by Lea Linnett
With Helik’s office off-limits, her final stop was the library. It was a strange name; she thought it must be a data storage room or an entertainment hub or something, because real paper-and-ink books were rare. In the Outer Districts, everyone had better uses for paper—note-taking, communications, and the like. No one printed books anymore. Ellie owned just one, which she coveted so dearly she’d chosen to leave it at Augusta’s rather than risk losing it in the Senekkar.
So she almost forgot how to breathe when she entered the library and found a room decorated top-to-bottom with dark, metallic shelves, filled with neat rows of books with multicolored spines. The room smelled of dust—more so than any other room in the penthouse—and Ellie had to hold back a sneeze as she reached out to run her fingers over the nearest line of books. It took a lot of willpower to drag herself away, even though reading wasn’t her forte. Oddly, this room felt more expensive than the rest of the apartment combined, and with a shiver, she realized it very well might be.
On the way back to the lower level, she passed by Helik’s bedroom, pausing when she noticed a shaft of light peeking through the double doors that had been left ajar. She bit her lip, curiosity pushing her to creep closer. She’d avoided this room before, unsure if Helik was still at home or if he’d even come back at all the night before, but with the door left open so invitingly…
She had to look.
She sidled up to it, peering through the gap. The floor looked pale and plastic, like the living room downstairs, but she spied a rust-brown rug stretching out from beneath the bed that seemed strangely at odds with its surroundings. The dresser pushed to one side was dark and metallic, just like the simple bed at the opposite end of the room, and they contrasted against the white walls. She spotted a dark door in the corner, probably leading to a cleansing unit.
But what really drew her eye was the lump of white sheets piled on the bed. She almost entered, thinking they’d been left in disarray by their occupant, but then the bundle shifted, and a clawed foot poked out from between the layers.
Ellie held her breath, her eyes wide. That was Helik. Helik was home, sleeping, on a work day.
And she was what…? Watching him?
She backed away, squeezing her eyes shut as she admonished herself. Good job, Creep…
But still she hovered. The levekk were always so buttoned up—even the few she’d seen in the Senekkar the day before were straight-backed and stern looking, even when they were out shopping—so getting to see one like this was priceless.
She couldn’t explain why the idea was so fascinating to her, but before she knew it, her closed fist was drifting towards the door, and she froze, horrified. She wasn’t supposed to disturb him, right? Roia had said as much. She’d told her to be invisible. But now the notion was in her head, and her curiosity was becoming unbearable.
What would Helik Kaan look like, bed-mussed and groggy?
She clenched her fist, her teeth almost sinking through her lip with how hard she was biting down…
And knocked.
There was a flurry of sheets from within, and Ellie caught a glimpse of bare, scaled shoulders before she hid herself behind the door.
“Sir?” she called out. “I’m going shopping for supplies soon. Is there anything you need?”
Silence, and then a strangled growl of, “Wait there.”
She froze, her heart sinking. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea.
Muted footsteps as the levekk paced across the thick rug, the clatter of a closet door opening and closing, and then Helik appeared, cold eyes blazing. He looked as unkempt as it was possible for a levekk to look, his austere formal attire of the day before replaced with a loose-fitting shirt that draped artfully from his shoulders, tucked into a pair of skin-tight dark trousers. She had the nonsensical thought that this alien would look good in almost any clothes she put him in, before the full intensity of his glare finally hit her, and she shrank back.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Kaan, but I saw that you were home and thought I might be able to—”
“Don’t disturb me,” he cut in, his eyes narrowed. He barely moved, his voice coming out clipped and reedy and—was he holding his breath?
Ellie blinked for a moment before dropping her gaze, her cheeks heating.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “It’s just, there’s no food in the kitchen.”
“It isn’t your job to buy me things,” he growled. “Your only responsibility is to supply yourself with what you need to work.”
She nodded, her shoulders up around her ears. “Yes, sir.”
“Good.”
She dared a glance at him, and found him watching her with that predatory gaze from before. His pupils were like slits, taking in every inch of her, and she felt a shiver run up her spine that wasn’t entirely unpleasant.
Either he noticed, or something else disturbed him, for he abruptly looked away, stepping back out of her orbit. “If you’ll excuse me, I need some privacy,” he muttered, and then the double doors were slammed in Ellie’s face.
She let out the breath she’d been holding and backed away, not stopping until she was safely down on the lower level again. It was only then that she realized her hands were shaking.
Slumping against the kitchen counter, she tried to calm her racing heart. What the hell was she thinking, deliberately testing the rules Roia had set out for her?
And what was up with Helik? She winced, the image of him towering over her burned into her mind. He couldn’t have been more different from the levekk she met the day before—could he have a twin? No, that would be ludicrous, but still, his change in mood confused her.
Was she naive to expect the levekk’s friendly behavior to continue past the first day? Or should she have known it was just an act?
Her heart sank. She didn’t want Augusta to be right. She’d hoped that Helik would be more like the levekk Lena dragged home than the monstrous demons from Augusta’s stories, but now she wasn’t so sure.
She sighed, her heart finally calming, but her eye was drawn to the upper level again when she realized she could still hear the levekk moving around up there. She snatched up her satchel from the counter where she’d left it. Whatever Helik was, she didn’t want to be here when he emerged again.
She crept toward the front door on soundless feet, cringing when she laid her hand on the access panel and a loud beep erupted from it. She slipped from the apartment, her heart in her throat and her mind reeling.
---
The cicarian downstairs only stared at her for one uncomfortable moment when she walked up to reception, before quickly configuring her wristlet with an apartment key. Everything slid by with surprising ease, despite the confused whirl of Ellie’s mind as she ran over the events of that morning, and she finally began to believe that this was actually happening.
She was a Senekkar citizen, at least for the next three months.
It was warm outside under the climate-control domes. The temperature was set to levekk standards, she knew, and it was many degrees warmer than the early winter weather she’d left behind the day before. She felt a bit naked without a jacket covering her arms, but she had to admit the change was nice.
It took her a few minutes of barking orders at her wristlet to get her navigator working. She’d bound the thin circle of metal tightly to her wrist, terrified it might fall off; it gave her access to her credit account and held her identification, which was something she’d never had in Manufacturing. But that didn’t stop her from wanting to throw it across the lobby when it refused to register her commands. While it had a small touch-screen interface, most commands were voice-activated, and she was unused to phrasing her sentences in a way the machine would accept.
Eventually, though, she got it working, and she followed the little holographic arrow that pointed her towards her destination.
Her eyes strained with how wide they were as she took in the Senekkar, staring at everything with interest. Huge black skyscra
pers rose up all around her, with dark alleys spidering in-between. Above her, transports rushed by in aerial lanes that saw more traffic in an hour than the ground roads back home saw in a day, and still more vehicles trundled along the streets at ground level, sandwiched between wide pedestrian sidewalks.
It didn’t escape her notice that the majority of the pedestrians—mostly sub-species—were openly staring at her as she passed by.
A small knot of worry threaded through her chest, even though their behavior made sense. Despite humans being the original inhabitants of CL-32, they were scarce in the Senekkar. In Manufacturing and other districts, they were as common as cicarians and pindar, but here? Humans hadn’t been trusted this close to one of the nerve-centers of levekk governance on Earth since the Invasion.
But no-one looked outright hostile, so Ellie was determined to ignore the scrutiny. Which was easier said than done, especially when her nerves were so raw from her encounter with Helik.
She worried at her lip, the bustle of the city center draining away as she turned her gaze to the pavement beneath her feet. Why had he acted that way? He couldn’t have been more different from the open, friendly, charming levekk of the day before.
It wasn’t even that she was hurt—she was mostly just confused. One moment, Helik stared at her like she was the only living thing he’d seen in months, and the next he wouldn’t even meet her gaze.
She had broken the rules. But surely crossing the line just that once wasn’t enough to make him so hateful.
Be careful around Mr. Kaan. This is a stressful time, and it wouldn’t do for you to… antagonize him.
Don’t be too… human.
Ellie frowned, remembering Roia’s warnings. Maybe Helik… hated humans. Her heart sank. Did that make sense? Could a levekk senator that had built his life around championing sub-species rights secretly hate humans?
She didn’t want to believe it, but then she thought of the anger in his icy gaze and the way he’d held his breath like she was a dog that had turned up on his doorstep after rolling in something awful.
Be-beep!
Ellie jumped, looking down at her wristlet. Apparently, she’d arrived, and when she turned, she found a huge grocery store, its glassy veneer reflecting her image right back at her.
She gulped, all of a sudden unsure that they’d even serve her. Is that why they stared? Did everyone here think she was dirty, or diseased? A pindar that had been walking behind her sidled past, giving her a wide berth and making her shiver.
Could she do this?
She looked at herself in the store window’s reflection. She looked fine. Her dress was clean, her hair neat. She was just missing some claws. Some scales, maybe, or any other odd, alien thing that the sub-species around her shared.
She grit her teeth. What had she promised herself? Don’t give in to fear. All her life, people had tried to scare her into staying home, staying ‘safe.’ Well, fuck that. She wanted to live.
And she would start by doing her job and buying herself some groceries.
She entered the store and was almost scared right back out again when she saw the sheer size of it. It was a far cry from the markets where she bought supplies at home. There, you could find anything you needed, from food to clothes to entertainment, all in one place. But despite being almost the same size, this building was devoted to one thing only: food.
Before her lay a bank of self-serve registers, where aliens placed their baskets on weighing platforms and steered hovering carts straight onto scanning stations. Beyond was an open area, filled with strange meats and fruits that she’d only seen mention of in zines. This was levekk food, and as she walked through it, she barely recognized anything except the protein rations that were often shipped out to places like Manufacturing when supplies got low. On one display she even found a small mountain of silvery packages, identical to the ones she’d eaten the night before.
Past the displays, she was faced with four massive aisles, and Ellie went pale as she registered just how much product lined the shelves. It dwarfed the collection of levekk foods at the front of the store, and each stack of shelves stretched up higher than Ellie could reach.
She belatedly realized that there was a sign flanking each aisle, and on each one was written the name of a different species. Her eyes widened, and she paced the aisles, searching for one that might read: human. There were a few things she was familiar with in each area, and she snagged them with cautious glances over her shoulder, as if she might be chastised for taking things from the wrong place. But while some of the other shoppers stared at her, peeking around corners and doing double-takes, no one reached out to stop her.
It took half an hour of retracing her steps to find it: the tiny corner of the store marked, ‘Local Products.’ Ellie blinked up at it, only finding things like wheat flour and a few apples and oranges. She pulled them into her basket nonetheless, already missing Augusta’s threadbare attempts at cooking.
Getting her goods out of the store was an exercise in ignoring an increasing amount of stares while she struggled to make her wristlet scan credits into the machine. She was proud to say she only kicked the machine once out of frustration, but she still wished Lena was there to help her. Her sister was a whiz with technology, and Ellie had always been able to rely on her to work things out.
She frowned. But that was the point, right? Even if she missed her, wasn’t she trying to prove that she could handle things on her own now?
Eventually the machine buzzed a “Thank you for shopping with us,” at her in Trade, and she walked from the store with a spring in her step despite the heavy bags now weighing her down.
That afternoon, she threw herself into her work. Apart from the guest bedrooms, she hadn’t thought the penthouse really needed a cleaner, but she soon took that back once she started. As she moved through the lower level, surfaces she’d thought were clean proved to be hiding under a layer of dust, and just when she thought she might be finished with a room, a new bit of grime jumped out at her. It was still cleaner than anything in Manufacturing, she thought, but she felt driven to keep working until each room was practically sterile.
She’d already angered Helik once. She didn’t want to risk being fired for not cleaning well enough.
She avoided the upper floor, scared that he might still be at home somewhere, but even then she’d only made her way through the kitchen, living room and one bedroom by the time she slumped down to the soft carpet, already exhausted. Her arms ached from wiping, and her nose was full of dust that she hadn’t even known was there a few hours ago. She sneezed into the crook of her arm and leaned her head back against the guest bed. There were three more guest bedrooms in this wing, each with an attached bathroom and closet. She sighed deeply.
Cleaning was hard work.
Sitting there, chest heaving, her mind wandered back to Helik.
She’d been tense all afternoon, half-listening for any rumble of footsteps above or the slamming of a door. Despite their run-in, she found herself anticipating his arrival, and she wasn’t entirely sure it was due to fear.
Did she want to see him? That thought made her stomach wobble. He was like a dog-eared tapestry, beautiful from a distance but ragged at the edges when you got up close, and despite her better judgment, she still wanted to pull on the threads.
But she couldn’t. There was a lot more than the opportunity to unravel the mystery of the levekk on the line here. Helik was her boss; he was the only reason she got to walk the streets of the Senekkar in the first place. Without his good graces, she’d be back in Manufacturing eating stale bread in no time. And she didn’t want that.
She couldn’t stand that.
She shook her head, chasing the confusing thoughts away. She didn’t want to make trouble. She didn’t want to be sent away from the Senekkar, now that she’d finally made it here. She didn’t want this to end, no matter how many stares she drew on the streets.
So she hauled herself up from the carpe
t and moved onto the next room, spraying cabinets with a newfound intensity.
All she needed to think about was doing a good job. All she needed was something to show Helik at the end of the day.
Outside of that, she should stay out of his way.
5
It was all Helik could do to avoid her that week.
He hated how he’d spoken to her, but what choice did he have when his head was pounding, he’d slept through half the work day, and he couldn’t get the (alluring, intoxicating) scent of her out of his nostrils?
He’d had plenty of choices, he reminded himself. And he’d chosen to be cruel.
So he removed himself from the situation entirely, retreating to Kaan Tower where the air was filtered and he felt like less of an intruder. Where he could chain himself to his desk and resist the urge to go to her.
“They love her,” said Roia as she leaned against a chair before Helik’s desk, her red teeth flashing and her body too taut with excitement to sit.
“Oh, really?” he said, trying to sound disinterested. “Is she getting fan mail?”
“She might as well be. A few have expressed interest in employing her after the program’s finished. Or before. One even said he’d pay you.”
Helik’s brow plate dipped sharply, his stomach clenching. “Excuse me? People want to buy her?”
Roia nodded serenely, unfazed by his growl. “Of course someone wants to. I’m glad you disapprove.”
A lance of icy panic shot through his anger when the xylidian gave him a knowing look, but her attention was fleeting.
“I’ve had many more reasonable requests for late admission into the program—too late, of course,” she added. “But there’s interest from levekk and some wealthy sub-species who run businesses in the Senekkar. There might be enough here for a second trial in the future, if things go well.”
“That’s good.”
Roia eyed him. “Just ‘good’?”