I ate my breakfast biscuit and sipped my coffee as I drove over to the Mylos’ Scholarship Center as our local one styled itself. I didn’t know if they all called themselves just that, if others had different names, or if some also handled some of the other stuff they did, like with the veterans’ job thing I’d heard about on the radio. There wasn’t much traffic about this time of the morning, which is why I’d made the appointment for the time I had. Give it another half hour or so, though, and folks would be jamming the roads on this side of town to get to the shopping mall. Right now, though, it was just me and a few folks on their way to work, mostly going the opposite direction to get downtown.
I pulled into the parking lot and parked right outside the center, which was located in a building that had once hosted a Grandy’s Fried Chicken place. It had been remodeled, and the area around the back had a tall security fence behind it which surrounded a landing pad made for their shuttles. I mentally giggled at that as I got out of my car. Mylos shuttles looked nothing like what the words ‘space shuttle’ conjured up, not one bit. They were flying saucers and looked like really expensive props for a sci fi con or something. I idly wondered if any of them had ever seenClose Encounters.
Probably not, I decided as I pushed open the door. I caught sight of the time on a clock they had hanging on the wall. It was nine on the dot. Was I good or what? I had a definite spring in my step as I walked up to the desk. I was more than ready to take their mate-matching test and get on with being awarded my scholarship.
Nursing school, here I come! Today’s the day I get the dough to blow this popsicle stand and shake the dust of this hell hole off of my feet!
A very handsome man came walking up the counter. He was taller than your average human. I knew Mylos were all big dudes, but shit, I hadn’t really understood it until now. This guy had to be close to seven feet tall, and it was entirely proportional. The guys in their ads were always super hot which I’d thought that was down to just them picking models, but if this guy was representative, then whoa! I’d been way off the mark. I felt even better about my choice to come here, despite having to drag my feet out to my car this morning. The universe was smiling on me today, for sure. First, it had rewarded me with a free breakfast, and now it was showing me I had nothing to fear here. As insanely hot as these aliens were, their perfect matches for mates had to be restricted to beautiful people who were also insanely smart. Not chubby, ghostly pale, freckled-faced carrot tops with more padding around the middle, chunky thighs, and slightly flabby arms who have a learning disability.
“Hi, I’m Mitchell MacArthur and I have an appointment this morning,” I said, smiling and not giving a damn that this totally hot dude was seeing my chipped front tooth, now that I was feeling so completely chill about today.
“Hi, Mitchell, I’m Quandar, and if you’ll just follow me, we can get you started.” He opened the little door set into the counter and ushered me inside. I followed him through a door set into the wall behind the counter where a couple of cozy armchairs and tables sat. Spying a coffee machine and a large box of donuts on a counter in the back behind a desk, I found myself hoping I hadn’t interrupted the guy’s breakfast or something. But no, I couldn’t have, right? My appointment was for nine and that was when I’d arrived, so he’d had to know to expect me.
Maybe he was running late and the Mylos aren’t as perfect as the dramas make them out to be,I thought.
“Please, take a seat,” Quandar said, pointing to one of the armchairs. I took a seat as he asked, and realized what the coffee and doughnuts were for when he asked, “Would you like some coffee? Or perhaps tea. I also just took delivery of a fresh box of doughnuts.”
Even though I’d just had a cup of coffee, I wouldn’t mind a second one and I sure as hell never said no to free doughnuts. You’d have to be a masochist to deny yourself something like that!
“Um, sure. I’d love a coffee and a doughnut.”
“What sort of coffee would you like and would you enjoy having some syrup in it? I have vanilla, hazelnut, coconut, and almond.”
Coconut? That sounded interesting so I told him I’d try that. He returned a few moments later with my freshly made coffee and sachets of sugar and sweetener along with a spoon so I could finish making it the way I liked it. While I was tasting it to see how much sugar I wanted to add, he carried over the box of doughnuts for me to choose from. I chose a Boston cream which was my all time fave. See? Universe fucking smiling at me again! I had a feeling that the way my day was going, once I got out of here and turned my phone back on, I’d find I had several prospective tenants just begging me to show them my house, having read my ad.
He then went away to his desk and came back with a tablet. “I’ll need you to fill this in. Now, when you made your appointment, you stated you had issues reading things and would require help.” His smile grew wider. “Just press here,” he said, pointing to a place on the screen that had three squiggly lines, “and it will read the questions out to you and wait for your response, which it will record.”
Oh, wow. This was way above what I’d expected, assistance wise.
“Thanks,” I said and waited for him to go back to his desk, which he did after making himself a coffee and grabbing a doughnut. Strawberry filled, I noticed, approving. A good solid choice, though I always somehow managed to get the jam on my shirt. I’d take one bite and be fine, but by the third, it would squirt out in an all-out jammageddon attack. SPLAT! Not a good look out in public. I was envious of people who could eat them without mishap. Charmed lives, I tell you!
Name, date of birth, hobbies, geesh! These questions reminded me a lot of the ones I’d answered on that dating site I met Mr. Jack Ass on. Though to be honest, knowing that I was coming here today and about to move away to attend school, I’d probably been a bit of a jerk to go looking on that site. It was for people looking for long-term relationships, not hookups, and I definitely was not going to be hanging around anywhere convenient to drive to for dates.
“Please state your educational aspirations,” the tablet said.
Okay, that was different, which made sense. This was for a scholarship, after all.
“Um, I’d like to study to become a registered nurse.”
Next, it asked me for my educational background, I guess so they could check that I actually graduated high school and all that.
The questions then began getting weirder, though given they were also looking to see if I was someone’s mate match, probably not as strange as they felt.
“Kids?” I asked. “Um, yeah, sure. Someday I’d like to be a dad. Kids all deserve a good home, but I’d like to be settled first. In a long-term relationship with a steady income and our own place that we don’t have to worry about getting kicked out of. In a good neighborhood and all that.”
I answered several more questions after that, all seemingly random stuff, and then it was done.
“End of questionnaire,” it announced.
Quandar got up and hurried over at the pronouncement after picking up something off of his desk. “Excellent! Now, you already electronically signed the agreement and sent it in along with your appointment request, so all we have left to do is the DNA test.” He held up the small object in his hand, which turned out to be a small cylinder with a swab inside it. “I just need to swab the inside of your cheek and take it over to the analyzer and the AI will do the rest.”
“Um, yeah, sure.” Though I had no freaking idea why they wanted DNA from me. I was a guy for pete’s sake. It’s not like I could get pregnant anyway. Unless maybe there was more in our code than we understood, some other markers that would help tell them if they were someone’s perfect mate. It was possible, I supposed.
Quandar smiled and opened the container. I opened my mouth and he leaned over, wiping the swab against the flesh of my inner cheek before popping it back into its container.
“All done,” he said, sounding cheerful. He took the data pad from me and walked over to his desk, where he placed the data pad before turning around and heading to the back of the room, where he opened a drawer on what I had thought was some kind of fancy copy machine. He dropped the swab in, container and all, and began pressing buttons.
“Processing,” came the voice I’d heard before, the one who’d read the questions out to me.
