by Lea Linnett
Finally, she nodded. “Okay. Helik.”
She said his name so deliberately that he shivered, feeling the distinct urge to offer his palm as if they were closing a transaction, but he mastered it just in time.
Clearing his throat, he stood up stiffly. “You’ve been doing well. I hope you find the Monitor meeting tomorrow useful.” He paused, an uncomfortable thought occurring to him. “…Don’t mention this. We both know it’s nothing, but others might not.”
She nodded again, short and sharp, and he could see that his warning had registered.
He excused himself, retreating to the bedroom to gather his things. He needed to leave before her scent became too much.
7
Ellie was confused.
Even the next day, rushing to the Monitor meeting that she was already running late for, she didn’t quite understand what had happened the day before.
She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t still have a job. And yet, here she was.
After how angry Helik had been when she’d walked in on him earlier that week, firing her should have been the only choice. She’d invaded his privacy again.
But somehow, his expression had been kind. Understanding.
She didn’t like it. It felt like a trick. It was almost as if he really did have a twin that popped out of the wall just to confuse her—one with a quick temper and a blocked nose. If seeing him naked didn’t get her fired, then what would? Cleaning the heat room too well?
Her thoughts were so loud and jumbled that she barely noticed the bustle of the Senekkar as it passed by her public transport window. She still felt lost even as she rode the elevator up Kaan Tower. But then the door to the Monitor room came into view, and her quickening heartbeat cut through her thoughts.
She drew in a deep breath and held it. She had to calm down. The Monitor would be watching carefully for signs of distress, and Helik had made it clear she couldn’t talk about their… encounters. Ugh, it sounded even more sordid than it actually was.
She steeled herself, forcing her heart to calm as she approached the door and knocked cautiously.
It slid back instantly, revealing a round room with a small circle of chairs set up in the center.
A human stood by the door, her dark hair pulled up into a ponytail. Her brown eyes widened in recognition, and she looked Ellie up and down.
“Hi there,” she said. “You’re the one working for the boss guy, aren’t you?”
Ellie blinked, her heart climbing up into her throat again. “Um, yeah. I’m Ellie,” she managed to choke out.
“Cara,” said the girl. She remained in the doorway, blocking Ellie from entering. “What’s it like working for the senator? Is his house really fancy?”
“It’s an apartment,” said Ellie, not bothering to mention that it might as well have been a house for all its size. “It’s… pretty nice, yeah,” she added, then thought back to the hours she’d spent cleaning it that past week, grimacing. “So dusty, though.”
Cara smiled as if the news delighted her and finally stepped back. “Come on in, everyone’s here already.”
There was no sign of the Monitor within, and Ellie allowed herself to be led over to the circle of chairs and pushed into a seat beside Cara, peering around at the other humans. There was an even spread of men and women in all shapes and sizes, but mostly they just looked thin. The one exception was the tall man sitting opposite her. He wasn’t as tall as Helik, but he was almost as broad, and he was sitting back in his chair with his arms crossed. Even in this relaxed position, he looked like he could crush Ellie’s head in the crook of his arm, and she quickly looked away.
The other humans stared at her, some more tactfully than others, and Cara’s announcement of: “This is Ellie. She works for Senator Kaan,” drew the last few sets of eyes right to her.
She shifted in her seat, raising a hand in greeting. Was it really that big of a deal?
One girl with a brown bob of hair and tanned skin peeked around Cara, her gaze roving over Ellie as if she were looking for something. “You’re from Manufacturing, right? I thought humans that lived there had that pretty gold Dust on their skin…”
Ellie sat back a little, twisting her fingers together. She’d never heard anyone call Dust pretty before. Human skin was stained gold by the residue left behind by levekk machines, so most factory workers in Manufacturing had marks to some extent. Even Lena had golden fingertips.
But Ellie had nothing. That had always been a point of pride to her sister, proof that she’d kept her away from the harsh realities of Manufacturing.
“I didn’t work at a factory,” she explained, blinking back the thought of Lena.
“Oh, that’s right—you’re a seamstress!”
“Apprentice,” Ellie amended, ducking her head.
“Did you make that?” the girl asked, eyes wide with curiosity.
Ellie blinked down at her dress. “Yes, actually.”
The girl’s face lit up with excitement, but before she could ask any more questions, Cara cut in.
“Ellie was just telling me how dirty the senator’s place is,” she said, leaning into the circle conspiratorially, and Ellie blanched.
“I didn’t say ‘dirty’—”
“Pfft, don’t worry about it! We’re all human here. I mean,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper and making the others lean in to hear, “my levekk’s place is an absolute sty. I swear I found scales stuck to the chem-shower walls!”
There was a chorus of disgusted noises from some of the others, and Ellie glanced around at them. Only the big guy looked unfazed. He sent her a look when he noticed her watching him, raising an eyebrow as if to say, Can you believe them?
Ellie held back a laugh, and was rescued from having to reply by the door snapping open behind her.
She and the other humans turned in unison, their eyes widening when a levekk walked in. She was obviously female, her shoulders narrower and her skull more streamlined than a male’s, but any other differences were hidden beneath her clothes, which were pure white and fitted tightly around her body. The thick material covered almost every inch of her, encasing her crested head, gripping tight to her slender waist and reaching down to the knuckles on her hands and feet. The only things left visible were her face and her wicked claws, and she grasped a large datapad gently between the latter.
Ellie suddenly felt nervous. For some reason, she’d expected their Monitor to be a cicarian or some other species, not an actual levekk. The Monitor gazed steadily at them as she took her seat in the circle, barely blinking.
“Good morning, everyone. Thank you for coming.”
Her voice was soothing despite its raspy edge, and although Ellie tried to let it offset the levekk’s stern appearance, she couldn’t quite escape the tense feeling she had. After Helik, she didn’t know what to think about levekk and their moods.
“I know you all want to enjoy your first day off, so we’ll keep this session short,” said the Monitor. She crossed her legs, flexing her claws. “Welcome to the Human Integration Program. I am Silis, and I will be your Monitor for the next three months. My role is to help you transition to Senekkar life as smoothly as possible, listen to any complaints you may have about your workplace or employer, and to keep your employer accountable for your wellbeing. Any questions?”
Silence dominated the room, and Ellie saw a few of the humans staring at the Monitor with wide, terrified eyes.
“Why don’t we introduce ourselves and give our first impressions on our workplaces?” said the Monitor, and gestured to the large man sitting across from Ellie. “Would you like to start?”
He nodded, finally uncrossing his arms. “I’m Scott, I work for Devis Sidana, and her residence is a trip hazard.” A few nervous giggles sounded out around the circle, and he grinned. “She keeps making me move stuff around—I can’t leave my room at night, or I’ll go tumbling over a misplaced sofa.”
More laughter, and the Monitor nodded serene
ly at him. “Are you unsatisfied with the working conditions?”
Scott’s eyebrow jumped. “Uh, no. I was just making a joke.”
“I’m glad you’re satisfied.”
The levekk’s face remained unchanged, and Ellie felt a lance of discomfort run through her. She almost wished the Monitor was angry, like Helik, because the lack of emotion on her face was even creepier.
The girl with the brown bob—Anna, she learned—was next, and it turned out she worked for a levekk accountant in a quiet corner of the Senekkar.
“She, uh… She gets kind of mad sometimes,” said Anna, her eyes on her lap. “She’s got a lot of rules.”
“Are you unsatisfied with the working conditions?” the Monitor asked again, her tone identical to when she’d questioned Scott.
The color drained from Anna’s face as she looked up at the Monitor, her hands fisting on her knees. “Oh. No…”
“I’m glad you’re satisfied.”
They moved around the circle, and Ellie soon lost track of the names and faces. When they arrived at her though, she knew the others would have no such problem. Their gazes zeroed in on her with a frightening intensity as she gave a quick account of her week, being careful not to mention either of her run-ins with Helik. It felt far safer to simply say, “I didn’t see him much.”
She was glad to hand the metaphorical mic to Cara, who announced smoothly: “Hi, my name’s Cara. I work for Kira Celesk—the kerfaan—and I’m very happy with the conditions.”
There was no mention of her complaints from earlier, and Ellie found her gaze cutting to Scott in disbelief. He was sending her a similar look, his eyebrows hiked up high.
The session ended quickly once the final human introduced themselves, and the Monitor rose regally from her chair.
“Thank you for attending. These sessions are for your benefit, and they are compulsory, so I hope to see you all next week for a refresher and then every fortnight after that.”
Ellie couldn’t wait to escape the Monitor’s cold gaze, and she wasn’t the only one. She found herself being herded quickly into the corridor by the small rush to exit the Monitor room, and was happy to go along for the ride. Some people hung back, making friends and plans, but Ellie chose not to linger. There’d be time for socializing next week.
Today, she wanted to explore.
She dashed out of the building and into the warmth of a Senekkar winter’s day, excitement budding in her chest. She looked around, wondering which direction to head in first, but paused as she caught sight of a retreating back.
Squinting against the glare, she realized that it was Scott, the huge human from the Monitor meeting. He was walking quickly down the street with his hands in his pockets, seemingly in a rush, so Ellie didn’t call out to him. She wondered where he could possibly need to be before remembering that she herself had raced to get outside.
She was about to start her own journey when a bright voice called from behind her, “Ellie!”
She blinked, turning to find Cara and Anna stepping out of the building.
“You rushed off,” said Cara, and Ellie felt her cheeks warm.
“I just, really want to go look around the Senekkar,” she explained. “I might’ve gotten a little excited.”
“Ooh, me too!” said Anna, her eyes crinkling with the force of her smile. “I wanna see what the heck people do in the Senekkar. What they buy, what they wear…”
“Should we all go, then?” Cara glanced between them, her smile lazy.
Ellie nodded, a tentative smile crossing her features. “Sure.”
The three of them picked a random direction and started walking, and between Cara’s questions about their bosses and Anna’s unending enthusiasm for everything that passed them by, Ellie barely counted the hours.
This was what she’d come to the Senekkar for, she thought. Not cleaning, not trying to preempt the levekk’s volatile moods.
Instead, she let the other humans’ endless chatter wash over her and did her best not to think about Helik Kaan.
8
Ellie grunted as she entered the heat room, hauling a large machine behind her. There was no risk of damaging the carpet on the upper landing, since the machine hovered a few inches above the ground at all times, but somehow that didn’t stop it from being heavy, and Ellie’s arms ached from lugging it down even the short stretch of hallway between the upstairs supplies closet and where she stood.
She winced when it banged into the doorway, echoing throughout the penthouse. She held her breath, her shoulders stuck somewhere up around her ears as she waited.
It was the last day of her second week at Helik’s, and the levekk had been working from home for half that time. She tried to work as quietly as possible in an effort not to disturb him, fearing another eruption of anger like that first day.
Except, it hadn’t happened again. In fact, he seemed to be trying to be… nice. He’d spoken to her, fleetingly, chewing on a protein bar while she ate breakfast in the kitchen a couple of times, his voice quiet as he attempted to breathe as little as possible. And their conversations had been… polite. Civil. Awkward as hell, but she was starting to think that was Helik’s default around her.
She knew it was silly to hold onto her fear. But when he charmed her one day and blew her off the next, it was difficult to find her footing within the strange little household they’d created. Especially when it seemed like he was forcing himself to be around her, his bearing tense and his face pinched.
If she was that gross to be around, why even bother?
Not that she was complaining. Because if she was honest with herself, she enjoyed the chance to look at him. The more she did, the less strange his crooked legs and mushroom-like brow plate seemed, and the more she could appreciate the way his jackets tapered in just so at his narrow waist.
She shook her head, her cheeks heating. Noticing such things was a bad idea—dangerous, even. Everybody knew that levekk were off-limits to sub-species, and especially humans. Everyone had heard the stories.
Stories that humans and levekk were… compatible. In more ways than one. Ellie had heard the whispered gossip in the clothier’s while she hemmed skirts and darned work clothes. Human women insinuating awful things about a girl two streets over who was mysteriously promoted by upper management at her factory before falling pregnant, but whose child was never seen after she carried it to term. Nasty rumors about what happened to humans in the pleasure quarters who weren’t careful.
Lena had never believed the stories when Ellie mentioned them to her, and Augusta had only choked out a sound of disgust and said that, true or not, it was all the more reason to stay away from the levekk.
Ellie had decided it couldn’t be true—she would have seen a hybrid if it was. And it was unusual enough to see inter-species relationships between different sub-species that she’d suspected any kind of action between a human and a levekk was impossible. They were so alien, after all.
But then she’d seen the way Lena and her levekk looked at each other. Touched each other.
And sometimes, she caught Helik… watching her.
Usually, the glances were discreet: a swift up-and-down of her as she sat at the kitchen counter, or a brief stare at her hands as she wrung out a sponge (which had happened just the day before, and she hadn’t been prepared for his surprise at the fact that she cleaned things with water rather than chemicals sometimes). Sometimes, the looks were just curious, which she couldn’t fault him for—she found herself sneaking enough of those looks herself when all six and a half feet of him walked into a room. But at other times, his eyes had that hungry glint to them that she’d noticed on the first day, and her heart would tap faster and her legs would go to jelly.
Could he be… attracted to her?
“Stop thinking about it,” she muttered to herself, gripping the machine a little tighter and forcing it through the door to the heat room.
He couldn’t be interested. The levekk barely saw s
ub-species as people, according to Augusta, let alone as potential partners.
But then again, Helik was trying to secure them better rights. Maybe he saw them as equals, deep down.
She shook her head emphatically and pushed the machine into the center of the room. She couldn’t read into things. She had to keep her head down.
The machine hummed where it hovered, a couple of lights on the side blinking every now and then. Helik had called it a ‘burnisher’ when he’d turned it on, instructing her to run it over the tiles in the heat room before disappearing into his office. All of the tiles—from floor to ceiling.
She looked up with trepidation. Nothing had felt so alien as this heat room in the entirety of her time in the Senekkar. Small, round tiles covered the floor, the walls, and the ceiling, all painted in a dusky orange that made Ellie think of the desert, even though she’d never been. In the room’s center was the huge, yellowish sphere, and the walls were lined with metal benches.
But there was nothing to plug the machine into and nothing to keep it attached to the ceiling that she could see. She briefly wondered whether the entire thing would crash down on her head once she got it up there but pushed the worry aside.
There were a series of buttons and dials on the side of the burnisher to control things like temperature and sanding strength. She’d understood from Helik’s rushed explanation that the thing was supposed to polish the tiles, scraping away any excess scales that may have fallen—her nose wrinkled at that thought—and filling in any damage to the surface, but looking at it, she couldn’t see how the machine was meant to do any of that.
She knelt down on the floor, peering up under the chassis. The machine was still floating far enough from the ground that the bottom would never touch the tiles, and she couldn’t see anything that looked at all like sandpaper underneath it. So how was it supposed to work?