Page 9 of The Stolen Tribute
FOUR
KYLIE
The next month went by in a whirlwind.
The one and only thing keeping me sane was that Sue was also chosen as Tribute. It was like fate. If I didn’t have her to support me, I didn’t know what I would do. I wasn’t the sort of person who believed in destiny, but her being with me was nothing short of a miracle.
What was more surprising was that my tiny gaming sponsors didn’t drop me. In fact, they got so much extra publicity that they were planning on keeping me on as an honorary member. Maybe, once things got settled again, I’d be able to go back to gaming, too.
Tributes from other countries started to fly in the week before the ceremony. Sue and I got my sponsors to cover a private hotel room for us to hang out in for the entire week.
“So, tonight is our last night on Earth,” Sue said wistfully.
“Yeah,” I said.
“What do you want to do with it?” She asked.
“Do you really need to know the answer to that question?” I asked, holding up my controller. “I say we get a few more rounds of Star Shield 3 before getting married to real aliens.”
“Thank goodness Zexians are humanoid and not like those ugly blobs,” Sue giggled.
I blushed, remembering yesterday’s meeting.
All of the Tributes were subjected to weeks of etiquette training and Zexian history. Yesterday was more about anatomy and breeding.
Zexian males carried all of the genetic material needed to produce offspring. It was the female's duty, in this case, the human, to carry the offspring to term. The human uterus was strikingly similar to the Zexian female one, which was why our agreement worked out so well. Zexian females were few and far between and often held high status in political jobs. Having children was beneath them.
“Some big Zexian dick will be much better than any video game,” Sue said.
I could tell that she didn’t care about the birth-giving part; she was much more into the fun that came first. Me, on the other hand, I wasn’t so sure.
I shuddered. Were the dicks really not too big? I’d seen the scale model. It looked more like my forearm. “Might need to work up to that,” I admitted.
We played a few rounds of Star Sheild 3.
I won all of them. Nothing counted for my online ranking anymore, which pissed me off. But, I held onto the hope that once this ceremony was done, I’d be allowed to go back to gaming. After all, what was I going to do once all the Zexian fucking was done? If I survived it, that was.
***
The ceremony was fancier than anything I could have ever imagined. Some of the girls on either side of me had been prepping their entire lives for this moment. Professional pageant girls. I was just a fish out of water.
I wished desperately that Sue was closer to me in the lineup, but we went by alphabetical order for almost everything. With her from Australia and me from the United States, we were literally on opposite ends.
Miss United Kingdom and Miss Uruguay were on either side of me, both of them looking incredibly focused on the goal.
I didn’t know why. I mean, hell, we already made it. What was the point now? One of them would pick us, and that was that. I didn’t really care too much about who picked me, now that I thought about it.
I just wanted to be reunited with my games, which were packed away to be shuttled up to the mothership. And Sue. I glanced along the line, but she was too far ahead of me to be seen through the crowds.
Cameras flashed, zooming around us on drones.
The shimmering space shuttle towered above us, with a circular golden staircase leading up to the airlock entrance. I’d never seen anything so beautiful and yet so superfluous. Good thing they could reuse the rocket. It looked more like a giant gold vibrator to me than something worthy of space travel. Not that it was going into space. It would only take us to the ceremonial platform, a hovering half-way point between Earth and open space, another symbolic waste of money. There, we’d meet our future Zexian mates.
The line kept moving. I tried my best to smile and wave, but the flashing lights were too much for me to handle. I had to do my best for my sponsors. It was just like in the gaming world, except it was me being televised and not my screen.
I nearly tripped on the hem of my black dress.
Once I got to the stairs, I held the railing tightly and focused my attention on Miss United Kingdom’s ringlet curls. Her red hair bounced up and down as we ascended the stairs.
