Young Writers Society

Ellipse was at a crossroads. She could jam her tofu-filled chopsticks down Tejal’s throat, which would force him to get some protein for once but might also result in injury and trauma, or she could try to convince the stubborn brat that spicy, coagulated soy was, in fact, tasty. And no, it was neither poisonous nor a carcinogen.

“It looks like mealy white jell-o,” Tejal hissed, trying to push into the back of his chair. He was shoved up against a dull, stainless steel wall, Ellipse standing between him and his freedom, trying to dodge the bowl of food she kept pushing at his face.

“You have to eat it,” she hissed back. “You do not eat meat, you do not eat beans, and you do not eat nuts. This is your last option. You will get protein, even if I have to cut you open and stick food directly into your stomach.”

“But that looks gross!” he wailed.

Rolling her eyes, Ellipse picked up a cube of tofu and held it in front of Tejal’s face. “Refried beans are more gross, and I still eat those! At least this is not mush. Besides, the sauce is good.”

“It has the same color scheme as Jupiter. That can’t be natural.”

“Peppers and oil do that. Get over your weird blue food and start eating like an earthling.” Bending over to try for looming and intimidating, Ellipse dunked the tofu piece back in the bowl and smirked. “After all, you will never grow buff if you do not eat the right nutrients.”

Tejal cross his arms and straightened, almost headbutting Ellipse in the process. “My size doesn’t matter, Oval.”

“What? Sour that you will never be taller than me?” Ellipse wanted to empty the bowl over Tejal’s head at this point, but she knew goading was always a better option with the brat. “That is no excuse for bad nutrition. Being in a wheelchair does not mean you are incapable of being a strong, healthy individual, and it does not excuse you from developing good habits.”

Finally, Tejal thrust out his hands, palms up, and looked away. “Fine,” he snarled. “Pick on the kid in the wheelchair. Just give me your gross tofu already.”

Ah, so much better. Grinning, Ellipse placed the bowl and chopsticks in Tejal’s hands and almost reached out to pat his head. Then she remembered that she had just poked fun at his height, so condescending actions were probably unwise.

“I am going to check on Focci,” she said, taking a step back. “He said he would download the new Andra album so he could give us the verdict first.”

Tejal’s eyebrows rose. “Did he? Oops. I already have it on my tablet.”

Maybe Focci had mentioned that while working on Mouthbot’s input programming. It was not a big deal though, so Ellipse returned Tejal’s look of surprise and tilted her head expectantly. She would ignore how quickly he had downloaded the album for now.

“It was good,” Tejal admitted. “But it wasn’t… uh, how do I put it?” He grimaced and fingered the spokes of his chair. “When I listen to an Andra album, I expect to hear something new and surprising, right? But this album just wasn’t. It wasn’t as interesting or funky-sounding as the other albums.”

Given how few earthling polyglots learned alien languages, that was a given. Andra’s earlier songs had been written to be poetic in siren, incorporate light-based communication rhythms in each groove, and be punctuated by spurts of the more earthling-like languages. Every melody originated from a place vastly different from the centuries of Earth culture that most earthling music came from.

“I think the only thing better than last time was the lyrics,” Tejal said.

Ellipse blinked. She had forgotten that Andra actually wrote all the earthling lyrics. Feeling sheepish, she pursed her lips and examined the polished metal floor.

Quirking an eyebrow, Tejal lifted up a piece of tofu and then watched the little cube disintegrate and fall back into the bowl. “I take it you don’t listen to the lyrics? You should; they’re pretty good.”

So sue her if she never paid attention to the words. Most of the universe did the exact same thing, and they were the people she marketed to. “What does Andra even sing about?” she asked.

“Everything, I guess.” Frowning, Tejal continued prodding at the tofu. “There’s the usual love-hate junk, but sometimes you get an anthem, and once I think Andra rapped about economics, like, the way an economist would rap about economics.”

Oh, Ellipse did remember that one. She had spent days building a groove to counter the rap’s syncopated rhythms, and the main melody translated into a funny siren folk tale about rust and fake currency. Her amusement at the memory must have shown on her face, because after a few moments of quiet, Tejal squinted at her and asked if she was okay.

“I am fine, sorry.” Ellipse waved a hand and glanced back at the ship to see if Focci had finished the download yet, but the cargo hold was empty of sirens as well as crates. “Anything interesting in this album?”

Tejal hummed. “There’s a song about biochemistry and some friend who’s interested in the stuff, but what’s really interesting is what’s not on the album.” He jammed a piece of tofu in his mouth, grimaced as he chewed, and swallowed. “It’s common knowledge that Andra was a doting older sibling, probably because the parents couldn’t be on the Andra-Media satellite with them, but whatever. The point is, there wasn’t a single song that could possibly be related to Elliott’s disappearance, and you’d think that Andra would at least write about missing her in some roundabout way.”

Ellipse was not about to argue on that. Few people knew anything about Elliott Bei beyond her relationship to Andra, and it was a situation best kept that way.

“I don’t know if there’s a story behind the quiet or not,” Tejal continued. “When my parents took on the bounty, they looked into things a bit, but Andra-Media wanted to keep things on the down-low. Maybe Andra was just advised to be quiet too. Or maybe there’s something else going on.”

Trying not to let any of her opinions show, Ellipse shrugged. “I imagine it is the company, like you said before.” She checked her watch, wondering what was taking Focci so long, and then pretended to take a moment to digest everything else Tejal had just said. “By the way, what kind of stuff did you and your parents learn about Elliott Bei? Any top-secret kinds of things?” To play up her innocence, she let loose a mischievous, gossipy grin and steepled her fingers.

Tejal immediately sighed, exasperated. Rolling his eyes, he shifted in his chair and set his chopsticks on the bowl’s rim. “Seriously? Are you asking me for celebrity gossip? You didn’t even know who Elliott Bei was when we met.”

“I like to know secrets.”

That earned her a glare, but Tejal relented anyways. “Fine. Here’s what I know. Elliott Bei disappeared from the Andra-Media satellite where she and Andra had been living. Plans were in the works for Elliott to be slowly introduced as a second universal media star, since she was nearing the age Andra had been at the debut, though it was certain she would ever escape her older sibling’s shadow. If you actually paid attention to culture, you’d probably know this.”

Ellipse whistled a little jingle and glanced up at the smooth, chrome ceiling, keeping up her act of shameless ignorance.

“As for things that people don’t generally know, I guess I would mention that there were originally plans to consider Elliott’s disappearance from the missing child angle instead of a criminal one.” Tejal picked up his chopsticks again and poked at his food. “But because she was—what, fifteen?—the company decided she was old enough to deliberately cause Andra-Media harm, and that leaving was her way of doing so. I guess she broke some kind of contract.”

“Contracts with minors are not legally binding,” Ellipse said automatically.

Tejal just picked up a tofu cube. “Maybe it was a contract with the Bei parents, or with Andra. Either way, that’s what I know.” He stuffed the tofu into his mouth and shuddered, then glanced up at the Conics. “What’s taking Focci so long? I know you hung the ropes before landing.”

On cue, a loud smack echoed from the ship’s cargo hold. Then, after a few seconds of flopping and smacking, Focci appeared at the mouth of the hold, snout wrinkled and black eyes bulging. His gills flared in a perfect arc around his head.

“Is he angry?” Tejal asked through a mouthful of tofu.

“Very.”

When Focci sang, his voice was shrill and reedy, and it came out as a mix between a whisper and a shriek. “That was hecking awful,” he spat. “Andra is supposed to release poetry, not gibberish. I feel attacked. Alienated.”

Good, Ellipse thought. That was the whole point of this album. She made a show of frowning sympathetically, and gave Focci a friendly tap on his nose once he slid down the cargo ramp. “I am sorry,” she sang. “We should go pick up the next shipment. The Sauron fold monitor is a big place, so you will have plenty of time to complain to me.”