She didn’t even know these people. Not well.
They were the in-office staff, the ones who supported her while she was in the field. When she needed specs on a planet or needed to book travel for a hundred guests, she relied on them. She’d sent the floor Christmas gifts—cookie and nut trays—but she never really knew them on a personal level.
They were just rows and rows of faces with names that all sounded the same. Smiling, indistinguishable faces…
“Let’s go into an enclave,” Sheila said.
They walked into a small conference room with a single table and a speaker radio for intercompany phone calls. They sat across from each other.
“How are you?” Sheila asked.
Keltie tried not to stare into space. “I’m holding up.”
“I took care of everything while you were gone,” Sheila said. “Your work has been assigned, and all of the agents graciously decided to share their commissions with you.”
“That’s great.”
She didn’t even care.
“Don’t worry about the work comp,” Sheila said. “All of your medical expenses are covered, and we will pay you an emergency base salary until you’re ready to come back.”
“That’s amazing.”
Sheila cocked her head. “Somehow you don’t seem amazed, Keltie.”
Keltie looked down.
“What happened out there?” Sheila asked. “No, wait. I need to call the office of general counsel, HR and the office of ethics.”
She put her finger on the speaker button, but then stopped short. “Of course—you don’t mind, do you?”
Keltie shook her head. “Might as well call the CEO.”
“He’s in a meeting, but we’ll update him. He was so concerned, you have no idea. Every day he stopped by my desk to ask about you.”
The CEO probably never knew her name until now.
A few moments later, two men and women entered and shook Keltie’s hand. They had screens in their hands, and they smiled even though Keltie knew they weren’t really sincere. She’d passed each of them many times in the hallways and they had never once looked at her.
The corporate counsel, human resources director, and the associate vice president of ethics. And a secretary.
“Tell us what happened,” Sheila said.
Keltie told them everything.
The attorney, a thin man in an asymmetrical white suit that formed a V across his chest, leaned forward. “I want to thank you for embodying everything we stand for as a company these last few days. I can’t think of a single person who’s done it better than you.”
“Thanks,” she said.
“So tell me, Keltie,” the attorney said. “Why was the armed forces so interested in our business operations? Just seems a little strange.”
“You tell me,” Keltie said. “They said we were in violation of the Rah Trade Agreement.”
The attorney looked stunned. He looked at Sheila, who shrugged.
“First I’ve heard of that,” Sheila said. “I’ll check with licensing.”
“Did they make any specific allegations?” the attorney asked.
“Apparently, we had no right to sell the planet.”
The attorney sank his head into his hands. “God, there goes my afternoon.”
“I don’t know,” Keltie said. “But I’m not complicit in any of this.”
“Of course not,” Sheila said, flicking her wrist.
The human resources director and ethics officer sat silently, listening to everything.
“Keltie, take as much time as you need,” the attorney said. “Go on a vacation. I’ve got an ocean cabin on the southwestern continent that’s yours for as long as you want it.”
“Thanks, but my condo is just fine.”
Silence set in.
“Thank you, Keltie,” the attorney said, standing.
Keltie shook hands with everyone else again. She and Sheila watched everyone leave, and Sheila shut the door.
“Glad that’s over,” Sheila said.
“Me too,” Keltie said.
“They’re nervous,” Sheila said. “Any time we have a news story like this, they have to get in front of it. You know how it is.”
“I guess I do.”
They walked out of the conference room.
“I think I’ll be getting back,” Keltie said.
Sheila looked offended. “But you just got here. You’ve probably been spending a lot of time in your condo.”
“I just need some sleep.”
Sheila grabbed her hand. “Nonsense. How about we go downstairs to the café? Egg nog latte on me.”
“I don’t have much of an appetite,” Keltie said. “No offense, Sheila. I’m just a mess right now.”
“Well,” Sheila said, putting her hands on Keltie’s shoulders again. She pulled her in for a tight hug. “I’m just so glad you’re safe.”
Keltie didn’t hug back.
How many times were they going to say that?
Over Sheila’s shoulders, Keltie spied the cubicles. Everyone was back to work, like she never even existed.
Sheila’s phone rang.
“I’ve got to take that,” she said. “Keltie, take as much time as you need. And you call me, okay?”
Keltie nodded. Sheila ran to her desk and put on her headset, taking a call.
Standing there in the middle of the cubicle floor, where no one had time for her or anything else, she’d never felt less at home.
When the elevator doors closed on her, she wondered what would happen if she just quit.
But she didn’t have the guts.
***
Keltie’s phone rang as she rode the escalator out of the Macalestern Headquarters.
Her sister, Elynn.
Keltie put the phone to her ear but did not answer.
“Keltie?”
“I’m here.”
“How are you?” Elynn asked.
“I’m fine, for the thousandth time. Everyone keeps asking.”
“Everyone’s really worried about you, that’s all.”
Keltie heard her niece jumping around in the background. “Auntie K! Auntie K!”
“What are you doing today?” Elynn asked. “Feel like company?”
“No.”
“I know you’re coping, sis,” Elynn said. “But it’s not going to help staying at home, avoiding people and sunlight.”
“I’m in sunlight right now, thank you. Very rainy sunlight.”
“Fine. Go home and take a nap. I’ll come over for dinner. I’ll cook for you. I’ll bring a bottle of wine…”
Her sister’s voice just irritated her. Keltie knew she was trying to be nice…
“Listen. Can you and Mom and Dad and everyone else on this freaking planet just leave me alone for a few days? I’m not a hero, I’m not anything. I’m just a twenty-six-year-old woman who wants to be by herself for a few stinking hours!”
Silence.
“I don’t care how much you lash out,” Elynn said. “You aren’t hurting me. I’ll listen to you. I’ll always be here.”
“I don’t need anyone.”
“Please let me come over tonight? Even if it’s just for half an hour. I promise I won’t prod. If you want to just sit and stare at each other, we can do that. But I want to be with you. Just me. Jake’ll watch the kids. ”
“Maybe tomorrow.”
“No. Tonight. Promise?”
Keltie stared off at the gardens, where the peonies wavered in the rain.
“Keltie, are you there?” Elynn asked.
“Okay,” Keltie said.
Just thirty minutes and not a minute more. She’d find a way to deal with it.
“Promise?” Elynn asked. “I don’t want to show up at the door and get turned away.”
“I promise,” Keltie said.
“I’ll see you in a few hours then,” Elynn said.
Chapter 28
Keltie caught the light rail back to her condo,
walking again in the rain. The world just seemed to float by her, as if she were walking on water itself and the city buildings were waves, swelling around her in a cacophony of concrete, glass, and colorful people.
She floated through the parking garage of her condo and into the lobby, lit with Christmas lights and angels.
She felt like taking the stairs. She trudged up them, one by one, six flights up to her floor.
Sleep…
She couldn’t sleep all night but it sounded so good now…
She rounded the corner to her condo and dug in her pocket for her keys.
When she looked up, her door was open.
She didn’t remember leaving it open. The fingerprint lock on her door was broken and lay in a constellation of glass on the carpet.
Then she heard noises coming from inside.
A chair scraping across the hardwood floor.
Papers rustling.
A grunting sound.
She crouched and crept toward the door.
Inside, a shadow hunched over the computer on her kitchen counter. She could only see pink hands—pink like bubblegum with a strip of black. But when she looked closer, they were… cloven hoofs with deformed pink fingers protruding from them.
The figure reached into its pocket and pulled out a circular drone bot. The bot was red with a single eye. Wires extended from it and hooked into the computer.
Bright blue text flashed on the computer screen.
Downloading data…
The figure grunted again.
Another sound came from the bedroom. A soft, padded thud and the sound of satin ripping.
Her bed. Her sheets.
Then she heard a guttural language that took her off guard.
“Bok-wa cha-ga-MAI!”
She wrinkled her face in disgust. The language sounded like a constant exercise in coughing up phlegm and blood.
A voice sounded from the bathroom.
“Ma-chinko-bok!”
Keltie’s computer beeped.
Download complete.
The drone bot displayed a holographic representation of Keltie’s email inbox in safe mode. The figure opened the urgent email that Keltie read earlier. Somehow, the drone bot recovered it. The figure read it slowly and grunted.
“Bok-Bok-Devika-Bok!”
The other voice squealed. “Devika-Bok?” Then it snorted and punched the wall.
The figure in the kitchen snorted, too, and with a single hoofed fist, punched through the computer screen, cracking it. Then it ripped the screen and threw it at the balcony window, shattering the glass.
Keltie backed away slowly.
“Pa-gwok?”
“Bok ga me.”
Keltie bumped into the wall.
Her heart stopped.
But the figures didn’t stir. She pressed the elevator button as quiet as she could.
She breathed deeply and quickly as she watched the number above the elevator door tick slowly toward hers.
Ding!
The elevator door chimed, signifying that the car was near.
“Crap,” Keltie said under her breath.
The figure in the kitchen turned and threw open the door.
And then she saw it.
A pig of a man if she’d ever seen one.
It wore a long trench coat with a hood that covered its face. It pulled the hood back, revealing a cross between a pig and boar—bright pink, with gnarly tusks and fat, square teeth. A black wispy cloud billowed around its head, like flies—unusual for the race. But when she looked closer, she couldn’t tell what it was. The alien’s eyes were bloodshot, and she couldn’t see the pupils.
An Argus. A hostile alien race. She had never seen one on Macalestern.
Until now.
The Argus squealed and pointed at Keltie.
“Keltie-bok! Keltie-bok!”
The elevator door opened and Keltie jumped inside.
The Argus stamped the ground and charged.
The elevator doors shut just in time, but the pig struck them with its head, denting them.
Keltie screamed as the elevator car rode downward.
“I really need to start carrying a handcoil,” she said.
The elevator let her off the lobby and she burst out running.
She had just reached the sliding glass door to the street when she bumped into someone.
Grayson.
He smiled. And he had flowers.
“Why is it every time I bump into you, you’re always running?” he asked. He handed her the flowers. Peonies. “It took me all night to find your address. You’re hard to find.”
“Run!” she screamed.
“Run?” he asked.
The ceiling shook. He looked up as the can lights swayed.
Then the Argus tore out of the stairwell straight for them.
“Jesus—” he said.
WHAM!
The Argus slammed into Grayson, knocking him into the street. Several cars swerved to miss him.
“That’s what you were running from,” he said, groaning.
The Argus grunted and scratched the ground with its hoofs, ready to charge Grayson again.
A driver saw the creature and lost control, striking a nearby fire hydrant. The driver, a frantic-looking woman, stumbled out of her yellow car and ran away, screaming.
Keltie jumped into the car. “Get in!” she cried.
Grayson dove into the car as the Argus charged.
Keltie stomped on the accelerator, and they sped away as the Argus threw its head to the sky and squealed.
More Arguses with black clouds spinning around their heads spilled out from the condo lobby into the street. They fired handcoils at the car but missed.
“Faster!” Grayson said.
“I’m going as fast as I can, thank you!” Keltie cried.
“What the hell are Arguses doing on Macalestern?” Grayson asked.
“Um, hello?” Keltie asked. “What are you doing here?”
“I was stupid,” he said. “Listen, I’ve been through a lot, and I should’ve—”
“Apology accepted,” Keltie said, gripping the steering wheel.
“Where are we going?” Grayson asked.
The words from the email played in her mind.
You don’t have to be an alien on your own planet anymore.
“We’re going to the only place that has an answer to this crap,” Keltie said as she eased the car onto a hyperloop that circled around the city toward the sea. “We’re going to the western dockway.”
Chapter 29
“The western dockway?” Grayson asked. “That’s random.”
She told him about the letter.
“Talk about weird,” Grayson said. He rubbed his chest.
“You okay?” Keltie asked.
“That Argus hit hard,” Grayson said. “Damn.”
“I was doing just fine until you showed up,” she said jokingly.
“Yeah, you’re the one that saved me this time,” Grayson said. “I guess we’re even now.”
“We were always even.”
“Excuse me, then,” Grayson said, chuckling.
“Is there something wrong with me?” Keltie asked.
“What, like mentally?”
Keltie punched him on the shoulder. “No. With me. Last night.”
“Oh.”
Grayson stared ahead for a moment. “No.”
“Then why did you back off all of a sudden?” she asked.
“I’m not used to any of this stuff. I’m just a swim instructor.”
“What does being a swim instructor have to do with dating?” she asked.
“I have no idea.”
He was obviously nervous.
‘You’ve never been on a date?” Keltie asked.
“Couple of times. They all ended pretty badly.”
“No kidding.”
She turned off the highway. The ocean sprung up to their left, and a long dock jutted out into the ocean in
the distance. She increased her speed.
“I hate peonies, by the way,” Keltie said. “They’re nice to look at, but I hate the way they smell.”
“Oh.” Grayson scratched behind his ear. “Oops.”
“I don’t like flowers for apologies,” Keltie said. “That’s so three thousand years ago.”
“Got it.”
“I always like my friends to know where I stand,” Keltie said. “Good or bad.”
“Got it.”
She smiled. “Good!”
She increased her speed even more, and Grayson held onto the seat.
“Hey, you’re going pretty fast—”
“Hang on,” Keltie said.
They barreled down a long, serpentine hill that wound toward the docks.
As the dockway came into clearer definition, Keltie started looking around.
“Do you see anyone?” she asked.
Grayson squinted through the rain. “Are you sure about this?”
She passed several piers, stopping to look down them. Nothing so far.
“Over there,” Grayson said.
A tall figure in black was standing at the edge of one of the piers, with a black umbrella resting on a shoulder.
Keltie steered the car onto the pier.
“What if it’s not the person we’re looking for?” Grayson asked. “It’s going to be a little awkward, don’t you think?”
“Then we’ll back up and keeping looking,” Keltie said.
Keltie drove down the metal pier, and the tires bumped and chirped as she made her way down. At one point she wondered if the pier was going to give way and dump her into the sea. The noise was ungodly loud, but the figure didn’t turn around.
Keltie parked the car twenty feet short of the edge. She and Grayson got out.
In the drizzling rain, the car’s headlights illuminated a female figure in a black trench coat with her hair tied back into bun.
“Are you the one who wrote the email?” Keltie asked. The rain soaked her clothes and she wished for a raincoat.
“Do you believe?” the woman asked. Her voice was lower-pitched than Keltie had imagined.
“I don’t know,” Keltie said. “But I want answers.”
“You’ll get them,” the woman said. “But you have a bigger problem right now.”
Wheels screeched against metal. A group of motorcycles revved and sped down the dock.
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