Page 43 of Her Alien Boss

“You’re making them sound very cool, though,” she interrupts me.

“There is nothing cool about breaking intergalactic law,” I say sternly, watching as she tries not to break out laughing in response. I don’t know what it is about this human and her near complete inability to take anything seriously, but here we are.

“We have to defend our territories and our borders,” I say.

“I knew it! You want to use me as a weapon,” she says. “I’m not going to do anything fucked up, I hope you know that. I mean I’m not going to…”

“Not a weapon,” I say. “An advanced deterrence system.”

“Sounds like another set of words for weapon,” she replies. “I know. I’m human. We have endless words for weapons in all of our cultures.”

“That’s really not what it is,” I say. “Think of it more like a very large robot.”

“Oh, my god, I’m going to be piloting a flying mech suit!” She jumps up, beaming. “Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place? I would have worked for free!”

“I don’t need you to work for free,” I say. “But I do need you to take your work seriously.”

“And I do,” she says. “I take it so fucking seriously. I work way harder than anyone else, I bet. And I hardly ever steal anything anymore.”

“That’s got to stop completely,” I growl. “And you know it. The price for taking any of our tech is a lot worse than a spanking and some rough sex.”

“So, what, anal?”

I frown at her. She has this air about her that means nothing really ever touches her. I think it helps in the sense that it keeps her from getting overwhelmed in the way many humans would if they were ripped out of their world and taken into an alien realm, but it means she never quite takes me entirely seriously.

“There are real consequences,” I repeat. “You could find yourself incarcerated. Not in the sense of the cage I barely use with you, you absolute brat. But in real jail.”

“You should probably use that cage,” she says. “Chekhov’s cage. Gotta use it before the last act or people will get mad and say you didn’t know what you were doing.”

She’s being silly again, and I let her be silly because there is no harm in it. If she is happy, engaged in her work, and not asking too many questions about the actual purpose of it, then I am happy.

* * *

Evie

We get to work, and I am very excited to get in the machine. As we come in, Arkon is swarmed by juniors who need his help. He gives me a swat on the butt, tells me to be good, and sends me off to his office.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed. I want to get in the machine, but without Arkon to put me in it and get the sexy suckers all situated, I’m not going to be able to do it until he is done with whatever series of silly little tasks the juniors need him for.

As alien as this world is, and as strange as this mission city is even for an alien world, I am starting to feel very settled and normalized here. It’s beginning to be routine to come to work and come over and over again, just as I suspected it one day would be.

I am surprised when I get to Arkon’s office and discover that the machine isn’t there. What is there is Drak. I don’t know which discovery is worse.

“Where’s the machine?” I ask the question immediately.

“Congratulations.” Drak smiles at me. “You’ve graduated.”

“I have?”

“Oh, yes,” he says. “That was a training rig, obviously. From the data we’ve been gathering over the last few sessions, it’s become obvious to me that you’re outgrowing it. You’re ready for the real thing.”

Excitement builds in me. I cannot start to imagine what the real thing will feel like. The training rig felt incredible.

“I’m going to get you fitted for the real rig,” he says. “There’s not as much room in it as the training rig. So we’re going to need to take you in and get you measured up while Arkon is busy sorting out some of the peripherals.”

I am too excited to even really listen. I follow Drak out of the office and up a couple flights of stairs, through a heavily guarded steel reinforced door that has red and black stripes all along the sides. I get the feeling I am being shown a part of the facility I would never have been allowed into in a thousand years if I hadn’t proved myself.

“Is this where you keep the robot?”