Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 64359 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64359 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Her dark hair is cut in a severe bob. She has big brown eyes and thin lips, though I suspect they would look less thin if they were not pressed together in obvious annoyance. I get the awkward feeling I have interrupted something, though I cannot imagine what. She is wearing what people in the late twentieth century would have described as business casual. A beige blazer adorns her shoulders and a pink blouse beneath hints at what might once have been a personality, before that personality was limited to blouse colors. I’ve come to save myself, but I’m very tempted to try to save her.
“Hi,” I say.
She looks at me, and I know instantly that my presence here annoys her. She is one of the many humans who seek out customer-facing positions because they inexplicably believe themselves to be people persons in spite of the fact they loathe almost all of humanity.
“Hello,” she says, the two syllables forced out between barely gritted teeth.
I decide to just lay it all on the line up front. I already have a very bad feeling about this, but there’s no point in waffling around and trying to make conversation.
“How are you?”
Fuck. I accidentally made conversation.
“Good,” she says, in a tone that strongly suggests she wishes both of us were dead. “How can I help you?”
This is grim.
“Are you okay?” I lower my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Do you need…”
“How can I help you?” Her tone is sharper this time.
Fine. Apparently, she’s not looking for help. I guess we’ll deal with my problems then.
“So, I accidentally sold myself to multiple mates. Can we please refund everyone so they can stop chasing me to the ends of the universe, tracking me through the nanobots that are…”
“No refunds,” she says, pursing her lips in a way that makes it clear that the fact I’m even asking the question is insulting to her personally.
“Well, there have to be refunds. I just want to give the money in my account back to…”
“No refunds,” she repeats. “If you’re not happy with your purchase…”
“I didn’t purchase anything. I sold myself. Are you listening?”
“How can I help you?” She asks the question with a malevolent little grin. She knows exactly what I am saying, she just doesn’t have any intention of lifting a finger to help me. She has been put in this position of power, but she doesn’t seem to be terribly interested in using it for good.
“What’s your problem, lady? I’m trying to stop some very bad things from happening. All I need is the account numbers, and maybe then you could contact the buyers and let them know that there was some kind of system-wide glitch that allowed the same human to be sold…”
She leans forward across the counter, and for a moment I feel a spark of hope. Women have to help other women. She can’t just let me be pursued and devoured by a small pack of horny alien males, all of whom want to make me exclusively theirs.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have tried to game the system. Maybe these are the consequences of your actions,” she hisses at me with the intense, fiscally-protective malevolence that only ever comes from an employee who has literally no financial stake in a company at all and stands to gain absolutely nothing from saving the corporation a cent.
“The fuck?” I question her attitude, but there’s not really any point because once again, events are overtaking me in a very dramatic way.
SMASH! SMASH! SMASH!
The sound of the plate glass window shattering into a billion pieces does get her attention, as a whirling dervish of scythkin violence comes bursting through in a display that is as dramatic as it is terrifying.
Bits of man-suit hang off the creature, who I know has the intellect of a sentient person, but he looks like the contents of a drug-addled nightmare. He absolutely shines with violence. There is no part of him from which a blade does not extend. Big ones, small ones, smooth ones, serrated ones. He is a living incarnation of a knife, and he is not happy.
“MINE!”
He intones the word with passion, speaking through a mouth of razor sharp teeth set in a shiny maw. It would be sweet, if not for the fact that there is no way he could possibly touch me without turning me into the ingredients for barbecue skewers.
I back up against the counter, holding my hands palms out in a gesture of surrender.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to…”
The creature reaches for me, massive, black shiny hand gripping my wrist in a hold that I know I could never hope to break in a thousand years. It is a great mercy that the blades on his hand have retracted, or he would be slitting my wrist right now.