It was Friday night, and Lois made sure to finish on time because she had a date.
His name was Rico and this was their third date and she liked him, maybe even enough for a fourth date. He was handsome and independent and he made her laugh. She was attracted to him physically, she just needed to figure out whether her heart was in it too. That was what tonight was about, getting her hands on him, and tomorrow morning she would know whether or not he made the cut.
For the first time in a long time, Lois went straight home after work. She made a quick dinner, showered, and pulled out one of her favourite dresses. It was red and sleeveless, with a delicate gold chain as a belt. It was tight enough to show her figure but not her flaws, and it was suggestive without being scandalous. They were going for dinner and drinks afterwards, so she needed to look nice for the fancy restaurant, but the dress needed to get his attention and hold it. This dress did all that. This was her red dress, her “I want to have sex” dress.
She styled her hair and put on glamourous makeup and lingerie and heels. She wore heels and makeup to work every day, but this was different. This was about being a different woman than she was every other day. She wanted a man to take her home tonight, and she slipped a couple of condoms into her designer clutch bag on her way out.
She took public transport into the city. The sun hadn’t set yet, but it was thinking about it, the thin clouds over the city starting to fade into pink and gold over the bay. She arrived at the restaurant after Rico did, and smiled as she saw him at a table for two. He stood up to kiss her cheek, and she noted the nice suit, the nice hair, the fresh shave, and the light cologne. She liked him alright. He was damn near perfect.
“You look beautiful,” Rico told her.
“Thanks,” she said, giving her hair a flirty toss. “You look good too. New suit?”
He laughed. “Almost. New dress?”
“Almost,” she teased.
They read the menu and ordered wine. They talked about work, all the things Lois was allowed to talk about anyway. Rico filled her wine glass then his own. Neither of them was in a particular hurry to order. Lois was excited, and letting her bare leg fall against his was looking like a better idea with every passing second, when her Gadgit rang. She smiled apologetically and ducked to dig it out of her bag.
“It’s work,” she said, surprised and slightly alarmed. She didn’t recognise the extension. They shouldn’t be calling her, but maybe one of the other intake officers had misplaced their keys, or wanted to double check something with her.
“Lois Kennedy speaking,” she answered, wondering what could be going on.
A male voice cleared his throat on the other end with a strange croak. “Lois, it is Zir.”
Lois’s face immediately collapsed into a scowl. Now she was pissed her date was being interrupted. She must have looked fierce because Rico raised his eyebrows and took a sip of wine, and she gave him an apologetic look and forced her expression to relax.
“What is it?” she asked.
“You must come to the DETI building,” he said.
Lois took a calming breath in through her nose, then slowly out through her mouth. If he wanted her signature or something he was going to have to wait until tomorrow. “Why?”
“A dropship has delivered another group of refugees.”
“What?! Why? No one was scheduled!”
“The pilot would not wait.”
Lois gripped the table tight. They had had this problem before, Rhacahr pilots playing fast and loose with landing schedules. They never wanted to wait, they always wanted to just unload and turn around. They knew once the passengers were on the ground, humans would help them. Lois and her team had complained about it before but the pilots never listened.
She understood that it was difficult to time the arrival of a massive transport ship to the hour across thousands of lightyears, but would it kill them to orbit for an hour or two to let the offices get ready? At least to make sure the offices were even open! Normally the arrivals were maybe a day late or early. This one was completely out of the blue.
Lois hesitated. Her heart went out to the passengers, but tonight was her night off. They had a rota of officers on call for emergencies and it wasn’t her turn.
“I have plans, can’t someone else come in? I think Wei is on call tonight.”
“The passengers are waiting in the loading bay. The pilot has already left.”
“You’re kidding me!”
“No, I am not.”
“How many are there?”
“It is unclear. Security estimate between eighty and a hundred and twenty.”
Lois groaned, feeling like screaming at the pilot for doing that to those poor people. Had they no idea at all of what happened on the ground? It infuriated her, the callousness of it. She noticed she was attracting the attention of the patrons at the tables around her and squirmed, reminding herself to be quiet.
Lois lowered her head into her hand. There was only one thing she could do. She had to go into work. She couldn’t let them spend the night in the loading bay, they would be crammed in there like sardines, they wouldn’t all have room to even sit let alone lie down and sleep.
“Okay, I’m coming. Tell Security I’m coming,” she said.
Rico gave her a questioning tilt of his head and she felt terrible. Not only was she losing out on the evening she had planned, she was standing him up too. He’d evidently made an effort to impress her and had organised a beautiful evening for them both.
She ended her call with Zir. “I have to go into work. There’s been an emergency.”
Something like frustration or resignation flittered across Rico’s face but he looked away from her, fiddling with his cutlery. “An emergency, huh?” he said.
Lois paused in gathering her things. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing. Just that this is the third time we’ve re-organised this dinner.”
“It’s not my fault! I would much rather stay here with you, I want to stay here with you, but I can’t. They need me at work.”
“It’s Friday night, Lois.”
“So?”
“So it’s the weekend. You’re off the clock.”
Lois fell back against her chair. “I said it’s an emergency.”
“And no one else can do it? Just you?”
“Why are you being like this?”
“I’m not being like anything, I’m just saying, this is our third date in two months. The first time we’ve actually sat down to dinner. We’ve never been able to meet up without you rescheduling or cancelling or showing up late.”
“You’ve sure formed a strong opinion of me based on two dates.”
“You’re the one who told me if a relationship is worth having, it’s worth fighting for.”
“I don’t want to argue like this now.”
“Me neither. I think that’s the problem.”
For a second, they sat in silence, letting that sink in.
“I thought you liked me,” Lois said before she could stop herself.
“I like you when you’re there.”
“…Shit.” That hurt. And all the while she was being dumped, upwards of eighty scared and confused refugees were being held in a small bare corridor on the other side of bulletproof glass. “Rico, I have to go to work, can we talk about this later?”
“No, sorry.”
“Fine.” Lois snatched up her bag and left the restaurant. She was hurt and that made her angry. She flagged one of the many cabs circulating the restaurant district and directed it to the DETI building, fuming.
What did he know about her? Her job was important. She had never disrespected him, never stood him up. Sure, she could remember cancelling or rescheduling a few times, but she wasn’t as bad as he made her sound, was she?
Shit. She’d liked him, more than any man she’d dated in a while. And now he didn’t want to see her anymore, didn’t want to hear from her again, all because Zir ignored the rota a
nd called her, then guilted her into going back to work at 8pm on a Friday. Where did he get her private number anyway?
She stewed on it for the duration of the cab ride, feeling upset about Rico, and mad as hell about Zir, until she couldn’t see a way in which it wasn’t Zir’s fault she had just been dumped. By the time she arrived at the DETI building, she found it hard to be courteous to the driver as she paid him and avoid slamming his door. She stomped up the steps and through the lobby.
When the security guard saw her he called out, “You look nice, Lois.”
“Not tonight, Ronaldos,” she cursed. She chucked her bag at him and walked through the scanner, waiting for her bag on the other side. Perhaps sensing her mood, Ronaldos did not waste time or try for friendly small talk. He searched her bag quickly and handed it to her. She took it and moved to hammer the elevator button instead.
When she got to her floor and down the hall to the Intake Office, she saw Zir and Tol were inside waiting for her. She shouldered the door open, ready to just get it over with. Tol put the custody papers down on the desk and she began signing them without a word.
She almost felt worse now she could sense their eyes on her. She knew what she looked like. She had never come to work dressed like this before. It was obvious she’d been pulled out of a date.
It was inappropriate and unprofessional to give an orientation dressed like she was going to a party, but she grit her teeth against the blush and, to her surprise, tears. It was their fault she wasn’t dressed appropriately. Didn’t they expect her to have a private social life? Had Zir phoned her because, out of the whole Intake team, he thought her the most likely to be sitting at home with nothing to do on a Friday evening?
“That outfit is not suitable for the office.”
Lois’ hand paused as she doubted her ears. Had Zir really just said that to her?
“It shows too much of your body. And those shoes do not look stable enough to walk in.”
Lois pushed herself up from leaning over the desk. Her hands were in fists and the pen dug into her fingers. She looked at his blank scaly face, and his yellow eyes. He was looking at her for once, but then, as always, his pupils split into two as if he couldn’t meet her stare.
“I wasn’t in the office, was I?” she ground out. He dared criticise her outfit? The night she got dumped?
He sensibly did not answer her rhetorical question, and a second later she went back to signing and dating the papers.
“You smell. Like… flowers.”
Lois tensed, nostrils flaring in anger. Was he going to keep pushing her? Did he want to fight? She told herself to be professional. It was just one night. They didn’t work together all the time. It wouldn’t do her any good to attack him, verbally or physically. She didn’t want to be called into her boss’s office. Fighting with Zir now wouldn’t be worth being taken off the orientation rota until she completed the next available conflict resolution course.
“Zir,” Tol broke in quietly. “I think she is probably wearing perfume.”
“I’m done,” Lois interrupted them both, ending the discussion of how she looked and smelled. She handed Tol the necessary pages, then grabbed a clipboard and a stack of forms for the new arrivals. “Let’s get this over with.”
Down in the Arrivals hall, she could see the dark mass of bodies on the other side of the frosted glass. She took a deep breath in through her nose and out through her mouth, and then another one. She tugged her dress down and flipped her hair over her shoulder. Then she got her smile on, and gave the security team the nod.
The glass doors opened and the Teissian passengers began to walk through, spilling out into the hall around her. “Welcome! Welcome! Please fill the space, I know there is a lot of you and you’ve been kept waiting, but we’re all ready to get you sorted out and settled into your new home.
“Now, my name is Lois Kennedy, you can call me Lois or Miss Kennedy, and I am an Intake Officer here at the Department of Extra-Terrestrial Immigration. You have arrived in the state of California, in the United States of America, a member of the United Nations of Earth, and you have nothing to be afraid of...”
The orientation took hours. A group that size would normally be split between at least two officers, and even hurrying, cutting out the fluff and the buffet which they did not have prepared, Lois wasn’t finished until three in the morning. She had alerted the various Teissian Community Leaders in the dorms to receive the new arrivals, and organised a delivery of food there for them, which had not been easy at that time of night, after which she felt she had done all she could do without collapsing. She was exhausted.
She collected her bag from her office and locked the immigration forms in her desk. They would have to wait until Monday. She had taken her heels off the second the group were out of sight and no longer her responsibility. Her knees ached, and the carpet both prickled and felt like heaven as she hobbled down the corridor. She’d call her boss tomorrow to fill her in and talk over what should happen next, but right then, she was just so glad it was Saturday. If it wasn’t the weekend, she’d call in sick.
The cold marble of the lobby really was bliss, but the damp stone outside was rougher. It made no difference as Lois doubted her feet would fit back into her shoes at this point. She sat on the wall that ran perpendicular to the stairs and kicked her feet as she called for a cab. When she hung up, she tipped her head back and closed her eyes, swaying and jerking up as she almost fell asleep on the spot. That had been dangerous. If she fell asleep she would fall. She resigned herself to keeping her eyes open.
She flinched as she noticed someone standing on the steps next to her. It was Zir, his arms folded as he stared out across the plaza.
“What are you still doing here?” she asked. He could have gone home hours ago. She didn’t even know why he had been at work to call her about the drop so late.
He didn’t look across at her. Instead he just stared straight ahead, yellow eyes tight as he rasped out “It’s cold.”
Lois frowned. The first Volin he had ever voluntarily spoken to her, and he was telling her it was cold?
“I’m sorry?”
“It’s cold,” he repeated, this time loosening his arms so that they hung by his sides, held out from his body awkwardly. Lois thought she could see the glinting membrane of his wings, half-deployed, a patchy bronze colour like a camouflage version of his feathers.
Lois looked out into the plaza. It hadn’t rained, but a thin dew or vapour carried from the fountain in front of the building made it glisten faintly in the streetlight. Was it cold? Not really. It was the middle of the night, but it was also California, less than twenty miles from the Mexican border.
“Is it?” She looked at him, and he turned to look at her. She watched his eyes, waiting for his pupils to separate as she failed to hold his focus yet again. She wondered what he saw when they did that. Was she just a talking blur to him most of the time? He blinked but he stayed focused on her. She frowned, confused. What was different this time?
“I’m not cold,” she said in the end. Maybe it was another crack at her dress.
Zir blinked again at her reply, looking away and folding his arms. Lois heard tires against the road and watched as her taxi pulled up. When she turned back to say goodbye to Zir, he was gone.
Chapter 6
When Lois walked into the office on Monday, hot coffee cup in her hand from the café downstairs, the first thing she heard was “So how was your date with Mr. Perfect?”
Susan watched her expectantly from her desk, her excited expression clearly indicating that she thought it would have gone well. The desk next to Susan, which belonged to a man named Jared who split his time between San Diego and Denver, had two Volin legs sticking out from under it, and Lois recognised Ty from IT kneeling next to them, passing tools to Zir as he lay covered in wires.
Lois smiled at Susan, but it wasn’t a happy smile. Lois wasn’t livid anymore. She had had time over the weekend for the anger to fad
e and be replaced by disappointment. She had slept late and stayed in her pyjamas, eating a store-brand cheesecake out of the tray at her lowest ebb, mooning over pictures of Rico on his dating profiles. It hadn’t been pretty. But that morning she had showered, done her hair and make-up, dressed for work, and felt like her old self again.
“You haven’t heard about what happened on Friday?” Lois replied.
“No, what?”
“A group of a hundred people from Teiss were dumped in the loading bay by the pilot and I had to come in and process them. I was here until 3am,” Lois told her, and Susan gasped theatrically. “I got the call before we’d even ordered.”
“Oh no…” Susan wailed.
While Lois waited for her system to boot up and to log in to all her programmes, she filled Susan in on her date and what Rico had said. Susan commiserated with her a gratifying amount, and finished by dragging Rico, a man she had never met, through the mud. Lois tried to absorb it and make herself feel better, but she had met Rico, so it was hard not to regret losing him.
Sitting at her desk, Lois couldn’t see Zir and forgot he was there, until he sat up with a frown.
“Explain what you are talking about,” he demanded.
Lois hesitated, embarrassed, but Susan jumped right in. “Lois had a date on Friday but she had to leave to come to work and the guy said he didn’t want to see her anymore.”
Lois cringed. Susan knew how she felt about Zir, but had just told him she got dumped anyway.
Zir’s eyes flicked between Lois and Susan. “Explain a date, please,” he said.
“Oh, a date is when people get together to see if they like each other,” Susan explained.
“Why?” questioned Zir.
“Um, well… If they go on enough dates, and decide that they like each other enough, they might get married,” Susan elaborated. “Didn’t they cover this stuff in your Earth cultures lessons?”
“So Lois was meeting a male she wished to mate with?” Zir summarised. Ty laughed, and Zir frowned. “Is that wrong?”
“Jesus! Can we not talk about this, maybe?” Lois cut in.
The E.T. Guy (Office Aliens Book 1) Page 4