"Yeah, you do. Do you know where you want to go?"

I don't know places, but I know things I want - Art and jewelry and interesting trinkets, geodes, incense or scented candles, maybe a big TV and some puzzle games I heard good things about those.

"Okay, I guess we can start at a mall, if you don't want to shop online. Let me find walking directions, I'd usually go by subway..."

I don't really want to shop online. I could probably fly around and land in the middle of a city but it does seem possibly alarming, so walking is fine.

"I'd worry you'd hit something if you misjudged how fast a scooter was going or something. Okay, we start going up 46th." He leads the way.

Nothing in a city (or whatever this half-city area is supposed to be) could possibly scare him. Except people with guns. He follows along cherrily.

What does Temnin mean? Is it weird or bad to be someone's replacement?

"It means coffee, I haven't picked a new one since I worked in the caffeine department. I'm still thinking about it. I don't mind being a replacement. Meksi's a little too on the hyper side, I guess."

You should think about your names a lot, he agrees. I regret 'Sunwind' sometimes but everyone knows me by it now! I feel a little bad about Meksi specifically, too.

"What's wrong with 'Sunwind'? It's a nice enough name."

It's the same kind of thing everyone names themselves when they don't have any unique and interesting qualities or accomplishments! I'll probably add a new clause to my long name when the movie is done and maybe even go by it.

"Makes sense. You could announce it at the premiere."

That's a good idea. I'll have to think of a good name.

"You could consult on your character's name and pick up a bit of it."

I probably need to talk to the writers and director about who he is a lot if I'm going to act like him. Terraforming a planet, either guarding or helping some other way... There's a lot of personalities that could draw someone to such a role.

"I could probably find you books on acting and read them to you if you want."

If I run out of things to do, sure. Or watching movies and you explain what parts are good and why.

At some point I'd like something I can climb on, or somewhere I can dig, I don't think that other studio would be happy if I went back in the hole I dug there.

"Yeah, it's probably filled in by now. I can ask around but we're not out in the middle of nowhere like them."

I can dig a tunnel to some place when there's not movie stuff to do if anyone wants to pay for that. Or fly people around, the stuntgrey I tried the harness with said it was really fun.

"I can look at excavation ads and help you post one about giving people rides for sure. I think there might be some kind of limit on running a side hustle from the studio premises but it's possible it doesn't apply to you."

That's part of the complicated maze of systems I don't understand at all! Perhaps I should try to understand but it's much easier to ask you to do it. I'll buy a harness from the studio, and pay them back for your time if you spend a lot of it on this if that makes sense as the thing to do, I'll go somewhere else or pay for whatever's needed to organize the excavation and rides thing... And the movie comes first.

"Yeah, it should all work out, it's just maybe complicated enough it could take a while. If you want really fast results you should probably ask a blue, a blue can just do something that probably no one will actually mind and then clean it up if they do actually mind, but the rest of us can't do that."

If you do it does that probably look most like two days, or ten, or forty?

"Probably two, even after the fiasco 'it's for the alien' smooths things some."

Tail-thump.

I would have waited for ten but not forty, probably. 

...I should probably not argue about the fiasco.

"I haven't got a ton to say about it. It was a fiasco, they fixed it and we're good now, yeah?"