Page 17 of Space for More

She’s not seriously goingin there to…

A bead of sweat rolls down my neck as I wait under the artificial sunlight, despite the temperate breeze that sends ripples along the pond and rustles through the bistro’s banners advertising the bestskrllpton Spire. Just thinking about Mezli doingthatwhile I wait out here has me overheated.

“Dr. Mori?”

The low rumble of my name snaps me away from thoughts of just how Mezli uses her four hands to touch herself, and I look up to see Phelix approaching. He looks even more handsome than when I saw him last night. Every bit the picture of the perfect professional, with a tight-fitting dark green jacket that highlights his thick arms and torso, and crisp pressed pants that cling to his solid legs and draw my eyes toward his crotch.

He clears his throat and I tear my gaze away, face flaming. “Ah! Dr. Nafar. Good to see you again.”

If he noticed me looking at his crotch, his inscrutable expression doesn’t indicate any reaction. If I were a nexxit with a lifetime of experience reading their micro-expressions, then maybe I’d be able to sense how he feels around me.

He nods. “Indeed. Is Mezli joining us?”

“Yes, she’s uh…she’s taking care of something in the hygiene room.” I resist the urge to swipe at the flustered sweat that’s accumulated on my brow.

“I see.” He stares back blankly. It’s like talking to a wall. How is this the same nexxit I chatted for hours over comm with?

“So, um, how do you know Mezli?” I ask.

A flicker of tension crosses his face, and I mentally kick myself at my pathetic attempt at small talk. He quickly smooths it away and gives me a pearly smile, his teeth slightly sharper than a human’s.

“We met through our parents a few years ago. It was a…memorable evening.”

“Oh? How so?” Mezli told me it was a disaster, but I’m curious to know his side of the story. How did one evening ruin their chances at matehood?

Phelix snorts at my question, the brief amusement softening his stoic features and making him even more attractive. “She vomited all over my mother’s floor. No doubt from being forced to endure my company. Hopefully, she’s not in the hygiene room for a similar reason now.”

“No! She’s in there, um, freshening up a bit. Whatever happened before, she’s excited to spend time with you now. As am I. Having the chance to talk to one of the leading experts in obstetrics tech is truly an honor.”

Phelix’s brow quirks almost imperceptibly. “You’ve heard of me? Or my work, I suppose?”

Well, that confirms he doesn’t remember me at all. Damn. It’s a good thing for the mission, but it still hurts to know our conversations meant nothing to him.

My infatuation with Phelix started when I ran into yet another issue with my clinic’s secondhand medipod. It had been a splurge to invest in a medipod at all, but with the aging population of my patients on Europa 3, it felt necessary. The device was touted to have a huge array of functions—everything from cell rejuvenation to complex surgical procedures. But there was a reason why I got the medipod at such a steep discount—it was set on demo mode and more than half the functions required upgrade licenses to actually work.

When one of my patients became pregnant and I realized it would be a high-risk birth, I decided enough was enough. The functionality to deliver her baby as safely as possible was already programmed into the pod and the only thing stopping me fromusing it were the damn programming locks. So I decided to find a way to hack past them.

At the time I didn’t know a thing about hacking that kind of device, so I reached out to people who might—under the false pretenses of asking for general medipod advice, of course. I didn’t want the manufacturer coming to fine my broke ass for using their tech unlicensed. After a string of dead end conversations, I found an article written by a Dr. Phelix Nafar about optimizing medipod calibrations for successful obstetric procedures.

I wrote to him at my wits’ end. I didn’t even bother to conceal my intent to hack into the medipod. Whether it was because of my blatant honesty or my desperate plea to help me take care of my patient, Phelix replied. He refused to assist me in his reply to my unsecured message sent to his work comm, but an hour later used a secure channel to contact me and coached me through “calibrating” the medipod for the birth.

After that, we discussed other ways of bypassing the programming locks, which led to conversations about our shared disdain for gatekeeping lifesaving tech behind a paywall and the predatory practices of the medical tech industry. Which, in turn, led to more personal, though surface-level conversations about our daily lives and our hopes.

Talking to him felt so easy. He had a blunt humor and charm, and his vast knowledge and obvious intelligence were intoxicating. I had no clue what he looked like other than that he was a nexxit, and I refused to let myself give in to my stalker-ish desire to look him up. Plus, that would have spoiled my mental image of the nerdy but charming alien I’d built as I fantasized about what it would be like to have our conversations in person.

There was one night, when he’d messaged right as I was about to get in bed that made me hope my feelings weren’t one-sided.

I realized after all this talk of bodies, I don’t know a thing about yours, Dr. Mori. Though I must admit I’ve thought about it far too much.

The squeal of shocked glee I made was so loud it woke up my dad, who came rushing in from his bedroom down the hall to make sure I was okay. But that excitement was short-lived. By the time I looked back at my comm, the message was gone. Part of me wondered if I’d hallucinated or dreamt it, but I clung to hope that maybe he was just shy.

Now I know it must’ve been a figment of my overactive imagination, because he doesn’t even recognize my name. I doubt I school my disappointed expression nearly as well as he can as I reply. “Oh yes, I’ve, um, I’ve read a number of your research articles.”Yes,I’ve spent way too many nights re-reading our correspondences and later touching myself thinking about the man behind the comms.

“Ah. Well, I’m happy to discuss anything you’d like. Though I doubt Mezli will like me monopolizing our lunch conversation with medical talk. How do you know Mezli, by the way? Are you…” His jaw tenses as he trails off.

Oh crap, if he thinks Mezli’s my lover, will that screw up our seduction plan? I assume he’s monogamous because of the whole mate thing, but maybe that’s wrong. I really should’ve asked Mezli more questions about what having a mate means.

“N-no! I mean, yes? What were you asking? We’re colleagues! Or rather Mezli and I connected back when she helped me with some pharmaceutical, uh, issues I was running into back on my colony. We developed a friendship, so she offered to be my guide to Spire while I’m here. I’ve never been off Europa 3 before, so, uh, it would be a bit overwhelming without her.” That last part is definitely true, even if the rest is crap, so I hope it helpssell the lie.

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