Page 60 of I Fell for an Alien Popstar

“It’s the repetition.”

She tapped the holo. Tiny red circles flared wherever I appeared across the different clips.

“Fans are very good at recognizing faces,” she said. “Even when those faces are not meant to be part of the show. You are starting to appear often enough that people are asking who you are. When that happens, the label pays attention.”

“I’m not trying to be in anything,” I said. “I’m just… existing near things.”

“I know,” she said. “You have not done anything wrong. I am not here to tell you off. I am here to make sure you understand what this looks like from my side of the spreadsheets.”

She expanded one of the posts. Comments scrolled past faster than I could read them all:

Is she like Zhari’s PR girly?

Saw her on the dock too, drawing.

SHE’S IN EVERY VIDEO.

Plant from the label??

What if she’s the girl from ‘Single Orbit’?

My skin crawled, as if I’d walked into a room where people were talking about me and couldn’t back out fast enough.

“What I need you to hear,” Sira said, “is that none of these people know you. They have a few seconds of your life from a bad angle, and they are building a story out of it. Then they repeat that story to each other until it feels true.”

“Neat,” I said. “Love that so much.”

She shut the phone. The holo vanished, leaving only the dim dock light.

“You are not a mistake,” she said, reaching out. “She invited you because she knew I wanted you to be here. And I don’t regret that decision.”

“But,” I said, because there was obviously a but.

“But you are my responsibility now,” she said. “If this becomes a problem, I am the one sitting in a glass room being asked why a human from Earth keeps appearing within arm’s reach of my artist.”

A short, breathless laugh slipped out of me.

“You make it sound like I’m leaking radiation.”

“You are a risk,” she said. “This is a big tour. The last thing we need is the press up our backs, refusing to mind their business. Zhari is this entire enterprise. My job is to manage those risks and see the bad scenarios before they happen.”

“And I’m… one of the bad scenarios,” I said.

“You are a person,” she corrected, “who is now inside a machine that does not know how to treat people as anything but stories and assets. I am trying to keep the machine from grinding you up.”

That hit somewhere behind my ribs.

“I don’t want to make your life harder,” I said. “Or hers. If having me here like this is—if it’s too much, I can—”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” she said.

I shut my mouth.

“You think I have not seen the difference since you arrived?” she asked. “She eats without me nagging. She sleeps more than two hours at a time. She comes back from the stage and talks about the show, not the metrics. The crew is less…”

She searched for a word, then settled on:

“Uptight. You are not a disruption. You make us all run smoother.”