Chapter 20
Blair
Seeing as they had to evacuate both the tower and the entire west side of the BCI to contain the flames Osid had set off on the last floor, I half hoped they’d simply give up and kick us out.
With three floors under our belts and only one bar in the Tamagotchi, it was easy to see our therapist losing patience with us.
Yet the little birds were annoyingly persistent.
Instead, they kept trying to incentivize me into kissing him by making the solo sleeping quarters worse and worse.
I am nothing if not an obstinate bitch, and after that stint about spewing his pheromones all up in my hair, not kissing Osid was more about principle than anything. Still. My current accommodations were the definition of cruel and unusual punishment.
Last year on my twenty-sixth birthday, my friend Crystal and I rented an Airbnb down in Florida.
The beds were stained and gross, and an iguana just showed up in the shower.
If that weren’t bad enough, when we woke up the next morning there was a dead guy in the pool, and for a hot minute we thought we got drunk and killed a man after way too many margaritas.
We crashed out and filled up her old Volkswagen with our last twenty dollars then rode south until we heard on the radio four hours later that it was the Mafia, thank small miracles.
This was somehow worse.
Hot steam blasted into my face from a pipe hanging a foot above the bed I was given.
The room was no more than a broom closet, and even though I was only five foot five, I had to scrunch myself into a ball just to fit on the bed.
The blanket was the itchiest thing that you ever did feel, probably made from the eyelashes of hooligan children and the muttered curses of the damned.
With a groan, I rolled over and tried to scoot farther toward the wall to be out of the pipe’s steam range. But the metal wall was somehow freezing. “Oh fuck this.”
I left the broom closet to wander around the rest of the floor.
Wandering over to the staircase we had come up, I tried going farther up the steps but was blocked by a sealed door.
Making my way back down, I checked the map hanging in the stairwell.
From the looks of it, there were twenty floors, not ten, like the therapist mentioned.
Which made sense, as I wasn’t brought to the same room every time.
Did they really expect me to sleep in the broom closet on every floor?
They had to have been keeping the good beds in the couples area.
Time to do some sleuthing.
Most of the floor was pretty sparse. I managed to peek in what looked like a processor room with computers that took up most of the walls.
The door was locked, and I gleaned what I could from looking through a small window into the room.
Large double doors sealed off what I guessed was the couple’s retreat area.
Even the door handles were shaped like a heart, which seemed pretty on the nose, but who was I to judge?
No amount of kicking or angry threats could get the door to budge, so I guess that was all I was going to be able to glean from that room for the night.
Just when I was about to give up and head back to my miniature hell closet, I noticed a faint green light blinking under a door marked in blocky red letters.
In a place like this, red was probably reserved for important things like “off limits” or “do not enter,” but seeing as I couldn’t read it, it obviously didn’t apply to me.
Reasonable deniability, bitch.
The door slid open at a light push, yet it creaked so loud you’d think it was trying to announce my presence to the whole damn tower.
I cringed, waiting for sirens to blare or guards to show up and drag me off.
When seconds ticked by, I shook off the jitters and crept inside.
The room was narrow and dark; what little light there was came from six glowing panels propped up against the wall.
Faded text scrolling along each one, the blocky letters jumped and swapped like a game of Tetris.
Low, grumbly voices alerted me to two Biwban arguing atop a long wooden perch.
The red one sneezed, and several beautiful feathers fell listlessly to the ground.
“Do you see this, Varik?” the red one asked in a nasally wail. “I’m molting! Molting! Ever since that auditor showed up, I’ve been going bald!”
His purple counterpart wacked him upside the head, causing even more feathers to flit to the ground. “Keep your beak on, Creeko.”
“Keep my beak on?” Creeko snapped. “I’m telling you, this is not going to end well. We’re halfway through the quarter, and 80 percent of our funds are gone. Gone! I’m sure a good chunk of them went straight into that stupid organic juice bar he installed in his suite.”
The purple one’s feathers puffed out in all directions.
“Don’t even speak to me about the juice.
Do not even think it. I spent my internship overseeing the repopulation of Jeckovolsohan after Pide got caught dumping their waste into its oceans.
I’ve had to guide a school of radioactive fish to new spawning grounds.
And this selfish cracked-talon manchick had me building a custom scent diffuser so he can fill his room with the scent of pine needles. ”
Creeko’s voice dropped to a bitter, frantic whisper. “When the auditor starts pulling files, it’s going to be our asses on the line.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Varik barked.
“We’re the ones on record doing the modifications.
That blasted director had full control of the report logs and changed the records to keep his beak clean.
Even if he didn’t, it’s not like he couldn’t go running to daddy if any of this comes to light.
Must be nice to have the richest Biwban in the solar system as your father. ”
The red Biwban pulled at the feathers on his crest and frantically shook his head.
“I’m not built for prison. This was supposed to be a clear-cut rehabilitation project.
I came here to run a few bonding trials, some hormone logging, maybe a minor ethics complaint or two.
Now we’ve got a full-on embezzlement paper trail and some untagged sapients walking around. ”
I pressed closer, heart hammering in my chest. Sapients?
“You think they’ll notice?” the purple one asked, nervous now. “I mean, both the humans and Sankado were registered as class C. Low-level communicators, emotionally volatile, zero threat—”
It was Creeko’s turn to deliver a slap. “They. Can. Talk.”
Varik rubbed his cheek. “…oh shit, I forgot.”
“Gendula said Subject 12 spoke to her in perfect common dialect. That bumps them to class A, meaning they’re fully protected under the Galactic Federation All Species Act.”
There was a long pause. I felt a bead of sweat slide down the side of my face.
“If the audit catches wind of what we’ve done here—no, even just the breeding trials alone—we’ll be on trial for species rights violations.
That kind of shit sticks. The director gets a slap on the wrist and a sabbatical.
The entire trial program gets shut down, and we—we—are the ones getting plucked and stuffed,” said Varik.
I took a sharp breath without meaning to. It echoed, loud and unmistakable.
“What was that?!”
The sound of the door creaking followed as I turned and ran—silent as I could—but my boots still thudded against the corridor as I dashed back the way I came. I ducked behind a corner just as the maintenance door slammed back open.
“See anything?”
“No, it might just be a rat.”
“Ugh, disgusting. Earth’s creatures are so vile.”
I didn’t wait to hear the rest. I crept through the corridors, heart pounding. So they weren’t just clueless idiots playing alien marriage counselors—this was criminal.
They’d been treating us like animals. Shooting us with love darts, locking us in closets, hoping we’d hump each other like horny lab rats. Now an auditor was somewhere in the tower looking for the truth, the real truth.
We weren’t animals.
We were evidence.
And I was going to make damn sure The Powers That Be found that out.