10. Hi #3
Another woman stepped forward. Where the first woman was steady, this one was a blade.
She looked at Charlie like she was a specimen on a slide, pale green eyes already cataloguing.
Green skin, like the first woman, but cooler somehow.
Silver-white hair cropped close. Taller, leaner, precise in every line.
Charlie's immediate assessment was don't mess with this one.
The blade-woman bent down so she and the first woman could speak while she eyed Charlie. Charlie smiled sheepishly and raised her hand to wave her fingers at the steel woman. Her expression didn’t change as she continued to watch Charlie.
Charlie figured they were communicating about her but gave up almost immediately at trying to catch a single word. Yep, it was definitely an alien language.
The blade-woman turned to look at the first with wide eyes. Surprise. Something significant had just been communicated.
And in that position, turned to the side, Charlie could see it. Behind the blade-woman's ear was the same device, that same little implant.
Charlie's engineering brain slammed into gear.
"The thing! The thing behind your ear!" she shouted, startling both women out of their conversation. She pointed at her own ear, just slightly behind it, and made the talking motion with her hand.
The first woman's smile bloomed across her face like a sunrise.
"It helps you talk to each other!"
The smile didn't dampen. The woman turned to the blade-woman and said something quick.
The blade-woman stood and Charlie watched her walk out of the room.
The first woman turned back to Charlie and held up both hands, both stock still.
Ah, this Charlie could recognize. It was a universal gesture for a reason.
"I'm guessing that means 'stay,'" Charlie said as she clasped her hands together, laid them in her lap, and sat up straight. The woman smiled and... did she just wink at me?
The woman got up and walked over to the bodybuilding blue dude. While they spoke, Charlie used the moment to look around, this time less terrified than before.
Well, slightly less.
She began to examine each of the beings in the room.
First, there was the short one. His amber eyes were already watching her with undisguised delight.
Three feet tall, maybe four, with skin that shifted from bright copper across his face to deep crimson at his shoulders, like a sunset setting on his skin.
Bold geometric markings in plum spread across his features, fixed and vivid, math literally written on his face.
Short crimson locs covered his head, staging a minor rebellion against gravity.
He was the smallest person in the room and, somehow, the loudest presence in it.
Behind him, near the doorway, stood another woman.
Quiet, reserved, positioned the way someone stands when they're in another person's space: close to the exit, weight balanced, ready to move.
She had the same general look as the woman Charlie had been playing charades with and the razor lady who'd left, but her skin carried a faint lavender tint and an iridescence that caught the light when she shifted.
Silver-touched dark hair pulled back in a ponytail.
Large violet-gray eyes that were watchful but soft when they found Charlie's.
Charlie's gaze moved and found the tall one near the wall who hadn't yet moved.
Not once, Charlie realized, since Charlie had opened her eyes.
She stood the way old trees did, rooted and unhurried, radiating something Charlie could only describe as calm, except it was so much more than that.
It felt permanent and structural, as though it was a part of this woman instead of a choice.
She was almost as big as the bear in the corner, but everything about her was different.
Deep bronze skin with a luminescent quality, like light lived just beneath the surface.
Her amber eyes held a patience Charlie had never seen expressed so clearly.
Every gesture she made was deliberate and intentional, as though rushing was a concept she'd considered and declined.
Standing slightly apart from the others was a man with warm bronze skin and amber eyes that held Charlie's gaze when her scan reached him.
He wasn't watching her with fear or curiosity or the clinical assessment of the blade-woman.
He was watching her with attention. As though she was worth his full focus simply because she was there.
And then, there was the bear.
Charlie's gaze found him last and she almost wished she hadn't looked.
He was staring at her. Small eyes locked onto Charlie with an intensity that suggested she had personally wronged him in a way that could not be forgiven.
Seven feet tall and hunched over, with thick brown fur and a face that was, without question, a bear's face, but with...
differences. He had a set of tusks around his muzzle, six-fingered hands, and he wore that damn apron.
She looked down at herself at the batter covering her clothes, and then back at the bear's apron, both covered in the same stuff. Then she glanced at the enormous mixing bowl behind her.
Charlie closed her eyes as the pieces started to fall into place. She opened them again, looking over the cookware. Well, it looks like she'd landed in his cooking. Whatever he'd been making, she'd destroyed it.
Charlie went a little pale.
The first woman came back, sat cross-legged in front of Charlie again, while the blade-woman had slipped back into the room behind her, carrying something.
It looked like a point and shoot device, not a gun exactly.
Well, perhaps if it was one made of Legos.
There was a tiny metal square that was clamped between two metallic pieces of hardware at the end of it.
The square was about half the size of Charlie's pinky nail and looked almost fleshy and organic.
But Charlie could see the machinery compacted into it, miniature components and wiring so precisely assembled that her engineer brain wanted to take it apart immediately.
Before Charlie could process what was happening, the blade-woman stepped toward her and pointed the device at her head.
Charlie screamed.
Not the terror-scream from before, but one associated with the full-body, scramble-backward, what-the-fuck reaction that sent her crabbing across the floor away from both women. The blade-woman pulled back and looked at Charlie with an expression that clearly communicated, 'Are you finished?'
The first woman stood. She turned to the blade-woman and gave her a look that Charlie, even across all the barriers separating them and the complete dissolution of everything she understood about the universe, could read perfectly.
Smooth move, asshole.
She walked over to Charlie, her face calm and gentle again, just like before.
That small smile present, the one that made Charlie feel okay.
Charlie's pulse was hammering even now but there was just something about this woman where every time she smiled at Charlie, every single time, she just felt better.
The woman sat down slowly in front of her again, cross-legged once more. She placed her hand over her own chest, closed her eyes and bowed her head. Charlie knew what it meant immediately.
I'm sorry.
Then the woman opened her eyes, looked directly at Charlie, and then raised them up and to the side, eyeing the blade-woman from where she sat. And Charlie watched this leader roll her eyes.
Charlie chuckled softly, even with her pulse still elevated. But it was a real laugh, surprised out of her. And it caused the woman to smile warmly at her once again.
The woman turned and beckoned the blade-woman over, who came to where they were and dropped to her knees.
They spoke. Then the woman who smiled turned back to Charlie.
She tapped the gun the blade-woman was holding, then pointed at the device behind her own ear.
She looked at Charlie and, again, made the talking motion.
"That's the thing behind your ear, isn't it?
" Charlie asked, pointing behind her own ear, then at the gun, and made the talking motion with her hands too.
The woman nodded vigorously, her smile spreading wide.
She pointed at the gun again, then at the device behind her ear, then formed her hand and fingers into a gun shape, raised her forearm, and put the finger gun behind her ear.
Okay, now Charlie was starting to understand. But, wait. These aliens were going to have to use some sort of gun to shoot her in the head so she could talk to them? And, oh, holy shit, was Charlie actually considering this?! Letting god knows who inject her with god knows what?!
She looked up from the woman's puppet display to her eyes. The woman looked at her with... understanding?
She reached out towards Charlie. Tentatively at first, showing Charlie her open hand. Slowly, gently, she leaned forward and placed her hand on Charlie's chest, along her collarbone.
Charlie gasped. Quietly and barely audible.
The heat coming from this woman's hand was unlike anything she'd felt before.
Not hot or feverish, but the kind of gentle radiance that meant something alive was treating you how you should be treated, and that the person behind it was offering something real.
She stared down at the woman's hand, then looked back up to her eyes. The woman held her hand against Charlie for a moment longer before pulling it away and placing it against her own chest, covering the exact same spot.
A mirror gesture.
I'm here. You're here.
Same.
Charlie looked into those golden-green eyes and felt trust.
Okay, well, obviously Charlie was absolutely, certifiably, batshit crazy. Because now she trusted this woman completely. No questions, no qualms.
Charlie took a deep breath and nodded.