Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 61982 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61982 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
“How did you get here?”
“We walked,” he says, taking my question in the most logical and therefore incorrect kind of way.
“No, I mean here to this place, doing these things?”
“Oh,” he says, shifting me slightly in his four arms. “Well, I am the oldest son, and in our family that means taking over the business of dominating all the territory we can possibly contain. This place is a very special one, because here we are developing tech that will put us in a position to dominate potentially the entire universe.”
“Oh,” I say. “So a very reasonable and achievable goal.”
He smirks. “Reasonable and achievable are not metrics that expansive civilizations tend to embrace. I am here because if I do not do this, someone else will. And that, my sweet human, is a terrible reason to do anything.”
“I was going to say,” I mumble. “But you’ve just made your peace with it?”
“I have found a purpose in it,” he says. We are almost halfway back to his fancy alien penthouse now. Others of his kind are milling about. Some of the younger ones are playing a game with a gleaming disc that flashes between them as they control it with what seems like their minds. They’re wearing headbands with what look like transmitters on them. I bet that’s part of the tech, maybe like an early prototype of it.
“What’s the purpose?”
He smiles down at me and shifts me in his arms again, this time so he can see me more clearly and try to understand why he is getting interrogated.
“Why all the questions?”
“I’m curious,” I say. “It’s good to be curious. Worst thing in the world, well, all the worlds, not to even be curious. But what about your family?”
“What about them?”
“Are you married? Do you have offspring?”
He chuckles at my bald attempt to work out if he is single or if he’s fondling me on the side. “My intimate and romantic attentions are all in one place,” he says. “And it is with you.”
My heart skips a beat. “But you don’t really know me, and I’m human?”
I feel the rhythm of his steps beneath me as he keeps walking, thinking how to respond to that question. I’m two fractions of a degree away from straight up asking him if he’s just love bombing me. I don’t know if aliens have that specific term, but I bet the act is universal.
“A wise human once wrote that your true friends will know you better in the first instant you meet than anyone else will know you in a thousand years. I felt an instant connection with you before I even saw you for the first time. I can’t explain it, but I know that when I feel something it is best to follow it. The consequences for not doing so are missing out on things that were meant for me. You were meant for me.”
We have barely known one another two days at this point, and yet his words ring true to me. I think it’s because what he’s saying are things I have already seen in his eyes, and felt in his touch. Even when I was being toyed with in that captivity machine or whatever they would call it, I felt his care.
“Everyone else seems to think I’m no different than an animal, or like, a pretty smart robot, like one of the ones that can clean the floors or mow the lawns.”
“You reference very old Earth technology that has long been surpassed,” he muses. “But how they see you and how I see you might be different. I can’t say I care how they see you. I know how I feel.”
He’s carrying me up the stairs now and over the threshold of the door. I expect him to put me down, but he keeps a hold of me.
“Why don’t you have an alien wife?”
He laughs and lets me slide down to the floor once he has ensured that the front door is locked.
“I am dedicated to this work, in spite of what Drak might say,” he says. “And I cannot be in a comfortable house on a well-lit street making polite conversation at a dance being held for someone’s birthday and be happy. I need to be able to immerse myself in what has to be done.”
“You don’t wanna be normal,” I say.
“I was not made to be normal, and neither were you.”
“I guess not, given the twisted machine you made,” I smirk.
He smiles at me. “That was a collaboration. And it was necessary, and… yes,” he finally admits. “There is a certain twistedness to it, but I think it is going to work precisely as intended.”
“I’m going to rule the universe with my pussy?”
His smile becomes enigmatic. “That may be closer to the truth than you realize.”
“Say more,” I invite him.