by Tia Wylder
Having thrown on her clothes, Tia sped to her desk, disregarding how disheveled she must have looked after everything she and Jay had done to each other, and tapped on the glass. She was careful to confine the display to 2D so that her father would not see the room around her and catch a glimpse of who was sharing it—and more—with her. “Daddy?” she asked, brushing a lock of hair from her face. “Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s fine,” said Merrill. “Are you okay? You look a bit…disturbed,” he added, for want of a better word.
“I’m fine,” she replied. “I just dozed off on the bed. I must have been dreaming when you called. Are you coming home?”
“In a little while,” Merrill said. “I was actually looking for Lieutenant Goodwill. We tried calling the place we assigned him and he wasn’t there. You haven’t seen him, have you?’
“No, Daddy, I haven’t seen him,” she lied, making her best poker face and hoping it didn’t show.
“He didn’t take a comm unit with him, which isn’t like a Stellarforce member. He should be in communication at all times. If you see him, let him know we need him to come in again. Interstellar Command has some news for him.”
“Okay, Daddy, if I see him I’ll tell him.”
“Thanks, sweetheart,” Merrill said. “I’ll see you soon.”
The Chief cut off the link, and Tia settled down on her desk chair with a long, loud inhale. Then, she looked over at Jay and felt a painful pang of longing at the sight of him fully clothed again. She still wanted him naked. She still wanted him on top of her, inside her. The wan-looking smile on his face told her he felt the same way. He held out a hand to her.
Tia got up from the chair and went to Jay, letting him gather her into an embrace and a kiss. “Looks like I’m going to have to go,” he said, his voice tinged with regret.
“I wish you didn’t have to. You’re probably going to have to leave Sigma Cygni, aren’t you?”
“I don’t want to,” Jay said. “I still want you. But I’ll have my orders.”
“Will you come back?” she asked.
“For you? To get some more of what I got tonight? Hell yes.” And he pulled her close into the deepest, hottest kiss of all, a kiss for all the light years they feared would soon be between them.
Chapter Seven
When Jay reported back to Interstellar Command, it was to learn the outcome of the conflict with the Dhurians—and the fate of those aliens who had nearly changed him from a protector of humanity to its foe. While Jay took Tia’s virginity and put her in a world of all-consuming pleasure, Chief Administrator Swift and the heads of the other Earth colonies had spent hours communicating with each other and Stellarforce Intelligence about skirmishes similar to the one at Sigma Pegasii and what Intelligence had learned about the enemy. The Dhurians, according to the findings of Intelligence, were a dying race. Their attacks on Earth’s stations and outposts were the last stand for them. They had depleted the resources of their home planet, their population had dwindled too much for them to harness the full resources of their home solar system in time for it to make a difference, and their attacks on human outposts were a last, desperate bid for survival. Stellarforce had met them magnificently, sustaining casualties among their forces and losing several stations. But the exosuit program and the officers trained to use the suits had met with success and quelled the invasion. Those officers who had been infected were being treated under maximum security conditions and were responding well. Human space was safe from the aliens.
As for Jay’s desertion, the circumstances had been considered carefully and no charges were being brought against him. In fact, he and the other exosuit officers who were not being treated were to go on furlough immediately until further notice and the issuance of new orders. Jay’s exosuit was to be returned to the nearest Sigma Pegasii, and for the time being Jay himself was at liberty. When he learned that Chief Swift was giving his daughter one last birthday gift of a trip by herself to anywhere she wanted to go in human space, Jay knew where he wanted to spend his furlough. He would meet her anywhere, on any planet, she decided to go. He would spend his days of liberty in bed with Tia, showing her how happy an interstellar fighter could make a young girl, lying on top of her between the sheets.
In the years to come, Jay and Tia would meet again and again as she went through college and he proceeded through his further Stellarforce career. Their shared bliss in bed would be a constant and a through line of their young lives. In time the two of them would marry, and their children would grow up in a galaxy that their brave father helped to keep safe.
Wanted By My Boss
By Jessie Summer
Chapter One
I remember the day I died. It was raining, hard. Lightning temporarily added illumination to an otherwise overwhelming darkness. Thunder growled all around me like the inner demons that tormented my mind. I stood atop a stone tower in the concrete jungle of Hong Kong and looked out into a night illuminated by lights just as artificial as the people who made them. This was a world that would smile in your face while it stabbed you in the back.
I was once a part of this, an empire of deceit built on a foundation of lies and paved with the bones of the poor. Businesses in this world was nothing more than dirty warfare covered in a fancy pressed suit and tie. Careers and lives were made and broken as often as the tides changed. It made me sick thinking about all of it, but more than that, it made me feel like there was nothing I could do to stop it. I was once one of them, a shark preying on the weak and sleeping like a baby while families bled out watching their financial futures fall to ash.
In a world where no one cared about anyone but themselves, and anything could be bought for the right price, no one would be left standing when it all burned.
The suit I was wearing cost me over six-thousand dollars. That was the kind of money that could feed a family for a year, and I spent it on a piece of clothing that was currently being ruined by a torrential downpour of rain. We all have our masks that we wear: masks for the world to see, and masks to convince ourselves we're still human, deep down in our souls. My mask was broken, and I was forced to look in the mirror at what laid beneath. There was nothing, just an empty shell of a man.
The smartphone in my hand started vibrating. I swiped to the right and placed it to my ear.
“I’m here, are you on your way?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’ll be there soon. Just stay out of sight.”
I hung up and placed the phone in my coat pocket.
“Zhang Wu! Stay where you are!”
I knew the voice, just not the face. It didn’t matter; he was death coming to finish me off. It was time I paid for my sins.
I heard his footsteps approaching, and I felt myself deeply conflicted. There was a part of me that thought I deserved this, all of it. I told myself I wouldn’t run anymore, that I would face the consequences with honor. Then I saw her face, perhaps the last angels left in a world filled with demons.
You made her a promise.
Death was knocking at my door, howling my name.
Sorry, I can’t answer today, I won’t leave her alone in this world.
I turned and ran as gunshots roared through the night. The bullets passed by my ears, screeching like banshees. I approached the edge of the rooftop and looked down on the building adjacent to it.
Remember your training. Jump!
I leapt off the side of the building and passed over the city below. I tucked my legs into my chest and rolled as I hit the coarse surface of the neighboring building. The assassin behind me wasted no time in doing the same. He hit the ground as I climbed to my feet and ran to the edge of the rooftop.
The next building was too far. I couldn’t make it. I stood on the edge and looked down. There was nothing but darkness until the bottom.
“There’s nowhere else to run Zhang! Stand there and accept your fate!” the voice said.
I slowly turned around and looked my assassin in
the eye. His face was all too familiar.
“You?”
He nodded. “They’re not stupid Zhang, they knew from the beginning.”
“I should have known. You’ve made a living out of stabbing people in the back,” I said.
He chuckled. “Don’t put this on me, Zhang, you’re the one who dug your own grave.”
“Better me than the rest of the world, don’t you think?”
He checked his gun and cocked it. His finger curled around the trigger.
“One last question for you, old friend: where’s the drive?”
I smiled and closed my eyes. “If you have to ask, you’ll never find it.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Either way, you’ll never know. Goodbye Zhang.”
He pulled the trigger.
Chapter Two
I hate my job. Most people aren’t very fond of their chosen careers or the ones they’ve settled for, but I hate mine. I get treated like a servant and tossed around like yesterday’s garbage. The last time I heard a “thank you” seemed like an eternity ago. I thought taking a job as a secretary for a major corporation would open doors for me, but it mostly just slammed them in my face on a daily basis.
Even with a pay bump, I was still struggling to pay my rent and bills. Brand new stressors like increased taxes and health insurance continued to cut into my paycheck like a psychopath on a war streak. I wanted to quit and walk out. After all, there was nothing left for me here in this city. The closest thing I had ever felt to love walked out on me the second things started to get hard, and my mother drifted off one night while I was asleep without saying goodbye.
It was just me now, me and this empty city filled with hollow people. Today was the day. Yes, today I would finally tell my chauvinistic boss off and walk out those doors forever. I just had to wait for the right moment.
“Tanya, are you alive in there?” Anderson asked.
I looked up from my keyboard and saw my boss, Anderson Grey, leaning over my desk and ruining the organized piles of memos, business cards, and other assorted junk. He had beady little grey eyes and a fancy haircut, but his scrawny frame and thin jaw did nothing to make him look as intimidating as he thought he was.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Grey?” I asked.
“You can start by getting those spreadsheets done; I needed them an hour ago!”
I clenched my jaw. Not yet.
“Mr. Grey, you asked me to do them an hour ago,” I said.
He nodded. “Yeah, I know. Get them done!”
He stormed off and left me staring at a screen full of empty boxes. My heart was pounding and my palms were sweating. I wanted to follow him down the hall, corner him in his office, and tear him a new one. Not yet.
I went to work on the spreadsheet, mindlessly filling in box after box. Another hour went by as workers came in and out. Some had the common courtesy to say hello as they passed my desk and scanned their I.D. badges, but most of them just walked by like I didn’t exist.
As I typed in the last of the numbers on the spreadsheet, Anderson reappeared with a terrified look on his face.
“Tanya, stop what you’re doing immediately!”
“I thought you said you needed these spreadsheets done?”
“Yeah, I do, but not now. Something more important came up. You’re familiar with Zhang Wu, yes?”
I shook my head.
Anderson growled. “Zhang Wu, one of our biggest clients? He’s the C.E.O of a major Chinese corporation? Did you even read the memo I sent out about his visit?”
“Actually I sent the memo and I typed it. What’s the big deal, his visit isn’t for another two weeks.”
Anderson shook his head so hard I thought his glasses would fly right off his head. “He pushed it up, he’s coming in today!”
Now I felt nervous. I couldn’t make a scene on a day like today. Word would spread like wildfire and my reputation would be ruined. I’d have to tell Anderson off another day, when a C.E.O wasn’t visiting.
“Okay, so what do you need me to do?” I asked.
“He’s going to want reports, and I haven’t done them yet. I need you to stall for me,” He said.
“Stall for you? What do you expect me to do?”
“I don’t know, give him a tour, show him around the city, use your womanly ways on him or something!”
I sat back in my chair and shot Anderson a glare. “My womanly what now? I’m a secretary, not an escort service.”
“I know I’m sorry. Just do me this favor and I promise I’ll get off your back about everything.”
That did sound nice.
“Alright fine, I’ll keep him busy.”
“Yes! Thank you, Tanya!”
“You’re welcome.”
Anderson scurried off like a frightened mouse and left me to my ways. I decided to do a little research on this guy so I wouldn’t look like a total idiot when he arrived. I jumped online and searched his name, “Zhang Wu.”
His picture popped up at the top of the list. He was a clean cut Asian man with a sharp jawline, warm brown eyes, and perfectly cropped jet black hair. In his photos he had a piercing gaze that seemed to leap out of the screen. I delved deeper into his biography and I was shocked at how little information was available.
They had his birthday, two years before mine, and where he was born: Hong Kong, China. I already knew he was C.E.O of some fancy corporation, but beyond that the man was an enigma. Either he wasn’t important enough to write web articles on, or more likely he had something he didn’t want public.
It took a lot of money and power to remain anonymous in the modern era. I had learned that the hard way when my ex started stalking me after I moved. Anything I did, from Facebook to checking my email, all of it left a digital footprint that he could use with the right tools to follow me.
“Hello, I’m here to see Anderson Grey,” a voice said.
I looked up from my screen and stifled a gasp. Zhang Wu was standing in front of me, in the flesh, as if he had leapt out of my computer screen. He couldn’t see it, but I fumbled with the mouse to close the window and feigned typing.
“Hello Mr. Wu.”
“You can call me Zhang. Only my butler calls me Mr. Wu,” he said.
I looked up at him. He face was perfectly still and stoic. After a long moment he cracked a smile.
“It’s a joke. I do have a butler, but he calls me Zhang as well. And you are?”
“Tanya, Tanya Bates. It’s a pleasure to meet you Zhang,” I said.
He shook my hand with a firm grip and continued to hold a perfect smile. Another long moment of silence passed as I found myself speechless in his overwhelming presence.
“Is Anderson ready for me?” he asked.
I fell back to reality and shook my head.
“Uh, no. He apologies but there was an emergency that took him out of the office. He will be back soon. I would be happy to give you a tour of our offices in the meantime?”
Zhang’s smile faded and I saw the cold fire return in his eyes. He clearly wasn’t someone who liked waiting.
“An emergency? He could have called me. I just stepped off a flight from Hong Kong; I’m not in the mood to be waiting on him.”
“Well, like I said, I can give you a tour?”
He waved away the thought.
“I’ve been on a hundred tours of this place. How long will he be?”
“I’m not sure,” I said.
Zhang ran a hand through his perfectly cut hair.
“Tell him I’ll be back tomorrow, and I expect him to be ready for me.”
I couldn’t let him walk out; I had to think of something. I looked down at my desk and saw a stack of requisition forms from the week prior. The offices had been outfitted with new equipment. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
“Wait! Did I mention our offices recently received new equipment? It’s state-of-the-art, I’m sure someone of your business stature would like to see how we’re staying on the cutt
ing edge,” I said.
Zhang turned around and looked at me. His eyes lit up for a moment and he snapped his fingers.
“Yes, I do recall hearing about that. You also received new servers in that hardware refresh if I’m not mistaken? I’d like to see those; they’re supposed to have updated security features.”
I nodded eagerly and stepped out from behind the desk.
“That’s correct, I’d be happy to show you them,” I said.
Zhang pointed to the desk.
“Who will be watching your post?”
I reached down and programmed the phone to forward calls directly to Anderson’s office. A little payback.
“Not to worry, I’ll have my calls forwarded. Right this way!”
I scanned my I.D. badge and Zhang followed me through into the back offices. The server room was on the floor beneath us. I knew I didn’t have the security myself, but I also knew Anderson’s password. He had the memory of a goldfish with amnesia, so he enlisted me to memorize his passwords so he wouldn’t have to remember them himself.
We reached the door that led downstairs. I paused at the panel, running through the passwords in my head.
“Is there a problem Tanya?” Zhang asked.
“No, no problem at all.”
The numbers hit me. I typed in the password and the door’s lock clicked open. We stepped inside and walked downstairs to the main servers. Zhang followed silently as we passed the glass enclosure. I stopped at the door leading inside.
“Here we are. Would you like me accompany you inside?” I asked.
“I don’t know are you familiar with the specifications on these servers?” he asked.
I blushed and looked away from his gaze. I knew as much about computers as I did about quantum physics.
“No, I’m afraid I don’t,” I said.
Zhang laid a hand on my shoulder and squeezed softly.
