I don't own Starcraft, of course.

I yawned, stretching out over my bed with a smile. It's kind of annoying to do that, considering that my bed is kinda small. Every time I stretch when I'm not in the exact middle of the bed means my feet hang over the side and allow cold air into my sleepytime cuccoon. But whatever, that's my one complaint. It was the first day after my graduation: Associates in Accounting. Huzzah! No class to go to or test to make up! Now I only have to study my korean, write a bunch of stories that I can get published, and study my textbooks so that I don't forget anything important. And get a job that doesn't entail shelving books, food service, or customer interaction in general. Bring on an office in the back and tedious paperwork! Hooray!

But today, the happiness of sleeping in. Or it would be, if my body didn't force me up at nine in the morning. That's sleeping in for some people. For the time being, I just got out of bed and put some real clothes on. Y'know, I really need to sleep in my clothes until I know for sure Aldaris' teleporter is fixed. For the time being, I ran downstairs to the kitchen for to caffeinate that thought out of my brain. That works, right?

"I need more Infected Mushroom in my life," I said out loud as I loaded the coffee maker, even though I live alone. "Computer, summon the internet and make it so."

Because my computer is not from the twenty-third century, it did no such thing. So I typed up some videos and got them playing. I really need to get Infected Mushroom's cds. Even though I can listen to them on the internet, I'd much rather just own the discs. It's kind of annoying to depend on the internet to listen to what I want. That, and I want to support a good psytrance band.

Ah, the life. I sank into a comfortable evening of fixing cover letters, writing stories, and doing whatever random internet nonsense amused me. Not to mention that Infected Mushroom had released a sample of one of their songs on the internet, Animatronica, and it sounded marvelous. Yay, psytrance glee!

I don't know how long I sat there, but eventually Aldaris contacted my head. I wonder how he does that. Maybe something on his ship amplifies his brainpower, or something. Strange he's so worried about us stealing his tech. We can't possibly have the psychic capabilities to actually use most of it.

"Bethany, you have been listening to that same song for over an hour," he said out of nowhere, with full exasperation. "How can you not tire of it?"

"Uh...may I ask how you know?"

"I have been trying to contact you for some time. You were thus occupied."

"Oh, okay...so...do you like the song?"

"...It would be more diplomatic of me to decline to answer that inquiry."

I laughed. "It really is okay not to like what I like. I make a point of trying not getting mad at people for having different artistic taste. But anyway, what's up?"

"As you well know, my recall unit has not performed to standard since my arrival here. Despite all my efforts, I remain at a loss to a proper solution."

I chuckled and set aside my laptop. "You don't want me to help you fix it again, do you?"

It was a joke, but the animosity coming down into my brain felt exactly like one of Charlie's classic staredowns. I guess Aldaris didn't like thinking about the time I apparently nearly electricuted myself while trying to move some rotting oranges from his ship. Yeah, that was a thing. I'm still not convinced oranges are all that good at conducting electricity. Their plastic bag definitely couldn't have been.

"As I was saying," Aldaris said sternly, shoving my thoughts in a relevant direction. "The need to remain in control of the recall unit is clear. I must employ creative techniques to maintain its neutrality, but until I am certain of the effectivity of these measures, I must have means of securing the four of you."

"Mm'kay. What do I need to do?"

"Protoss technology does not run by means humans comprehend. It has a more open approach in its functionality. Thus, understanding your mind shall make it easier if it malfunctions once more. To do this, I must have something you possess. An item of great semantic significance to you as an individual will aid the computer in this endeavor."

"Uh, how would that work? Objects don't have minds."

"I see that in all areas concerning technology, I must repeat myself to you: this is something beyond your meager understanding. Had I all of time and greater patience, I might elaborate to the extent that you would grasp the general principle. As it is, I have neither, and must ask you to simply select something dear to you, but may for a time allow me to borrow."

"Technically, you have plenty of time. Unless you're closer than I think you are to going home."

"Are the remaining years of my life long enough to teach someone such as yourself? Were that enough, still your years would end first. That likewise assumes that you will not use this knowledge for foolhardy endeavors."

"...Charlie, I'm not as dumb as you think I am."

"Be that as it may, are you able do as I ask?"

"Yeah, I think I have something that can do the trick."

"Think over it carefully. Within the week I will contact you again on this matter."

By that point, the Animatronica preview I'd been listening to ended. I clicked to the beginning of the video so that I could once more hear the beautiful art of Erez Eisen and Amit Duvdevani. So purty. Just like Eisen and his purty hair.

"...Please do not select a recording of that music as your item."

"You're in luck, Charlie. This album isn't out yet."

Aaaand Charlie was out of there. Sheesh, why can't a bro appreciate the artistry of Infected Mushroom?

\\\\\\

Author's notes:

Alright, so we've reached season 2 of this thing. Because I hate people having to go back to the previous story just to keep up with what's going on, here's a quick summary of what happened last time. Fortunately, there's not too many details.

- Judicator Aldaris found himself appearing at Earth for some reason, and no other Protoss have answered the transmissions he's been sending out to space. He's continually trying to figure out how to get his ship in order and go home. He hasn't told us anything on the matter, so we don't know how close he is to reaching this goal.

- Aldaris' presence is not known to Earth, except to me and three friends because he accidentally teleported us all on his arbiter when he first arrived and his ship was totally out of control. He's working on it, but since he's not the most mechanically minded, we humans have suffered accidental trips to various places, particularly China. We have no clue how much NASA, or anyone else, has figured out about us.

- I'm just a random nerd, trying to find a job. My previous adventures include getting temporarily trapped in China, having my house catch fire, getting accidentally caught up in Statkus' attempt to get proof of our local alien, and being rescued by Aldaris. I don't know what to do about our resident alien, and remain ready to just go with the flow as far as telling anyone goes.

- John Statkus is from California, and he's dating a girl named Tanya. His attempt to catch Aldaris on film was thwarted, and now he's seemingly content to say nothing. Statkus is a cranky materialist, but generally means well.

- Toby Collins is a black British guy from London (hot accent, what what), who works in a geek novelty shop. He's got no intention of ratting out Aldaris, because he thinks it's awesome to be friends with an alien. Huge Dr. Who fan, covert brony, recent discoverer of Starcraft. He's the only one of us that truly likes Starcraft 2's story.

- Lee Cheonha is a North Korean who was inadvertently rescued by Aldaris the day he arrived. After I convinced Aldaris to send her to Seoul, she lives a quiet life there, still on her one year of government support. She speaks only a few words of english, and as a result we know nothing about her and can't tell her to keep things under her hat. However, she does know that Aldaris is from Starcraft, and the weirdness of that keeps her from saying anything to anyone else. Because of teleporter mishaps, she now owns a hamster named Pappa. Despite keeping to herself, she does have a friend named Choi Eunha, who is the main reason Cheonha ever leaves her apartment for non-grocery reasons.

Author's Notes New:

- Alright, I didn't get as much of this done as I had wanted, so there may be delays in getting the next chapter out. I'm not sure. Either way, I'll be working on this. There is a plan. Hopefully I can get all of the pieces in place. Man, I have too much going on...

- Converting Vegetarians II is out now, as well as several other albums from Infected Mushroom in the years since then. I'm going to be honest, the band has gone a bit down in my view. IM has pretty much four music phases at this point: 1. the pure psytrance phase (The Gathering through BP Empire), 2. the beginning experimentation phase (Converting Vegetarians through IM the Supervisor), 3. the rock/metal phase (Legend of the Black Schwarma through Army of Mushrooms), and the phase they are currently in, the "sucking up to the fanbase" phase. Army of Mushrooms annoyed a lot of the fans for some reason. I wouldn't call this album their best, but it's alright by me. Fans I think were too harsh on them for experimenting with Army of Mushrooms, but if you go back and listen to their history, none of IM's albums sound terribly thematically similar. They've always tried for newer sounds, and we can't get on their cause for continuing to do this.

Except that since then Duvdev and Erez seem to have become discouraged. They've been doing a lot of self-referencing work instead of going off to try new things. Converting Vegetarians II was obviously an attempt to cash in on their previous album and Return to the Sauce was obviously to tell the audience they were going back to the "old ways" of psytrance. Neither of these albums are particularly great overall, although they have their good points. I'm obsessed with Animatronica, but for me half of Converting Vegetarians II is merely meh. Return to the Sauce had some good ideas, but there were too many remixes instead of originals.

After that, IM tried to do new things with Head of NASA and the Two Amish Boys, but the first few songs really all sound the same - good, but like one long track instead of many - and the last song had particularly juvenile lyrics. I disliked this album, but I was at least happy that they were breaking out of their self-reflective shell and moving forward. Aaand then they release their next album: More of Just the Same. Its album cover is literally references to all their previous albums inside laboratory tanks.

So yeah. I own all IM albums through IM21, and I'm pretty happy with that. I might consider getting Return to the Sauce, but until IM stops listening to their worst fans and most stifling producers, I'm just gonna go hang out with other artists.