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On Deruzia, he was a hero. No longer cursed, but revered.
And it could all go to the Nines if he didn’t fix the hologram in time for the big reveal at the Forum.
One was a hero as long as they kept on winning.
The shift in energy from the laboratory drew his attention once more. Nazyn looked through the windows. A hazy figure, small and skittish, passed right in front of them. Nazyn frowned. He didn’t recognize that being, but the pull felt…familiar.
“Yakirian wants a perfect presentation,” Rynar went on, bringing Nazyn back to reality.
“Of course he does.” When did Alien Inc.’s CEO not expect perfection? Nazyn ran his hands up his horns. “He can’t know about this. Nobody can.”
“Your secret is safe,” Rynar said gravely. “If anyone can fix this, it’s you.”
There was no doubt in Rynar’s voice, but plenty of it in Nazyn’s twin hearts. The Forum marked the first time Deruzia revealed how their technology worked.
Ithadto be perfect.
“Yakirian’s also concerned how the humans will react,” Rynar said. “He sent Kiara over to talk to you.”
“He’s so concerned about everything, I wonder how he functions.” Nazyn didn’t envy the CEO’s job. It was hard and complex. Butthatwasn’t Nazyn’s concern. “I invent. Someone else needs to deal with what happens afterwards.”
Someone seemed to be doing just that right now. Snippets of a heated conversation tickled his pointed Deruzian ears.
“Humans aren’t going to buy something like this. Consumer behavior is driven by emotion, not logic,” a sweet voice said from beyond the door.
Nazyn didn’t recognize the voice. But he agreed. Humans were highly emotional beings, Nines bless them.
The discussion was getting so loud, even Rynar cocked his head to the side. “Problems in the laboratory?”
“Not in mine.” Nazyn didn’t have many rules for his department, but one thing he insisted on–a calm atmosphere. No being could create in chaos.
He bid farewell to Rynar and marched toward the door. If he was being truly honest, he was more curious than annoyed. Who was that arguing with Walter–and winning?
The voice called to Nazyn and he heeded it.
But he hadn’t expected the sight before him once he marched into the laboratory.
3
DARCY
“Iamup for the job,” Darcy said, trying to keep calm. But it was so damn hard while looking at Walter’s smug face. “I wouldn’t have applied for it otherwise.”
Or gone through the six–six!–interview rounds in order to get it.
Walter nodded at the box and rectangle of grass on the desk. “Then prove it.”
Darcy narrowed her eyes; her mom always said it made her look like an angry cat. And she was angry.
She took her work very seriously.
All the embarrassment she’d felt after entering the laboratory with a literal bang faded away in a haze of wanting to prove Walter wrong.
She looked down at the white table. The box did something to or for the grass, it was the only logical explanation.
A weird garden light? She crouched down until she was at eye-level with the black box. No, there were no indentations on its surface to let a light source come through and the material was totally opaque.
She picked it up gently, with reverence. Deruzians hadn’t revealed their tech on the human market so far. This gadget, whatever it was, had been created galaxies away. Now she got to hold it. This was a moment little Darcy, who had taken her talking doll apart to see where the sound was coming from, couldn’t have imagined.
