Chapter 6
"Bob, you're stuck again!" said Mark, looking at the poor creature in front of him that barely resembles the proud and rebel sapient from this morning.
The creature looks so pitiful that any empathetic being has to feel some sort of sympathy. That creature is supposed to be Bob, but Bob has phased out in a dream so far away nobody seems able to pull him out.
"And everything was, like, so planned, you know. I had . . . the carrots . . . the door . . . the everything . . . you know? And they killed him with their stupid equations!"
"Maybe you should find another accomplice?"
Bob is so absorbed that he doesn't hear. But then, an idea brightens up his face.
"Maybe I should find another accomplice!"
"That's what I just said! And, by the way, picking Joe as your first choice was not that smart to begin with. Mentoid Joe is not the brightest individual when it comes to his species. That's what I always say when I start a team project: Pick someone you can rely on. Pick someone who can rise to the challenge. Someone capable and competent. Don't pick slackers with no ideas who count on you to solve all the problems. And most of all don't pick slackers who always want the 'management' part.
"Really, management? What exactly are you managing? The lost time playing shiny bubbles games on your phone? Because you're not managing any technical specifications, you're not managing chairs, you're not managing food! The only thing you're managing is how to waste time 'simulating' that you are actually working."
Mark again starts his thing and now assumes a whiny assistant voice with a whiny face and whiny flapping hands:
"'Oh, but management is such an important part of the project! You don't understaand how deeep the optimizaaation of tasks is! How much effffort it involves!'"
Back to himself.
"Oh pleeaaaseee! Optimization? What do you know of optimization? Because the only redundant thing around here that has to be optimized is you! And the only way to do it is kicking you out! But nooo, I have to keep the shitty lab assistant, because this is a 'team project' and even if you finish it alone, you can't submit it becauuuuuuse . . . it has to be a team project!"
Pause. Then he turns on one leg, since he has finished walking the length of the lab and is facing a wall.
"And did I tell you about 'the little accidents?'"
Bob shakes his head and wants to say something, but Mark doesn't wait for an answer, because Mark knows the answer already. So he starts walking and talking again.
"From day one the moron breaks the window. Day one! No warming up, no 'watch and be amazed by my sheer incompetence,' no nothing!"
Imaginary dialogue with his lab assistant:
"How did you manage to break the window?"
The incompetent whining voice comes with the answer:
"'I didn't break the wiiindow! The wiiindow BROKE!'"
Mark looks at Bob, as the complicit witness to the discussion.
"Did you hear that? The window broke . . . by itself! How can an inanimate object break by itself?"
So Mark turns to the imaginary assistant and calmly asks:
"What do you mean, 'the window broke?'"
"'Iiit's not my fault. Iiit broke.'"
"It broke! Again, magic in full action! And try to reason with him as hard as you can, it doesn't matter because all you get is 'Not my fault! Not my fault! I'm not paying it! It broke!!'
"Should I just beat him to make a point? Should I put him in a hospital because he's too incompetent to admit a simple broken window?" (Just as a reminder, Mark is the size of a koala. Not only that, but he is a toddler koala. A prodigy toddler—and by no means a prodigy in size!) "And because I'm not going to work in a windowless lab like a homeless scientist, I have to pay for a new window from my own money! My physics prize money! Why? Because it's just a window. It's not the Ark of the Covenant! I can replace it!
"But as the weeks pass, you realize that the idiot isn't dodging responsibility because he can't pay for the broken stuff.
"He does this with everything, even if it doesn't involve a penalty! He simply doesn't understand responsibility! He simply can't understand the simple fact that if one of his actions causes a consequence, then that consequence is his own fault!
"'The screeeen got dirty of mustard! Not my fault I can't put muuustard on my sandwich!
"'The project couldn't be finished.
"'The pants got stained.'
"Never ever have I heard hear him saying: 'I couldn't finish the project. I stained the pants with coffee. I got the screen dirty.'
"Every object around him decides to fall or break by ITSELF. Everything is brought to life and starts moving in his presence. No way all these mysterious actions are his fault!
"I found myself in the middle of a strange poltergeist movie where all these paranormal behaviors take place day by day and you have to take it as normality.
"The chairs come to life and decide to get rid of their wheels. The screens decide that it is better to have smudges all over. Trash starts piling up and things disappear. But you say to yourself: 'It's ok. Stay calm. Nothing to see.'
"And you fix the chairs and you clean the screens and you go on with your life, because you get used to it.
"But one day he breaks my cup! My favorite pink cup! The one I had since I started learning fluid mechanics. So I felt like I should open his eyes. Make him see.
"'It's not my fault! The cup broke.'
"'What do you mean, it broke? What do you mean, it's not your fault? A cup doesn't break by itself. A cup is an it. An object. It doesn't jump around the room and then slips and breaks! You broke it!'
"'And what do you waant from mee? You want me to pay for it?'
"'No. I want to hear: 'The cup didn't broke. I BROKE IT!'
"'But iiit's not my fault! The cup broke!'
"'Duude! You're telling me the cup got sick and tired of life and decided this very day to throw itself from the edge of the table? "Goodbye cruel world, I have had enough of this slave life. I had dreams of being a cup for luxury drinks in a four-star restaurant. And now I ended up in this dump being filled with coffee every day?" You were in the room alone with the cup! Now the cup is broken. You want to tell me the cup broke by itself?'
"'Well, iiit felt off the table and iiit broke!'
"And you're closing your eyes, hearing in your head, 'What's the point? What's the point?'
"'Did you hear what I just said? The cup can't fall by itself!! YOU made it fall! The cup can't break by itself! YOU broke it! The cup is an IT. It doesn't have a will of its own. It doesn't have legs to throw itself. It's you who did it! Your fault! YOURS!'
"And the shitty assistant sits very puzzled, and doesn't know what I want. I want money for the cup? I want a new cup? I want the cup glued together?
"'I want you to admit responsibility! It was your fault! You broke the cup! I don't care about the cup! I don't care about money! I just want you to say, "I was responsible for breaking the cup. Me. Me. ME. I BROKE THE CUP."'
"'But it's not my fault. It fell.'
"'For the love of science gods! Just say it! Spell it! Just as simple words. As you say: "yada dodo bubu." Just spell the words, "I broke the cup." For my mental health's sake. I don't care if you mean it. I don't care if you realize it. Just say it.'
"'Kaaaay. "I broke the cup."'
"'Thank yoouu! Thank you. So. Very. Much.'
"'But you know it's not my fault. It fell and it broke.'
"Next day I had to pay again for the crashed window and hospital expenses for the shitty assistant. (long thinking pause with beady eyes lost in the ceiling). The question that remains with me to this day is: 'Why don't people grow a brain?' Just grow a brain. Why isn't there a pill to grow up? You just give them the pill, and the next day you have full grown responsible adults! Why does it have to be so hard? Why does everyone think that if you hit 20 then you're a grownup. If you grow a beard then you're a grow up. As if the age is the magic pill that makes yo
u a grownup. But no, you can't find that pill in real life, you have to be content with mediocre incompetent incapable halfwits!"
Goes to a deep voice of authority and starts walking full of importance (probably impersonating some high position koala making the rules):
"'Here we promote teamwork and responsibility and brain storming and group ingenuity. Lone geniuses and individualists are limited in their vision. Only teamwork can succeed!'
"Oh really? Brain storms? Group ingenuity? Maybe you need to rectify that to brain farts and group inbreds. Science doesn't . . ."
But Bob interrupts him since he has paid no attention to the whole rant.
"What aliens are there?"
"What?"
"What other aliens are there. You know, for my escape team."
"Oh, you mean, in the zoo?"
Mark switches off just like that and starts thinking.
"Well, we have the furry guy, but he only comes here for three days, the other four days are spend commuting to his home planet. He has some part-time arrangement with the zoo."
Mark’s little koala fingers tap-tap-tap on his furry head.
"Then we have the other furry guy, but she is a breed of highly intelligent kittens."
"You mean they actually brought poor defenseless kittens to this zoo? This is sick!"
"Bob, for your information, everyone wants to be here! And trust me on this, Bob, those kittens are anything but poor and defenseless.
"Their story is actually quite funny: in the beginning they were just your average fluffy, furry kittens. And as normal cats go, their smarts didn't reach that far. You couldn't teach them tricks, you couldn't train them to fetch or make them bring your slippers, and most definitely, you couldn't teach them the basic 'this is my stuff, not your stuff, keep your paws off.'
"So the owners thought there is nothing wrong with genetically modifying them to be a just a teeny-weeny bit smarter. And so it happens that the 'little' change launched the cute little kitties past the learning tricks level and smashing straight into having an IQ three times greater than their 'masters.'
"This triggered a whole chain of events, where in the span of three generations, the kitties took over the planet. And I don't mean 'take over' in an adorable and cute way, but by viciously eliminating all other pet competition.
"And by that I mean the dogs.
"And the hamsters.
"And the goldfishes.
"And the birdies.
"In fact, if I think about it, is there any other pet the cats ever liked?
"But after the plotting and scheming and enslaving the entire race of owners, they realized there was nothing different from before. Only that this time they had to actually do more work by keeping the stupid 'masters' enslaved: putting down rebellions, setting and enforcing slave policies, building labor camps and designing autocratic systems . . . you know, all the headaches that come with being selfish tyrants.
"So they gave up, built some spaceships, and spread across the universe by becoming sentient luxury pets."
Bob is making a mental note to self: never piss off kitties, you might end up on their black list when they take over the world.
Then he goes back to looking at the ranting fur ball in front of him who is listing the entire neighborhood, talking by himself in all the voices, jumping up and down around the mess of wires, drones, and micro-engines . . . telling every funny story of the guys living on the floor.
And while he is listening to him, he realizes that maybe, maybe, some sentient species don't handle captivity well.
"Bob, you're thinking out loud again. And I have outgrown the phase where I have to explain myself. I have outgrown my home planet with their stupid way of life, and I have moved on to something more fulfilling. I have found my purpose in life."
"Being a specimen in a zoo?"
"You still don't get it. This isn't a zoo or a prison or whatever bad notion you have in your head. It is more like a . . . hotel. You are free to go whenever you like. Everyone is free to go whenever they like. We don't need silly purple costumes and 'devious' escape plans . . . like some."
"What?"
"You see the space lizard next to me? He actually has the most interesting story: the dude was having a very boring life on his planet: egg keeper in the colony. All day, every day, counting eggs, right amount of heat, right amount of water, turn them upside down, spit a little, scrub a little, so they can have a nice polish when the supervisor comes by. Not a particularly engaging job.
"No lizard girlfriend, no lizard mates to go outside with and catch flies, no prospects of anything important in life, just the plain repetitive egg job. And one day a purple bunny tourist was going around, doing whatever tourists do when they go around on that lizard planet, and landed next to his colony and asked to use his bathroom (because, apparently, they don't let tourists use the 'normal' lizard toilets since they are afraid you can contaminate them with extra-terrestrial germs). You would think that these diarrhetic bunnies visit other planets just for the toilets alone rather than to see the monuments.
"Actually, you know what? This is a brilliant idea:
"Starting a shitting tourism venture. Take a trip around the universe and have your ass try all the toilets around the world. All the ways and devices you can have a crap in! Witness the shitting habits and the shitting facilities of every alien world and more! You get to try them too. You can . . ."
"Anywaaaay, you were saying about this lizard guy?"
"What lizard guy? Oh, yes! The egg keeper! The ship toilet was broken and the alien bunny lands in this guy's toilet and one thing leads to another and the bunny asks the guy if he wants to be in a sapiens zoo."
"Wait! Wait! Did you just say that an alien landed in his bathroom and asked him to be in a sapiens zoo?"
"I am wondering if you have hearing problems or just language deficiency. But since you are human, I would go for the second."
Mark snickers at his innuendo. But unfortunately the sarcasm misses its target since Bob is no longer there. Apparently fat guys in bunny suits can run very fast across the alleys.
And faster than his feet, Bob's mind can run even faster:
"It seems every species here has the stories that Dude told me already. Mark, Joe, the lizard guy, every other single one! Gaaah!"