Kisses of Death

The game of Both has kept the peace between boys and girls for two years. Boys imbed girl play in boyish narratives and girls imbed boy play in girlish narratives. This allows everyone to live together in harmony without getting offended. Nowhere has this process reached higher complexity than on Ninosa. Girls love to sing in unison – uttering the same words at the same time. They like to sound pretty. Boys don’t care about that, but by managing singing contests, boys can determine winners and losers. Different states sponsor different teams and use the singing contests to settle disputes over territory, taxes, and senate seats. The girls tolerate this, but insist that the purpose of government is to make states as pretty as possible. The boys accept the idea so long as the most important part of prettiness is making scientific advancements. The girls insist that science should be used to cook and clean. The boys invent food bombs and soap guns, holding contests to see if the cooks can make messes faster than the maids can clean them up. In response to these antics, the girls treat the boys as if they are babies that need babysitting. Eventually, the play economy becomes too complex for anyone to make sense of it. Longing for simplicity, boys and girls return to playing separately, leading to competition over territory and time slots.

Then one day there is a riot. Angry that girls have taken all the flying cars at a time that boys wanted to use them, a group of boys trash the downtown shopping zone of the city, destroying many shoe stores. The girls are furious. The adult government puts the boys in jail, but the girls are not satisfied. A meeting is called and the girl leaders insist on ridding the planet of the boy pestilence for good.

Before they can act, word gets around to the boys, some of whom are watching the meeting on girl TV. Within the hour, boys and girls have attacked each other on every part of Ninosa. Locked out of their own homes by the opposite gender, many boys and girls flee to neighbors who will let them in. Boys pull down every purple flag representing the union and light them on fire.

Still living on Ninosa a year after the “book monster” incident, Nathaniel and his Stuffians are flying over the desert in their car when the chaos begins. All nearby cities put up defenses and he cannot get in. Tall, wispy antennas slash back and forth. “Ugh! I have to use a toilet,” he grumbles.

He lands just outside a small village, but once outside his car, a gang of girls see him and attacks. “Kill all boys! Kill all boys! Kill all boys!” they chant as they chase him back to his vehicle.

It takes several weeks for the boys to agree on who is in charge and on what strategies to employ. During this time, the girls are able to dominate every city and push the boys into the rural zones. Girls have no trouble falling in line, while the boys fight among themselves. Finally, the boys get their act together and build their own city, complete with factories. They build flying tanks, complete with chopping propellers and laser cannons.

Eleven days later, the boys attack the nearest girl city. While the girls have the strength of unity, it is also their downfall, because as those in front are terrified into retreat, the rest follow. In hand-to-hand combat, boys prove to be faster, stronger, braver, and have greater endurance. The only advantage the girls have is their ability to manipulate adults (mostly by crying), but it is not enough. Whenever outnumbered or outmaneuvered, the girls summon the adults. Four times out of nine, the adults intervene on their behalf, punishing the boys and removing them from the area. One time out of nine, the adults side with the boys. The remaining four times out of nine, the adults are nowhere to be seen, busy elsewhere on the planet. This means that boys win five out of nine battles. Slowly and surely, boys win.

Nathaniel is in many such battles. One day, he and about one hundred Ninos and Stuffians launch a surprise attack on a girl fortress by hiding in the ruins of the surrounding city until dusk. A small number of boys climb in the fourth story window while the main force breaks down the door. The boys scatter in all directions, moving as deep into the building as they can. The Nino in front of Nate rounds a corner and is killed, but Nathaniel steps into his place, firing his “hand sock gun” like a maniac, killing six girls and forcing the rest to retreat. He chases after them, but quickly learns it is a trap as girls jump out from behind. Fred, Haticat, and two other Stuffians cover his back, while Nathaniel and Doctor Bill continue to fire in front of them. Then Nathaniel’s gun runs out of power. “Down!” he yells. As all six boys flatten themselves on the floor, the girls continue to fire and hit each other. Girls are not smart. Nathaniel tosses his spent sock and grabs his first of many spares. He shoots the remaining three girls before they figure out what is going on.

Just as the boys are clearing out the last of the rooms, a girl pops out from a secret door and kisses Nathaniel on the cheek. She is killed by Fred, but it is too late. Nathaniel goes insane and starts to fight with the boys and rescue the captured girls while grinning like a lunatic. The effects only last for an hour before Nathaniel suddenly vomits, convulses, and passes out. Twelve hours later, he has fully recovered physically, but he never quite gets over the embarrassment of acting so oddly. “I wanted nothing more than to kiss girls forever,” he tells Haticat.

Other boys are not so lucky. For some, the change of loyalty is permanent, and they have to be euthanized. Others die on their own, the torment of having split desires being too much for them. A kissed boy may suffer delusions, hallucinations, unspeakable emotional agony, fever, vomiting, rash, and pox. Fortunately, kisses are only close-range weapons that require direct skin contact.

Ultimately, the raid is a success. They kill all but four girls who they then interrogate for information on the new kiss weapon by threatening to leave them in a room with Ninosan spider mice. Nathaniel is put in charge of the interrogation, but is soon joined by three spies from another division. Jash takes control. Jain is second. Nathaniel is third. Sot is fourth. Together they form the Girlbusters, an elite surveillance, sabotage, and misdirection taskforce. Others join the ranks until there are thirty (not counting Stuffians, which must always be accompanied by a play host).

The Girlbusters are involved in many operations planet-wide. One time, the Girlbusters sneak inside a girl base while they are away and cover everything in superglue. The girls are still stuck when boys raid the place later. Another time, the Girlbusters broadcast fake battle plans, knowing the girls are listening. They work with boy leaders to develop a protocol for distinguishing real and fake broadcasts, and they develop elaborate codes and ciphers.

Jash believes that girls are ultimately predictable if only we could learn the patterns that govern them. “Girls are very superstitious. They believe that random weather events in other parts of the world should guide their daily decisions. They believe that certain color combinations on certain days of the year are bad luck. Their military strategy must be similarly dependent on such stupidity – if only we could figure out how.”

It takes almost a year, but the boys take enough cities to have a chance to take control of the skies. A secret meeting is held of the top one hundred boy leaders, including the four founding members of the Girlbusters. It is revealed that a fleet from Hamomber (planet of the Hammer-Faces) is waiting to join them when they are ready. “The best time to attack is in seven days when the girls have their annual tea party. They won’t make any left turns or cross any rivers on that day,” Jash says.

“Then that’s when we launch. Tell the Hammer-Faces,” General Bobot says.

All week, the Girlbusters work overtime to prevent the girls from learning the plans. One time, a Girlbuster listening device overhears the girls using their own listening devices to spy on a group of boys discussing the plans. A raid is ordered to intercept the information before it can get back to girl leaders.

Finally, the day comes. Just over one million boy ships and half a million girl ships fire at each other. The intensity of the fighting surpasses all known battles in history. The Nino boys have new weapons, including antimatter bombs and lasers of ultraviolet, x-rays, gamma-rays, and lasers of wavelengths shorter than any naturally-occurring electromagnetic radiation. The boys are also finally able to test out their new helicopter-mounted thermite guns. The Hammer-Faces meanwhile shoot diamond-coated bullets and tiny spinning disk saws with diamond teeth.

In the end, the boys win, but they had underestimated the effects of their weapons. All girls and adults on Ninosa are dead, as are half the boys, many of them killed by radiation from their own weapons. Of the survivors, one quarter of them are blind.

Elsewhere across the galaxy, wars have broken out on every planet. Leaders emerge. Representatives from five newly boy-controlled planets – Ninosa, Hamomber, Lectipas, Beerbele, and Snarugi meet to form a new country. Boss Zack of T’n’fer’prey, upset that his secret boy utopia was found by girls, also shows up. He is willing to forget his past conflicts with Nathaniel in order to work together. “Don’t worry, Nate. We’re buds again. Dig?”

Together, the six planets pool their resources and technologies. The Ninos of Ninosa offer their hyperlasers, antimatter bombs, thermite guns, and energy crystals. The Hammer-Faces of Hamomber offer their diamond bullets. The various Dinosaur tribes of Lectipas offer life crystal, a new discovery made by dissolving and mixing two minerals common on their moon named Cretaceous and then flash-freezing them. The new compound can then be melted and injected to promote healing. It will resuscitate those recently dead. It will also reverse the effects of kisses. In small amounts taken regularly, it boosts the immune system to prevent contagious diseases. Ninos with injuries from the war are given life crystal and healed. The Blentites of Beerbele, accompanied by miners from Geffus 4, offer scales that can give an accurate count of the atoms in a sample down to single digits, and teleporter beams that can sift specific compounds, elements, or isotopes out from solid rock. The Snarugi of Snarugi offer trazer beams and trazonic shielding. The Ornithomimosaurs of T’n’fer’prey offer psychospeeders to speed up thinking, the mindwhip weapon, stupid rays to make girls even stupider, brain pills to increase intelligence, and shots to increase bravery. A new army is organized to serve the new country. Every soldier is issued bravery shots, immune booster shots, brain pills, and a capsule of life crystal.

Nino President Bobot, the new leader of the alliance, speaks. “I welcome our new allies and I support the cause. We must make the universe safe for play by eliminating all girlkind. However, we must be careful not to make the same mistakes as on Ninosa and kill off the adults. Like it or not, we need adults to create more boys to replace those who die. Fortunately, there are still Nino adults on our colony worlds. Newly created girls on all boy planets should be socialized into behaving like boys. Those who resist will be killed. We should also test all new weapons thoroughly before using them in the field. I feel good about our new partnership. The girls don’t stand a chance.”

At the same time, girl leaders from Paffy (one of the Dromaeosaur planets) and Tarrat (planet of purple forests and the nocturnal Tarrati, purple-haired, purple-skinned hominids with large black eyes) meet on an uninhabited dwarf planet. Having consolidated power on their own planets and killed all the boys, they now aim to support girls everywhere.

The Dromaeosaurs of Paffy demonstrate their prettification nanobot contagion on the dwarf planet, making it instantly pretty. “All boys touched by the contagion will turn into girls – unless they struggle against it – in which case they disintegrate. The best part is that all it does to us is touch up our makeup.”

“Very clever,” the Tarrati representative says.

“We’ve also figured out how to shoot kisses long distances. Watch.” The Dromaeosaur blows into a tube and a red lipstick mark hits the far wall with a smack. “What do you offer the alliance?”

“Better dresses,” the Tarrat says.

“Dresses?” the Dromaeosaur says.

The Tarrat points at her sparkling white dress. “Equipped with megawatt lasers and armored to deflect all kinds of radiation weapons, including lasers and trazers. It also converts into a personal spacecraft capable of sub-light travel.”

“Wow! Can I try it?” the Dromaeosaur asks excitedly.

“Sure.” The dress slides open and the Tarrat steps out of it, naked except for her headband, which she takes off and hands over. “Control it with this telepathic headband.”

“Mentalic technology? We could never figure out how to get mentalics to work,” the Dromaeosaur says.

“Yes, it took us a long time,” the Tarrat says.

“We are going to make a great team,” the Dromaeosaur says.

“I agree. The boys don’t stand a chance,” the Tarrat says. The Boy-Girl War has begun.

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