1
She descended the steps of her private interstellar space jet, reeling with lightheadedness and nausea.Every time, she pouted. Every time she was forced to adjust her body to a new environment, it left her ill for days, sometimes weeks. Lucy reached out and gripped her android’s arm.
“Awaiting orders mistress,” it said.
She took a deep breath to ease her stomach. “Please, take me inside. I don’t feel good.”
The android scooped her up and carried her into the billion dollar mansion. It was the only thing she inherited that she ever really wanted. A dozen more militarized androids followed closely behind. Another dozen secured the perimeter.
They carried her through the foyer and set her down in a sunroom that overlooked the exotically alien grounds. Her favorite place in the universe. Where clear flowers bloomed as far as the eye could see, and enormous spiraled trees branched out into equally large leaves. Nestled in the middle of the garden was a large pool, beautifully landscaped to blend in with the rest of the environment.
Lucy frowned.
Her azure blues had turned brown. The gorgeous flowers along the edges were wilting and sinking into the murky water while vines writhed like snakes.
Among the shadows of the overgrowth were bright glints of metal.What happened?
She hadn’t visited Loxuria, her favorite childhood estate, since her eleventh birthday. The very next day, after the celebration, Mr. and Mrs. Larkswest packed her up and shipped her off to attend a boarding school back on Earth.
God, how she loved it.
Lucy leaned against the crystal windowsill and pressed her brow to it. The chill coming off the glass did little to dull her growing headache.
She inhaled and a flowery scent filled her nostrils. Home. It smelled like home.
Attending that school saved her life. She hated saying goodbye to her freedom, but being behind the closed walls of the school shielded her from her parents and their many,many, standards. All of which she’d met, except for one: her inability to accustom to space travel.
Ugh.
Lucy sought out the nearest android. “What happened to the pool?”
“Local wildlife has taken up residence within the water. Current diagnostics indicate a large organism is nesting.”
“A large organism?” Lucy returned her attention to the expansive grounds outside. Her gaze searched everywhere it could, under every large leaf and around each spire for any sign of a creature, but found nothing except beautifully unkempt topiary.
“Yes, Mistress,” it answered.
“Why hasn’t the house security gotten rid of it?”
“According to the data stored, the house has tried, but whatever dwells within will not be moved nor eradicated. The cleaning bots have been picking up and repairing the damage the alien specimen has created for several years now.”
Lucy twisted away. “Several years? Loxuria is a Larkswest estate, my parents even made sure it had its off-world certification as a place of triage if humanity ever came under attack. There’s enough stored here to comfortably house a thousand people for a thousand years. It’s even certified to house the president. How could an alien possibly get in?”
“The house believes you brought it in.”
Her face scrunched up. “That’s not possible. I haven’t been back here in eighteen…” A memory resurfaced of her playing hide-and-go-seek with androids made to look and act like children her age. She’d snuck out of the grounds because it was impossible to hide fromthoseandroids any other way, and she hadn’t wanted to lose to them again. “Oh. Right.”
After her daring escape over the topiary hedge, she stumbled upon a flower she’d never seen before and thought it would look perfect among the others in the garden.
Her parents weren’t bothered by her dangerous act. In fact, they were more upset with her disobeying a request. ‘Stay inside and out of trouble! You never know when the paparazzi are about.’
Lucy snorted.More like a demand…
But the Larkswests always insisted that demanding something was low class, and that people like them—like her—requested instead. They hadrequestedshe never leave the premises without armed supervision, so in her young mind, she hadn’t done anything wrong.
“It was the flower, wasn’t it?” she asked without expecting a real answer.
“Alien specimen 108. Yes, Mistress Lucy.”
