“Welcome home, mistress, Byxx.” Khazmine managed a shaky wave at the approaching pair. “I trust everything went well?”
“I think so.” Iris hung her bag on the hook by the door and removed her shoes in the entryway. “No harm done, anyway. Curtis will be stopping by a few times a week to pick up Byxx for game stuff and some exercise, right?”
“Yeah. He needs assistance and it’s something I can help with.” Byxx peeled off his offensive smelling boots and stuffed them in the hall closet. “I didn’t tell him anything, so there’s no need for that stern sourpuss.”
“I wasn’t stern. This is my ‘concerned’ face.” Khazmine scoffed at the accusation. “And I have every reason to make it. Curtis is an incredibly observant human. It would be wise to keep your guard up, ‘Vincent.’”
“Why I oughta—” Byxx motioned to give Khazmine a fake noogie for the distasteful nickname. His efforts were weakly rebuffed by the weary Augment before they were interrupted by Iris calling from the kitchen.
“Hey, where did all of this fish come from?” Iris declared as she spotted a huge bag of fresh fish on the bottom shelf. “Khaz?”
“It was Zayzann.” Khazmine admitted. “He was incredibly hungry this afternoon, and he ventured out to the river to catch fish. I am informed that he was not seen in his natural state.”
Iris sighed deeply at the thought of her roommates being discovered outside of the apartment. She was incapable of protecting them from nefarious forces outside this shabby dwelling, and it worried her to no end. Byxx spotted the fretful pitch of Iris’s brows and kneading gesture of her hands together. And Khazmine detected the faint distress of her heart rate and breathing from where she sat propped up against the couch.
“Where is Zay now?” Iris tucked her hair behind her ears and trod out to the living room.
“Sleeping it off, I imagine.” Khazmine guessed. “He didn’t seem hungry when he returned, and looked like he may have overdone it on a hasty meal.”
Iris shook her head to fight a smirk and tiptoed quietly to the bedroom to check on Zayzann. Just as Khazmine predicted, he was sprawled out on the bed, with wings spanning the entirety of the queen-sized mattress. The occasional twitch and tremor from Zayzann confirmed that he was experiencing some intense dreams, and Iris bent close to check on him.
In a smooth, unconscious gesture, Zayzann swept Iris off her feet and into his swelteringly hot arms, hugging her close without waking. The tumble had turned Iris around and her hair tickled his feathered face as her back tucked against his front. Before she could protest, Iris heard the faint, ragged whisper mumble from behind her.
“Pleece… Doan go…”
It was a nightmare again. Iris didn’t need to ask when he woke, as she was familiar with the stricken look of one plagued by frightful dreams, once she knew how to look for them. If Byxx hadn’t been torn to ribbons yesterday morning, she might never have noticed that Zayzann experienced night terrors. His body relaxed at their contact, and Zayzann drifted off to more pleasant dreams.
When he awoke the next morning, Iris had already gone. The visions of his home world receded into memory and could not overpower him during waking hours. Zayzann loped into the living room to visit with his new tribe, hoping to build better social relationships than the ones that disturbed his dreams.
Byxx was still curled up in a twisted knot on the floor, wrapped up in a mangled heap of bedding and pillows. His soft snoring mingled with the occasional clacking of laptop computer keys, as Khazmine huddled close to the power socket. Her movements were significantly improved, with her jerky, disjointed spasms replaced by fluid gestures.
“Good morning.” Zayzann whispered as softly as a summer’s breeze. “What are you looking at?”
“I am uncertain.” Khazmine confessed. “It is an impossibility and a puzzle. It has no earthly reason for being here, and yet, here it is…”
“You’re not making any sense, Khaz.” Zayzann bent over the laptop screen to get a look at the tabular data and nonsensical numbers. It didn’t matter if they were upside down to him in this position; they wouldn’t have made sense to him ‘right-side up’ anyway. “Looks like a bunch of numbers and letters to me.”
“I know.” Khazmine’s eyes narrowed as she traced the figures and tried to piece together their meanings. “Neither does this device… I need to investigate further. There isn’t enough information…”
Khazmine shut down the laptop and closed the lid as Byxx began writhing to precarious wakefulness on the floor. She motioned a wagging finger to get Zayzann to stoop closer to her, so that she might confide in him.
“All I know is that this device doesn’t belong here.” Khazmine’s whisper hissed softly in Zayzann’s split ear. “It doesn’t belong to Iris.”
“You’re wrong, Khaz!” Zayzann shouted, scaring the living daylights out of Byxx. “Iris would never—”
“Would never what?” Byxx chimed in from his lumpy bedding kingdom. “What are you two fighting about so early in the morning?”
Khazmine recalculated to herself before speaking. An accusation without evidence would only further drive a wedge between the roommates, and a false accusation would taint her own reputation beyond repair.
“Iris is in possession of something that does not belong to her.” Khazmine walked on eggshells to arrive at a favorable outcome. “And I would like to determine why.”
“Are you saying what I think you’re—” Byxx puzzled.
“Iris is not a thief!” Zayzann roared.
“I didn’t say she was.” Khazmine defended.
“You implied it.” Zayzann countered. “And that’s just as bad.”
“Calm down now, you two.” Byxx stood up and nearly tripped in his tangle of linens. His tail spike caught the edge of a blanket and forced him to topple over and barely miss the perplexed Paxoram. “Blast, what a mess. Let’s go over this, one thing at a time…”
The three roommates huddled in the living room and examined the flash drive on Iris’s laptop. Zayzann explained how he had found it, and Khazmine elaborated on what they were seeing. The drive contained proprietary company information, financials, and order information for GC&S. It was not something Iris would ever have access to as an Office Specialist. But there was one glaring fact that all three roommates could accept at face value.
“Iris didn’t steal this.” Zayzann insisted from his loafed sitting position by the coffee table. His feathery tail twitched back and forth in time with the wall clock. “She isn’t a thief… just doesn’t have it in her.”
“Agreed.” Khazmine interjected. She squinted her eyes and aligned a plate on her ear with a purposeful hand. “She lacks the temperament to be any good at it, anyway.”
“Yeah, I don’t buy it.” Byxx concurred. “Not to be mean or anything, but she doesn’t have a shred of guile. I doubt Iris would even realize what this is… That said, how did you know what the device was, Khaz?”
“I’ve been here much longer than you have.” Khazmine fiddled with the metallic tendril that was still plugged into the baseboard wall socket. “And I have the right temperament for this type of thing.”
Zayzann scowled at Khazmine and puffed out the ridge of feathers that ran down his neck. His toe talons grabbed at the carpet beneath him, tugging tufts and fibers ferociously. Khazmine had seen enough of his talons twitch and cranial feathers rise to recognize an indignant expression when she saw one.
“Don’t look at me like that.” Khazmine sneered. “I promised that I would refrain from that line of work on Earth. On Iris’s name and my own, I have kept my word.”
“I choose to believe you.” Byxx conceded. “But I’m more worried that Iris could get in trouble for having this. If it’s so secret and so important, then what should we do about it?”
The morning continued to worsen as Iris’s day dragged on. Aside from Evelyn sharing a coffee with her from Valencia’s, Iris had endured little more than busy work and frustrated rumblings from her coworkers about next week’s launch. Mr. Maker had even taken the liberty of loaning Iris to the Order Entry department to do her old job again until launch day, which became unbearable the longer she worked.
“What’s with her?” Claire Donovan whispered ruefully to one of her Order Entry friends, Wanda, at an adjoining cubicle. “She doesn’t belong here. What a waste of space.”
Iris tightened the muscles in her face and hands to keep from crying. The ceaseless, cruel comments raked over her delicate husk of a spirit and left her beaten and tattered. She tried to drown out the more obnoxious whisperings but couldn’t help but overhear details she wished she hadn’t.
“Yeah, I know. Ryan should be back tomorrow.” Claire droned on. “It’ll be nice to see his handsome face again.”
“But I thought you were with Mr. Ma—"
“Shhh! Not so loud, Wanda.” Claire shushed. “Warren and I are just friends, that’s all.”
“Sounds like pretty good friends to me.” Wanda replied with a laugh in her voice. “It must have a lot of perks being his friend…”
Iris could stand their foolishness no longer and strode off to the kitchenette for relief. She counted the paltry change in her hand and realized she didn’t have enough for a granola bar, then plopped down on the couch for a few deep, cleansing breaths with closed eyes.
“Are you sleeping?” Warren’s voice scraped vigorously at Iris’s tattered nerves.
“No, sir.” Iris replied without opening her eyelids. “Just taking a break. I have a headache.”
“Oh, poor thing. So sorry to hear that.” Warren oozed as he purchased the granola bar Iris had wanted from the vending machine. “That’s too bad. I had hoped to offer you a chance to get some overtime this holiday weekend, if you wanted it.”
The promise of precious overtime piqued Iris’s interest, and her eyes opened wide to meet Warren’s. It was a rare moment for Iris, one where she met his gaze as an opportunist like himself, rather than an object of prey for him. Iris had a determined resoluteness to her posture and bearing that Warren quite admired at times. Though, admiration or not, he had an objective to secure, and Iris was his target at present.
“One of our phone girls can’t make it Saturday through Tuesday for the Fourth of July phones, and I need someone willing to take all four shifts.” Warren smiled through bleached teeth. “It pays time and a half. Is that something you might be interested in?”
“Yes, sir.” Iris nodded enthusiastically and snatched a shift voucher from Warren’s hand with his signature already on it. “You can count on me, Mr. Maker.”
“Good, good.” Warren beamed. “Thanks so much for taking one for the team. I won’t forget this. Thanks again.”
Iris was still calculating sums in her head for what the extra twenty-four hours of work at time and a half would net her when Warren strode contentedly from the kitchenette. With his cellphone in hand, he typed a single message and hit “send.” He sauntered back to his plush office with a satisfied grin plastered on his deceitful maw.
Across from the office at her cubicle, Claire read the text message and smiled to herself knowingly.
“All set for the weekend. Glad you could work it out.”
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