Alien Alpha

Ok, just hit send. Hit send. It’s not a big deal—It’s a text. Everybody texts.

Dating in New York City is probably the worst thing in the entire universe, apart from obvious things like genocide and disease. You would think that the high population density would mean a larger selection of viable options, but in my experience, it actually makes finding the good ones all that much harder: the proverbial needle in a haystack. And some days, it just feels totally overwhelming.

I finally put Tinder on my phone when my manager told me about how her cousin met his fiancée on it. I uploaded a profile picture that highlighted my round, blue eyes and pouty pink lips, and maybe slightly downplayed my unruly mass of brown curls. I included another image that was a full body shot because the absolute last thing I wanted was for someone to think I was anything other than what I am: curvy and Rubenesque, an hourglass with a prominent backside. I slipped into the back alley behind the bar on my breaks, scrolling through the endless menagerie of men that fit within my search parameters. No, no, no, no, yes, no, no, no…I thought of it kind of like a game instead of a dating site and was slightly unnerved when I received my first message.

Hey, it read, alongside a tiny picture of him, blonde and smiling. We’re a match!

I looked at his profile, scrolled through his pictures: He was a Celtics fan, working in engineering, a vegetarian who lived with his brother. He was handsome, with striking blue eyes and long blond hair that hit his shoulders. It wasn’t a hard decision to respond.

Yay, I typed, you’re my first one!

No, that’s dumb. Delete, delete, delete.

So we are, I tried again. Hi.

But I didn’t send it right away. I felt paralyzed. In quantum mechanics, there is a theory that holds that all possible futures exist somewhere, in different dimensions. This felt like a diverging moment: if I responded, one future was certain; if I didn’t, if I deleted the app off my phone, then another future entirely would come to pass. Little did I know then how wise I was to hesitate.

After a prolonged moment of consideration, I went back into the bar and spent the night slinging cocktails to a collection of reliable regulars who didn’t use more words with me than absolutely necessary. They never shared any details of their lives and never asked me for any details of mine. I’d taken the job because I thought it would allow me to talk to people, you know? The bartender is supposed to be something of an ersatz therapist to her customers. But the seedy Alphabet City dive that hired me didn’t exactly have a chatty clientele. I was sick of the silence, sick of the isolation. When I wasn’t tending bar, I was in school, working toward my BA in Mythology. Can you even think of a less useful major? But the heart wants what it wants, I suppose. When I wasn’t working or in class, I was doing homework, or I was asleep. Not much of a social life to speak of. After my shift, I thought I might actually go insane if I didn’t talk to someone, a real live person, and soon. So I took a deep breath, opened the app, and hit “send”.

It was only a matter of days before I found myself in a cozy little Italian bistro, sitting across the table from my match. I’d opted to wear a black dress and flats, an ensemble that was easily dressed down with chunky, colorful jewelry and natural makeup. Plus, it was breezy, allowing my body to better regulate its temperature in the muggy New York City summer. My date, Tymer, was dressed nicely in slacks and a long sleeve collared shirt, but he also wore a knit beanie and had a blazer slung over the back of his chair, like he was prone to getting cold. Not that I was really looking at his clothes, not when I had those eyes staring back at me. I swear, they seemed to glow with their own, inexplicable light.

“Tymer,” I said, leaning forward to scoop up my wine glass, “that’s an interesting name.”

He grinned. “Novalyn,” he said, elongating the oh sound, “isn’t exactly run-of-the-mill either.”

“Actually, it’s pronounced Nah-Vah-Lyn,” I corrected, a faint blush rising into my cheeks. “My parents were hippy artist types.”

He laughed, tossing his head back as he did, and punctuated the gesture with a sharp nod. “Yep,” he said, “mine were, too.” He took a sip of wine and leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “So, Novalyn,” he went on, peering intently at me, “tell me more about your family.”

I arched a shoulder in a shrug. “What’s there to tell, really? I’m an only child. An accident. My parents died in a car crash when I was little, so my Grandma raised me. She owned a farm in Nebraska, but she passed away three summers ago.”

“God,” he said, furrowing his brow, “I’m sorry. That’s kind of a lot of death for someone your age.”

I shrugged again, not knowing where to place his sympathy. “But what about you?” I asked, eager for a subject change. “What are you into?” He simply gave a shake of his head.

“Things,” he said.

“Things?”

“And stuff.” He grinned. “No, seriously, I’m boring. Tell me more about you.”

And I did. Tymer had broken the dam of my silence, and my words came spilling out, end over end. I told him about growing up on a farm, helping to work the land in the summertime and during the harvest. I told him about the stories my Grandmother used to tell me, and how they had gotten me interested in mythology. I told him about how I had wanted a bigger life for myself than what Nebraska could afford me. I told him about coming to New York for school, and how lonely it had been, how alone someone can feel in a crowd full of people. I just kept talking, addicted to sharing a piece of myself with another living, breathing person, perhaps a bit too eager to open up to anyone who showed me the slightest scrap of attention. And when I finally ran out of steam, and our glasses were empty, he stood, held out his hand, and offered to walk me home.

“I’m not going to invite you upstairs,” I said when we’d reached the front door of my building. He flashed me a bright, dimpled smile and leaned down to press a kiss to my cheek.

“Maybe next time,” he said, his eyes twinkling. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and walked back toward the subway station, turning after a few paces to face me again. “Are you busy tomorrow?”

~ * ~

It’s possible that I seemed over-eager when I agreed to meet Tymer for lunch the following day, but I didn’t care: I was hooked. In the span of a few hours, I was addicted to telling someone my story, and to have it really matter. And, let’s be honest, I was hoping that the intellectual intimacy would extend to other facets of our relationship. Can you blame me? He was beautiful, shockingly so, and I wanted to have my taste.

I met Tymer in Tompkins Square Park where we spread a blanket on the grass and nibbled shyly on little pieces of cheese and bread. We had bottles of fresh pressed apple juice on the blanket between us but passed a sly little flask of whisky back and forth as we spoke. He was easy company, warm if not effusive, and he had this remarkable ability to make me feel calm, and totally at home.

“So, you’re a classics and mythology major,” he said after a brief lull in the otherwise constant conversation. I bobbed my head in the affirmative. “So, then: what’s your favorite story?”

“Hm…” There were so many from which to choose: Persephone and Hades and the origins of spring, the muses, the fates, Odysseus…But there was one that had always stood out. “Well, maybe it’s a little trite, but I’ve always been partial to Psyche and Cupid.”

Tymer scratched at his head—still wearing the black knit beanie—and smiled in recognition. “I know the story,” he said. “Incurring Aphrodite’s rage, she enlists her son, Cupid, to make Psyche fall in love with a monster, but Cupid scrapes himself with his own arrow and falls instantly in love with her.”

“Mmhm—but the part I really love is how she falls for him without ever seeing how beautiful he was. How she loved him despite fearing he was a terrible monster.” I smiled, snaking my fingers around the flask to drink deeply of it. “It’s where Beauty and the Beast comes from.”

“I’m more familiar with it as a tenet of psychology,” Tymer said, plucking the flask out of my hand to take a drink. “How a mutable person matures within the constructs of family and marriage.”

I leaned back on my hands, my legs out in front of me and crossed at the ankles, and I couldn’t help but smile. Talking about my favorite myth with someone who actually gets it.

“Yeah,” I confirmed, unable to wipe the grin off my face. “It’s just an incredible piece of history. Consider the art it inspired, the music, the reinterpretation. It’s just…” I shrugged. “It’s extraordinary.”

“You’re extraordinary.”

I froze, and locked my eyes on him, startled by the sudden warm swell I felt at his compliment. He was looking at me with an expression of wonder on his face, and before I could part my lips to protest, he’d leaned forward and pressed his mouth to mine. He kissed me like it meant something, like he had never been so hungry for anyone or anything in his life. And I responded in kind, lifting a hand to brush my fingertips over the smooth slope of his cheek. His tongue lapped at mine with a little come-hither gesture that sent a shiver down my spine, and I found that I nearly toppled forward when he broke the kiss and whispered, “Invite me upstairs.”

We were several blocks away from my tiny studio apartment, but I just nodded, stunned into silence, and helped him gather up our picnic supplies. He took my hand as we walked together, and I smiled to think of us as a typical New York couple: going to brunch, hitting tag sales, taking the subway home together late at night. I tried to reason with my brain, tried to stop it from getting ahead of itself, but it had already begun to spin its fantasies. My life will be different now, I thought, less lonely, more exciting. And, I suppose, I was right.

We scaled four flights of creaky old Pre-War stairs to get to my studio, and he had his hands on me as soon as I’d gotten the key into the lock. His touch was light, gentle, tentatively exploring the peaks and valleys from my rib cage to my hips, from my shoulder blades past my tailbone. Inside, he allowed the picnic things to fall to the floor and he tugged me into him, encircling me with his arms. We kissed like we had never tasted lips before, and his hands were two explorers on the continent of my skin.

I shimmied out of my jean shorts and lifted my tee shirt up over my head, unabashed and full of wanting. He watched me carefully as I undressed, and I reveled in the feeling of his eyes on my form. My bra was the next to go, freeing my full breasts to the open air, and finally my panties dropped to a puddle at my feet. I was bared fully to him; I don’t know what it was that made me bold.

“Is it all right if I just look at you for a minute?” He asked, his voice a husky whisper in his throat. I nodded and forced my hands to stay at my side, forced them not to cover the most private parts of myself. Tymer walked in a slow circle around me, sweeping his fingertips over my flesh as he moved. He drank in the sight of me, taking his time: he pressed a kiss to a spot where I knew there was a small birthmark on my left shoulder blade, ran his finger along the line of a scar I’d gotten from a trowel when I was seven. He must have noted every tiny blemish and imperfection, but when he moved to stand in front of me again, he cupped my face gently in his hands and said, “Beautiful.”

I swelled with pride as I stood on tip toe to kiss him again, pressing my breasts against him as I did so. He reached between us to wriggle one deft finger in between the folds of my labia only to find me wet with my wanting. “Is this ok?” He asked. I nodded my enthusiastic consent, and he began to rub my clitoris with the tip of his finger. A tiny little moan escaped my lips, and he smiled down at me in the dim light of the setting sun. It was impossible that the sun should already be setting: we’d just had lunch, hadn’t we? How long had we been talking? And why did I always feel like time slipped completely away from me when I was with him?

He led me over to my bed and pushed me gently down onto the blue quilt that was my bedspread. I let myself relax into the mattress, and he reached forward to pry my thighs apart. I bent my legs at the knees and allowed them to fall to the sides so that I was open to him. He dropped to his knees in front of me and wrapped his arms around my legs, tugging me forward so that he could run his tongue along my separation, sending a jolt of electricity through me. His tongue was warm and thin, strong and quick, and he began to lap at me full from perineum to clit and back again.

After a time, he slid his middle finger inside of me, probing me with long, slow thrusts. It was then that he focused his ministrations on my clit, and I felt that familiar crescendo, a desperation for release. Tymer added his index finger and gestured with them like he was beckoning me forward. He flicked my clit with the tip of his tongue at an almost inhuman pace, and my orgasm broke like a wave on the rocks of my wanting, sending my muscles to spasm around his intrusive fingers. I cried out and turned away to bury my face in a pillow, and he withdrew his hand slowly, his fingers dripping with my juices.

I closed my eyes and heard him moving about the space, first to the bathroom where he ran the water, then back to the foyer where he’d dropped all his things, and finally back to my side. He sat on the edge of the bed and stroked my hair, and I smiled, sated.

“That was amazing,” I murmured, sleepy in my satisfaction.

“Shh,” he whispered, leaning forward to press a kiss to my cheek. “Sleep.”

He brushed my hair away from my neck, and I felt a pinch, like I’d been stuck by a small needle. But before I could even give voice to my pain, I fell into a deep, unyielding sleep.

I woke up with a start, jerked violently from a dreamless slumber by that sinking sensation of falling, somersaulting, my stomach lurching into my throat and dropping down again. My heart thrummed madly in my chest, and I could hear the blood pulsing in my ears, and everything smelled clean, sterile, like lemon and peroxide, bleach and lavender.

This was not the tepid bath water air of my apartment; these were not my sheets; this was not my mattress; this impenetrable darkness was utterly unfamiliar.

Where am I?

The dark was all-encompassing, and I opened my eyes as wide as they would go, willing my pupils to dilate and give me some idea of the outline of the room. With fumbling fingers, I reached out to try to gain purchase on some light switch or familiar piece of furniture but felt nothing in the black. I tossed aside the blanket in which I was tangled and swung my feet over the edge of the bed—plush, but small, with a memory foam mattress that swelled at the head for a pillow. Planting my feet on the floor, I was shocked by the feel of cold metal against my bare toes, sending a chill down my spine. I stood, tracing my hands along the far side of the room until they brushed some sort of touch pad which set a series of indirect overhead lights to glowing. They cast the space in a warm, orange light, and I saw that I was in a room—no, a cell—with no discernible door. The entire thing was maybe ten square feet, with my small bed in one corner, and a toilet and sink with a mirror in another. I allowed my gaze to drink in the details of the tiny space, willing myself to keep an impending sense of panic at bay.

How did I get here? My mind was a thick fog, my memories like dim lights twinkling in the distance, obscured by mist.

I braced myself against the sink and turned on the faucet so I could splash cool water over the flushed skin of my checks. I peered into the mirror and took in three deep breaths, trying to get my heart to calm down, desperate to find some modicum of comfort in the familiar lines of my face. But as my mind spun, trying to find the logic of my location, I became somewhat unhinged until I deflated entirely tears.

Don’t cry, Novalyn. Don’t cry, don’t cry.

Apparently, there was a door, and it opened with a woosh as I was attempting to give myself something of a pep talk. I spun around, bracing myself against the sink, and saw a tall, slender man standing in the doorway. He was familiar—how did I know him?

“Good morning, Novalyn,” he said, a sweet, lilting accent to his voice, one that I couldn’t quite place. “How are you feeling?”

“Where am I?”

“A bit groggy, then,” he stated, peering down at a tablet in his hand and quickly making a note. I narrowed my eyes at him: he looked familiar, yes, but I couldn’t quite place the lithe frame, the strong, aquiline nose, or the eyes that were such a startling shade of blue that they seemed almost luminescent.

“Am I sick?” I asked, running my hands over the light, soft linen outfit in which I was clad. It walked the line between hospital scrubs and pajamas: white, with delicate embroidery on the cuffs of the sleeves and the hems of the drawstring pants.

“I certainly hope not,” he said, “though I am concerned that your memory isn’t starting to come back.” He approached me cautiously, the way one might a wild animal, and held his finger up in front of my eyes. He shifted it back and forth, and my eyes followed it automatically. Satisfied, he made another note on his tablet.

“May I?” he asked and pressed the back of his hand to my forehead. He smiled, a sharp, startling thing that was alluring, but cold, somehow. “An antiquated method,” he remarked, “but effective, nonetheless, when precision isn’t necessary. You aren’t running a fever.”

“Why would I be running a fever?”

“In case you’d had some sort of adverse reaction to the sedatives.”

“Sedatives?”

He watched my face contort with that same mixture of fear and confusion and he placed his hand genially on my shoulder, an awkward gesture that seemed practiced, forced. “I promise you; everything will start to come back to you momentarily. Most humans recoup a hundred percent of their memories within fifteen minutes of waking.”

I nodded dumbly, trying to make sense of his words. “So, I…I’m not a prisoner, then?”

He smiled again; it was disarming. “No, of course not.”

“And I can leave whenever I like…?”

He canted his head gently to the side and I noticed for the first time that he didn’t have ears. How was it that he didn’t have ears? Where were they, why were they missing? I was staring. Was it rude to stare?

“It’s not quite as simple as all that, Nova,” he equivocated. “Presently, there isn’t anywhere for you to go.”

“I don’t understand—”

“Would you like some water, perhaps? Something to eat?”

I shook my head. “I want to know why I’m being kept here—”

“You aren’t being kept anywhere.”

“I want to be taken to the person in charge.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“Well what can you do?” I demanded. He smiled again, doing his best to keep me calm.

“I can feed you, and give you something to drink, and sit with you while we wait for your memory to come back.” He clutched his tablet to his chest, and I watched him carefully. He was perfectly still, not a single fidgeting movement, not a hair out of place. He was pale with hair the color of fresh hewn corn that hung neatly to his shoulders; he was quite handsome, if you could get past the whole no-ears thing.

“Can you please,” I said, fists clenched, “please just tell me where I am?”

He paused before giving a sharp nod of his head and gesturing to the doorway. I hesitated, but ultimately brushed past him to find myself in a rather long, but otherwise nondescript, hallway with more of that same indirect lighting that my chamber had. He followed me out and led me down the corridor at a leisurely amble. There were other doors like mine, but none of them were open; they admitted no noise. The hall was perfectly quiet.

At the end of it was another door. I pushed against it, but it didn’t give until my host held up his wrist to a console nearby. Then, it whisked open, and we stepped out onto a bustling promenade with a glass ceiling that boasted the most extraordinary view of the night sky I had ever seen.

“Welcome, Ms. Bryce,” he said, “To the Atria, Federation Ship 4199.”

Not the night sky, then: space. Stars. Closer than I’d ever before been to them. I tilted my head back and marveled.

“Ok, I get it,” I said, my jaw slack with wonder. “I’m dreaming.”

“I assure you, no.”

“Yep. Definitely dreaming.”

“Ms. Bryce—”

“Do you have a name?” I asked, angling my eyes on The Earless Wonder. He grinned, showing a set of three sharp canines.

“Tymer Maferan, Central Echelon,” he said, “We’ve met.” I narrowed my eyes at him; I tried to be shrewd, cunning, tried to mask the sinking sensation that something horrible had happened, or was about to happen. I tried to keep my stomach from turning over, tried to keep the contents of dinner from the evening previous from ending up all over Tymer Meferan’s highly polished shoes.

“We know each other?” I said, more of a statement than a question despite how my voice trailed ever so slightly upward at the end.

“We do.” He reached out then, using a fingertip to brush an errant brown curl out of my eyes, and that one simple, intimate gesture brought back a memory crashing back with such force that it almost knocked the air out of me.

Tymer and Me. At dinner in Little Italy. Clumsy, twirling long spaghetti noodles, laughing so hard my hair falls out of its clip. Tymer, reaching across the table to tuck it behind my ear. Tymer, talking to me about love, about psychology. Tymer, standing on the hardwood of my studio apartment and telling me I am beautiful.

“Novalyn?” He says gently, drawing me out of my reverie. “Come with me.” He took my hand then, and I clutched it, my eyes squeezed shut against the force of the memories as they flooded back into focus. I let Tymer lead me, trying to stem the rising panic that threatened to make my heart beat clear out of my chest. I did know him; we’d dated. Only a few dates, right? How did it go…?

I met him online, wasn’t that it? He had messaged me first, and I had been drawn to his eyes. We had exchanged a few messages, and on our first date, we had dinner. Wasn’t that it?

Now, Tymer was leading me through an all but abandoned mess hall, where he sat me down at a table and fetched me a cup of water and a plate of food: hearty fare, oatmeal with fresh berries. “Here,” he said gently, “I’m sorry you’re…I…” he paused, eyeing me. “I’m kind of new, actually, at my job.”

“What exactly is your job?” I asked, drinking deeply of the water.

“I’m a member of the Echelon,” he said, and I blinked, trying to determine if he thought that was supposed to make sense. “We are an intergalactic agency comprised of members of most known species that serves as a neutral intermediary in conflicts and generally keeps an eye on…things.”

“Things?”

“And stuff.” He smiled, and I couldn’t help but smile back. “Anyway, I am an extractor of the central Echelon, and you, Ms. Bryce, are my charge.”

“Charge?” I echoed, setting to work on the oatmeal, and finding it surprisingly savory for space food. Space food. I had to push the thought of being in space utterly out of my mind in order to get any of the food down.

“Yes,” Tymer went on, “I, ah…I was tasked with identifying and extracting…that is, there is a…” He stammered, and I just sort of furrowed my brow, watching him as I chewed. There was something kind of comforting about the mundane act of eating.

“What?” I urged.

“Um.” He cleared his throat, a distinctly human gesture for one who, I gathered, was not, in fact, human. “Novalyn. The thing is…” But the haze was beginning to lift, and I was starting to see things for what they were: He was tasked with extracting humans from earth, for God knows what reason. And he had chosen me. Not because he was interested in dating me, or getting to know me, or even fucking me. But for some vaguely sinister purpose that left me afloat in the middle of space, millions of miles from home.

“You just…target people? To abduct them?”

“Ah, ‘rehome’ them, we like to say.” He said, having the good grace to look abashed.

“Like a fucking cat you can’t take with you to your new apartment?” I demanded, my voice rising.

“Please, try to remain calm,” he said, his voice soothing and sonorous. “Everything should be explained to you.”

“I want you to explain it now.”

He hesitated a moment, but sighed, and slowly nodded his head. “Yes, you were targeted. You matched a certain search criteria—”

“What was the criteria?”

He ran his tongue over his lips and looked down at the table between us. “Fertile human female, age 18 to 25, few or no friends, few or little family, sexually responsive, with a body mass index between 26 and 35, and no known diseases.”

I blanched, staring at him slack-jawed and stunned. He parted his lips as though he were going to say more, but he was interrupted by an insistent little beeping on his tablet, and he peered down at it, ostensibly reading a message. He looked up at me, grew pale, and curled his fingers around my upper arm, dragging me to standing, not violently but certainly with more force than he’d used up to that point. I tried to jerk away, but he was deceptively strong and had quite a grip. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Further explanation will have to wait. I have to get you upstairs.”

He marched me in silence toward a lift, and I tried to get a good look around, to orient myself on the giant craft, but there was no use: it looked the same on all sides, the domed ceiling admitting a spectacular view of totally useless stars against the velvet black of oblivion.

“Upstairs” was, it seemed, a sort of alien estheticians office, full of people scuttling about in white lab coats, applying makeup and cutting hair. I furrowed my brow as Tymer led me over to a woman—earless, as Tymer, and bald to boot—with wide eyes, violet and ringed in thick, black lashes. They began to communicate in a language I didn’t understand, comprised primarily of languid vowel sounds that were intoxicating to the ear. I thought I heard Tymer say my name, but it sounded more like “Nowalen Rye”, and I couldn’t be sure.

The female approached me and began to lift my shirt up over my head. Naturally, I resisted. “You have to at least buy me dinner first,” I joked nervously, but realized that my words were utterly lost on her: she didn’t know a single word of English. “Hey, now,” I said when she didn’t abate, when her fingers untied the neat bow that held up my drawstring pants. “Stop that.” I jerked away, out of reach, and I saw Tymer start to stick up for me, but she waved him off even as she summoned another lab-coat-wearer, who stuck me in the neck with a needle. I yelped, lifting a hand to rub at the affected area, and felt all of my cares slip away. I relaxed almost instantly, became pliable and easy, and she was able to strip me of my clothes without so much as a word of protestation from me. She, along with two others, led me into a private room and lifted me up onto a metal table. They had me on my back first, kneading my breasts and thighs in their cold hands, taking measurements, examining my hair and sticking their fingers into my mouth to look at my teeth. Then they bent my legs at the knees and pried my thighs apart, spreading open my nether lips so that they could look closely at the flower of my sex. Their fingers found my clitoris, and my entrance, and they pushed two fingers, perfunctory, exploratory, inside of me.

And I didn’t mind it. I was humming something quietly to myself, something melodic and pleasant, and I liked the attention, and the feeling of their hands on my body. “What are you guys doing?” I asked, almost absently.

“Prepare,” one of them said. “Make beautiful.”

Beautiful. I had never felt particularly beautiful. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t a dog or anything like that, but usually I just felt so very deeply average. My eyes were pretty enough, I suppose, a limpid sort of blue, but Tymer’s eyes had pretty much blown mine out of the water. My hair was a mess that I could never manage to get under my control, and my nose was, I thought, rather a bit too small, too turned up. Of course, my tits were fairly epic, if I did say so myself.

Those fingers continued to work themselves in and out of me, and I wondered if they were trying to make me come. I didn’t think I would come, not detached like I was from my body, not looking down from above at their bizarre ministrations. But no, after a few minutes, the fingers withdrew, leaving me glistening wet and vaguely wanting. The fingers were replaced in short order by a wand, about two inches in diameter, that they slid inside of me. They moved it around, and I was dimly aware of an image on a monitor: a sonogram, then. Maybe to make sure all of my bits were in total working order.

They clamped two delicate little jewels, all gold and red, to my nipples, making them hard and aching, before they removed the wand and stood me up. They dressed me in a gossamer gown of light, airy white and gold fabric that was as delicate as a butterfly wing, and even more transparent. They pulled a gold belt around my waist and fastened the gown on one shoulder with a golden brooch shaped like an exotic bird. The dress covered only one breast, leaving the other exposed. But not for long: an odd drape of golden chainmail was fastened around my neck and under my arm, covering the exposed breast with a bit of beautifully rendered gold armor.

Then they set about curling my hair in a series of neat, tight little ringlets that they piled atop my head and secured with a clip that matched the golden brooch. Next, makeup: natural blush and lip rouge, and a dusting of fine gold powder over my eyelids. They held up a mirror for me to examine myself, and I smiled: I felt like an Amazonian Queen, and I wanted Tymer to see me.

But where was he? “Where is Tymer?” I asked, and the estheticians glanced between themselves, pencil-thin brows in high, quizzical arches over their over-large eyes as though they were trying to make sense of the gibberish language I was spewing. They had about three seconds of interest to give me before they gave a shake of their head, a wave of their hand, and moved on.

They herded me into a circular room with doors all around it, along with about a dozen other girls. We were variations on a theme with our Greek toga dresses and our one-breasted armor, our gold dust eyeshadow and highly stylized coifs. They all had the same dreamy sort of expression on their face that I was sure I had, compliant, complacent, and ready to be sent wherever it was we were going.

Where were we going? “Tymer?” I asked. “Where are we going?” But Tymer wasn’t there. I scanned the faces of my compatriots, humans all, of varying shapes, sizes, ethnicities. All young, all bleary-eyed and yawning. And when the doors around us whooshed open, we all stepped dutifully forward.

I peered through the door, which seemed to be an entryway into a little pod, equipped with a chair in cushy white leather, and a control console with words and symbols I could neither recognize nor parse. Aside from that, it was glass, and around it: stars.

The tall, bald woman in the white lab coat approached me and nudged me gently forward, but I dug in my heels. “What will happen to us?” I asked, but the woman just pushed harder. She rattled off some totally indiscernible speech in that same language Tymer had used with her earlier, and I tried to latch onto anything that was even remotely recognizable. “Are you also a member of the Echelon?” I asked. “What do you do? And when will I be able to go home?”

When I said the word ‘echelon’, something in her expression changed. Her features darkened, and she was no longer using the soothing tone of voice when she turned around to shout something at her colleague. I couldn’t understand the words, of course, but I did make out a familiar name: Tymer Mafaren. They were talking about him, and none too kindly at that.

With a strength that betrayed her slight form, she hauled me bodily into the pod, and dropped me into the seat. By the time I turned around to protest, the door had already closed behind me. The Calm-Happy-Easy drug was most definitely wearing off, and I looked to either side of me and saw that my pod was linked to the pods of the other girls.

Without the slightest warning, the pods were blasted off in a ring, away from the Atria. I looked up and watched the great ship grow smaller and smaller overhead as the loop of pods was shot away, like a bullet from a gun. But toward what?

In the vast emptiness of space, there was no turbulence, so I stood up to peer over my useless console to see if I could ascertain what we were aimed it. There was a planet, blue and white. Earth? Were we being sent home?

In that instant, the pods broke apart, shooting off in different directions. All except mine. I seemed to still be connected to someone else. I peered to my right, trying to see if the other girl noticed, but she was sitting in her seat with her eyes squeezed shut, clearly hyperventilating. I waved my arms frantically trying to get her attention, praying that she knew whether or not we were supposed to stay connected like we were, or if it would mean something had gone terribly wrong and we’d explode mid-air. Can you blame me for being terrified?

When we neared the planet’s atmosphere, an image popped up on the console screen, a little LED-light animation of putting on a safety harness. I sat down, and did as I was told, fastening a buckle around my waist, and tucking my arms through the shoulder straps so I could fasten a second buckle around my sternum. Now things were getting bumpy.

And I couldn’t breathe.

And there was fire blowing past the window.

And I knew, I knew, this is how I would die. This was how. And I willed myself to wake up from this nightmare.

I heard a great release of air as the parachutes on our pods opened up, but something went wrong. Maybe since we were still connected, one parachute got in the way of the other, because what I assumed should have been a gentle descent onto the surface of the planet, was a jarring fall into a rapidly approaching groundswell. And there was nothing I could do. I saw the treetop canopy of a great forest, and squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for impact, praying to anything that could hear me to keep me safe.

I felt a jolt that knocked me violently against my restraints; I felt a catch that tossed me into the back of the chair again, whiplash sharp and fast. Then, everything went still.