“Oh, yeah,” he said. “I’m Victor.”
“Well, Victor. Welcome to the Raxxian Ritz. Finest lodgings this side of the Milky Way.”
“You for real?”
“Obviously not. This place is a shithole, and I mean that literally,” she said, gesturing to the lone hole in the floor they all shared that served as a toilet.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Unfortunately, I’m not. It sucks, but you’ll get used to it. There’s no sense being shy here. We’re all in the same boat, so to speak. Come on, you’re gonna get really hungry as the stuff they hit you with wears off.”
She crossed the chamber to a section of the smooth, rivetless wall that was a little different than the others. Victor noticed one small spot was textured. Maureen pressed the surface and a small hole appeared in the ceiling. A pair of baseball sized orbs of some orange, organic-looking material dropped into her waiting palm, the hole closing silently behind it.
She offered one to the newcomer.
“Well, shit. It looks like we get orange today. Sorry, Vic. Not the best of the colors they serve us, but hey, food is food, so eat up. Believe me, you’ll need it.”
CHAPTERTHREE
Maureen had taken it upon herself to act as a sort of welcoming committee for the new arrivals after experiencing her own unpleasant and disorienting arrival aboard the alien ship. She hadn’t been so fortunate when she had woken up, and had made it a point that no one else—human, alien, or whatever—would suffer that same indignity.
There had only been a few humans in the holding compartment when she arrived, along with a handful of rather surly aliens of several races. At least most of them were humanoid in form, though one did have a set of tentacles emerging mid-waist serving as a second set of grasping appendages in addition to their arms.
The others were a more familiar form, but it was still disorienting to say the least, and one hell of a head-spinning way to wake up. The thing was, Maureen hadn’t even been asleep when she was taken.
She had been up near the lake she’d frequented with her grandfather as a young girl. It was the first real vacation she had taken in Lord knew how long, and as soon as she set foot on the dirt trails, breathing in the fresh mountain air, she felt a sense of comfort wash over her.
This wasn’t the busy city, and it sure wasn’t her day job, acting as an organizer and clutter remover for celebrities and highfalutin executives. Their junk was another’s treasure, but more often than not her employers would tell her to discard perfectly good items that could easily be sold or even donated. Hell, for the famous ones, they could have even signed them and auctioned them off for a good cause. “Come get so-and-so’s signed coffee maker — still works! Only a fifty-dollar opening bid!”
But each and every one of the busy celebs she had floated the idea past didn’t want to deal with the hassle.
It was a bit soul crushing, truth be told, tossing useful things when people were in need. It was wasteful, and, frankly, distasteful. And on a few occasions Maureen had thrown her better judgment to the wind and snagged a few boxes of goods, which she anonymously left on what she called the Magic Corner.
She passed the intersection in a lower income neighborhood on her commute pretty regularly and had learned early on that just about anything of use or value left out would be snatched up in a heartbeat by someone who could actually use it.
Up at the rented lakeside cottage, however, the hustle and bustle of the city was nowhere to be found, and Maureen had experienced an almost instant decompression. Without the usual collection of stresses of daily life nagging at her psyche, she found that stepping away from that daily grind and focusing on her own well-being had put her in the best spirits she’d felt in longer than she’d care to admit.
Oh hell yes,she thought as the sun set, breathing the fresh air deep into her lungs.I’m so doing this.
Maureen slid her trainers on and stepped outside, a small flashlight on her keychain and her pepper spray in her hip pocket, though up here she would be shocked if she encountered another soul.
One foot after another, she trotted out onto the loamy dirt trail, the soft thud of her footfall boosting her spirits with every stride.
Then, quite abruptly, time seemed to stop and the next moment she was suddenly not on the trail at all. One minute she’d been jogging on the wooded path near the little cottage she’d rented, the next she found herself flat on her back staring up at a seamless metal ceiling with no idea where she was or how much time had passed.
At first she had thought she’d been abducted in a different manner, snatched up and whisked away in some perv’s rape van despite her rather impressive situational awareness. Whatever the case, she’d been taken, and that would not stand.
Maureen stealthily moved her hand to her hip pocket, grasping for the small cannister of pepper spray.
It was gone. So were her keys and flashlight.
Shit!
She forced herself to breathe slowly and not draw attention to herself, scanning around her with her eyes, not moving her head as best she could.
This isn’t a van, she realized as the size of the compartment became apparent.This is something else.
It was at that time she noticed the people staring at her. At leastmostof them were people. A few looked like something out of some crazy sci-fi movie. Humans and monsters? But this wasn’t a van, nor was it a house. And monsters? No, they werealiens.
