Page 25 of The Alien's Little Sister

My computer bleeps at me, and a surprise popup reads:Safety sprinklers have engaged.

...Excuse me?

The popup window is something I’ve never seen—I was aware of the possibility of receiving this notification, of course, because I paid for the program to alert me to shit like this, but we have never had a fire here, not in any of the escape rooms. Yet this message claims a sprinkler’s gone off.

I pound my finger on my desktop’s mouse, left-clicking like a madman for details. Like WHERE?

It’s the alien escape room.

Iflydown the hall.

You know how in movies, when the sprinklers activate—the fire department is automatically alerted?

Yeah, small businesses can’t always afford that. Me, I thought about it, I really did. I want everyone safe. But in the end, I shelled out for the single station system which alertsmeto the problem, but not the authorities—because I was stupidly optimistic that if there was a blaze, we’d be able to hit it with extinguishers and all would be well.

Fire doesn’t care if you’re optimistic.

My heart is racing and my stomach twists in horror as I realize I may have made a bad call. A call so bad, people could be hurt. Perfectly innocent customers who trusted this entertainment to be safe—and my employees, who trust me to provide them with a place that won’t burn them to death while they work. They’rekids,for the Lord’s sake.

And Inara.

I ignore the red sign on the employee side door, the one that warns all the wonderful kids I employ that I will personally dismember them and serve them up as a side show in a new room if I catch them interrupting someone else’s escape room.

Shoving my shoulder into the door, I burst into Inara’s escape room.

Five men whip around. “Uh oh. Told you the sprinklers would get us caught.”

“What the…” Seeing a circle of men with guilty faces? A new fear is triggered in me. “What the FUCK is going on?” I snarl. “Inara?”

“I’m here,” Inara says in a contrite tone that does not match the scenarios whipping around in my brain. She steps around the men, into view, whole and seemingly safe enough. “I set off the alarms by mistake.”

“How?” I bark. My adrenaline has me sweating and my muscles jumping. Fear and the vision of Jason, Sal, Stacy, and Inara plus groups of people who came here for fun, not a reenactment of the movieBackdraftwhere humans get turned into crunchy, burned hot dogs, is still playing in a loop in my brain. I blink and try to focus, try to calm down. The men with Inara are a group of thirty-somethings. Good customers, actually. They’ve been regulars enough that I recognize them. Every time we get a new room, they hit it.

Inara clears her throat. “I was showing them my fire trick.”

I blink at the men I’m facing. Then I’m swinging my head to Inara.“Whattrick?”

Licking her lips nervously, Inara’s eyes dart up to mine before she drops her gaze to her feet. “Maybe I should show you outside.”

“Sprinklers are already raining down on the equipment,” I point out, stalking closer. The thirty-somethings edge back, just like I intended, so that I’m between them and Inara. I keep my gaze locked on her. “Might as well do whatever you’re going to do right here. Because this I gotta see.”

Inara inhales a reluctant breath—and blows fire.

“FUCK!” I shout, tripping back, right into the customers.

The customers who are good-naturedly laughing, propping me up.“Right?Cool as shit!” one crows.

Contrary to Hollywood magic, an entire building’s sprinklers do not go off if one gets tripped. They don’t activate because of smoke, but because there’s a spike in heat, so unless one gets triggered by temperatures hot enough to mimic flames, they won’t wig out.

Mine are also programmed to shut off if the temperature drops and the fire is under control. The idea behind this being that I’ll lose less shit to water damage, and hopefully very little shit gets wrecked by the initial fire.

In this bizarre case, there’s a criminally expensive fog machine and LED panel that is totally toasted, and not directly because of Inara’s breath, but because of the waterfall happening on it. Minutes after she’s done with her show of blistering hot flames, the sprinkler chokes itself like it’s supposed to, but the damage to my equipment is done. I’d want to strangle an alien, but she didn’t know, and the customers aren’t quite sure if this is scripted or not, so I back off with a tight smile and let them think this trick of her ‘cool as shit suit’ is all part of the experience.

Later, Inara finds me in my office. “I’m so sorry,” she says, and she looks it.

I wave it away. “Your room has been booked solid all night. Keep it up, and I won’t so much as chip my teeth gritting them when I sign the work order to repair the panel’s damage.” I check my watch. “Shouldn’t you be on break?”

Inara’s tail curls closer to her feet, like it’s nervous. “I was wondering if I could take you to dinner,” she says, shocking the hell out of me.

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