“Sounds real perplexing, but I’m not sure that these are things we should be figuring out right now.”
“True. We need to focus on how to get to Jyra. But I think the best way to do that is to get to know Mr. Maven and make yourself a banal presence in his life. The more boring and usual you are, the less he’ll notice your existence.”
“I really, really do not think that’s a good idea.”
“Okay then. Keep going through the rest of your orientation then and enjoy your life as a janitor, because we’re never going to figure this out if you don’t get close to him and anyone else who may be connected to the Great Choice.”
I let out a long, long breath, but it didn’t bring the satisfaction I had hoped. “Fine. But if I die, I’m so haunting you until he eats this world.”
“Fair enough.”
I squared my shoulders, stepped forward and willed myself to be calm. I could do this. I had ripped off the arm of a Rabid Kodadt with my bare hands. Compared to that, this was nothing. Right?
I headed into the cafeteria, effecting a gait of what I hoped was someone who was new around town, but had nothing to hide. It was harder than you might think. Suddenly I was overthinking each and every movement my body made. Was my cadence too sneaky? Did I look like I was trying to observe too much? Were my eyes shuttling suspiciously about? This looked so much easier in the movies.
And yet I made it to the food line without spontaneously combusting from my own stress. It wasn’t until then that I looked up and realized that this arrangement was nothing like I expected. There was no cafeteria worker impatiently waiting to ladle slop onto my tray. In fact, there were no trays. Instead, I saw a series of machines arranged in a long row, each one equipped with about fifty different buttons.
“Um, mayday, mayday.” I hissed to the group, quickly trying to recall if I had ever read of something similar in the book series.
“What? What’s going on?” Janix asked. His mouth sounded at least a little bit less crammed full of tasty treats, so that was nice. “Your feed just shows the meal vendor. Did Maven make a move or something?”
“No it’s just uh… I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“What, really? It’s pretty straight forward. Just read the directions.”
“Dude,” I spat/whispered, feeling the muscles along my shoulders tense at this silly little mini-drama I was having over just getting some food. “I don’t know how to read. At least… not all the time.”
“Wait, are you serious?”
“Yes! How are you just realizing this now? I’m not from your dimension. It’s not like they taught your alphabet when I was in school!”
“You speak the language just fine. I figured whatever mumbo jumbo let you do that would work on writing too.”
“Well it doesn’t. So, a little help here would be much appreciated.”
“Right, okay. First you need to tell it what species you are so it doesn’t accidentally poison you. Go all the way to the left, three buttons down from the top, and press that.”
I followed his directions, and once I depressed the button, all the rest flickered with new symbols.
“Very good. Now, it’s asking you to list out any allergens you have.”
“Just bees and regular detergent in my underwear.”
“Good to know, but not exactly necessary for what you’re going to be eating here. If you don’t have any, press the blue button all the way at the bottom.
Step by step, he lead me through until the hatch on the machine opening and a tray slid out with something that looked unrecognizable but smelled absolutely mouthwatering. I had a feeling that maybe others could have directed me more efficiently, but I appreciated it nonetheless. Who would have thought when we first met in prison that the seemingly arrogant smuggler would end up as one of my best friends?
Finally equipped with the nourishment, I headed to a table and sat myself down next to Veela. We gave each other a curt nod, and that was it. I appreciated her quiet nature now more than ever. I could deal with the voices in my ear, and the voices in my presence, but not at the same time.
Once I was settled and shoveling whatever it was on my plate into my mouth, I turned my gaze back to the head honchoes who were crowded around what I was guessing to be this universe’s equivalent of a coffee brewer. They were laughing, chatting and generally having a great time while everyone else seemed to be avoiding them like the plague. Well, once I was done eating my fill, I was going to just have to go over there and burst their bubble.
Sneakily, of course.
My palms were sweaty as I worked up the nerve to go over there. I knew it was silly to get worked up over something so simple compared to the hells I had dashed through, yet here I was, feeling like I was in public speaking during senior year of high school again. Only here the penalty was more the death of the known universe and less a bad grade.
But hey, I had ended up with an A in that class, so maybe I didn’t need to be wound tighter than a top. I had survived that. And I would survive this.
I repeated that mantra as I stood up, and headed over to the station. I walked just behind the group, trying to pick up on the conversation, but I had already passed them by the time they stopped laughing. Before I even had to ask, Janix was quickly explaining how to get a drink that wouldn’t give me some super version of space food poisoning. I didn’t plan on drinking it, but still, the devil was in the details.
Once I had everything assembled and in my cup -at least those stayed mostly the same in the future- I turned and walked right towards the group.
I brought my cup up to my mouth, taking a deep drink. Instantly, the bitter taste of roasted beans assaulted my tongue and I was reminded just how much I absolutely hated both coffee and warm beverages. I forced myself to keep it in my mouth, however, until I ran right smack dab into Maven himself.
Drink went everywhere. All over my clothes, all over his clothes, up my nose and down my face.
“Oh my gods!” I blurted, sounding completely horrified. “I’m so sorry! I-I-I wasn’t watching where I was going! Here, let me clean you up!”
I dabbed at him with the sleeve of my uniform, feeling like I was going to throw up. To my surprise -and horror- he let out a kind laugh and gently grabbed my wrist, pulling it away from it.
“It’s alright there dear. Accidents happen. I don’t recognize you though, are you new here?”
I looked up at him and our eyes met. I don’t know what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t kind, green orbs staring down at me. I stood, frozen, sure that he would figure me out. That he would see through the optic implants, the still-growing wig, the DNA infused prosthetics right down to little ol’ me.
But instead, his smile just broadened. “You’re definitely new here. I would recognize a face as cute as that anywhere.” He held out his hand. “You can call me Maven. I just transferred here a few months ago myself. It can be pretty overwhelming, right?”
“Right,” I murmured, barely remembering to flick my head down and look demure. I could be wrong, but I was pretty sure that this guy was flirting. But I couldn’t imagine our virulent smoky nemesis being interested in anything like that, so was it an act, or was there a real human in there? I had no idea, but the uncertainly plagued me. “Again, I’m so sorry about the coffee.”
“Don’t worry about it. We have a maintenance crew to clean it up after all.”
It was hard not to smirk, so instead I forced myself to blush. “I… I am the maintenance crew, sir.”
“Maintenance? You don’t say.”
“Yes. This is just my second day, though. I’m still in contamination and containment training.”
He laughed again, and it was such a winning sound it was hard to believe he was anything if not a slightly snobby but still charming human. “I remember those days. I sometimes think I wouldn’t wish those on my worst enemy.”
Hah. The irony was not lost on me.
“But I’m sure one of our on-dut
y staff will handle it. For now, why don’t we both get changed before these stains set?”
“Right. Of course. Thank you, sir.”
“Please,” He murmured, clasping my hand in his. “Call me Maven.”
“Thank you, Maven.”
I flashed him a soft smile then turned around and walked straight towards my room, leaving my food right on the table where I had left it. Someone else could take care of it later; right now I needed to wash my body of the slimly feeling that had crawled all along my skin the moment he touched me.
I power walked down the hall, into an elevator, and then right through the living quarters. I didn’t even pause until I was in the shared shower and started stripped.
“Whoa! Give us some warning there!” Viys’k cried.
Whoops. I had forgotten about my internal audience. “Just close your eyes.” I shot back. But despite my dismissal, I made sure to keep my eyes trained on the floor rather than my body or any reflections.
“You close yours.” Angel shot back. “Unlike some of us, I don’t want to see my crew naked.”
“Your crew?” I countered, feeling my normal snarkiness start to trickle back to me. “Since when were we your crew?”
“Um since you came on my ship, slept in my spare quarters, ate my food and used my tech.”
“Oh yeah, that sounds about right.”
“Thank you.”
And with that I stepped into the shower and waved my hand over the thermal controls. I had learned by now that it would first spray water exactly my body temperature, then I could control it from there by signaling either the cold or the heated sensors. It was pretty fun, actually.
As I stood under the spray, I looked up at the ceiling and finally murmured the latest question ravaging through my mind.
“Do you guys think Maven was flirting with me because these prosthetics make me a cute girl, or because he saw through them and he’s just trying to get me to lower my guard by seeming oblivious.”
“There’s no way of knowing, really.” Angel answered matter of factly.
“I say if you survive through the night, that’s a really good indicator that he might just be a skeeze who inappropriately hits on new coworkers.”
“Thanks. I appreciate the mental image.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve seen you single handedly make a Kodadt eat pure light until it exploded. I’m sure nothing it can hit you with will phase you.”
I thought back to the very first night I had ever come face to face with my enemy. The way it reached out, wrapping its tendrils around my throat until I couldn’t breathe. I had been so sure I was going to die then, I could still feel adrenaline tinging my memory.
“I’m glad you think so,” I mumbled. “But I’m not so sure.”
Chapter Five: Switching the Genre
I awoke the next morning completely alive and more than a little surprised. I had been so sure that I was going to be obliterated the moment my eyes had closed that I had ended up spending hours awake, staring at my ceiling in fear.
Once more Janix had offered to stay up with me and talk, but I wanted him rested for when they finally did come swinging into action. According to the intel Angel had managed to purchase from some ne’er do well or another, the labs were about to hire three new construction workers after a work accident had wiped out a handful of so of their staff. The mooreerie smuggler was supposed to be start of that crew -as we thought it would be fairly suspicious if suddenly four new employees showed up that just happened to coincide with the four species that our enemy was currently hunting for.
Granted, all of this was moot if it knew we were already here. And we couldn’t tell if it knew we were here until it did something to tell us it knew, and by then it was probably going to be too late. It was with that knowledge that I trudged to breakfast, and then to yet another eight hours of training.
Thankfully I didn’t spot Maven along the way. I knew that would need to interact with him again, but I just wasn’t ready. Instead, I was focusing on one of my sub-missions; planting Angel’s nano-devices in places where they wouldn’t pick up any attention.
It was stressful, and took three of us total. One to watch the cameras to tell me when and where the blind spots where, and one to watch heat signals for anyone who might be able to catch a peek of my very-much illegal actions.
I was just grateful that Angel -or her crew, I didn’t really care who had done the actual work- had been able to hack into their systems so we could just see what they saw. I couldn’t imagine doing any of this completely blind.
Then again, it would have been nice if they would have been able to crack the firewalls -or whatever they walled their super, futuristic technoversion of them- so we could just see into the higher level security feeds rather than me having to infiltrate the massive facility and track everything Maven did. But no, that would just be too easy, and we couldn’t have that. Not at all.
I kept my grumbling internalized as I went about but business, but eventually the halls became too flooded with other personnel heading to their assignment for the day, or trainees wandering towards the orientation rooms.
“You’ll have to do the rest tonight. Maybe go on a midnight walk.”
“Yeah, because that’s not suspicious at all.”
‘Whatever works, man. Janix will be joining you as soon as the RFQ posts to the Council’s database.”
“Figures. It takes forever to get hired on earth too.”
“Glad to know some things are the same in every dimension.”
I smirked and reintegrated myself into the herd of new-comers. By now the handful of us all tended to gravitate towards each other. It was nice to not be the only ones who were still clueless about everything considering everyone around us seemed so sure of what they were doing.
However, that didn’t mean we were getting friendly with each other. In fact, I don’t think I had said more than a dozen words to any one of them. But I was okay with that. The less I spoke, the less chance I had of revealing something I shouldn’t or saying something impossibly dumb.
The day dragged on just like the previous, and the hour lunch they gave us went by too quickly. I was kind of struck how everything seemed like the same monotonous nine to five that I had hated so much on earth. I was in space, that in and of itself was amazing, and any second I could be caught by my mortal nemesis, but the moment I stepped into that classroom the threats drained away and I was stone cold bored.
Finally, and I definitely mean finally, dinner came around again and we were dismissed to do as we pleased. Once more, we headed over to the cafeteria as a unit.
This time, I didn’t struggle with the machine and that was a welcome relief. What was not so welcome was a very light brush of my arm, like someone trying to get my attention. I turned, ready to tell someone that I would figure out what I wanted in a minute, only to see the pale face and dark hair of none other than Maven.
“H-h-hello.” I stammered, sure that this was the moment that guards would come pouring in and take me away for my friends to try to save in some sort of daring but ill-advised rescue.
“Hey there. Natalie, was it?”
I nodded vigorously. I knew I needed to get my expression under control, but I figured it was okay to look a little bit intimidated around your superior.
“I just wanted to let you know the stains came out just fine. Not that it mattered that much to me, but I just didn’t want you to harbor any lingering worries.”
“O-oh. Thank you. That’s good to know.” I looked back to the machine and quickly punched some of the last buttons that had been waiting for me. “Certainly wouldn’t want to get started on the wrong foot here.”
He laughed, and it reminded me so much of someone back at college that I almost had to do a double take. This Maven fellow, whether he was the cloud or not, was certainly confident. And while it didn’t come across cocky, or boorish, I was a bit surprised at it. Not to play the stereotype, but most of the folk aroun
d just seemed to want to concentrate on their work then only associate with their closest friends. Even in my trainee group, I didn’t hear much conversation.
“I know what you mean. When you graduate, you think you’re about to enter a new world, but really it’s just primary learning with more pay.”
I forced out a laugh at that. “You’re not wrong. Thank you again for the update. I’ll try to be more careful of watching where I’m going.” After what really, legitimately felt like ages, my food was dispensed on a tray at the bottom of the machine and I was able to retreat to my table. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Actually, I was wondering if you wanted to go to the restaurant down at the base of the labs?”
“There’s a restaurant?” I asked, wide eyed.
He seemed amused by my shock. “In name, at least. It only sits six at a time but it’s for those of us who are sick of cafeteria fare and don’t mind spending some dough.”
I scrambled to think of an excuse. I didn’t want to be alone with the man who may or may not be possessed by the malicious spirit that was hunting me. “That’s so nice of you, but I haven’t been here long enough to get paid-”
He waved my words away with his hands. “Don’t worry about it. It would be worth it just to have some company for once. Almost all the lead researchers are night owls to follow the kodadt sleeping cycle.”
The Rescue (Alternate Dimensions Book 3) Page 4
