I Fell for an Alien Popstar

1. CHAPTER ONE

The day the vending machine ate my last weekly coffee credit, I told it I hoped it choked.

It just blinked at me—row after row of polished chrome panels and soft blue interface lights pretending it hadn’t just committed theft. The whole machine was glitching out. The screen offered me choices in three languages, and none of them were human language.

“I swear to every person who works here,” I muttered through my clenched teeth, “if you keep my coffee, I’m pulling your plug myself.”

The machine stared back with the dull, indifferent glow of corporate machinery, reflecting my own tired-looking face and messy hair. I looked exactly like someone who should accept defeat and fill out a maintenance ticket.

Instead, I slapped my palm flat against the metal like I was some sort of chaotic goblin. “Ahh! Give it back, and we’ll pretend this never happened,” I yelled, glancing around to make sure no one important was witnessing me threaten an appliance. “You can be a hero here. Redemption arc. Come on.”

“Still bullying the coffee dispenser, Lamoth?”

I jumped and jerked my head to the side. Thomas from payroll was drifting past with a stack of papers.

“It started it. Crime of passion. I was provoked.”

He snorted. “You know you can just use the upstairs one.”

“The one upstairs hates me more.” I rolled my eyes and sighed.

“This one and I had an understanding. A long, fruitful partnership. Mutual respect. Then it decided to ruin my life. I’m going to have to tell Carla she needs to retire this model and get an upgraded one.

I heard all these old models are glitchy. ”

“Tragic. But I doubt she’ll replace it. She’s trying to budget, remember.” Thomas gave me a sympathetic wince. “Hey, if you’re short on caffeine, I’ve got an extra sachet at my desk.”

I shook my head. “No thanks. I’ll see how far pure spite can carry me.”

“Good luck with that.” He smirked and shuffled off toward the elevators.

As soon as he disappeared, I leaned my forehead against the cool metal and let my voice drop to a whisper.

“Listen, machine. Buddy, pal. Please give me my coffee. I mean, it won’t kill me to lose all these credits to you without getting my drink, but if you could just spit it out, that would be great. ”

Then I started thinking. Maybe it was a sign. I didn’t need coffee; I wanted it. Maybe spending a ton of credits on something that actually mattered wouldn’t kill me either. I didn’t need to go to the concert; I wanted to.

The idea had been circling me for weeks, irritating me, really.

Like a pop hook stuck in my head. Planet Vela, Popstar Zhari, and her Cosmic Girlz Tour.

My chest tightened with excitement whenever a promo clip flashed across my feed.

Her outfits for this tour were amazing: holographic neon pinks and purples, pearlescent and chrome pieces.

She even had these glitter extensions that made her pink skin glow and her blue eyes pop.

Her voice kept me sane during 3 a.m. depression episodes.

I pulled back, studying the machine as if it might argue. “I’m taking your silence as a no. You won’t give me my credits back. Very mature of you.”

I gave the bottom of the machine a small kick and turned to walk back to my cubicle.

Making my way down the hall, I passed Steve from logistics. He was around seven feet tall, lavender-skinned, and had been working in our building longer than I had.

Aliens had been on Earth for decades by then, since around 2040. They were so integrated that most people didn’t even notice they were aliens.

“Hey there, Steve,” I said, waving. “Nice day today, right?”

He flashed a partial grin and kept typing away at his computer. Sometimes I thought he had his ear translator piece turned off so he didn’t have to talk to us.

I often wondered what he was like outside of work. Did he have a goofy side? Was he kind and empathetic? What about his home planet? Did he miss it? Was it a water planet? Or a hot and humid flora planet where everything was covered in jungle? I guessed that until he opened up, I’d never know.

Back at my desk, the office buzzed with the usual computer keyboard clicks, printer whirs, and the distant murmur of someone pretending to care on a customer call.

My supervisor, Carla, popped her head over the partition. “Vada, did you get those quarterly summaries sent?”

“Almost,” I lied. My screen showed a spreadsheet behind a minimized window of the shuttle company’s homepage, pixelated stars promising new horizons for a modest fee. “They’re… progressing.”

“Great. Remember, end of day.” She gave me a thumbs-up and vanished, leaving behind the faint smell of cheap perfume and productivity quotas.

“Yuck,” I said, wincing as I fanned the air around me.

I opened the minimized tab, which showed the space station and Zhari’s tour advertisement.

I guessed they were one of her sponsors.

There were only five space stations on Earth, and one of them was right here in England.

The banner ad across the top of the page was worse than the vending machine debacle, teasing me for weeks with the reminder that I couldn’t afford a concert ticket and a shuttle pass.

The ad read: ZHARI LUMIS—LIVE IN LUMARA—ONE NIGHT ONLY.

A looping clip played automatically, showcasing Zhari onstage below.

I’d watched that clip one too many times already. The internet knew it; that was why it kept throwing it at me like a dare.

I unmuted the page, just for a second. The tiny speakers on my terminal were awful, tinny and thin, but even through that, her voice wrapped around my cubicle and made everything else disappear.

The melody dropped into that familiar progression, the one from the song Pixelated Chixz that had gone viral years ago and never really left.

It had been two years after high school, 2077, and I had been the same age as Zhari, twenty.

I remembered it like it was yesterday. I’d had headphones on in the dark while the rest of the house slept.

My life had been small, and the future had been a blank hallway I didn’t want to walk down.

Someone in a chat room had sent a link that said, “You have to hear this alien girl. She sounds like heaven.” Interested, I clicked the link.

It was Zhari. She was live from some luminous Velan arena, singing her heart out. From then on, I had her on repeat.

That night, I’d drawn her until my fingers cramped. She had this softness that was hard to get on paper—nothing about her was stiff or posed. Her hair was long and blue, bouncing around as she moved. She was my favorite to draw.

“Vada,” Thomas said, reappearing at the edge of my cubicle like a summoned spirit. “You know your sound is on, right?”

Thomas’s voice snapped me back to reality, and I fumbled for the mute icon. “Shit. Inspirational background noise? Studies show it improves productivity.”

“Uh-huh.” He tilted his head at the ad still looping across my screen. “You’ve got it bad for Zhari, you know that?”

“Yeah, I know,” I mumbled. “She’s the sexiest woman alive. Her singing? Amazing. Her charity work? Phenomenal. You wouldn’t get it.”

Thomas rolled his eyes. “You going to that?” He pointed at my screen as the concert details flashed.

I turned around and looked back at the screen. “To Planet Vela? Ugh, I wish. I don’t exactly have disposable income. You also know I don’t travel alone. Hello, social anxiety.”

“True.” He tapped my desk with the sachet of instant coffee. “In case the spite from the vending machine runs out.” He gave me a wink before walking away.

“Thanks,” I called out, even though I knew I’d forget to use it. My head was still tangled in the sound of Zhari’s voice.

I glanced down at the corner of my desk, where my sketchbook sat half-hidden under a stack of reports.

I wasn’t supposed to bring personal stuff into the cubicles other than photos, but Carla didn’t seem to mind.

Slow data pulls left long minutes to fill, and drawing kept me from going completely numb. A couple of fresh pages waited there.

I opened it up and started drawing until my shift limped to an end.

I closed out of my work apps and stood to stretch. I tossed on my jacket, grabbed my sketchbook and purse, and headed for the doors.

Outside, the city looked like every other evening—gray and some more gray.

It was always gloomy. Neon signs flickered above tall buildings, breaking up the darkness.

Shuttle traffic was always backed up, with large crowds taking up the entire sidewalk.

Typical city life, which I wouldn’t have changed for the world.

As I walked home, I clutched my sketchbook to my chest and took in the sights as if they were new to me. The best thing about living in the city was that the scenery was always different but also the same.

My wristband buzzed halfway down the block, the family group chat lighting up. By “family group chat,” I meant my mother and father, as I was an only child.

mum had sent a photo of the kitchen table back home, freshly wiped, with a plate of goulash in the center. It was the meal we’d had growing up when money was tight. mum called it our fancy meal, always using whatever we had in the fridge to make something spectacular.

MOM: Are you eating properly? Please tell me you’re not just eating ramen, are you? You know what that does to your belly. You get terrible farts, Vada. Hey, did you pay your rent on time?

Good grief. I wished I could say this was a one-off thing, but my mother texted like this all the time. It was mentally exhausting.

Now, before you say it, I was thankful to have a mother who cared. But if she had just sent one question at a time, it wouldn’t have been so bad. Being bombarded with a ton of questions at once was crazy.

ME: Mom. You literally text me this once a month. The rent is fine, so stop worrying. I also buy more than just shoyu ramen and chicken katsu donburi. I had an apple yesterday.