title: Lattices aliases: [] tags: [FA] author: [AnotherDangerNoodle] id: [32070084, 32195045, 32563206, 33701001, 34354186, 41271760] date: 星期五, 八月 26日 2022, 10:48:43 上午 modified: 星期一, 八月 29日 2022, 2:06:45 下午

[TOC]

Lattices

Author: AnotherDangerNoodle Source: Lattices - PROLOGUE, Lattices - Chapter 1, Lattices - Chapter 2, Lattices - Chapter 3, Lattices Christmas special (writing prompt), Lattices - Chapter 4

PROLOGUE

I had been obsessed with leaving Earth for a better life ever since humans joined the UTO.

But these weren’t just any aliens... far from the gray-skinned, midget-sized, beady-eyed humanoids that pop culture has brought us to believe. Not only were these aliens uncannily like some of Earth’s fauna, but they were huge... like, building-sized huge. The average human was at best up to their ankles, meaning even one would be an unstoppable killer without thinking twice.

Even the US military – arguably the best on Earth – was all but powerless to stop the invasion of a particularly violent race of reptiles called the Rynar. We were fortunate enough to have been saved by the friendlier UTO member aliens.

Either way, we have a lot to catch up on as a race, both technologically and socially. From what I’d been hearing, their social structure and government sounded almost utopian compared to most nations here on Earth – cheaper education and better public services, for one thing. It didn’t help that the global economy took a hit after the invasion, the likes overshadowing even the Great Depression, but thanks to UTO aid things have been getting better.

I’ve done my part by taking online classes to get certificates in computer sciences from the UTO’s education system, as well as a side-course to be taught their ‘Common’ language. I applied for work shortly before graduating and was interviewed almost immediately by the Talvar Guild, a jewelcrafting company. Within hours of concluding the videoconferenced interview they proudly stated I had been hired.

“That’s great, man!” said my roommate, Travis, hugging me when I told him the news. “So, does that mean you get to go off-world?”

“I do, to Katia as a matter of fact!” I beamed proudly. “Literally to the land of dragons and griffins!”

“Damn, I’m so proud of you, Nate!”

Travis had been supportive of my decision to go off-world ever since humanity joined the UTO. Incidentally, the biggest hurdle had been understanding the language; the written part looked more like an oriental language but with fewer strokes, and the verbal I couldn’t pin to an Earth equivalent. At least the rest of the courses helped me learn it quickly. It was a shame he couldn’t join me, with obligations to his father and uncle at the family garage.

“Thanks, Travis, it means a lot to me.”

“We should celebrate with pizza!”

I shook my head and sighed. “I wish I could, but I have an appointment at the VR in an hour and I don’t want to miss it.”

Travis gasped. “The VR?! How’d you get in?”

“I reserved, like, two months in advance. The wait times are fucking ridiculous!”

“What do you plan on doing there?”

“Originally, it was to do some racing sims, but now I’m going there to meet my guardian.”

“Oh, right! Yeah, mind showing me who your guardian is?”

I pulled out my phone and browsed the gallery to the image in question, turning it to my roommate. “His name is Zherisan Dothruki.” Seeing his picture on his guardian profile, he could’ve passed for a fearsome dragon, but no, that’s just what the Arkatians happen to look like to us Earthlings. One pair of onyx horns curled up, and the second pair curled down, hooking around his large ears. His scales were a pleasant shade of lavender, while the ones just under his jaw and continuing down over his chest were more of a sky-blue. His face was completed with a pair of deep burgundy eyes.

“Holy shit, you scored, Nate!” he bobbed with approval, staring a moment longer before handing the phone back. “Those are the biggest ones!”

“No kidding; he’s nearly a hundred feet tall...”

Knowing the Arkatians, I was now going in fully expecting to be paired with not just a giant, but one of two species of giants among giants, the other being the equine Neishor.

“Did you get your mech yet?” Travis asked.

“Oh! Yeah, I did! Put the down payment on it this morning!” I re-opened the picture gallery and browsed over to my mech.

Travis’ eyes bulged, threatening to fall out of their sockets. “Is that a-”

“Hell yeah it is!”

I didn’t spring for just any mech; I bought myself a private mech, from a joint venture between a Viliti military contractor and an American startup company; it was a little different from the bog-standard government-issued ones. First thing was first: I went full neural implant, by far the most expensive option, but if I was going to be getting a private mech I wanted the best thing available. The most noticeable difference, however, was the head, which had an elongated snout as opposed to the standard dome head, and also gave the visor a projector for a pair of eyes that could offer more emotional expression. Since it was a stripped-down version of the rabbit-folk’s military power armor chassis, it was advertised as a ‘sport’ mech, designed to keep up with any other Viliti, and that was what convinced me to get one. Lastly, I chose a color-shifting paint scheme that was teal when viewed head-on but the fringes would be a rich blue.

“You even have it painted like your old Cadillac!” he pointed out.

“Of course! I had to let the memory of Vivian live on somehow.”

Vivian was the nickname I gave to my Cadillac, which at the time was my inheritance when my grandfather passed away. She was a CTS-V that I learned how to hot-rod with Travis, my college roommate at the time, and when I sold her that big ole’ American V8 was pushing past six hundred horsepower. Certainly not a slouch, but as we quickly discovered during the invasion it would not have mattered.

Luckily, we made it through the invasion without any significant contact, but ambitions off-world forced me to part ways two years ago. I made sure she went to a good home.

Travis chuckled, walking over towards the door. “Tell me how your VR visit goes when you get back! I might try and find some time for that.”

I gave him a wave of acknowledgment as he walked out. My phone then chimed; the AI assigned to managing the Chicago VR hive told me my time slot was due in two hours. Knowing how insane traffic is down there, I took a bus.

I originally reserved this VR slot because, well, who would pass up an experience like that?

But then graduating, getting hired off-world, and being assigned to a guardian changed that purpose really quick. Two months to wait for an hour-long time slot may sound insane, but it was an experience of a lifetime for us, even better that I get to see my guardian for the first time in it, too! At least they didn’t have us pay admission; an American business would’ve charged a fortune!

And what a privilege that was when I was finally called up by the local AI. She coincidentally took the form of an orange winged Arkatian female and called herself Byanrarin,

and at least allowed me to call her Byan for short. “Is there anything special I gotta do?” I asked as I approached my assigned pod.

“Nope!” she replied with a bubbly smile on her avatar’s face. “Just lay down, relax, and you’ll be in dreamland in no time!”

“No probes into my neck? No fancy-schmancy neural overrides or anything?”

“Unless you wanted to put yourself in the Matrix, which I could very easily do for you.”

I chuckled at the reference. The memes regarding the old classic movie ‘The Matrix’ and the VR hives coming online were endless. For some reason, Byan had struck me as a huge Terran movie buff.

“As much as I’d love to be like Neo, I want this interaction to be reasonably realistic.”

“Sure thing. Also, I want to remind you that-”

“Yeah, there’s that memory leak thing, how real it actually is,” I chuckled as I clambered in.

“I’m not that much of a dumb ignorant monkey.”

“You’re the fifth out of 2454 visitors today that have claimed to actually learned about it.

Congratulations!”

Wow, I thought I was the first.

“Have fun!” the AI waved as her avatar blinked out of existence. The glass lid lowered and sealed in. Once in position for a proper link, the countdown screen in front of me ticked, and once it hit zero my vision flashed from cold and blue to life-after-death white.

By the time my eyes got their bearings together, I was in the middle of Millenium Park, with The Bean right in front of me. The sun appeared to be mid-morning and the temperature and humidity told me it was diving into fall – exactly the time right now. I tugged on my jacket collar as a cold breeze tickled my neck and sniffled, the humid lakeside air bringing a distinct scent.

Dozens of virtual Chicagoans were milling about. The occasional blast of a car horn, the nearby L-train, and the birdsong rounded out the scene to perfection. Wow, it really was like reality!

My attention suddenly snapped as a deep, rich chuckle emanated from one of the park benches behind me. “For a human city, this isn’t half bad, Nathan.”

I steered myself leftward, and my heart nearly jumped out of its chest. Zherisan was sitting on the rim of the nearest tree square, his mouth pulled into an amused grin. Unlike me, he wore little more than a sleeveless plain gray shirt showing off a pair of arms that shamed my legs, and black pants that did nothing to hide the fact his thighs were almost as big around as my torso.

Behind him, an equally massive tail snaked around to his left before draping over the ledge like a lazy anaconda. Even at this ‘corrected’ scale, he was still gigantic, far bigger than even the biggest humans in history by a very safe margin.

But something about him radiated ‘gentle’. Maybe it was what many would consider a ‘feminine’ color on such a hunk? Maybe it was that friendly toothless grin that came off as cocky? I don’t know, but I brushed that aside and mustered up the courage to approach. “It’s not as grand as any alien city, though,” I was quick to point out.

“Subtracting the scale, it’s not much different.” He looked around. “Even the infrastructure isn’t far off, if a bit antiquated.”

He pointed to the stainless-steel structure in the middle of a cobblestone plaza. “I like this monument, though.”

“Ah, yes, Cloud Gate,” I nodded, turning to look while continuing the approach, “also known as ‘The Bean’...”

By now, I was within arm’s reach of him – my arm’s reach, I mean. Even when sitting, he was at least a head higher than my own crown. “Too bad it was lost when the Rynar occupied the city...”

He hummed. “I’m sorry to hear that. I heard a lot was lost during those days.”

“Yeah, but at least I survived relatively unscathed.”

“How so?”

“I was in the countryside, so I didn’t really get to see any action. It was slim pickings all around, but at least I had a means of keeping bandits off my ass.”

“You had more trouble with raiders than the Rynar?” Zherisan shuffled, turning intently towards me.

“Yeah, almost everyone else who wasn’t in Maryland, Moscow, or Beijing were only displaced at worst. But of course everyone only talks about Maryland, since that was hit the hardest...”

Baltimore and Washington, DC were completely wiped when the Rynar first arrived. The National Guard there was little more than a nuisance to them, and by the time the rest of the armed forces arrived it was too late. Every other city was nowhere near as badly hit, like Chicago and St. Louis where most of my family lived. Thank goodness for the Second Amendment...

Ugh, even though I had it easy, it still wasn’t something I wanted to talk about, so I switched the subject. “Have you explored other Earth cities in here?”

He shook his head, shifting to face forward again. “Work’s been keeping me busy. The guild’s been pushing to make jewelry specifically for humans, and I was asked to come up with a few designs.”

“Ooh, I’d like to see them someday!”

“That day will be soon, though. You have everything ready?”

“Yep! I leave tonight just past midnight, local time – my time, of course!”

He grinned. “You’re going to be amazed when you come to Katia, maybe even a bit surprised!”

“Knowing you guys and what I’ve been hearing, I’ll have my mind blown!”

His grin faltered, head tilting to the right in confusion. “Mind... blown?”

He didn’t understand that? “Oh, uh, it’s an expression of overwhelming awe.”

“Ah, that makes sense.” Zherisan’s grin returned.

In an awkward pause, I hopped up onto the ledge, my feet dangling inches from the ground.

“So, uh, you want to explore Earth a little bit, while we’re here?”

“Hmm, I suppose we could. But, if I may, I’d like to experience Earth at my true scale.”

A flash of equal parts excitement and fright washed over me immediately. I’ve only seen these aliens in full only once before, during the war, and that was from a distance. “W-Well, I suppose we could, but wouldn’t it be more appropriate if we picked some other random planet?”

“It would, but I’d rather you experience my true scale in an environment familiar to you, since our plants and animals are not to your scale. Additionally, I’m very interested in seeing for myself what it would actually be like to visit Earth as I really am.”

Due to the sheer difference in size, VR was the only option for most aliens to visit Earth.

Full-scale facilities to accommodate tourists were being built where the Rynar invasion tore up existing cities, but those wouldn’t be fully operational until some time later. The best option right now was something called a proxy, essentially the opposite of a mech for the aliens, but those were under military development and were highly experimental; we probably won’t be seeing them for a few years more at least. Either way, being handled by him would be inevitable, and I was both excited and terrified by that. I might as well do it someplace more familiar to me, even if it did mean being shamed into seeing him the size of a ‘small’ skyscraper.

“You make a good point, actually,” I relented, biting my lip. “I suppose if anything, it’ll keep visiting an alien world a surprise.”

“Thank you. It means a lot to me,” he turned, patting his hand against my shoulder. Christ that thing was heavy. “I’ll let you pick where you can take us.”

I already had a place in mind. The local AI caught on, and my vision flashed again.

This time, I was gazing out at a sunset from a ridge overlooking Los Angeles, a cool breeze flowing in from the virtual Pacific. Looking down at the city, I noticed thousands of cars making their commutes around the concrete spaghetti that was their roadway infrastructure, but aside from that there was no one else nearby... so peaceful and serene...

I turned to the right to see the sunse- “Oh sweet Jesus!”

Zherisan was much bigger than I imagined, even with my high expectations. Just one toe rounded off at chest-level to me, each one tipped with a man-sized claw digging into the sloped desert soil like a backhoe with a cutting edge. Like the other aliens, he stood digitigrade, but I doubt even being at his scaled-down size would allow me to reach his heel let alone the ankle.

His head gazed down at me like I would gaze down at a cat or small dog, those burgundy eyes looking mighty sinister once they were as big around as the radio dishes and domes from the communication tower behind him and completely shrouded in his shadow.

A wave of air heaved downward, billowing my hair and jacket as the dragon leaned on one leg against the decline.

“You’re a lot smaller than I was expecting,” he commented.

“You’re a lot bigger than I was expecting,” I replied immediately, in awe of the absolute unit.

He muffled a chuckle. “I suppose we both had high expectations.”

I nodded, unsure of how to put my feelings into words.

The ground shook again as the giant dragon settled down on the slope. “Where are we, anyways?” he asked.

“Los Angeles, California, United States,” I rattled off. “We’re specifically next to the Hollywood sign.”

“The what?”

I pointed to my left, where one of Los Angeles’ most famous landmarks was located.

Normally, even us humans weren’t allowed here due to general dickish human behavior (and of course being close to critical city infrastructure), but I subconsciously requested the AI to put us here with only scenic settings in place – no actual people to bother the view. Even if there was, I doubt anyone would dare to ask Zherisan to move away. Hell, he’d probably rip the letters out and carry them off without a problem. They didn’t even reach his pant pocket.

Zherisan leaned forward, half his brow raised. “What’s the point of this?”

“I... actually don’t know, to be honest.” I shrugged. “But it’s a major landmark now.”

Unable to decipher its purpose, he instead turned back out to gaze at the massive urban sprawl, basking in the view for a silent moment. “This city, it’s... strangely beautiful.”

“Beautiful?” I chuckled nervously. “Well I suppose from an alien that would be true. To me it’s just an ugly congested mess.”

“There are many cities within the UTO that are like that.”

“But at least your self-driving vehicles aren’t idiots.”

“But when they aren’t self-driving, they too are at the hands of idiots.”

We both laughed at that. That’s an interesting thought, an alien driving a car. It’d have to be absolutely massive, though.

Speaking of massive, his hand suddenly dropped down in front of me, the side of his palm mere feet from my shoes. “Ready to be held, Nathan?”

I didn’t answer that immediately. As his charge, it was expected of me to be climbing on and off my guardian’s hands, even though I had my own mech. His scaled palm, a slight shift from bright purple to bright turquoise, could easily be a king-sized bed to me. His fingers, like his toes, were tipped with enormous onyx claws as long as my arm and covered with noticeably smaller scales. Once I stepped on, all he had to do was clamp shut, and I’d literally pop.

But he was a guardian. He had the right mindset to not do exactly that, even though he very easily could. He was trained to the utmost in my care and safety. But that didn’t stop the first time from being easy.

Mustering up the courage, I stood up and stepped down to his palm, the slope pushing me whether I wanted it or not, then sat cross-legged on the lowest point. I was briefly thrown to the side, requiring me to extend my hand to stabilize myself, as he raised his hand to head level.

“Forgive me,” he muttered, doing his best to keep his T-rex shredding teeth concealed, “but I can’t help but look at you as I would any other jewel.”

I sat in startled silence as Zherisan’s eyes glossed over my sitting form. When his nose moved in front of me, I was blasted by a hot gust from either nostril, causing my jacket to flutter like a flag. “Fascinating,” he breathed. “Simply fascinating...”

“W-What is it?”

He set his hand on his belly, holding it out at an angle so I’d have a flat (er, flatter) surface to sit down on, and leaned back into a reclining position against the slope before bringing me back to eye level. “Out of all the fragile things I handle as part of my onus, you humans are by far the most fragile.”

I nodded. “Yeah, we’re not little rocks...”

“But you are precious in your own way. Holding an intelligent lifeform so seemingly insignificant...” he gently raised his hands above his head, the sun shining behind me. “I feel like I’m holding the most invaluable gem in the galaxy.”

He lowered me back down to his belly, his gaze never leaving me. I was more marveled by his words than his handling of me. What little of the topic I gleaned from the extranet suggested that the aliens, when holding a live human, did feel like they had absolute control over a life. On the flip side, the human felt the exact opposite – powerless, defenseless, hopeless. That was exactly how I felt now.

I looked up at one of his claws, only a foot away from my head poised in proper dismembering position relative to me. One twitch was all it would take. “I bet that makes you feel powerful, huh?”

“It does, but between that and being here as I really am, in a recreation on your homeworld...

I feel even more humbled by that.”

Looking past his size, his voice was surprisingly calming, and I’d dare say his natural speaking voice was comparable in quality to some of the best-known Hollywood stars like Morgan Freeman. I reckon he should get a side gig as an extranet talk show host.

“Would you ever take the opportunity to visit here outside of VR if you could?”

“It would be an event of a lifetime for me, to gaze upon such small structures with my own eyes. They’re not unlike the ones I’ve made in my youth.”

That caught my attention. “You made model houses when you were younger?”

“Yes, for a close friend of mine at the time.”

“And what got you into jewelcrafting?”

“I worked in an erestral refinery during university.”

“Erestral... those are your power crystals, right?”

From what I know, erestral is essentially a crystal that can harness sunlight. I don’t know the exact physics, but the end result is the ability to power a home with an eight-hour charge for about a quarter of a year (roughly sixty Terran days). Not only was Sol one of the rare few stars incapable of charging erestral, but it was also the only system with that feature that still had a planet that harbored intelligent life. This has baffled their astrophysicists and xenobiologists alike, and it wouldn’t have been noticed had the Rynar not found out about our nuclear weapons.

“Yes, and I often took some excess chunks to refine myself by hand,” he explained, tapping the large golden ring on one of his horns, where I also noticed a glowing blue crystal in an intricate seat. “This one I use to add power to my yutri accessories.”

I had never seen an exposed erestral crystal before. They were usually behind collector lenses designed to minimize charge times and maximize the angles in which it can charge from a light source. “Can- can I get a closer look at that?”

“Sure!” he carefully raised and rotated his hand, keeping his palm almost consistently level, and brought the thumb to rest against it. I stepped off off and walked over to the horn, thick as an oak tree and hard as rock, probably ten or so feet in diameter. Then I knelt down against it and scooted over to see the crystal in question, its glow not unlike the kind from a nuclear reactor. To my surprise, it was only slightly bigger than my hand, and carved in a perfect hexagonal shape. A pair of insulated leads, each as thick as my arms, were coiled together tightly and ran down behind his other horn before descending to his shoulder and disappearing into his shirt.

“You made this yourself?” I asked, shocked at this realization.

“Yes, and with hand tools.”

Wow. With a crystal capable of powering a human home, he uses it to charge his cell phone.

Even more impressive was that it was basically the size of a grain of rice to him.

“It’s... simple. Yet elegant!”

“Erestral requires a delicate yet firm hand to refine, as the crystals are very brittle. At that size, small changes make big differences, so preserving as much of the crystal as possible is very important.”

I found it humoring, if a bit daunting, that even their jewelry could power things.

Zherisan’s hand jammed against his brow again, and I hopped on, bracing myself while he lowered his carrying hand to his belly and pushed off the small mountainside with the other, bringing himself to a full stand and giving me an even higher view of the city than the hillside could offer. “We still have some time left, and there are more sights I’d like to see.”

“Hmm, I don’t think we’ll be able to get to all of them in time, though.”

“Then show me your favorites.”

I checked the time we had left. Forty minutes – UTO minutes – which meant about forty-five Terran minutes left. Byan popped up to my side. “Could you take us on a tour of Earth, please?”

I asked the AI.

“Sure thing! I know exactly where to take you!”

Barely a second later, we found ourselves on the other side of the Pacific, to a place I personally have never been to, but wanted to for the longest time. Lower but more modern buildings could be seen off in the distance on all sides, but what drew my attention most was the architecture of what was in front. The rooflines were rectangular but the corners gradually swept more dramatically outward the lower it went, and a second similarly-made overhang just below it was held up by simple pillars painted crimson. Below each were sections of gold patterns on a deep blue-green base. Above the entrance was a royal-blue fabric sign with golden symbols and bordered by a red-painted frame, and everything forward of this building by about two hundred feet was flanked by a high red wall on all sides.

I almost didn’t recognize it at first, as Zherisan held me at a height that almost overlooked this incredible facet of ancient Chinese history.

“The Forbidden City!” I said once my bearings were straight.

“Good guess!” Byan smiled, dressed in a traditional red Chinese silk gown. “It was the palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties, and had stood for over five hundred Earth years!”

That was, of course, until the Rynar destroyed most of the city. It wasn’t as bad as the American northeast, but it was still significant.

While keeping me in his hand, Zherisan approached the palace hall and crouched lower, focusing more on the sweeping roofline features and the intricate horn-like structures at the two ends of the peak. “So much detail!” he admired. “It’s a shame it’s all the way up here.”

Wow, he looked really impressed! Normally aliens would scoff at our tiny structures. Sadly, though, this was about as much as he was going to see, as the area he had to work with was barely more than what I would think one of their living rooms would be, maybe even a bedroom... I don’t know, but he’s just too damn big!

Zherisan took one look at me and scrunched his lips. “Perhaps you would be interested in the finer details of such craftsmanship?”

“Hmm, I suppose...” With that, Zherisan raised his hands toward one of the short yet ornate spires. Aside from a lightning rod, it was entirely made of wood, well-worn by centuries of wear.

Still, what little could be seen was indeed quite intricate despite its distance from a crowd. The AI did a good job in recreating this monument.

“Does it not interest you?” he asked, his massive brow furrowing as he watched my reaction.

“I mean, I wouldn’t have asked Byan to take us here if I wasn’t,” I admitted, sighing as I plopped my rear back onto his paw, “but I’m more concerned about the tight schedule. Every second looking at small details is a second that could’ve been better spent elsewhere.”

“I understand. But look at it this way,” he slowly lifted me up to his eye level. “When you come to Katia, we’ll have a lot more time in these simulations.”

“Yeah, I suppose we’ll have to save the extended virtual tourism visits for later.” I turned to see Byan had joined me at my side. “Okay, take us to-”

Before I knew it, we were clear across the globe once again, this time standing in a small river, right across from a stone tower with a circular analog clock on all sides. Unlike the Forbidden City, this was a much larger structure, one that actually had him looking up for once.

“Tada!” Byan sang, throwing her hands out jazzily. She was now dressed in a large white dress that overly accentuated her hips. “This here is Big Ben, the defining landmark of London, England!”

Astonishingly, London was only somewhat hit by the Rynar, as their attentions were more focused on the greater nuclear powers. What we see here is how the Palace of Westminister actually stands currently.

Zherisan chuckled, taking a step back and splashing water; I just now realized this view was with him standing in the Thames River, the waters reaching just over his heel. “It reminds me of an old clock my family had kept for many generations.”

“I didn’t know you still had analog clocks,” I pointed out.

“It was built during the Katian industrial age well before the foundation of the UTO. It’s not unlike this one, except the last time I saw it I was about as high to it as I am to this now.”

The UTO was founded about when us humans were in the meat of the Dark Ages. For him to be holding on to something well before then must sound incredible!

“What happened to it?”

“My mother and sire sold it to a museum before relocating to another continent on Katia.”

“Damn, that sucks...”

“I’m actually happy to see my family history continues to be preserved. There is nothing shameful to it.”

“Well, when you put it that way...”

Next on the list: to a city just across the English Channel. This time, we were in a large courtyard in the shadow of a towering spire made of a bronze-colored metal, its trusses flowing with the overall curvature. “And here, monsieur, is the Eiffel Tower from Paris, France!” the orange Arkatian presented. “It was one of the tallest structures in the late-19th Terran century!”

Again, Zherisan chuckled. “So, this is what it must feel like for you to be in my shadow?”

“If I was as tall as the Eiffel Tower to you, then yes.”

“And to think this was done before your nuclear age!” He approached the underside of the tower, and found he couldn’t even reach the arches of the base. “For such small people, you build big in your own ways.”

“We gotta compensate somehow!”

Our next stop surprised me.

To our left was a stone structure, almost derelict in appearance, but atop it was a huge copper-green statue of a woman holding a torch held high in her right hand and a book with the other. “Aaaand, the Statue of Liberty!” Byan once again flamboyantly showed, now wearing a blue coat with a white ascot over a black vest. “This is the first thing many migrants to America saw on their arrival!”

Of course, we were in New York City, right across from the Statue of Liberty, but that wasn’t what surprised me. Rather, it was the skyline of the city itself. I recognized two buildings in particular. “Uh, Byan,” I pointed out, “those towers over there...”

“Hmm? You mean the World Trade Center?” she asked.

“Y-Yeah... those were destroyed in a terror attack in 2001...” This was what I remembered of New York in the late-90s, when my family spent a week with other relatives for a family reunion.

I was only ten at the time, but I remember very clearly all the places we went to: the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, the Yankees Stadium... the World Trade Center...

Zherisan brought me closer. “What’s the matter, Nathan?”

I let out an emotionally-charged huff. “I had an uncle who was a first responder on September 11...”

That was all I could muster before tears welled up. He and I were especially close back then, and did everything together when he came to visit me and my dad in Chicago during the summer.

Some of my happiest memories were with him in my one time in New York.

Byan must’ve rebuilt them from my memory leak.

Throughout my moment of reminiscence, my lavender-scaled guardian watched as I suddenly became emotional for seemingly no reason. After a few seconds, however, it became clear that Byan explained to him what it actually meant. “I’m... sorry to hear that...” he grumbled.

“Thank you, I appreciate that,” I sniffled. “It hit all of us hard that day.”

“How does it compare to the Rynar invasion?”

“Very high on my list. At least the Rynar kept to attacking the military, mostly...”

I heard of what the Rynar did to some human civilians during the war, but the terrorists that carried out this attack were still, in my opinion, worse monsters than any Rynar could ever be.

I felt Zherisan’s stance shift. “If you want, we can move on to-”

“No no, it’s...” I sighed. “I actually want to stay here for a while...”

“Are you sure?”

I nodded, wiping the tears from my eyes. “This is the only way I can experience the city exactly as I remember...” I called upon Byan again. “How much time do we have left?”

“About forty Terran minutes,” she replied.

That’s enough time for what I want to do. I stood up and turned faced Zherisan. “How would you feel about a trip down memory lane? At my scale, of course.”

A smile spread across his face. “For you, Nathan? I would be honored.”

“So we’re stopping the tour here?” Byan asked.

“The world tour, yes, unfortunately,” I managed a laugh. “Sorry, it’s just that seeing late-90s New York got to me.”

“I understand. You’re not the only human who had this happen. Many New Yorkers also reacted similarly to this recreation.”

With a wipe across my eyes, I took a deep breath. “Okay, Byan and Zherisan,” I addressed them both. “Let’s take a trip down memory lane.”

And we did. I took Zherisan on the same route that I went on over twenty years ago. Virtual New Yorkers, and an occasional alien for good measure, milled about the streets as if they lived here all their lives. From the highest level of the World Trade Center to the lowest of subways, I was astonished at how fascinatingly real it all was. Better yet, I had my own dragon to experience it with me. When we ended up at Central Park, we killed the rest of our time by feeding the ducks and pigeons. Zherisan found it especially humoring that a couple of pigeons landed on his horns. He was not so humored, however, when one of them shat on his head.

All in all, it was a trip well worth the wait.

Part 1

I received a message from Nathan - his ship had arrived and he was descending to the surface. Excellent.

As disappointed as I was that I wasn’t able to complete the virtual tour with him a few days ago, I was thrilled and honored to relive a treasured memory from his past. The view from the World Trade Center was incredible, not unlike a view from Arunah Tower here in Keneten, but I was most surprised by the critters that roamed the humans’ planet, such as the many breeds of lupari-like canines and the miniature kiori that dominated their cities’ wildlife. It was no wonder many UTO academics were so incredibly fascinated by them beyond their lack of erestral.

Today was the day he would arrive on my homeworld, Katia. Both planets were continental worlds, but that was as far as the similarities ended. While Earth had a diverse pallette of terrains on its continents and large oceans separating them, Katia was mostly mountainous with prairie land at the equator and only had a handful of large seas. Its climate was overall much cooler than Earth, with a denser atmosphere and slightly weaker gravity. It wouldn’t take any effort for him to adjust, and he might even like the conditions here better. I was more worried about actually finding him in this crowd, since the civilian mechs, though putting them more to the scale of the other UTO species, could allow them to easily be overlooked. What made matters worse was that Nathan told me he purchased a private mech, but failed to communicate with me what it looked like, saying it was ‘a surprise’.

I glanced up from my yutri screen as a standard mech and a kiori embraced each other in a hug, likely a guardian-charge pair. The civilian guardian-charge program had been a huge success in getting humans the safety and help they needed to work with aliens many times their size, but this was only the first of many steps to full integration. There now had to be whole infrastructures purely to allow them to navigate and interact with us, which would take many more years to complete.

Until then, they would be fully reliant on their assigned guardians and their prosthetic bodies.

Another message came from Nathan, this time telling me he had arrived and was now departing from the shuttle. I glanced over at the relevant gate and saw a large crowd filing through, mostly arkatians and jahkatians returning home with the odd other alien. Between the overall stature of the arkatians, the wings common among both Katian species, and the other aliens that would still overwhelm a civilian mech, he’d have better luck finding me than the other way around.

As I was scanning the crowd, a hopping mech, with its hand raised, caught my eye.

“Zherisan!” it called out.

Ah, so that was Nathan’s mech. It looked different from the other standard mechs in use by other humans, with the biggest difference being the head. Rather than the flat featureless dome like the standard government-issued mechs that best mimicked their own heads, this one had an elongated muzzle that was more like a pill shape. A solid black visor was set in the middle and swept to either side of its head, with a pair of projections posing as slitted feline eyes set inside.

The body was lithe yet sturdy, certainly tailored more towards speed than strength, and coated in a paint that shifted from a glittering teal to a deep blue under the right lighting conditions.

The mech sprinted up to me and slowed to a stop just an arm’s length away as I knelt down to see him more equally. “Damn,” he chuckled, his voice projected through the speakers. He still had to look up to me as he spoke, “I wish there were taller mechs.”

“You’ll do fine, Nathan.” I patted his mech on the shoulder. “Ready to see your new home?”

A squeal emanated from the mech’s speakers, and the digital face flashed to an excited upward sweep before returning to its normal open appearance.

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’.” I grinned.

As I walked with him at a casual pace, I struck up a conversation. “It’s a nice unit you received, though. Is it a private mech?”

“It is!” he boasted, the eyes blinking upward. “Hot off the assembly line at the Roadrunner Industries factory on Vileti!”

Private mechs weren’t unheard of, even so soon after Earth’s integration, but they weren’t common. They were required to be made to be as economical as possible, both for the civilians and for the sponsoring nations that loaned them out to anyone that needed them. Any human with a private mech was either fully confident of their off-world prospects or they had the funds on hand. Additionally, Nathan’s mech moved with a natural grace, like a tordenchi in power armor;

it had to be using neural interfacing. Outside of the military and niche applications, reflex controls were the standard due to a balance of response, control, and ease of use, though that didn’t stop the few private mech vendors with models in production to offer the more advanced option as a premium, and I put emphasis on ‘premium’. “You’re so confident in being off-world that you bought a custom mech with neural interfacing?” I asked.

“Yeah, the neural interface thing was not cheap, nearly half the cost of the mech itself.”

“You don’t need the precision that offers, so why?”

“Because I plan to have fun in this thing for years to come, and I can’t wait for when it becomes standard. Plus, when I start my own family, I’m going to make sure it’s passed on to my kids, so they don’t incur the costs of maintenance.”

“Even though something better will be out by then?”

“And when new technology comes out I’ll put it in, Zherisan. That’s what we do with some of our automobiles, and that’s exactly what I did to my caddy before I had to sell it.”

“Your... caddy?” I gave him a quizzed look, ears flicking. “Like, something that you use to store small items?”

“Oh, no! It’s the nickname of a car brand called Cadillac. My grandparents left me their car when they passed on. I gave it upgrades to its engine so it could go faster.”

From what I saw in the VR tour, those human cars were models at best to non-humans. Even the fastest ones could barely keep up with a sprinting viliti. “And how fast could it go?”

“Probably not enough to outrun a Rynar.”

I laughed. “It’s a good upgrade regardless, and if it serves you well then it’s money well spent.”

“I sure hope it is! I’ll be paying this off for the next ten years!”

We had arrived at the exit. “Okay now, keep your mind from exploding, because we’re going outside.”

Keneten’s municipal spaceport was historically an airport before erestral-powered shuttles made them obsolete. Anyone could hop on a shuttle and be anywhere on the planet within the span of a couple of hours, including to and from the interstellar flight hubs. There was significant traffic both on the ground and in the air, and it all flowed smoothly thanks to an automated infrastructure and traffic system. Farther beyond, the inner city itself could be seen with towers that reached well into the clouds, yet did not deter from the mountain backdrop. It was not unlike that of Los Angeles, the first Earth city we visited in VR.

“I know it’s just a spaceport, but... goddamn, it makes us look like a joke,” he sighed, the visor’s projected eyes at full size and dilation, overwhelmed as he stopped to look around.

“It’s something you’ll need to get used to, I’m afraid,” I reminded.

“I don’t think I ever will...”

After letting him soak in the sights for a few seconds, I turned our attention to a bus that had crept to a stop at the terminal, its doors opening to let passengers in and out. “I have something planned for us later tonight,” I told him. “Our apartment is a short walk away from the city’s park, so if you want to see anything and get some quality time in the outdoors now’s the time.”

“What’s going on later?”

I chuckled. “If I told you, it would ruin the surprise.”

“Oh, well, okay then. I guess a park would be good for a little bit. Maybe see just how ridiculous the flora is.”

“Again, that will be something you need to get used to.”

As we arrived at the waiting bus, I allowed Nathan to enter first, garnering a handful of looks from the other passengers. Aside from being the homeworld of the arkatians and jahkatians, the sheer intensity of humanity’s integration still left many places only minimally functional for them, even so long after the war. Until human-sized communities could be built alongside standard structures, the best we could offer them were appropriate facilities inside existing structures with the help of guardians. After all, the average non-human was taller than a vast majority of their homes.

I let him take the window seat so he’d have a better view of the passing city. At exactly its departure time, the bus closed its doors and set off to make its rounds. For the following twenty minutes, Nathan was focused on watching the ride while I was more concerned about the growing number of passengers. Most seemed to keep to themselves with idle interest, thankfully, but I caught a few who weren’t so successful in hiding their curiosity.

To my relief, the ride in was uneventful, and I pointed out to Nathan when our stop came up.

This was Garashan Park, the largest park in the city, and set just outside of downtown. As we got off the bus, Nathan tugged at my hand. “I, uh, normally don’t ask this,” his mech’s eyes flashed to flustered, including a pair of red dots underneath the lower curves, “but would you mind carrying me? I’m afraid I might trip and fall while admiring the park.”

“Heh, I think you’re more worried about scratching that paint job,” I joked.

“Well, yeah, that too. It would be embarrassing if I scratched it on my first day of using it.”

“Understood.” I squatted down and held the mech’s hips. “I’m going to place you on my shoulders. Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

I lifted him up by the waist like I would a hatchling, then set him down carefully with his legs draping down my shoulders. “Comfortable?”

“Yep!” He giggled, gripped my horns, pulling my head in various directions. “It’s like I’m piloting a mech with a mech!” Nathan pointed forward with confidence. “Onwards, noble steed!”

“I’m neither royalty nor a mounted animal,” I clarified with a smirk as I started walking.

“You are to me, right now.”

I put my hands to the mech’s shins and lightly held them to keep him secured, then started off the park tour. I followed the trail to the first destination of Mofsa Pond, stopping when we were at the crest of the bridge spanning a narrower portion. From here, he had an outstanding view of the fish and the ‘lily pads’ as Nathan called them; they were actually petals from jonahtor flowers and were commonly used in aquatic decoration. Towards the far end was the shallower wading area where children and adults of both Katians alike frolicked in the waters, staying cool during the regional summer heat.

Continuing on, we passed some playgrounds where arkatian and jahkatian children climbed the structures and jumped out, using their wings in an attempt to try and fly. Some of the children, like me, did not have wings, so they were more commonly seen climbing the fake rocks and descending the slides. Nathan gasped as one of the wingless arkatian children slipped and fell to the ground, but quickly clambered to her feet. I laughed, reminding him that arkatians do not get injured as easily as humans, and that arkatian children recover quickly from almost any injury sustained during normal playtime.

Next came the Sanseen Ring, one of my favorite art installations on Katia. It is a circular glass walkway, two hundred valen in diameter, that is perpetually levitating above the trees thanks to a series of hover pads and erestral conduits beneath a solid glass floor. At each of the eight corners, oriented to the common compass, were glass ramps that allowed visitors to step on to the rotating ring and see out to the backdrop of the inner city and the mountain backdrop.

While he was certainly impressed, he once again called to question the safety of such a monument. I told him that there were multiple redundancies and fallbacks should such a failure occur, and that no incident has happened to it since it opened on the eve of the city’s one thousandth anniversary over three centuries ago.

Towards the end of the park tour was a visit to the Lifhar Open Theater, a grand ampitheater where katian folk lore was performed to live audiences twice a day. As part of a homeworld arts initiative, this was a government-sponsored performance that allowed anyone to sit down and watch – provided they allowed for common courtesy. There was no performance at the moment, but there was one scheduled an hour later. As much as he wanted to stay and watch, we both decided to find a quiet place to settle down and let him interact outside of his mech.

I returned us to a knoll just outside of the park’s zoo, and we both sat down with our backs to a magnan tree, a species native to the jahkatian continent but could thrive in the city. As Nathan’s mech sat down beside me, the eye projections shut off and a hatch at the chest opened out. Out popped the human himself, a fair-skinned example with eyes and scraggly head fur as brown as the tree behind us. He was so small he barely spanned my outstretched palm.

With my hand in position, Nathan mustered up the courage to step onto my palm and sit cross-legged in the middle. As I brought him to my chest, I slouched and swung my tail forward, placing it between my legs. “Enjoying your stay so far, Nathan?” I asked.

“I am!” he nodded. “I may seem all over the place, but I’m one of the first humans to live outside of Earth, so it’s a lot to take in.”

“I understand. I was very much like that when I attended Anatalay University. It’s easily my favorite hub world.”

“Oh yeah, that’s your big academics planet, isn’t it?”

“It’s a hub world that focuses on scholarship, yes. Did you go there, perchance?”

“Nah, that would’ve made the mech too expensive for me. They offered a discounted online certificate program to me since extranet site programming isn’t too much different from the Earth internet work I did. Maybe I’ll go there and get an actual degree once I pay off my mech.”

Those certificates were little more than proof of taking certain classes, and were mainly meant for technician positions. “How was it compared to what you did before?”

“Not too much different, just a different syntax and a new backend hierarchy. I actually had the highest final exam scores in my class.”

“That’s excellent! I’m sure that made you very attractive to your prospective employers.”

“Tell me about it! My interview was only half an hour long, and I was contacted just after lunchtime!”

“Yes, there has been a recent wave of hiring human associates into the guild to make jewelry for your race. I’ve been asked to work with a team on prototyping some designs before human crafters make the scaled-down versions.”

“You saying you can’t carve jewels that small?” he smirked.

“I’m speaking humbly when I say I’m one of the best in the outpost if not the whole guild.

I’ve been known to carve perfect diamonds much smaller than even this erestral ring,” I said, tapping my horn ring. “But to you humans, that is still an extremely large gemstone.”

“Wow, I didn’t even know you could regularly find diamonds that big!”

“We do, but not on Katia. We use any diamonds we find for tools. My specialties are beryls and corundums.”

“Oh, so like emerald, sapphire, ruby-”

“Those are the most common, yes,” I grinned. “Good to hear you do know a thing or two about gemstones.”

“Those are just the ones humans use the most. Beyond that, I wouldn’t know anything else.”

I dug into my pocket to pull out my yutri. “Would you like to see what I have done for the guild?”

“Ooh! Yes, I would!”

Beaming with pride, I browsed the menu to the image gallery and started with some of my most notable additions, including some where I had the final product in my hand. Most rings, necklaces, and bracelets I did at the beginning were standard designs for common clients. As my technique improved, I was tasked with a handful of simple one-off designs, which then culminated with being assigned to a full set of rings and necklaces for Ishmare Taktu, one of the wealthiest ashar executives in the UTO, for the fiftieth anniversary of his marriage. All ten rings and the two necklaces could fit in one of my palms, the crystals themselves being half the size of the erestral on my horn ring. I even showed him a picture of me and Mavuta with Ishmare and his wife, Talaki, wearing the rings and the necklaces. It so far remains my greatest achievement.

“Who’s she?” he pointed to the jahkatian in the image. She was of average size and build for a jahkatian female, and her feathers a muddy brown with the neck-up being bleached white. In this image, she was wearing a traditional jahkatian dress made of kirmosa, a fine fabric not unlike Terran silk, dyed a rich cobalt blue and trimmed in silver, the official colors of the guild.

Because we presented these works at the anniversary gathering on Malatia, the ashar homeworld, she was also wearing dozens of trinkets fashioned by the other crafters within the guild to represent our work.

“That’s Mavuta, and she’s the Katian branch executive of the guild,” I clarified. “She’s also on the guild’s board of directors, and she’s an accomplished jewelsmith herself.”

“Her feathers remind me of the North American bald eagles from home. They’re the official bird of the United States.”

“A bird from your homeland?”

“Yeah...” he glazed over the image once more, focusing on Mavuta. “Wow, and she’s the big boss, huh?”

“Heh, maybe to you, Nathan,” I quipped, chuckling, “but here within the guild branch she’s just like anyone else except with more responsibilities. She even dines with us in the cafeteria when she has an opportunity to.”

“Wait, seriously?”

“Oh yes, she has a humble background just like I do. She would be very interested in meeting you, I’m sure.”

“Will she be there on my first day?”

I shook my head. “Sadly, she is in the guild’s Halashor branch taking over while they find and train a replacement.”

He looked dejected. “Damn, that sucks. Hopefully she gets back so-OH SHIT!”

I flinched as Nathan scurried up along my chest, having dodged a flying insect that had swooped low. My left hand covered my panicking charge while I used my other to wave it away.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“What the fuck was that thing!” he shrieked.

“It was just a little jaimfly, they mainly eat leaves.”

“Little?! It’s the size of a fucking chihuahua!”

“They are harmless to humans, Nathan. Calm down.”

“Oh hell naw, I ain’t calm after seeing that! Harmless to humans my ass!” he clambered to his feet. “Please put me back in my mech; I am not ready to stay outside any longer!”

Defeated, I held out my hand for him to climb on, and he immediately took hold of my thumb for the entire two seconds it took to place him on the mech’s platform. The hatch sealed immediately, but paused before he interfaced back into the mech.

“Ugh, much better,” he panted, his mech’s arms resting against the lower torso.

“I guess that’s all for our time in the park,” I sighed.

“Yeah, I don’t think I want to stay out here much longer.”

I nodded and stood up. “Okay then, let’s get you home.”

My mech mimicked my trembling fear after that abomination came too close. I hated to leave the park on such a sour note, but no way in hell was I going to be in the same viscinity of a bug that size! This time, I walked by his side.

While making a roughly ten-minute walk from the park, I was looking at their architecture. It wasn’t at all like what my expectations had, and I thoroughly blamed Hollywood for that. Most of the buildings were actually made of a mixture of brick and dark wood, and the doors were slightly wider proportionally, likely to factor in the width of their wings. A fair amount even had rooftop platforms, which Zherisan told me were mainly for the winged members who sometimes glided down rather than simply using the stairs.

We arrived at Zherisan’s dwelling and I couldn’t help but feel like I was six again, with how absolutely massive everything was even compared to my mech’s point of view. Most door handles were shoulder height to my mech, and I found myself wishing for a step stool with every table I passed. The floor we were walking on was an aged but smooth pink granite tile, worn down by years of traffic from the claw-tipped feet of the building’s residents. It honestly could’ve passed for any other apartment lobby on Earth if it weren’t for the sheer size and the different species of residents.

At the reception desk was a silver-scaled Arkatian girl, almost as tall as Zherisan and rocking a tasteful hourglass figure beneath her black T-shirt and tight pink pants, who immediately perked upon my arrival. “You must be Nathan,” she smiled.

“Yes, ma’am,” I nodded, chuckling, “and I must be a celebrity if I’m already known by name!”

“Your guardian told me I would be expecting you. Name’s Eridisa, by the way!” she waved, stepping out from behind the desk and kneeling down to look me over. “That’s a nice mech you

have! It’s much more expessive than the government-issued units.”

“Thanks! Yeah, I like it a lot, too.”

Zherisan interrupted by clearing his throat, “I hate to interrupt, but Nathan needs access to my apartment.”

With an affirmative nod, she stood back up and slinked back into her seat behind the desk.

“Okay then, I just need his Yutri and I’ll take care of it all.”

“Sure thing!” I backed away from the desk and disconnected from the mech’s controls, walking out to the platform as the hatch unfurled. Zherisan quickly moved me up to the table, and suddenly became a little bit uncomfortable with a gargantuan woman watching my every move.

Eridisa presented me a human-sized dock for my Yutri. I took it out and plugged it into the dock. Back on her end, she began to type on a projected holographic keyboard and move through a menu on a holoscreen. “Alright, looks like your information is good...” she glanced down at me for just a second. “ID matches the person... and ‘approve’!” She tapped on the last projected button, reeling her hand back with bravado. “There you go, you’re all set!”

“Okay!” I pumped my fist, taking back my Yutri and pocketing it. Wow, that was easy!

My guardian moved me back to my mech, and I connected as soon as I was in piloting position. “See you around, Nathan!” Eridisa waved.

I waved back as I turned to follow my guardian. We walked up a flight of stairs to the left of the lobby entrance and down the short hall to the last door on the right, unlocking the door with his yutri and holding it open for me.

“Welcome to your new home, Nathan!” he presented.

I had expected to see either a spartan interior or a home chock-full of trinkets, but was pleasantly surprised to see it was a good mix of both. A Yutri dock was placed next to a very large holoscreen unit, which sat atop a wooden stand that reminded me of some sort of pine. A loveseat and a couch were placed across from it, both wrapped in a crimson leathery material, and a coffee table as high as my mech’s hips was placed between the screen stand and the seating. The walls had only a couple of fixtures, mainly paintings of what I assume were examples of Katia’s many mountain views, but only one was anything related to his jewelcrafting and that was what looked to be some kind of pearl necklace. Other than that, I couldn’t glean much of his other hobbies or interests as there was little extraneous decoration. At the far corner was a door leading to the bedroom, then from the right came the bathroom and finally the kitchen, which was surprisingly small considering the perceived scale. “For a big guy, you certainly don’t live big,” I pointed out.

“I’m still not finished moving everything in,” he clarified.

“Oh, you just moved here?”

“Unfortunately, yes. The other complex I was staying in couldn’t make human adaptations in time.” He pointed to the door on the far left. “Your dwelling is in the bedroom.”

Oh, right, I better see what that’s about.

Zherisan’s bedroom was equally modest, with little more than a simple bed of what I assume is the Arkatian equivalent of a ‘king’ sized bed (he certainly needed it) and a nightstand made of a dark oak-like wood. The only thing that genuinely stood out as unusual was what would best be described as a box with windows attached to the middle of the right-hand wall. To the right of it was the mech dock, and the catwalk wrapped around the miniaturized apartment to a landing pad on the other side where Zherisan would pick me up or drop me off. This box had small rectangular windows that spanned almost the entire width, peering into a living space that, in comparison to the rest of the room, was little more than a functional scale model. The shelf it was sitting on looked better suited for holding books, but I wasn’t about to test it with my mech.

I backed into the dock and pushed myself from my mech’s seat, the chest hatch opening up just after I hopped out. I was expecting the platform to rattle like a tin can, but was surprised to feel it was actually surprisingly solid, with virtually no creaking to be heard. Then I appraoched the door to the box, waving my Yutri in front of it to unlock and open it. For a human retrofit, I had a lot of room to work with, and it was basically the same layout as the rest of the apartment.

I even had my own kitchen! Otherwise, it was virtually identical to the rest of the place.

“How is it?” Zherisan asked, peering in.

Any other context and I’d’ve shit my pants, I thought to myself. His voice really carries when I’m outside the mech, and seeing his entire face dominating the window could have come straight out of a kaiju movie. “It’s much better than I expected!”

“Good to hear!”

I thought I had adjusted to my massive guardian’s presence, but part of me couldn’t shake that unsettling sight of his face filling most of my view from this compartment. I looked around the apartment. “So what do I do when I want privacy?”

“Push the button labeled ‘Privacy’,” he pointed. “It’s right by the dresser.”

I turned my head and- oh, how about that. Big red letters and everything. I walked over and pressed it, and immediately the glass fogged, obscuring Zherisan into a giant blob of pale purple.

My hand pressed it again, and the glass cleared to its original state. “Yeah, I’m definitely gonna need that.”

Zherisan chuckled. “You’re not prudish, are you?”

My cheeks became flustered. “I-I’m not prudish! I-” Ugh, how should I put this? “I just don’t think I’m ready for the whole concept of showing my naked body to someone that makes this apartment look like a doll house.”

My lavender-scaled guardian nodded, ears flicking. “Understood. But just know that I’m not the prudish type, so I won’t be using the privacy glass very often.”

“Note taken.” I debated whether I should leave the privacy filter on at all times.

Overall satisfied with my living arrangements, I walked back into the main room, walking out to my mech and opening the cargo hatches. With a pneumatic hiss, out slid a rectangular container, with more storage space than a pickup truck, that held all of my stuff. Unexpected, but a feature I appreciated nonetheless.

“Do you need help unloading?” Zherisan asked.

“No, I got it. Thanks, though.”

“Alright, I’ll let you get settled in. I need to run an errand, but I won’t be far. Call me if there are any issues.” I heard his footsteps approach the door and walk out of the room.

Part of me felt relief that I get to be alone, but another part already began to miss my guardian. Here I was, about to move into a metal shoebox with a fridge and a bed, set in another room almost half a Chicago city block in terms of area! My mind went back to the VR visit, seeing Zherisan next to the Hollywood sign... it was comical to think he could take it with his bare hands. I shook my head and pushed that aside as I opened the hatch to my mech’s cargo tray. Time to unpack.

Out of the twelve trips I took, most of them were for the bedding and initial food supply. The only electronic stuff I took out were the modules for my Yutri, which was almost identical to the non-human version (even down to the performance) despite being a fraction the size of what they had. All of the possessions I didn’t need were sold prior to my graduation, and every penny went towards the first of many payments on my mech. I didn’t need the fancy paint job; I didn’t need the fancy head; and I sure as hell didn’t need neural interfacing. The salesman even recommended against it if I wasn’t in dire need of something precise. I told him I wanted it anyways, even if it did mean I’d be paying it off longer. At least the price of the neural interface included the required neural implant.

The new job was going to pay well enough for me to afford it, that much I made sure of, but even that would barely be enough to cover everything else. There wouldn’t be much room for more than generic foods let alone the occasional restaurant. But that was the sacrifice I was willing to make, in order to embody Vivian, the best damned possession I ever had, to the greatest extent I could make.

I heard the door leading into the apartment open just as I sealed the cargo hold, and Zherisan peeked inside the room not long after. “All good, Nathan?”

“Yep! Just unloaded! Now comes the fun part of unpacking.”

With a toothless grin, Zherisan strode inside the room and began to unclip his shirt. “Take your time, we have plenty of it to kill before tonight.”

I watched in silence as my guardian began to disrobe, getting a good look at what an Arkatian looked like behind those clothes. When he unclipped his shirt completely, he pulled it off and tossed it into a small basket at the foot of the bed. I was mystified! Simply put, he was ripped! I always knew the Arkatians would be fairly stocky, but he’s almost another level higher! Hell, I’d dare say he looked godly! He then moved his hands to undo the clips holding his shorts to his tail, and with cheeks flashing redder than beets I shielded my eyes and retreated back into my abode, turning the privacy glass on. Now, seeing Zherisan’s top half uncovered was all I could think of as I got to work unpacking and getting set up.

What little I knew about Arkatian biology came from the integration courses, and while they touched on the reproductive processes it was very basic information: that they were biologically mammalian, had scales, could naturally be hermaphrodites, could lay eggs, mated very infrequently, and lived very long lives. It wasn’t long before I was asking a very interesting question: just how big would his junk be? I’ve been holding off on watching their porn, and from what I could tell they proportionally didn’t seem much bigger or smaller than what us humans have. Then again, I was looking at surface level, and that could very well change. Regardless, a hunk like him oughtta be sporting a fine set of ‘family jewels’...

Guh, stupid sexy Zherisan!

I was so preocuppied with getting unpacked and set up that the next time I saw Zherisan was, thankfully, with clothes on. This time, rather than re-applying the clothes he wore when he met me, he was instead in a black vest and loose-fitting purple shorts. The sun was noticeably lower, as evidenced by a redder lighting from the window outside. “So what do you have planned for us tonight, Zherisan?” I asked.

“I’m taking us to my favorite restaurant,” he replied. “They recently made the necessary renovations to accommodate humans.”

“Ooh! That does sound exciting!” I clasped my hands in excitement. “Are we leaving now?”

“We can, and it’s best if we do before the dinner rush starts.”

“Great! Let’s get going, then!” I hopped up to my mech’s cockpit and sat in the seat. In seconds, I was online and undocked.

Zherisan grinned at my eagerness and showed me the door, and once we were outside he pointed down the road. “It’s called Jahanzar’s, and it’s just to the end of the next block,” he explained.

“Jahanzar’s, got it.” I twirled around to give him a thumbs-up, continuing to walk backwards.

“Hey, wanna race there?”

“Oh, no, you’d handily beat me that way,” he shook his head and waved his hands in front.

“Perhaps to the street corner?”

“Sure, here to the corner. Alright, go!” I then turned back forward and lowered myself to take off at a full sprint. Within just four steps, I was at the mech’s top speed of 837 valen per UTO hour, which according to a secondary display was just shy of 260 Imperial miles per Terran hour, and because of the mechanical nature of the mech I wouldn’t become fatigued at that speed. I could in theory commute from Chicago to Detroit on foot in this thing!

I looked back briefly and expected Zherisan to be a tiny obstruction in that view, despite a significantly longer stride. I was actually shocked to see he wasn’t far behind.

We quickly reached the end of the block, and I leaned back to decelerate. Zherisan, surprisingly, was stumbling when he caught up to me, and rested his arm against a nearby tree.

“Wow,” he gasped, “that thing is fast!”

“See? I told ya!” I beamed, patting him on his shoulder. “I’m just shocked to see that you kept up!”

“Sprinting isn’t a thing for us Arkatians.”

“Fair enough, but my point still stands.”

“Sadly, I cannot,” he groaned, turning over to sit and laze against the tree. “I need to recover, Nathan.”

“Bad cardio?”

He shook his head, clutching his belly and speaking between heavy breaths. “It’s just simple Arkatian biology. We can easily push our limits when we need to, but we become exhausted quickly when we do. Like now, for instance.”

“Yeah, I suppose it was a bit unfair to compare a mech designed for speed to a dragon evolved for barbaric brawn.”

After about a minute of catching his breath, he stood back up. “Our little jaunt has worked up an appetite in me, however,” he announced. “All the more reason to get food.”

“Yay,” I cheered, the speakers barely projecting my voice, “and we can walk this time.”

Our fun and games over, we kept with each other at a casual pace to our destination:

Jahanzar’s Rec Bar, which proudly stated it had been in business since 131 UE. I did the math and came out to Terran year 1415... geez, since the Renaissance. It was clad in red and yellow bricks, with no discernable pattern to them, and were cemented in liberal helpings of gray mortar with speckles of red and gold rock. The giant window extended from about Zherisan’s ankle to another one of me above his head, with holographic signs scrolling advertisements in Common regarding specials on entrees and drinks.

I followed Zherisan inside and we waited to be seated. Rather than an interior of sweeping chrome and dozens of neon accents straight from, say, Star Wars, it looked more like a bar found anywhere else on Earth. It had a dark wood floor well-worn with thousands of patrons sporting toes with talons and claws, wooden tables and stools... even the bartop was wood. The only thing betraying the otherwise antique aesthetic was the liberal use of holoscreens and other electronics... oh yeah, and the patrons, who used liberal amounts of what I would consider raver-

esque to their appearances, like flamboyant dyes and paints.

I never thought I’d say this, but I felt... underdressed...

Our waitress for the evening was a cute gray Jahkatian girl named Faini, who led us closer to the back of the dining area. Only a couple of other tables were occupied, and interestingly

enough we were led over to one already occupied by a blue Arkatian female and a Caucasian human man. “Zherisan!” the Arkatian stood up and hugged, “it’s so good to see you!”

“You too, Sae,” Zherisan replied happily, giving her a lick-kiss. His hand lightly touched my mech’s shoulder, encouraging me forward. “Nathan, this is Saephiris Durmhar. She’s a United Armed Forces warrant officer and was my guardian trainer.”

“Oh cool! Pleased to meet you!” I shook her hand with both of mine... damn she’s pretty! Her scales were a very rich blue, like sapphire, that transitioned to a lighter ciel around the middle of her torso. Also similarly to him was her muscular build, but she possessed a pair of wings folded tightly behind her back and a much longer tail, both features my guardian did not have. She was properly dressed in the standard UAF uniform of a steel-gray vest and white/gray camouflage fatigues, yet that did little to mask her build. A single pair of large ivory horns arched high and hooked downward, with two small golden earrings pierced into her left ear.

“That’s quite the interesting mech you have there, Nathan,” she smiled.

“I’ll say!” the human piped up, which I recognized to be a British accent. “Is that a private mech?”

“Yes, sir, it is,” I nodded, my attention on the human seated on a much smaller table at the middle of the bigger table.

“There’s some open docks on the other side of that wall,” the Englishman pointed to the right of my general direction, “settle down and join us!”

“Thank you, I intend on it!” I maneuvered my mech into an open bay and stepped out once the hatch was open. I jogged down the series of stairs descending to a catwalk that bordered the wall and eventually to the table.

The Jahkatian waitress came back brandishing a strange pair of gauntlets with two much smaller mechanical hands ahead of her own holding a menu and utensils, and set the human-

sized items on the table directly to the right of the Englishman with incredible precision. “Oh, cool, that’s really neat!” I pointed out as I took my seat.

“Aren’t they?” Faini showed off, her feathers ruffling with pride. “They make handling human items so much easier!”

With the click of a button on both gauntlets, the mechanical hands retracted to a sleeve just behind the wrist and she produced a Yutri from her apron. “Can I get you anything to start with?”

“Just water for now,” I replied.

“Shinlan juice for me, please,” Zherisan added.

“Okay, I’ll have those out soon!” After marking the items, she retreated into the kitchen.

I took my seat across from the man. “Colour Sergeant Eric Andrews, by the way, and a pleasure to meet you!” the Englishman greeted with a firm handshake, in English rather than UTO Common. He was a man of about my height but a broader build, and dressed similarly to Saephiris. At his crown was a patch of oak-brown hair smattered with strands of gray, white, and silver, complementing a well-worn face with a pair of beady brown eyes; I estimated his age to be somewhere in his fifties.

“Nathan Boldt, and likewise!” I responded and sat down with him. “You from the British military?”

“I am, the Royal Marines to be precise! I was in London keeping those bloody reptiles away from civilians.”

“Ah, I have a brother in the US Navy. He’s just a technician, though.”

“Was he involved in the Rynar invasion as well, perchance?”

“A little bit, but he was in a submarine so he didn’t get to see much action. He told me they almost launched a nuke.”

“Oh, how fortunate! And what about you?”

“I was in western Tennessee with a friend at the time, about fifty miles east of Memphis, so I didn’t see anything. I kinda wish those overgrown lizards landed in Russia first...”

I folded my hands, nervous in the presence of such a high-ranking military officer. “But seriously, on behalf of all Americans, I thank you and the other British armed forces for your service, sir.”

“Thank you, Nathan! Do tell your brother I said the same of him!”

Our drinks were brought out, with Faini using the high-tech tweezers to hand me my water, and left us to browse the menu some more. “Try the machmar steak,” Zherisan encouraged.

“Best non-human meat you’ll ever have.”

“What’s a machmar?” I asked.

“It’s a large six-legged grazer that thrives in the valley forests.” Zherisan replied. “They’re plentiful and it’s one of my favorite meats!”

“They come highly recommended!” Eric Andrews added.

Sounds to me like the Arkatian equivalent of beef. “Oh, cool! What’s it taste like?”

The Royal Marine officer shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you, to be honest. It’s a very unique meat compared to Earth meats.”

Unfortunately, because this was an Arkatian restaurant, there weren’t any dishes of human origin, but most of the Arkatian dishes could be served in human-sized portions for a healthy discount. Whatever this animal was had to be extremely large if it was to regularly feed a few hundred-foot-tall dragons and some bird-cat hybrids of similar scale. A single shred of meat could feed at least one human, so a steak fit for a dragon could potentially serve hundreds.

Faini came back, her Yutri ready to take our orders. “What can I get for you, sir?” she addressed me.

“I think I’ll try the machmar steak with just some salt,” I replied. “Medium-rare, if that’s an option.”

“Okay! And what would you like for the sides?”

Oh, shoot! I didn’t see that! “What are my options?”

“I suggest the fleen and the aanda dip with crisps,” Eric spoke up, pointing to two images on the menu. The first looked like a pile of red and green leaves that have been diced into finer pieces, then smothered with a sauce that was borderline purple. The second could’ve passed for mashed potatoes with red food coloring.

“Hmm, I’m not much of a salad guy, but I’ll roll with that and the dip and chips.”

Eric snickered as we both bore mutual humored grins.

“Okay, so you want the fleen and the aanda dip?” Faini asked with her ear feathers perked up.

“Yes, please,” I nodded.

“And I’ll have a machmar steak as well,” Zherisan listed off, “seared only and with crushed gahnaji. Same sides as my charge, please.”

“Seared only, huh?” she winked. “Boldly dining tonight, I see.”

“It’s just the way I like it. You don’t get ‘seared only’ much, do you?”

“No I don’t, and I’ve been working here for six years!” The griffiness tapped a few more times on her Yutri. “Okay, I have it in, and it’ll be out to you in about half an hour.”

“Thank you very much!”

Faini took the menu from me in much the same manner as she gave it and trotted off, tail waving behind as she disappeared from view. Saephiris leaned in and focused her attention on me. “So, Nathan, what brings you to Katia under Zherisan’s guardianship?”

“Oh! I was hired by a jewelcrafter as an extranet site developer, and Zherisan is on the jewellery design team.”

“Looking forward to it?”

“Of course! I was amazed at how quickly they hired me!”

“Have you been held by Zherisan yet?”

“I have, yes, when we were at the park...” I heard Zherisan grunt and turned to see him holding both hands to his head. “What’s the matter, Zherisan?”

“Please don’t tell him,” my guardian pleaded, his ears pulling back. “I know where this is going and I beg you to not tell him.”

“Tell me what?”

“Oh, he dropped his drone on the first day of training.”

Zherisan buried his face into his paws. I never heard such a high-pitched squeal from someone so massive.

Either way, this intrigued me, and I turned my chair to face her. “H-He dropped it?”

“Wasn’t so much a drop as it was a throw,” Eric clarified.

“Into a wall,” Saephiris added.

“Head-first.”

Was Zherisan... crying? It certainly looked like something resembling sobbing.

“Poor lad,” Eric continued. “He couldn’t get himself together for the rest of that class.”

“It sounds like he can’t get himself together now!” I laughed. “Jesus, what did he do to lead to that?!”

“This is mean!” Zherisan pouted through his concealing palms.

“We had them start out by grabbing the drones as they would any other object, just to show them what could very well happen if they weren’t careful. Zherisan didn’t have his hand around it completely, so when he raised it it sort of...” Eric made a spiraling motion, “flew off.”

When he lifted his hands again, he didn’t have any visible tears but he was flustered. “At least I passed that test on the first try!”

“That you did,” Saephiris agreed, “but now I have quite a story to tell everyone before they start training.”

The lavender drake shook his head in defeat. “I’m never gonna live it down, am I?”

“For as long as we both live!”

“Hey, at least you can call him the ‘Gemsmasher’ now!” Eric joked.

“Oh, god no!” I laughed. “He’s gonna have so many people asking questions at work if I start calling him that!”

The lavender drake’s brow made contact with the table, rattling our furniture and utensils, and his hands returned to keep the rest of his flustered face hidden.

“Alright, let’s stop teasing the poor dragon,” Eric settled down.

“Yes, let’s,” Zherisan raised back up and turned to Saephiris. “How’s work at the new nuclear research facility?”

“It’s not fully operational,” the sapphire dragoness told him, “but we are making good progress.”

“There’s a nuclear plant here on Katia?” I asked.

“On base, yes,” Eric replied, “and unfortunately we can’t say any more than that.”

“Understood.” Terran nuclear technology was key to the final days of the war for Earth’s liberation, and very surprisingly effective against their ships. I was legitimately surprised to hear they never pursued it further than a mere theory. Then again, with erestral, they didn’t really need to, at least not for power purposes.

“Until then, have a look at this thing!” Eric brushed the screen over to the next image...

My eyes boggled. “Holy shit!”

“Mmm?” Zherisan’s ears flicked, his eyes turning to me. “Where’s the blessed feces?”

“It’s a human expression, Zheri. He’s likely talking about this,” Saephiris clarified as she used her own Yutri to show Zherisan.

The picture in question was that of a military mech, standing as high as Saephiris who posed next to it (and appeared to be the one taking the selfie), and Eric on the mech’s opened hatch platform. Mounted on the mech’s right forearm was a giant cannon with a gun barrel longer and thicker than her arm, the muzzle brake large enough to let a human inside, and appeared to be fixed into place. The main body of the cannon featured an ammo clip leading into the base of the body.

“What is that?” Zherisan asked.

“That, my good sir,” Eric proclaimed proudly, “is the new M-ninety-ninety.”

“That’s the M9090?!” I gasped.

Ever since humanity joined, the UTO was very interested in nuclear technology and ballistic weapons. Despite the only effective weapons being the ones found in our tanks and naval ships, the prospect of using UTO technology to supplement that proved too great an opportunity for military engineers to pass up. I had been closely following the whole technological integration of humanity since the beginning, starting with the Yutri mobile devices that every major tech company immediately switched to, and the mix of human and alien technology in the military was honestly what excited me the most. Only recently was there any word on the first human designed UTO weapons systems with this newfound tech, in the form of a superheavy weapon that was rumored to be so big it necessitated a mech specifically designed around it.

“Indeed it is,” Eric affirmed. “It’s as big as the old German Schwerer Gustav, and it fires eighty-centimeter shells made of steel-plated uranium. I was there when the proposal was submitted.”

“No kidding! Did they like it?”

A chuckle came from Saephiris. “One of the human officers looking it over handed it back, asking why it didn’t have a second cannon.”

Both eyebrows were raised on my face. “Did you?”

“Sadly, we couldn’t,” Eric said, pointing to the weapon in the image. “As you can see, this is fixed into place and requires the free hand for stabilization when firing. It also doesn’t shoot nearly as quickly as existing plasma weapons. It uses a manual bolt action and it takes time for the weapon’s capacitors to charge.”

That must mean it’s using some sort of electromagnetic component in combination, like a coilgun. I bobbed my head. “Still, though! I reckon just one of those shells will pierce several troopers at once!”

“You’re not wrong,” commented Saephiris. “The first test fire easily pierced a standard UAF tank, almost all the way through!”

Eric put his Yutri back into his pocket. “But don’t expect to see an awful lot of these cannons on the field, especially in the hands of infantry. The weapon itself is mainly going to be used in space battles and artillery positions, and the mech platform you see here is meant for testing weapons systems like this. You’ll be more likely to find adapted tank and naval cannons on a mech than this.”

He leaned back, a bemused grin spread across his face. “Though I must admit they are still perfect for mowing down Rynar!”

“Music to my ears, sergeant.” I beamed.

We discussed other topics while we waited, and it wasn’t long before a red Arkatian male walked up with Saephiris’ plate in his left hand and Eric’s plate in his right gauntlet’s mechanical hand. Setting down the blue Arkatian’s food was straightforward, but he had to finagle his way past Zherisan to deliver Eric’s food... good lord was it huge! The plate in question was almost twice the size of any restaurant plate I know of; the steak itself was as thick as my hand and took up half the plate’s surface. The meat slab was so gray it appeared faintly blue and was drizzled in a grape-colored sauce. For the sides, one was a pile of chopped leaves in dressing that I recognized as the fleen, but the other looked familiar.

“Fries?” I pointed. “I thought they didn’t have human foods?”

“They’re chips, I’ll have you know,” he bowed to correct me, grinning, “and they’re actually a bean called boto. They do look like potatoes on the inside, and the human chef here was kind enough to experiement with the idea of making them into chips.”

I grinned again. “And this was one of their latest creations?”

“Oho, no, this is what I usually order when I dine here.” He pushed his plate over towards me. “Go on; try one!”

“Gladly, thank you for the fry,” I quipped and carefully plucked up the fry drizzled in the same purplish sauce. “What’s the sauce on this?”

“That would be gahnaji sauce,” Zherisan said. “It’s a mild spice that goes well with meats and veggies alike, very popular among non-Katians. It comes in a sauce as well as a dehydrated powder.”

“It goes very well with these boto chips,” Eric added.

Us humans laughed at our own banter, leaving our guardians to wonder what we were doing arguing about what to call this sliced bean.

At a glance with my nose, the sauce overwhelmed the scent of the other spices sprinkled onto the fry, none of which smelled familiar at all save for the tickle of capsaicin. Rather than ease into it, I shoved the entire fry into my mouth, my taste buds getting a feel for my first ever alien cuisine experience. As far as how spicy it was, I would compare it to a jalapeño, but the accompanying juices gave off a sweet sensation, like a barbeque sauce on sterroids. The bean fry, however, was very strange. While it had a gritty texture like a potato, its flavor could’ve passed for a mashed carrot. The two pieces of this culinary puzzle worked in concert to create a taste that was very unlike anything I’ve had before.

“Whatever this is, I really like it!” I concluded.

“How splendid!” Eric clapped.

Moments later, the red dragon returned bearing a second set of plates, this time with Zherisan’s food in the right and my food on the left. Unlike my plate, Zherisan’s meat was almost black on the broad sides and a raspberry shade in the middle. My stomach churned when the smells of the steak met my nostrils, but it was a good churn that was looking forward to this experience. I took hold of my cutlery and sliced off a chunk, surprised by how easy it was. In the middle was a pinkish-purple shade of meat, the two broad sides being the same bluish gray as the major sergeant’s serving. Definitely medium-rare like I asked.

Zherisan’s eyes darted over to me as I raised the alien meat to my mouth and took it in. Right away, I found it had lived up to its expectations, and my mind tried to compare it to another familiar meat. The best answer I could come up with was venison, but even that was a stretch. It had a strange tarty taste with just the right amount of savory to balance it all out. The texture was overall pleasant and fine, not very grainy and oozing with fatty grease that gave my tongue a taste of alien culinary heaven in every bite.

“How does it compare?” my guardian asked, taking hold of his slab of meat with his bare claws and pulling off a cow-sized morsel.

I nodded, swallowing what I had chewed. “It’s delicious, and I’m glad I get such a large serving!”

“One of the many perks of being small, I suppose,” he chuckled and dropped the steak shred into his mouth.

“Yeah, I’m definitely getting a to-go box.” Now to try the sides.

I stuck my fork into what was essentially alien coleslaw lacking the mayo, with how sweet and sour it smelled, and shoved it into my mouth. It started out tasting the same way it smelled if a tad rubbery, but after a few seconds my mouth began to burn. “Aah! Hot!” I took my glass and chugged it, not helping in the least.

“Are you okay, Nathan?” Eric asked.

“Yeah, just hot!” Tears poured from my eyes as I downed the rest of my glass.

The Jahkatian waitress popped up just in time, complete with a glass of water. “Oh my!” she exclaimed, her ear-feathers and wings shivering. “Is there something wrong?”

I pointed to the fleen. “Spicy,” I croaked.

“It’s not too hot, is it?”

My head shook. “Wasn’t expecting it.”

“Okay, here’s your water, sir,” she carefully set it down near my plate. “Are you lactose intolerant?”

Again, I shook my head. “You have milk here?”

“Machmar milk, yes. We provide it for free with every meal on request.”

By now, the flames had settled down enough to speak and act coherently. I sniffled, grabbing a napkin and rubbing it against my nose. “Yes, I would love some, please.”

As the Jahkatian nodded and trotted off, I blinked the tears away and huffed. “Whoo! That was unexpected!”

“You had me worried there, Nathan,” Zherisan said, dipping a chip four feet in diameter into the bowl of aanda dip.

“Is the dip also spicy?”

“All Arkatian food is.”

Faini returned with a tall glass of watery pale-white liquid. “There you go, sir,” she said, ear-feathers pulled back. “Sorry about that.”

“Nah, it’s not your fault. I just wasn’t expecting everything to be spicy, is all. If anything, I blame my guardian!”

“My apologies, Nathan,” my guardian said. “It was an oversight.”

I chuckled. “I forgive you. Luckily I happen to like spicy foods, too.” I took a sip of the milk, and was surprised to find it to be very sweet, like it was loaded with sugar, and immediately felt relief in my mouth. “Thank you, Faini.”

“You’re welcome! How is everything?”

“So far, great! The fleen really makes me feel like a fire-breathing dragon of Terran lore!”

“Wonderful! Let me know if you need anything else!”

“Of course!”

She left us once again, and I finally got to try the aanda dip. I first tried the chips themselves to make sure they weren’t spicy, but was surprised to find they tasted more like salted almonds, and I fucking loved almonds! Armed with this, I prepared myself for the eventual inferno in my mouth as I scooped up a modest portion of dip and chomped down. Oh yes, it was spicy, but its texture was like hummus and the accompanying flavor I honestly couldn’t think of a Terran equivalent for. The machmar milk helped immensely in keeping the heat from being too intense.

I gave Zherisan a thumbs-up. “Next time you take me out, we’re coming here again.”

The next hour was spent talking to Colour Sergeant Eric about what little he could talk about regarding military developments, and to our Arkatian guardians about things they were mutually curious about. By the end, I was stuffed so full, and yet I still had significant portions left over.

The to-go box was bulging at the seams! Zherisan paid our bill and I hopped into my mech, then followed him all the way back to the apartment.

After backing into the dock at home, I immediately went into my apartment box to put my food into the fridge. I then took a quick shower, dressed in my bedtime clothes, set my alarm, and activated the privacy glass before collapsing into bed. Outside, I heard Zherisan walk in and plop down in his shortly after me.

Tomorrow was my first day of work, yet I didn’t want today to end. Exhaustion won, despite my persistence, and soon after I drifted off to sleep.

Part 2

My first moment awake on an alien planet wasn’t as pleasant as I expected it to be, mainly because last night’s spicy dinner had caught up to me. Almost as soon as I heard the protests from my bowels, I jumped out of bed and ran to the toilet just in time. At least it wasn’t like the last time I went to Taco Bell...

Once the figurative flame-throwing ordeal was over, I hopped into the shower, and ten minutes later, now nice and clean, I made my way over to the kitchen to re-heat part of last night’s dinner in the microwave. Thank goodness my apartment came with one of these, because I’m pretty sure I was gonna starve otherwise. Also, one thing I was thankful for about Katia was its much longer day-night cycle: over 31 hours per day as opposed to Earth’s measley 24.

With my plate of alien steak heated up, I doused it in sriracha sauce and dug in while browsing the extranet on my Yutri. Surprisingly, most of what I came across was Terran in nature, including big-time Hollywood films. I wanted something a little different, so I sought out some media from another race and settled for a Viliti comedy that caught my eye. Oh god, they’re so adorably bouncy!

I heard Zherisan’s bed moving, and I looked out the window to see that he rolled himself onto his back, one hand behind his head while the other was over his belly. Again, he didn’t have any clothes on, but at least he had some sheets pulled up to his armpits. I paused the video and stood up, gazing over at this beast of a drake, keeping my eyes locked away from his crotch as I blindly searched for the privacy button. That’s not an image I wanted to be working with, especially on my first day.

The comedy ended just as Zherisan’s alarm went off, giving me a heart attack. It wasn’t like any regular alarm, instead a very shrill, high-frequency sound that pierced through my apartment’s flimsy walls, requiring me to shield my ears. “Alarm, off!” he barked, and the alarm was silenced.

If breakfast didn’t wake me up, that sure as hell did.

I watched through the privacy glass as a light purple and turquoise blob was vaguely seen exiting the bedroom, and moments later I heard the shower being run in the bathroom on the opposite side of the wall. We had another two hours before work, so I decided to watch another short video, this time an asishi romantic drama. Man, they really do laugh like hyenas...

Zherisan returned about half an hour later, so I transferred my Yutri to a phone enclosure and inserted it into the pocket of my work pants. With the remainder of last night’s dinner in my hands intended for lunch, I slipped on my earpiece and walked out to the mech dock, a chime notifying Zherisan that I was outside of my sub apartment. I activated the intercom so he could hear me better. “Not a morning person, are you?” I grinned, his ears twitching as I walked up to my mech and put my lunch in a storage compartment.

“Not at all,” he sighed as he threaded his thick arms through the sleeve-holes of a royal-blue and silver vest.

“I can tell, because that alarm is loud as fuck!”

He turned to me, concerned. “Is it too loud for you?”

“Yeah, it’s actually a bit painful, even from my apartment.”

“My apologies. I usually have it loud because otherwise I would sleep through it. I’ll use my earpiece from now on.”

“If it isn’t too much of a bother.”

“Not so much of a bother as it is a consideration of my charge.” When he turned back around, he was clipping on the last few tabs at the front of his vest. Though it didn’t have pockets or sleeves, there was instead was a pad over his left breast that emitted a holographic tag stating his name and position within the guild – in his case: ‘Zherisan Dothruki – Master Jeweller’.

I raised an eyebrow. “Master Jeweller?”

“Oh yes, I’ve been with the guild long enough to be considered one. Fifteen years, as a matter of fact.”

“Is that UTO years or Katian years?”

“UTO years.”

My guesstimates of UTO years to Earth years put his total experience at about eight to eight and a half Terran years.

As he walked back over to his nightstand to fetch his Yutri, I jogged over to my mech, clambered in, and undocked. “Ready whenever you are.”

“We’re in no hurry, Nathan,” he told me, pulling out a drawer and uncorking a glass bottle full of brandy-colored liquid and dabbed the cork’s brush behind his ears. “I haven’t had breakfast yet, and work is only a twenty-five minute walk from here.”

That reminded me, I never really got around to looking up where exactly it was. I brought up the navigation screen in my peripheral vision and searched the address of the guild office... Oh wow, literally next to the park, and in an upscale shopping area, too! “Damn, you picked a good place to move to, Zherisan!” I complemented.

“Heh, I can’t take the credit for the move,” he said. “You being my charge necessitated it, and I was surprised to see this was one of the first neighborhoods in the city to accommodate humans. I like this historic neighborhood, and it does bring one major advantage.”

“Oh? And what is that?”

My lavender guardian chuckled. “The ability to walk to work, of course. Traffic here is terrible, no matter how good our infrastructure is. It’s just one less hassle to deal with.”

“And one less expense,” I pointed out in response.

“Heh, that too.”

I walked out to the common area and set my mech down by the coffee table while Zherisan walked into the kitchen and came back a minute later with a bowl of what appeared to be raw shredded meats covered in that gahnaji sauce. “That looks delicious, not gonna lie,” I pointed.

“It’s only a simple bowl of mixed meats, but it’s an excellent meal for an Arkatian to start their day.” Zherisan plugged his Yutri into the screen dock and sat down on the couch. “Do you have any preferences to your entertainment?”

“Well, I was watching a Viliti comedy earlier.”

“Oh? What was it?”

“I think it was called ‘Off The Walls’, or whatever it was translated as.”

“Ah, that’s an excellent series. Viliti comedy is my favorite genre.”

“Just you wait until you watch some Terran media!” I pointed out.

“Ooh, that does sound like a good idea! I’ve been meaning to watch what was in the media hub once you humans were integrated.” The drake summoned a search terminal. “What would you suggest?”

I checked the time we had left. “Hmm, I guess we can watch an episode or two of a Japanese anime I really like. It’s called ‘Konosuba’.”

“Koh-noh-soo-bah...” the drake’s lips attempted to articulate the Japanese pronunciation. The search bar spelled out the name in Common and the familiar sight of the four protagonists filled the projection.

“What’s it about?” he asked.

“To put it simply,” I explained, “this guy dies and is put into a fantasy world that behaves much like your typical fantasy simulation, except he brings along a goddess that’s basically useless. It’s a comedy series.”

A grin spread across his face. “I do like a good comedy. Yes, I think we should watch that.”

Oh boy, here we go.

The moment the episode started, it already had Zherisan hooked, barely having the capacity to eat his food while he watched. I could tell he was having to use a lot of willpower to keep himself from laughing so hard it’d damage my hearing. While his fascination in the quirky characters persisted throughout the episode, he seemed especially interested in the mage’s introduction, which sent one of his brows higher than the other.

“She reminds me of a friend in primary,” he said, shaking his head while laughing. “He’d always burn himself out in our fitness classes, but his efforts were far better than the rest of us...”

Then the frog moved in to eat her. “Oh no!” That was when he bellowed with laughter, requiring me to plug my ears.

I was afraid I was gonna burn him out on laughter alone. Just wait until he gets to the end of the second season...

Finally, at the conclusion of the episode, and when Zherisan had eaten the entire contents of his bowl, he stopped the stream and licked his fingers clean. “We’d better stop here before I wake the entire floor!” he wiped a tear from his eye.

“So you like it?”

“I think it has become one of my newest favorites!”

I laughed, knowing I just started making him into a weeb.

Exactly thirty minutes before our scheduled arrival time, we left the apartment and made the walk to work, going along a similar route we took going from the park yesterday. About three quarters of the way in, we arrived at a main street where shops were established along either side, with significant traffic already clogging the streets. At a first glance, it looked just like any other strip mall in America, though it was much more common to see stores stacked on second, third, and even fourth levels. As we ventured farther in, I noticed the stores started to become more upscale, and I don’t mean just simply being bigger. It was subtle at first, but the average quality of vehicles and buildings did at some point jump up, becoming newer and fancier the deeper into commercial zoning we went. Individual buildings soon became part of a larger, more elaborate series of walkways, staircases, and lifts between levels. We made a right turn soon after entering one of the larger high-end malls.

At last, we arrived at our destination: the Talvar Guild outpost in Keneten.

One could very easily overlook this high-end store and design studio given its environment.

Its storefront was no different from any other jeweller in the area, with many necklaces, bracelets, and rings behind heavy glass cases on full display, backed by a small team of very well-dressed salesclerks and at least one big Arkatian security guard. At the middle was a staircase leading to the second level that overlooked the first. The giant storeroom was filled with a warm luxury glow from bars of incandescent trim a short distance from the ceiling, and the marble floor was so polished and clean I felt confident in eating off of it.

I at first didn’t think I was attracting a whole lot of attention, but now I saw that all eyes were on me, and that was frightening. “I’m not the only human here, am I?” I asked Zherisan as we approached and ascended the central staircase.

“Oho, no, there have been a few before you,” Zherisan replied. “But none of them have a custom mech like yours.”

“Mmph, I knew my mech stood out too much...”

“That’s a good thing. It makes you look more... ‘exotic’ in these parts.”

The top of the staircase revealed a lobby with several desks where clients could negotiate and plan on the purchase of custom jewellery. Closest to the staircase was a desk with a single viliti secretary, her thoroughly-groomed chestnut fur gleaming in the light. Like Zherisan, she wore a cobalt-blue and silver vest with a holographic badge, introducing her as ‘Yanda Louvar – Branch Secretary’. “Zherisan!” she waved, her hand a blur. “You’re a little early today!”

“Yes, that’s because it’s my charge’s first day,” my guardian allowed me to step ahead.

“Yanda, this is Nathan Boldt.”

“Oh, you’re a new hire? That’s great! Congratulations!” she practically jumped out of her seat to lean foward and shake my hand. “Your mech is so adorable!”

“Th-thanks!” I managed to get out while my mech’s torso was shaken by the excited bunny.

Just like the comedies...

Zherisan laughed. “Goodness, Yan, you’re gonna break the arm off!”

Finally being made aware of her actions, she let go and shyly pulled her hand back. “S-sorry!” she blushed, ears foling back.

“I think you’re adorable, too, Yanda,” I giggled. That only caused her to blush and fidget more.

“Ahem, right, anyways,” Zherisan reminded with a forced cough. “Nathan needs to get set up so he can get started.”

“Right, I’ll let Bundvin know you’re here here.” Her hands were jittery as she tapped on her Yutri screen to contact someone. “Hi, Bundvin, a new hire just arrived... thanks!” She disconnected the call. “Alright, Bundvin should be here soon. I just need your Yutri to confirm your presence and your permissions, and you’ll be all set!”

“Oh, is that all?” I asked, surprised. “No other paperwork to handle?”

“Nope! That was all taken care of when they hired you!”

“Alright, just a second then...”

While I maneuvered my mech into position and hopped out, Yanda was busy reaching for the human-sized Yutri dock, and when she turned back to me she could barely contain her adoration.

Just as I did at Zherisan’s apartment, I plugged my Yutri in, waited for Yanda to verify some details, and took it back out. All in all, the process took less than a minute.

As I clambered back into my mech, the double-wide doors opened and out stepped an orange Falashai male, almost as short as Yanda, and appearing to be an older member of the vulpine aliens with the presence of gray furs around his mouth, face, and wispy blue eyes. On the left ear was a pair of silver studs, and around his right wrist was a watch made of gold and silver, projecting a triple-layer hologram just inches above the surface. He turned to Yanda as he approached the counter. “You said there’s a new hire here?” he asked, his voice gravelly and rough.

“Yes, sir, he’s right over here,” Yanda pointed over the desk.

I stepped out from behind the desk and waved. “Morning, sir! Name’s Nathan!” I smiled, presenting my mech’s hand for him to shake.

An awkward silence passed between us before he reciprocated, his hand loose and reluctant.

“Pleasure...” he glanced back over at Yanda. “I’ll show you to your workplace.”

As the Falashai turned around and led me back inside, I gave Zherisan a wave before entering the office.

Much like any other office on Terra, it seemed as if everyone was at a modest cubicle in a greater room, tapping away at their yutri-powered terminals. Most of the other associates were Katian natives, though a few hand-countable foreigners were seen among the ranks, including a cute ashar male. I in particular was led to the far end, where what appeared to be a new section of wall was made with the familiar human-sized catwalks. To the left was a row of mech docks, most of which were already taken. “Oh, wow, there’s already a human office in here?” I gasped, with eyebrows raised.

“Yeah, it’s been up for a while now,” the Falashai sighed.

“A few weeks now, I’m guessing?”

“Something like that. Alright, get settled in.”

“Okay, and, uh... you’re ‘Bundvin’, right?”

The vulpine grumbled. “Yes, Yanda told you that.”

I wanted to state to the contrary, but he was starting to come off as impatient and rude. What a wonderful way to start my Monday, I thought to myself.

“Okay, just making sure,” I stated instead, sliding my mech into position at the dock.

As I approached the entrance to the human-sized offices, a dark-skinned woman stepped out and smiled upon seeing me. “You must be Nathan Boldt?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” I nodded.

“Diamond Spies, and pleased to meet you!”

I shook her hand. “Thank you! Are you one of my coworkers?”

“I’m actually a jeweller. Let me take you to Craig; he’s been here the longest out of us humans.”

“Oh, wonderful, thank you!” I followed her inside, where the smells of a recently finished building dominated my nose, the walls freshly painted white with a blue and silver stripe closer to the very high ceiling. “If you don’t mind me speaking clearly, I’m beginning to think Bundvin doesn’t like me.”

“Ugh, I’m sorry he was your first impression,” she sighed. “Yeah, he doesn’t like any of us humans.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Ever since our branch manager went off-world, we’ve had to put up with his attitude towards us. He considers us little more than worthless pests.”

This was what I was afraid of when I left Earth for this opportunity. I’ve heard a few reports of some small amounts of Falashai, the fox people, bearing a spiteful attitude towards the humans. “Does HR know about this?” I asked.

“It’s PL, actually, for ‘Physical Labor’,” she corrected, leading me up a flight of stairs. “And no, because so far all he’s done is act as if he just had a bad mood. It’s clear he doesn’t like us, but he hasn’t done anything noteworthy yet.”

“The key word being ‘yet’,” I pointed out.

“Right...”

“Also, was it pure coincidence you became a jeweller with your first name being ‘Diamond’?”

“Oh!” she laughed. “No, my father was a jeweller back on Earth and I followed in his footsteps.”

“Oh, cool!”

We arrived at the top of the stairs where we came across the human office space. Since humans needed special facilities, most tasks done by humans were consolidated to one office, rather than a spread of different departments. This worked out well for me as an extranet developer, since most of my work was remote anyways. Diamond then led me to a tall dark-skinned man, who looked over and stood up when he saw my approach. “Yo!” he waved. “Is this the new guy?!”

“Yes, sir, I am!” I nodded, shaking his hand. “Name’s Nathan Boldt!”

“Craig Spies, and Diamond’s brother. Pleased to meet you!” He said, clasping his other hand over mine. He was fairly lean for his height, easily a head over me, and gazed down at me with a pair of hazel eyes and a big smile across his face. His nametag, in Terran English, proudly stated his occupation within the company was an ‘Embedded Technologies Engineer’. Come to find out, the guild offered integrated electronics in some of their bigger trinkets, like biometric sensors in bracelets and holographic detailing in amulets.

“Likewise!”

“Alright, I gotta get going,” Diamond waved. “See you at lunch time!”

“Have a good one!” Craig waved after her, then showed me to an open cubicle. “Alright, Nathan, let’s get you set up. You familiar with the Truadin IDE Suite, right?”

“Yes! That’s what my classes used.”

“Awesome. Okay, get your Yutri booted up and I’ll guide you through the whole setup process. It won’t take long.”

I set my Yutri into the workspace dock and was soon greeted with three holoscreens hovering just above a physical keyboard and a mouse to either side. Craig then had me navigate to an internal site to load up the company’s extranet IDE suite and set the appropriate file and link associations, and familiarized myself with the system of site maintenance requests and development tasks. This hardly took more than two minutes.

When I had everything fully ready to go, Craig handed me a pad similar to what everyone else had. “Alright, last thing is for you to receive your official name tag!”

“Sweet!” I accepted the pad and pressed a button. Immediately, a projection flashed just half an inch above the surface, with ‘Nathan Boldt – Extranet Site Developer’ emblazoned in Common manuscript in the middle.

“You can also flip the script to Katian and English as well,” Craig pointed out. “Just press the other button below the power switch.”

I pressed it as he suggested. The script flashed to something that looked like ancient Babylonian if I didn’t know any better, and from what little I gleaned of the integration lessons this was what the Katian manuscript looked like. I pressed it again, and the script flashed to the Terran Latin alphabet system. “This is the coolest nametag I’ve ever had!”

“You think this is neat? One of our engineers was bored one day and hacked his to loop Nyancat.”

I laughed. “I mean, I don’t see why not!”

“Do you have any more questions?” Craig asked.

“Yeah, how do I deal with Bundvin?”

“Ah...” he shifted and leaned against the cubicle wall. “I wish I could say ‘tell him to mind his own business’, but that’ll just make his point. I guess stay out of his way and keep contact with him to a minimum is all I can hope to suggest.”

“He’s not our boss, is he?”

“He is.”

Fuck me! “Alright, I’ll watch what I’m doing around him.”

“It might also be a good idea to have your guardian around when you leave.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, and, again, thanks for getting me started here.”

“Not a problem, man!” He gave me a thumbs-up. “And if you have any other questions, come to me; don’t even think about going to Bundvin.”

“Right, that’s good to know. Thank you.”

“Okay, then, have fun!” he waved before turning around and returning to his cubicle not far away.

Now fully situated, I logged in to the group conferencing program where I was greeted very warmly by five other programmers – including that Ashar from earlier. It was good to see my immediate coworkers were more receptive, and with an enthusiastic grin I got to work.

When I was told about separation anxiety once my charge had left me, I never thought I’d be experiencing it quite like this. Bundvin’s initial attitude towards Nathan was cold, even crass, and it drove me to a fuming anger as I walked in to the design studio, sat down at my workbench, started a music stream, and resumed the work that I left off of from the day before. My normal playlist of arkatian durrahar would not suffice, as that kind of music seeks to fan flames of fury more than quench them, so I instead opted for a much calmer neishor genre called ‘roamlands’.

But even that couldn’t stop me from worrying about Nathan and how he’d be treated by his falashai boss, as he was already unpleasant enough as the interim branch manager while Mavuta was away. For once, I wished Bundvin was my boss, so he wouldn’t have to put up with it.

The guild had started to hire humans in wake of their integration over eight years ago, but due to such high demand and the technology disparity, only a few were hired once mechs and the implementation of the civilian guardian-charge program went underway. Those that started here in Keneten worked alongside their guardians in their own partitioned workbenches while the sub-office was being built, and the precision their small sizes offered gave us the opportunity to explore more elaborate standard designs and smaller jewels, some even fit for the human market.

The guild has even hired a few electrical engineers to downscale their current jewellery centered around unfocused erestral crystals.

The potential of humans in jewelcraft was immense, and I would be devastated if Bundvin ruined that for us.

Upon losing myself to the beautiful neishor lyrics and the atmospheric instrumentation, I had calmed down enough to resume carving and polishing one of two opals for a ring a client from a Katian world had commissioned. These will eventually go to a custom ring design inspired by human wrought-iron techniques, with a fine metal structure that would hold both crystals in place. Once the opals were finalized, a human would take over and fit the structure over them, then weld one end to a base and the other to a seat that held a third opal I had finished the day before Nathan’s arrival. The metal strands comprising this structure were only slightly thicker than a strand from my own vest, but with heat treatment they could stand against everyday perils.

I had spent the better part of the morning ensuring the crystals were as brilliant as they could be before I delivered them to the human studio for assembly. A dark-skinned female named Diamond was the one who greeted me on my arrival, guiding the stones carefully onto her padded cart. “Oh, don’t these look gorgeous, Zheri!” she said, wide-eyed. “You’ve really outdone yourself!”

“I have, haven’t I?” I chuckled. “Perhaps I should work a little less dilligently in the future?”

“And sacrifice that delicate touch of yours? Not a chance in hell!” She began to pull the cart back into the studio. “I’ll let you know when these are done.”

“I can’t wait to see how they turn out!”

From my left, a taloned hand patted my shoulder. “Whoa, is that opal?”

“It sure is, Ainu,” Diamond smiled. “You can thank your boy Zherisan for them!”

“Yep, they sure do look like his handiwork.”

Ainu was an average onyx-black jahkatian in every way except for his exceptionally large wings, being one of the rare few capable of full flight. He was among the first within the outpost to receive guardian training, and took Craig Spies as his charge not long after humans were allowed to leave Earth with the help of their mechs. The two worked closely together to bring the guild’s line of trinkets with electronic integration to human scale, which had since become the most popular standard pieces bought by the diminuitive race living outside of Earth.

Diamond pulled the cart into the human studio, and I was just about to turn away before I spotted Nathan walking out of the office towards the mech docks. “Nathan!” I waved.

“Everything going alright?”

“Zherisan!” he waved back. “Yeah, everything’s great so far! I’ve made some good progress on the new human-centered jewellery pages.”

“Oh, you’re Nathan?” Ainu’s ears perked up.

“That’s me!” my charge nodded.

“Ainu Hakkah. I’m Craig’s guardian.” He extended his finger for Nathan to shake. “Zherisan just wouldn’t shut up after he heard he was assigned to you.”

I chuckled. “I’ve been waiting to take one ever since humans joined the UTO. How can you blame me for my impatience?”

“I know, I’m just teasing ya,” the black jahkatian gave me a playful punch. “Anyways, Briela should be here soon, so we should all go to lunch together.”

“I’d love to,” Nathan sighed, “but I brought my lunch today. I left it in my mech.”

“Heat it up in the microwave and I’ll carry you.”

“Oh, alright then!”

Nathan jogged to his mech – a figure that stood out among the other standard units – and re-emerged with the carry-out box from last night, then disappeared back into the human studio. A couple of minutes later, he re-emerged with Craig not far behind. The two were conversing in Terran English as they approached the landing pad. Ainu’s hand waited for Craig to step on before carrying him off, and Nathan watched as my palm was lowered-

“Whoa!” I heard someone shout.

Something blunt jammed into my back, and it was enough to actually push me forward.

Thinking quickly, I raised my grabbing hand, propped my other hand against the opposite wall, and put my leg forward. It was a stretch to accomplish this, but thankfully I managed to avoid hitting Nathan. The impact, however, sent my waist into the landing pad, which caused the entire walkway to shake and rattle. Nathan stumbled back and dropped his lunch box, though thankfully it did not split open. “Are you okay, Nathan?” I asked.

“Just... shaken...” he slowly clambered to his feet.

With the knowledge that my charge was unharmed, I looked back to see who else other than Bundvin pushing himself off my hunched back. “What happened?” I asked.

“I tripped, is what happened!” the falashai growled, his claws sinking into my back as he straightened himself out and smoothed his vest. “Honestly, you act like you haven’t tripped in your life before!”

“I’ve tripped plenty of times,” I said as calmly as I could. “What I don’t get is how you ended up over here.”

“I was on my way back to my office!”

I didn’t know whether I should’ve been angry or sympathetic. On one hand, as far as I knew, it was just an unfortunate blunder that could’ve resulted in something much more serious. On the other, there was no reason for him to be by the human studio, and for this reason.

Another voice, this time from a familiar human female, screamed from Nathan’s general direction. Even without the earpiece, it could very clearly be heard. “Are you out of your damn mind, Bundy?!” Diamond shouted as she stepped past Nathan, arms flailing.

I stepped back and looked at Bundvin, whose ears dialed in to its source. “What did you call me-”

“I know you ain’t deaf, Bundy!” she jabbed her finger towards him. “What the hell were you thinking, walking over here when you ain’t got no business to! That’s something you threaten to write people up for!”

“I’ll have you kno-”

“Oh no, don’t give me any of that bull-shit!” she swayed her whole hand from side to side, an index finger raised, and completely dominating what he was trying to say. “I saw what you did!

Don’t even think about taking your attitude out on Zherisan, ‘cause I’ll take it to PL if I have to!”

The falashai’s brow was scrunched into a full-on scowl. I could see his fists quaking. I quickly held my hand out to keep between the human and him. “I suggest you leave now,” I told him with my own counteracting, looming stare.

With a snort, Bundvin snapped to the right and stormed off, slamming the door leading to the administrative offices and storerooms.

Diamond was breathing heavily and bearing her own scowl. Nathan, meanwhile, had gotten back up and collected his jostled lunch. “Wow,” Nathan huffed, “that was unexpected.”

“He may be a lot bigger than us,” Diamond explained, “but at the end of the day he’s still just a bully.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Craig said.

As normal activity slowly resumed, a short red jahkatian walked in from the entrance, with golden blotches and wearing a more formal sales suit and scarf, though in a similar blue and silver as everyone else. Upon witnessing the tail end of the drama, she looked around at everyone with ear-feathers folded down. “Wh-what’d I miss?”

“Some grade-A sass, that’s what,” Nathan laughed as he finally stepped into my hand.

The red jahkatian approached the landing pad when I stepped back and let the female human step on to her palm, pointing a finger-gun at Nathan. “You know it!” Diamond smiled, settling in to a cross-legged seating position.

“What happened, Diamond?” she asked.

“Bundy tripped into Zherisan while he was collecting Nathan and had the gall to be mad at him!”

“Oh no!” the jahkatian female gasped. “Was anyone hurt?”

“Just my lunch,” Nathan replied, holding up his battered box, “but it’s fine. There’s only some machmar steak in here.”

“Oh thank goodness!” she sighed, then her ears flipped up. “Oh! Pardon me, I don’t think I’ve seen you here before!”

With a chuckle, I held Nathan up to her eye level. “Nathan, this is Briela,” I introduced.

“She’s Diamond’s guardian and Ainu’s brother.”

“What, really?! No way!” my charge gawked. “How’d that happen?!”

“Craig put in a good word for Diamond when it came time to take in human jewellers,” Ainu explained as he gave his sister a peck-kiss. “She was the first pick, and Briela passed her guardian training in time to qualify for the pairing.”

“Wow, brother and sister guardians taking brother and sister charges! I bet it’s really convenient for you!”

“Yes, it made the whole living arrangement very straightforward.”

Diamond laughed. “Boys, let’s talk at the table! I’m famished!”

“Yes, let’s,” Nathan agreed. “My steak is getting cold.”

As we all turned to the exit, I looked down at Nathan. Being inside of his mech in a public place made him nervous enough, but being outside of it and completely at the mercy of my hand only made the issue worse. It also didn’t help that he was nearly injured by someone else’s carelessness as well. “Would you like for me to cover you or leave you uncovered?” I asked.

“I don’t mind if you leave me uncovered.”

I was surprised, but nonetheless respected his wishes. I put my carrying hand to my belly and held my thumb close for extra security. “Let me know if you’re ever uncomfortable,” I reminded.

“Will do.”

We gave Yanda a wave as we headed off to lunch at the local mall’s food court. Many others had the same idea of coming here for a meal, but there were still plenty of opportunities for a quiet place for our charges. We settled for a booth along the wall, and I placed Nathan at the human-sized pop-up table, and soon we were ordering food. “Looks a little crowded today,” I pointed out, concluding my order.

“You think so?” Nathan asked back.

“Yeah, there’s probably a sale going on at another store that’s attracting some attention,”

Ainu replied. “Hopefully it doesn’t bother you too much.”

“I’m used to crowds, living in a big city... well, relatively big city.” Nathan sighed.

“Keneten is a big city,” I pointed out, “but Regea, the capital, makes even Keneten seem small.”

“Oh, yeah, I saw that from the flight in,” Craig chimed in. “I hear it’s bigger than the entire country of France!”

That sounded familiar to me. “France... that was the city that had that old tower, correct?”

“No, France is the country,” Nathan corrected. “Paris is the city that has the Eiffel Tower we saw in the simulation.”

“Ah, I see.”

“So where were you born and raised, Zherisan?” my charge asked.

“Sohjan, about eight hundred kilovalen north of here. It’s one of the smaller cities in the Arkilio region, but it’s home to a strong jewelcrafting industry.”

“Yes, it’s a very beautiful underground city, Nathan,” Diamond commented. “Maybe when you’ve got time Zherisan can show you around?”

My charge perked upon hearing that. “Oh, it’s an underground city?”

“It is,” I nodded. “Many arkatian cities are underground.”

“Cool! Yeah, I’d love to go there!”

Craig and Diamond began speaking to each other while Nathan nibbled away at his lunch.

With a satisfied hum, he pointed to his steak. “I gotta say, ‘see-rah-cha’ sauce goes great with machmar steak!”

“Oh, shit, you used ‘see-rah-cha’ sauce on your steak?” Craig lurched in surprise.

“Yeah, I brought a bottle with me,” Nathan replied.

“What does this ‘see-rah-cha’ sauce taste like?” I asked.

“It’s like gahnaji but it’s more spice than sweet.”

My brow raised with interest. “Ooh, that does sound delicious. I might have to order some for myself.”

Nathan chuckled. “Good luck. You’re gonna need a bottle as big as one of our tanker trailers, and that won’t be cheap!”

I brought out my yutri to look up potential outlets for this spice. “Oh I’m sure it won’t be that expensi-” The first major extranet outlet that sold this spice made my eyes gawk. “It’s how much?!”

“Told ya!”

Absolutely overwhelmed by the excessive price tag, I terminated the page and pocketed my yutri. “Tosan han, I’m not about to pay that much for a spice!”

“Yeah, human food is expensive in non-human portions.”

I glanced back in time to see a pair of drones dropping off our completed orders. Ainu’s tray had a turu salad with a side of aanda dip, and Briela held a creerin soup, a very popular jahkatian dish made of creerin seeds and tenderized machmar, with fleen as the chosen side. At each corner for the charges was a similar, but much smaller, tray with human-sized portions, as well as a bottle of machmar milk each. I had ordered a sandwich made from fatty avan’tik strips and thinly-sliced machmar, which Craig pointed out looked very similar to Terran ‘bacon’, along with a side of hahchi meat strips marinated in gahnaji sauce.

“It’s a shame there’s no silverware,” Nathan said, splaying his fingers now coated in a mix of grease and red-orange spice as he took a stack of napkins. “Even some plastic ones would do.”

“Using your hands is how arkatian dishes are meant to be eaten,” I told him as I dropped a hahchi strip into my mouth.

“Easy to say when you have knives on each of your fingers.”

“Yes, that does help, but I prefer to rip my food apart like a normal person.”

Nathan laughed. “For a civilized race, your interpretation of a culinary experience is still barbaric.”

“Only to you humans,” I reminded.

Craig handed Nathan some napkins, and my charge took the first one to wipe his fingers clean. Such a waste, I thought.

Normally this would be when we would discuss plans for work, but with this being Nathan’s first day we took our time letting him learn about us as individuals. Craig and Diamond told him they were from the Terran city of ‘Saint Louis’, to which Nathan explained he had relatives there, and talked about the stories they had about the rynar invasion. Most of that conversation was about what they witnessed of the UTO response, and was dominated by the human siblings.

Nathan’s only encounter as a wanderer was a small skirmish between a UTO patrol and a stray rynar group, though at a good distance away.

When it came time to head back to the office, we finished our meals and walked back. Right as I dropped Nathan off at the human workspace, I heard a grating and too-familiar bark.

“Zherisan!” Bundvin pointed. “I need a private word with you.”

My rage returned, but I kept myself contained as I followed the elderly falashai back to the manager’s office. This was where the outpost’s administration stayed, and most were in no bigger spaces than either the jewellers workstations or the office terminals had. Bundvin’s space, however, bucked that trend, with space enough for one more standard seat. “Have a seat,” he offered.

“No thank you,” I shook my head, ears flattened – not with fear, but with anger.

He sat in his own seat and leaned back with a huff. “I want you to apologize for your attitude before your lunch.”

“What attitude? If anything, you should be apologizing to the humans for disobeying your own rule!” I frowned, jabbing my finger.

“What you said to me, and how you said it, was very demeaning and hostile,” Bundvin said, crossing his arms.

I huffed. “If you interpreted that as hostile, I’m surprised you even made it past orientation as a sales associate here.”

Without breaking his gaze, he tapped a button on his terminal’s screen. “Please read the write-up and sign it.”

My yutri pinged. I quickly produced the device and read through the message, anger building with every word. “Insubordination?” I glared. “How in Zircan are you going to enforce that?”

“You were unnecessarily rude to a superior, and caused a danger to humans!” he said, tapping a claw against the desk surface.

I bared my teeth and inched closer to his face. “You pushed me into the human studio and nearly had me injure my charge because you disobeyed your own policy!” I growled. “I’m not signing it!”

“Then I have no choice but to suspend you pending an investigation.”

My rage jumped to a dangerous level, my fists practically quaking at his decision. Instead of using them, however, I slowly nodded and turned to saunter out of the office... and about halfway I stopped. “If you’re suspending me,” I told him, raising my brows but keeping them pulled down in a scowl, “then you should know it’ll be with pay equal to my average commission rate for the past four quarters.”

“I’ll let PL take care of that-”

“Furthermore,” I turned back to face the bossy old vulpine with the scratch of my claws against the polished tile floor, “I should give you my list of clients you will need to contact for the delay in their commissions. Per UTO and Katian trade regulations, the guild would also need to re-negotiate everyone’s commission contract, and that’s not a hassle neither the guild nor the clients want to do...” I was eventually standing in front of his desk, towering over him, and interrupted before he could protest by nodding to his terminal. “Go ahead and pull up my list of active and pending commissions.”

Bundvin’s gaze flitted between his terminal and my pressing stare, before pulling up the sales and commissions index. On the ongoing commissions side were no less than thirty lines each with a client’s name, commissioned items, and the jewellers and sales associates handling the transaction. Out of those lines, over a third of them had my name attached to them. As for the clients themselves, they weren’t just random folks doing impulse purchases. These were executives, celebrities, politicians – people of influence. Not one of them committed to a sale of less than twenty thousand credits.

On a separate window was a graph showing who had the highest in sales and commissions. I grinned and leaned in towards my interim boss, looming over him like my name on the charts compared to everyone else’s. “Are you really going to cause this much trouble in order to show your displeasure of the humans?” I muttered, driving my words in like stakes through that thick skull of his.

Bundvin’s ears were flat, his tail curled underneath his chair, and his gaze fixated on the screen. There was no lying in his body language. He had been beaten at his own game. His graying nose let out a huff. “Get back to work.”

“Thank you,” I nodded, and walked out of the office much faster than before.

Oh, but this still peeved me. He was willing to involve corporate in his temper tantrum. I doubted anything would come of me, but after this escapade it was clear he would be hunting for reasons to disrupt human employment here, and was willing to use me as the catalyst. But why, though? He at least kept his disdain of the humans to himself until now, wanting nothing more than to not see them every time he walked in and out of work. A double irony, then, that not only did he propose something with common sense to their benefit, but went out of his way to break it.

This was a rage not even roamland music could quell. I instead scheduled a VR visit after work today.

When Zherisan told me we were going to the VR hive after work, I was once again stoked!

Now that we had a much bigger time slot, we can do things we wouldn’t have been able to do before! We definitely needed it, after Zherisan told me what Bundvin tried to do to him. Was he that desperate to get rid of us humans? I was surprised HR- er, ‘PL’ didn’t catch on to his antics.

The Keneten VR hive was clear across the city, but it was reachable by a single maglev monorail trip within walking distance of the high-end commercial district. Here, the architecture was distinctly different, with more modern designs fashioned from a combination of wood, stone, and metal which Zherisan pointed out was typical of jahkatian buildings. Unlike the human-sized hive in Chicago, which was little more than a hastily-built warehouse, this place looked like it belonged here, and had multiple levels serving thousands of users every day. The layouts, however, were very much identical.

As we walked into our assigned ward, we were greeted by a holographic projection that took the form of- “A human AI?!” I gasped.

Yes, this was in fact a human being projected in front of us, one that was of identical height to my mech. His skin was a glowing erestral-blue, almost cyan, and looked at each of us with violet eyes. He wore what appeared to be a jahkatian traditional robe, with a blue-green scarf wrapped around his neck and matching well with the throwover underneath.

“Indeed I am,” the human AI smiled and waved. “My name is Elliott, and I will be your virtual reality host.”

I swooned. “Dude, I have so many questions now!”

Zherisan patted my mech’s shoulder, chuckling. “Ask them later, Nathan. I have plans for tonight.”

“R-Right, I’ll get connected right away!” I jogged over to the mech bay for the human pods, leaving Zherisan to walk up to his assigned pod.

As soon as I clambered out, Elliott’s projection was right in front of me and was identical to me in size. “If you have questions, I wouldn’t mind answering them while I lead you to your pod.”

“Oh, please and thank you!” I caught up to him and walked alongside his hologram. “So are you, like, one of the first AI to take a human form?”

“There have been a couple before me, and they are currently in other worlds introducing other UTO worlds to humans.”

“And what brings you here to Keneten?”

“Mainly for a change of pace from engineering erestral charging logistics around Earth. As the humans say, ‘variety is the spice of life’!”

“Amen to that. And I can’t help but notice you look like Dr. Manhattan. Was that coincidental?”

“Not at all!” he chuckled. “‘Watchmen’ was among the first pieces of human entertainment I analyzed to build my avatar.”

I found it amusing to think that one of the first AI to take the form of a human would be a DC Comics cosplayer. I was led up to the pod and I settled into place. “So what’s Zherisan got planned for me?”

“He’s told me to keep it a secret until I loaded the simulation.”

“Alright then, let’s do this.”

The countdown commenced and my vision flashed on zero. Zherisan was standing in front of me, though we were now seeing eye-to-eye, and by the looks of things both of us were only in shorts. The ground we were standing on was a rough yet soft surface, with two lines in the middle spaced about two hands apart. This surface, however, was barely large enough to comfortably fit both me and Zherisan simultaneously, and was ringed by a buffer space another ten or so feet away followed by a low stone wall that separated the arena from the bleachers.

One thing I did notice about Zherisan, though, was his lack of turquoise belly scales, instead what appeared to be an even lighter shade of lavender that was more of a pale magenta.

“Zherisan, what happened to your scales?” I asked.

“Oh, that’s just body paint that I’ve kept since university,” he chuckled. “Arkatians normally don’t have that kind of two-tone.”

Zherisan held his arms out, presenting the environment. “Well, what do you think of this?”

“An interesting choice of setting...” I looked over myself, most importantly, and discovered that I was no longer a scrawny, lanky man, that I now had some decent muscle. I flexed a bicep, the muscle tensing and pressing out against my skin, and squeezed with the fingers of my other hand – wow, very firm! “Where are we, anyways?”

“This is a musmu ring,” Zherisan explained. “It’s an ancient Arkatian sport practiced as a means of settling differences, and it’s still practiced in modern times as a recreational activity.

I’ve been told this is not unlike a Terran sport called ‘sumo’.”

“Oh, ‘sumo’ is a type of wrestling,” I corrected, “and I’m guessing that’s because the main objective is to get your opponent out of the ring?”

“It is,” he nodded. “Now, since you’re nowhere near my size even in default VR downscaling, I asked Elliott to scale you up to a standard musmu contestant’s build. It is preferable for both opponents to be of identical build.”

“Heh, thanks!” I proudly hoisted my arms up, admiring the bulging muscles underneath the smooth skin. “Damn, don’t I look godly!”

“You certainly look like a worthy opponent,” Zherisan chuckled, crouching down. “Let me show you a few things.”

“Alright.” I took a couple of steps to place myself just in front of my guardian in the middle of the ring and mimicked him, placing my left hand on the ground just below my crotch.

Zherisan had both hands down, as was his short tail.

“In musmu, your first move is absolutely critical,” Zherisan explained. “How you start against your opponent in the first instant can make or break your fight. Mind you, there isn’t much room to work with, so you have one of three directions you can work in: high, low, or overhead.”

“What’s the overhead?”

“Would you like to find out?” Zherisan squatted lower. “On you.”

I nodded and thought about how I should engage. There was the low road, which would mean driving my shoulder in like a football player, or the high road where I could have more leverage in pushing or shoving. But if he’s making an ‘overhead’ move, I could potentially accomplish the same task as taking the low road. High road it shall be.

The moment I jumped up at his chest was the moment my opponent leaped from the ground and, using my shoulders, hoisted himself over me. On his descent, I felt his tail bat against my back and shove me forward, which compounded with my initial move and sent me stumbling out of the ring, my head crashing inches from the wall. The fall stung, but it didn’t hurt.

I was more confused and astonished than anything when I rolled upright. “Jesus Christ, what the hell was that?!”

“That was the ‘overhead’ option,” Zherisan bragged as he helped me up. “Having no wings gives me that advantage.”

“Why is that?”

“Wings get in the way in this sport. They are two more limbs a contestant can grab onto, and they are not strong enough to be useful.”

What little pain I experienced was already gone, and I looked virtually untouched otherwise.

“Are matches usually that brief?”

“Yes, and that’s not uncommon. A fight that lasts longer than ten seconds is considered lengthy in this sport.”

Goodness, a ten-second fight! That’s the average length of a football play!

Zherisan walked me back into position. “Don’t be afraid to fight dirty, either. You can employ punches, kicks, and even headbutts. The only thing you’re not allowed to do is bite.”

“Alright, I think with that I have a few things in mind.”

“On you, then.” Zherisan squatted low again.

I paused for longer than any sane person would, staring my guardian down and trying to psyche him... then I chuckled and slowly stood up.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“Oh, just something I recall from the Internet a while back...”

Zherisan straightened up. “I don’t see how tha-”

The moment he relaxed, I dove low and jammed my shoulder straight into his gut, causing him to stumble back, trip, and fall clear out of the ring. “Makun mah-” he said, pulling himself up. “Why did you do that?!”

“You told me to not be afraid to fight dirty,” I chided, jamming my thumb to my chest.

“That’s how I fight dirty!”

Zherisan bowed his head and shook it, busting out in a hearty laugh. “How very clever, Nathan! And if I recall, that would be a legal tactic.”

“Yeah? You’ve got way more experience in this than I do, so I figured I’d level the playing field a little more.”

“That goes without saying. I was a two-year champion in secondary.”

“Oh wow, that’s impressive!”

He rose to his feet and got back into the ring. “Shall we continue?”

“Sure!” I clapped. “I wouldn’t mind trying to beat each other up after a stressful day with a shitty boss!”

“Hah! That’s the spirit!”

Zherisan and I spent the better part of the next hour tossing, kicking, and punching each other in what I now like to call ‘dragon’s sumo’. Though I did manage a handful of lucky victories, Zherisan’s experience was clearly evident. In a way, it was therapeutic for him, finally able to let the day’s frustrations out in a controlled environment. I wasn’t fond of having my ass kicked all the time, but it was fun getting some hands-on experience from a seasoned veteran in a sport I would only have had a passing interest in.

With my guardian finally having his fill of rough-housing, I talked to Elliott about changing some things up. In just a second, we were in a new scenario. This time, we were in a much larger stadium, surrounded on all sides by bleachers that rose many stories high, and the backdrop featured several high-rises beyond the farthest spectator seats. The ground was arranged in a cone-like shape with the surface being mostly grass save for a light dirt area where the two straight sides met, along a set of white lines leading to the spectator wall, and arcing along the same line as the rearmost seats.

Now it was Zherisan’s turn to wonder aloud where we were.

“Wrigley Field in Chicago,” I told him. “Home to the Chicago Cubs baseball team.”

The lavender dragon, now about my height, stepped around in a circle, taking in the sights.

“A stadium from your homeland? It’s... old-fashioned.”

“Yeah, it’s one of the oldest baseball stadiums in the United States, built over an Earth century ago... er, ‘was’ one of the oldest, until some Rynar platoon tore it up and used it as a base.”

“What a shame. It’s in fantastic condition for its age.” He looked over at me. “So are we going to be playing this sport of ‘baseball’?”

“Yep! You teaching me musmu inspired me to teach you an American sport!”

“What significance is it to you?”

“Oh, I was a pitcher in my high school’s varsity baseball team. We even made it to the Illinois state championship.”

“Did you win?”

I sighed, dejected. “Unfortunately, no. We lost in overtime.”

Zherisan chuckled. “Even some of the greatest contestants are marred with failures, Nathan.

So how about teaching me this sport?”

“Absolutely!”

I led Zherisan over to the pitcher’s mound and taught him on the positioning and the motions of how to pitch a baseball. Elliott stood in as his catcher, and soon I had my guardian pitching quite well for a beginner. Next, I had him at home plate and taught him how to swing and hit the pitched baseball, and spent some time getting practice in that. He actually hit a good number of those pitches, though most ended up fouling out. I then told him the rest of the basic rules, and soon we had a team put together with other connected session users. Zherisan and I, thankfully, were both on the same team.

We had a decent team made up of both humans and non-humans, so there was a great variety of skill levels on both sides. Zherisan and I took to the catching and pitching, respectively, since we appeared to be the only guardian-charge pair on our team. First up, and out, was a cocky lupari; then came a viliti that, while he had a great sprint to first, had his high-fly caught by the middle-fielder. Then a human stepped up and the first pitch ended in a home run. I made a mental note to walk the guy next time.

After striking out another human, it was our turn to make the hits. A jahkatian girl made it to second with a ground ball that slipped past first base – a calculated risk that ended up paying off in the short term. I went up to bat, and the sissach pitcher gave me the right opportunity to hit a high-flyer to left field... only for it to be caught. The jahkatian, unaware of the caught ball, made it to third by the time she realized what had happened, and the ball was delivered to second base for a double play. Our inning ended with another human being struck out.

The match was surprisingly even, considering the skill disparity between the two sides. We scored some runs, then they did. Then, out of nowhere, Zherisan not only hit a home run, but a grand slam, which cleared the bleachers on the other side of the field! It was just what we needed to stay ahead and win!

Alas, most of our time had burned up at the conclusion of the game, so we decided to spend the rest of it in Chicago’s Millenium Park, particularly at Crown Fountain where we simply sat at the poolside and kicked the ankle-high waters while chatting. “So what did you think of baseball?” I asked.

“Very... interesting...” my scaly friend replied. “Respectfully, I can’t say it interests me.”

“I understand. Fighting sports aren’t quite my cup of tea, either.”

He blinked. “But you don’t use cups of tea in either sport.”

“What? Where did- oh!” I laughed. “Yeah, that’s a human expression. It means it’s not to my liking.”

“Ah, I see now.” Zherisan looked down, staring at the waves washing against his ankles as the fountain started pouring water.

“Is something wrong?” I asked, concerned.

Zherisan sighed. “I was hoping we’d find an activity we could enjoy together, especially one to burn off some steam from earlier.”

“And we did! I wouldn’t have ever tried musmu unless I too was a ten-story-tall dragon. This simulation let me do exactly that!” I patted his forearm... god it felt firm! “What we need is to keep looking. Even if we find something we don’t like, at least we can say ‘yes, I totally did that’. After all, there’s a human phrase that says ‘variety is the spice of life’!”

“I wonder where that came from,” Elliott interjected verbally.

Zherisan’s ears flicked, a grin spreading across his face. “Variety? Hmm, I suppose that makes sense.”

With a smile of my own, I hopped down from the ledge and peeked at the time... shoot, barely more than ten minutes. “How about we come back some other time and explore some activities we can do together?”

“That sounds grand,” he agreed, standing as well. On cue, Elliott appeared standing on the ledge we were just sitting on. “We’re ready to go, Elliott.”

“Very well, then,” he bowed. “I look forward to your future visits!”

So was I.

Part 3

Minus the drama from my first day, my first week working as an extranet site developer for the Talvar Guild was fantastic! Even though I was, so far, the only human extranet developer in the Keneten outpost, the group I was with loved my input. A few of them even decided to take their lunch breaks with Zherisan and me, as we discussed plans to improve the flow of the site now that the company was offering human-scaled jewellery. It became clear to me that as one of the rare few humans in the company, any newcomer was immediately of interest, and... well, now I know how a mouse feels when an entire class of overly excited children crowds around in awe. It only took a day for people to get over the initial excitement, thankfully, but there was no less eagerness even by the last day of the work week. Bundvin was still pretty shitty while making his rounds, but the others made it all worth it.

Though I got a brief glimpse of the company’s profile from the extranet while looking for work, I never really got to dive into what the company was about until I started actually working here. The Talvar Guild was an actual artisan guild specializing in jewellery, founded here in Keneten, and was one of the first artisan companies to rise in wake of the unification of the Arkatians and Jahkatians over a thousand years ago – Earth years, not UTO years. The facility here in Keneten was an ‘outpost’, where those hired by the guild could practice their craft and make a healthy profit. With any trade also came opportunities to become apprentices before moving on to being considered a ‘master’, and that was what Zherisan did after graduating with a degree in geology. Except his ‘master’ at the time was none other than Mavuta Chielai, the jahkatian branch manager he told me about earlier. She must’ve taught him well, because out of the other jewellers his sales figures were second only to what she had.

For me, every work day was a good ten or so Earth hours, starting just after sunrise and ending mid- to late-afternoon. After a few days of adjusting to the extended day-night cycle, I found that the timing worked out quite well for me, as it did for my guardian and just about everyone else in the design and smithing teams. For the associates here on Katia, a typical ‘workweek’ was eight days on and three days off, which worked out perfectly because thirty-one of these workweeks could fit inside a Katian year.

One thing I noticed about the work culture here was the lack of urgency, something I definitely appreciated over the fast-paced environments in Chicago. This was mainly because the jewellers and designers were given the liberty of taking their time to ensure every trinket was perfect, and everyone else worked around them. They needed that time, because some of the designs were extremely intricate and difficult even with the help of experienced human jewellers performing the truly ‘small-scale’ touch humans provided. It occured to me that it was also due to psychological reasons, as a fast-paced environment could more easily wear out an Arkatian artisan, though I’m pretty sure it would wear out any artisan given enough time.

During the weekend, Zherisan and I spent some quality time together. On the first day we visited Arunah Tower, the tallest building in Keneten and the fourth-tallest building on Katia, behind three more in the capital city Regea. Zherisan explained that the view from Arunah was similar to what he experienced of the World Trade Center when he visited New York City in the simulation, and from the mech’s perspective I could see that. To a human, however, this was well into the realm of what a so-called ‘megatower’ would theoretically achieve, and the view at the top with my own eyes was unreal! Its footprint alone could fit most if not all of some smaller Earth cities, and its total height was almost four thousand feet taller than Denali, the highest peak in North America. It boggled my mind that I had to actually think of these buildings as higher than mountains, and it only cemented the fact that humans were, in the grand scheme of things, very small indeed.

The second day we went to the Wehjak Museum of History, where I got to learn about Katian history. Apparently steam power never really crossed the minds of Arkatians, who had so much erestral in their mines that they completely skipped the Steam age, and their ‘primitive’ energy weapons were wicked! The jahkatians, on the other hand, did have a handful of preserved steam engines, which aside from being so huge were about par for my expectations. The two hemispheres, with the arkatians to the north and the jahkatians to the south, were embroiled in wars that lasted many generations, the harshest of which royally screwed the griffins over. That was many centuries ago, and the two sides have come a long way in mutual cooperation evidenced by the foundation of this city and, eventually, the greater UTO. I managed to learn a lot, and it would’ve been like any other museum visit were it not for at least twenty people stopping me for selfies both in and out of my mech.

On the third day, Zherisan woke me up with the offer of several extremely large (to me) chunks of cooked meat. “I know it’s a bit much, but I lack the tools necessary to prepare food fit for your size,” he explained as he set the piping-hot meats down in front of my feet.

“Aw, don’t sweat it. The fact that you made me breakfast is more than enough,” I reminded as I sliced off my portions onto my human-sized plate. “Besides, whatever I don’t take you could easily devour in a single bite.”

“You could just as easily preserve them for later consumption.”

“I could, but this bit here’s the size of my old black lab Hannah, and I don’t think I can fit all of that into my apartment’s fridge.” I pointed to a triangular portion that was as tall as my knee and about as wide as my leg was long.

Zherisan blinked. “I... don’t understand. Normally your laboratories are a bit bigger than that.”

I cocked my head to the side. “How did you get ‘laboratories’ when I was- oh!” I laughed, realizing the miscommunication. “Oh, silly me! I meant my labrador, my pet dog!”

The lavender drake nodded. “I see now. Is this ‘labrador’ a type of canine?”

“A breed of dog, yes. She looked like a Lupari but on all-fours and...” I chuckled. “Well, more fitting for my size.”

“Ah, right! I do remember that from the integration lectures, about Earth having wildlife that looked strikingly similar to the other UTO members. I’m surprised there aren’t equivalents to arkatians and jahkatians.”

“There are, but only in myth, sadly...” I sliced off a small morsel and chowed down on the alien meat. Good thing he didn’t douse the stuff in spices.

Zherisan also ate another bite of meat, although his was bigger than I was. “That’s a shame. I was hoping I’d see them should I ever visit Earth. Was there a reason why you weren’t able to bring Hannah the laborador to Katia?”

“Yeah, she passed away.”

The drake gasped and his ears flicked before drooping low. “I’m... my apologies...”

“She died well before Earth was invaded, though. Before I was in high school, even.” I decided to change the subject. “So what have you got planned for us?”

“I was hoping you could join me and a few of my friends in a hiking trip in a nature preserve north of the city. Eric and Saephiris will be joining us as well.”

“Oh, sure! Are there going to be other humans?”

“Of course! Almost everyone joining us is a guardian-charge pair! You will not be the only human there.”

“Alright, yeah, let’s do it! When are we leaving?”

“Once we finish breakfast, but we can take our time. There’s no need to rush.”

“Good, ‘cause I need a bit more prep...”

After stuffing myself silly with nothing but meat, I made the short trip back to my sub-apartment and changed out of my pajamas for some jeans, a T-shirt, and a jacket because the forecast was only expecting it to hit fifteen degrees celsius. Apparently that’s warm for Zherisan, because he went back to the bedroom and changed into a simple white vest. Secretly, I’m glad he did...

I didn’t pack much into my mech – just my yutri and some snacks – and when I was ready I hopped into the pilot’s seat and followed my guardian out the door. As soon as we were outside, I had Zherisan hoist me up onto his shoulders and carry me to the bus stop, where we were then transported to a transit hub. Half an hour later, who else would be there to greet us than two familiar faces. “Sergeant Andrews!” I waved, shaking the hand of the British military officer’s civilian mech. “Good to see you sir!”

“Indeed, and how wonderful of you to join us, Nathan!” he nodded, returning the favor.

From the corner of my eye, I spotted Zherisan and Saephiris embrace each other in a hug before stepping back. “Is everyone else on their way?” Zherisan asked.

“Dorvikak and his sister, but they will be meeting us out there,” Saephiris replied. “You know she’d never miss an opportunity to hunt for critters.”

“Of course not,” my guardian mused.

“And Maenen and Tikkan should be arriving- oh! Now, actually!”

I turned around and saw two Jahkatian males touch down on the opposite side of the street, one tawny and the other white. Both were otherwise of identical height and build, and each wore a pair of black loose shorts and vests with multiple pockets. One pocket of these vests was devoted to a human charge each, and were very securely strapped in. The tawny gryphon had a copper-skinned female in a green tank top, and his white-feathered friend had a man that looked almost as pale as his guardian.

The first thing I heard was from the human male. “Oh shit!” he exclaimed in a Swedish accent. “Is that a Roadrunner?!”

“Hell yeah it is!” I waved and smiled.

“Man, I’ve always wanted one since the reveal!”

“Oh! It’s so cute!” the woman squealed.

Zherisan chuckled. “Sounds like you’ve got a couple more instant admirers, Nathan,” the lavender drake remarked.

The white Jahkatian knelt down in front of me, holding his hand out in front of his charge as he unhooked his harness. “Name’s Tikkan Chielai, by the way,” he replied.

“And I’m Maenen Chielai,” the tawny one added, performing the same action.

“Nice to meet you two!” I nodded before I backed my meck into the nearby bench, opened up the hatch, and walked out to the platform. The gryphons each set their charges down in front of me, shaking their hands as they were each deposited. “I’m Nathan Boldt, Zherisan’s charge.”

“Darna Aquino,” the woman replied. With a name like that, I suspected she was either Latino or Filipino. In either case, she was pretty good-looking for a girl – petite, long straight hair, good curves, and very fashionable in that tank top, jacket, and yoga pants.

“Henrik Lundberg,” the man introduced himself, and as I suspected he was very strongly Swedish. Even though he stood almost a head over me, he was almost wiry thin and had disheveled blond hair. His fashion for today was decided to be khaki cargo pants and what I assumed was a Swedish metal band logo on a black T-shirt. “You mind if I peek inside?” he asked while rubbing his hands.

“Sure!” I stepped back and ushered him in.

Darna kept mainly outside while Henrik ducked inside, completely ecstatic. “Oh wow, you even have neural controls?!” he pointed to the seat.

“Yeah, it’s expensive, but it’s worth every damn penny.”

I was then bombarded with every kind of question imaginable about it: what I had to do to get one (basically fill out some forms and a fat check), what was the upkeep (very minimal), how fast did it go (very fast), what other amenities were included (little more than the base model), and what I planned on doing with it (paying the damn thing off). I greatly admired his enthusiasm, and to be completely honest I never thought I’d need to think so much about the possibilities of this mech. Darna was more interested in the aesthetics of the mech, since she claimed it was the first mech she’d seen that had a face with a screen, let alone one that was shaped like this. I noticed it has become a staple feature of Roadrunner mechs, with the company being a partnership with a Viliti power armor manufacturer, and it seems to me they’re poised to become the Tesla of civilian mechs in popularity.

The two dragons and griffins sat down to either side of my mech, with Zherisan sitting closest to me. “How do you all know each other?” I asked Zherisan.

“Friends of a coworker I once had, who we’ll be meeting at the reserve,” he explained. “I first met him when I worked for an erestral refining and mining company as an intern. He was the one who ultimately pointed me to the Talvar Guild.”

“Oh that’s cool! Nice connections we’ve got going on here!”

“Our mother refers to them as ‘lattices’,” Maenen commented, “like the fundamental structure of crystals.”

“Heh, I guess jewelsmithing has rubbed off on you a lot?”

Tikkan laughed, coming out as more of a squawk. “Yes, our mother tried to get us into the trade, but it just didn’t interest us.”

“Your mother’s a jewelsmith as well?”

“Yeah, she’s the branch manager at the Talvar Guild.”

“What a coincidence, that’s-” It then hit me. “Wait, your mother is my boss’s boss?”

“Yes!” Zherisan laughed. “Maenen and Tikkan are both Mavuta’s sons.”

“Oh shit, no kidding! That’s so cool!” How did I not recognize that?!

That left me an opportunity to discuss at length about what they and their charges did while we waited for another transport to take us to our final destination.Tikkan was a fleet vehicle mechanic and Maenen was a freelance graphic designer; both lived in the southern hemisphere within a modest drive to Heahjor, the planet’s largest sea. I also got to learn more about Henrik and Darna, both natives of their respective homelands. Turns out, neither Sweden nor the Phillipines were affected by significant Rynar activity.

Having said that, they were surprised to hear I personally saw the Rynar only once, and at a distance while some UTO troopers were gunning them down.

Our transport finally arrived and we climbed in, with the other humans joining me in my mech, though once my mech was seated they were transferred to their respective guardians. We followed a winding route out of the city and to a stop just outside of a small mountainside village that a sign proudly stated was Idigak. Here, the age of the Katian civilization became apparent, as aside from the sheer size of the rocks compared to humans, the buildings here looked only slightly different than those built in European countries. A nearby gaping hole could be seen housing a handful of other structures that somehow appeared even older, like a Pueblo village but made of a grayish rock and sprinkled with the glow of blue crystals on scone-like conduits.

Off in the distance, drones tended to a tiered farm for some kind of reddish-orange plant.

I made my thoughts known to Zherisan, and he smiled. “Idigak is one of the oldest villages here on Katia,” he explained. “It dates back thousands of years prior to the UTO’s foundation.”

“I’m not surprised, considering how long you live. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear some of your elders are older than my home nation.”

“That’s not an uncommon remark. I have an avra’ya’rah who is nearing five hundred years old.”

I blinked at the unfamiliar term. “What’s an ‘ah-vrah-yah-rah’?”

“Ah, I see that didn’t translate,” Zherisan pointed out. “I suppose the best equivalent I can give you is ‘grandsire’.”

“Oh, so he could’ve easily met my home country’s Founding Fathers.”

“My grandsire is actually a ‘she’.”

“Wait, really? How is tha- oh!” I blushed. “S-Sorry, I completely forgot Katians can be hermaphrodites...”

“Hey, at least you aren’t totally ignorant,” Henrik said from his place in Tikkan’s vest. “There was an old man in one of my integration courses that was absolutely disgusted to hear that, shouting all kinds of slurs.”

“Psh, that’s nothing,” Darna huffed. “There was a woman in my courses that was shouting about them being devil spawn coming to rape children and that God had forsaken us.”

My mech’s eyes flashed wide. “Jesus Christ, what the hell was that woman on at the time?”

“Who knows,” she shrugged. “All I know is that she was arrested.”

“There are humans who are that ignorant?” Maeren asked, ear feathers aimed high.

“Unfortunately, yes,” I sighed. “Though I’m happy to say everyone I’ve met sees the UTO much more positively.”

“Yes, that’s definitely a relief,” Saephiris smiled, then her head turned down the road, where two more Arkatians were approaching. “Right on time, you two!”

The two dragons could not be any more different. The male was bigger than Zherisan by half a head and clad in white scales, while the girl only barely reached as high as his chest and had lemon-yellow scales. The girl had a pair of wings and wore a comically oversized T-shirt and cargo shorts, while the white drake had an extra pair of horns and donned only a pair of lime green sweatpants and a smooth vest with a pocket, presumably to hold a human like the one on the girl’s backpack strap.

“Oh, dude, sweet mech!” the human from the girl’s pocket gave a thumbs-up. By his accent, he sounded American.

“Thanks!” I replied back with a courteous wave.

Zherisan approached the big drake and the two put their hands to each other’s shoulders, reeled back, and slammed their heads into each other with a loud crack. I was worried they’d get into a fight, until the two started laughing and patting each other on the shoulder. “Zherisan! It has been a while, hasn’t it?” he greeted.

“Agreed, Dorv,” my guardian replied, who actually had to look up at him. “I don’t think you’ve seen me since I started working at the Talvar Guild!”

“Yes, because I got stuck with this guy here!” the white drake pointed to the girl... er, rather, the human in the pocket.

“Yo!” he waved.

Zherisan turned his attention to the much smaller girl and bent down to hug her. “Jaanada!

Jordan! Good to see you two!”

“Hi, Zheri!” the dragon girl lick-kissed back. “Work keeping you busy?”

“As always. Let me introduce you to my charge.” Zherisan beckoned me over, and I walked over to park my mech by his side, bravely stepping out onto the mech platform to meet them in person. At the same time, the looming white drake kneeled down next to the smaller dragoness to be closer to my level, so massive that even in this position he still had to look down.

“Jaanada and Dorvikak,” my guardian announced, “this is Nathan Boldt.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” the drake replied. “How are you liking Keneten so far?”

“Overwhelmed, if I’m being honest,” I chuckled, scratching the back of my head. “There’s so many things here that are just so alien to me...”

“You’ll get used to it, Nate,” the human in the yellow dragon’s pouch said. “Jordan Grant, by the way!”

“Nice to meet you, Jordan!” I waved back. “Are you her charge?”

“Oh, no, she’s carrying me because she wanted some experience before taking her test.”

“Oh!” I gasped, looking up at the girl. “Well then, good luck on that test, then!”

“Thanks!” she smiled. “Jordan and Dorv have been a big help with that!”

“I bet they have!”

Eric’s voice came over our yutri earpieces. “Well then, now that everyone is here, shall we begin the hike?”

“Ooh, yes please!” I rubbed my hands together and hopped back into my mech.

With everyone in agreement, we turned towards a path just off the roadway and began our ascent.

All truth be told, the flora of Katia wasn’t that much different than Earth’s, save for the scale.

With the area being in the temperate zone, there was a decent mix of broadleaf and evergreen trees, as well as plenty of flowers, mushrooms, and leafy plants like ferns and ivy. I didn’t see much of the wildlife, except for a helicopter-sized bird that I caught a glimpse of as it flew above the treetops. From time to time, I spotted Jaanada poking around in the underbrush, which she told me was to search for small critters, and partly what kept the hike moving at a snail’s pace.

That worked out for me and the other humans, as we were too busy admiring the sights, sounds, and smells of the giants’ world around us.

After what felt like over an hour of constant stopping and hiking, we happened upon a small cave that we stepped inside to explore. Again, it was just like any other Earth cave, except for the critters and fungi inside. There was a certain amount of bioluminesence that kept everything just lit enough to see what was going on, but not so much to see exactly where one was going. While the others used the lights from their Yutris, I used the head lamps and safety lights from my mech to look around – I know, I couldn’t help but show off my expensive private mech a little. At a certain depth, we came across a very rich vein of erestral, glowing so brightly with its blue light that we didn’t need our own lights anymore. The other humans and I gawked not just on the quantity of erestral here, but the sheer size of the crystals themselves! Some of them made even Dorvikak seem small! We couldn’t venture deeper into this vein, being caged off to preserve its natural luster, but my goodness was it pretty! On the way out, Zherisan and Dorvikak shared with me stories of their brief time together while Zherisan was an intern.

Out of the cave came another hour and a half of stop-and-go hiking that took us to the summit of the nearby Idigak Mountain, from which the nearby town was named after. Here, we were able to gaze out at the now diminuitive-looking city of Keneten just before the horizon.

Zherisan told me this was similar to the view from the Hollywood sign during our VR visit, and I could see where he was coming from. The lights from a handful of shuttles could be seen streaking to and from the spaceport, some of them arcing in the general direction of other spaceports. Then I was kindly reminded by the information placard that this summit was just over a thousand valen above the Heartland datum, the zero-height level that all Katian heights and depths referenced. With some quick maths, I realized this mountain was one and a half times the height of Everest, and thanks to Katia’s thick atmosphere the air-density we experienced was not any worse off than a common peak in the Rockies. The view was still gorgeous, though.

Having had our fill of the peak, our last leg through the trail took us back down to the reserve’s recreational area, where a nature museum and a lake with a waterfall were the main attractions. We stopped in the museum first, which also had terrariums set up for various critters commonly found in the area. It became clear to me, now, that Jaanada was really into these critters, and practically did the tour for everyone. Funnily enough, hexapedal animals were far more common on Katia than anywhere else, which would explain how the two Katian species are as they are. One particular type of such animal was a six-legged reptile called a yinniden, which reminded me of what a traditional basilisk would look like if it was missing a pair of limbs.

Though they could easily be big enough to pose a threat to Arkatians, the smallest species of this reptile was only five to seven feet in length as an adult, which Jaanada proudly pointed out was also an herbivorous species and therefore safe for humans to keep as pets. I don’t have the desire let alone the budget to keep one, but it was nice to know there was somehow reasonably-sized fauna here.

We ended the journey at the lake, and Jaanada passed Jordan off to Dorvikak before she disappeared with Maenen and Tikkan to get changed into a swimming outfit. When the three re-emerged, all of them wore the same style of swimwear – nylon-like trunks with tail-sleeves –

with the exception of a white bikini top for Jaanada to go along with her black trunks with red flame graphics. They then ran off to climb the trail leading to the top of the waterfall. Moments later, I saw Jaanada dive-bomb off the top before leveling out just above the water’s surface, then banked up to twirl several times before cannonballing into the lake with a big splash, sending a ten-foot-high wave rolling against the shore. It was honestly quite impressive.

“Psh, showoff,” Dorvikak huffed, humored as he settled into a reclining position under an evergreen tree beside me and Zherisan, with me on my guardian’s belly just below his chest.

Eric, Henrik, and Darna were with Saephiris and kept to themselves by a rock near the water.

“Not much of a fan of swimming, are you?” I asked.

“Nah,” Dorvikak shook his head, “I sink like a rock, unlike my sister.”

“Oh, she’s your sister?” I said that more in shock than realization.

“She is,” he chuckled. “Don’t worry, we get that a lot.”

“How old is she, might I ask?”

“Just over fifteen Katian years old, or 32 standard years if you prefer.”

Considering a Katian year was just about a time and a quarter longer than an Earth year, the conversion to Earth years made her just over eighteen years old. “Seriously? I thought she was much younger than that!”

The white drake sighed. “Yeah, sadly she stopped growing just after she started puberty. She always wanted to become ‘big and strong’ like her brother and parents.”

If she was only in her late teens, then... “Ho-How old are you, then?”

“I’ll be seventy-one next quarter.”

Had I been in my mech, my eyes would’ve flashed so big the visor wouldn’t be able to contain them. “Jesus Christ, my grandparents could’ve grown up with you! That’s like eighty Earth years!”

“That’s still young for an Arkatian,” Zherisan pointed out. “I should remind you that we have children once every fourteen years at minimum, and it’s not uncommon for generational gaps like that between Dorv and Jaan to occur.”

“It’s still insane for a human like me to hear that...” I chuckled awkwardly myself. “You look damn good for being seventy years old!”

“Heh, thanks!”

Just then, my yutri’s incoming call chime sounded off, and I glanced at the ID. My heart dropped.

“What’s the matter, Nathan?” Zherisan asked, concerned.

“I, uh-” I was too mixed up to respond properly. This was the last person I’d expect to call me. “E-Excuse me,” I swallowed and, against my better judgment, hit the green ‘Accept’ button.

“H-Hello?”

“Nathan!” A familiar, yet terrifying, voice at the other end grated my earhole. “How are you doing today?”

“Oh... kay?”

The woman at the other end laughed. “That’s good! So what’cha doing?”

“How did you get my yutri address?”

She huffed, keeping a friendly tone. “Why do you need to know that?”

“Because it isn’t supposed to be public?”

“Oh, that’s not important now. I just wanna know what my boyfriend is up to!”

“Ex-boyfriend, we’ve been through this!”

“I’m still at least your friend, though, right?”

I looked back to see both dragons watching with worried expressions. “L-Look, I’m busy right now-”

“Aww, is someone giving excu-”

“Brianna, we’re not getting back together and that’s final! You should know that by now!”

The woman gasped. That faux buddy-buddy voice fractured into something much more sharp and scathing. “Wow, you’re rude, you know that?”

“Excuse me? I’m rude?! You’re the one who cold-called me in the middle of something important!”

“Oh puh-lease, as if going out with your gay buddies is ‘important’!” She really had to emphasize ‘important’. “You need me, Nathan, and you fucking know it!”

“Uh, no. I don’t need a crazy psychotic bitch back in my life. And if you’re not gonna hang up then I will.”

“You do that, and I’ll find where you are and make sure you regret breaking up with me!”

I had enough. I was well enough away from Earth that their laws didn’t apply to me. And even if she did, what was she gonna do, march up to a planet full of giants and attempt to screw me over? I decided to hang up. If she was sincere, she was gonna regret it.

Zherisan and Dorvikak looked at each other before glancing back down at me. “That sounded like a nice friendly conversation,” Dorvikak joked.

“It’s not funny,” I grumbled and glared. My heart immediately cringed upon realizing how hostile I sounded.

Dorvikak’s smirk fell immediately. “My apologies,” he said.

“I think it’d be best if Nathan and I had some privacy,” Zherisan suggested. “This sounds personal.”

“Agreed,” the white drake shifted to his feet and walked off to join Saephiris.

My lavender guardian scooped me into his hands. “I’m worried about who called you and why, especially with the tone you had. May I hear the details?”

I sighed, knowing where this was going. “It was my ex-girlfriend who wanted to get back with me...”

“Oh? Was it that bad?”

“Yeah, but it isn’t for any reason you might think. I didn’t see her the same way she saw me, and when I admitted that to her she got mad and tried to ‘straighten me out’.” I plopped down in his palm and let him raise me to his eye level.

“I have a feeling there’s a deeper meaning to that phrase,” Zherisan half-whispered.

Goddamnit, did I really have to force my hand like this? “There is, actually... She said that because... she found out I was gay...” I hung my head low.

He raised an eyebrow. “Gay... as in, happy?”

“N-No,” I shook my head, tears forming in my eyes. “A homosexual... I’m only attracted to other guys...”

I waited for Zherisan to respond, but none came. I looked up to him only giving me a quizzed look. “So yeah...” I shrugged, wiping a tear from my eye. “That’s my deepest darkest secret...”

He continued to give me that look. “If that’s your ‘deepest, darkest secret’ then I’m surprised.

I was expecting something from the war or your childhood.”

My hands parted from my face as I looked back up to him with reddened eyes. “So you’re...

fine with that?”

“I don’t see why I wouldn’t be.”

By now, I used my sleeves to wipe away the tears and soon had my hands back to my knees.

“I guess you’re a lot more accepting of that kind of thing, huh?” I sighed.

Zherisan nodded. “I’m the kind of person that looks at merits more than personal quirks.”

It was actually very relieving to hear that. My hometown of Chicago had been very liberal to this regard, but no matter where I went I nonetheless came across people who had something against my ‘choice’ of sexual orientation, to varying degrees of severity – my ex-girlfriend being one of the more forceful ones.

My guardian relaxed and let out a gentle huff as he lowered me back down to his chest. “I still can’t help but be concerned about your well-being, Nathan. You sounded very nervous during that conversation.”

“It was just the thought that she somehow found my yutri address that threw me off, is all,” I reassured... but nonetheless navigated my yutri to save the most recent call as an audio recording.

I have a feeling that will be needed.

My attention was soon torn away as I watched the lemon-yellow arkatian perform a swooping glide followed by six front flips – at least I think it was six. Either way, it was damn impressive, but it was quite the shame that my mech would probably not be able to float. “Your friend’s sister is a very talented glider,” I pointed out with a chuckle.

“That she is,” Zherisan agreed. “She goes with Maenen and Tikkan all the time to the Heahjor Sea.”

“She’s gonna love Earth, then, if she loves water so much.”

“Indeed she would...” a smile spread across his face. “By the way... with your so-called ‘secret’ out, you wouldn’t by any chance find me attractive, would you?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Honestly, you’d be everything I’d ask for.”

“Even though I’m much bigger than you?” he inched me closer with eyes opened wider and ears trained forward.

“Eheh, except maybe for tha-”

His tongue suddenly blipped against my face and I stumbled back, my head bouncing against his fingers as my nostrils were met with whatever slobbery residues of Zherisan’s lunch was.

Zherisans’ head reeled back and bellowed with laughter, my ears ringing. “I believe you humans call it ‘booping the snoot’!” he enunciated between breaths.

I too joined in on his laughter. “You bastard!” I pushed myself back up to my feet. “That’s not how you do that! Bring me closer and I’ll show you!”

Still stifling his own snickers, Zherisan brought me to within reaching distance of his nose.

Without warning, I shot both hands forward and slapped a small yet thick plate at his snout, and it felt like I was slapping a concrete slab. However, I still got the desired effect. Zherisan’s head flinched back and two of his fingers were placed where I touched him, and we both started giggling like little girls.

Once again, he brought his snout up to me, this time pressing me gently between his palm and his nose. I then felt his tongue press against my belly. “You are quite the gem, Nathan,” my guardian beamed.

I pressed my hands to either side of what little I could grab onto. These little moments may not seem like much, but over time they will become part and parcel of our relationship.

It was nearly sundown by the time I had Nathan back in our apartment. I still had errands to perform, so I made sure he would be okay with me gone for an hour before I left the apartment with him alone.

My thoughts returned to the sudden and heated call he received from his former friend. It baffled me that such a relationship would come to such an end over something so trivial as a misunderstanding. I had doubts that the same fate would become of that between him and me, as even his alleged ‘deepest darkest’ secret wasn’t all that bad compared to many others I’ve come across. But that secret did come to explain a few things, and I found it flattering that he considered me attractive. I wanted to say he was ‘cute’ in return, but I don’t think he’d take it very kindly.

My errands for tonight would best be done now as this coming week I had other things besides work on my mind. The first thing I needed to do was pick up a wristband accessory for my yutri. Wearing an earpiece all night had made my ear irritated and the alternative was to force Nathan to put up with my alarm again. I wasn’t looking for anything fancy, so I settled on a thin white strip that would do the job just fine. Next was to acquire food for the week, and a small yet very friendly store was within walking distance on my way back. Though both places were equipped with online ordering, I greatly preferred going in person so I knew exactly what I was getting. It was something I came to inherit from Mavuta when she showed me how she selected the various gemstones the guild purchased. Since I didn’t have a car, I at least arranged for my groceries to be delivered by drone.

With food and wristband acquired, I made my way back to the apartment. I took a slightly different route home because of a tricky intersection on my route, where I would be walking past Garashan Park rather than the side of a main road. It wasn’t ideal, but it at least afforded me a moment to get a glimpse of the park from the street, where a group of primarily jahkatians had rented out one of the nearby pavilions for a gathering, and I stopped briefly to watch. I couldn’t tell what it was, but it did seem to involve children. A youth group, perhaps.

My curious gaze was interrupted by something striking my shoulder. “Excuse me, I-” as my head snapped to whatever had struck me, I was shocked to see a familiar face.

A wide grin was spread across his mouth, teeth bared. “Fancy running into you, Zherisan.”

I did not like his tone, and for good reason. This was Klotar Vinshah, who was nothing but a bully to me in my youth. He was a winged arkatian who came from my home town, and was four years my senior, but moved to a hub world for an unknown reason before my secondary education began. Though his face had showed more boney growths along his jawline than I remembered, his ruby-red scales, amber eyes, and thin build were unmistakable. Both of my hearts began to pound, though I remained calm. I nodded politely and with my brow furled.

“There’s no need to hit me like that.”

“Psh, I was only testing you,” he taunted. “You’d always fly into a rage if I so much as poked you.”

“With a sharpened stick, might I remind you,” I growled. “What do you want from me?”

“Twenty years apart and that’s how you open up? C’mon, where’s the fire I saw last time?”

he began to look me over. “Hmm, last I remember you were a bit of a runt, very easy to push around. Have you been working out?”

I leaned in with a scowl. “What. Do. You. Want?!”

“Relax! I was just in the area and thought I’d say ‘hi’! That’s all!” He played off like I was some sort of friend of his – which I was definitely not. “What are you up to these days, anyways?

You live around here now?”

“None of your concern,” I reminded.

He chuckled. “I thought we were best buds, Zheri!”

“I’m not your hohdan’kah and I intend to keep it that way. I’ll never forgive you for what you did to me.”

“Did I not say it would be an unforgettable experience?”

And he dared to say that with that devious grin. I bared my teeth. “I regret not reporting you to the authorities that day. I’m sure you would have had a lot of time to sit and think about nearly murdering someone.”

“You say that like I was a complete idiot. Didn’t help you had tail as short as your temper.”

This was something Klotar always did to me, taunting me and making fun of my features until I flew into a rage. Back then, he would easily overpower me and then do whatever he wished, but now I was bigger, broader, and much more mature than him despite his age, not to mention having taken up a practical martial art. He won’t get that out of me this time. I straightened my stance and turned to resume my journey. “I have better things to do with my time than be pestered by an egg.”

As I walked away, I could hear him follow. “Whoa there, since when did you get to be the one with the sassy comebacks?”

His inquiry went ignored.

“Giving me the silent treatment, huh?”

I continued to ignore him.

“By the way, how’s Raolah? Still giving her those stupid carvings?”

That touched a nerve that I unfortunately could not ignore. I whipped my head back around and took one step forward, stopping him.

His overconfident smile spread wider. “That’s the Zherisan I know and love! So, how is she?

You mated to her or something?”

“That is none of your concern,” I growled, my blood flowing hotter. He was working me up into a rage like usual, and right now the only thing stopping me is that he hasn’t thrown the first punch.

“Heh, I know, rejection can be a terrible thing.”

“And remind me of why she rejected you, Klotar?”

“Certainly not because I was making stupid gifts for her-”

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a rather large jahkatian running up to us, eventually moving to separate us. “That’s enough, you two!” he sternly. “If you wanna fight, take it away from here! There’s children nearby!”

Klotar held his hands up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir. I just wanted a chat with a friend.” He pointed to me. “It was him that started to get aggress-.”

“Don’t give me that, you bully!” the jahkatian pointed. “I saw the whole damn thing! Get out of here or I’ll haul you away myself!”

Given the jahkatian was just as stocky but only a couple of centivalen shorter than Klotar, he at last made the intelligent decision of backing off and going down a different direction from where I was headed. “This isn’t the last you’ve seen me,” Klotar pointed as he turned and walked away.

My eyes remained locked on to him, until the jahkatian patted my shoulder. “It’s okay now, calm down,” he whispered. “We got him away from you.”

After several breaths, I calmed down enough to stand straight again. “T-thank you, sir,” I replied as a weak wave of exhaustion took hold. “My apologies for disturbing your evening.”

“You have no need to apologize. I saw him run into you. He was the one who started it.”

“He’s known to do that, sadly,” I shook my head. “Again, thank you.”

The jahkatian and I gave our farewells and I continued back home, though after a few paranoid minutes I opted to call a cab in case Klotar was stalking me. It was already bad enough for Nathan that he would be dealing with a hostile boss and now a hostile ex-friend of his, and I didn’t want any of my past demons to creep in as well.

The cab took me home in good time, and I sighed with relief once I was in the door to find Eridisa browsing the web on her yutri. My purchased groceries were delivered only a couple of minutes later, so I made quick work in putting everything away. As soon as I was finished, my bedroom door opened and I jerked my head to that direction. “Oh, Zherisan!” Nathan greeted from his mech, the visor screen projecting a pair of cute digital eyes. “How’d everything go?”

Of course it’d only be him, I thought to myself, trying to relieve my tension. “Yes, apologies for keeping you waiting. I had a minor confrontation.”

“Oh no! You’re not hurt, are you?”

“It... wasn’t much of a physical confrontation... I suppose you could compare it to your relationship between you and your ex-friend.” I set the last bag of meat inside the refrigerator and closed the door.

“Ah. That explains why you’re jumpy right now...” the mech’s visor screen refreshed to a more reassuring appearance. “Why don’t we calm you down with some more episodes of Konosuba?” he offered. “I think we’re just about to finish the first season.”

A grin spread across my face, but quickly vanished. “I’d love to, Nathan, but-” I grumbled, clenching a fist and baring teeth. “I’m... not in that mood right now.”

The mech’s eyes widened before turning sad.

“I suppose you could consider this my own deepest, darkest scret,” I added, walking past him and sitting down on the couch. “Come on over and let me tell you why.”

I waited as Nathan’s mech sat down next to me and he stepped out of the hatch, allowing me to place him on my shoulder while I told him the story...

My sire and mother were modest folk, wanting nothing more than was needed, and so as a young hatchling and an only child I made do with what I had. Rather than buying toys, my parents involved me in making things with my hands, usually out of craft items like small wooden sticks and glue. I had a fanatic desire to make things, even if it wasn’t particularly useful to me.

As part of my parents’ beliefs in modesty, I grew up in a housing block in the deep old town of Sohjan. One of my neighbors also had an only child, a female named Raolah Cortajan. She and I became close friends in early primary school, and I often made little dolls and rock carvings for her-

“Aww,” he swooned. “Is that what got you into jewelsmithing?”

“A big reason, yes,” I replied. “But I didn’t start making jewellery until after university.”

But unlike me, her family was... not quite as stable as mine. I won’t go into specifics, but I can say she appreciated my family’s hospitality.

The problem came when another neighbor moved in. They were unpleasant, to say the least, and one of the reasons was because of Klotar Vinshah. He was a few years older than us, and at the time bigger by a fair margin. He saw weakness in us, and used it to manipulate us, tried to get me to stop making trinkets and small crafts for her. For a while, I did, and it hurt, but seeing Raolah so upset by his words hurt her more, and eventually I resumed doing it anyways – even after getting beaten up for it.

Nathan gasped. “Did you tell someone?”

“I told my parents, who had a good talk with them, but sadly that didn’t seem to help. They then told me if he did it again I should start defending myself.”

“And I hope you gave that guy a good beating yourself! I would’ve loved to have seen little-uh, little-er you beating the shit out of a cocky arkatian teen.”

I chuckled. “I’m glad you have spirit, Nathan, but...”

Even that wasn’t enough to get him away from us. He poked and prodded until I was set off, gave him a few hits, and when I was exhausted enough he returned the favor. But then he did something that still haunts me to this day. While I was home alone, I heard Raolah’s dwelling’s door get bashed in, followed by Raolah fighting with Klotar, and ending the same way it always ended for me. Except when I rushed in to save her, he was in the process of taking his pants down-

“No!” Nathan gasped again. “Did he-”

“Rape her? No, but he very well could have had I not jumped in on time.”

Nathan was silent, now listening intently. I continued.

It was the first time I was able to actually best him in a fight. Raolah did a good job weakening him, and I managed to drive him off.And yes, we did call the peacekeepers. They searched his place, but he wasn’t there and he wasn’t reported as lost. Where he went after that is anyone’s guess...

Ugh, this was always the worst part of the story...

But two days later, while walking home from school, I was hit in the head by... something...

and when I woke up I was bound and gagged. Who else would have done that than Klotar himself. He scolded, berated, even battered me until I was bleeding... kept telling me I shouldn’t have interfered with his ‘disciplining’ of Raolah... Then he... grabbed me by the tail... and held me over a cliff... Warned me to never stop him again...

My next breath was shaky, and tears began to well up in my eyes. I then felt Nathan’s hands press against my jaw and his head rest almost within my ear. “There there, Zherisan,” he spoke softly. “It’s okay. I’m here for you.”

I took a moment to drink in his quiet words of reassurance and comfort. There was something about his voice that made it unusually soothing to me. It was almost hypnotic. “Thank you,” I replied back. “It’s... not easy telling that part to anyone.”

“I can tell. An experience like that would have been traumatic for anyone.”

“It was, and the last words he said to me was that I should be ‘thankful’ for the ‘unforgettable’ experience.”

“What happened after that, then?”

After that, he freed me and drove off. We were just outside the city at the time, so I was able to make it home, though much later and looking more roughed-up than usual. Naturally, my parents wanted to know what happened, and... all I could really tell them was that I got beaten up. That was the last I heard of him since then... until now...

Nathan’s tiny hand patted the scales on my cheek. “I understand, Zheri. You did what you could, and right now you’re doing what you can. I know I am, too.”

“Yes, with your ‘crazy’ ex-girlfriend.” I chuckled.

“By the way, whatever happened to Raolah?”

For the first time since coming home, I smiled. “She soon after moved to Regea when her family situation stabilized, and went on to pursue her onus as a psychologist. We still talk to each other to this day, and as a matter of fact she recently had a child of her own.”

“Oh that’s great! At least some good came of it all!”

“Heh, that it did.”

He patted my jaw again. “Feel better now?”

“Yes, much better. Thank you again.” I dug into my pocket to whip out my yutri. “What says you to watching those last couple of episodes of ‘Koh-noh-soo-bah’ like you suggested?”

“I would love that.”

And enjoy it we did.

Part 4

“Ooh, dayuhm, that’s looking slick as hell, Nathan!” Craig nodded, big toothy smile spread across his face.

“Thanks, Craig,” I replied with pride, “I greatly appreciate it.”

The last few days were spent trying to implement the animations for the extranet site update, and I had been working with the graphic designers to ensure everything was working how they intended it. Actually putting in the code to call these animations was easy, but getting them to behave how we wanted them to was the tricky part. It took longer than I cared to admit, but the results were quite spectacular.

Craig dragged his finger across the projected prototype site, scrolling across the virtual display cabinet of every piece of jewellery on offer through the guild. “Almost like I’m actually at the sales floor, that’s really impressive! Have you shown it to anyone else?”

“I’m about to. I just figured out how to fix the issues I had.”

“Sweet! I’ll leave ya to it.”

I started saving my files and let everyone in my team know I had made progress. My next task, then, would be to figure out some backend stuff, particularly database structuring, but I had barely gotten the first resource defined when my Yutri rang with an incoming voice request. To my relief, it was Zherisan. “Ay! How’s my favorite guardian?”

“You say that like you have others,” he chuckled. “Do you have a moment?”

“Just got done with one part and I’m starting another. What’s up?”

“I could use your inspections on a bracelet I’m working on for a client.”

“Ooh! Will do! I’ll be right down!” After terminating the call, I undocked my Yutri and jogged to the mech docks. I had yet to actually see my guardian at work, so this would be a treat.

Like the terminals of the development and marketing teams, every crafting station was unique. Most had a modest amount of miscellaneous clutter, some more than others, but it became clear to me that the more successful names had minimal clutter and organized benches. I spotted Zherisan’s workbench not by how his lavender scales stood out, but by the interesting arrangement of plaques, medals, and trophies. “I knew you were a big deal,” I greeted, “but goodness that’s a lot of awards!”

“Heh, thank you, Nathan, though only some of these are relevant to jewelcraft.” Zherisan set a chisel and hammer down. “Most actually from my time in secondary as a musmu fighter.”

I backed my mech just to the other side of the workspace and set the commands to open the hatch. “Any particular reason for that?”

“At first it was sentimental,” Zherisan’s hand fell in front of me right as I stepped out, and transitioning to a sit happened right as he began to raise me up. “Nowadays it reminds me to work hard for those closest to me. You, especially, as my charge.”

“You too, huh? My yutri’s background is that of my nephew, for the same reason.”

Zherisan’s deep, hearty chuckle resonated through his palms as he placed me down on the workbench. It was easily the size of a standard lawn in suburban America, the nearby tools more than I could hope to handle. In the middle was an apparatus that held a silver bracelet with half a dozen gemstones of various colors, each at least the size of my hand. The middlemost gemstone was a light pink and nearly the size of my head, but what stood out about it was the setting.

Rather than just be soldered to any solid seat directly attached to the main body, what appeared to be thin, delicate strips looped around the sides in a flowing hold suspended about half a foot away from the silver body. Though I should point out that said ‘thin’ and ‘delicate’ strips were more than sufficient to keep my tiny hands from even budging it.

“Oh, Zheri, it’s beautiful!” I swooned, looking over every inch of the giant’s trinket. There was easily enough silver here to make any one person a multimillionaire on Earth; not to mention its size would make it an absolutely priceless possession. Seriously, just one of these solid links was easily worth tens of thousands! “Honestly, I’m very curious of how much the client paid for this.”

“According to the quote, somewhere around a hundred thousand credits-”

I gawked, jaw dropping. “ Only a hundred thousand?!”

“Well, yes, because this is fully hand-crafted by skilled artisans like myself.” Zherisan pulled up a seat and sat down, his shorter tail barely touching the floor behind him. “Also consider that this amount of precious metal is nothing to us.”

“Shit, yeah...” Now that that was considered, I wonder how many necklaces like this could be made from all the gold in Fort Knox...

The lavender drake picked up the hand tools resting nearby with one hand and a stand holding a silver bracelet with the other. “Alright, I think I’ve bothered you enough for today, Nathan. See you at lunch?”

“Absolutely!” I gave him a thumbs-up and turned to walk back to my mech.

I had only stepped onto the landing pad when I heard something snap followed by the sound of ping-ponging at the far end of the workbench. Zherisan shouted something that I couldn’t understand because of the sheer volume leaving my ear ringing, then stood up and leaned forward. “Damnit, where is- oh, you’ve got to be tugging my tail!”

“What? What happened?” I asked. Other jewellers looked on from the sudden outburst.

“The sapphire I was handling slipped out of my tweezers and fell behind the workbench,” he sighed. “I can’t get back there without disturbing its resting spot, and I’m afraid I’ll lose it if I do.”

I jogged over to where he was looking as he tried to reach his hand inside. His chunky palms were what ultimately stopped him from digging any deeper, but that was plenty for what I had in mind. “Let me see.” I slowed to a stop right before the workbench ended and the cubicle wall began. Looking down, it was hard to see exactly where the dropped gem was, but turning on my Yutri’s light revealed a small glint that could be seen just a little farther up and about thirty feet down. Yikes, I could see why Zherisan didn’t want to move the workbench, because the cable management was what ultimately saved it from being lost forever.

An idea came to mind, and I jogged back to my mech. “Hold on, Zheri, I might be able to help!”

“Wha- really? How?”

“I think I have some tow straps in my mech, hang on.”

“How’s that going to help us?”

“You’ll see.” A hop and a skip into the cockpit later and I began to rummage around for the miscellaneous tools I packed into here. In one of the larger bins, a bright orange bundle caught my eye as it was exactly what I needed. Grinning, I took them out of the bin and ran back to the far side. “Here we go!”

“Are those what you call ‘tow straps’?”

“Yeah, I sometimes used these to pull my or my buddy’s cars out of ditches. If they’re good enough to handle a couple of tons of machinery, they’re more than enough to hold me up.”

Zherisan blinked. “So you want me to lower you down with you tied to one end of those?”

“Yeah, in and out in less than a minute,” I said, untying the bundle. “How hard can it be?”

This apparently caught the interest of the others, who approached from either side of the workbench. “Wait, you’re really going to do this?” a red male arkatian asked.

“I don’t see why not,” I began tying the tow around my waist and thighs. “It’s basically like lowering a magnet on a string.”

“Stars, I need to watch this,” a white-feathered jahkatian male leaned forward, watching the scene unfold.

With my makeshift climbing rope secured to my person, I handed the other end to my guardian, who then tested it to ensure it would hold me. As expected, I was lifted from my feet with barely any strain.”Again, Nathan, are you sure about this?” Zherisan pleaded once again. “I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“Thank you, and I want to do this,” I reaffirmed.

He gave me a small nod of understanding and maneuvered me over the cubicle crevasse before finally lowering me down. It was a narrow fit, being able to touch both sides with arms and legs spread out, but it was plenty for me to be lowered between. Zherisan lowered me with all the deliberation a guardian could muster, and in a way it was pleasant.

After a minute of careful lowering, my feet finally found purchase on the sandwiched cable.

“Touchdown!” I announced, one hand to the strap and the other steadying my stance with every step forward. Jesus, it’s quite dusty back here.

I was almost to the gemstone when I happened to look up and spot something that made my heart drop. An insect, and a big one at that. It looked like the result of a spider that sprouted two more legs that then mated with a dragonfly. Its antennae waved mere feet from my face, its dome-like eyes dominating an alien and grotesque face staring straight at me. Right in the spot where I needed to be. “Uuh, Zheri,” I called out. “We have a problem.”

“What? What is it?”

“What do you call a human-sized bug with four wings and ten legs?”

“Um, what do you me- oh...” Zherisan’s eye loomed over where I was and dilated in panic.

“That’s not inspiring confidence, Zheri.”

“I know, sorry, I-” Zherisan disappeared, I assumed to look for something.

As I looked back down, the insect looked to be a little bit closer than before. “Zheri, don’t leave me hanging here!”

“Working on it!” There was some fumbling around on the desk surface, and I was left to stare straight at a bug looking to make me its next meal. Now its motions weren’t even being subtle. It was actually going straight for me. The longer Zherisan spent looking for whatever he thinks will help, the more likely I’m gonna get eaten, and the last thing I want to happen to me, here and now especially, is exactly that.

Then the bug made its first major move. I took another step back and slipped down a slight dip in the cord’s contour, and it made two strides towards me. Its mandibles opened slightly to reveal a circular mouth full of teeth pointing inwards – a truly nightmare-inducing sight. “Zheri!”

I pleaded, scrambling back.

Suddenly, I was yanked upward by my impromptu harness, and not a moment too soon. The bug’s pincers lashed forward and I felt them graze between my ankles. I looked up to see Zherisan’s face approaching. “Are you okay, Nathan?” the lavender arkatian asked. “It didn’t get to you, did it?”

“Almost did,” I panted, heart thudding twice a second. “I’m fine, though.”

More voices than just Zherisan’s let out a sigh of relief. Our adventure has drawn a crowd, it seemed.

I looked back down at where I just came from, seeing the insect still trying to search for me, and spotted a familiar glint. “I still see the gem,” I pointed out. “With the bug out of the way I can get to it quick and easy.”

“Are you absolutely sure?”

“Yes.”

My guardian nodded and began to lower me once more. “Alright then. This time, if there’s any threat, I’m pulling you out for good. Your life isn’t worth a crystal.”

He made a very good point. I didn’t have to do this, but I did anyways. “I’m a bit of a sucker for danger,” I chuckled.

Zherisan lowered me almost directly over where the crystal was. Even in the dark light, I could tell it was a sapphire as big as my fist and with clean albeit rough cuts. I gripped my hand around it and pulled it up to my chest. “Got it!”

A certain eagerness was felt in each tug as Zherisan reeled me in. As soon as I was fully brought back to the light, half a dozen others had gathered around and began to applaud my re-emergence and rescue of a dropped crystal. I was then placed on the workbench and Zherisan let go of the tow-strap tether.

“He did it!” a tabby jahkatian with glasses smiled and nodded. “That crazy jakki-kakki did it!”

“He’s got more guts than all of us put together,” the red arkatian rumbled.

I had to take a breather as I was shaking all over. “I think that’s enough adventure for one day.”

Zherisan and the others got a good chuckle out of that. Zherisan held out his tweezers. “Go ahead and put it in,” he tapped the prongs together. “I’ll seat it real quick.”

“How about I seat it myself?” I offered. “Just tell me where to put it and how. I don’t need nearly as tight a grip as you do.”

Smirking, he set the tweezers down. “Alright, Nathan. Put it in this with the broad side facing up.” He then pulled over the apparatus holding the bracelet being constructed and pointed to a seat just beside an engraved phrase in what I assume was an arkatian script.

And so I did. Despite some lingering shakiness, the scale was well above what was necessary to put it perfectly in place. It wasn’t secured just yet, as it still needed to be properly soldered into place.

“Perfect,” Zherisan smiled, a finger rubbing across my back. “Again, thank you for what you did, Nathan. I owe you a favor.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I reminded him, patting his fingertip with a full hand. “All I ask is for you to-”

“For you to get back to work,” a seething voice jabbed from behind Zherisan.

Zherisan turned towards the source of the sound and looked down. As I expected, it was Bundvin, with his usual scowl. My guardian’s twin hearts accelerated, thudding against me while he held me close, but I felt him lean forward. “Sorry, sir,” he bowed. “I asked Nathan to pay a visit before lunch and we got distracted-”

“Hah! ‘Distracted’ is a bit of an understatement,” Bundvin’s forced laugh made my ears ring.

“Sounded like you were tormenting your charge from what I saw. That’s something I’ll have to take up with PL.”

The white jahkatian from earlier approached from behind him. “Bundy, if I may clari-”

Bundvin whipped towards the other jeweller and jabbed a finger forward, claw extended, and bellowed. “I was not talking to you!”

By now, everyone had stopped what they were doing to watch the drama unfold. Many of them were speechless.

I wasn’t about to let my guardian get trampled over like this. I pushed open Zherisan’s fingers and stood on his palms. “Yell at Zherisan and PL all you want. It won’t change anything.

It’s me you should be yelling at.” I jabbed my thumb to my chest.

Bundvin’s glare lowered to me, and suddenly I felt a slight instinctive urge to run. It actually made me flinch. “So you’re saying this was your idea, Nathan ?”

“As a matter of fact, it was. Zherisan lost his grip on a gemstone and it fell between the desk and the wall. I offered to get it out myself.”

“And what were you doing here in the first place, huh? Shouldn’t you be at your desk doing, oh I don’t know, your job ?”

I crossed my arms. “I had finished the animation programming and was about to start working on more backend programming-”

“-when Zherisan called you up here, yeah, I get that now...” Bundvin’s glare returned to Zherisan. “You’re distracting my associates from their work, and in return yours gets distracted, too? Shame on you.”

The white jahkatian’s feathers ruffled, his tail swinging with more aggression. “Bundy, what’s gotten into you?”

Bundvin scowled harder and turned to the jahkatian. “Don’t you sta-”

“Why are you tugging Zherisan’s tail, Bundy?” the red arkatian drake spoke up.

“How da-”

“Really, Bundy, you’re worrying over nothing,” said a tawny jahkatian female from behind Zherisan.

“Worrying over nothing?” his voice suddenly dropped down to almost a whisper. “Do you realize how much trouble I’d be in if any of our human staff were hurt on the job? While Mavuta is away, I’m the manager. That means, when she gets back, I’ll have a chance at promotion, and I’ll be damned if any of you ruin it for me with some thoughtless, reckless acts.”

He scowled as he aimed his head straight up at Zherisan’s face. “As for you,” he pointed.

“You should know better, being a guardian yourself. How dare you enable your charge to do something so dangerous! What do you have to say for yourself?”

Zherisan sighed, and when I looked up he had a scowl with teeth bared. “I won’t let it happen again.”

“I hope so. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must report this to PL. Expect a follow-up in the coming days.” The old kook of a falashai turned around and marched through the door, pulling it closed with more force than was necessary.

The lavender dragon set me down on the table. As soon as he did so, his carrying hands balled into fists and were raised to face height. The red arkatian pulled him close and began to whisper something neither I nor my translator could make out, but I could tell was meant to calm him down. The jahkatians approached him and pulled his hands down, where I could see he was shaking.

I wasn’t gonna lie, I was a bit shook too. Zherisan was clearly fired up by this ordeal, and it took literally everything he had to not endanger me on account of his own emotions. But this time, Bundy had a point. It was risky of me to do that, and Zherisan had the choice of simply not complying and finding a safer way to get it out.

Bundy’s making it personal , I realized. Something told me I should be bracing for worse things to come.

The spat with Bundvin took a lot of joy out of the day for the both of us. As much as I wanted to continue my work, the thought that someone had it out for me and my guardian made it difficult for me to concentrate. I ran things by Diamond and Craig, who both agreed Bundvin was out of line. So I sent an e-mail to PL, at the very least to warn them of what they might expect to hear. I couldn’t imagine PL being anything like HR departments from America, and actually gave a shit about their employees’ well-being.

I hate to admit it, but today was the first day I looked forward to quitting time. The second that time hit, I clocked out and met up with Zherisan in the main lobby. To my surprise, he had a smile on his face. “Glad to see one of us is taking the end of the day well,” I commented.

“Ah, that’s because we’re going to the sims,” my guardian beamed, waving for me to follow him out. “I’ll fill you in on the way there.”

This came as a bit of a surprise to me, since normally he’d ask. “Got no choice in the matter, I take it?” I asked, following him.

“Not so much a choice as I don’t think you’d want to turn this one down.”

“Why’s that?”

“Remember Jaanada, from the hike we did?”

I chuckled. “How couldn’t I? She practically did the chaperoning.”

“That she did, but now we’ll be meeting her in the sims.”

“Doing what?”

“She told me humans call it ‘cat and mouse’. It’s a game where one person chases another who’s much smaller?”

“Yeah, I know what that is. Well, if you’re gonna be there with me I’m up for trying it out.”

“Excellent. I think she’s waiting on us right now.”

We got to the sims and logged in. Elliott told us she was busy with another game and would join us once that concluded. In the meantime, Zherisan and I got to interact for a bit at a reasonably similar scale. Granted, he still towered over me, to the point where my head just about ran into his crotch, but at least I wasn’t outsized by a single toe.

“Is this kind of thing something Jaanada likes to do?” I asked, sitting cross-legged on a stone bench.

“Yeah, you could say it’s an unhealthy obsession of hers,” he huffed, humored, in response.

“In that case, she might get a kick out of some kaiju films.”

“Oh? Tell me more about this ‘kaiju’ genre.”

“Well, basically, you have a big monster, yeah? One that’s, like, hundreds of feet high, and looks absolutely monstrous. And then have it go around wrecking entire cities and beating up other monsters of similar size. Add some special effects, and that’s a kaiju movie.”

My guardian grinned. “That sounds exactly like the kind of thing she’d be into.”

“Hell yeah!”

We weren’t waiting much longer after that. A ping let us know a new person joined our lobby. Donned in a pink T-shirt and baggy black cargo pants, Jaanada gave us a wave as she hopped and skilled over to us. “Hello, Zheri!” she greeted, wrapping her arms around his waist and her wings around his shoulders.

“Hey, Jaan,” Zherisan hugged back. “Did you have a fun time with your other session?”

“Lots.” Giggling, she let go from Zherisan and approached me.

To my surprise, she plucked me up by the armpits and held me close as she twirled me around. “Nathan! I’m so happy to finally see you in the sims!”

“L-Likewise,” I chuckled and hugged back. “But, uh, warn me next time you pick me up like that, okay?”

Her sail snapped up and she lowered me to my feet. “Op! Sorry! I’m still getting used to-”

“I didn’t say ‘put me down’.”

Zherisan cleared his throat and squatted down next to me. “Jaan, I’m certain you’re eager to explain to Nathan the details of what you want to do?”

“Right!” the lemon-scaled arkatian nodded. “So, I was thinking we would do this in a simulated city. I would try to find and catch you and you would try to run away.”

“And whoever’s last to be caught gets to do the chasing next?”

“U-uh, w-well, I-” Her ears splayed and her tail swayed. “I-I was hoping to use this as a guardian training exercise. Y’know, for picking up humans?”

I was about to speak up when Zherisan pulled me closer. “Trust me, Nathan, she’s gonna need all the ‘practice’ she can get, yeah?” He then leaned in to whisper out of the corner of his mouth. “She’s obsessed with being big, just go along with it.”

That would explain why she was so flustered. “Ah! Heh, I getch,” I gave him an exaggerated wink and nod.

Jaanada looked a little confused and flustered by my gesture, yet seemed more relieved by the fact that I agreed to let her be the permanent ‘cat’. “O-Okay... let’s get it started.”

“Here we go, Nathan,” Zherisan patted my shoulder.

“Alright, I can’t wai-”

My vision flashed and we found ourselves in a city that, quite honestly, could be mistaken for any on Earth. Towering skyscrapers, car-lined streets, trees in pots every hundred or so feet. It was a tad disorienting at first, but a couple of blinks was all it took to get my bearings straightened.

“So what’s the plan, Zheris-” I turned and asked my guardian... who was no longer with me.

Shit. I looked around my immediate area - nothing aside from some cars. Strangely enough, there was nobody else here with us. It was as if a rapture took everyone except me.

Off in the distance, I heard a distant, rhythmic rumbling. The sound of footsteps. Big ones.

Because there were so many cars around, I was able to take my pick. I settled for a black nineties Impala that looked like it could’ve been a police cruiser at some point. My elbow hit the window and bashed it open, then I yanked up on the lock and clambered in. Pulling out some trim in the steering column, I exposed part of the wiring. Who knew hot-wiring cars under threat of an impending danger would come in handy.

The thoom ing grew closer and louder. I could feel the Impala rocking from side to side. “He-hey, uh, Elliott,” I inquired as I isolated the necessary wires and yanked them out, “what exactly are the rules to this game?”

“The rules Jaanada imposed are that you are allowed to do whatever it took to outrun her,”

the AI human said. “The only restriction is that you cannot enter the skyscrapers.”

By some miracle, I managed to get the ignition hot-wired and touched the starter lead to it.

The V8 started right up, sounding like it was in perfect health. Good timing, too, as I looked up to see a gigantic yellow paw kick a set of traffic signals out of my immediate line of sight.

“Oh shit!” I screamed and floored the accelerator. Both hands wound the wheel to the left as fast as I could manage, the torque causing the rear wheels to slip and peel. Not like I wanted a stealthy getaway anyways. I glanced back just as her other leg came into view, raining down chunks of asphalt that had momentarily stuck to her pads, and returned to the ground merging half of a pickup truck with the road.

At the intersection, I made a hard right. The rear kicked out and I corrected myself into a power slide. Jaanada’s footsteps were heard from around the corner, echoing off the buildings and accented by the sounds of steel being crushed underneath god knows how massive she was.

To my surprise, a beacon flashed in front of me just down a street to my left. That was very likely Zherisan.

At least we can be together when we’re captured, right?

When Elliott brought me into our virtual playground, I felt a little off. Indeed, my hands looked much smaller, not to mention a more brownish shade while lacking the scales. My first few steps were awkward, as I lacked my usual tail, and leaned against a bollard for stability.

Even my eyesight had changed, with brighter brights and duller darks, and hearing that was much more sensitive. Now, the only thing that seemed normal about me was my work uniform.

I was a part of one of Jaanada’s games; it stood to reason I had to be a human at a human’s size.

The rumble of the ground told me the tasya was close and bearing down upon us. I jogged over to the main road and heard the squeal of rubber on pavement, the undertone of her chase being felt through my feet as much as it could be heard. From around the corner, a black car made a slow, wide turn into view. Nathan’s name appeared over it.

The car stopped and the door flew open. “Get in!” Nathan bellowed.

Giving my charge- er, fellow human a firm nod, I scrambled to the car and threw myself in.

My shoulder bumped his, and my back lurched against the seat. The car accelerated and pushed the door shut on its own. “How convenient,” I chuckled. “We spawned close to each other.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Nathan said. “Got any bright ideas?”

“She’ll spend the first few minutes toying with us before taking the chase more seriously,” I explained. “Our best bet is to find a place too small for her to fit.”

“How big is she?”

Elliott answered. “Compared to human scales, her height is approximately eight valen, or three hundred twenty feet.”

I chuckled. “The standard human length is the foot?”

“Now’s not the time to be cracking jokes!”

Nathan spun the steering wheel to the left. I was thrown against the window as the car made a violent turn. Looking up, I gasped just as a large and smashed-up delivery truck careened overhead and tumbled down the road.

Her booming voice brought a chill down my spine. “Where do you think you’re going, little ones?”

I hummed. “That’s the Jaanada I know.”

“She’s taking this a little bit too seriously, isn’t she?”

“When she’s a giant in a small world, she really gets into the role.”

His hands gripped the wheel tighter. “She wanted a training exercise? I’ll give her one!”

“Nathan, wha-”

My charge stomped on the brakes and spun the wheel to the right. Not expecting this, I lurched forward and, once again, bumped shoulders with him, but he seemed unfazed. The rear of the car swung wide, kicking up bits of rubber and a large cloud of smoke. Here, we could clearly see both of Jaanada’s gargantuan paws, each taking up two to three lanes of the road that had left behind pawprint-shaped imprints of cracked pavement. One of them moved past us fast and close enough to buffet the car with a gust. Showering rubble peppered the glass and the metal shell of our vehicle.

“Whoa there!” Jaanada yelped.

“Tosan han, Nathan!” I exclaimed.

“Hah! I’ve always wanted to try that!” Nathan laughed.

Driving over rubble shook our car. My driver took great care in avoiding the craters formed by her pads and the lamps, boxes, crumpled cars, and signs that were swept up in her wake. By the time we were back at the intersection, she had turned back around and was charging towards us once again. “How fast does this thing go?”

“Not fast enough,” he glanced in either direction, then pointed to his right. “There!”

Once again, he slammed on the brakes and veered right. Only now did I see he found a narrow alleyway between two smaller skyscrapers. I had a queasy feeling in my gut. “This was a bad idea...”

“Why do you say that?”

The moment he finished his sentence, the light behind us disappeared. Brick, glass, and steel rained down from high up. Jaanada had gouged her knee against one building and bowled into another. Her wings flared to stabilize her, kicking up a gale that threatened to toss our car forward. Somehow, Nathan got us out of the alley and completed a left turn before the bulk of the rubble flew by behind us. The roar of shattering rock and snapping steel masked her savage push through buildings that were belly-high at best to her.

She reappeared partially obscured by her own destruction. Having plowed her way through at speed, her shoulder and hip took the brunt of an impact against the glass facade of a neighboring tower across the street. Crystalline pitter-patters did little to mask her incoming pace.

“Okay, don’t do that,” Nathan noted. “Any other ideas?”

I spotted a short distance ahead a symbol in Common for a parking tower. “The parking lots!” I pointed. “She’ll need to be careful if we go in there!”

“Roger that.”

My hand grabbed hold of a handle above the door, expecting a hard turn. First he slowed down, then he veered left – a little too hard left. The front of the car refused to steer more for us and the entire thing bowled through the guardpost and one of the gates. Smoke began to billow out from between the cracks, obscuring our view.

“Shit, radiator’s busted!” Nathan gritted as he steered and rolled the car down the lane, “we’re gonna have to ditch the car...” His leg moved to his left and depressed, with no immediate change. “Fuck, no brakes. Brace yourself!”

And brace myself I did. With both arms up, two seconds later the car came to a sudden stop.

Rather than hitting the dash again, I was met with a face full of air bag. Brushing it aside, I scrambled out of the smoldering mess of our car and ran around to help out Nathan.

Jaanada’s sultry feminine voice filled the inner lot. “What’s the matter, little ones? Feeling shy?”

“Uh, yeah!” Nathan bellowed. “Kinda hard to not be when you’re being chased by a three hundred foot tall teenager!”

The yellow-scaled tasya thrummed. She must’ve heard it. “Awh, how adorable. Now, how to get you out of there...”

Nathan darted his head in either direction, looking for a new vehicle to commandeer. “Shit, we may need to go upsta-”

The whole building shook. Dust fell from the ceiling. Above us was the sounds of hard thuds against the upper floors, followed by cracking and splitting stone. Moments later, a large jagged slab fell against the street and shattered, a row of cars carelessly crushed by the flying fragments.

She was dismantling the garage to get to us!

“Not gonna matter now,” Nathan pointed, “to the exit!”

“No, wait!” I grabbed his shoulder to stop him and instead pointed to a stairwell. “If we’re leaving the lot we need to do it where she won’t get to us.”

“How’s that gonna help?”

“Training exercise, remember? She can’t do anything that’ll harm us.”

“Ah!”

Another rumble from the building kicked our collective tails into action and began to rush toward an exit that didn’t lead to the street. By luck, we found an emergency stairwell that took us to an adjacent alleyway. As we took our first steps down, another piece of the parking garage was torn away by the giant tasya’s hands. With me leading the way, I plowed through the door and stumbled forward, nearly running into the wall of the garage’s neighbor. “Another car!”

Nathan called out, pointing to a truck mere valen from us. “Let’s go!”

I looked up to get a very brief glimpse of Jaanada’s maniacal grin high above. “Slippery buggers, aren’t you?” she thrummed as she licked her chops. The shiver that shot down my spine wasn’t just from my fear.

Nathan didn’t look. He pulled open the driver’s-side door and hopped in. Just as I was jogging to it, the motor rumbled to life. “Oh, thank the ancestors-” As I was about to get in, daylight suddenly became dimmer. Jaanada’s hand started to wedge itself between the garage and the high-rise beside it, a dusting of large rubble chunks falling from her massive, clawed fingers.

I barely had my head in when Nathan began to accelerate, the truck having taken a beating from the falling debris. Somehow, we managed to dodge that reach attempt and make our escape.

My charge sighed. “Shit, that was a close one!”

“We’re not out of this just yet,” I warned and looked up. She had her sights on us, but my gut feeling was telling me she still had a little bit of teasing left.

Our truck slowed leaving the alley and made a hard right. Jaanada’s enormous form popped out from around the corner and charged towards us once again. We made another hard left at the intersection, heaving the vehicle to the right and keeping me pressed against the door. “Was it this crazy during the war?”

“Nah, I saw a firefight a couple of miles out from Memphis, but that’s about as close to any action as I-.”

Just as Nathan was about to straighten out, a hit from the side spun the truck hard – a miracle we didn’t tip over. Coming to a rest, we were greeted with nothing but the bright golden yellow of Jaanada’s paws dominating the windshield, with part of the truck’s torn-off fender stuck to a claw on her toe. Then the truck was forced down as a finger and a thumb took either side, and held a firm squeeze, with metal creaking and buckling under the pressure, as we were lifted away from the ground. We passed her shorts, then her shirt, and finally stopped once her eyes were peering into ours and her mouth was seen pulled into a toothy, smug grin.

Nathan and I looked at each other, catching our breath, and started chuckling. “Alright,” my charge threw his hands up. “We’re caught!”

Jaanada brought her free hand up from the bottom to set the truck down on. With her fingers withdrawn, we could finally open the truck and exit. There wasn’t much room to move without the threat of falling, but she held us steadily enough to let us move to a more stable spot. “You guys are such great mice,” she smiled.

“And you play a great ‘cat’,” said Nathan, leaning against the front of the truck.

“Wonderful job, as always,” I added.

“Heh, thanks,” her sail flared. “Uhm, it wasn’t too much for you, Nathan, was it?”

“Nah, it was actually a lot of fun trying to run from you,” he answered. “And even when you’re this big you’re very gentle.”

“You should wait until I pick you up without the car,” she winked.

“Why wait? How much time do you have left?”

Her gaze drifted up momentarily. “Just over seventy minutes.”

Nathan patted me on the shoulder. “I think we can squeeze a few more games in, can we Zherisan?”

“Agreed,” I nodded.

Jaanada gave us a thumbs-up. “Fantastic! Alright, let’s see how well you guys do this time...”

We played five games total with her before her allotted time was up. Nathan and I spent the remainder of ours blowing off more steam by doing some virtual musmu. He seemed to get the hang of some basic maneuvers well enough, though I hate to admit he’s too clever for his own good in the sport. He has a very interesting way of complying with the rules.

Faster than we estimated, our time drew to a close. When we returned home, I made dinner and showered. When I stepped out in only a towel held at my belly, Nathan’s mech was stopped in front of the holoscreen projector. “Hey, wanna watch a movie?” he asked.

“Hmm, alright, we’ve got time to kill,” I told him as I peeked into my room to toss my towel into the dirty laundry basket. “Do you have something in mind?”

“Yep! One of my favorite trilogies ever put out by Hollywood: the Lord of the Rings...” the projector came to life and showed an interface to a media repository. Satisfied, Nathan hopped back into his mech and gave me a curious look. “Uhm, aren’t you going to change into some PJs?”

I walked over to the sofa. “I don’t know what those are, and I usually sleep naked anyways.

Will that be a problem?”

“N-Not at all, just uh...” he rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ve never had a roommate that pranced about naked around me, is all.”

“I see. Forgive me for the oversight-”

“No no, you’re fine!” he chuckled and set the mech beside the sofa. “If anything, I should’ve made things clear early on.”

“Clear in what way?”

“Remember the hike we did a few days back? I got that phone call from my ex and basically told you I was attracted to others of the same sex?”

“You did...” I grinned and raised both arms, flexing my biceps. “Is this not to your liking?”

“Aaheheheh, far from it...” The mech’s visor flashed with a pair of pink dots beneath the projected eyes.

My showing off itch sated, I sat down on the middle of the sofa and held my hand out to the mech’s unfurled platform. “Hop on, I’ll give you a good seat.”

When Nathan stepped out, I could easily tell he was flustered. His tiny human cheeks were as pink as the mech’s, his gait shaky and weak. The moment his feet touched my palm, he kneeled down in the pit and pulled his legs in. I slowly brought him close to my chest and hold him there while I sprawled out, my head and shoulders propped up against a pillow and my paws pressed firmly against the arm at the other side. “Comfortable?”

“V-Very,” Nathan smiled and rolled over onto his belly between my pecs. “Thank you.”

Now in position, the movie was selected and playback started. All was quiet for the first half of the first movie, until Nathan spoke up again. “Have I ever told you how I met my ex?”

I turned my head to give him an intrigued look. “You didn’t... but I don’t understand why you’d ask me that now of all times.”

My charge sighed. “I couldn’t help but think about that damn call we had on the hike. I’m convinced that she’s out to get me, for whatever reason I-” He shook his head. “I don’t know why she wants to fuck up my life so goddamn much.”

“If you want to talk it out, now’s a good time to do so,” I told him, and began to gently rub my thumb over his back. “So, how did you two meet?”

Nathan took a deep breath, and the video paused. “We met at work. At the time she and I were working at a local grocery store, me as a stocker and her as a cashier. We saw each other in the break room from time to time, and we found out we had a lot in common. A lot of the same movies, a lot of the same foods... It didn’t really occur to me she wanted more than just friendly conversations until after we’ve been working together for about six months.”

“How did you find that out?”

“One night, her carpool’s car broke down and I offered to pick up dinner and take her home.

She invited me in so we could watch a movie on her couch while we ate, and I... stupidly ... took her up on it. We got, like, ten minutes into the movie, and she’s starting to make advances on me, trying to take my clothes off, and I was so put off by it that I left without packing up my food.

The following day at work, she starts shouting at me in the break room demanding why I left her hanging, and, well... that’s when I told her what I told you a few days back.”

“I see.”

Nathan shook his head. “After that, she tried to make my work there absolutely miserable, spreading rumors about me behind my back and telling lies to my bosses about my work ethics.

She even tried to get me kicked out of college for plagiarism – and that’s when I learned to document everything I did.”

I propped myself up just enough to regain some comfort. “Tosan han, that sounds horrible! I hope you didn’t have to put up with that for long.”

“I didn’t, but it wasn’t for the reasons you’d expect.”

“What was it then?”

“The Rynar invasion. I was in Tennessee with a friend of mine – Travis – when DC was wiped out. I stayed with his folks for the better part of the invasion, where we managed to ride it out mostly by fishing and hunting deer in the countryside. The worst of it were the few times we traded blows with looters while foraging for what little decent gasoline we could find. But we got through that long enough to see the end, and by then I never saw or heard from her.”

“Hmph,” I grunted, continuing to pet my charge. “I’m glad you made it through, Nathan.

You’re a wonderful friend and roommate.”

“Heh, thank you. It means a lot to me...” he once again let out a long, drawn-out sigh. “It still doesn’t assuage my worries of her coming to get me, though.”

“She’ll have to put up with me first,” I reminded. “I’m your guardian, after all.”

“That you are, but that means jack shit when she somehow twists a story to get me pried away from you.”

“If you say you’ve documented everything, then I have no reason to believe there’d be any way she could do that.”

“She’ll find a way.”

I chuckled and lowered my nose to his head. “She can try...” I whispered. “But I won’t give up a precious gem as priceless as you.”

“Wait, what ar- OH GOD!”

I stuck my tongue out and ran it along his back, grinning. “I couldn’t resist, heheh.”

“You could’ve warned me!” he laughed, pushing himself up. “Then I would’ve had my shirt off at least.”

“Allow me, then.” I raised my head and brought my thumb and finger to the back of his shirt, pinching the fabric where the neck was. Gently, I pulled up on his shirt, careful to let his arms slide into place, until it was completely removed. Here, I was able to see that despite his diminuitive size he looked surprisingly fit. Again, I lowered my head to nearly touch his body and gave him a good lick across his back.

Nathan giggled the entire time. “Aah! I’m a friend, not food!”

“You’re sweet, like a dessert. That makes you a friendly food.”

“Don’t eat me, at least.”

“Heh, I won’t. I’m not into that anyways...” I leaned my head back and yawned. Ugh, poor timing for that to happen. “Ugh, hate to say it, but I’m gonna fall asleep soon.”

“Alright, we’ll just restart this tomorrow night, I suppose.”

I put him back into his mech and held the door open for him. His mech docked and I rolled into bed. He sounded disappointed the evening ended how it did, but considering the events prior, we managed to salvage the day quite well. I just hope it doesn’t become an everyday occurrence.

Christmas Special

"Oh fuck yeah!" Nathan gasped. "Zherisan! It's Christmas!"

I turned over to find my charge already had his lights on and the intercom active. I turned my head and looked over, having been woken up on an off-day for the both of us, a time when we both usually sleep in. "Wh-why are we up so early?"

"It's Christmas, of course!" Nathan replied, the chime from his door telling me he had stepped outside. "It's a holiday from Earth that celebrates the birth of 'the Lord and Savior' Jesus Christ!"

"Oh, is it some famous general perchance?"

"Wha? Oh! Oh, no, hah! Jesus is the holy prophet of a religion called Christianity."

That... wasn't at all what I was thinking of. Regardless, I sat up with interest, and pressed a button on my yutri to turn on the lights. "I see. And what exactly does Christmas entail?"

"Decorating an evergreen tree, asking Santa Claus for presents, and, most importantly, giving gifts!" Nathan had clambered into his mech and undocked, leaving the hatch open while he approached my bedside. One of the storage compartments opened up and revealed a fist-sized box wrapped in turquoise paper that barely fit inside of it. "I ended up getting you something a few days ago."

This piqued my interest, and I swung my legs over the bedside to face him. Nathan was already working hard to pay off his unique private mech, and was making every last credit stretch. "Oh, Nathan, you shouldn't have!" I leaned in to pluck up the box from inside. Whatever the paper covered was hard. "What is it?"

"Open it!" Nathan goaded, the mech's visor beaming.

Shrugging, I pulled off the wrapping little by little, until a cobalt-blue felt box with the Talvar Guild's seal on top revealed itself. My brows raised completely as I slowly opened the container...

"I know how much effort you put into it and, sadly, Yanda told me the client returned it. I pulled some strings and got it approved for a discounted clearance sale."

My jaw dropped, and my eyes bulged. It was a necklace I had completed only last workweek, after spending over a quarter getting it exactly to the client's specifications. "N-Nathan, I-"

"Think nothing of it," the mech's visor switched off and Nathan himself stepped out onto the platform. "Merry Christmas, Zheri!"

With a sniffle, I set the gift aside and plucked up Nathan, holding him close to tears of gratitude. "Merry Christmas, Nathy."