The E.T. Guy (Office Aliens Book 1)

by V. C. Lancaster

  Tol looked at her and sighed, dragging out a piece of the tortellini on the edge and eating it. He made a couple of unhappy chews then swallowed, shuddering in disgust and washing it down with a big swig of his lemon juice.

  “The texture is just as I expected it to be,” he commented politely, looking miserable.

  Lois laughed. “Shall I show you why humans don’t eat lemons?” she said, reaching for his glass. She had to brace herself, regretting her bravado, as she raised the glass to her face and the sting hit her nose. Still, she forced herself to take a half-mouthful.

  She had to lean away from the table as she forced herself to swallow, groaning and slapping the table as Tol laughed. Her eyes watered and she coughed. She washed the lemon juice down with her water, wiping her tears away once the taste was gone. Tol was still chuckling when a voice interrupted them.

  “What are you doing?”

  Lois looked up instinctively before realising she knew the voice, and saw Zir standing over them. He looked between her and Tol, and Lois got the impression he was angry. Her laughter died, and her frustration with him came back.

  Tol sighed. “Zir…” he began.

  “Lois, come with me,” Zir said, and Lois could barely mask her surprise. She didn’t want to gawk at him but her eyes widened. She looked to Tol for some kind of assistance or explanation.

  “We were just talking-” Tol said in Volin, but Zir placed his hand on the table, turning his body to face Lois, effectively blocking Tol from her sight.

  “Lois, I need to talk to you,” he said.

  Lois didn’t believe it for a second. He was clearly having some kind of pissing contest with Tol and she was not interested. He was broadcasting a posture of defensive male bullshit. “I’m having lunch, Zir. If you need to talk to me you can come to my office,” she said stubbornly.

  “I need to talk to you now, about work,” he amended, his eyes focused unwaveringly on her.

  Tol stood up behind him. “You have no place here,” he whispered to Zir in Volin. “She does not want to go with you.” He put his hand on Zir’s arm.

  Zir straightened and turned to face Tol, putting them almost nose to nose. Zir’s crest unfolded and Tol’s snapped up to match.

  Lois watched in baffled mortification. What the hell was this about? It was just like in the Reception room when Zir had stood between her and the newly-arrived Volin, but he could hardly think he was protecting her from Tol. He was a security guard! But they definitely looked like they were going to face-off if she didn’t stop them.

  “It’s fine, I’ll go,” Lois said hastily, pushing to her feet. She’d find out what was at the bottom of Zir’s immature tantrum, disillusion him of the idea that he had any say at all in who she could have lunch with, then come back and apologise to Tol. And if it turned out there really was some work-related issue, then she would deal with it in fifteen minutes when her break was over.

  “Come on, Zir. Tol, I’ll be back in a minute,” she said, leading Zir away, his crest lying back down.

  Tol’s also relaxed, and he called after them, “You are chasing the ground!” Lois assumed that was a Volin idiom, but she didn’t know what it meant or which of them he was talking to.

  She led them out of the canteen and into the hall, finding a spot that was quiet. “What is it?” she asked, folding her arms across her chest.

  “What were you doing with Tol?” he demanded.

  “I was having lunch,” she said.

  Zir still didn’t relax, the ridge of his crest fluttering like a pulse. His yellow eyes were on her, still focused, and she was slightly unnerved by the direct stare, knowing he was really looking at her for once.

  “He’s my friend, he was helping me practice my Volin,” she added, made uncomfortable by the silence as Zir didn’t reply.

  “You should not do that,” Zir said at last, as if he had just remembered he could contribute to this conversation.

  “Why not?” Lois asked, affronted, but now wondering if Zir knew something about Tol that she didn’t.

  Zir seemed to shake himself, standing straighter with his shoulders back and his chin up. “I will help you,” he decreed.

  Lois scoffed. “You? You refuse to speak Volin to me, or let me speak it to you. You always just remind me that you speak English, which I know, by the way. How are you supposed to help me? We don’t talk as it is.”

  “If you need help, you will come to me,” he insisted.

  “No. I decide who I hang out with, Zir. Who I eat lunch with, and who I talk to, is none of your business. It never has been. I knew you didn’t really need to talk to me about work. Don’t pull this shit again, it’s not funny,” she finished, turning to go back to Tol.

  He caught her arm, his grip awkward and light as he tried not to prick her with his claws.

  “Wait,” he said.

  She turned on her heel to face him, pulling her arm free and pushing her hair out of her face. “What is it now?” she demanded. “I want to go back to my lunch.”

  Zir was looking at the floor and he made a short, hissing rasp that she understood to be him clearing his throat, and his crest went up again, the long bronze feathers catching the light.

  “Do not go to Tol,” he said. “If you want a mate… I will be your mate.” He said the last in a firmer tone, though it sounded like forced bravery rather than real courage as he made himself look at her, forcing his shoulders back.

  Lois looked at him, waiting in confusion for the other shoe to drop. When no punchline came, she realised he was serious. Bewildered, she replied “What? Zir, we hate each other.”

  She thought he flinched and, worried now, the words spilled from her as she tried to make it better.

  “I mean, come on, right? We hate each other. You’re rude, you talk to me like my very existence offends you, you don’t even focus on me when you look at me. You make me feel like a boring idiot every time you come to fix my computer. You boss me around all the time. You don’t smile at me. You don’t like me, Zir. I know you don’t, so it’s okay, you know?” She laughed. “You don’t have to make any great sacrifices on my behalf. I might be looking for a mate, as you put it, but Jesus, I’m not going to make you do it. What a disaster that would be! We’d be miserable!”

  Lois was still laughing at the idea, but Zir wasn’t. His crest fell flat limply and his eyes dropped to the floor. He looked so dejected Lois stopped laughing, her throat closing off suddenly. He couldn’t be serious, right? He couldn’t actually think they would make a good couple?

  For a moment she just looked at him, really worried that she’d just ripped out his heart. God, it looked like she had.

  “Zir?” she asked softly, reaching out a hand to his arm, but he pulled it out of her reach.

  “I will go back to work,” he said, his voice rough, and he swerved past her to disappear down the corridor.

  Lois felt bad. She didn’t want to hurt anyone. But he had to be delusional. She’d never given him any indication that she liked him, or could even tolerate him. She told herself he couldn’t really have serious feelings for her.

  She remembered what Susan had said. The Volin had different practices when it came to relationships. Lois knew that on Teiss, Volin lived solitary lives, carving out small territories for themselves. When it came to making babies, a male and a female would pair up for as long as it took to get pregnant, have the baby and wean it, which was usually between two and three years. After that, the female would hand the baby off to the male, and go repeat the process with someone else.

  Zir had been living on Earth for three years now. Maybe some biological imperative was making him do a little mate-searching of his own. Maybe he thought he would give her a try, and sure, her rejection hadn’t been the gentlest, but the Volin didn’t form life-long monogamous commitments. They didn’t fall in love like humans did, so it would never have worked between them anyway. Lois was looking for someone to spend her life with, not someone who was going to get ti
red of her.

  So maybe she’d been a little blunt, but he’d get over it… wouldn’t he?

  She walked back to Tol, but her lunch break was almost over.

  “What happened?” he asked her, getting to his feet as she gathered her things. She still had some pasta left, but it would be cold and her appetite was gone.

  Lois found herself not wanting to tell Tol about what had really just passed between her and Zir, so she said “Turns out there really was a work thing. I’m going to head back to the office. Sorry about this. We can meet up again next week, maybe? Oh and, if you see Zir, um, be nice to him, okay? I, er, I think he’s had a bad day.”

  Chapter 9

  “Just call IT,” Susan begged her.

  “I don’t want to call IT!”

  “Lois, you’ve been playing with that for almost an hour!”

  Lois was sitting on the floor behind her desk, her chair pushed out of the way so she could get at the Rhacahr interface. Her Gadgit lay face up on the floor beside her, showing a How-To on software interfaces. She looked at the beetle-like hard drive again. She also had a ruler and a pair of scissors with her, but while she had attempted to open the drive, she hadn’t yet resorted to breaking it open. She knew as soon as she did that, her bacon was cooked.

  “Lois, if Lucia finds out you’ve been doing this…” Susan warned her.

  Lois knew it was bad, not doing any work at all for an hour, and instead trying to do something she shouldn’t be doing because she had no training or authorisation, because of a personal conflict with a colleague.

  It had been almost two weeks since she had spoken to Zir. She had seen him around, in the halls and the café, but they hadn’t acknowledged each other. At first, she had awkwardly avoided his gaze, but then she realised he wasn’t looking at her. He was ignoring her too. So then naturally she started watching him when she saw him. It wasn’t that she missed him, she just wanted to make sure he wasn’t taking her rejection too hard.

  It did mean, however, that she had also ignored minor software glitches in her system which had now built up to a crash. She couldn’t do anything, and she feared if she didn’t fix it she could lose a lot of data. She tapped the ruler against her lips, pondering.

  “They have special tools. It’s not something you can do for yourself,” Susan continued.

  “Don’t be so negative,” Lois sang, pulling herself out from under the desk so she could kneel at her keyboard and try to get a response.

  Susan sighed, then stood up and walked across the office to Lois, who ignored her until she knelt down next to her. She put her hand on her shoulder, and looked into Lois’ eyes, who regarded her suspiciously.

  “I know things have been hard,” Susan started, and Lois rolled her eyes and tried to turn away, only to find herself trapped as she was pulled back. “I know you’re fighting with Zir, though I don’t know why, but this needs to stop. Our work is too important. We are dealing with interplanetary politics here! Different planets, Lois! These are the lives of thousands of people, who are counting on us to give them a home! So just suck it up, call IT, and let the professionals fix it before you cause some real damage and lose your job.”

  Lois looked back at her console, considering what Susan had said. “It can’t be that hard…” she insisted,

  Susan groaned. “That’s it, I’m calling them.” She pushed herself to her feet to go back to her own desk.

  “Fine! Fine, fine, I’ll call them!” Lois conceded. The only thing worse than calling for Zir would be him finding out she was avoiding him because someone else had called in her place.

  She pulled her chair back in and struggled up onto it, her knees stiff. She dialled IT and waited.

  “Good afternoon, Information Technology Services, this is Aaron speaking, how can I help?”

  Lois let go of the breath she’d been holding. “Aaron, hi, this is Lois in Intake.”

  “Oh, hi, Lois! You haven’t called us in aaaaages,” Aaron said dramatically, and Lois winced as he called out her name, hoping Zir wasn’t around to hear.

  “My computer’s just been behaving itself lately,” she said, giving a weak laugh.

  “But not anymore?”

  “No, not anymore. There have been a few small things going on, but it’s just crashed completely now, I can’t do a thing with it,” Lois explained.

  “That’s no good, I’ll send someone up take a look,” Aaron said, and she could tell from the tone of his voice that he was diverting some mental energy to logging the job on his system.

  “Thanks, Aaron, I really appreciate it,” Lois said, already dreading the moment when Zir would arrive. But, she supposed, it needed to happen, and better to get it over with. Maybe they could come to an understanding, be friends, or at least not openly hostile to each other.

  They ended the call and Lois tidied the scissors and ruler away, cleaning up any sign that she’d been interfering with the console herself. Then she waited. Normally Zir would be striding through the office door in less than ten minutes, but the time ticked by. Oh well, she supposed she couldn’t blame him for making her wait. He probably wasn’t as eager to see her now that she’d turned him down. This was exactly why office romances were a bad idea. They gummed up the works.

  Eventually though the glass door swished open and Lois looked up expectantly, only to find that it was Ty, not Zir who had come.

  “Hi, Lois,” he said, a little awkwardly. She immediately wondered what he knew, whether Zir had spread what had happened around. Nothing had found its way back to her yet, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t told anybody.

  “Hey, Ty,” she replied, smiling as best she could, trying to look normal and at ease. “No Zir today? Hope he’s not sick,” she said before she could stop herself, almost kicking herself as Susan glanced at her.

  “No, he’s not sick. He’s been quiet lately, but he’s around. I don’t know why he’s not doing this job since no one else can read his notes. Sign here please.” Ty offered her the tablet and she signed to give him permission to work on her computer. She saw him start to flick through old jobs when she handed it back.

  “It’s like he does it on purpose. How am I supposed to know what any of these acronyms are?” Ty complained, shaking his head as he sat down under the desk and pulled something out of his bag which he plugged in somewhere, and a second later Lois’ screen went black. “Let’s have a look then, see what we can do to get this up and running…”

  “Zir’s been quiet?” Lois prodded.

  “Hmm? Yeah, a bit. Bit grouchier than usual too. But it’s no big deal, he still gets the work done, you know,” Ty sounded distracted as he ran diagnostics and scanned through her computer’s software.

  “Did he give a reason at all?” Lois asked.

  “Nah, not him. He never tells us anything about his personal life, keeps it all to himself. I figure he’s got a few skeletons, but which of these guys hasn’t, you know? They’ve seen some bad stuff probably, to make them leave their entire solar system behind.”

  That didn’t make Lois feel any better. She definitely could have been nicer in turning Zir down, she knew that, but she hadn’t realised he was serious. She would never have thought in a million years that he had feelings for her.

  But it was done now. She’d turned down lots of guys, and been turned down herself a lot, over the years. She knew the hurt was only temporary. Which reminded her that she hadn’t been on a date since Rico, and didn’t have any planned either. It was quite the dry spell for her, but she didn’t have the energy anymore. She’d take a rest from it, she decided. It was all too complicated.

  Ty leaned out from under the desk, looking up at her. “Lois, you might want to go get a coffee or something, this is going to take me an hour at least. Sorry,” he said. He looked contrite, but it was totally her fault.

  “Oh, right, okay. Do you want anything? I can bring you back a coffee or something? Susan?” Lois offered.

  Ty accepted her offer of a co
ffee, Susan declined, and she left the office, thinking she’d stretch her legs and try to clear her head a bit. If she ran into Zir, she’d try talking to him this time.

  Chapter 10

  It was the end of another orientation. This group was about thirty people, and they were handing in their forms to her as Teissian Community Leaders waited by the door to shuttle them to the dorms. Lois was smiling and wishing them the best of luck and reassuring them that they’d like the dorms as they filed past her.

  She collected the forms off the last person in the queue, a lone Balor male in rich clothing. As he stood before her briefly he said “I should say, a little Volin boy has been running around our feet all day, but I have not seen him in some time. No adult is in charge of him, so you might want to look for him.” The Balor smiled politely and moved off.

  Lois was almost stunned. She was used to fielding weird comments and requests with promises to follow up later, but a missing child? Was the Balor right that there was a child who had no adult looking after him, and who now might be lost somewhere in the DETI building?

  His callous attitude made her hesitant to believe that was the case, but she knew the Balor culture didn’t mix too well with the other Teissian races, so it was possible he thought telling her about it at this late stage was the extent of his duty. But would the other passengers, the Volin especially, allow a child to move around without adult supervision? She didn’t know how they treated children that were not their own.

  Lois told herself that the child must be tucked under some Volin’s wing and out of sight but not lost, but she knew she had to check. Just before they closed the door, she jogged up to the Community Leaders and asked for a headcount. The chain of custody meant that the group of new arrivals were now in their care, and it would complicate things to call them back without a very good reason, and she didn’t want to admit just yet that they might have a very big problem.

  The Volon at the door called ahead to the driver, and then told her thirty-two.