Steve woke up with the faint smell of car exhaust still in his nose. He tried to drift back to sleep but found that he couldn't get comfortable. His heated seat had turned off leaving its once nice, warm... leather?

No it wasn’t leather, not really, but did that actually matter? It used to be nice and warm, and most importantly, it was his carseat. If someone had asked Steve about his car seats he knew that he’d instantly respond that they were leather. Some might call this dishonest. Technically it is. Theoretically it would most probably, definitely be in the lie camp. Let’s not even get into theologically. But in practicality? Could someone honestly say that this admission makes him a dishonest person?

No, no of course not. First of all, no one had ever asked him a question about his car seats.

Who would?

He’s not a car person! You ask car people, car questions, about cars. Not Steve. Never Steve! You’d ask him “Steve questions”, about “Steve stuff”. Realistically it’d be the fault of the asker in this scenario. Ill considered questions only deserve ill considered answers.

If someone really wanted to get to know him, he’d give them the list! The ‘Steve things’ that they should want to ask about. Otherwise, the best anyone could expect of him is the first answer that pops into his brain... or just vague affirmative statements.

Those work for almost anything.

Now, as he doesn’t know what would be on said list of ‘Steve things’, getting a hobby might be in order. Curling? It’s weird enough he could pass off his extremely basic knowledge as being at a moderate level. Directional sweeping! He knows it’s a thing!

...

Acting! A much better option as it could even be enjoyable. There's probably some sort of group in th-

Okay. Brain. Please.

STOP.

...

Are we good?

...

Alrighty then!

Secondly, it’s not a lie for a lie's sake. It’s not like he cares about people thinking he has leather seats. He is not a car person!

Car people have status amongst themselves. A hierarchy formed exclusively through the coolness of their ‘wheels’. A lie among them could upend the balance of power within their social circles!

He was just Steve though. His primary concern in all walks of life is not appearing like an idiot. Since he has no idea what his car seats (or most car seats really) are made of, he is forced to call them “leather” until otherwise educated.

In the event someone calls him out on his ‘lie’ he would gracefully cross the idiot bridge. Or, depending on whether he’d have to talk to said person again, ‘gracefully’ run away. Modern problems require modern solutions!

So does he, Steve, see himself as dishonest? Does he think that lying for such a petty reason is somewhat sad? Do these aimless thoughts distract him from the fact he is laying down on a cold, hard, ‘leather’, seat, that’s incredibly uncomfortable?

No, but there was something troubling him. He just didn’t know what.

Honestly though, isn't it more honest to know you’d be dishonest? Especially considering that he will never, ever, have to be dishonest about this.

That isn’t just zero lies, It’s practically in the negative! It’s self honesty, self introspectiveness, and self awareness all wrapped into one! This must be the Steve stuff, this is the thing!

Now, with this newfound awareness of his true virtues, Steve tried to slip back into the beautiful blanket of oblivion known as sleep.

A land without car seats to lay down in...

A land with no people propagating the unreasonable perspective of knowing about said seats...

It would be a pure land…

A land of Steve…

Only Steve...

hey!

And most importantly a land without his stupid brain telling him that he shouldn’t be able to-

LAY DOWN ON A CAR SEAT DIPSHIT!

And keep him up with these pointless musings on the ethics of perfectly reasona-

Wait...

That last thing might actually be important!

“So, you’re awake”

The first thing Steve noticed was that the man had a fantastic voice. He spoke in a deep and confident tone with but the slightest hint of gravellyness. It conjured images of heroes in old westerns, it was, in Steve’s opinion, the voice of a star.

The second thing Steve noticed, and this actually took him a while to catch on to, was that the man had the worst accent he had ever heard. It was as if Welsh clubbed English to death behind a dumpster, skinned it’s face, wore it, then attempted to speak Polish.

He had never even heard two of those languages being spoken, all that he knew was that they had disgusting garbage spelling. He’d feel bad about thinking this if he hadn’t just compared them to the abomination assaulting his ears.

The third and perhaps most important thing Steve realised? He might not be in his car anymore. Perhaps this conclusion should not have required him to open his eyes and look around dumbly for several seconds, but hey, self criticism is best used in moderation.

The man in front of him was pale skinned, wearing a blueish shirt, and had brown hair. He was also kinda good looking but in nice nor-

“Holy shit your eyes are amazing”

Some things just have to be said.

The man's blue eyes caught the light in odd ways causing them to sparkle whenever he moved his head. Steve’s comment seemed to catch him off guard.

This may have been caused by it being the first thing Steve had said. It had been several minutes since the man had spoken and both people had been engaging in the art of looking around while not looking at the other person in a rather small room.

Some verrryyy awkward minutes.

It could also be that genuine compliments are just that rare to receive.

Steve prefered the second interpretation. In his opinion, a genuine compliment can never go amis. It had gone wrong for him a few times in the past but... that was a drunk Steve problem and... that doesn’t count? Drunk Steve, is a separate entity entirely. Honestly! He's obnoxious, loud, and… generally very drunk. Completely different person.

Delivery is incredibly important for these things and that man can just never get it right.

So an honest compliment can never go wrong! Unless it does. Judging by how the other man was now mumbling to himself and making confused hand gestures at a tablet like device, it might have been one of those times when said compliment was not appropriate.

Remedies were in order.

“Sorry, I just felt like I had to say it, you know?” the man stopped glaring at his tablet and gave him a look instead. “I mean, you see, I’m in this room right? And so are you. And we were in here for a while, so it was awkward. At least I felt it was awkward, if you didn't that's cool and all. I just really don't do awkward ‘well’... it’s no fun right?” the man was still just looking at him.

Going poorly Steve, but we can turn it around! He artfully lied to himself

“So that’s why I said it? That and you do have amazing eyes… I don’t want you to think the compliment wasn’t genuine of course!” Steve said as he tried his best at a winning smile.

It was smashed against the man's great wall of confusion.

Steve's brain instantly went to the worst interpretation of what he had said when he saw the man was still blankly staring at him. “Alright, so... I’m realizing that it might have looked like I was trying to turn this into a sex thing. And uhh, no worries! I don’t fly that way! I mean, if you do, that’s also cool and all. To each their own, right? I just wanted to clear that up is all. You know?”

The look on the man’s face would now be instantly recognized by any long term member of the tech support industry.

Realizing that he might actually be digging whatever hole he had ended up in deeper, Steve decided to take stock of his situation. First off, he discovered that he couldn't feel or move most of his body. Mildly concerning, but he could still move his neck so he’d deal with that after he had looked around the place.

The room he was lying down in had smooth metal walls with no visible seams and a door that was also metal. It was all a dark grey colour. Kinda shiny.

Does that make it dark silver? Is there any actual difference between grey and silver?

These important questions jumped into Steve’s mind as he realized there was nothing to look at in the room.

Well… a tiny lie.

There was that one corner of the roof that gave him extreme feelings of inferiority and existential dread, but, honestly? He’d felt those for most of his adult life at this point, he felt more comfortable chalking it up as coincidence. He supposed there was also the man, but after his previous attempts at conversation Steve was incredibly determined to not make eye contact.

This however was problematic as he no longer had anything to distract him from the extremely concerning fact he could no longer move most of his body. Just as he was about to shut down his brain and give into the perfectly reasonable feelings of hysterical frantic panic, the other man broke his long… silence?

No, he had been mumbling. Quite a bit honestly. If Steve had been a petty person he might have been offended that this man prefered to talk to himself. Showing willful ignorance to the distress of Steve, who happened to be a perfectly willing conversation partner.

But Steve was not petty, not at all in fact, he understood that sometimes you needed to talk yourself through things, it’s a comf-

Oh god, the man’s looking at him like he expects him to respond. Steve hadn’t been listening, he’d been self talking! Self consulting! There were two roads to follow here, each being fraught with their own perils. Down one road he’d ask the man to repeat himself, sure he might sound a bit stupid…

Why do I do this to myself?

“Yes, yes I would” Steve responded with his best estimation of a thoughtful face.

The man put a hand to his ear. Steve quickly came to the realization that the man must have a translator of some sort on the other end. As the man took his hand away from his ear, he looked at Steve curiously, like he was searching for something he didn’t realize was beneath the surface. Steve met his gaze, truly resolved to not give up the fact he had no idea what was going on. After several seconds the man finally nodded and gave him a slight smile, seemingly satisfied with what he had found.

Oh fucking hell, I better not have just agreed to a sex thing

“Steve... Yesaywood '' Steve stated noblely, just in case it was a question about his name. He could conceivably play it off as saying “Yes I’ll tell you my name, it’s Yesaywood, Steve, Yesaywood'' While Yesaywood definitely wasn’t his last name (It’s Taval) It’s better that than to be known as ‘Yes’ by this man.

That would just not stand.

“So” the man started, “I have told you of the difficulties, the things we do not not know, how outmatched we may be, but still, and I must say that I agree, you have said we must fight.” The man said much more eloquently than his opening words.

Part of Steve was impressed. The man must’ve practiced that quite a bit.

The other part was horrified at what he might have agreed to.

Fuck it. So long as it’s not a sex thing. At least whatever Steve said here probably wouldn’t affect anything. Glory to the fatherland? Motherland? He’d keep the names out of it till he finds out more.

The man chuckled slightly. “I, and many others, know that we cannot continue on like this. We are weak, and we must be strong. There are monsters in this universe that destroyed us the first time. And yet, we do not understand them, we do not know their form. All we truly know is that they have broken us. Broken our people.” The man clenched his hands on the tablet he was reading off of. “Everyday now, our people wake up in this wretched star system, a place where you cannot even look at all the stars in the sky without a sense of dread."

The man had a look of intensity when he stared at Steve “Yes, we must fight. But the enemy is vast, beyond the scope of our knowledge. I have to ask, How? How could we ever think to win?”

It took Steve a couple of seconds to realize the man actually expected an answer from him.

Him? This seemed like politics! Space politics! This is not a Steve question!

Why is he here? Why is this person talking to him? Why can’t he move? None of this is not terrible! Any answer he could give would just be some made up, on the spot bullshit, that…

Damn.

This is a Steve question.

“A person is insignificant, we are tiny beings in the grand web of the universe. Anything that we can do, anything that we can achieve… It is nothing. Dust. All we can do is live in our corner of... this swamp of a galaxy because we, Humans, are the, uhh… Mosquitoes! Yeah, mosquitoes of the universe. We can bite things... and take their blood? And alone we may only be annoying but if enough of us bite them? Man, oh boy, they might even have to go to a blood bank! Or we give them malaria. YEAH!”

He knew this metaphor wasn’t exactly great. In fact it was absolute trash and just plain confusing. But Steve also knew that if you have no idea what you’re talking about, confusing things will almost always work in your favour. The person you’re talking to can now just safely assume that you are horrifyingly bad at explaining things but that you still at least have some idea of what you're talking about.

“Or they don’t get to the bloodbank and they die, drained of their precious goop. You see we’re humanity, we don’t have to fight fair, we are the attrition, the bio swarm of the galactic world.”

Steve stared the man down with as much pure intensity as he could muster and tried to change the tone of his voice to contain just a hint of barely restrained rage. “Those monsters out there, they started this fight … but we can finish it. NO, we will finish it! And as they drown in the disease ridden corpses of our future generations, they will finally realize the dark truth that had eluded them. We are not the tiny bug waiting to be crushed! WE ARE THE PLAGUE THAT THEY DELIVER"

Oh god, I went way too hard with that.

The man was stunned silent for a moment. After he collected himself from the masterfulness of Steven’s performance he looked down at his tablet, put a hand to his ear again. A look of regret and slight melancholy came upon his face.

“Okay then” the man quietly said in the sad, resigned tone one tends to have when their old high school friend starts talking about the Lizard People. “I have some questions I’m supposed to ask you, if you could please answer them calmly and preferably sanely” Well that was just rude. “it would be much appreciated”

“Could you at least tell me why I’m here?” Steve asked hopefully

“You’re here to answer these questions” the man pointed to his tablet. “It’s what I just asked you to do, it should be self explanatory.”

“Yes but why am I here” Steve stressed.

“To answer the questions, the ones on the screen” He looked at Steve like he was an idiot.

Helpful isn’t he.

Steve couldn’t hold his frustration any longer. “Okay, you see, this is not self fucking explanitory to me! I am currently in a place I do not understand, I cannot move or feel most of my body! I am confused, terrified, and I am slowly developing a need to go to the bathroom! So, if you don’t want to deal with a mess from my pants, you will tell me why you brought me here!”

As the translation came through realization dawned upon the man’s face. Steve felt the sparks of hope igniting in his heart until he saw the man shrug.

“Don’t know, it's my job. I read the screen with the questions and I ask the questions... but I don’t really ask questions” He slightly raised his eyebrows and tilted his head silently asking if he understood.

“Yeah, yeah I get ya. My name is Steve by the way I don’t know if you picked up on that earlier.” The man looked down at him and when he understood he looked back down at his tablet.

“I did manage to get that actually” The man read “Although I had almost forgotten about it after the crazy person rant” he said with a sad smile.

“Yeah, uhh... sorry about that. You seemed like you cared about the issue so I decided to run with it and see what happened… I do that sometimes. It bothered me whenever I thought about it in the past, why lie right? Instead of trying to change though, I just stopped thinking about it."

The little lies I tell.

The ones that just exist because they don't seem to matter at that moment, all that matters is avoiding even the slightest bit of conflict.

“Everytime I do it I can't just stop, if you do... you have to explain why you lied in the first place... and the truth is... I never know.” Steve shook his head sadly. “So I roll with the lie, dig the hole deeper in the hopes of avoiding the minor consequences of the original action. Sometimes it spirals.” Too many times “I don’t think of myself as dishonest, really, it’s not like I set out to lie, it just happens sometimes…” Steve couldn’t help but let out a small sad laugh. “Even now I’m just happy that I can comfort myself with the knowledge that at least this time, nothing I had said will have any consequences”

As the last bit reached the man he visibly winced. Then he spent the next few minutes staring at the ceiling in silence. Just as Steve was about to reach his breaking point and speak again the man burst out laughing. He then spent the next several giggly minutes trying to read the new words on his pad to Steve but continually failed in this endeavor.

As the man’s laughter died down and he wiped away the tears in his eyes. He tried to speak through the last of his giggles (which frankly made a difficult accent even worse) “I’m sorry, it’s… the translator is telling me things. Are funny, also sad.”

Great, not at all ominous “Cool. do you know why I can’t move most of my body?”

“Good question, should have been asked earlier. They used anesthetics, the body is asleep, will wake up.” The smiling man read after a delay.

Steve smiled, it’s not a great day when all you have to celebrate is not being paralyzed, but it’s certainly great to find out you can celebrate. “That’s great man, it’ll be nice to finally stand up and stretch, the thing I'm on is really uncomfortable, have you folks ever thought of bringing in... say a nice, heated, leather like material for this… it’d definitely make the transition a bit better.”

The man just looked at him, confused. Then looked back down at the tablet. “It wasn’t meant to be comfortable. Look. Steve.” He pointed at Steve’s legs and arms. “You, Steve, are Chained to the table. I have no idea how you have not noticed, it should’ve been one of the first things you picked up on.”

“Oh hell”

ATTENTION:

FRANTIC PANIC MODE HAS BEEN ENGAGED. ALL OTHER THOUGHTS ARE TEMPORARILY BEING ASKED TO LEAVE THE BRAIN.

As Steve reached a point of terror and panic that he couldn’t honestly call consciousness (And he’s never really been dishonest) the man started laughing hysterically again and smashed his tablet on the floor.

The man, Filni, spoke in a language Steve wouldn’t be able to decipher even if he was conscious.

“Emperor Steve.” He tested the strange words on his tongue. He couldn’t help but chuckle ruefully.

“You’re right Nuori, we are so fucked.”