Love and Humanoids

Once there was a woman who was very valuable without even knowing it. In a nearby galaxy, unbeknownst to her, was an alien race of human-sized ants who enjoyed the sexual excretions of humanoid women as a culinary delicacy. They keep tiny, insect-sized humanoid women on ranches in the 40-longitude range of their planet. For most of the ant people, the sugary syrup made from the excretions of these tiny humanoid women is enough. They purchase the syrup at their grocery stores and pour it over their breakfast aphids in the morning.

For rich ant people, there’s a special syrup made from the lubricants of real human women. Ant merchants send ships to Earth at night in order to cultivate the valuable substance from dirty panties. It can be dried into crystals and served like caviar. It’s a very profitable business, and the ant people conduct it nearly undetectably, unlike other importers in search of other things, who leave hazy memories of anal probes wherever they go.

One night, a ship funded by a very successful ant corporation finds what it’s looking for, which is this special human woman whose secretions are superior and highly desirable in every way. The ship’s team hones in on the particular wavelengths this woman emits and abducts her. Her panties are not enough.

Stephanie washes the dishes slowly, her hands rubbing weak circles on each filthy plate. She’s well fed. She’s not missing any limbs. But a tear runs down her cheek. She wipes her hand across her face. It leaves a trail of soap, suds in her hair. She turns off the water with a sigh.

She walks to the living room, picks up the remote control, points it at the TV. Puts it down again without turning anything on. Looks at the clock but doesn’t see the numbers. The light coming from the window shows that it’s too late for her boyfriend to be out, but too early for anyone to go to bed.

She goes to bed and, after a few hours of twisting under the sheets, starts the first of her habitually unpleasant dreams.

“Bobby, I love you. Why do you keep leaving me?” she calls to the man in the spacesuit.

“Baby . . . your body’s dirty and your highlights were bought for cheap,” he says through his mirrored mask.

She runs toward him, even while the brightness behind his head is making her cry. He’s pulled farther and farther away. She’s running so hard, her feet leave the ground. But the light’s too bright and she can’t see him anymore.

The ant people connect the subject to a device that will hold her safe in unconscious stasis while they prepare the programs that will create a virtual, alternate reality in the subject’s mind.

“Goddess, I wish we could start harvesting its juices right now. I need all the bonus checks I can get.”

“If we force it to excrete now, its primitive hormonal responses will negatively affect the first batch. Or, worse, its psychological framework will destabilize and all our work will be useless.”

“I know, boss . . . I know, ma’am.”

“Then quit complaining and get back to work.”

The team works according to its carefully designed plan. The first psuedo-reality program they feed to the subject is a quick resolution of her current circumstances.

Stephanie jerks awake and grabs the phone on the night stand within the first ring.

“Miss Luna?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry . . . I’m calling to tell you that your boyfriend’s been in a car accident.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry, but he didn’t make it, Miss Luna.”

“What? Oh, my God . . .” Stephanie’s hand grips the receiver tightly.

“I’m sorry, but apparently he was distracted by the fellatio being performed on him by his coworker Angie, who was also in the car.”

“What? Oh, my God!”

“I’m sorry.”

“Get me one fifty cc’s of sugar, stat.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The ensign carefully attaches the glucose bag to the subject’s IV. The team then sets its timer for a year-long recovery period. For the next two weeks, they watch movies and play a game similar to ping-pong in the ship’s lounge. They take turns monitoring the subject—maintaining its hydration and sugar levels throughout hundreds of perceived crying jags and pastry binges. The ship meanders from outpost to outpost, its robot fingers carefully collecting the distilled panty crotches sent into space by billions of hard-working minions all over the Earth.

Stephanie blows her nose and throws the wadded tissue toward the small pile of empty cupcake wrappers. She changes the channel again.

“Oh, Brad . . . take me, you hot, sensitive pirate!”

Nothing but more soft-core porn. Have the cable channels finally managed to broaden the definition of prime time?

This time, Stephanie doesn’t turn off the television. The actors seem to get better looking every night. She’s riveted to the screen.

Later, in bed, her hands are riveted to her sides as the trashy movie replays in fast motion in her mind. Finally, guilt- and sweat-ridden, she lets the hands furiously touch her body under the sheets until she’s completely exhausted and able to sleep.

“Gimme the swab, Crych! Let me try it!”

“Hold on, hold on . . .” Ensign Crych pulls the swab away, but Flsyk snatches it out of his claw, then rubs his feeler along the tip.

“Oh, my copulating Goddess! This is excellent. This is the mother-copulating. . .”

“Ensign Flsyk. Please.” The captain, as always, has appeared without warning.

“Sorry, boss.” Flsyk surrenders the swab.

“Mm. This is excellent. Ensign Crych, awaken Dr. Xotcd from stasis. It’s time to begin.”

Once the program designer and xenopsychologist Dr. Xotcd is awake and able to watch his subject’s real, live reactions to stimuli, results come in much more quickly. The doctor doesn’t run out of volunteers to test them by running their tongues slowly and deliriously over the swabs. His teammates give each other high-fives. (Actually, they’re high ones or high thousands, depending on whether you count the one limb or the thousands of sensitive hairs across its tip.) They congratulate themselves on how wealthy they’re going to be. This subject’s juices are that good—like poppy nectar or cricket-people glands, but without the messy side effects or the jail time. Dr. Xotcd reads his data and rasps his antennae, but the others ignore him.

“Accelerate the programs, Dr. Xotcd.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Stephanie pulls at the halter neck of the black dress. Even though she must have lost tons of weight—she had to have, in order to fit into Elena’s dress—she feels uncomfortable here, tonight. Like it’s all some sort of joke. Like, any minute from now, everyone’s going to put down their martinis to point at her and laugh.

“There you are. God, you look hot tonight.”

Stephanie flinches away from the hand brushing her bare shoulder. She turns and sees him—Brad Rockley, the handsomest, trendiest man in the room.

Why is he talking to her?

“What’s wrong, Stephanie? Show me your beautiful eyes and tell me what I can do to make you smile.”

She tries to laugh lightly, but it comes out more like a gagging sound.

“What—did Elena get you to do this?”

“Get me to do what? Darling, please . . . just let me kiss you once . . .”

Stephanie gasps and stumbles back, down the stairs, away from him. He reaches for her blindly, his eyes closed in an imitation of passion. That bitch Elena. Stephanie knew she shouldn’t have trusted her. And she knew she looked fat in this dress!

Arms crossed over her exposed flesh, Stephanie runs to the street to hail a cab.

Dr. Xotcd’s antennae rub together softly, creating a rasping sound.

“This is what I was afraid of. All along, the subject has shown a slightly irregular response . . . irrational levels of guilt- or fear-induced enzymes . . . This is something I’ve come across in my studies, but I’ll need time to research . . .”

The captain’s antennae flicker impatiently.

“Will these enzymes affect the results? I want to have something to show the CEQ when we dock next week.”

“Well . . . not to an extent that . . . They might affect the chemical composition, but probably not so that it’s noticeable to the palate. But they could create within the subject a . . .”

“Change the scenario. Give me results.”

“But . . . Yes, ma’am.”

Stephanie pulls at the black leather collar around her neck. Brad, clad in a silk kimono, walks into the room with a riding crop in his hand.

“Hello again, Stephanie.”

Stephanie doesn’t answer. Her eyes are wide, her arms and legs bound.

“You know what I’m going to do to you, don’t you?”

Still no answer. Brad kneels down so that his mouth is level with her ear. He whispers into it.

“You want me to do this to you, don’t you?”

Stephanie emits a quiet sob that could mean yes or no. Brad’s lips touch her ear as he whispers again.

“Let me put it this way: I’m going to do this to you whether you want it or not. But you do want it, don’t you? Say it.”

She lets out a slightly louder sob and nods her head.

Back at the home office, Dr. Xotcd shakes his head at the monitors. This particular program is distasteful to him. However, he’s been charged to produce results, and the subject’s thoughts—conscious and sub—have shown that this is the quickest way to do it. And, besides, he must remember to keep his personal feelings out of his projects. The captain’s note on his last review flickers through his mind. “Hindered by tendency to anthropomorphize his subjects.”

The subject’s body flushes and flinches under the electrodes. Her essence flows into the collectors at an unprecedented rate. Xotcd’s antennae rasp as he goes to his console to absorb the most recently translated Earth media: web sites, movies, romance novels. He’ll stay up all night writing code for bonds and restraints, submission and surrender. He only has two months to set the permanent program before it’s time to fly back to Earth for the next project.

The salty wind lashes at Stephanie’s hair and the frayed edges of her bodice. The worn, wooden plank hits her in the small of the back as she backs away from the pirate captain. He and his mates leer at her hungrily.

“Aye, lass, there’s the plank at your back. Are you going to walk it, or stop your struggling and play nice with us?”

Her tears are whipped away toward the sea.

“But . . . but . . . Do you even want to play with me?” she says. “I’m not very pretty. My thighs . . . they’re so fat.”

The pirate captain laughs a wicked laugh. “Missy, my men here have been at sea for a long time. You’re as good looking as anything they can remember.”

Stephanie looks at him from under her lashes, still uncertain.

“I get second turn with the wench, after Captain Brad!” the First Mate yells. A fight breaks out among some of the others as the captain rips away what’s left of Stephanie’s corset with his bare hands.

“Hurry up, Flsyk. I don’t want to be late.” Ensign Crych paces near the door of the anteroom.

“Just a second . . . how’s my tie look?”

“What do you care? You’re not gonna get anywhere near the queen.”

“That’s what you think. After I do get my chance with her, she’s gonna remember my scent. I might even get a promotion out of it,” Ensign Flsyk says to his teammate and to his own reflection. “Dream on, beetlesucker. If you want a promotion so bad, why don’t you try servicing the captain?”

“Are you kidding me? I tried it two months ago. She nearly broke my thorax!”

“Whoa. Yeah, I heard that about her . . .” The hairs on Crych’s limbs ripple.

“Hey, Dr. Xot, what about you?” Flsyk yells into the lab. “You going to the Queen Fest?”

The doctor looks up from the print-out he’s been reading at the subject’s table. Is it Queen’s Festival Week already?

“Aw, he can’t hear you, Flsyk. He’s busy with his queen.”

“His queen . . . Yeah! Good one, Crych!”

The ensigns clack their mandibles loudly as they leave the anteroom. Dr. Xotcd goes back to his work.

Stephanie steps into the bath. The slave girl sprinkles the water with jasmine oil, the sheik’s favorite. He’s requested that his newest harem girl, the exotically fair and plump Stephanie, be ready within the hour.

“Stephanie?” the slave girl whispers.

“What is it, Xora?”

“Are you . . . are you happy here?”

Stephanie considers the question for a moment.

“Why, Xora? Are you thinking of escaping?”

Xora considers this question in her turn, then nods.

“Well . . . I hope you make it, because I can see how you’d probably hate being here. I’ll help you if I can. But . . . I don’t think I can leave with you. See . . . I don’t have anywhere to go, really. Plus, I don’t know . . . Call me an idiot if you want, but I don’t really mind this life. I mean, it’s not so bad. It could be worse. Sometimes I think the sheik actually kind of cares about me. You know?”

Dr. Xotcd remembers the humanoid farm he received as a hatchday gift from his parents one summer. He enjoyed putting little bits of sugar into the tunnels and watching the tiny brown and beige mammals overcoming barriers to find the food and carry it to their homes. Working within this single human subject’s mind is like that, but much more enthralling. This isn’t as real as a humanoid farm, because the barriers are all abstractions. And, yet, at the same time, it’s much more real than a colony of tiny animals could ever be.

This is what he’s thinking when his teammates troop into the lab.

“Bonus check, Dr. Xotcd. Congratulations,” says the captain as she hands him an envelope.

Ensigns Crych and Flsyk are already tearing theirs open.

“Yes. Goddess, YES!” says Flsyk upon seeing the amount.

“Hey, look . . . there’s a memo on the next project,” says Crych. “Scouts just got back from Earth. Our team is assigned to go pick up ten subjects. Whoa. That’s a lot. Wonder what they’re for? Not for Project Special Blend? I thought they were getting ready to synthesize this subject’s juices?” He waves a feeler in the direction of the human who’s been a permanent fixture in the lab since they got back from the last trip.

Flsyk scans his memo.

“Hey, maybe . . . maybe it’s for that new sports thing I heard about . . .”

“I have no such memo in my envelope,” Dr. Xotcd says to their captain. “Mine was accidentally omitted.”

“Actually, Doctor, that was no accident,” she says. “Your services won’t be necessary on this project. Dr. Thrstyk will accompany the team, instead.”

Thrstyk? That old-colony braggart? Dr. Xotcd waits until his haphazard emotions subside before speaking.

“What will my assignment be in the meantime?”

“Maintain the current course. I will meet with you before our departure, in two weeks, for a final briefing.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Xotcd keeps his antennae curved neutrally. He doesn’t want the captain to suspect that he’d relish this opportunity to delve further into his studies with the human.

“Baby, I love the way your eyes shine when I whip you,” Stephanie’s latest master says, dropping the whip and grasping her hair in his hands.

“Oh, Raul! I knew you felt the same way I did! Can we get out of the dungeon tonight? Just snuggle on the couch and watch TV? I’m so glad you love me like I love you. I’ve felt this way so many times, but it’s never been real before . . . never like this. I’m going to make you so happy. We’ll be happy together. . .”

Raul lets go of her hair. He takes a step back and fiddles with his executioner’s mask for a moment.

“Uh . . . What? Hold on. Uh . . . hold on, slave. I’ll be right back.”

Raul looks around the dungeon for a moment, then, suddenly, drops his whip and bolts up the stairs.

Stephanie stares at him. Her ropes hold her firmly in place, keeping her from reacting physically to the shock.

“What?” she whispers. “What did I do?”

Dr. Xotcd examines the monitors, then keys in a slight modulation to his code.

Passed on to a new master, Stephanie’s bitter but not yet totally pessimistic. Martin strides into the room, a cat-o-nine tails in his fist.

“On your knees, slut. Bow your head when your master speaks!”

“Yes, Master.”

“That’s right.”

After holding her head down for what feels like the appropriate amount of time, Stephanie lifts it again and says the words she’s been rehearsing in her mind all afternoon.

“Master Martin, I just want you to know that I have every intention of doing my part in this relationship. I know that you’re going to treat me badly. But, also, I know why you’re going to do it. You’ve never had a slave that really appreciated and supported your needs as a dom. I know that you’re just like me . . . you just want to be loved, and no one you’ve ever known has loved you the way you deserve. Until now. I’m willing to love you, Master Martin. And I’m going to accept your mistreatment, because I know it’s just your way of showing that you want to love me, too.”

Stephanie bows her head again. Master Martin is speechless for quite a while. Then:

“What the hell are you talking about, you crazy bitch? What the . . . Get the hell out of my dungeon!”

“What? But . . . I thought . . .” says Stephanie.

“I said get out!”

The tears well in her eyes again as she stumbles away.

Stricter masters don’t work. More exotic scenes and sex don’t work. Dr. Xotcd even tries writing the code so that the men actually do “love” the subject. But those scenarios don’t result in the secretions that pay for his research.

He shuffles his notes nervously. He’s not looking forward to his meeting with the captain. Although she’s never warm by any means, her cold distance is infinitely preferable to her actual displeasure. It’s unfortunate that the project couldn’t continue optimally until she departed for the new assignment.

The captain enters the conference room, her antennae click, click, clicking.

“What happened to that last batch, Dr. Xotcd? I thought the enzyme issues had been resolved.”

“Yes, ma’am, they were, but new issues have arisen. The subject is no longer achieving maximum levels of pleasure with the submissive scenarios. Her emotional responses have modulated out of the range of the programs, and her dissatisfaction apparently taints the results.”

“This is very annoying.”

“Ma’am . . . if you would permit me, I have a suggestion.”

“What is it?”

“My research has indicated that the subject’s reactions to date are most likely the result of traumatic incidents during her developmental phase. We have the technology to go back and erase the trauma from the subject’s memory. If I could have a few months to identify and realign—“

“Look, Xotcd, we don’t have time for this.” The captain’s feelers rasp against each other once, twice. “The subject is dissatisfied by the submissive role, you say?”

“That is correct, ma’am.”

Several facets of the captain’s eyes gleam.

“Then I’d say it’s time for a switch.”

Stephanie tugs at the chain attached to the young man’s collar. He scurries on his knees across the carpet to the kitchen to bring her a drink. Stephanie puts her feet up and lets her riding crop rest on her knees. Now this is the life.

“Madam . . . the new slave is ready. She’s waiting for you in the dungeon.”

“Thank you, slave,” Stephanie says, standing and swatting at him affectionately with the stiffened leather braid. She laughs aloud as she walks down the stairs. Her experience has taught her well, and now she’s reaping the rewards. Her clients pay plenty to be spanked, degraded, and reamed with a strap-on. Life is going to be easy from now on.

She opens the dungeon door. A plump, young blonde kneels on the stone floor, all done up in black vinyl.

“Mistress Stephanie, please accept me as your slave. I’ve been a bad, bad girl!”

The lab technicians report that the levels of tasty acids and pheromones in the latest batch are through the roof. The company has recovered its Special Blend, with a higher market value than ever. Dr. Xotcd is relieved. And then . . .

Stephanie falls in love with the blonde slave and lets her run away.

Xotcd tries slaves of different types, desperate to keep the project on track. Smaller, darker males do well for a while, until the subject’s frustratingly inevitable sympathy for her subjects kicks in and the scenarios are derailed. Older, paler male slaves have the interesting effect of inciting anger. The subject unleashes hitherto unseen violence against them, kicking and shouting. But she doesn’t climax from this. She does, however, release perspiration that turns out to be quite effective as a stain remover. The formula is synthesized and sold for a tidy profit.

Although the company’s chemists persist, they remain unable to synthesize the subject’s sexual fluids. The exact make-up is indefinable, available only from the subject herself, under increasingly specialized circumstances. Dr. Xotcd is under pressure. Pressure to perform.

His brief attempt at turning the subject back into a slave is quickly aborted when it unleashes her most violent reaction. Researchers, designers, programmers, and xenobiologists gather for grave meetings. Profits can’t drop. The CEQ won’t have it.

New human subjects with similar chemical builds have been taken from Earth, but the methods don’t work on them at all. For some reason, these subjects resist the alternate reality mental programming. They reject it entirely, and the company is forced to restore them to stasis lest their mentalities collapse.

Worst of all, People for the Ethical Treatment of Humanoids has gotten wind of the company’s methods of profit. In a flurry of tersely worded secret memos, Dr. Xotcd and his subject, along with the failed Special Blend Project abductees, are sent away to another lab, hidden under one of the company’s caterpillar-milking facilities.

Emotionally taxed and uncertain of his future, Dr. Xotcd decides to lay low for a while. He sets a basic background program—food, water, shelter—for his subject. He leaves the subject to her own devices while he updates his resume and puts out feelers for new opportunities, just in case.

Burned out on her old way of life, Stephanie decides to live off her savings for a month or so while figuring out what to do next. She spends her time in her apartment poring over the want ads. Stares at the ceiling. Eats. She’s gaining weight again. She doesn’t really care. She has more important things to worry about.

“Wanted: coffee shop waitress,” an ad says one day when she’s almost out of money.

Customer service isn’t unlike many things she’s done before. It’s full of degradation, humiliation, and kissing ass. Stephanie becomes good at her new job.

The lack of contact from Xotcd’s bosses makes him nervous, at first. Then, he reads about the success of the company’s latest project. Rich clients pay handsomely for the most vicious, violent imported human males to compete in their sports arenas. His former teammates have been back from Earth for a while now and are preparing to go back and import more subjects from the planet’s military forces. The company’s other scientists have been able to successfully alter the subjects’ testosterone, increasing their lust for blood. Humanfighting has become the latest craze. The company’s resources and watchful eye are completely focused on it.

The waning human lubricant trade is temporarily forgotten. The pressure’s off Xotcd and the paychecks still come. He decides to dedicate himself fully to his current research. He imagines that he might publish or even win a prize, even while he accepts the more likely fact that no one will really care.

“Hey, baby. How about a little sugar with that cream?”

Stephanie ignores the customer’s request for affection. She hasn’t felt like dating lately.

“Oh, Brad—at first our biting banter and violent passion thrilled me, but lately I’ve been hungry for something else. Please, darling—just hold me!”

Stephanie turns off the TV. All the shows have become so boring and crass.

She goes to the used bookstore and trades in her romances for the books that were considered racy decades ago. She goes to the flea market and acquires a free kitten to keep her company in her apartment late at night.

Right before she goes to sleep, she doesn’t think about movie stars or her boss’ muscular arms. She thinks about mundane things, like dishes and bills. It’s boring. The boringness puts her safely to sleep, where she dreams of bills and dishes. It’s almost like she’s dreamed too much in the last few years, and now she has to fill her dreamtime with other things.

Again, this is like the tiny humanoid farm—something to care about. Xotcd goes into the program module and leaves surprises for his subject to find—attractive mates, opportunities to excel at her chosen livelihood, little bits of cake. Some treats she takes, and some she ignores as she industriously scurries through her life.

It’s like an imported holographic drama, but with Xotcd himself as the director. And he can accelerate it. Make the story, with its potential happy ending, tell itself faster.

“I’m crazy . . . Crazy for feeling so lonely . . .”

Stephanie sometimes goes out with her friends to the karaoke bar after work and, when she’s had enough to drink, takes the stage and makes them cheer with her sexy or swaggering imitations of divas and rock stars.

Naturally, the coffee shop’s open mic night was her own idea, enthusiastically embraced by the owner and the clientele. But, so far, she’s too nervous to perform there herself without any artificial background music as a safety net.

Months pass in a blur. Finally, one night, encouraged by her new friends, Stephanie stands at the microphone and falteringly sings a song she learned as a child, fingers stumbling across grade-school chords on the borrowed guitar. This isn’t the kind of performing she’s done before, where everything out of her lips is a stale cliché spoken for somebody else’s pleasure. Here she expresses her real feelings, and the audience actually listens. Without riding crops in their hands. Without ropes holding anybody down.

The nervousness twisting her stomach is quickly replaced by a surge of excitement. Her voice rises, then whispers, then just flows. The song’s over and everyone applauds. She feels a brand new feeling—something she’ll have to examine tonight, when she’s alone.

The Company’s periodic self-review survey reaches Xotcd’s hidden lab.

1.  List your recent contributions to the success of the Company.

2.  Describe your value as a member of your team.

3.  Detail your ideas for bringing profit to the Company in the near future.

The survey remains unanswered on his console. Any of his peers, in Xotcd’s place, would take advantage of the opportunity to pander their way back into the colony’s good graces. Back into the rank and file. Back into the common mind.

Instead, Xotcd rushes to fit together the pieces of a profitless puzzle. He’s used to being alone.

“Xena, guess what?”

“Meow?”

Stephanie tells her cat the good news. After a year of hard work, she’s been promoted to day-shift manager at the coffee shop. This means more money and maybe a nicer apartment for them both.

She’s too excited to spend the evening reading or revising her song lyrics. Impulsively, she decides to see if her luck will hold by going to the talent contest at a local club tonight. Normally, she wouldn’t be brave enough to compete against others, but what does she have to lose?

Not only does she win, but she’s engaged for a monthly gig. The audience really likes her song. A couple of people ask if she has CD for sale. She hasn’t ever recorded one. Maybe she should look into it.

The next day Stephanie takes her prize money and, for the first time ever, completely splurges on things she wants but doesn’t need. It’s okay. She can afford it. She deserves it.

That night, she celebrates the results of her hard work by taking a long, luxurious bath and then massaging herself with expensive new lotion. Feeling languorous and warm, she slips into bed and drowsily fantasizes about the future. She caresses herself softly until, for the first time in a long time, her hand slips down under the waistband of her pajamas . . .

Xotcd is surprised, then pleased, then immediately apprehensive. He wonders if he’s required to report this unexpected development to his new supervisor.

There’s no need. His supervisor has set her electroantenna to automatically vibrate when the sensors record the subject producing valuable fluids. Before Xotcd can formulate a plan, she and her ensigns swarm into his lab.

“Rslv, take a swab and run the test. Quickly.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good work, Dr. Xotcd. We’ll take it from here.” The supervisor folds four of her arms across her thorax and waits for the results.

The latest lubricant, while certainly normal, is no Special Blend. The team sets up residence in the compound surrounding the lab. Two whole weeks pass before the subject produces again on her own.

“This is ridiculous. Dr. Xotcd, introduce stronger stimuli,” says the supervisor, who is like his former captain, but younger and even colder.

Xotcd does as he’s told. He codes burly men, gorgeous women, sexy scenes. The subject rejects them all—eludes them as if they’re hallucinations or dreams. She has become completely resistant to passive acceptance of her circumstances.

“So, Stephanie . . . recording your first demo! Congratulations!”

“Thanks.”

“And how’s everything going at the coffee shop?”

“Great—busy. I’ve been hiring new waiters. We’ve gotten so many more customers since we started the open mic nights and art exhibits. It’s crazy. But good crazy.”

“And . . . ?”

“And what?”

“Don’t mess with me, Stephanie! What about this new guy? What’s his name—Tad? Rad?”

“Robert. And we’re just friends.”

“Aw, come on.”

“No, seriously, Elena. I’m taking this extra slow. I don’t need anything to mess up my good luck.”

“You mean your hard work. God, Stephanie, I’m so happy for you. You’ve come so far since . . . Well, since. . .”

“Since I got out of my old life.”

“Yeah. I’m really excited for you . . . Can’t wait to see what you do next.”

“What do we do next, Ma’am?”

“Nothing, Ensign Rslv. All of our efforts have failed. The CEQ says it’s time to jettison the project.”

“So . . . terminate the subject?”

Xotcd is horrified.

“No, Ensign, NOT terminate the subject,” says the supervisor. “Haven’t you been reading the news? People for the Ethical Treatment of Humanoids has been tunneling deep into Company business. We can’t so much as test shellshine on humans without it showing up on the nine o’clock holos.”

“So . . . ?”

“So we return all the Project Special Blend humans to their natural habitat.” The supervisor’s voice crackles with annoyance. She turns her antennae in Xotcd’s direction. “Doctor, you will, of course, remove all the evidence.”

Xotcd suddenly, vividly experiences the memory of his mother dumping the humanoid farm and all its contents onto the sand pile behind their home. A few of the tiny creatures had escaped their confinement and gotten into the pantry. They’d made her angry. Xotcd cried.

“But, Mommy, I take care of them! They’re my friends!”

“Nonsense, Xotcd. It’s time you started playing outside, with the other children in our colony.”

But he never did.

The weekend before the human females are to be removed, the doctor works overtime. First, he erases the inferior subjects’ memories back to the point of abduction, as he’s been instructed to do.

Next, he worries about what to do with his subject. What are his options? He could erase her memory back to the point of abduction, but that would erase all the advancements made during their project.

He could erase only the unconstructive scenarios, leaving the subject with the memories of her own progress. But that progress would be incongruous with her situation once she was found by Earth authorities.

Finally, in a desperate frenzy, he realizes what he has to do.

“Stephanie . . .”

“Xora! Oh, my God. What are you doing here? I haven’t seen you since . . . That’s right—you escaped, right? God, that was such a long time ago . . . I can barely remember. . .”

“Stephanie, listen. I have something to tell you. This is going to sound strange, but I don’t have a lot of time, so please listen . . .”

Xotcd restores all the subject’s memories, from beginning to end, erased scenarios and all. Even the routinely repressed instances of the subject waking up in the lab and discovering the electrodes and sensors attached to her body. He tries to code the unfolding of the truth in the most optimal way possible, so as not to shock her into mental instability.

“Oh, my God. Oh, my God.”

“I know. I know. I’m so sorry, Stephanie. I’m so sorry you had to find out about everything—that none of it’s been real.”

“Then . . . If none of it’s real, then what about you? What are you? Are you real, or part of the program?”

“I’m . . . I’m a friend.”

Xotcd works throughout the two nights—eighty-six hours straight—and then is forced to let the export team take over. He remembers the bag of sugar he emptied onto the sand pile so long ago, when no one was watching. Now, just as then, he’ll never know if it was enough.

“Miss Luna? Can you hear me, Miss Luna?”

“Yes, I can hear you.” Stephanie is groggy and sore. She sits up and focuses on the paramedic who’s reading her name from the ID in her wallet. All around, other women are being roused from their sleep in the middle of a scorched cornfield.

“Where am I?” she hears them mutter. “What happened?”

Good questions. Where are they? What did happen?

Stephanie thinks back. Her mind stretches back, past the last long hours of dreamless sleep, past the lifetimes of the last few months.

“Miss Luna, are you okay?”

Stephanie lies back on the grass and sees the stars.

“Yeah,” she says.

She is okay, isn’t she? In fact, she’s feeling pretty good. And everything’s going to be great.