They ended up walking out of the office together, but they split up at the front doors as he indicated he would be returning to the dorms. Maggie wanted to ask what things were like there, with all the new arrivals crammed in where there wasn’t space, but she didn’t know if that would be rude. Maybe when it wasn’t his first day.
Maggie was glad to get home and relax, but she couldn’t pretend the day had been hard. After all, she’d done no actual work, and she had enjoyed spending time with Ro, talking to him and showing him around. She was glad he was on her team and seated across from her. She was looking forward to tomorrow.
Chapter 5
When Maggie arrived at work the next day, Ro was already there, along with a couple of I.T. guys in their DETI polo shirts and khakis. One of them was a Teissian and was under the desk, while the other was a young human man holding a bag of tools. Maggie smiled as they noticed her coming over, and she put her bag on her desk after greeting everyone.
“Is something wrong?” she asked. She hoped not, since Ro was supposed to start that day.
“No, we just have to programme Ro’s extension to accept the new menu redirect,” answered the human, giving her a polite nod.
Maggie started up her computer and logged in, then looked round at the scaly green feet sticking out from under Ro’s desk. She had heard the gossip like everyone else, that a Teissian in I.T. was dating a human woman who worked upstairs. The whole building had loved that story when it first came out, though of course it wasn’t any of their business. Maggie hadn’t assumed that Teissians and humans stayed rigidly to themselves, mixing at work but only in a professional manner. That didn’t happen. Humans and Teissians were friends all over the building, and if they could be friends, it wasn’t such a jump that they could date, but this couple were the first to make no attempt to hide it. There had been rumours of other flirtations here and there, but they had never been confirmed. These two walked through the lobby holding hands, fed each other in the café, kissed all over the place really.
It was a rare and novel enough occurrence that everyone hoped to catch a glimpse of them in action for themselves, as if they were a mythical creature. Maggie knew everyone was being nosey, and should really leave them alone, but they needed a little optimism in the building just then. Nobody said anything, but everyone was silently rooting for the couple, as if their interspecies relationship was some kind of mascot, some kind of metaphor for the future. A good omen.
Maggie wondered if the clawed feet sticking out from under Ro’s desk belonged to the Teissian male half of that relationship. If they did, she really wanted to see his face, so she could say that she’d met him.
The human with him caught her eye. “It is him,” he said with a cheeky smirk.
Maggie opened her mouth to defend herself, embarrassed to have been caught, but she had no excuse. She looked away. “I wasn’t…”
There was a noise from under the desk like a smothered rattling sigh. “Ty…”
“What? You’re famous, Zir. You should give the people what they want,” the human said, grinning now.
The male sat up, ducking his head to avoid hitting it on the desk. He had dark green scales, yellow eyes, and a ridge of coppery feathers lay flat along his head. His claws were longer than Ro’s, but straight and round.
“That is done now,” he said, pushing himself to his feet. He put some tools back into the bag his colleague was holding, then pulled out a tablet to close the job. Maggie had been through this enough times to know the procedure. Looking at his face, he didn’t look particularly happy or friendly, but if he was the Teissian with a human girlfriend, Maggie could kind of see it. She could see what a human woman might like about his sharp jaw and stern posture.
Ro was watching him too, looking confused. “You’re famous?” he repeated.
“He means people talk about me,” Zir replied, his tone neutral.
“Why?” Ro asked.
Ty jumped in, hanging off Zir’s back with his hands on his shoulders, almost pulling the Teissian over. “Because he finally got his crush to say yes,” he said, clearly enjoying the situation.
Zir narrowed his eyes and hissed at his friend, but he didn’t seem to be really angry, just disapproving. “Are you going to do this on every job we attend?”
“I don’t understand,” Ro said.
Zir looked at him. “I have a human mate,” he explained, elbowing Ty off him.
Ro’s eyes widened. “Is it allowed?”
Did Maggie imagine his eyes glancing at her just for an instant? Maybe he was just worried about her eavesdropping, which she was. She had been watching him closely, following their exchange with interest.
Zir shrugged, holding out a tablet so Ro could close the job. “It is allowed. Sign here please,” the alien said, pointing out the signature line. Ro signed and he took the tablet back. “Do you speak Volin?” he asked. “I am afraid I do not know Balin.”
“I know some,” Ro answered.
The Teissian nodded under Ro’s desk, and said something presumably in Volin. Maggie noticed Ro pull his feet under his chair before replying quietly. He was still dressed in human clothes, with shoes. Zir acknowledged his answer with a croak.
At that moment Ro’s extension started to flash, drawing all of their attention. Ro drew himself up, as if steeling himself.
“Look at that!” Maggie said. “Your first caller.”
Zir nodded as Ro put his earpiece in. Before Ro answered the call, Zir put his hand on his shoulder. “You are free here,” he said quietly. It happened in a blink, and Ro glanced at Maggie as if to check whether she had caught it. She smiled at him. She had seen it, but she felt like the significance was lost on her.
Zir continued at a regular volume. “I am organizing a visit to the redwood forests for the Teissians. I was thinking of the Volin, but you should join us.”
Without waiting for a reply, he led his colleague out of the department. Ro avoided any discussion by answering his call, and Maggie turned her focus back to her own work, finishing logging on and getting stuck into tidying up from the day before.
The morning had completely passed her by by the time she finally looked up and noticed the time. She had been absorbed in clearing as much from the shared inbox as she could, having agreed with the others that they would pick up her share of the calls so she would be free to help Ro. Her experience made her quick, and even though the queries were still pouring in, she managed to clear the backlog at least and get them up to date.
Ro did a good job, considering he had almost no training. He was meticulous in his note-taking, so any mistakes he made could be easily chased up. He still needed her help on almost every second call, though it got better through the course of the morning. He mostly just wanted to check that he had done the right thing.
The new mother tongue option on the phone menu was clearly working, because his extension was lighting up almost as much as the rest of the team’s. He was new, and he was doing the work in his second, third, even fourth language. By the time lunch rolled around, Maggie thought he deserved a reward.
She got his attention by covering the display on his extension. “Let me know when you get hungry or you want to take a break. I’ll buy you a coffee. You’ve earned it.”
He looked at her gratefully. “I would appreciate that,” he said. “I believe they serve choba here?”
“Oh, that’s right, they do!” Maggie said, suddenly reminded of the Teissian drink on offer in the DETI building, catching Ro’s gentle hint that he would prefer that to coffee. “I’ve never had that, is it nice?”
“Yes! It is very good for you, the algae is very nutritious.”
“Algae?”
“Yes, choba is an algae native to Teiss. Where I come from, it grows on rocks.”
Maggie stared at him, thinking he must be pulling her leg, but he looked totally sincere.
“I don’t think that’s for me,” she said, trying to be diplomatic. “I’ll sti
ck to coffee.”
Ro looked a mix of concerned and disappointed, like she was really missing out and damaging her health in the process.
“Maybe I’ll try it,” she suggested, mentally crossing her fingers. It could be nice, she told herself. Never say never.
Ro lit up, his expression clearing. “I am sure you will like it,” he said.
Maggie laughed. “Come on then.”
She began gathering her things, redirecting her calls and marking herself as out of office, when she spotted Kez come up behind Ro and clap his hand on his shoulder.
“Ready, fila?” he said.
“Oh…” Ro looked uncomfortably at Maggie, who deduced Ro must already have plans. She put her bag back down.
“Hi, Kez, how are you getting on? Enjoying it?” she asked, smiling.
Kez looked at her, obviously hearing her, but he just nodded, then said something to Ro in what Maggie assumed was Balin as if hurrying him along.
“Maggie…”
She cut Ro off. “Of course you can take lunch now. That’s fine, Ro. You don’t have to ask me.” She smiled, but he still looked conflicted. She didn’t want him to worry about hurting her feelings; she had overstepped. Of course he would rather eat with his friend. “Go on,” she encouraged, and he stood and let himself be tugged along by Kez.
Maggie sat back down, waiting a few minutes for Ro to get clear before she would go and get lunch for herself. She would just get something from the café downstairs, assuming Ro would be in the canteen upstairs. She wasn’t avoiding him, just giving him space while he found his rhythm. He didn’t want her hanging around, it was only his second day. He would still be on alert around her, but he could relax with Kez.
Deciding enough time had passed, Maggie left her desk, messaging a friend in another department to meet her and keep her company.
Chapter 6
The next morning when Maggie arrived at the office, she put a steaming cup on Ro’s desk. He looked up at her in surprise and she winked at him.
“The choba I owe you. Milk and two sugars, right?” she teased, laughing when he looked stricken and a little sick, reaching for the cup nonetheless. “I’m kidding. It’s just fungus and boiling water, as nature intended.”
“Choba is an algae, not a fungus,” he corrected her, looking relieved when he peeled the lid off and saw that it was indeed just the usual swirling green.
Maggie shrugged with a smile, taking a sip of her coffee as her computer booted up.
“Thank you, Maggie. You didn’t have to buy me this. I am only doing my job, and only with your help,” he said.
It was worth it to hear him say her name in that voice of his.
“You never bought us coffee,” Ben mumbled beside her.
“You had more than a day’s training before you had to take calls.” Maggie replied, but he was right. She was showing Ro preferential treatment and she hadn’t even realised she was doing it. But she wasn’t his boss. It didn’t matter. She was just training him. They were equals.
Even so… She promised herself she’d stop. Flirting was one thing, but this was his third day, only his eighth on the planet. She should give him some time to get acclimated. The choba was a gift to acknowledge a job well done under difficult circumstances. One was enough. She couldn’t let herself slip into behaviour that could be construed as harassment. She didn’t want Ro to feel he had to ask to be moved to another team. He wouldn’t like her if she made him uncomfortable.
Not that she wanted him to like her. Only as a friend.
Oh, who was she kidding?
“I will have to buy you a coffee next time,” Ro said, handling his words gently as always, and Maggie couldn’t help her smile as their eyes met and held.
“How are you doing anyway? Struggling with anything?” she asked.
He looked around his desk as if he would find something that had been giving him a hard time, some red warning light, but there was nothing and he shook his head. He smiled and the pink crescents in his cheeks folded. “Nothing at the moment,” he said.
“Yeah, it’s pretty easy once you get the knack.”
“The knack?”
“The hang of it.”
Ro gave her a confused shake of his head and she laughed, casting around for another phrase he might understand. “Once you learn how,” she eventually settled, and he nodded.
Her computer came online and she logged in. Ro’s extension flashed and he answered it, and they got to work.
It was now almost a week after the loss of the Tiberius, and they still weren’t seeing a reduction in the number of enquiries that came through to their line. It did look like a higher proportion of callers were getting through though, which was something. At first, people had been on hold for hours, or they kept getting kicked off the line because the system just couldn’t handle the volume of calls. Now their wait time was thirty minutes or less, which was a huge improvement, even if it didn’t feel like it to the caller.
New employees were settling in and getting up to speed throughout the whole building, so people’s problems were being solved, and staff were having to do less overtime and they were less stressed. It would probably be a long time before the work could be said to be back to normal, but it was a more liveable situation. As long as the dorms were overcrowded, and the Teissians who had been on Earth the longest were being pressured to move off-site, and thousands of people were waiting for job allocations, things wouldn’t be normal at DETI, but they were being given the resources to deal with it.
Ro had said he was fine, so Maggie started taking calls again. Truth be told, she liked it like this, a full team working like an engine, all of them on a call at once, shooting off emails all over the building, watching the inbox empty. She liked the efficiency of it and the feeling of a job well done.
Her calendar sent up a reminder about the office winter holiday party. Every department organised one for the staff once a year, and Maggie organised Enquiries’. She volunteered to help one year and somehow the whole thing had become her responsibility. She didn’t mind since she loved to see everyone having a good time, but it did mean she had less time to enjoy herself on the night. It had been forced from her mind in the last week, and now she winced when she saw it. It was a huge task, and they were still so busy, and it didn’t feel right to organise a party in the wake of a huge disaster like the Tiberius. She set the reminder to come back in a week, and went back to work.
Lunch rolled around, and she was just starting to get hungry when Kez arrived to grab Ro. This time she hadn’t made the mistake of trying to butt in, and she wouldn’t again. Those two were friends, and Kez had more in common with Ro than Maggie ever could.
“Maggie, would you like to join us for lunch?”
She looked up, startled by Ro’s voice. He was looking at her with an easy smile, but if she was reading Kez correctly, he hadn’t expected the invitation and wasn’t happy about it. Kez didn’t say anything, so Maggie opened her mouth to reply, at a loss for a moment. She looked between Ro and Kez, but Ro won out. As much as Kez may not have approved, Maggie wouldn’t reject Ro and miss out on an opportunity to get to know him better.
“Sure,” she said, quickly locking her computer. Ro smiled at her and it was worth it.
As Maggie came around the desk, Kez muttered something to Ro, and his happy expression faltered, but Ro didn’t reply, and smiled again as Maggie came up to his side, tucking her bag under her arm. Kez gave a her a tense smile that dropped quickly, and turned to march off out of the office. Maggie followed Ro after him at a more leisurely pace, as Ro seemed content to hang back with her.
“Thanks for inviting me, are you sure it’s okay?” she asked, giving a small nod in Kez’s direction.
“Of course,” Ro said, his voice soft like a pillow she could just fall into. It was hypnotic, any tension or awkwardness just poured off her as she believed him without question. “You have been very kind to me.” He didn’t say any more as they caugh
t up to Kez at the elevators and travelled in silence to the canteen.
The DETI staff canteen took up the whole of the top floor of the building what with all the kitchen, counter, and table space needed. It had the feel of a rooftop café, with floor to ceiling windows encircling the bright white space. The furniture was simple and thin, faux-wood-patterned surfaces with curved metal legs. Dozens of tables long enough to seat twenty people took up the middle and right of the room, with shining chrome counters displaying food on the left.
Kez headed to the Teissian counter and Ro followed him, so Maggie tagged along, thinking she might find something there too, but she was wrong. She leaned forward to look down the short line at what was on offer, and didn’t recognise anything other than the bowl piled high with lemons. She touched Ro’s back, her palm just smoothing his jacket over his shoulder blade, getting his attention and making him look at her.
“I’ll meet up with you over there,” she said, pointing to a spot just next to the tills.
Ro agreed so she split away to get herself the soup of the day. The line was longer as there were more humans than there were Teissians, so Maggie had nothing to distract her as she watched Kez turn and snap something at Ro, who looked confused and started trying to placate him. Maggie had to look away to give her order and pay, but they were still bickering as she came up to them with her tray, forcing a smile as if she hadn’t noticed. They had waited for her at least. Kez couldn’t be that mad.
She wondered what his objection was. Had Ro broken separate plans with him, or did he just resent a colleague being invited to what could otherwise be a work-free hour? Maggie might have trained Ro, but she wasn’t his boss. She had seniority but that was it, the three of them weren’t formally separated by rank. She didn’t think Kez could have a problem with her personally, because they didn’t know each other at all, they had never spoken.
“Thanks for waiting,” she called, announcing her presence and giving them a chance to stop arguing before she got any closer.
The New Guy (Office Aliens Book 2) Page 4
