Invited

Forty - Wicken

Orientation. I had to teach orientation. I was practically a baby on the ship as it was, so why did I make for a good candidate? Because I was Layla's right hand man. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure Daniel was the one who taught my orientation when I first arrived. Thing is, me and public speaking has never been all too good of a combination. Needless to say, the whole thing was awkward.

"And...yeah...that's...it." I gave a weak smile, looking at my sheet to make sure I covered all of the basics of what a new person aboard was supposed to know. I doubted my speech was welcoming or reassuring to all of the people who were able to avoid the destruction of Earth. If only they knew how much they should have worried.

I shifted under all of the gazes focused on me. "Anyway, if you have questions, there are mentors available to help you with everything." Hopefully, they'd get the impression that I was off limits in that department.

On cue, the mentors made themselves known and everyone was divided up into groups based on which Gorgachan was going to oversee their acclimation to the ship. Talia, of course, was put under Layla's care.

"Good job, buddy," Bob, my mentor said. I could tell he was being sarcastic, but I would take what I could get in terms of compliments.

I shrugged. "It's done, that's all that matters."

"True, I suppose if you want to look at it like that," he said. "Speaking of adapting and all, I notice you've made quite a name for yourself already."

No thanks to him. He more or less took me in, showed me around, and fed me to the wolves. In some ways, I should have been grateful. Learning on my own tended to go better than having someone watching my every move from right over my shoulder. But it would have been nice to not feel so...alone.

He clapped me on the back and I nearly fell forward from his strength. "Sorry, I suppose I should be more careful."

"You think?" I muttered.

If he heard me, he didn't let on. "When you're done here, there's some trouble for you to attend to in the marketplace. Oliver over at the CD shop seems to be in a bit of a mess and needs you to sort it out for him."

"Oh?" I raised an eyebrow. "This is my job?"

"Layla's assistant and manager of the market? Yup, that's your job. I suppose she didn't tell you about all of these small duties. Only the ones you would be particularly interested in." He winked at me.

I groaned. "Please...it's not..." I waved a hand in front of me. Why bother? He would believe what he wanted. "She's only asked me to do a retrieval mission on Earth, nothing more."

"Well, now you know. Part of managing the market is dealing with small squabbles and pesky annoying things. It's trivial, but it passes the time until she gives you more meaningful work." Bob shrugged. "Since she obviously didn't want to give you the memo, I thought I would. I do not like there being problems between her people and my people."

"You're the one who runs the independent shops?" I asked.

"One and the same." He bowed. "Do run along. I don't things to escalate."

He didn't have to tell me twice. One, if things got more aggressive in whatever fight was taking place, someone would get hurt or killed. Not something I wanted to be responsible for. Two, I just wanted to get out of that room before one of the new people decided to pin me in a corner and talk my ear off with a million different questions. Three, I was happy to do something productive that didn't involve being Layla's "yes man." As much as she found my rejection of her refreshing and challenging, I could only reject her orders to a certain degree or else I'd be fired. And by fired, that probably meant played with, tortured, and then killed. No, thank you.

I made my way to the music shop - more specifically, Oliver's station, which was used entirely for CDs. When I got there, I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Oliver, a middle-aged, African-American man, was busy putting a few discs onto a shelf. There was no sign of alarm in his body language, and the store itself appeared to be in order.

"Uh, hi, Oliver?" I asked. "I'm Wicken."

"I know," he said, not bothering to look at me.

Okay then. I took in a deep breath to gain some confidence. "Sorry I didn't get here earlier, I was doing orientation. Something the matter?"

"Nah," he said. He glanced back at me and flashed me a smile. "I just had to make something up to get you over here."

"Huh?"

"Will came by earlier. He said you needed something from me, and assured me you were 'good people.'" He waved for me to follow him to the back room of the shop. "Here's how this works. You can send a message to my other guy, and he'll deliver that message to whoever you're trying to get in contact with. Assuming that works out okay, you can arrange for a video conference. Keep in mind, those are dangerous, real dangerous, and harder to hide."

My elderly crazy friend worked fast. Will must've liked me enough to leave his store for this. From what I knew, he didn't like to get out of his shop unless he had to. He even slept there most nights. When it came to favors, he tended to tell people the means of getting what they need rather than flat out going and doing it. I was impressed, and grateful.

Oliver walked back to his desk tucked in the back of his storage space. He sat down and started to type on a small computer that reminded me of one of those dinosaurs from before I ever got to elementary school. The kind with the floppy discs and green text all over the screen. I mean, the thing was probably older than I was. How could that transport any messages through space?

Good thing I didn't need to understand technology. Oliver did, and whoever else was on the other side of that machine must have too.

"Okay, who do you want the message to go to?" Oliver asked.

"Her name is Chevelle," I said softly.

He laughed. "So you weren't kidding about the girlfriend thing, huh?"

"No, I was pretty serious. I don't tell a lot of jokes these days."

"Too bad. Laughing is good for the soul."

I nodded. "Yeah, too bad."

His fingers were impressive with their speed as he typed on the computer. The words were flashing and disappearing as he worked. Some of it was gibberish and others were pieces of code I actually understood, vaguely, but it at least resembled something that made sense. Then I saw her name: Chevelle. Proof that she was in fact real and not some kind of dream that I made up.

"Okay, to Chevelle, miss you and hope to hear from you soon. Will be available in three days to talk at the twenty-fourth hour. Please RSVP, ASAP. Love Wicken," Oliver read. "Good?"

"You assume I'll be able to talk again in three days," I muttered.

Shrugging, Oliver sent the message anyway. "That's when the next video session is available."

"I thought you said it was dangerous and hard to do?"

"If you're changing your mind, just don't show up then," he said. "And that's assuming that she's going to be able to show in the first place. It's dangerous because it's harder to hide the content of the messages being sent. Okay? If you just want to look at her and be schmoopy, the Gorg will usually turn their eyes away. Even on a video to an Achlivan ship."

Sighing, I rubbed at my arms. Three days, I could see her again. Man, it seemed surreal. "True, that's about all that's going to happen. Can you add one more message? Or is it too late?"

"You've got ten seconds."

"Tell her to bring Timber too."

"You got it."