Randar knew Angela meant it in a general sense. She didn’t know about Allortasia’s troubled history beyond the couple of things he’d said. Cael didn’t falter, though, and was frank when he answered her.
“For me, personally, if I don’t find my DNA Match, I’ll not be able to have a family. My kind invented the program to save ourselves from dying out. What we never anticipated were the other things that started happening once planets and societies started signing up. It promoted cooperation between different cultures, lead to resolutions of conflicts and huge advances in technological and medical fields. There wasn’t any ‘us and them’ anymore, because anyone could find their perfect Match in any species. And people are happier. Depression, anxiety - these kinds of things haven’t been eliminated, and they never will be, but they’ve been reduced enormously. And many report that their symptoms are more manageable because of the Match Program - whether that be because they’ve found someone who truly understands them through it, or because their societies are better for the integration of so many different outlooks and cultures from so many different corners of the Universe. Almost everyone aboard this station is invested in the work we’re doing because they’re hoping that on one of the planets we integrate into the Intergalactic Community - maybe this one, maybe wherever we go next - they’ll find their perfect Match. But even if I never find my Match, I’ll keep doing this work, because everyone deserves to live in the fairer, better societies that form because of the program.”
Silence fell a moment as Angela digested this answer, then she nodded.
“Okay, so you genuinely believe that this program makes the world, the Universe even, a better place?”
“Yes,” Cael said, sounding a little confused by the question. “You don’t believe me?”
“I do now,” Angela said. “But if you’d said that to me a week ago, I’d have thought you were full of shit.”
She grimaced as soon as she said it, and Randar suspected she was about to apologise, but Cael just laughed.
“I feel like maybe someone is finally being honest,” he said, shooting a grin at Randar. “Why wouldn’t you have believed me? And what changed your mind?”
Angela blushed lightly. “Meeting Randar changed my mind, obviously,” she said, and it took all Randar’s self control not to call a halt to the meeting and whisk her back to their bedroom. “Why didn’t I believe you? I don’t know, Humans just don’t believe stuff like that. It sounds too good to be true.”
“Too good to be true?” Cael frowned. “We provided all the science behind it.”
Angela shrugged. “Lots of people don’t believe your science is truth.”
“So,” Tarkken said. “It’s ‘too good to be true’, so therefore the truth that we provide to prove it can’t be true? Are Humans just not able to believe in things?”
“There is a small percentage of the population that believes the Earth is flat, and that there’s a government conspiracy trying to make us think it’s round,” Angela said. “Humans can believe literally anything.”
“People think the planet is flat?” Tarkken said, disbelief on his face.
“A very small number of idiots,” Angela said. “My point is, if there are people who can believe that, then Humans are capable of believing in the program. They just don’t at the moment. You’ve not been selling it to them right.”
Randar saw the flicker of hesitation and uncertainty in her face as her words were met with silence, an expression he knew intimately now, and she looked to him for support, but before he could say anything, Cael leaned forward.
“We’ve been following the advice of the top leaders and politicians,” he said. “But it hasn’t been working. When you say we haven’t been selling it right… What exactly is it we’re doing wrong?”
Randar gave Angela a gentle, encouraging nod.
“Courting the politicians and the decision makers is important,” Angela said, “because they’re the people who can get clinics opened and otherwise open doors for you, but if you want the average person on the street to sign up, you need to court them. Fancy parties for the elite might get you funding and political support, but your average twenty-something working for minimum wage doesn’t care about any of that.”
“Then what do they care about?”
Angela shot Randar a small smile. “Most Humans care - maybe too much - about what other people think. But not politicians and business leaders - they care about their friends and their colleagues, and other people like them. If you were on your home planet, how would you choose a restaurant?”
Randar, Tarkken and Cael exchanged glances, then Cael answered.
“Look one up on a directory, I suppose.”
“But there must be loads, how would you narrow it down?”
“On what type of meal you fancy, how far you’d have to travel to go there, whether or not you could get a table…”
“Don’t you have any sort of review system?”
“You mean a food critic?” Tarkken said.
Angela shook her head. “Let me show you.”
She directed the computer onto the Human internet, clicking through to a web page about a restaurant.
“Almost everything in Human society is reviewed and rated,” she said, scrolling down the page. “Here, look: ‘Brilliant meal, restaurant staff friendly, kitchen looked clean. Food arrived quick and piping hot. Five stars.’ Five stars is good, by the way, one star is bad. ‘Awful. Food terrible. Would not recommend. One star.’”
“A place can get a top rating and a bottom rating?” Cael said. “What qualifications do these people have to make comment?”
“None,” Angela said. “A lot of the time they can’t even spell. But they’re allowed to give their opinion, even if it’s not based on any skill or understanding. So, a Human looking to find somewhere to eat might go onto one of these websites and look for the top rated restaurants in the area. When they’re buying something online, they look at the reviews to help them choose which variety. And a celebrity putting their name behind something can help to sell a product or service, but if enough people say something is terrible, very few people are going to buy it. And you’ve got a lot of people saying what you’re trying to sell is terrible.”
“None of those people qualified to comment, either,” Tarkken said.
“I know,” Angela said. “It’s frustrating, but there are so many protestors at the moment, that’s going to be the main voice people are hearing. You’re stealing women, selling them in to slavery and giving them up for experimentation. That’s what the loudest people are saying, and maybe people think they’re crazy, but maybe those people are also thinking ‘why risk it?’ Because the people telling us it’s a good thing are the politicians, and none of them are signing up for it. Why should I think it’s a good thing for me? They don’t have my best interests at heart in any other way.”
“Do you think I have your best interests at heart?” Cael asked, looking from Randar to Tarkken.
“Yes,” Randar replied without hesitation, Tarkken, too.
“Well, thank the stars for that, I’d be horrified if you didn’t.”
“And that right there is why you are struggling to understand Humans,” Angela said.
Cael was silent for a long moment, leaning back in his chair, wearing a thoughtful expression.
“So what would be your first suggestion?” he said.
Angela chewed her lip a moment, thinking about it.
“You need to get more people to sign up, but your targeting isn’t specific - you’re aiming for everyone, because that’s your ultimate goal. But you need to build momentum, so I’d niche down as narrow as you can. Profile the people who have signed up already - figure out what they have in common, and then target other people with those qualities. You have records on everyone who has provided a DNA sample, I suppose, Matched or not?”
“Yes,” Tarkken replied.
“Then I’d start there. Profile those people. T
arget your advertising to people who fit that profile. Then once you’ve got a few successful Matches, start to branch out. Use the Human Matches as case studies, not the ones you’ve got on your website at the moment. Have them write testimonials and do TV appearances, spread the positive side of the program from someone who could be your neighbour rather than one of society’s elites. That’s where I’d start, from the bottom up, not the top down.”
Silence fell again. Angela smiled awkwardly.
“Sorry,” she said. “I work in marketing. I know I go on, but I promise I know what I’m…”
“Angela, would you like a job?” Cael interrupted.
Angela’s look of surprise nearly made Randar laugh. “A job?”
“I don’t know what your current arrangements are - but I’d like you to consider working for me and my team as a consultant. Advise us on the best way to approach things from a Human perspective. Don’t answer me now, go away and think about it for a couple of days, but I’d very much like you to think about it.”
Cael told Randar to take the rest of the day, as Garrix, his backup bodyguard, was more than capable of dealing with the British Delegation. They had a gala the following day, which meant a long day of negotiations, and then a late night. Cael invited Angela to the gala as well, so at least she wouldn’t be left on her own.
“An invite to a fancy party and a job offer?” Angela said, as they left Cael’s office, eyebrows raised.
Randar slung an arm round her shoulder, pleased when she leaned in to him, slotting against his side as perfectly as they had fit together last night.
“You are under no obligation to accept either,” Randar said. “But I’d like you to come to the party. It would make the evening far more tolerable for me.”
Angela grinned. “I’d like to come. It would be nice to be back on Earth, have the chance to see my friends again. What do you think about the job?”
“I think it’s a really good idea,” he said. “You don’t have to, if you don’t think it would be a good fit. There would be a way to make it work with your current job on Earth. But, trust me, going back and forth between the Station and the surface isn’t the best. You’d probably still have to do it a lot if you were working with Cael, but there would be plenty of days working here, too.”
“And I’d get to work with you, I suppose,” she said, glancing up at him.
“That would be a definite tick in the positives,” he said with a grin.
They arrived back at their suite, Angela kicking off her shoes and sinking into the sofa, asking Trix to put on some Earth news, while Randar went to the kitchen and got them both a glass of wine. Angela took her glass with a smile, and when he sat down beside her, she snuggled up to him, putting her legs in his lap.
Randar didn’t think it was possible to feel happier than he felt in that moment.
Chapter 12
ANGELA OPENED THE DOOR TO A high pitched squeal and then several sets of arms thrown round her. She laughed as her friends piled in to her house, waving bottles of wine and firing questions off at her in rapid succession. Too rapid to even answer.
Chelsea found her bottle opener, while Zenab got out five glasses, and Susan and Kimberley practically frogmarched Angela to the sofa, an excited gleam in their eyes.
“Tell us everything,” they said.
“Wine first,” Chelsea called from the kitchen. “Then sordid details.”
They hustled to get the wine poured, then gathered round, like children at Angela’s feet, each of them looking up at her with wide eyed, eager expressions.
“Well,” Angela said, enjoying playing at being coy. “What would you like to know?”
“What’s he like?” Susan asked.
“What’s the space station like?” Kimberly said.
“What do you even eat up there, do they do Human food?” Zenab said.
“What was it like, meeting him?” Susan said.
“Is he good in the sack?” Chelsea asked. “What?” she said, as the others made scandalised noises. “You were all thinking it, I’m just saying it.”
“You haven’t slept with him, have you?” Susan said.
“She so has,” Chelsea said. “You don’t glow like that if you haven’t had a really good shag in the last twenty-four hours.”
“Isn’t it a bit weird though?” Kimberly said. “He’s got scales.”
“It’s funny,” Angela said. “I thought it would be weird, but when I met him, I was just really attracted to him straight away.”
“That’s so cute,” Susan said.
“So what brings you back down to Earth?” Zenab asked after Angela was done satisfying their curiosity. In some sordid detail, but not all of it.
“There’s a gala tonight, some posh do for important people and famous people to socialise with Prince Cael and his people. The prince invited me to attend.”
“You’ve met Prince Dreamboat?” Kimberly’s eyes went wide. “Is he as good looking in real life?”
Angela thought about the way Prince Cael’s hair moved on its own - something Humans never got to see because whenever he came to Earth he trapped it with gel and spray. She wondered if Kimberly would find that ‘a bit weird’, or if Prince Cael’s status as a ‘dreamboat’ would make it easy to overlook.
“Yes, I’ve met him, yes he’s very pretty. Randar works closely with him, so I got introduced. He seems like a nice guy.”
And I could be working for him, too, she thought. Her employers had been informed of her Matching, and were holding her position for her for up to a month while she made arrangements. She could go back to them, maybe even work remotely from the space station most days. There was a certain appeal in that.
Or she could work with Prince Cael. She had to admit, there was a certain appeal in that too.
“Never mind all that, anyway,” Chelsea said, “you’re going to a fancy gala. So, please, please tell me you’ve got the shoes.”
Angela let her grin be the answer.
The girls helped her pick out an outfit. Kimberly did her hair, while Zenab accessorised. At the end of it, Chelsea handed her the ridiculous red patent leather heels. Angela took them and didn’t feel even a little self conscious slipping into them.
“You look stunning,” Kimberly said.
“Love looks good on you,” Susan said with a wink.
Chelsea hung back after the others said their goodbyes.
“You’re really happy?” she said. “Like, really really? This isn’t saving face or trying to make out it’s better than it really is. I’m not saying that it sounds like that. I just need to be sure, as this is my fault.”
Angela drew Chelsea into her arms, holding her friend close.
“I’m really happy,” she said. “Really really.”
“And this Randar is good enough for you?” Chelsea’s expression was stern. “He treats you right?”
“Definitely,” Angela said. “But, I know you’re looking for a bit more assurance. So how would you like to meet him for yourself?”
A car came to pick them up, the Human driver dressed in one of those really smart outfits, complete with hat. Angela and Chelsea slid into the back, where two chilled glasses of champagne were waiting for them.
“I could get used to this,” Chelsea said, clinking her glass against Angela’s.
“Trust me, this is the most glamorous it’s been by a long stretch,”
“Tch, what was it you said, one of the nicest suites on the Station?”
“That’s smaller than my flat.”
“Better view, though?”
“Actually, it’s on the wrong side of the Station for that. Occasionally a good view of the moon, apparently, but I’ve not seen it yet.”
“Too busy in the bedroom.” Chelsea waggled her eyebrows.
Angela laughed, but shrugged a shoulder. “Pretty much.”
The hotel was abuzz with activity as the car pulled in, camera flashes as numerous as the stars in the sky. They joined
the queue of vehicles, each one emptying its passengers onto a red carpet.
“This is like Hollywood,” Chelsea said, leaning between the front seats to get a better look. “Is that Jensen Sanders?”
Angela squinted at the man walking down the carpet, waving to the cameras. It could well have been the movie star, but from the distance they were at, and with the constant jostling of the photographers, it was hard to tell.
“There will be celebrities here,” Angela said. “Prince Cael’s team think it would be good to get some celebrity endorsement of the program.”
“Why would Jensen Sanders sign up for the program?” Chelsea said. “He could have his pick of anyone on this planet.”
“That’s exactly what I said.”
Angela felt a burst of nerves as their car pulled to the front of the queue. From the back, it felt like something happening to other people, and that when they reached the front, they’d just keep driving past, spectators only. But then they were at the front, and the driver was getting out of the car, walking round to open their door. Chelsea grabbed her hand and pressed a kiss to it.
“We are beautiful and wonderful, and that’s just our shoes. The Universe can’t even handle the rest. Don’t flash your knickers when you get out.”
Still laughing at that comment, Angela slipped her legs out of the door, standing carefully to preserve her dignity. The cameras continued to flash, but she could see the faces of a few of the photographers between them. The confusion as they leaned together to ask who she was.
They’d know soon enough. The first successful Human Match. The thought made Angela feel uncomfortable, but she swallowed that feeling down. She was here to have a good time, and she wanted to be seen on Randar’s arm. Wanted the whole Universe to know just how perfect and wonderful he was. If that meant courting a little more celebrity than she’d ever anticipated… She would just have to handle it.
Walking proud in her designer heels, Angela made her way down the carpet to the entrance, where the security team checked her against the guest list, signing Chelsea in as her plus one and handing over an external translator for her to use. As soon as they stepped over the threshold, they were plied with more champagne, wait staff dressed in black moving expertly between the crowds, making sure no one ever wanted for anything.
Randar (Intergalactic Soulmates Book 1) Page 9
