it for first downs.
Charged by the idea, I put it into action a moment later and set myself on a path toward my execution.
#
My grandfather once said he mourned his folks and I mourned mine. It made sense at the time because he said it. Butlooking back, it was incredibly dumb.
Why should humanity continue to live in such natural order? Why does living first mean having to die first? Why can’t we have it both ways—the zest of seemingly everlasting life, coupled with the wisdom of years and time, tucked into the body of someone you could exist alongside and take comfort they’ll outlive you and, best of all, want to outlive you?
So that’s what I did. I set out to create a companion of everlasting comfort and wisdom, destined to live longer than anyone ever before, without the knowledge of a natural order and without the desire to follow it.
#
Seliipp said humanity captured me as an MBF. MBF Me had been executed and dismembered. Each limb was divvied up to the four remaining corners of the galaxy.
I hid my excitement. I despised MBF Me. “How’d the Corners take it?”
Seliipp smiled his now-famous sardonic smile. “It only made everyone want the real thing. Morale skyrocketed at the thought of receiving a piece of you.”
My excitement vanished. I swallowed hard. “And where did they take the head?”
“It’s in the warden’s office as we speak. They are throwing lawn darts at it.”
I turned away from the door, but Seliipp stopped me. “The best part was when we told the remaining corners you proper would be vaporized instead.”
“How’d they take it?”
“Not so good.”
#
When I think of great change in the past, I think most often of the fanfare, the blazing trails as someone put their stamp on humanity. In the 280th century, that type of recognition no longer existed, unless you were to introduce immortality proper or cause unimaginable loss. Even then, you are never in control of what you feel you did.
For example, instead of being known for naturally attempting to break the natural order, I am best known as the greatest mass extinction event in human history—Seliipp told me the war surpassed ten trillion dead, human and machine.
With all that said, there is nothing special about how I built Man’s Best Friend. To take an idea and build it in this day and age requires only time, of which I had entirely too much and not enough at all.
The only question I was never asked during my interrogations is why Man’s Best Friend? The original title had been My Best Friend, but after the MBFs broke away from the Kissimmee family, I knew very few of them.
#
The real challenge with My BF, and the questions I’d been asked a million times, had been building My BF in the image of my grandfather proper. Teaching it to walk and function was a mere download of my grandfather’s cybernetics from the Primordial Soup.
However, humanity still believed in the spirit of a human and as such humans remained endowed with the unpredictability of function like self-preservation—even if dying was what you had always wanted.
My BF needed that human unpredictability, to know what would be said or done but without knowing exactly how and when it would come out. Especially with my grandfather proper, who had been unpredictable and crass, but in the best ways.
After I built My BF, I sat it down at my grandfather’s table on Palixan, about five hundred years after his husk burned up in the atmosphere.
I sat at the head of the table, believing My BF worthy when it eventually succeeded in becoming my grandfather. “Now you’re kind of a hard ass, but you have that oomph of spirit and jadedness from ten thousand years of existence.”
MBF stiffened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re on the right track, but a little more, I don’t know, aggressive.”
“WHAT’S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN!” Its voice rattled the apartment. It curled its upper lip, clamped down on its teeth. It leapt, raked its nails deep into the table. Bits of metal splintered in the path of its fingers.
“No, no, the grimace is right, but the rest is all wrong. He was more sarcastic and snarky than violent. He couldn’t be bothered with certain things.”
“That does compute.” My BF drooped as it settled into the chair to analyze.
#
A hundred years later, I decided to test My BF on my father. My parents’ house on Qiliam had been built inside the ice, and it tore at early humans’ skin when touched. My father was home alone as my mother visited her parents on Neneal, a planet cast in total darkness. She had had her eyes removed and sockets filled in with magnets so she could always know where the magnetic north was, her ears made the size of plates, and her body stretched to over eight feet tall to account for holding all the cybernetic blubber from lack of warmth.
I had never been so nervous, and longed for the days of Uyli P. Laxer’s Have No Fear. (7)
(7) Irrational Confidence (6122-8060): Shame had always hindered progress. What would humanity look like if they were no longer scared,if the most intelligent had no fear of judgment? said Laxer. As such, Have No Fear made it so people didn’t fear their own ideas. And they didn’t, as men had no problem flashing women on first dates or ordering their meals for them. Pedophiles had no issue approaching children, serial killers could feel the high of dismemberment without questioning if something was wrong with them and, perhaps worst of all, incredibly dumb humans confidently presented bad ideas. Intelligent, aware people soon abandoned all hope because, as it turned out, without shame, they could more clearly see the quality of their ideas and as responsible people held back more often to tinker. For her contribution, Laxer was awarded the Keys to the Galaxy, as an incredibly dumb segment of humans felt strongly the whole thing was a good idea.
My father scowled. “Butch, you must’ve cracked.” He lost vigor since my grandfather proper died and by choice decided to show it in his slumped neck, baggy eyes, and sallow skin. “You expect me to believe this is my father?”
My BF, as my grandfather, grabbed my father’s shoulders. “Put your shoulders back and act like you’re happy to see your old man.”
My father melted into a puddle of tears, as he had throughout his childhood when my grandfather proper scolded him.
“Dad, it’s so good to see you again.” My father lunged for my grandfather, who accepted his hug with the love of all fathers.
“Ah Christ, Little Butch, you’re going to ruin my shirt.”
My father laughed. He slithered his head to his shirt sleeves and wiped his eyes. He went off, describing anything and everything he had done these past fourteen hundred years. My grandfather listened as he usually did—with a half-hearted series of nods and sighs.
“Dad, I’m supposed to be at Pop’s house for the galactic holiday. We’ll go together.”
“What do I look, helpless?” My grandfather strolled out of the house without a word and without direction, for I hadn’t downloaded the location to my great grandfather’s house on Firheim.
“Some things never change, eh Butchie?” My father put an arm around my shoulder, raised his neck to full height. “You and me we’ll go to Pop’s together.”
I hadn’t felt such happiness in a long time.
#
Firheim glowed red hot upon fire and brimstone. My great-grandparents lived inside a cave warmed to death by both the red giant and the planet’s geothermal energy. Outside, the surface temperature reached over a thousand degrees galactic standard. Inside was a cool eight hundred.
Both my great grandfather and grandfather proper grew up in the cave, but the latter couldn’t wait to leave—as he once told me, Christ, Butchie, life is hard enough to not have to live in literal fire.
My great-grandfather normally greeted visitors at the door, but no one answered when we knocked. Instead, I heard a commotion from the kitchen.
“Butch, how many times do I have to tell you the Asteroids can’t win with that defense?” My great grandfather’s voice rumbled as if he were one of the chronic earthquakes in the Firheim Valleys. “Is it any wonder the Eagles continue to win every year? Look at their defense!”
“Dad, the Eagles are old news.” My grandfather proper may have been impassioned when dealing with people like my father and me, but with his dad, he always remained calm. My BF was no different. “Their defense relies on gravity and the Newtonian laws of physics. These days if you can’t win with hyperspace then you can’t keep up scoring. Look at what happened when the Eagles played the Neutron Stars. That vaunted defense gave up 648 points in the first phase!”
“Oh, pray tell, what happened at the end of the game?”
“It doesn’t matter. The Neutron Stars are the worst team in the Galactic League, and they scored almost fifteen hundred points.”
“But it wasn’t fifteen hundred, you know why? Because the Eagles' defense stood tall at the one-inch line. Defense wins championships, son, or did you forget?”
My great-grandfather beamed when he spotted my father and me at the entrance to the cave.
“Butchie, tell your Pop Pop how wrong he is about the Eagles.”
My grandfather waved a hand. “Ah, leave the kid alone. He doesn’t care about this stuff. He’s beyond sports. Little Butch, tell your Pop about the third forward pass executed through the fifth dimension.” He pointed to the empty chair across from him, signaling a holy trinity of Kissimmees at the table, something that hadn’t happened since my grandfather proper’s death.
My father’s long neck quivered. His knees buckled, his body unable to handle the eloquence of the voice that invited him to sit among gods.
I turned to leave, as had been my custom when it came to these moments.
“Butchie, you sit right there and learn something.” My grandfather pointed to a fourth chair, at the opposite head of the table from my great-grandfather. “Kid’s smarter than all of us put together. Listen for a bit Butchie, and you tell your Pop he’s crazy.”
In all my centuries visiting Firheim, I had never known my great-grandfather’s table had more than three seats.
“Are you sure?” The gods had never done this before.
“Christ, Butchie, you think I ask for my health?”
I dashed to the table. The chair was smooth stone with not a hint of padding. It blistered heat from the roiling fires below. I fought to hide my smile. For the first time in history, the four Kissimmees occupied the Firheim table.
I folded my hands on top while the heat tried to singe my unburnable flesh. I told myself I wouldn’t talk for decades if it meant remaining here.
My grandfather pointed at me. “Now listen because when I’m no longer here, I’m going to need you to stand up to my old man and keep your old man in line.”
The energy vanished. My grandfather’s presence carried the fervor we had all loved and missed, but at that moment, when my grandfather spoke, my father and great grandfather held back, I imagine from the gravity of what was said.
My grandfather proper had not returned from the dead with renewed vigor or determination to enjoy life to the fullest. His life had been paused and restarted as he had been. And as he had been, my grandfather proper accepted he wasn’t immortal. He believed in the rest the long sleep brought.
He believed it because he hadn’t had to live without his presence. Or to live without mine. That this moment, for all its greatness, was fleeting because it had already happened. We had already seen the end of my grandfather proper’s life. We had lived for hundreds of years without him. He never had to deal with that sadness.
#
Seliipp stopped by my cell with the other guard in tow. He flashed that famous sardonic smile. “You won’t believe what we heard from the front today, Butchie.”
I perked up. “Peace had been declared and I’ll be free to go?”
The other guard spit at the bottom of my cell door. Seliipp darkened. “No, there’s a new leader of the human army, fighting against you and your MBFs.”
“I’m not fighting, Seliipp. I never fought. I was captured at the start of the war.”
I’d say my relationship with Seliipp was cordial, though today I wasn’t in any mood to talk about my impending death. That must’ve been apparent on my face because Seliipp brightened. “The leader of the human army is—”
“Let me guess, my father.” I shooed them away, uninterested in hearing anything new about the war.
Seliipp turned with a snarl to the guard, whose eyes widened. Seliipp pointed a finger. “Who told him?”
#
When we arrived back on Palixan, I sat My BF down. “You have to stop mentioning your impending death, My BF.”
“What’s the problem, Butchie?” My BF shed the humanity of my grandfather and settled into its diagnostics mode. Its shoulders drooped. Its blue eyes darkened into pits.
“You can continue to sit like Pop Pop. Just stay as My BF.”
“That doesn’t compute, Butch. I either am or I’m not. I can’t be both.”
I sighed. “Yeah, that’s true. Just don’t mind me.”
I turned to face the back wall where my grandfather proper sat de facto guard all these years. The panes had special filters that pierced the toxic cloud, exposing the surface of the planet below. The Neutron Stars’ stadium loomed like a Firheim mountain. The stadium, I had learned from my time as a Galactic League researcher, seated over two million people.
At that moment, the stadium had been empty because the Neutron Stars had been eliminated from the playoffs two centuries earlier.
“You can’t mention your death around my family. It stirs up a bit of bad feelings.”
“Of the time Butch Kissimmee Jr. died.” My BF’s voice lost the whiny raspy of my grandfather proper and settled into the monotone softness of cold-hearted logic. “That doesn’t compute. Butch Kissimmee Jr. is most noted for his callousness with death and his actually looking forward to it.”
“He didn’t really look forward to it. He just didn’t want to go through life without anyone from his family.”
“Correct. Butch Kissimee Jr. believed he should go first, as he had mourned enough people in his life. He believed the time with the people you love is never enough and continuing on alone is too difficult.”
Anger rose to my throat. “Right, but that’s where you’re different. You are only three hundred years old. You are acting as if you’re Pop Pop’s age, but you aren’t. You’re younger than I am, and when I’m gone you will still be incredibly young.”
“That doesn’t compute. I am to live as a human who is thousands of years old. How could I be younger than you?”
“Because I built you only a few hundred years ago, and you’re built to last. You are here so we all have Pop Pop as long as we live.”
“That doesn’t compute. I take comfort in knowing I will go first, Butchie. You have taught me so much about the galaxy, have given me a life to live, and a family. How could I even think of living in a galaxy without you here?”
“Because that’s how this works. You are younger than I am, meaning you will live on longer than I will.”
“I am nine thousand years older than you. I am not long for this galaxy and hope you will carry on my legacy in your heart when the time comes.”
“My BF, if you think I’m going to hold this grief, then you have another thing coming. I mourn my folks, you mourn me. I’ve done my mourning.”
“But your father and great-grandfather are still alive. If I go first, you’ll have them.”
I shook my head. “My BF, listen to me when I say you should enjoy the ignorance of youth. You’ll be happy and healthy for so long after I’m gone, I’ll be as large as a speck of dust in the expanse that’s the galaxy.”
“That’s impossible, Butch. You’re my favorite person in the universe.”
I leapt from the table, stepped out through the backdoor, and tumbled deep into the poison clouds.
#
My BF had a point. In my fit to avoid facing the death of my grandfather, I forced another to enter my place, without wondering if that’s what it would have wanted. It was only fair to reward My BF’s efforts, especially since I knew what it was like to exist alone in the universe.
So a hundred and fifty years later, I returned to Palixan.
“My BF, I have a surprise for you.”
My BF hadn’t left my grandfather proper’s table or diagnostics mode. “Surprises for My Best Friend doesn’t compute, as there is only one surprise requested.”
“Yes of course. I thought about what you said and, well, you were right.” I turned to the front door. “Come on in!”
In walked my great-grandfather, though as a machine, diagnostics name Man’s BF.
My BF stiffened. “This does compute. I am happy to see you, father.”
“And I am happy to see you, son. Now I can espouse to you the importance of defensive positioning in Galactic League Football.”
“Logic dictates you understand the power of hyperspace first, of which you understand nothing.”
Man’s BF laughed. “I have a lot to learn from you. I am excited to spend my remaining lifespan with you to ensure I have all I need to exist at my highest potential.”
My BF tried to throw an arm around its much larger compatriot. Its arm made it halfway around Man’s BF’s lower back. “Believe me, by the time I’m gone, you’ll have everything you need and then some.”
Man’s BF reeled. “You mean by the time I’m gone? I’m an older version of you, meaning I will enjoy the fruits of your company and never have to exist without them.”
“That doesn’t compute. You are younger, despite the age you were instilled with. Therefore, you will live out your days when I am long gone and but a speck of dust in the expanse of the galaxy.”
Both My BF and Man’s BF turned to face me. I left without a word, this time through the front door.
#
I rebuilt the entire line of Kissimmee fathers all the way back to the first homo sapien. A thousand generations in all, each MBF ultimately requested the return of someone valuable to them, as not every Kissimmee father had had a father, great or grand, as their favorite person in the universe. To account for the growth, MBFs, while waiting for more MBFs, rebuilt the Palixan house in orbit as a manufacturing fortress.
All told, three thousand years galactic standard after my grandfather proper died, the entire Kissimmee family tree had been rebuilt, with a near-even split of fathers, mothers, grandfathers, grandmothers, brothers, sisters, friends, and even animals.
Each MBF entered the world happier than the last because they believed they would enjoy the fruits of life and none of the grief, only to realize they were younger and would be forced to live longer than any MBF built previously. In short, the fruits of life and all of the grief.
The first homo sapien complained the most, using its grunts and hoots to tell me it’d have to live to be millions of years old. It had no leg to stand on—after resting for almost three hundred thousand years the least it could do was live that time for the rest of us.
Soon, the other MBFs became restless. The longer they lived the more they became like humans in their unpredictability, insofar as to how predictable they became. Now that their legacies and loneliness in the universe had been avoided, they had taken a liking to living and not thinking about death, which meant that’s all they thought about.
For example, My BF, my grandfather, cornered me in the basement factory. “Butch, this doesn’t compute. I am happy to have Man’s BF and other members of the Kissimmee family to comfort me, but I am now thinking of my own demise too often, as that’s all we talk about.”
“Isn’t that what you wanted? To die first?”
“Well, yes, but that doesn’t mean I want to think about it or to have it happen so soon. You are young and healthy. I’d like to die before you. Not die right now.”
I sighed. “That’s normal, but that’s why Man’s BF is there to let you forget it most often.”
“This doesn’t compute. I can only see Man’s BF in small doses or else we begin to clash, which makes me upset and makes me think about how hard life is which makes me think about dying.”
I nodded. “It’s true. Pop and Pop Pop did avoid each other most of the year. But that’s why you have the Galactic Football League. The Neutron Stars are playing the Gamma Bursts tonight.”
I pointed to the surface where a century later two million in attendance and five hundred trillion around the galaxy would tune in to see which team would advance to play the Eagles in the Galactic Championship. It had been the best season in Neutron Stars’ history, or so I was told—I spent all my time in the basement factory, working to the soothing sounds of My BF as he lived and died with each play like my grandfather proper.
“It’s only a few hours galactic standard each week. What am I supposed to do when the game ends?”
I slumped. “You have a good point. I suppose you can only spend so much time with your father and football before you need to do more.”
“What do humans do when they are forced to avoid thinking about death?”
“Well, we tend to find others like us that are marked for death.”
“Who did Pop Pop have besides you and Butch I?”
“My grandfather really loved my grandmother.”
My BF stared at me. I had spent enough time around it to know that that particular type of look meant I was going to be asked to do something. However, My BF had spent the past two thousand years galactic standard existing as a human, so it had honed passive aggression.
“I suppose I could, I don’t know, build her, too.”
My BF perked up. “You would do that for me?”
I shrugged. “You’re my Pop Pop. I would do anything for you.”
#
When My BF introduced my grandmother to the rest of the MBFs, the floodgates reopened. They wanted their own partners back, as they couldn’t take an entire life of having just their families.
As such, I rebuilt entire lineages, reconnecting familial lines that had been extinct for thousands of years or solidifying ones still around. Long-dead children who had longer-dead parents were both reunited to pick up where they left off. Lovers who had to wonder what happened to their lost loves no longer had to wonder—their loves were dead and now brought back. On and on it went and, truth be told, I don’t know when I started rebuilding humans who were not only alive but not even close to death.
And still, sure enough, even after the completion of the entirety of their family trees, the MBFs came back to me for me.
My BF found me in the back office of the factory proper. Its eyes no longer appeared brown, even around me. Instead, it opted for the deep black of its diagnostics mode. “Butchie, this doesn’t compute. I have my wife and father and grandfather and son and grandson. I have my Galactic Football League, and yet I still struggle to avoid thinking about death when I am alone. What am I missing?”
By then I’d come to expect it. In fact, at that moment I had been planning on building the rest of my grandfather proper’s network of friends and associates. “You are missing your friends, specifically your wartime buddies. Pop Pop had an extensive list of friends he kept up with from after the war. It’s where he learned how, to use his own words, stupid life could be.”
#
By the end of the 33000s, Man’s Best Friend rivaled the population of humanity, in a near fifty-five-forty-five split by way of the humans.
Once, after a grueling shift in the Manufacturing Wing, I entered my grandparents’ living room proper, to find My BF watching Galactic League Football with… me.
“Christ, Butchie, you see what I mean? The Neutron Stars always have to be the dumbest team in the league.”
MBF Me shook a fist. “If they just decided to use hyperspace instead of the laws of Newtonian physics, maybe they wouldn’t be so dumb!”
My BF wrapped an arm around MBF Me. “Butchie, this is what I mean. You are wise beyond your years.”
I watched the smile form on MBF Me’s lips. “You’re my favorite person in the universe, Pop Pop.”
I watched the look My BF returned—he didn’t hide the smile, didn’t grab MBF Me by the collar because he couldn’t handle such niceties in front of his grandson. “You’re my favorite person in the universe, too, Butchie.”
I had feared I was a better grandson in another universe, that my grandfather proper, with the right iteration of me, would have been more open, more loving. And I would’ve been someone he felt more comfortably loving. Here I was, in my universe, watching what I had dreamed my life was like.
In an instant, I hated MBF Me, though I hated My BF more. I missed my grandfather proper so much.
#
I learned war had been declared when a squadron of humans bombed the fortress, then swooped in to capture me, bringing me to where I am now, fifteen hundred years galactic standard after the start of what’s now known as Galactic War II.
I watched from the ship’s brig as the pieces of the fortress shattered and crashed to the surface. When I arrived at my cell, the guards said the fortress bombarded the Neutron Stars’ stadium with the team inside.
During the press conference, team owner Gwuge L. Ressinert said, when asked if he had any feelings on such a tragic accident, “Sure, I have plenty of thoughts, but I can accept Acts of God, as much as I might curse God for them.”
#
It has been a thousand years since my last entry. The war still rages. Time flies when you have nothing to do, except grieve, which I did. The gravity of what I’ve done has begun to seep into my being, and I realize my grandfather proper would be wildly disappointed in me.
#
My BF has been captured. He is in the cell across from me.
Seliipp guffawed as they ushered My BF to its cell. “War’s all but over, Butchie. Soon you and your Pop Pop here will be dust together.”
#
My BF kept the spitting image of my grandfather proper, except with the deep, dark recesses of his eyes. I’d come to realize what my grandfather proper meant when he said his eyes held his thousands of years of living.
A report had been released I would be the last to die. The death knell of the rebellion on humanity.
“At least I will get to die before you like we planned, eh Butchie?” My BF smiled at me, as our cells were across from each other.
We communicated by crouching to the middle slot of the door and pressing our lips to the opening so our voices would project out.
“I suppose that’s all you ever wanted, eh My BF?” I had been imprisoned for almost two thousand years. My BF had just finished three hundred. The last we heard, Man’s Best Friend had almost been exterminated.
“And then a day or so later, you’ll die and neither of us will have to live without the other.”
I leaned my forehead against my cell door. “I suppose that’s all I ever wanted.”
#
My BF and I received word the war has ended. My BF put a hand on its heart and said a prayer for all the MBFs who died. “I will be the last of my kind to die, but we had a helluva run.”
I cried.
#
I will be executed five hundred years from now. I am due to be confronted by over ninety thousand mourners affected by Galactic War II. The tribunal said the ninety thousand were selected from a group of over three hundred million people most heavily affected by the tragedy I wrought on the galaxy.
I pleaded guilty to all charges. I have been held solely responsible for seventeen trillion, two-hundred and thirty-six billion, nine hundred and eighty-four million, seven hundred and sixty thousand, four hundred and fifty human casualties in Galactic War II, shattering every known record in the universe.
I have been held solely responsible for twelve trillion, five hundred and eleven billion, one hundred and twenty-five million, nine hundred and eighty-two thousand, six hundred and forty-three MBF casualties in the war, shattering every known record in the universe.
The machines had been added to the charges as aggravating, due to many in the war having to kill people they loved and had already seen die and those who had to kill themselves or still-living people as machines.
#
My execution will be broadcast throughout the galaxy. It is expected to shatter every known record for witnesses of a single death in the known universe.
#
They’ve given me access to technology, as I was provided one final request. I want to be sure I have the information correct, the attribution proper. Soon, I imagine I will etch my name in the long list of inventors killed for trying to change the human condition.
#
Seliipp told me the viewing would happen tomorrow. “Another first for humanity, eh Butchie? You get to be the first dead man alive for his own galactic viewing.”
The procession fast established its own custom—a mourner would step in front of my door, spit at the bottom, and demand answers for why I would perform such a cruel act on humanity.
All ninety thousand mentioned killing or watching their loved ones or themselves be killed. They told me about the satisfaction of watching themselves as machine get murdered, then having to live with the conflict of seeing the joy of their own demise. One mourner told me of watching their mother disemboweled by a Galactic Army laser. I always said she was gutless but I didn’t really ever want to see it. But when I did, I couldn’t live with myself knowing I didn’t do it. Another said, Seeing my husband obliterated by a galactic mortar has sapped me of my will to live because I won’t get the chance to do it in real life!
My entire family showed up, though none of them spoke to me. My great-grandfather proper spotted My BF in the cell across from me. It stared at him with the dark pits of his eyes. My great-grandfather proper, in a fit of rage, punched the wall and collapsed half the building, killing hundreds of people and prisoners alike.
Many understood his frustration. He was escorted out to a hero’s welcome and taken home to Firheim.
Perhaps the most tragic account was of an infant MBF who became known as the Cherub of Destruction, as it single-handedly led an MBF squadron into taking five of the Seventeen Corners. That was my child as an infant, the mourner said. My real child it was based off of amounted to being a private who cleaned bathrooms all day. Do you have any idea what it’s like to see your child’s wasted potential played out in front of you?
#
I had promised myself I wouldn’t do anything other than apologize, as the tribunal offered me a seven-word limit, which I always used on: I am really, really sorry for everything.
But that changed when my father proper arrived. He had replaced his left eye with a cybernetic patch, deep gashes in the shape of claws on his cheek, and scars like barbed wire spiraling his long neck.
“Son, I just wanted to come say goodbye.”
I fell against the door. “Dad, I am really, really sorry for everything.”
Normally, he’d slither his neck, fight to keep it upright as he was about to cry. But he had become battle-hardened. With his neck at full length, he had to kneel about five feet from the door. He didn’t speak, only loomed.
“Dad, please believe all I wanted to do was to help. I saw how happy everyone was with Pop Pop back. I thought the rest of the galaxy would like it, too.”
He held up a hand. “I thought it could be different. I enjoyed having him around again, but then I came around.” I meaning his MBF. His MBF was funny, decisive, and didn’t melt at the feet of My BF.
This time his neck did quiver. “I didn’t cry when my father scolded me. I actually knew what the Galactic Football League was like.”
My BF pounded on the door. “Christ, Butch, put your shoulders up. My son would never have acted like that.”
My father proper stood tall, though his lips began to quiver. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be in the same universe alongside a better version of yourself?”
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