Memory Transcription Subject: Benwen, Nevok Intern

  Date [standardized human time]: January 26, 2137

  I woke up in the little apartment I’d been assigned with a very peculiar case of anxiety. I’d spent my whole life in and out of Predator Disease facilities, knowing for a fact that there was something wrong with me. I was sick, and I couldn’t be let out to be with others until I was cured. But I was out now! I had an apartment now. I had a job! I had an opportunity. I was still… sick… but Tika, the new Predator Disease specialist, who was… also sick? …She’d said my condition was no longer of concern. We had new diagnostic guidelines for Predator Disease, as conveyed to us by… predators… and signed off on by… the Arxur. Who were now working at this company.

  I glanced over at the little trash bin in the corner as I tried very hard not to be the other kind of sick.

  I think the Arxur had even been offered a job before I was, which… didn’t fill me with confidence that I was ready to be reintegrated into society.

  And that was just the weird and unusual sources of anxiety. I also had the normal ones to worry about! It was my first day out of the Predator Disease facility since I was a kit, and my first day at a real job! This was the best, first, and possibly only chance I’d ever have to prove that I could be useful to the herd! I couldn’t mess this up! I couldn’t, I just couldn’t, I--

  I held the rim of the wastepaper basket and hyperventilated, but thankfully nothing came up. I couldn’t show up to my first day smelling like bile. Bile meant digestion, meant hunger, meant predator, and I had to show them I was good now. I had to. I had to!

  I took another series of deep breaths, trying not to twitch too much, and looked over the instructions I’d been given. On my holopad! I was getting ready for work now, but I’d almost stayed up too late playing with my first very own holopad. Everything was going great for me. I just… I just had to do everything right so it would never stop going great. And according to my instructions, that meant bringing the Chairman… two cups of tea? And two pastries. Alright. I… I guess bigshot executives needed extra fuel for the day. Or maybe he was going to share with me? Wait, no, ‘and get yourself something, too, it’s gonna be a long day’, it said. Alright. Time for a long walk down to the canteen. Probably not too different from the hospital mess hall I was used to, right?

  “What can I get you?” the clerk said dryly, as I stared at a wildly unfamiliar menu as panic rose in my chest.

  “Uh, two pastries, two teas…” I started.

  The Nevok clerk looked at me with a disgust reserved by my own people, for use against my own people. “A pastry? I'm sorry, you're going to need to be more specific. We mostly sell pastries, this time of the morning. And what kind of tea?”

  There were kinds of tea?

  The menu started getting blurry as the creeping panic made its way up to my eyes. I had one task, my first task, and I was already blowing it.

  “Look, if you're not going to order anything, can you please step off to the side?” the clerk said with poorly-concealed disdain. “You're in the way of the real customers.”

  I'm just in the way, I thought to myself. I wanted to scream or cry or something, and I was barely holding it in. Years and years of treatment, training me to be better, to be a good person who isn't a burden and doesn't make a scene by shaking and being disruptive in public…

  I didn't know how to react when the rest of the mess hall started screaming and crying first.

  “Arxur!” the clerk screamed.

  “Correct,” said a low rumbling growl from behind me. “At ease, sold--uh, employees.”

  I turned around as quickly as I dared. No sudden movements. As I hunched down, my back pressed against the counter, I saw her. The Arxur from yesterday, the lanky one with the forearm scars. She had a bandolier of dark polymer thread, with a single new addition: she’d clipped an employee ID card onto the cross-strap across her chest, proclaiming her name, face, and title--Sifal, Death Incarnate, and CEO, respectively.

  Sifal moved as if to stand in line, and the line rapidly dissolved in front of her. Nobody wanted to get between an Arxur and her meal, though I wasn’t clear on what they sold here at the canteen that would satiate an Arxur. In short order, then, she was right up next to the counter. Next to me.

  I tried not to scream, and so I squeaked instead.

  Her terrible maw swiveled down towards where I was huddled up on the floor beneath the counter, and her nearly-glowing yellow eyes locked into me.

  “Please don’t eat me,” I whispered.

  “Alright,” she said, sounding slightly amused.

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  I blinked. “R-really?”

  Sifal shrugged. “You did say ‘please’, after all.” Still, her gaze lingered on me. My head started twitching despite my best efforts. Her eyes widened in recognition. “Ah, you’re the little hatchling from yesterday,” she said. “Wait, no, the word wouldn’t be hatchling for a mammal…”

  “K-kit,” I stammered.

  Sifal nodded. “The kit from yesterday, then. What are you doing down there?”

  “Debbin wanted me to fetch him breakfast!” I squeaked.

  “On the floor?” she asked, slightly amused, but with the same strangely rhetorical air I'd seen from PD specialists questioning my thinking. “Or did he want you to do that up here at the counter? I think you were in line first?”

  “No, please, go ahead!” I said, frantically. “I don’t know what to order!”

  “Neither do I,” Sifal said. “You should stand up. Let’s read through the menu together.”

  I really didn't want to move. “No! I can't. She, ummm…” I started, glancing at the clerk behind the counter. The fellow Nevok was less intimidating, but not unintimidating. “She told me to step aside until I knew what I wanted. Said I was holding up the line.”

  Sifal glanced behind her at the empty space her terrifying presence had cleared. “No more line,” she said. “Nothing to hold up.”

  “I… ummm….” I stammered. Everything she was saying made sense. I just didn’t want any sense right now with all the fear in the way.

  Sifal frowned. “Look, kit, I’m still trying to wrap my head around this ‘predator disease’ nonsense, but if you’re really supposed to be too much like me, then this is a level of cowardice beneath the dignity of a predator.”

  My new holopad had needed to shut itself down and reboot once or twice after I’d gotten it to install new software updates. My brain was now attempting to do likewise. My eyes stared at nothing, trying to make sense of any of that. Years of my life trying my hardest to be less predatory. Now someone’s telling me I’m not predatory enough?!

  I started laughing hysterically. I tipped over onto my side and heaved with mirth from the absurdity until my sides started to hurt.

  Disappointing authority figures was my day-to-day, same as if it were on the calendar, marked and scheduled as an agenda. The nearest authority figure was an Arxur, though, and she was disappointed with me for not being diseased enough. I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re enjoying your new job, little one,” Sifal continued, baffled but amused. “Laughter’s at least better than fear. It’s a happier way to live.”

  She wasn’t wrong, but I liked her first idea better. That was a funny conclusion, and I wasn’t sure yet if it was a good one. I had Predator Disease, and I hadn’t been deemed cured, just harmless enough that coming back to society wouldn’t be a danger. It was a neat thought, imagining that there was some ‘acceptable’ level of predatory thinking. It didn’t sound quite right, but it felt so soothing…

  My odd mood faded. I coughed from overstressing my lungs with laughter, and I tried to get myself back upright, half-pulling myself up by the counter. There was a big menu behind the clerk--who was, herself, as far from the counter as she could get without fully fleeing the premises, a good five paces away with her back pressed up against a dispenser for iced tea--and a little scannable code for anyone who couldn’t read the Nevok language. I stared at the menu and tried my best to make an informed decision, bravely ignoring the clerk now that she was ignoring me. That did, however, leave my other eye trained on the Arxur. Debbin had called her calm and intelligent on the radio broadcast, and she hadn’t attacked anyone in the room just yet. Weren’t Arxur supposed to chase fleeing prey? Why was she just standing there, ordering herself a cup of tea?

  Sifal scanned the little code with her own holopad--she had some strange Arxur-made model in a dull gray color that struck me as heavier, but more durable--and she made a disappointed noise. “Gods of old, it’s all proper nouns. Eugh.” Her eyes flitted over to stare at the clerk. It was, if nothing else, oddly easy to tell what an Arxur was looking at. Their whole elongated head pointed right at it. “Nevok, does your language have a word for ‘caffeine’, and which of these teas contains it?”

  The clerk shook her head, frantically. “We don’t have anything for you here!” she yelped. “It’s just leaves and herbivore food!”

  “I wasn’t planning to eat the tea leaves,” said Sifal, dryly. “I was planning to drink a glass of water that they’ve been soaking in.”

  “I… I’m calling the exterminators!” the clerk shouted.

  Sifal snorted. “You don’t have any exterminators. You have one Yulpa with four broken legs.”

  “We’re not serving you!” she screamed.

  Sifal’s eyes narrowed. Was this finally the moment where she’d lash out violently? “Ma’am, I was up late last night brushing up on our corporate charter. You know, because I’m the new Chief Executive Officer? On an Arxur vessel, this level of disrespect towards an officer would be punishable by a summary beating. Break one of your arms, slash some gashes into your skin… the pain would drive the lesson home.” Sifal smiled, and it was mostly a show of teeth. “You are very fortunately not on an Arxur vessel. But if you don’t stop making offensive comments about my species, and put a cup of the most caffeinated tea you serve onto the counter in the next ten seconds, I am going to file a formal complaint with personnel services.” Sifal stared at the clerk, and started counting backwards from ten. The clerk had it ready in seven seconds, and frankly she wasted five of those on panicked swearing at the tea dispenser to flow faster.

  “Sugar, ma’am?” the clerk asked, by reflex.

  “No thank you,” said Sifal, dryly. “I take it without.” She held out her employee ID card, which, like mine, had a bit of an expense account attached to it, and tapped to pay. The Arxur lady raised her cup in acknowledgement to me. “See you at the morning meeting, little guy.”

  I turned to watch her go, and a sigh of relief settled over the room as everyone realized they’d survived the encounter with all of their limbs and blood intact. I turned back towards the clerk, and narrowed my eyes at her before she finished composing herself. “I need three each of whatever tea and pastry the Chairman likes the best,” I said, as gruffly and fierce as I dared. “He won’t be happy if I’m late with it.”

  I couldn’t really try the tea while I was balancing it in a drink tray, but the pastry was the most delicious thing I’d ever tasted. It was moist and fragrant with spices, and so very sweet. I didn’t even recognize what fruit was in it, but it was so good, I was practically bouncing as I carried the other two back towards Debbin’s quarters.

  The doors were enormous, and made from wood painted in pretty patterns. It was nice. It felt like it was alive. I knocked, and Debbin answered. “Ah, there you are, Benwen!” he said, beaming. “Did you manage the canteen alright?”

  “After a fashion,” I said, handing him his breakfast. There was a pretty Letian woman on the bed behind him, and the whole room had an oddly musky scent to it that I didn’t recognize. Perhaps the second tea and pastry set was for her? “I didn’t realize you were married, sir.”

  Debbin laughed. “I’m not,” he said, slowly shutting the door. “I’ll see you at the meeting.”