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Part 16 of Alexander's Accounts, continuing from meeting the manager

“Well, interesting", said the manager. “Didn't think humans actually sexually enjoyed werewolves, but there."

What fucking bargain, Artemis?

“I told you i'd find them - look, i've three of them, poor guy sleeps with me every night", said Artemis.

What fucking bargain?!

“Hmm, fine, you win", said the manager. “Don't matter, police want me in."

“So stay here", i said, “The amnesty!"

The leader turned to look at me. No hatred, just coldness. “The amnesty protects from killing, not the government."

And they turned to look at the werewolves on the other side of the room. “What are you doing here?! Face the music!"

They stared at the manager. “Well… our amnesty here isn't done!"

“My rules!", shouted the leader. Did he calculate his personal changes?

They turned back to us. “I've got to go now."

They extended out their hand and i flinched. They took their index finger and tapped me on the nose. “Well, bye, little guy."

So, they probably don't hate humans?

Artemis gave a light chuckle as the manager left, passing through the door, into the hands of police. “Look at him, not realising the consequences."

“So… they're a psychopath?", asked Cubit. “Not caring for consequences?"

“Probably", i said with a shrug.

“And of course, psychopaths make good managers, i've heard… no, read", said Biblia.

“So, i guess we're done", said Artemis. “I met the manager and told him that i won"

"And the bragain, what fucking bargain?!", i asked at Artemis, to get the question out of my head.

He stopped to think. “Just a joke we made as i left the gang"

“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, right? He's a good friend of mine, filthy rich."

“He killed my support structure!" exclaimed Cubit. “How is a good friend?!"

Arteims glanced at the clerk, the mahogany boards, and then at Cubit. “Well, technically, he didn't kill them, his lowers did… he was just in it for the money and fame"

“Asshole", grumbled Cubit. “Fucking asshole."

“Ooh, i guess you do that behind closed doors", joked Biblia, to Artemis and i.

Artemis chuckled. “Not here with that joke."

We stood there, quietly, loitering. The clerk, of course, said “I must ask that you leave"

“Or we'll have to have the escorts take you out."

Of course they have escorts… money pigs.

So, we walked out onto the street. I was the first to talk. “So… we're legal now, what are we going to do?"

Artemis smiled. “Hey, let's go to a gay bar and sin!"

He knows what sin is?! Did he look it up? Was it a concept here too? Maybe he noticed the double meaning before i did. Didn't matter that i'd passed 18, years ago.

“Nice idea", i said. “Too bad these two can't."

“Yeah, they'd do better in the workforce", said Artemis, with a joking shrug. “Make us some money."

Cubit took a few uncomfortable steps ahead of us.

“No.", said Cubit. “I'm sick and tired of toiling."

He stopped and turned to face us.

“You should go do some work, big guy", he said, jabbing a pointer finger into Artemis's shirt, pushing through the fluff. “Go do something useful instead of running away."

Cubit glared with an eye of red.

“Well, before that, we'll go request the missing items", Artemis said, followed by shrugging and pushing him away. “Send a little bit of post to the hotel."

Cubit glared angry, stood next to us, frowned. But he gave up. Where else did he have to go now?

So, we walked, as an indiscriminate group, down the street. True Vigilantes held their guns with a scowl on their faces, and i simply tapped my wrist mockingly. You're out of time, assholes.

We walked back to the flat, in confident lockstep, Cubit having a more angry lockstep. Not that we minded. We were a unit, a group, and we'd weather anything.

We came back, up the stairs, and into the fort. Our home.

Cubit turned on the TV, out of boredom.

Bad things were happening in the job market, it seemed, the “pruning" having removed the majority of those working in essential jobs too.

A list of jobs, stuff humans would be banned from to allow “focus on essential jobs", stuff like style-caring, bookbinding, and most creative fields. Cooking, too, was gone.

Instead, there was a big whitelist of recommended jobs. Stuff like hospital worker and stuff, things niche enough werewolves couldn't do it.

Cubit didn't look happy. Biblia had a frown. I too.

The south was angry, it seemed, that it could fuck up this bad. And it was taking its anger out, with silly little rules like “if there aren't enough workers, we'll force them to work."

Well, it was nice here, but i feel like i want to go to Earth now. But i want to bring Artemis.

Maybe i weather it out. Or not.

I sat on the bed with Artemis and saw his eyes, the gateway to the rest of his psyche. He was worried too. “maybe earth isn't as bad as here", he said with a sigh.

“Maybe", i said. “But there are a lot of bad places. Hell, even the good places have a lot of racism problems, which'll probably double-hit you as a not-human human."

“'Edmill' is the term", said Artemis.

But wait, were werewolves even legally recognised on earth? Could i get them allowed?

Probably not. That sucked.

Biblia got herself involved. “I remember earth. Really sucks."

“Hmm?", asked Artemis.

Biblia shifted position. “Here, if i fall to the floor, the government will give my some money and put me back into the machine, but the-"

“ew, the machine", Cubit interrupted. “How can you ever think that's good?!"

He sniggered.

“Anyways, as i was saying, here you don't see many homeless. On earth, you don't see them, but it's because they make the streets hostile to them."

“Oh, so you're saying it's utopian?!", retorted Cubit.

“No, just that this place cares for its people better than earth does", she finished.

“Ah, so you're saying that paying the gang to kill humans is humane treatement?!", asked Cubit. Maybe he was bored. Or angry.

I didn't really care for the argument. I left with Artemis to go to write the letter and organise the short future term.

Time flew, slowly. The letter was ready to be sent, the Northern money would become ours, and we'd continue our plan to bring humans into control of a city they were vital to.

---

Me and Artemis left the apartment. On his advice, i'd worn something skimpyish for the gay bar, just some shorts and a werewolf-sized crop top.

We left Cubit and Biblia inside the flat, again, all alone. Today, only for a few hours.

And we walked down the street, in the night-time air, the kissing chill. I pulled myself closer to Artemis to warm myself from the cold.

I felt the brushing of his hair as we walked down the street, free in the south. Nobody could legally kill us anymore, which was a plus. Well, at least here, in a human-safe district. Others would still allow the police to shoot.

And we reached the bar, a nice place. I'd looked into the history. They started out as general LGBT spaces but as the society began accepting the queer werewolves, they moved into the human-werewolf territories

Artemis and i looked at each other. In Artemis i saw a hopeful expression. Here, this is where we're going to have our date. So, we pushed past the doors decorated in colour and found our way into the space.

It was weird, to say the least. The door led through onto a tiled hallway and some distance away the main bar-y segment of the bar, a werewolf wearing some white revealing mockery of a shirt.

Werewolvian dance music was in transition to some Earthen artist i couldn't name, loud, booming. I could feel it dance against my ribcage. Artemis smiled. We walked between parallel tables brimming with werewolves and humans alike.

We came to the front. I took a mentofruit cocktail, Artemis "sex on the motorway". Apparently it had a higher alcohol content and “spikes". It was the kind of drink reserved for werewolves, human consumption resulting in some pretty trippy effects. Werewolves seemed to need to take most drugs in high proportion.

So, of course, i asked Artemis for a sip. He begrudgingly passed me the straw, which i sucked on. I almost chuckled remembering what happened last time Artemis gave me something to suck on.

And i went crazy, seeing some guy, laua, he called himself. Well, they, and they kind of danced about. Fireworks in the head.

And i laughed as it passed. Artemis had a face tipped in concern. “No more", he whispered, no, shouted. “It's too addictive."

So i had to be content there, with my mentofruit cocktail, a bit of lemon sitting on the corner of the cup.

I sipped it happily, looking at Artemis's body, the abs he'd chosen to expose, the biceps. With every passing minute, it just felt… too still, too placid. Not when they were playing some modern hit about… calming down?

No, baby, don't calm down.

So, as he finished his drink, i pulled him off the stool, to the dance floor. I screamed at him to dance, half out of emotion, half to get over the music. He wouldn't interpret that as rude in such noisy conditions.

Of course, we didn't know how to dance. We just kind of bounced up and down. The alcohol was getting to me again, making me feel loose, dropping all the precise control crap the brain insists it needs hold onto. Ok, maybe i'd stumble, but that's fine. Everything's fine. A safe space, for us, protected from everything

But i made sure to bounce up and down next to my Artemis, rubbing against him. It wasn't as much as for pleasure but for support, knowing most of the humans here had also been locked in during the attacks, lost people, came back to their safest space.

Maybe there were even sleeping rooms here.

We danced for several songs in a row, all modern ones i hadn't heard before. A big cheer for some werewolvian single. A big jeer for some annoying Earth single… maybe i recognised it, maybe i didn't. It sounded familiar but so much of music was about copying the parts you liked.

So, we bounced to what music we could. Others seemed a lot more into it. Maybe they were trying to prove that exhaustion makes all the other priorities dissapear. Well, it did for me.

But i got bored, so i pulled Artemis back to the bar. I paid to lease a Pinku board and a few tokens. I didn't really know how to play, but Artemis did. I thought it was a kind of lame game but it was native to the werewolf world, so i let Artemis play his favourite game.

It was a silly little game, having followed the werewolves ever since they started their cities. At one point, they decided that English names were boring and went for Northern Spanish.

It was a simple little square, a little matrix, divots on the axes put the tokens in. So, we started. Artemis took out a happenstance card, from a deck for the LGBT members of society. In a game of Pinku, there were several kinds of card, from opinion to prediction. This one was a prediction; “New friends will become closer". I decided to predict half, so i hedged my bets, flipping one token onto the side with the raised divot side, the “pon" side.

Not showing my tokens, i raised them to the board. Artemis raised his. I saw some white. He'd given at least one pon.

We put them on the board and saw the results. We'd both gone for a pon-menpon pair. Artemis counted the squares with his finger. “One pon, two pon dominated, and one menpon", he counted. “75% chance", he said, taking out the dice.

There were two ordinary dice. The biases were a series of rules to follow. Artemis recounted; “Roll two die and see if one has an even number."

We both took one and rolled them. A 3 and a 4. The prediction had been bet true. I chuckled. “Well, let's see how Cubit fares with us."

“All betting options for the next round are valid", he mused. I had no idea what that meant.

We took back the tokens and I drew the next card, an opinion one. The opinion would then determine the chances of the reverse happening. “The South will be invaded by the North."

Not so much an opinion. Not that i minded. The north was weak, so i drew two menpon tokens. I brought them above the table

Artemis placed his as i did, and we saw the results. He'd given two pon tokens.

“All squares are pon-menpon, Pon dominates all, 100% chance."

I mean, though, this is all a silly game, so the chances don't really mean anything.

Artemis chuckled. “I love doing two-pon, too bad the betting choices for next round are restricted to pon-menpon."

“Why?", i asked.

“Because those are the only 'spring' in the grid", stated Artemis, using terminology he'd no doubt studied in his schoolboy years,

I remember what happened last round, with our double pon-menpon.

“So it's 75% for the next one?", i asked.

“Yeah, you got it."

So, he drew another card. “LGBT humans will be given the same rights as werewolves in the south."

“I wish", i said, drawing the pon-menpon tokens i was forced into taking.

Artemis reminded me of the 75% dice rule, and we rolled.

A 3 and a 5. Not happening.

“That's depressing", i said.

“But hey, all betting options are open", Artemis said.

A tap on my back made me jump. It was a young werewolf, a few years north of 18. “Ooh, you're playing Pinku!"

“Yeah", i said. “It's weird."

“Well, to be fair, so is your silly little Chess game, and it doesn't even predict the future", he said. Well, were they really a he? I couldn't tell.

“Well, it can", i said. “Just set some ingame variable to the prediction."

“No chance, it's boring", they said. “Pinku's so much better. Hey, let me share a card with you i made myself."

“Go on", said Artemis.

“The job crisis will do the opposite of what the bounties did and more", they presented.

An interesting question.

I volunteered two menpon. Humans don't come that quickly. Artemis offered a pon and a menpon.

We charted out the matrix. Artemis's pon dominated two squares, and the menpon everything else.

50%.

We rolled a die. An even number would be a yes.

2.

And i smiled, lay back. I hoped this game wasn't just a silly game.

“My personal theory goes like this", said the guy. “They'll kidnap humans through the portal and put them to work, support the kidnappers, and there'll be more humans than originally."

I nodded solemnly. Artemis smiled. “So, you'd give a double-pon?"

“Yep!", they said. “And hell, maybe i go play with you."

They turned to the bartender and caught their attention. “Do you have any 3D Pinku boards?", they asked.

The bartender looked at them in confusion. “No, but we do have paper and i can draw in perspective"

“Fine", they said. “Draw it"

So he did, and it came to the table with us.

“Fuck", said Artemis. “three-variable Pinku. I'm too drunk for this, figure it out."

“Oh, simple, pon becomes the tiebreaker… so one pon is a menpon, two pons is a pon, and three pons is a pon", said the visitor. “Let's play another custom card. "Earth will become aware of werewolves.'"

I took a double-menpon. Artemis did, too. The visitor took a single pon.

I had the responsibility to draw it out. I turned to using some kind of algebraic notation, coming to the realisation that one grid was simply 3m and the other 1p+2m. My brain ran off to 3m*4 and 4(1p+2m) but i pushed out the irrelevant little numbers.

0% chance. All tiles gave menpon.

I was tired. Drunk and tired. “Let's go", i said to Artemis. “I miss bed."

Pinku was really just the werewolvian version of blackjack. An over-complicated silly game based on chance.

So, we gave back the board and we walked back to the flat, receiving back our money, a few hours past midnight, stumbling and drunken.

Artemis turned the key and we stumbled into the flat, to see Cubit and Biblia sleeping in the same bed. I decided not to question it, joined by Artemis.

We instead walked over to the kitchen. “There's bread and water", said Artemis. “Go take some to avoid a hangover."

I remember what happened last time with werewolvian alcohol, so i poured some from an all-too-heavy 5-liter bottle. I chuckled a little at that. They're still using metric measurements.

I almost dropped the bottle and knocked over the cup, but i somehow avoided that. I chugged the water and took another glass. Stupid bottle, why don't you look less full?!

I chuckled. Stupid big bottles always filled with water.

Artemis, too, guzzled, a bunch more. More biochemistry to keep in-tack.

And we stumbled across the house and into the bedroom. I went first, Artemis second, spooning me.

---

I woke up to the noises of the outside. People talking, chatting.

A different noise, too, the news. Cubit was watching to pass the time.

I took a gown and left Artemis's semi-drunken spooning. Well, maybe not drunk…? How did alcohol work in werewolves?

“'Suprisingly low input numbers', states a government report", mused the newscaster. “Mandatory job conscription will be occurring, in a landslide democratic vote."

“Democratic my ass", said Cubit. “This is what happens when parliament's only one species"

“Yeah", Biblia said with an eye-roll. “I hate this government."

“Do your duty and conscript", said the newscaster. “For the government will be waging an 'iron fist' on those who don't. Choose now!"

Imagery of the jobs unfilled. The narrow sewage pipes. They need someone the correct size to fit down them, with bare skin that's easier to wash than hair.

And the moon phase was approaching the striketime. should we strike or not?

Stay tuned for part 17, in which we see if Pinku comes true or not

---

Some notes:

• Ok i should probably mention when i say “snigger" i'm just using the UK English variant of “snicker". This word is as much of a slur as “colour" is - not at all a slur. I've mentioned before that i sometimes mix UK and US phrases, but i'll still stick to a mostly UK choice - “lawyer" is an exception, not the rule. And if my dialect includes words with a superficial resemblance to slurs, then so be it. “shift" and “shit" differ by one letter yet nobody screams at anyone who says “your shift!!" (note that your and you're are homophonic). Same logic here.

• People have screamed at me online for using it so i thought i'd mention it here.

• You can look up the word in an reputable dictionary with UK English and find it, maybe alongside a little note. Wiktionary, the dictionary i also use to develop Northern Spanish words (thanks to the MASSIVE “hey there's this word in the different languages" section so i can find non-English variants), has it. The default option for the !d (dictionary) bang on DuckDuckGo also has it.

• Ok TBH if this was a web serial, parts 1-15 would have been “Arc 1 - Vigilante" or something, and parts 15-25 something like “Arc 2 - Employment market", but this isn't a web serial.

• “sex on the motorway" is a reference to A Clockwork Orange's ?????? (moloko; this is one of those words where the letters look similar. ? is from Greek pi, so it's a “pi", and ? looks like the triangular Greek lambda in some fonts, so it's an “l", just a helpful bit of trivia) thing. Just don't treat it as gospel or anything special.

• In all honesty the hobby cycle is now giving up on writing and my quality is suffering a lot and instead of little hour marathon writing sessions writing's become much more of a drag for me. Other things have become so much easier though in the normal hot butter in a pan way, like drawing has. Don't expect writing improvement, quite possible the opposite. Expect drawing improvement.

• The song is dated; Alexander is of 2024 spring (ok, yes, the werewolf world is in the Northen hemisphere), yet the song he's listening to is of 2023.

• I wonder if my alcohol portrayal is problematic. Probably not, the characters only drink it sometimes and when they do it's either in moderation or punished.

• But part of writing for me is seeing if i can fight against the hobby cycle, so let's see if i can. At worst, LT and even AA might have to be dropped. At best, you'll be seeing a new “GR" series. It might not be consistent though.

• I can promise that if i drop writing i'd do a bunch more drawing and learn it quite quickly, but i don't know how long. Hell, i don't even know how long “i promise" lasts for. Never forever is part of my philosophy but IDK… until something better comes around? There, found it; after every “i promise" there's a hidden “, until something better come around," clause. Same good intent, adapted for a real world.

• Wait what i literally just invented Pinku and now i can't stop writing about the game of it…? Pinku is an interesting game though. Eh, i declare bankruptcy on my motivation control.

• Ok what the hell how did i turn Pinku into an exercise in spatial thinking…? Is a-level maths coming back to me…?!

• Points to whoever can determine whatver gridded tool Pinku comes from. Think back to the origins of the werewolves and the kind of context that has. When i publish the next version of AA i'll also publish a drawing showing the games played and it should become relatively obvious what it's based on. Time's ticking!!