by Lea Linnett
Rising to her feet, she inspected the panel of buttons. The labels were written in Trade, and her heart sank. She could read it, but it wasn’t a skill she practiced often. At home, she often wrote her notes in Yumin Tok, the human language that she spoke with Lena and Augusta. Even with her wristlet, she relied mostly on the images and graphics to find what she needed.
But the burnisher was a whole other level of complicated.
She leaned in close, concentrating hard to sound out each word. After a while, she found a button with the word ‘Deploy’ written neatly underneath, but when she pressed it, the burnisher only buzzed, vibrating once and then beeping unhappily at her.
She tried again, this time turning each of the dials up to a higher setting before hitting the button, but apart from an extra whir, the response was the same.
Ellie frowned, placing her hands on her hips. If she were with Augusta, she would have asked for help, but the only option here was Helik, and she wasn’t going to risk her job by knocking on that office door. Roia had said it was off-limits, and Ellie didn’t want to test what that meant, especially after the last two times she’d broken the rules.
So she hit a few buttons, some of them at random, and turned the dials up a little higher. Maybe they simply weren’t registering, after all. Not for the first time since arriving in the Senekkar, she found herself wishing Lena was there. Lena would have deduced the function of every button on this thing in a matter of seconds, and it would be bumbling around the room doing its job in no time at all.
“Goddammit!” she cursed when still nothing happened. It was just a glorified mop—how could it be so complicated? She huffed out a sigh, quickly losing her patience.
After minutes of fighting with the machine, she finally noticed a button she hadn’t tried yet. She squinted at it. She was pretty sure it said ‘Leg Extension,’ which didn’t make much sense to her, but nothing else was working, so she hit it anyway. To her delight, the burnisher buzzed again, and before her eyes, a mechanical arm appeared at the bottom of the device, connecting to the floor with a soft thunk.
This was it! This was the last step. Ellie drew in a deep breath, preparing herself to try one more time. If it still didn’t work, she could go and clean something else. Maybe she could catch Helik when he took a break or something and ask him how it worked.
But she was sure she’d cracked it, so she reached forward, pressing the ‘Deploy’ button with bated breath.
She wasn’t prepared for the loud grating sound that erupted from the burnisher. It rattled violently, lowering itself further towards the floor, and Ellie thought she might be in luck. A looped tube at the top of the device rapidly filled with bright pink liquid, vibrating slightly as it fed back into the machine halfway down. At the bottom, the arm-like extension skated across the floor in tight circles, a soapy pink lather developing as it brushed against the tile.
A cautious smile wormed its way onto Ellie’s face. She’d done it! She’d successfully worked out how to use her first bit of weird levekk technology. Well, second, if you counted her arguments with her wristlet as ‘using’ it. She clapped her hands together, ready to celebrate, but then the machine made another awful grating noise.
She stepped back, her face falling, and noticed the tube at the top of the burnisher start to shake harder. The pink liquid was bubbling, the tube rattling now, and Ellie blanched. She rocketed forward, hitting the ‘Deploy’ button again in hopes of turning the machine off before it exploded, but nothing happened. The burnisher continued to groan and shudder, the tube wobbling.
She’d just decided it was time to run when the tube snapped free of its socket, and a cascade of pink and white liquid flew up into the air.
It came down around Ellie in a waterfall of color, drenching her in seconds. She stumbled away from the device, feeling the liquid bubble strangely on her skin, and before she could stop it, a scream escaped her. She wiped at the liquid, terrified that it was going to burn her, and staggered towards the door.
She didn’t hear his footsteps thundering along the hallway, but she did hear Helik’s garbled shout sound from the doorway right as a glob of the pink fluid smacked her in the face. Temporarily blinded and deafened, Ellie clawed at her face, pushing her soaked hair out of her eyes.
When she blinked them open, it was to see Helik fiddling with the burnisher, flicking a large kill switch hidden away at the bottom of the machine. Oh, she thought.
A chill ran up Ellie’s spine as the room went silent, the machine finally coming to a standstill, hovering sedately a few inches above the ground. She stared at the pink liquid now dripping off herself and her surroundings, realizing now that whatever it was, it wasn’t melting her skin off.
Her eyes fell to the floor as Helik turned, surer than she’d ever been in her life that she was about to be fired. Surely this had to be it. The final straw.
The huge alien stalked towards her, his arms outstretched, and she flinched. Maybe she was going to be more than fired.
But then a large hand wrapped around her upper arm, and another swiped a glob of pink suds from the top of her head. She looked up, stunned, to find the levekk gazing down at her with a stricken expression, his icy blue eyes tight with concern.
“Are you all right?”
She blinked up at him, speechless.
“Is your skin fine? I have no idea what this stuff could do to humans.”
She looked down at her sodden arms and the pink, sticky fluid that was now drying there. No burning, no tingling. She was just drenched. “I-I’m fine,” she managed.
The levekk’s taut frame softened as he sighed with relief.
Ellie would have followed suit if it weren’t for the one clawed thumb that brushed soothingly down her arm. The strange, hard digit slid easily through the soapy liquid on her skin and sent a thrill up her spine, his touch electric. It made her skin tingle worse than the burnisher fluid had, and she glanced up at the levekk, wondering if he felt it too. But he was busy looking around the room at the mess, as if he’d forgotten he was holding her.
He was… touching her. Was that allowed? Ellie knew she should step away, but couldn’t quite bring herself to.
Instead, she asked, “Aren’t you… mad?”
Helik’s eyes drifted back to hers, and only then did he seem to realize how close they were. His hands dropped, and he cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Accidents happen. I should have realized that you’d be… unfamiliar. With the technology.”
His gaze had caught on something, his eyes roving Ellie’s midriff, and she looked down to find the usually loose material clinging to her under the weight of the liquid, her skin showing through the white fabric. She crossed her arms on instinct, an embarrassed flush lighting up her face. Thank god she’d worn a bra, she thought.
Helik stepped back, averting his gaze, and Ellie felt a peculiar sense of disappointment at the loss of attention.
“I’m so sorry about the room, sir. I-I’ll clean all this up, I swear.”
“It’s fine,” the levekk grunted. “Just, go change first.” His voice sounded strained as he backed up towards the door, his eyes glued to the wet tiles at his feet. “I’ll write up some instructions for the machine for you.”
“Th-thank you,” she said, but the alien was already retreating out the door, his bare claws clacking on the tile. She didn’t bother to tell him that written instructions wouldn’t help. Maybe she could match the letters to the buttons or something.
Ellie was left frozen and blinking, the burnisher soap feeling uncomfortably sticky as it dried onto her skin. Relief washed over her at having escaped the encounter mostly unscathed. She’d thought for sure that she was done for there.
And Helik had… held her.
Her heart skipped, and she backed away from the door, clutching at her arms where his claws had rested.
But she was wrenched from her thoughts by the sight of the heat room. Pink suds now clung to every available surface—even the ceil
ing—making her groan. This was going to be hellish to clean.
She didn’t allow herself to dwell on Helik’s strange reaction as she pulled off her soaked shoes and wrung out her clothing as best she could, and instead cursed at the machine that now lay still and silent in the center of the room. With a long-suffering sigh, she left the heat room, dashing along the mezzanine to try and avoid leaving puddles of pink in her wake.
---
Safely back in his office, Helik gripped the arms of his chair and tried to ignore the burn of his half-awakened arousal in his trousers.
Shame coursed through him, darker and hotter than any warmth from the heat room or the sun. He squeezed his eyes shut, willing the uncomfortable weight between his legs to lessen.
Why was he acting this way? What was it about this girl that had him reacting like a lustful adolescent?
He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, trying to affect a veneer of calm, but while his erection flagged, it did nothing to stop the rapid beating of his heart. He leaned over, placing his plated head in his hands. Hadn’t it been long enough? Did he still not have enough practice at keeping his desires in check?
Maybe that was the problem. Maybe years without release had created something monstrous inside of him.
He scoffed, rising abruptly from his chair.
That was ridiculous. He had no other options, so doubting his choice would get him nowhere. There was no way for him to sate his desire that wouldn’t risk someone else’s safety. He could never put that on someone else. It wouldn’t be right.
But that didn’t change the fact that this girl had an unprecedented effect on him. Every encounter dragged him deeper into a tangled web of desire, binding him tightly to cravings that he thought he’d long since overcome.
He wished he could break free of it—cut the threads and escape—but he couldn’t. He couldn’t leave; his money was tied up in the campaign, and if the tabloids found out he wasn’t even living in the apartment he’d appointed a human to clean, it would bring the program’s efficacy into question. Ellie couldn’t be removed for the same reason.
Besides, he wasn’t even sure if he could bring himself to leave.
Ellie was magnetic. His ears followed her footsteps, even when she was in another room. His eyes found hers whenever they came across each other. And her skin…
He sighed shakily, remembering the softness of it beneath his fingers as he held her.
Oh, fuck. He’d held her. Once again, his blood began to flow southward, and he bit back a groan of disgust.
He needed to get a handle on this. Needed to keep himself under control.
He didn’t need the scandal that one bad decision could bring with it. He didn’t want the hurt. And not just for himself.
The last thing he wanted was to involve the human. This had nothing to do with her and everything to do with his own deviance. He couldn’t infect her with it.
He pressed his palm to the glass window and let the coolness seep through his body.
The urge to touch himself was intense, the need for relief undeniable, and he swallowed. No one would be able to see him through the one-way glass, even if they stuck a camera on a drone and hovered it two feet from the building, but this was about more than potential embarrassment.
He couldn’t give in to this. No matter how sticky the web felt.
He needed to know he was better than this, and that he wasn’t as sick to the core as he feared.
He needed to get clean.
Growling warningly to himself, he approached the door and listened for any movement in the hallway. He opened it cautiously, before reminding himself that this was his fucking house and he should stop being so pathetic. Squaring his shoulders, he marched down the hall towards his room, forcing himself to spare not even the faintest glance for the heat room or the human who was no doubt working inside.
9
“So do you think many people will show up?”
Cara raised her eyebrows at Anna. “It’s on them if they don’t. I know I want to see what a Senekkar dance hub looks like. What about you, you excited?”
The taller girl nudged Ellie, who gave her an owlish look. Her heart had picked up the pace once they caught sight of the hub from down the street, but she hadn’t quite worked out whether it was from fear or excitement.
Lena never let her go to hubs. Not the big ones, at least. The biggest one she’d been to was about a quarter of the size of the towering building they now stood in front of and nowhere near as loud.
“I am excited,” she said, convincing herself as much as Cara. She was determined to face her fears—and maybe a drink or two would get Helik off her mind for a few precious hours.
She’d been turning the incident with the burnisher over in her mind relentlessly since it happened the day before, and she needed a break. She didn’t want to feel the spot on her arm tingling where his thumb had caressed her, or think about the worried look in his eye.
“Shall we go in?” she said, grinning at the other two girls.
The hub was noisy, even from the outside, although it lacked the usual drapery of drunkards and deadbeats that adorned the hubs back in Manufacturing, and inside it was deafening. Ellie’s spirit soared despite her fatigue. After their Monitor meeting that morning, in which everyone had reported on their second week and Ellie had done her best not to mention any of her encounters with Helik, she’d gone walking with Cara and Anna again until her legs ached. But in the bustle of the hub, her exhaustion slipped away on a river of stimulation.
The lights were low, and the aliens around her were cast in a dark glow, punctuated every so often by the ultra-violet sheen of someone’s skin or the sparkle of teeth under the strobing lights. There was a bar off to one side and a small dance floor in the back corner, only half-full at this early stage in the night.
“Ooh, over there!” Anna squealed, the high pitch cutting over the music, and Ellie followed her pointing finger to the small congregation of humans already huddled around a table on one side. Some looked uncomfortable, but the majority were staring around with wide eyes.
And those stares were returned by the other patrons in the hub. The other species here had probably never seen so many humans in the Senekkar before, and their interest was obvious. A duo of cicarians peered at them from their own table, drinks paused halfway to their mouths. Elsewhere, three sets of red, xylidian eyes were trained on the group, their pitch-black bodies only visible when the strobes lit up their glossy skin like mirrors.
“Drinks!” Cara announced, bustling off as soon as they reached the table, Anna on her heels. Ellie waved hello to the other humans, sliding onto the circular seat when they made room for her. The human beside her was very tall and broad, and she recognized him as the one who’d exchanged eyerolls with her at their first meeting.
“Hi there,” she said. “It’s Scott, right?”
“Sure is.” The human’s smile was warm, softening his intimidating appearance. “You’re Ellie? You work for the boss guy.”
Ellie ducked her head, heat dusting her cheeks. She still found it odd to be recognized so easily—associations with Helik certainly did draw people’s attention. “That’s me,” she said. “Have you all been here long?”
“Nah, only half an hour. It’s kind of cool seeing everybody here. They seem more relaxed than at the meetings,” he said, taking a sip of an orange drink that sat before him and pulling a face. “Man, that’s strong.”
A laugh escaped her. “It is nice to see everyone more relaxed. Even if I can barely here them in here.”
Scott raised an eyebrow. “I take it this is bigger than the hubs back in Manufacturing?”
“A little.” She shrugged, smiling, before asking, “Are you from the Inner Districts?”
The other human cocked his head from side to side, grimacing as if she’d caught him out. “Sort of. I was born there, but I’ve spent time in a lot of places. I’m a driver.”
Ellie blinked. “A dri
ver? For who?”
He grinned. “Different people. Some have even been reputable.”
“Sounds exciting.”
“A little too exciting. And unstable, income-wise. Which is one nice thing about this program.”
Ellie nodded. “That first paycheck was more credits than I’d seen in months,” she admitted.
“Well, I think it could be more,” piped up a new voice, and Ellie blinked as a human woman suddenly leaned around Scott, threading her hands around his thick arm. “They’re working us to the bone!”
“You think so?” said Scott, quirking an eyebrow. “It’s better than a lot of jobs. You just gotta get on your knees and scrub.”
The woman sniffed. “I can think of plenty of easier things I could be doing on my knees—”
“Guys! You wouldn’t believe what we just discovered.”
A wave of relief washed over Ellie as Cara and Anna stumbled back to the table, slamming mugs of something golden and bubbly down before them. Scott immediately reached for one, and Ellie didn’t miss the way he shook off the grip of the woman on his arm.
“Human beer is a freakin’ delicacy here or something. They have it on tap!” Cara continued, squeezing in beside Ellie. Anna took a seat on the opposite side of the table, and both their gazes lingered on Scott just a little too long as he drank. He was… popular. But when Ellie tried to see what they saw, all she could think of was the flash of scales in the sunlight, a clawed thumb brushing against her skin, and she blushed.
She reached for one of the beer mugs and took a big gulp, hiding the red on her cheeks. Across the table, Anna took a sip and shuddered.
“You like this?” she asked, when Ellie came back up for air.
She grinned. “Yeah, actually.” Despite the dance hubs being mostly off-limits—although she’d tested that rule on more than one occasion over the years—Lena had sometimes brought home beer when there was cause to celebrate, and Ellie had gradually gotten used to the taste. Now it reminded her of home.
“Okay, so,” Cara interrupted, her gaze moving from Scott to the rest of the table. “I want to know everything. I think that round-the-circle, ‘What are your first impressions?’ thing they keep trying is bullshit. I wanna know what people really think.”