by T. R. Harris
The property was owned by the Velosian Council Member Morgus Orn. I had sold the home to him over six years ago while I still worked as a site agent for Pulte. Even at that time, it was one of the most palatial estates in all the Enclaves, and sold for a princely sum of six million dollars back then.
Now it was priced at twenty-two million, but it had been sitting on the market for over a year. With another two years left on Orn’s term on the Council, he was in no hurry to sell and so we hadn’t pursued an aggressive selling strategy up to this point. In fact, he hadn’t authorized a single price reduction in all that time.
Was it even feasible that Mark would buy the home? If he did, it would be my single-biggest sale – ever – and would ensure my acquisition of the coveted Noreen II starship.
“Jennifer’s going to be pissed,” I said. “She’s already upset about not finding anything good in town.”
“I’ll handle her,” Miranda said with confidence. “I honestly doubt Mark will bite the bullet on this home, but it will make the other homes you have to show him look like bargains.”
I looked a little closer at the stunning image of Miranda on the phone and wondered if she had ever sold real estate before? If not, then maybe she might consider coming to work for me? She seemed to be a natural at it – and she’d also go a long way to really dressing up the office….
Prior to the mention of the Hillcrest home, I already had a particular home in mind for the Wilsons. It was just what they needed, even if they didn’t know it at the time, and was priced at only ten-point-two million. Comparing the two properties side-by-side, most of the additional value in the Council Member’s home came from its location, plus the quality of the build and the extra square feet it contained. These were all important factors, yet for the uninitiated, the upgrades would be hard to spot, and hardly worth the dramatic increase in the asking price, even counting the added square footage. Miranda was right: the home in Sterling Bridge South would look like a steal after showing them Hillcrest.
I thanked Miranda and broke the connection, while suddenly feeling strangely nervous. I caught myself planning a thank you offering to her, which I knew would be only a thinly-vailed attempt at asking her out on a date.
What if she said no?
To me, Jason King? Nah … that would never happen.
**********
“Twenty-two million; that’s way out of our price range!” Jennifer Wilson was livid. I looked to Miranda for support.
“Jason says it’s been on the market for over a year. The seller may be willing to come down in price by now.”
“Like in half – or more? I seriously doubt it.”
“One can never know,” I said, now stepping into the conversation. “But it will give you a good perspective on relative pricing within the Enclaves. It’s also on the way to the next home in Sterling Bridge; it will only take a minute to drop by.”
“Whatever you say, Jason, after all you’re the professional,” Jennifer Wilson said, even though her tone didn’t match her words. “But you’ve been warned; Mark doesn’t like to waste what precious free time he has on useless endeavors, and neither do I.”
I cocked my head at Miranda after Jennifer turned and huffed her way back to the van. I had already shown them three homes. Hillcrest would be the fourth, followed by the home they would eventually buy.
So why didn’t I just cut to the chase and show them the home in Sterling Bridge first? Unfortunately, most homebuyers don’t know what they want until they see what they don’t. It’s all a process, and until it’s been followed to the tee, real estate sales can be a hit-or-miss game. I didn’t operate like that. I was patient enough to follow the strategy.
Besides, real estate is not an impulse buy; there’s just too much time between showing and closing for a buyer to change their mind. They have to truly love the home in order to carry the process all the way through to the end. And that involved educating the buyer on what they really want and need in a home.
So I’d suffer the wrath and dirty looks from Jennifer Wilson knowing that what I was doing was for the family’s eventual benefit. Besides, I enjoyed the game. It was challenging and rewarding, and also carried an almost obscene amount of power with it. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that the manipulation of other people is a bad thing. It can be quite satisfying at times, as well.
**********
Fourteen Hillcrest Summit; what can you say about it? It was simply the foremost home in the entire Zanzibar Enclave. Each of the four other Enclaves had their own equivalent property, yet I had the only one of these premier properties currently on the market.
I knew it was over-priced, but once the Council Member came closer to serving out his term and returning to Velosia, he’d get serious about selling. And then I’d be rolling in dough. Even at a more-realistic price of around eighteen million, it would still be my biggest sale.
But that would have to wait. Now I had to use this magnificent home to help sell another. Sometimes it went like that. Hillcrest’s day would come. It just wouldn’t be this day.
The Velosian Morgus Orn wasn’t home when I opened the property, which required the most-secure lockbox and key-code process available, complete with a biometric sample proving it was really me gaining access. But once the massive double doors swung wide, the Wilson family – and Miranda – rushed in with wide-eyed, Christmas-morning looks on their faces.
The home was fourteen thousand square-feet of absolute luxury and opulence, including twenty-four inch diagonal tile throughout, twenty-foot ceilings and a two thousand square foot great room that stretched to the twenty feet of patio doors with a jaw-dropping view of the ninety-foot long, freeform pool outside.
The home was also decorated with some of the most palatial furniture I’d ever seen. Yet what really set it apart from all the other homes in the area was the vast collection of alien artifacts displayed throughout, souvenirs from Orn’s lifetime of service to his race and his planet.
Which was what immediately caused me to panic.
Melissa and Jonathan were now rushing from room to room, insisting on touching everything within arm’s length. I knew that some of the objects in the home were literally priceless, and I was in no mood to replace anything that got broken. So I ran after the kids, grabbing Jonathan by the arm just as a weird-looking plate of some kind began to wobble on its stand.
“You guys are going to have to calm down,” I said to the two little ones. “What do you think your parents would do to you if they have to pay for something you broke?”
This got their attention. I looked around for Mark and Jennifer, but didn’t see them. Neither did I see Miranda or Heather. Damn, this was not how it was done. I was supposed to be in control of these showings. I was getting angry.
I led Melissa and Jonathan to the massive master bedroom suite where I found their parents. “Would you mind keeping an eye on these two?” I said in no uncertain terms. “There are a lot of expensive things in this home that can break.”
Jennifer pursed her lips and looked hard at her kids. That was good enough for me. I now went looking for Miranda and Heather.
I followed the scent of Miranda’s perfume into Morgus Orn’s private office. I was surprised to see that the room had been left unlocked; it had always been locked on every other occasion I’d been in the house.
Miranda was by herself, standing before a huge holographic picture occupying the central spotlight among a whole series of pictures depicting highlights in the diplomat’s long career. The one she was admiring was the largest of them all and showed the Velosian holding a small statue that seemed to sparkle with a life of its own.
Miranda didn’t take her eyes from the image as I stepped up next to her.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” she said in a singsong voice.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever seen one of these before, but they’re pretty neat.” I tapped the bottom of the picture and a thin scrollbar appeared with a cursor s
et at the center of the bar. I placed my finger on the cursor and slid it to the right. The image in the hologram began to rotate to the right until the vantage point had shifted a full 180-degrees, now displaying the back of the Council Member. I slid the cursor all the way to the other side of the bar and the view shifted 360-degrees to the left. I placed the cursor back in the center.
I now stood staring at the brilliant statue, just like Miranda, trying to reason with the spectrum of reflections coming off the hundreds of facets making up the surface of the two-foot-tall sculpture.
I tapped a small triangle at the bottom left of the frame and a caption appeared.
‘Velosian Council Member Morgus Orn accepts the Unity Stone from the Simorean Council representative as part of the decennial Passing Ceremony. The symbol of interspecies peace and cooperation will reside in the offices of the Velosian contingent on Sylox before returning to the Simorean government in ten years’ time.’
“I wonder what it’s made of?” Miranda asked. “It’s so brilliant.”
“It looks crystalline, probably some exotic material we’ve never heard of before.”
“It’s a diamond,” said a voice from behind us.
Both Miranda and I turned to find Heather Wilson in the doorway to the office, holding her ubiquitous smartphone up to her face.
“A diamond?” said Miranda. “That’s impossible. That thing is close to two-feet tall.”
“No, it says here it’s a diamond, a fragment from the core of a black dwarf star that apparently collided with another black dwarf, whatever they are? That’s the only way such a large diamond could have been recovered. The gravity on the stars is too great to mine them. It also says it’s the largest fragment of its kind in the galaxy.”
Miranda and I turned back to the image, while Heather joined us.
A two-foot tall diamond – dang! Even though diamonds were rumored to be a girl’s best friend, I found that I was amazed by the stone myself. “What does it mean by Unity Stone?”
Heather returned to her phone. “It says the original fragment penetrated the shields of an attacking Velosian flagship – the head of a four-thousand-ship fleet – during the last Velosian-Simorean War. This is freaky, but it says the power to the shields flashed briefly at the time, allowing the stone to penetrate the hull at that precise moment. The damage to the ship delayed the attack long enough for negotiators to reach an armistice and bring an end to the conflict. Both sides called this a form of divine intervention, and the stone was cut into its present shape to commemorate the event. The statue is now a symbol of peace between the two parties, even though tensions still exist – that sucks. But now the Unity Stone is rotated between the Velosian and Simorean delegations every ten years.”
“That’s all great,” Miranda said, still in awe of the statue. “But it’s still a frickin two-foot tall diamond….”
“It has a conversion function here,” Heather said. She tapped a button on her screen. “Twenty-eight thousand, six hundred forty-eight – that would be the Earth-equivalent of its weight in carats. The largest uncut diamond ever found on Earth was just over three thousand carats, and this one’s been cut.”
“Holy crap, that’s a big-ass diamond,” I said, trying to break the spell that had fallen over the two women.
It didn’t work, so I just shook my head and pitied Heather’s future husband. After seeing something like this, how could she ever be content with a simple one-carat diamond wedding ring? Miranda, on the other hand; well I could see her with a ten-carat ring one day, if not larger. Not from me, of course, but some other helpless sucker who would fall under her spell.
But right now I had to herd the women out of the office and get our minds back in the game. Orn’s house was truly a one-of-a-kind estate, yet the next one I had to show the Wilson’s was the home they would buy. I had to get on with it.
The home was in Sterling Bridge South – actually not too far from where I lived – and was still at the higher end of the price range set by Mark and Jennifer, however it had all the bells and whistles they required. I had the home under contract once before, but it had fallen out when my buyer bolted back to Earth, unable to come to grips with the alien environment of Sylox. The eventual sale of the home was now a matter of principle to me, an obsession almost.
I hate losing deals, especially ones in the ten-million dollar price range. However, today I would get my redemption.
**********
What can I say? I’m a professional.
So when Jennifer Wilson started to cry at the end of the showing of the Sterling Bridge home, I knew I’d made the sale – just as planned.
This was actually one of the best parts of my job, when I can find the perfect home for my customers. The choice of a home is a very personal and traumatic event for a family. There’s always so much worry, stress and trepidation that accompanies it. So when everyone winds up on the same page and ecstatic with the choice, then my work here is done, and I feel like I can now jump on my horse and ride off into the sunset – the hero once again.
In a quiet time, while Mark and Jennifer and the kids took one last run – literally – through the house, I took the opportunity to approach Miranda. We high-fived, feeling a bond that I hoped would itself become literal.
“So let’s celebrate,” I said. “Dinner’s on me.”
“I thought you’d never ask.” Her smile was warm and genuine, and I melted inside.
“Tonight then, if that’s not too soon?”
“Oh my, I’m going have to do some quick planning. Why don’t I meet you at the restaurant? Do you have one in mind?”
“Yep, and it’s just outside the Consulate Compound. I’ll email you the name and directions. You sure you don’t want me to pick you up?
“Nah, I can catch a ride from the Embassy. But you have to give me until eight. I wasn’t planning on going on a date tonight.”
“This is a date? I thought we’d just celebrate our little victory today. Now I’m getting nervous.”
“Call it what you want, Jason King, but honestly I can’t wait.”
And then she leaned over and kissed my cheek, her perfume even stronger and more seductive close up.
Then with a whirl of her silky black hair, she turned on her heel and bounced her way back into the house. Just then that old, crude saying came to mind: I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave.
If ever that was true, I was living the moment.
I gave myself a mental pat on the back. First, I just made a really big real estate deal, and now a date with the hottest woman – Human woman – on the planet. Things were really looking up for ole Jason King, if I did say so myself.
Chapter 8
The restaurant was called Belgon’s Consumptionary and it was located just outside the main gate to the massive Consulate Compound. Years ago I’d helped its owner, Belgon Cor, add a line of Human-like entrees to his menu for which he’s been eternally grateful. His business exploded thereafter and now he catered almost exclusively to people from the Compound.
The building was huge, and Belgon himself led Miranda and me to a private booth facing an open veranda, with an amazing view of Lomick River and the city skyscrapers beyond. A soft evening breeze filtered through the restaurant, and the mixture of smells from the fragrant blossoms of the Jacobin trees outside, along with the savory cuisine within, all set the stage for what was shaping up to be the perfect first-date.
I was still in awe of the poise and elegance of the ravishing twenty-six year old; she was much more comfortable in this alien world than was expected. Fighting to keep my eyes from wandering down the deep cut of her shimmering white gown, I decided to start the conversation with a compliment.
“How is it that you don’t seem overwhelmed by all of this, like your cousin appears to be?”
Miranda lifted a tall, thin glass of water and took a sip through her moist, red lips. She set the glass back down and looked to her right, at the brilliant ligh
ts of the skyline beyond the river. “I may not show it, but this is really something amazing. You have to remember I’m a Galactic Affairs major, so being here on Sylox is the culmination of a dream I’ve had for a very long time. There’s no place I’d rather be.”
That made sense, but still there was an unnatural calm about the woman.
Belgon himself came to the table to take our order. He was a Crimin, a thin, dark-skinned alien about six feet tall. He had distinctly Humanoid features – Prime features – so his appearance was not off-putting. I ordered a bottle of fermented Dolic wine to start.
“Jason was very instrumental in helping establish my Human menu,” Belgon said with enthusiasm. “He is a wonderful creature.”
“Before you get too excited,” I began, “many of the dishes are made from native plants and animals, and not Earth foods, no matter what the names may suggest.”
“Really, yet they taste the same as Earth food?” Miranda asked.
I smiled. “Just about everything in the galaxy can be made to taste like chicken, even native eel-snakes. But it’s best if I order for us without going into too much detail. Just think: if it tastes like chicken, then consider it chicken. You’ll enjoy the meal a lot more if you do. And remember, I’ve tasted everything on the menu, so nothing should make you sick. At least I hope not.”
When the wine came, Miranda sampled it with approval. “This is really good. I’m sure the rest of the meal will be perfect, as well.”
I shifted nervously as Miranda locked her eyes on mine and refused to look away. After a moment, it became too much.
“What?” I said with a frown.
“It’s just that you are such a fascinating man, Jason King. Don’t be mad, but I pulled your file while at the Consulate the other day.”
“You have access to that?”
Her eyes sparkled. “I have ways of getting what I want.”
“I’m sure you do,” I stammered. What was this spell this woman had over me? “So what did you find that was so fascinating?”
