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Description
The parking lot belonging to A&T Corporation spread over almost five square miles, not counting the space reserved for clients and guests, which was conveniently placed right next to the main building’s entrance. A little bit farther, but still close enough to ensure comfortable access to the doors, were separate places reserved for those in high management and other privileged persons. Those who were not fortunate enough to find themselves in one of these groups had to park their cars in the remaining space, which meant that those who enjoyed a bit of extra sleep that morning or were caught in a traffic jam might be forced to take a two-mile walk after they had left their vehicles in a distant spot on the company’s lot. Due to this inconvenience, parking spots were one of the most frequent causes of arguments and scheming amongst the employees.

However, the owner of a particularly fancy silver Lexus did not need to be occupied with such trivial problems. The car gracefully passed by two Fords that that had apparently tried to pull in to the same parking spot, whose owners were now yelling and throwing sophisticated insults at each other. Then the Lexus took its comfortable place in the section reserved for management. After the engines silenced, the front door opened, revealing two feet in expensive, high-heeled shoes and pair of slim, but muscled, legs. The rest of the woman followed them shortly after. She was about 5’3” tall without her heels, but not tiny. Her body had obvious womanly curves and her shoulders were rather wide and firm, evidence that she worked out in a gym. She had dark brown, shoulder-length hair that contrasted with her rather fair complexion, but perfectly suited her brilliant green eyes. However, her most distinctive feature had to be her nose – too long for modern standards of the plastic surgery era, but straight. It was a good support for the square glasses that she wore, although her eyesight was not that bad, and simple corrective surgery could repair her sight right away. But these glasses added additional value to her sharp, severe look, and so she liked them too much to get rid of them.

The woman flicked the cigarette she had been smoking and threw it away before she entered the building. She allowed the security to check her ID and then continued straight to the elevator. It was crowded as always, but amongst all the people around her she knew one individual, who happened to be in her department, with whom she had not been on the best terms with, to say the least, ever since the last big funding battle.

“Good morning, Liberty,” he said with an ironic smile. Lib, as she preferred to be called, frowned at the sound of her full name; she hated it so much. When she was born, her parents had assumed she would be special, just as all loving parents tended to consider their children - especially the firstborn - and were convinced that a special child should not simply have an ordinary name like Kate or Margaret. No, the child’s name should be special as well, and in their opinion Liberty fulfilled this requirement. Their daughter could not argue with that, although she found it especially stupid, not noble and elegant as her parents thought. Thus she asked all her friends to use shorter forms of her name, and everyone was happy. Unfortunately, she did not really have friends anymore. It was not wise to befriend anyone at work, where colleagues would rather kill you than let you get promoted before they were. The old friends were either busy with a family life or had completely dedicating themselves to work. Libby could not blame them, for she had done exactly the same thing.

A&T was one of the leading companies producing and selling new technologies. Ever since she graduated from high school, Lib knew that she wanted to work as a manager there, and eventually her dream came true. She was not only talented and hardworking – for these were the qualities many workers possessed, yet only a few of them would ever receive an important position. More importantly, she was also cunning and manipulative, and so had climbed the career ladder, reaching her present impressive rank surprisingly quickly; before she had even turned 25. Now, at age 27, she was leading the new project regarding the development of highly sophisticated artificial limbs, which took up almost all her time, but she did not mind. It was her whole life, and it was going smoothly, until that faithful day one month ago.

That was when they hired the green person, Reim, to clean the department. Yes, he was green, not to mention short, and disfigured in many ways.  But that was not the problem, and not the reason Lib was suspicious of him.

First of all, he seemed way too smart for his job. She would often see him reading complicated schematics he found in the course of his cleaning, his body tense and his eyes shining with understanding. Once she even caught him copying one of them to another sheet of paper. When asked why he would need it, he looked away and told her that someone asked him to do it for them. It was such an obvious lie. Liberty would never have achieved so much if she could not tell when someone was lying, and Reim was not even good at doing so. Moreover, he listened intently to workers discussing new technologies when he thought no one was paying attention to him. And he was right; no one did pay him any mind. Except for Lib, because she knew. She just knew that he had to be a spy sent from a competing company to steal their ideas or gather intelligence that would bring A&T down if the information ever reached the public. Of course, without solid proof she could not share her suspicions with anyone. She might be accused of intolerance toward sick people with unnatural skin colors, and she knew that such an accusation could be potentially worse for her career than completely failing the project. But she was going to get this proof someday, and not just by sitting and waiting for a sudden strike of luck.

Right now she saw Reim washing the stairs. She put on her most friendly smile and approached him. “Hi, Reim,” she greeted him casually. “How are you today?”

“Hello, Miss Case.” He nodded slightly. “Everything’s fine. The work is great, people treat me well, and my payment is just swell! And how are you?”

He had given the standard formula he always used when talking to superiors. They always seemed to be pleased by it, and walked away from him satisfied with his answer. After all, they only bothered to notice him because modern management techniques required them to keep in touch with all the workers in order to keep spirits at the workplace high and thus improve everyone’s efficiency.

Lib, however, did not leave him alone. “Actually, I was just looking for you. Someone spilled something in my office, and I almost fell when I slipped on it. Could you come and take care of it when you’re done here?”

“Sure, I will, right away.” Reim tried to sound polite, but Lib saw anxiety in those big, round eyes of his. They made him appear much younger than he claimed to be, and so did his high-pitched voice. It always made her feel uneasy, but she managed to hide it. He needed to know who was in control, and that he could not get away with whatever he was up to as long as she was there, keeping an eye on him.

Lib had told Reim the truth when she said that her office required some cleaning. She had personally, absolutely intentionally, spilled a cup of coffee on the floor. It was a good coffee too, so it had better be worth having wasted it.

Reim rolled his green eyes, staring at his superior’s silhouette disappearing behind her office door. He noticed that she was observing him and talking to him more often than was required. In fact, it was almost stalking and there was nothing friendly about it, though she tried to make it look innocent. She must suspect something. Perhaps she was not convinced by his disguise and touching story of a long, severe illness. Honestly, it did not surprise him very much; he was aware that his cover was far from perfect. Never had he been so nervous as the day when he first wore it and went into the public.   Not even when a whole group of Irken soldiers marched into his room, accused him of collaboration with the enemy, restrained him, and took him to a cold, obscure cell.

He knew that he was innocent and the control brain would surely confirm it after connecting to his PAK, to the very center of his being, to check all his memories.  He lost his confidence when things didn’t go as he had planned and he was labeled as a defect, although he was too shocked to think clearly about his situation than. It all felt like some kind of sick prank played on him by someone with a cruel, twisted sense of humor. Unfortunately, it was not a joke. He would have been killed, and worse, all that he was would have been erased, as though he had never existed at all, if not for a sudden blackout that caused everything to shut down. That included the control brain, even though he was secured by twenty separate generators that were supposed to keep him operating in such a situation. Reim had no idea what could have caused such a disaster, but the important thing was that it gave him an opportunity to escape. He relied purely on his survival instinct. It felt as though his brain suffered a little blackout of its own, so he could not recall all the details of his escape. He had been chased, that was for sure; after an initial moment of uncontrollable chaos, commands were finally given and a bunch of soldiers were sent to capture the fugitive. It was not an easy task for them, since he had already managed to blend in with the crowd of Irkens who had come to witness the evaluation and, as they hoped, the execution.

Reim remembered breaking into one of the little cruisers belonging to someone from the crowd, but everything that happened after that was covered in a thick, black haze. The next thing he could recall was a flight through a wormhole that had unexpectedly formed right ahead of him, and apparently shut down before his pursuers could reach it.

And then there he was, orbiting near a blue, alien planet with his primary engines severely damaged, and no way to return home. Not that he would be welcomed there, but how could he prove his innocence while hiding on this pitiful little planet, where he could not even request any kind of help. It appeared that the planet’s inhabitants had never seen an alien before. The only thing he had got from them was screaming in fear. He had to create a disguise to be able to move openly amongst them. Irkens had developed technology specifically for this kind of situation, which could be found in the standard equipment of every invader. However, Reim’s ship - stolen ship, to be precise, but the moral aspects of his actions did not really bother him at the moment - was a simple civilian vehicle and now, when it could not even travel at the speed of light, it was practically useless.

Thus, Reim had to use more traditional measures. He was a very good technician, and knew everything about the most complicated security systems, so disabling the primitive ones he found on Earth was a piece of cake. During the night he visited several shops and grabbed new clothes, fake imitations of human hair, and a pair of lenses to cover his pupil-less, dark green eyes. Of course, this solution still left lots of things unsolved. He was still green, lacked a nose and ears, and had only three fingers. Why humans needed five was beyond his comprehension. Nonetheless, they had two additional fingers, and he did not. Therefore Reim spent a whole night preparing an escape route and was ready to use it at any moment after he first showed himself in public. To his surprise, nothing happened. People just passed by him, ignoring him completely. Heck, a normal human girl with a very short skirt got more attention than he did. Only once he caught a little child’s eye and heard his conversation with an adult who seemed to be his parental unit:

“Mooooom, why is that guy green and so weird looking?”

“Shh! Don’t say such things! That poor man must be sick and handicapped, stop staring at him! And what have I told you about pointing your finger at people?”

Sick. They thought he was a perfectly normal human being, only sick. So that was what he said in his new workplace, where everybody bought it without hesitation, and even felt sympathy for him. Everyone except that damn Liberty Case. He had no idea what made her different, but she just would not leave him alone, constantly looking for proof. Proof that he was not what he claimed to be, that he was in fact a monster from outer space, an unearthly creature. An alien.

He could not let her have that proof before he finished his job here. Which hopefully would be soon.  Reluctantly, he grabbed his broom and bucket, and dragged them to the manager’s office.

Description
The parking lot belonging to A&T Corporation spread over almost five square miles, not counting the space reserved for clients and guests, which was conveniently placed right next to the main building’s entrance. A little bit farther, but still close enough to ensure comfortable access to the doors, were separate places reserved for those in high management and other privileged persons. Those who were not fortunate enough to find themselves in one of these groups had to park their cars in the remaining space, which meant that those who enjoyed a bit of extra sleep that morning or were caught in a traffic jam might be forced to take a two-mile walk after they had left their vehicles in a distant spot on the company’s lot. Due to this inconvenience, parking spots were one of the most frequent causes of arguments and scheming amongst the employees.

However, the owner of a particularly fancy silver Lexus did not need to be occupied with such trivial problems. The car gracefully passed by two Fords that that had apparently tried to pull in to the same parking spot, whose owners were now yelling and throwing sophisticated insults at each other. Then the Lexus took its comfortable place in the section reserved for management. After the engines silenced, the front door opened, revealing two feet in expensive, high-heeled shoes and pair of slim, but muscled, legs. The rest of the woman followed them shortly after. She was about 5’3” tall without her heels, but not tiny. Her body had obvious womanly curves and her shoulders were rather wide and firm, evidence that she worked out in a gym. She had dark brown, shoulder-length hair that contrasted with her rather fair complexion, but perfectly suited her brilliant green eyes. However, her most distinctive feature had to be her nose – too long for modern standards of the plastic surgery era, but straight. It was a good support for the square glasses that she wore, although her eyesight was not that bad, and simple corrective surgery could repair her sight right away. But these glasses added additional value to her sharp, severe look, and so she liked them too much to get rid of them.

The woman flicked the cigarette she had been smoking and threw it away before she entered the building. She allowed the security to check her ID and then continued straight to the elevator. It was crowded as always, but amongst all the people around her she knew one individual, who happened to be in her department, with whom she had not been on the best terms with, to say the least, ever since the last big funding battle.

“Good morning, Liberty,” he said with an ironic smile. Lib, as she preferred to be called, frowned at the sound of her full name; she hated it so much. When she was born, her parents had assumed she would be special, just as all loving parents tended to consider their children - especially the firstborn - and were convinced that a special child should not simply have an ordinary name like Kate or Margaret. No, the child’s name should be special as well, and in their opinion Liberty fulfilled this requirement. Their daughter could not argue with that, although she found it especially stupid, not noble and elegant as her parents thought. Thus she asked all her friends to use shorter forms of her name, and everyone was happy. Unfortunately, she did not really have friends anymore. It was not wise to befriend anyone at work, where colleagues would rather kill you than let you get promoted before they were. The old friends were either busy with a family life or had completely dedicating themselves to work. Libby could not blame them, for she had done exactly the same thing.

A&T was one of the leading companies producing and selling new technologies. Ever since she graduated from high school, Lib knew that she wanted to work as a manager there, and eventually her dream came true. She was not only talented and hardworking – for these were the qualities many workers possessed, yet only a few of them would ever receive an important position. More importantly, she was also cunning and manipulative, and so had climbed the career ladder, reaching her present impressive rank surprisingly quickly; before she had even turned 25. Now, at age 27, she was leading the new project regarding the development of highly sophisticated artificial limbs, which took up almost all her time, but she did not mind. It was her whole life, and it was going smoothly, until that faithful day one month ago.

That was when they hired the green person, Reim, to clean the department. Yes, he was green, not to mention short, and disfigured in many ways.  But that was not the problem, and not the reason Lib was suspicious of him.

First of all, he seemed way too smart for his job. She would often see him reading complicated schematics he found in the course of his cleaning, his body tense and his eyes shining with understanding. Once she even caught him copying one of them to another sheet of paper. When asked why he would need it, he looked away and told her that someone asked him to do it for them. It was such an obvious lie. Liberty would never have achieved so much if she could not tell when someone was lying, and Reim was not even good at doing so. Moreover, he listened intently to workers discussing new technologies when he thought no one was paying attention to him. And he was right; no one did pay him any mind. Except for Lib, because she knew. She just knew that he had to be a spy sent from a competing company to steal their ideas or gather intelligence that would bring A&T down if the information ever reached the public. Of course, without solid proof she could not share her suspicions with anyone. She might be accused of intolerance toward sick people with unnatural skin colors, and she knew that such an accusation could be potentially worse for her career than completely failing the project. But she was going to get this proof someday, and not just by sitting and waiting for a sudden strike of luck.

Right now she saw Reim washing the stairs. She put on her most friendly smile and approached him. “Hi, Reim,” she greeted him casually. “How are you today?”

“Hello, Miss Case.” He nodded slightly. “Everything’s fine. The work is great, people treat me well, and my payment is just swell! And how are you?”

He had given the standard formula he always used when talking to superiors. They always seemed to be pleased by it, and walked away from him satisfied with his answer. After all, they only bothered to notice him because modern management techniques required them to keep in touch with all the workers in order to keep spirits at the workplace high and thus improve everyone’s efficiency.

Lib, however, did not leave him alone. “Actually, I was just looking for you. Someone spilled something in my office, and I almost fell when I slipped on it. Could you come and take care of it when you’re done here?”

“Sure, I will, right away.” Reim tried to sound polite, but Lib saw anxiety in those big, round eyes of his. They made him appear much younger than he claimed to be, and so did his high-pitched voice. It always made her feel uneasy, but she managed to hide it. He needed to know who was in control, and that he could not get away with whatever he was up to as long as she was there, keeping an eye on him.

Lib had told Reim the truth when she said that her office required some cleaning. She had personally, absolutely intentionally, spilled a cup of coffee on the floor. It was a good coffee too, so it had better be worth having wasted it.

Reim rolled his green eyes, staring at his superior’s silhouette disappearing behind her office door. He noticed that she was observing him and talking to him more often than was required. In fact, it was almost stalking and there was nothing friendly about it, though she tried to make it look innocent. She must suspect something. Perhaps she was not convinced by his disguise and touching story of a long, severe illness. Honestly, it did not surprise him very much; he was aware that his cover was far from perfect. Never had he been so nervous as the day when he first wore it and went into the public.   Not even when a whole group of Irken soldiers marched into his room, accused him of collaboration with the enemy, restrained him, and took him to a cold, obscure cell.

He knew that he was innocent and the control brain would surely confirm it after connecting to his PAK, to the very center of his being, to check all his memories.  He lost his confidence when things didn’t go as he had planned and he was labeled as a defect, although he was too shocked to think clearly about his situation than. It all felt like some kind of sick prank played on him by someone with a cruel, twisted sense of humor. Unfortunately, it was not a joke. He would have been killed, and worse, all that he was would have been erased, as though he had never existed at all, if not for a sudden blackout that caused everything to shut down. That included the control brain, even though he was secured by twenty separate generators that were supposed to keep him operating in such a situation. Reim had no idea what could have caused such a disaster, but the important thing was that it gave him an opportunity to escape. He relied purely on his survival instinct. It felt as though his brain suffered a little blackout of its own, so he could not recall all the details of his escape. He had been chased, that was for sure; after an initial moment of uncontrollable chaos, commands were finally given and a bunch of soldiers were sent to capture the fugitive. It was not an easy task for them, since he had already managed to blend in with the crowd of Irkens who had come to witness the evaluation and, as they hoped, the execution.

Reim remembered breaking into one of the little cruisers belonging to someone from the crowd, but everything that happened after that was covered in a thick, black haze. The next thing he could recall was a flight through a wormhole that had unexpectedly formed right ahead of him, and apparently shut down before his pursuers could reach it.

And then there he was, orbiting near a blue, alien planet with his primary engines severely damaged, and no way to return home. Not that he would be welcomed there, but how could he prove his innocence while hiding on this pitiful little planet, where he could not even request any kind of help. It appeared that the planet’s inhabitants had never seen an alien before. The only thing he had got from them was screaming in fear. He had to create a disguise to be able to move openly amongst them. Irkens had developed technology specifically for this kind of situation, which could be found in the standard equipment of every invader. However, Reim’s ship - stolen ship, to be precise, but the moral aspects of his actions did not really bother him at the moment - was a simple civilian vehicle and now, when it could not even travel at the speed of light, it was practically useless.

Thus, Reim had to use more traditional measures. He was a very good technician, and knew everything about the most complicated security systems, so disabling the primitive ones he found on Earth was a piece of cake. During the night he visited several shops and grabbed new clothes, fake imitations of human hair, and a pair of lenses to cover his pupil-less, dark green eyes. Of course, this solution still left lots of things unsolved. He was still green, lacked a nose and ears, and had only three fingers. Why humans needed five was beyond his comprehension. Nonetheless, they had two additional fingers, and he did not. Therefore Reim spent a whole night preparing an escape route and was ready to use it at any moment after he first showed himself in public. To his surprise, nothing happened. People just passed by him, ignoring him completely. Heck, a normal human girl with a very short skirt got more attention than he did. Only once he caught a little child’s eye and heard his conversation with an adult who seemed to be his parental unit:

“Mooooom, why is that guy green and so weird looking?”

“Shh! Don’t say such things! That poor man must be sick and handicapped, stop staring at him! And what have I told you about pointing your finger at people?”

Sick. They thought he was a perfectly normal human being, only sick. So that was what he said in his new workplace, where everybody bought it without hesitation, and even felt sympathy for him. Everyone except that damn Liberty Case. He had no idea what made her different, but she just would not leave him alone, constantly looking for proof. Proof that he was not what he claimed to be, that he was in fact a monster from outer space, an unearthly creature. An alien.

He could not let her have that proof before he finished his job here. Which hopefully would be soon.  Reluctantly, he grabbed his broom and bucket, and dragged them to the manager’s office.