Ryan grimaced back. "Hey Steve. I needed to tell you something." He entered the office which was very pastel colored. Green walls, yellow tile floor, and light brown desk. It made him think of a school office.
"Sure! I always got time for my fellow human companion!" Steve smiled warmly at him.
Ryan's jaw twitched. Steve loved that Ryan had a human name just like him. He always made jokes about how they were human spies that were bent on taking over Zenon. Ryan hated being reminded about the origin of his name and being compared to a human but he went along with it for Steve's sake. "Shoky wanted to get away for a bit and take a trip to Mars…"
Steve eyes widened. "Oh wow."
"Yea so," Ryan shuffled. "I need to take a few months off starting next week."
It was Steve's turn to grimace now. "Geez, Mars. The trip alone would take about 8 months to and from, wouldn't it?"
"Yea…"
Steve shrugged. "Well, it gives us a chance to try out the new robot pilots we got."
"I figured. Just wanted to give you a heads up," Ryan answered.
Steve started to smile once more. "Well, I appreciate it." He leaned back in his squishy, rolly chair and chuckled to himself. "Man, it's a good thing the Government passed that Irreplaceable Law so robots could only fill in for employees when requested by employees, or else we'd all be out of jobs."
Ryan shared the chuckle. "Good thing we have robots so we can take time off whenever we want, for however long we want."
"Well, not for however long," Steve sat back up. "5 years and your job card becomes invalid."
"Yea but who's taking that long of a time off work? I'd die of boredom," said Ryan.
"Yea, still way better vacation time than any human has."
"Everything we have is better than the humans."
"Righty-o, chap!" Steve winked. The two then began to laugh heartily at the ceiling.
"Oh, I shall miss you, Ryan," Steve said, wiping away a tear.
"Yea… I'll take pictures, alright?"
"I look forward to them. You have fun with Shoky. Are you going on public transport or flying yourself?" Steve asked.
"Flying myself," replied Ryan.
"Ah, you should brush up on your interplanetary travel, then," Steve shook a finger at him.
Ryan's ears pricked. "I mean, I should be fine, right? It's all the same buttons."
"Sure but breaking the atmospheric barrier requires some skill. Wouldn't want you crashing into one of our satellites and exploding, right?" Steve's eyes gleamed though Ryan could tell he was being serious and he wasn't wrong either. The gravity of the planet meant having to go immense speeds and there were enough satellites in the atmosphere, it took some quick reflexes to get past them safely. "I'd set you up with some flights but a week isn't long enough for even a one way planetary flight." Steve snapped his fingers. "That's it! I forgot we had moons. I can set you up on a flight to Titan…" he looked at his computer screen, "tomorrow. Switch with Ngato. It'll take a week but you should be back just in time for your trip."
Ryan froze. He knew leaving for a moon trip would mean leaving Shoky alone with Nalie for a whole week. On the other hand, he really should brush up on his interplanetary pilotry. As a rule, all pilots, no matter what kind, needed to know how to travel to other planets and be familiar with space shuttle controls and maneuverability. In case humans knocked out all their robots and were about to completely nuke Zenon, the Zenon Government mandated that all zenonites with an interest in flying know how to pilot a spacecraft and make them fly one at least once a year. Ryan was mainly an aircraft pilot who hadn't flown spacecraft in nearly 28 months. But since all rentals' autopilots are made to stay clear of Earth- even with GPS knocked out- Ryan would have to pilot the craft manually. It'd be good to practice in an official setting that had a co-pilot on hand should it get "fuzzy". But leaving Shoky unsupervised with a live human?! He's not even sure he'd trust her with a dead human. No, he may have been rusty with his spacecraft know-how but it'd all come back to him, he was sure. Even though it's always good to do a dress rehearsal before the big show, Ryan couldn't risk-
"Bing!" Steve's phone went off.
"Ah, Ngato's fine with switching flights with you," Steve said after reading his phone. "And I set up a quick refresher course in the meantime since you're not flying today anymore. Wouldn't want to look stupid in front of your girl."
"Uhm…"
But Steve stopped him. "No need to thank me. You earned it. Now get out of here. You got a flight simulation in 20 minutes."
* * *
"You're not coming back till when?" Shoky's voice cracked on his phone.
"0900," Ryan repeated.
Shoky sighed. "That's so late."
"I know. Flight simulators are notoriously thorough."
"Why didn't you tell him you didn't need to take all that refresher stuff?"
"I'm not good at telling people with authority things I would prefer to do once they told me to do something else," he reminded her. "Besides, I do kind of need it. I haven't flown a spacecraft in almost a year."
"Yea, I guess I don't want you crashing us as soon as we take off."
"Thanks for the bode of confidence," Ryan muttered. "How's Nalie doing? She do anything suspicious yet?"
"She's fine," replied Shoky. "She hasn't done anything. I've been explaining to her how job cards work, how we have robots that cover our shifts, how a year here is about 30 years on Earth and 1 year on Earth is a month on Zenon and our days are only 11 hours long…"
"Has she asked about any codes?"
"What codes?" Shoky asked, confused. "I don't even know any codes."
"Ok, fine, whatever, but has she asked anything suspicious at all? Having to do with where we are, how to get inside, all of our oil reserves or how we don't have an army?"
"We don't have an army?"
"How do you not know that?"
"Who are those guys in the uniforms, then?"
"The police, you mean?" Ryan rolled his eyes. "Those are different from the army. An army would protect a nation from foreign invaders like humans. The police just uphold the law and protect citizens and arrest people for, I dunno, harboring humans."
"Ok, I know that's not a law," Shoky said.
"Because we don't need one because why would anyone even want to do it?" Ryan shot back. "It's like making a law against murdering people."
"Humans have laws against murdering people."
"Which is why we don't talk to them. They're terrible people and just destroy everything they find." Ryan could feel his pulse quickening.
"Nalie isn't so bad," Shoky told him. "I mean, she's a little opinionated and curious but altogether pleasant. I'm teaching her to play Rore. She hasn't won yet but-"
"Sorry, Shoky, I gotta go," Ryan cut her off as he noticed the time. "My break's almost over. I gotta go. Don't do anything stupid while I'm gone, ok?"
"You don't do anything stupid," Shoky grumbled.
Ryan could tell she was upset with him but didn't have the time or energy to soften his approach. He'll deal with it when he got home. "Ok, Love you, bye."
"Hm," was her glum reply. When he got home, he reminded himself as he hung up his phone. He was just outside the simulation pod and thusly ran inside. Even if it was fake, he was greatly looking forward to his flight right now. Ryan loved flying. It always relaxed him. It was like a psychological escape from all his life problems, just flying away and staring at clouds and all the little people for a couple hours. It was like an out of body experience except instead, out of the general location of his issues. Everything was far away and didn't scream at him to be dealt with. Especially something as big as Nalie being here. He put his headset on and got himself cozy in the pit. His simulation copilot greeted his simulation passengers. Just a little something to get the pilots in the headspace.
"Good day, nons and gunons," she greeted the passengers. "We hope you enjoy your flight with us today. We're going to be flying to Teneiwenua, about 2 months from here. If this is not where you were planning on going, please speak up now or forever accept your fate."
* * *
Despite being able to fly, Ryan's brain still hurt. Simulations were meant to refresh pilots of Every Single Possible Emergency situation: Asteroids, oncoming traffic, exploding stars, having to choose between your best friend and your girlfriend if one of the escape pods breaks and you only have room for one more, space ninjas. Ryan felt prepared for any inevitability but at the cost of his nervous system being in so many emergency situations. But lucky him, Zenon also thought it important for its pilots to know the emergency manual override and the general biology of a spaceship for possible needed repairs in the event of a human invasion. This ironically helped Ryan prepare to smuggle a human off of the planet. He tried to make a special note of everything the simulation reminded him of even though he had access to all this information on the planet's interweb database, ZeZu. Good to get a refresher of it beforehand.
After the exhausting mental exertion, Ryan stumbled outside where his cab was waiting for him. "Please let Shoky be alive and my house in one piece when I get home," he prayed to Lux. "Please." To his pleasure, his house still stood where he left it that morning. He took a deep breath before entering.
"Hey Ryan," Shoky muttered, not looking at him as he entered the house.
"Hey," he replied, looking around cautiously. Nalie and Shoky were at the kitchen table, playing a game of cards. It looked like everything was in its proper place, nothing knocked over or broken.
"Rore," stated Shoky, laying her cards on the table.
Nalie growled, throwing her cards on the table. "I don't want to play this game anymore."
"Never play a card game with Shoky," Ryan told her once he was sure everything was physically ok. "She always wins."
Nalie and Shoky ignored him. Ryan shifted uncomfortably in the silence. "How about I get dinner started?" he clapped his hands and started towards the stove.
"I already made something," Shoky mumbled. "Riwa paray."
Ryan's face fell as he looked at the pot on the stove. "No! I was saving that riwa for Kaee Day!"
Shoky rolled her head towards him. "Oh, I'm sorry. How stupid of me."
Ryan twisted his mouth. "Shoky…"
"What?" she snapped.
"Can we-"
"Talk? Sure." She got up and walked quickly passed him into his room.
Ryan sighed. He noticed Nalie still sitting at the table trying to hide her delight. "Shut up," he muttered. He turned his back to her, unable to notice Nalie sticking her tongue out at him.
"Shoky," he sighed as he entered his bedroom.
"Don't you Shoky me," Shoky, "You've been such a kaihee lately, treating me like some child that can't do anything right. I am capable of independent responsibility, y'know. I can do things by myself without everything exploding. And it'd be nice if you actually listened and trusted my input and capabilities." She crossed her arms and stared at him, waiting for a response. Ryan still didn't feel ready to deal with this. He just really needed her to stop being mad right now. Perhaps he'll just roll over and be done with it.
He walked towards her with sympathetic arms out. She flinched away from him. "I'm sorry," he said, still moving towards her, his fingertips reaching her elbows. "I shouldn't have cut you off and called you stupid. I shouldn't keep yelling at you. I should trust you more..." He tried to think of more things he should stop doing but couldn't so he ended it with another, "I'm sorry. I've just been a little stressed out lately, ok?"
He gently took her face into his hands, forcing her to face him. "I love you so much, Shoky. I'd be devastated if anything happened to you. I just want us to be safe." This part, at least, he meant.
Shoky's tight lips sank into a sad frown. "It's not just now, though," she told him, breaking from his arms. "You always freak out and talk down to me- or over me- whenever I do something." She walked to the other side of the room. "I never feel like your girlfriend; I always feel like this thing you have to constantly watch over and control and worry about…"
Ryan's head tilted apologetically. He opened his mouth to say something but was interrupted by the sound of his television turning on in the living room. His mouth clamped shut and he raced out to find Nalie with the remote in her hand, staring at the large screen.
He felt his face tighten as he snatched the remote out of her hand. He knelt down to her eye level. "Don't touch anything," he angrily reminded her. Nalie looked about ready to punch him but he straightened up just in time to turn the T.V. off.
"Wait," Shoky put her hand out to stop him. Ryan was about to ask her, "What?" when the audio from the T.V. registered in his ears. It was the Zenon National News or ZNN, for short. One of the reporters informed Ryan what Shoky was so interested in:
"-Yea, you heard right," the reporter trilled. "The Human Food Festival has begun. After a careful, secondary inspection by Zenon Central Science Center, our government has approved human food safe for Zenon consumption. There will be a week long, planet wide festival in every major town- a day for each island. Together, we shall try the infamous Earth food. Zenon Central scientists have already been able to clone the tasty morsels so we have no fear of running out-"
Ryan turned off the T.V. at this point. Shoky turned to him, "Ca-"
"No." he cut her off.
"Pleeeeeaaaasse," Shoky clasped her hands together and almost kneeled before him.
"No! Are you insane?" Ryan stood his ground. "I have a week long flight tomorrow and even if we could go, we sure as hell can't take her with us." Ryan pointed to Nalie who snapped her teeth at his finger without knowing the context of the point. It's just rude to point. Ryan pulled his finger back as they exchanged glares. "One of us would have to stay behind," he finished
"You can stay behind. You don't even care about human food," argued Shoky.
Ryan tried not to be hurt by the fact Shoky was so willing to run into a history-making festival of apparently delicious food without him, leaving him with a human she found and who she insisted on helping. He tried to. He composed himself. "You're forgetting about the week long flight I have tomorrow. Besides, didn't you hear the reporter? They cloned the food. They'll probably put it on the market once the festival is over and you can have as much as you want whenever."
"But this is an historical moment! I want to be a part of it!" Shoky pouted. She twirled slightly as she desperately tried to figure out how to get her way. "Nalie's trustworthy. I could leave her here an-"
"No!" Ryan roared. "I'm not going to let you leave a human in my house unattended. She's on the run from our government and is probably trying to destroy Zenon anyways."
Shoky's hand grasped her head, as if trying to prevent it from exploding. "Oh my God," her voice shook. "I can't believe you still think Nalie is out to destroy all of Zenon. She's only 12 years old. She would have been 8 when left Earth. You really think an 8 year old child is mentally mature enough to commit espionage against an entire planet?"
"Human child," Ryan spat. "God, this is why it's hard for me to ever take you seriously. You're willing to risk getting found harboring a human for food!"
"Excuse me for trying to live a little instead of being too terrified to do anything," Shoky practically screamed. "And maybe if you spent the time to get to know her instead of skirting around the room, accusing her of things with no basis, you'd see Nalie's innocence."
Ryan's face tightened. "You've known her for maybe 3 days and you already trust her more than you trust your own government. More than you trust me!"
"If you listened to her, you might understand why!" Shoky shouted at him. "This is a great opportunity to get over the stupid fear of humans and you're not even going to tryto listen."
"How can I trust a human over my own government?" Ryan demanded.
Shoky glared at him in a deadly fashion. "Her name is Nalie." Nalie glared at him too, thinking he had insulted her and he kind of did.
Ryan growled. His fingers shot into his hair, needing to grab something. "You think this is just some fun little adventure with a human where we all learn about friendship in the end but we could get in serious trouble. I could lose everything- my job, my house, my freedom- which probably doesn't mean much to a mahihop like you but I like having a job and stability. That human could be the end of our planet as we know it but you don't care because you're a naive jävla Child with no impulse control!"
If volcanic eruptions had a face, it would probably look like Shoky's face right now. She opened her mouth to spew forth the liquid fire and brimstone that trembled inside her, wishing to set everything ablaze. "Pehea maia koe, koutou upoko Pokohua?! At least I'm not some gullible, close minded hipy! You blindly trust everything exactly as the ignorant kawatanga says it is without ever looking into it yourself! You're the upokotamati, clinging to your mommy government and believing all the stories she tells you-"
"Stop it!"
Ryan and Shoky both turned, surprised by Nalie's outburst. "Jesus Christ," she gasped. "Stop fighting, please!" Ryan couldn't think of any words to say but he felt them boiling in his head. They cooled to a simmer, however, the longer he stared at Nalie. Her dark eyes threatened to leak, her whole body shook. She looked ready to crumble but at the last second, she tightened up and forcefully said, "I'm sick of it! If y'all don't quit fighting, I'll just leave and find my own damn way home!" Nalie didn't give them a chance to respond and instead fled to the guest room.
"Nalie!" Shoky called after her. Nalie responded by slamming the door behind her.
Ryan felt a bit silly then. Fighting in front of a human. All his talk about human violence and bickering only for him to continuously butt heads with his girlfriend in front of Nalie. He watched as Shoky looked incredibly torn as to what to do. He hesitated to reach out and simply hold her together. But an exasperated Shoky, oblivious to Ryan's flinching arms, turned and ran in the opposite direction towards the front door. Ryan stood alone in his living room. He eventually decided to exhale and walk towards his room. It didn't even register that he was now alone with the human. Everyone needed some time to calm down right now.