ACQUIRE

Berenice Atwater

There had been a rather cute calico cat hanging around the dormitory for the longest time, with four white paws and the prettiest green eyes. Berry had been taken with it from the start and after muttering to herself about just who the animal belonged to, she was met with pleasant silence. It was merely a stray, then, so she had felt perfectly fine with taking it back to the room with her.

Now, no more than four hours later, the creature was cleanly disemboweled on her desk, neatly arranged on plastic to avoid getting blood everywhere. She had already cleaned the fur so that at least was in pristine condition. The organs, bones, and eyes had been discarded in the back dumpster. Later in the afternoon, or perhaps the next day, she would go shopping for some glass to fill the sockets with. There was a bit of smell around but Berry was used to it. She had opened the window, anyways, so it really was barely noticeable at all.

As she began to pick out the appropriate stuffing for it, a booming voice from behind her brought her attention. Swiveling around her chair in surprise, Berry saw the tentacle of -a number of names, many of them seeming to be total nonsense, came to mind- Goodall emerge. Goodall, who was her until-then mysteriously absent Secret Santa partner. Goodall, who had to be the least human being she had ever met.

Berry was thrilled.

"Oh, is it time for that already?" She asked, rising to go and retrieve her own present for... him? For him, she supposed. "Excuse me, I'll have to get yours now, too." What she came up with was a hatbox from her closet, decorated with only a green bow on top of it. Inside, there was an utterly unmistakable object -a pimp hat. Berry had bought a pimp hat for a tentacle monster.

She wasn't quite sure how to make the trade off when it seemed like Goodall only had one tentacle, so she put the box on the ground before taking the suitcase from him. "This one's yours," Berry said, gesturing to it as she did so. "It's very nice to meet you... Goodall? Is that really your name? It seems a bit human," she noted curiously.

Berenice Atwater

There was something about the way that Goodall spoke which was very endearing to her. Maybe it was the fact that it was from a species that did not need to talk? Or would it be more correct to use a 'he?' There was no way to tell sex a mass of tentacles, not that Berry knew of anyways. She settled for a healthy 'he,' because wasn't that what everybody reverted to in the face of scientific ambiguity?

"I'm very glad that you like it," Berry said automatically. "But, if your species does not usually speak, then how do you communicate with each other?" For that matter, how was it that Goodall had come to speak like this? Certainly, it wasn't that he and his species were incapable of speaking, if it were to be taken for granted that he accurately represented the average individual.

For some reason, she didn't think that this species would simply express through sign language. And, when he said that his species did not normally use words, did that extend to the written languages as well? "My family contains a good amount of scientists so I am very curious in how your species has involved. Do you have a written language, at least?"

Berenice Atwater

"Touch telepathy?" Berry said in delight. "That's brilliant! If you can only feel my emotions, however, does that mean you can only feel emotions from your own kind as well? Or is it possible to transmit images in place of words? Ancient civilizations on Earth used to have pictographs as their written languages so if images are how your kind communicates, it might be possible to use that as a framework."

She studied the tentacle which had slithered up to her, carefully. "These are only one way, then? There's no way to create a two way channel?" It would have been fascinating to study the name of a being whose native tongue was, well. Essentially nothing besides thought alone.

Berenice Atwater

"Hm, maybe we'll just call it some sort of psychic capsule for now," Berry decided after a thought. "There's obviously nothing comparable in human terms." It probably wasn't the best wording in this particular situation but with such little understanding of what exactly it was, it was the best that she could do for the moment. Limited knowledge was so very annoying.

She did wonder, though, how exactly Goodall was seeing her. Was that one hat-wearing tentacle one which happened to include photoreceptor cells? Or was he watching her from beyond wherever it was that the tentacles extended out of? She resolved to find out eventually. Still, there was something oddly charming about how he was puppeting his tentacle around as if it were a singular human being.

Berry eyed the tentacle which had appeared from her ceiling, contemplatively. "Well, as long as there's no harm in it," she said, reaching out her hand. Meaning, of course, to herself. It did sound like there hadn't been any serious repercussions for doing so anyways.

Berenice Atwater

Berry waited a little while, her head tilted contemplatively. The tentacle felt exactly like what she thought it would, and possibly a bit like something that belonged in some sort of Japanese anime. Curiously, she squeezed it gently, wondering if all of these would regenerate just as they would for an octopus, and if only this particular tentacle was capable of sending and receiving those “psychic capsules” or if all of them could.

“Let me see,” she said, thinking hard, trying to search herself for feelings that shouldn’t have been there, feelings associated with being a giant tentacle monster. But all she felt was that she was a curious human girl and that she was holding something slimy in her hand. Inevitably, Berry came to the conclusion that she had not received a capsule at all.

“No, I don’t think it worked, unfortunately,” she said. “How very strange! Do you think that maybe other beings could receive them from you? And, is receiving the capsule linked to a particular part of your species biology? It seems that nothing is needed to transmit the capsules, if you are completely capable of reading humans, or perhaps that could be an indication that our species has something in common that allows for it.”