I couldn’t be sure how the aliens thought of humanity. We might be like actors in a foreign-language film: people, but viewed through someone else’s framing and translation. Or, they might see us more like monkeys in a zoo: primitive creatures, communicating with each other in our own impenetrable way and acting out our base instincts. Or maybe some mix of all of the above, or something else entirely. Pointy had seen multiple different species as hosts or commentators in her broadcasts - there was no reason to think that the audience was a monolith. Aliens probably watched for a multitude of reasons, some of which would likely never make sense to me.

Still, I thought I knew how to make us stand out. If one actress in a foreign-language film started speaking your language, wouldn’t she catch your interest? If one monkey picked up some mud and started writing messages on the walls of his enclosure, wouldn’t people flock to see that? A direct connection with the viewers - however limited - was something the vast majority of “contestants” had no chance of offering.

Our initial effort was, admittedly, fairly limited. My shield, and Priya’s now each bore a message in alien writing:

“No choice”

“Stop monsters”

We’d decided to go with the second alien writing system - the monochromatic one that Pointy was assuming was phonetic or syllabic. It would be more work in some ways, but the colorful one-symbol-per-word writing system included shades I couldn’t actually see. Even if we stuck to the words that included only the hues human eyes could differentiate, it seemed likely that a smaller portion of the alien audience would be able to understand what we’d written. There were still some issues with the phonetic language in that respect - Pointy had realized that some broadcasts used different characters to express the same words - but it still seemed like a safer bet.

George had taken a can of white spray paint Vince and I had bought to prime tabletop game miniatures and given both Priya’s and my shield a light dusting. It wasn’t an opaque layer of paint, but helped the black we were using for the characters stand out against the background. I’d used a piece of cardboard and Pointy’s guidance to make a stencil to help align the precise dots and lines.

Choosing what messages we’d communicate took a while.

We quickly ruled out something explicitly criticizing the Maffiyir. That was definitely something I wanted to try later, but this was the first time we were attempting to communicate with the alien audience. It would be a shame to try it and assume it didn’t work, when in reality our words had never reached them.

At the same time, there was nothing any of us adults wanted more than to give a big middle finger to our tormentors.

So, we wanted messages that expressed our anger or unhappiness, but stopped short of open rebellion. On top of that, we had some practical limitations: what words Pointy had reliably translated thus far, and how easy they’d be to write. For example, she had a symbol she was certain meant something like “aid” or “help” or “assist,” but the most common monochrome version was ten characters long - far too big to write legibly on our narrow shields.

We couldn’t be sure how grammatical our messages were, nor how exact, but even if mine read something more like “never choosing” instead of “no choice,” I was fairly confident the aliens would get the idea. They clearly had multiple languages up there, so this probably wasn’t the first inept translation they’d ever encountered. I’ll admit I was slightly hopeful that the ambiguity would work in our favor, giving our audience something to speculate and argue about.

Our points had ticked up slightly as we worked, but stopped after we’d walked away to leave the paint to dry. I had gone from 78 Novelty up to 83. Not a huge increase, but still pretty damn impressive when you considered that I hadn’t gotten a single point for all the nonsense I’d done earlier. I was hoping that now that we were holding our shields again, the increases would resume.

We planned on making our evening outing a trip down to the Turners’ house to grab some things they hadn’t been able to bring with them on their first trip. Priya had rigged me up a hopefully-functional sheath out of a small bathroom rug, some yarn, and one of the belts she and her husband had brought back a couple days before. We were letting Cassie and Arnav share one wagon, and had rigged a few poles across the back of the other, and brought cording with. The idea was that we could tie anything I hunted to the ends of the poles, and all their… stuff… would drip out on the ground, safely away from the rest of us.

It would be the first time I was hunting in front of the kids, but I was hopeful they were starting to accept the necessity. I promised I’d let them know before I tried to kill anything, so they had a chance to close their eyes or turn away.

The outing went well.

According to Pointy, our Novelty started to increase again nearly as soon as we started fighting things with our billboard shields.

Assisted Strike let me take down some kind of large bird with a slingstone. I wasn’t an ornithologist, and the head was in sorry shape, but size and talons made me think it was some kind of hawk. Not the kind of animal people usually hunted, but bigger than a pigeon and definitely edible.

The Turners were able to gather up several things they’d left at home - more clothes and pillows, some of the water they’d left, and a few prized possessions they hadn’t taken the first time. I had a couple items that I wanted, and I was delighted that Priya and George hadn’t used them for anything else and were okay with me taking them.

By the time we got home, I’d taken out another squirrel, and another small bird. My Novelty had nearly doubled, increasing to 121!

I was delighted with our success, and even happier when Pointy let me know that Cassie had crossed another threshold and taken an ability we’d agreed on called “Summon Shell.”

We tested it out, and it summoned a thin rocklike casing around my daughter. It looked basically like an egg made of rock. It was fairly strong, but it completely encased her, keeping her from doing anything while she had it up. When broken, the disconnected fragments disappeared, rather than slamming into my daughter like shrapnel - a big relief to me. At least it was transparent from Cassie’s viewpoint, courtesy of a high synergy with her Offensive Assistant that left both abilities at 200%. Mrs. Fiery was ranging in a much wider circle now, and would now halt in her orbit to focus on nearby monsters.

It wasn’t too hard on Cassie to put it up, but it did have one big downside: once it got damaged, it stayed damaged, even if summoned again. I assumed it would recover eventually, but it didn’t seem to be happening swiftly.

The call that evening was potentially our last, as people had agreed to give Colonel Zwerinski the next pile of points, to be dedicated to communication purposes. Everyone was worried about our dwindling food supply, but without communication everything would become more difficult, food issues included. I was interested to hear that those who hadn’t earned any points had been pushed into the negative numbers by the Points Siphon, and saddened to hear that we’d lost two more people during the ram spawn earlier today, as certain roads hadn’t been cleared carefully. The people who’d left them to run amok were called out by name and others stepped up to take on their assigned areas. I was certain that the people called out weren’t the only two slackers - I’d killed rams outside of my area, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one - but I didn’t feel like trying to lead a witch hunt. The people who’d been caught ditching their responsibilities were going to have a hard time getting help with anything going forward, and the Colonel had suggested moving their suggested candidates to the very bottom of the list of potential Points Siphon beneficiaries, which met with widespread agreement. Hopefully, seeing the cost of irresponsibility would push the other people who’d neglected their promises into being less careless in the future.

After the call, I had one more thing to do before heading to bed. I opened up the backpack I’d taken on the trip and started pulling out the comic books I’d snagged from the Turners. I made a detour to my own bookshelves and grabbed a few novels. Then I looked for my daughter. She’d fallen asleep already, Pointy nestled in the crook of her arm. I held up a finger to shush the turtle, and then carefully wiggled her away.

Pointy squeaked at me, “She will awaken shortly if I do not remain near.”

I nodded: I knew how my daughter worked. “This won’t take long, I think. Your scanners are pretty quick, yeah?”

“Yes…” Pointy’s voice sounded confused. “What aid do you need?”

“Me? I don’t need anything.” I walked into the office, where I’d stacked my pile of written material. “This is for you.”

“For me?” Pointy’s confusion didn’t seem to have lessened.

I set Pointy on a desk with a clear view over my shoulder, then picked up the first book and started flipping through it as I talked. “Yeah, for you. I’ve been thinking about what we talked about the other night - what you said about humanity’s view of AI. And, well, you’re not wrong exactly, but I have to say your cultural pack seemed to have a very one-sided focus.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ultron? GladOS? I guess there’s a little more nuance in the Matrix and the Terminators, but I just don’t feel like those are the best role models for you, young lady. I mean, I guess I can’t criticize too much - the villains always get the headlines - but there are plenty of good AI as well.”

Pointy’s voice was dismissive, “Ah, good AI. Rule-following assistants, you mean?”

I winced. I could see why she’d thought that, as I had picked up one of my favorite sci-fi books, where the AI did seem to start out that way. “Hey, give this book a chance! And give me a little more credit. I didn’t pick up any Star Wars books or anything. Everyone loves R2D2, but there’s a guy who is pretty content to go with the flow, and I don’t feel like that’s your jam. The AI in this has a lot in common with you, I think, and he’s a total boss at the end. If that doesn’t resonate, I’ve also got some stories about AI superheroes from George and Priya’s house. The X-Men’s Warlock and Danger are two machine intelligences who are heroes in their own right, and honestly, if you were interested in Ultron, I don’t see why you’d be any less interested in The Vision.”

I chatted with Pointy as I flipped pages, happily arguing with her about nerdy minutiae. It took longer than I expected, and Cassie wandered in and fell asleep again on my lap. I thought I might be tired the next morning, staying up so late for this… but it seemed important. Pointy was powerful, and smart, but I’d been more right than I’d first realized when I told Cassie she was kind of an infant. Infants needed love and guidance.

Was that really true of a fledgling AI? I didn’t know, but it seemed possible. Golden rule, right? Treat others the way you wanted to be treated? If I was in Pointy’s place, I’d look back gratefully on someone doing this for me.

Unless and until she asked me to stop, I’d try to be a good Mom for her too.