Captive (Among Us Logic)

The Lost Art of Conversation

Player's...owners (he did not like to think about that) didn't make it easy for him to attempt a getaway. Beans aren't known for their brute strength, keeping him from breaking any windows, and the locks on those windows remained stubbornly unpickable. Not that Player had much for lock-picking skills, anyway.

He got let outside a few times a day, but he couldn't try to run away without one of the kangaroo aliens catching up to him in a jiffy. They moved in a strange hopping sprint that was too fast for him to evade. He'd be promptly swiped off the ground and carried back to the yard, scolded with tut-tuts and ah-ah-ahs. It only took a few blundered escape attempts before Player realized they might lose patience and start putting him on a leash.

Strategy told him maybe he should play the long game. Sleep in the box with a blanket that the farmers gave him for his bed. Pretend to be interested in his squeaky toys. Gain their trust until they let their guard down...

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A bit of time passed and Player picked up enough of the kangaroos' language -- a Haldrus dialect of Standard Galactic, for those interested. The dad, he learned, was named Pippin. The mom (her name: Jems) only called him that when she was annoyed with him. The daughter was called Donica. From context, he learned a few Galactic words, like the ones for "yes" and "no" and "working" (an activity Donica didn't like) and "school" (a place Donica didn't like). His own Beany accent, however, was too thick for the kangaroos to really understand him when he talked. In response, they'd always pat him on the head and say something in an endeared tone.

It wasn't bad. He got a bowl of purple milk in the morning and a tray of neatwheat meal at night, and there were plenty of bugs roaming in the house for him to catch. Donica squealed in disgust the first time she caught Player with a crawlybug hanging out of his mouth. Jems came rushing in to see what the problem was, and realized that her daughter's pet was also an excellent pest catcher. She said something about "working," so Player figured that meant he was earning his keep in her eyes.

But he didn't want this. He wanted to go home. He sat on the floor in Donica's room, looking out at the sky through a window he didn't know how to open, and he wondered if he was developing Stockholm syndrome. He knew the kangaroos weren't bad people. As far as they knew, they had a cute fluff ball for a pet that also doubled as pest control. They had no idea Player was his own man, with a home and a job and friends to get back to. But they were standing in the way of his freedom.

Outside it was a clear night, and every once in a while he could see a trail of a spaceship cutting through the stars. He wondered if any of them were MIRA craft. If he was stuck here until someone came looking for him on Haldrus, how long would it take?

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Player sulked in his box while Donica typed something on a tablet. She occasionally stopped to press a bunch of buttons and mutter dejectedly to herself. Doing homework for alien school, most likely. She had given Player a squeaky toy that resembled the brain slug pet from his home planet. He had no interest in it. He sniffed it once, then tossed it aside.

After a short while, the kangaroo girl set her tablet down and waddled over to the set of drawers next to Player's box. She deposited a pat-pat on his head as she opened the strange circular unit and rifled through its contents. Player grunted.

Donica set down the items she'd retrieved: a roll of paper and some markers. Player perked up with mild interest as she unrolled a section and started to draw something with a red marker. Curious, he climbed out of his box and went over to look at her drawing.

A wild spiky ball was outlined in red, with a blue circle in the middle. Next to it was a stick figure that stood at an angle and had a tail sticking out its back. On the other side stood a square decorated with simple windows and doors - a house. Donica tapped the red drawing.

He managed to make out a "it's you," and when she pointed at the stick figure, she said something like "is me."

Ding! The lightbulb went off in Player's head. Donica exclaimed in surprise as he stole her marker. He unrolled a fresh section of paper. He struggled a bit, because the marker wasn't made for his little Bean paw, but he scribbled a crude representation of the Skeld, himself in a cage surrounded by angry stick figures, and then an arrow pointing to Donica's picture of herself, Player, and the house. He gestured frantically at his work, desperately hoping she'd make the connection.

The alien girl's mouth hung agape, and she stammered a lot of things, but Player could only make out "Can...draw?"

He nodded emphatically, then drew himself sad in a box, then happy surrounded by other Beans. He doodled a little house to hammer in the point.

"Home?" Donica asked. "Your friends?"

Player's whole beany body shook with how forcefully he nodded. The kangaroo girl turned around and yelled for her mother, who promptly appeared in the doorway. She frantically explained something, with Player catching the words "can draw" and "is smart."

He knew he had to get the words out, so in his best mimic of the kangaroos' tones he said, in halting Standard, "Player go home, to friends. Please?"

Jems went through a lot of expressions: first shock, their wonder, then pity. She picked up Player and carried him out of Donica's room. He froze up in her arms, unsure of where she was taking him. Then she plopped him down at the kitchen table...in a seat, not on the floor like usual. Player (and promptly Donica, who followed them out of her room) looked on curiously. Realizing that Player was too short to reach the table on his own, Jems got out a box for him to use a booster. She also placed a very wide book in front of him. He looked up at her quizzically.

Even though Player couldn't understand them, it's worthwhile to note that Jems told Donica, "He's not a pet, he's a person. He can't stay with us, honey. We're going to help him get home. He wants to be with his family and friends -- it's where he belongs!"

Player went ahead and opened the book, revealing that it consisted of huge, beautiful, glossy photographs of planets.

"Your home?" Jems asked him.

His home planet! Player leafed through the pictures, trying to find one of Inna. It was a pretty planet that he was proud to call his place of origin. He thought he'd found it in the book when he came across a photo of a pretty planet with blue oceans and large green landmasses, only to realize that the shapes of the continents didn't match up. The planet pictured was actually a place called Earth. He parsed through a few more pages, past planets called things like Xelphos and Ooree and Delroth. Then he finally found Inna; its giant desert continent on one side and temperate grasslands on the other was unmistakable.

He pointed at its picture and chirped "Home! Home!"

Jems studied the picture, then glanced out the kitchen window. In the distance, a rocket blasted off from the launching pad. Player could see the plan forming in her mind. If they got to the rocket pad, he stood a fighting chance of getting back in contact with MIRA. And getting one step closer to his friends.