FFM 2024 6: Doppelgangers

Challenge: The story must contain 15 different foreign words or phrases in separate sentences. The first story must be the longest word in the story and the last one the shortest. Ties are allowed. Artificially extended words are not allowed while artificially shortened words are. Optionally, do not use any proper pronouns for either of the challenge elements.

My first word, doppelgangers, has 13 characters, which only ties with unfortunately. My shortest word is everything that’s a one-character word. The words and phrases I used intentionally for this challenge are: De facto, Impasse, Verbatim, Status quo, Versus, Alma mater, En masse, Perkele, Magnum opus, Post-mortem, Cum laude, Doppelganger, Avant-garde, Vice versa, Bon voyage.

---

“‘Doppelgangers are afoot. Watch out.'” Maria scratched her head. “What’s that supposed to have to do with anything?”

“Eh, it’s probably a prank,” Joel said, shrugging. “At least it’s some random note on the bulletin board and not more of those social media challenge nonsenses.”

“Still, why doppelgangers? That’s, like, probably the least threatening thing I’ve ever been warned about. Not even our alma mater would have freaked out about it.”

“Says the one who graduated cum laude and didn’t need someone smarter to take your exams for you to even pass,” Joel quipped. A light bulb seemed to turn on in his head. “Hey, maybe this is part of some avant-garde art project!”

“On a random bulletin board? Sure, whatever.” Maria turned away to rejoin the crowd gathering around the stage en masse. “Whatever. We’re going to be late for the post-mortem if we stick around trying to figure out what this means. I want some juicy game dev gossip.”

Joel chuckled. “Stuff like this sure turns you into a de facto tabloid journalist.”

“Hey, it’s not every failed game project that a developer does an open post-mortem like this! Plus, the game’s title was Impasse, so it’s fitting that shit hit the fan.”

Everyone was surprised when they saw the people who came to the stage — doppelgangers of the most prominent people in the audience.

“What the fuck?” Joel whispered. Maria said similarly in Finnish.

“Ah, everyone, thank you for coming to our post-mortem. As you know, our game, Impasse, reached an, well, impasse,” the doppelganger who looked like a particularly famous game journalist in the front row — Mr. Rapalski — addressed them with a grin. “Unfortunately, the status quo within the studio could not sustain our vision. Hence, some people needed to be… replaced.”

“I have a baaaad feeling about this,” someone behind Joel and Maria murmured. In the meantime, Maria wrote everything down at a furious rate, doing her best to keep things verbatim.

“As such, changes had to be made to the process,” the doppelganger started to walk towards the other side of the stage, “a few changes out of very many to come. Starting from here — this stage. Impasse might have failed in the current environment but we will create our magnum opus sooner rather than later.”

Joel chuckled nervously. “I’m starting to feel like we’re in some creepypasta.”

Maria did not say anything.

“Of course, many of you will probably argue that what we create will not be authentic. We understand the worries, although baseless as they are. What we create will not just be authentic. It will also be ours. It will be superior.” The fervent mania coloring the way Mr. Rapalski’s doppelganger spoke faded away. “Our esteemed Ms. Kennedy will explain further. Please give her an applause, will you?”

The audience clapped out of sheer terror at whatever was going on.

“Do you think the AI is taking over?” someone in front of Maria whispered.

“I think it’s aliens,” the one next to them responded.

“Aliens versus AI… which do you think would be the worse option?” Joel asked, trying desperately to lighten the mood.

“I think we’re fucked,” Maria murmured.

Ms. Kennedy’s doppelganger came to the front of the stage. “Our dear audience, thank you for hearing me out. In our current environment, we war between those who call for authenticity and those who want to embrace the generative world. We do understand that most of you want the human authenticity to be preserved in the face of cost-saving measures. However, we at Ögon Games have determined that we wish to embrace the generative world and fast-track our work to the world.”

“It’s AI,” the man next to Joel murmured. “Shit.”

“We of course understand that vice versa applies to many of you. However, we will not allow such trivial things such as public opinion sway us. We will make our magnum opus, no matter what it takes.” Ms. Kennedy’s doppelganger grinned, showing her teeth. “We thank you for your cooperation with allowing this to happen by allowing us to take your places in the status quo.” She bowed. “And for all of you, we bid ‘bon voyage’ to where you are heading from here.”

People in the audience started to get restless. Some stood up to leave but soon cries about the doors being locked broke out. The doppelgangers were leaving the stage — a stage that the most panicky in the first rows now found was blocked by plexiglass.

“Perkele,” Maria swore under her breath.

“Uh-oh,” Joel singsonged, giggling even more nervously. “This is a prank, right? Like that note on the bulletin board?”

Maria did not know how to respond in a way that would not make her partner’s nervous fit even worse.

Before the crowd managed to break a door open, the hall went dark and a projector turned on. The back of the stage was lit with a white screen.

Then, a sentence in black appeared.

We O U.