Page 25 of My Big Alien Bodyguard

“SHUT. THE FUCK. UP!” I explode with temper, hurling the whole box out of one of the open windows.

SMASH!

I realize far too late that the window wasn’t actually open. The television pierced the clear pane and is now descending toward the outdoor swimming pool in a cascade of razor sharp glass. Because of course there’s a swimming pool down there. From this height, it looks like a little blue postage stamp with tiny ants in it. But those aren’t ants. Those are…

“Oh no.”

I realize just that little bit too late that I have made a huge mistake. This behavior isn’t me. Well, it is me, but it’s a shitty version of me. A reckless, destructive, spoiled version of me. This is a version of me that hurts people, badly. What the hell is happening to me? Is this what fame does? I feel like some dark drug is coursing through my veins, making alterations to my behavior and my mind. I’m not even sure if I am truly myself anymore. I might actually be becoming the Lyric Walker they’re talking about in the media. The real me might be giving way to the fake me.

They say that fame changes people, but even though I knew they all said that, I never thought it would happen to me. I truly thought I was too old, too set in my ways, too sure of myself and self-aware to fall into the fame trap. But right now, looking at a shattered hotel window, and seeing the slightly brighter spot on the wall where the tv used to be, I don’t know myself at all.

I back away from the shattered pane, but there’s no backing away from what I’ve done. A small swarm of drones is descending on me, and without a window to stop them entering, they start to fly through the broken window and surround me, each of them performing a 360-degree pirouette, broadcasting every pixel of my humiliation to the universe. Their blades hum with a high-pitched whine, little black sky spiders turning me into more media. I feel so completely violated knowing that each of them is feeding images back to various media centers across the galaxy. They are seeing me without makeup, without hair, without any kind of filters at all. They sweep so close to me they nearly hit my face, and the sound of their whirring blades resonates through my skull. It is like being attacked by a swarm of especially invasive wasps. The consciousness of these creatures is designed with a point to penetrate my life.

I swat at them in the effort to escape them, but there is no escape. They’re all around me, surrounding me. I can’t turn to run, because they bump against me, threatening to scratch me with their sharp rotating blades. I’m trying as best I can to not give these cameras the kind of footage their operators are no doubt hoping for.

What I don’t realize until it is almost too late is that these flying cameras are herding me toward the same hole in the window I made with the television. They’re not just trying to film me. They’re now trying to kill me, or at least it seems that way as several of them bump into me from behind.

“ZAYNE!” There is more than a little fear in my shriek.

ZWOMP!

A sudden wave of crackling pressure is felt through the room, a blast that’s not physical, but electrical. The drones drop out of flight immediately, their wings stilling and forcing them to fall to the ground.

“I can’t leave you alone for two minutes, can I.”

When I turn around, Zayne is there. The tip of his tail is whipping back and forth in agitation, his arms are folded over his chest, and his eyes are narrowed at me. He has a small EMP in one hand, and an expression of exasperation written all over his handsome alien features.

I go from terror to guilt in an instant as relief floods me, followed by the realization I have yet again fucked up.

“I’d like to say it’s not what it looks like, but it’s basically exactly what it looks like.”

“Come here,” he crooks his big alien finger at me. “We need to change your room, and possibly flee the planet. I’m still getting information in from the local security. If you’ve killed someone with the missile you just hurled out of the window, you could be facing charges.”

“Oh, I really hope I haven’t killed anyone,” I say, the expression seeming weak and pathetic compared to the intensity of the emotion. “I have a really bad feeling that a lot of people are getting hurt in the name of my fame.”

“Yes,” he agrees. “More than usual.”

“Anchor Jessie Stone said my tour has a bodycount.”

“Because people keep dying,” he says bluntly. “Some of it was planned by Simon, some of it has happened through your recklessness. Others were just unlucky. Statistically, everything has a bodycount, but she’s right, your tour is overly represented in mortality rates.”

As he speaks, he ushers me out of the suite and into a much smaller, much less well-appointed room, one with no windows and very solid walls. It feels like a cell. I wonder if that is what I have in my future. I feel as though I must be in the sort of trouble that gets people put in places like these.

“Mind telling me why the television in your room just made a quick exit through the window?”

“Mind telling me why a small drone army just tried to kill me? Because it’s probably the same reason. I am being fucked with. The news is almost exclusively about me. There are wars going on, Zayne. Many, many intergalactic wars. But every time I tune into the news, I hear what an asshole I am.”

Zayne gives me a curious look, but before he can formulate any kind of an answer, I keep talking.

“I don’t want to be a starlet anymore,” I tell Zayne. “I want to run away.”

“You can’t run,” he says. “It’s too late. You could have done once at the beginning, but now your actions have become blended with Scowl’s.”

“Is that a weird way of saying I am as bad as him?”

“Nobody is as bad as him. But you have treated yourself recklessly, and you have not considered how many other people depend on you, not just for their livelihoods, but for their lives. You can’t throw appliances out windows. You can’t cause crowd chaos. You can’t break your contract without breaking mine in turn. You’re not stupid, but you keep making these decisions that can only lead us both to disaster. I cannot seem to get a grip on you. No matter what I do, fresh chaos emerges.”

He sounds frustrated with himself almost more than he is with me.

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