“Incoming technobabble from four billions aliens, asking you to speak for your crimes. Sir.”

Oobi eyed the terminal and milked the statistics with a squeamish grin. Despite the last fourteen hours ending up the opposite of what he had paved out, he felt unperturbed. Legions of creatures are demanding access to his body to rip it limb to limb and yet all he swelled with pride. Attention – even the violent sort – was addictive.

“It’s a ripple in the water my friend. So many voices and so many contradictions. They’re fueling their voices from the inside and the power supply is limited.” He spoke laconically, as if he was chatting with a waiter over a strong martini. “They’ll quiet down soon.”

He looked down at the hands in his lap. His hands. They were plated with gold that folded around the inlays of flesh as he stretched his tendons. On the tip of his index finger was a crystal. He smiled again.

“Sir. I’ve de-babbled the signal and at least one of the voices is Lordess Geviar of the Syntatic System. You know, the finance – “

“Yes, yes. Yes.” At times Haron could be so annoying. He wanted to him to stop speaking, stop stressing. No ones life was in danger. No one dies anymore.

“I’m streaming the transmission now.” Haron willed one of the terminals to process the filtered signal. The terminal spun the signal through its tonal interpretation and rendered the best representation of a figure that could be making the noises this signal had to say. Haron fed it a few priors to hint that Lordess Geviar was a relevant render.

“Hello. This is Lordess Geviar of the Syntatic System. Third inducer of the Seismic Unrest, Borrower of all that is literary fiction, Punisher of the Penniless and Unpronounced, Castrator of Galactic Arms, known through four nebulas as ‘Restless Ramponficator of Ruminations’, Inverter of Verbosity...”

Oobi’s eyes were still pondering his golden flesh. Spelling profit in his mind through the language of user predation. His greatest regret in his life was not having paid more attention to his courses in neuropsychology. Minds was so malleable and gullible.

“...Destroyer of the Blackmatter Battalion, Eighth Seargent in the Tustle for Trill Station, witness to the death of Fornay the Fallen Electron...”

His customers were like those Earthen cows. A cow that was tricked into milking itself. Infinite loop cycles of self-milking and then he sticks his tongues in there and takes a few drops. That made him laugh. I’m a mosquito. Call me Oobisquito. Chuckle.

“...Barer of news both bad and good, Prayer-horse to the Triplet Sun...”

Prayer-horse? He took a dip into the heavier corners of his mind to see if he’d heard of that word before. When did intros of royalty become autobibligraphical monologues? This was why citizens lost trust in their governments, this was why his users stumbled into the bottomless snares of his services. They needed someone – something – to hide their mind from the joke of reality.

“…Self-orator of the Unrepresented Neutron Star Community – UNCS. What do you have to say for your crimes?”

He wasn’t expecting the impressive thread that be cut so short. Oobi lifted his gaze to the terminal, and opened his palms in a gesture of penance, curling his gilded fingers in a cage of flesh.

“Lordess Gavier, inducer of Seismic unrest, castrator, punisher, and witness to the UNCS. I am but a simple being. You’re call is unexpected but your presence warms me. To what do I receive such a premature gift?”

Lordess Gavier didn’t miss a beat. “Don’t play the fool Oobi, you will answer directly to me now. For this is a formal informal hearing. As I am sure you are aware I have received the support of at least one billion citizens that the persecution of the deemed guilty will go ahead. Persecution of you, that is, Oobi.”

Oobi studied his reflection in the terminal. Was that a rogue crease in the lines around one of his mouths. He’ll have to remember to sort that. He was getting hungry. He wanted to end this call quickly so he wouldn’t miss his meal: “And what crime is that?”

“Oobi. I will read you your crime because your question is treated as a formal question within the preceding. But don’t play games with me. Oobi. Where are the stars?” Lordess Gavier made a gesture as if to cast a curtain aside to reveal the vastness of space. The terminal must have parsed the intent from the context and predicted the generated motion was Lordess Gavier’s truthful intent.

Oobi humiliated Lordess Gavier with his attention and traced the glancing hand that presented him a frame shot of outer space. Or what supposedly was a frame shot. Blackness with a liquid splattering of colour from some loose nebula. Not a star in sight, of course.

Oobi put his hands together in prayer and nibbled the tip of his fingers wistfully. Hedgefrog stew? Minced carbonic gems with a spattering of Casper oil? Deciding what meal would best test his chef’s capacity.

“The stars yes. Can’t you see, Gavier? It’s a resource, just like the oil that flows under a mantle or the carbon that burns in its soil. Civilization is growing and we can’t feed so many mouths without expanding. It was inevitable that this resource would be used eventually.”

“Yes, but for your purpose?”

“My purpose is an honest one.”

“Honest? What is honest about exploitation?”

“Honest to the mind. People are wasteful, ignorant, materialistic bodies. They are evolved to want for themselves and no more or less. By denying that purpose they are but denying their true origin.”

“Exploitation of evolved intelligent violates Code 483 of the GRBN.”

[That’s the Galactic Rule-book for Being Nice, dear reader.]

“Is it exploitative if they bring it upon themselves?”

“You are driving their minds to consumerist recursion.”

“But how happy they are!” smiled Oobis. “They tap away on their retinas, seeking this gain or that, trading in virtual rubbish – and they love it. Satisfaction rate is through the roof.”

“Satisfaction rate is synthetic,” cut Lordess Gavier. “You are decaying the universe for material folly.”

“Lordess Gavier. I give them a platform and they turned it into a show. They choose to tap. They choose to transact. They choose to solve useless logic puzzles to profit themselves. They burned through their planet’s resources, burned their neighbouring planets’ resources, and now burn into their sun’s energy resources. All for commerce.”

“For OobiCoin you mean.”

“It is irrelevant what you call it. They invented that name and something about it appeals to me. It’s martyrdom in the modern era.”

Lordess Gavier sniffled. Maybe the terminal generated an arbitrary animation for the pause. “Oobis, it’s over. You have left me no choice but to use force.”

Oobis frowned. He hated when things went this way. They always did in the end. No one ever understood, no one ever just accepted the fact that it wasn’t going to change. OobisCoin was the inevitable state of civilization. Cute virtual pets were here to stay. Virtual trees, burning the hydrogen from the surfaces of suns, were here to stay. Virtual fashion made from addicted minds was here to stay.

Oobis turned towards Haron who had been perched quitely most of this time. He’d been so excited to buy him on the market for such an extortionate price. The previous seller had threw his mind together in a few hours and Oobi relished in the idea that his buying power shot Haron’s value to the stars. That made him laugh. To the stars. Would people still say that ten years from now?

Lordess Gavier was the same as the rest of them. A political system that slugged along like molasses. It was about four generations too late. The race was over before they even registered. He’d hoped to keep Gavier’s citizens and incorporate them gently into virtual commerce. What a waste. The best they could give him now was their young, juicy star.