Chapter Five
Exhausted after a long, stressful day, Savannah tossed her bag onto a credenza and collapsed on the sofa.
Toeing off her shoes, she propped her feet up on the cube serving as a coffee table then nearly jumped out of her skin when a female voice spoke.
“Welcome home, Savannah. I’m Aaia, your apartment AI assistant. ”
“Uh, hello. You know who I am?”
“I know everything about you.”
Nothing scary about that, she thought nervously.
“You appear to be tired. Would you like a massage?”
“I’d love a massage. But where—oh, my god.” Fingers in the sofa began to knead her tense muscles. She relaxed into the cushions; an actual masseuse couldn’t have done a better job. “I don’t suppose you could fix me a drink?” she joked.
“Certainly. What would you like?”
She was 100 percent certain Oberia had nothing similar to the cocktails she enjoyed. Margarita or chardonnay probably didn’t translate. “What’s popular?”
“Vekkel is an alcoholic beverage enjoyed by many,” Aaia said.
“I’ll try it,” she said, curious as to how the disembodied AI would deliver the drink.
Oberian tech was several iterations ahead of Earth. She felt like she’d fallen asleep with a rotary dial telephone on the nightstand and woke up to an iPhone. The learning curve was steep, and she would have to hustle.
The cube began to vibrate and hum. Quickly, she moved her feet. Seconds later, an opening appeared in the top, and a bubbling, frothing stein on a pedestal rose out of the cube. “That’s amazing!” she exclaimed. “Can the table produce any kind of beverage?”
“The home beverage dispenser is programmed to mix fifty popular Oberian beverages,” Aaia said.
“Earth doesn’t have anything like this,” she murmured. Coffee tables did not make coffee.
“The beverage table is produced by OberTech Industries, invented by Stratos, a lead designer at the time.”
How appropriate that the man who could drive someone to drink should be the one to provide the liquor.
What a day! She’d assumed she and Stratos achieved a truce after the encounter with the VP of Personnel, and he’d announced she could have the job, but he’d disabused her of the notion and cut her no slack on her first day.
He’d responded with irritation whenever she asked for an explanation or more information, but asking questions was preferable to making a mistake and really annoying him—although she’d done that a few times, too.
He had shown her how to operate her computer desk and access its functions and files.
Impatiently, but he’d done it. On Earth, a desk was a table you set the computer on. Here, the desk was the computer.
He’d invented that, too. No wonder the company tolerated his rudeness. He must have made them a gazillion dollars. On the downside, his genius left no room in his brain for manners or personality.
Or maybe rude was the Oberian culture. Isomar and Corona hadn’t been any too friendly either.
Maybe the VP had figured there was no profit to being nice, since Savannah wouldn’t last long anyway.
Probably, she should have kept her mouth shut and not challenged the Personnel VP on company policy.
But, while Stratos was more acerbic and terse than Corona, she kind of enjoyed sparring with him, whereas the woman’s condescension had rankled. So, she’d butted in with her two cents.
She raises a good point. Stratos had stood up for her, but doing so had taken his last quarter. He’d not shown her any mercy all day.
The only real welcome had come from the apartment’s AI.
“Bottom’s up!” She lifted the stein in a toast to the invisible Aaia and took a big drink. And spit it out, coughing and choking. “What is that? Battery acid?”
“Vekkel is a very popular Oberian alcoholic beverage.”
She continued to hack. “Water! Do you have water?”
The cube produced a glass of water, and she gulped it down. A tiny house bot scurried in from somewhere to clean up the mess.
“Perhaps you would care for another beverage?”
“I’ll stick with water, for now.” She wondered if there might be a human expat community she could connect with to help her assimilate, give her tips on what was good and bad. The quickie lunch she’d grabbed in the company cafeteria had been interesting, to say the least.
“Aaia, do you have any info on how many humans are on Oberia?” Would any of them be GAL Fridays? Maybe?
“Counting you, there are thirty-two.”
“Thirty-two? On the whole planet?”
“Correct.”
Not enough to have formed any kind of community. The odds of encountering any of them would be slim.
“Is there any food in the apartment?” she asked.
“There is a five-day supply.”
“Is it edible for humans?”
“It is all edible.”
Wrong question. Edible and palatable were different. “Do you have a way of finding out what food products the humans on Oberia are eating?”
“No. But I can access the planetary inventory system to see what they order.”
“Is there food in the apartment like what other humans have ordered?”
“There is one entrée that is ordered quite often. Would you like me to have it prepared?”
“Not yet. Please buy a week’s worth of dinners that other humans have purchased.” She couldn’t stomach another meal like the lunch she’d had in the cafeteria.
“Done.”
Savannah had transferred the dregs of her savings to an Oberian account, but it wouldn’t last long.
She’d been informed she could order food from her apartment, charge it to her rental account, and pay it off with her first set of pay credits.
There’d been so much information thrown at her, she’d forgotten to ask how to do that.
In speaking with Aaia, she realized the AI was the how.
She had to be careful what she charged on credit—god forbid she went into debt and then got sacked—but if she limited her spending to food, she would be okay.
OberTech had paid the first month’s rent on her apartment located on the eleventh floor of a tower within walking distance of the office.
It was one of the benefits GAL Friday had negotiated.
She warred between praying she could hang on to the job and counting the days until Verilla returned so she could be honorably discharged. The length of the gestation period blew her away. A twenty-four-month pregnancy? Holy hell!
The sofa was still kneading her back and legs. “You can stop the massage.”
The sofa went still.
“Did Stratos invent the massaging sofa?”
“No. His contributions are significant, but he did not invent everything on Oberia.”
She still couldn’t believe she’d called him an asshole.
What had possessed her to say something so stupid?
It was true, but she had to get better control of her mouth.
She needed this job—not just to recover financially but also to get another job.
She had to make a good impression so she’d get a favorable recommendation and could use OberTech as a reference.
Chuck had said the sexual harassment allegation would not go on her employment record, but she suspected that wasn’t true.
Despite stellar qualifications and skills, she hadn’t landed a single interview, let alone a job offer.
It looked like she’d been blackballed. She’d even tried other temp agencies, to no avail.
Only GAL Friday had been interested in her.
So, yeah, calling her new boss an asshole was a stupid move. But she was fed up with people shitting on her—the false accusations, the discovery Gavin was married, getting fired, being blackballed.
She took heart from Stratos hiring her, and she’d worked her ass off today to prove herself.
After reviewing his electronic messages, she discovered several important appointments hadn’t made it onto his calendar.
She reviewed his other meeting requests, and, after consulting with him, decided they could be handled with a simple message rather than holographic or in-person meetings, saving him hours of time.
She intercepted a phalanx of people wishing to talk to him, minimizing the interruptions.
All in all, she thought she added quite a bit of value.
Once she got fully up to speed, she’d do even better.
But, if he turned out to be too much of a jerk, she’d resign. It was no mystery to her why four admins had quit.
She wasn’t a snowflake who got her feelings hurt with a stern glance. He would discover she could throw punches as well as take them.
Cranky, demanding, and exacting she could tolerate. However, she refused to put up with abuse. Stratos didn’t know it, but she’d put him on probation. If he didn’t turn out to be at least a semi-decent person, she’d fire him as her boss and quit.
She was a damn good executive assistant. GAL Friday had said if this placement didn’t pan out, they’d find her something else on another planet. Stratos wasn’t the only alien in the galaxy.
“Aaia, I’d like dinner now.”