Page 2 of Soros
My assignment to find the criminals and hold them accountable would be even harder now. How was I supposed to focus on work with Tania being so close?
It occurred to me that for someone supposedly an expert at analyzing behavior, I was in deep water when it came to her. If Tania’s strange hostility was really a matter of signaling to me to back off and respect her new relationship with Nerix, then shouldn’t I do that? Humans were overly emotional in general and when it came to romantic relationships, they were irrational. For now, I would give her a bit of space while I worked on the case I had come to solve. But I would be observing her, trying to figure out how she had gone from loving me to hating me.
CHAPTER 2
Dreaming of What Was
Tania
I stirred in bed, trying to find sleep. Reliving my love affair with Soros for the millionth time made it impossible for my body to rest.
My stressed-out mind was trying desperately to understand how things ended this badly between us. I kept playing memories on my inner movie screen. Meticulously, I dissected snippets of conversations in no chronological order from the nine months that we spent together on Earth.
My love affair with Soros had been epic. Like something you see in the movies and yet, here we were with a complete breakdown in our communication.
Once again, my memories took me back to our first meeting.
4 years and 9 months earlier
Soros was the third alien I was asked to guide after accepting my position as an agent for the Federation six months ago. I was excited when I learned that he was Eidron like my father because I knew very little of my heritage on my paternal side. I was told that Soros’ assignment on Earth was to educate a selected group of humans who served as contacts for the Federation. In my information sheet, he was described as an expert on the different species in the Universe and the threat they posed to humans.
Picking Soros up at the military base, I kept giving him sideways glances on the drive to Los Angeles. With my five-foot-eleven, I was tall for a woman, but he had to be at least six-foot-five. Next to him, I felt small, which rarely happened. Soros wasn’t a beauty in the traditional sense, but he had gorgeous thick curly hair and large brown eyes that were nicely framed by his thick eyelashes. It was impossible not to feel instantly drawn to his charisma and charm because he was so vibrant when he talked fast, asking me all sorts of questions. Although I was new in this job, Soros made me feel like an expert when he asked about human eating habits, sleeping habits, and our criminal system. Those were things I knew about. The Tuncallons on the other hand had asked me questions that even Google hadn’t been able to help me answer.
“You’re very different from the two other aliens I’ve helped so far,” I said after he threw his first ten questions at me.
“In what way?”
“I honestly think I’ve heard more words coming out of your mouth in the twenty minutes since I picked you up, than I did in the two months the other two were on Earth.”
“Ahh, they were Tuncallons then.”
I gaped a little. “Yes, how did you know?”
Soros laughed and turned his body in the passenger seat to face me. “Because Tuncallons are notoriously shy and introverted. I think that’s why they developed a purple skin color. They needed to stand out or they would get completely overlooked among the rest of us Descendants of Doom.”
“Nooo…” I said in a tone that indicated that I knew he had to be messing with me.
Soros laughed and looked human when he threw his hands up. “Who knows?”
Focusing on the road ahead for a moment, I asked him, “Seriously though. Do you know why they have that color and why they’re so slender and little?”
“I just told you it’s to stand out.”
“No, what’s the real reason?”
Sitting back in the passenger seat, he explained, “We learned about it in speciology. The short version is that it has to do with the environment on their planet, Callax.”
Turning my head, I looked at him. “Have you been to their planet?”
“I have. Several times. It’s very quiet there but beautiful.”
“Funny how you put abutin that sentence. As if quiet is a bad thing and the beauty of the planet makes up for it.”
“I’m not saying that quiet places are bad. Personally, I just find it hard to stay silent for days at a time. On Callax you can easily feel like a loud and intrusive person, even when you’re doing your best not to be a nuisance. That’s why I’m so excited to visit Earth. I’m told that you humans are lovers of music and talk a lot. I’m particularly fascinated to learn if it’s true that you speak hundreds of different languages.”
“We don’t. Well, I mean there are hundreds of languages, but no one speaks all of them. We don’t have access to a mental language archive the way you do. The closest things are these small translation devices that people can buy now. I’m not sure how well they work though.”
“Fascinating. So, is it true that you humans lost the ability to connect telepathically? I’ve been trying to connect to you since we met and I’m getting nothing.”
