The troubles of knowing yourself

Hand on the Trigger

"Soooooo you just wiggle the circle around to move...and press the other buttons to do all the other stuff?" Eight asked, squinting at the controller in her hand.

Four grinned. "Yeah, the top one lets you dig, bottom shoots ink, left turns you into squid form, aaaannnd right is to jump! You can also press the little plus to open inventory, that's super important."

"I still can't believe this is the game you're using to introduce her to video games." Three remarked with an eye roll.

The trio of agents had decided to hang out at Four's house that day, upon realizing two things. One, neither of them had actually been there before. Two, Eight didn't know what video games were and Four had plenty to share.

Eight shot the terrain with her strange shovel-gun, squinting. "So, um, remind me what the objective is again?"

Four pointed at a list at the top right corner of the screen. "Your boss needs you to find a bunch of fossils. The ones you need are up in this list at the top. You find them by digging in the spots on the ground that're colored differently when you ink em."

The Octoling checked the list and squinted at it. "Those are only pictures...do the fossils not have names...?"

"They do, the game just doesn't tell you." Three replied. "If you're new to the game you have to find as many as you can so you can compare them to see which ones you need."

Eight squinted some more. "That sounds...tedious."

Three gave a mirthless laugh. "Yeah, it's a pain. I'm pretty sure certain fossils only spawn in certain parts of the map too? But I wouldn't know, I didn't play this much when I was a kid."

Four looked at Three incredulously. "It's not a pain, it's an exploration game! There's no time limit, so there's no rush! Though your ink will disappear after a while, but that happens in real life too, so like..."

Eight's character sprayed the ground and found a dark spot, she dug it up, and picked up a fossil. She opened her inventory and compared it. "Uh...it kinda looks like one of the ones I need? Four, do I need this one?"

"Uh, sure dude! That looks right!" The short-haired agent replied. "And even if it isn't, you keep inventory between digs, so it's totally a viable strategy to stock up on a bunch of random fossils early on so you can breeze through later levels. The game makes you go really far for some of the later levels."

Eight pouted, but it was less a sad face and more a concentrated one. Her character inked the dirt, and swam through it. "So what do I do when I've found the right fossils?"

"You go back to your boss. It's important to remember where he drops you off at the beginning, it's a different spot each dig. But don't go back if you don't have everything he asked for, or you'll automatically fail."

Eight's character stopped moving. Her hands shook.

Three turned to look at her. "Eight...?"

The word echoed in the Octoling's mind. Fail, fail, fail, fail, test failed, test failed, test failed, failed failed failed failed F A I L E D.

The controller fell out of her hands.

The other two regarded her with concern. "Are...are you ok, Eight?" Four asked.

She could hear the sound of the bomb beeping on her back, C.Q. Cumber's high-pitched voice informing her of her failure. The explosion went off in her mind, and she went into a fetal position, letting out a blood-curdling scream of agony.

Three's eyes widened in panicked realization. "Oh Cod, Four she's having a panic attack."

Four's eyes widened in turn. "What?! What do we do?!"