1 Rosalynn

One last shift drenched in the abyss of fumes from hell—that’s all I have to endure before I get a taste of delicious freedom that smells like one thing—just one—a real raw man—an alien man.

“Another free sample to add to the collection,” Aryssa mutters beside me as she collects the box from our to-do bin under the perfume shop’s counter. She’s almost a foot shorter than me with blue eyes to knock a snowman’s socks off and tight, amber curls that spill out of her ponytail like little squirrely firecrackers. She’s dressed in a knockoff designer skirt suit just like me, but hers hugs her curves.

Look like a rich girl but we won’t pay you nearly enough. I got that message from management really quickly five years prior when I left a cheap strip mall shoe store for the glitzy circular perfume atrium of the big uptown mall. Both were better than the breakfast shift at the chain fast food joint. None have made me much. But here, I’m not covered in grease or fighting mice in the stockroom.

After years of scraping to save what I could from my pathetic retail income, I’m down to an hour until I leave my last shift and take the shuttle to the lunar spaceport. No more will I have to pretend to be happy to customers when one of my cats has died, my older sister’s been a snot, or my ankles are swollen and sore from being in heels all damned day. At this point, it’s so trained into me to smile despite my misery that it’s second nature.

But inside I am broken by this life. I need a change. And a hot, possibly weird, very likely horny dude from another solar system sounds like a perfect escape.

The only genuine things in my current life are my sassy coworker, Aryssa, and the hunger of the stray cats I’ve befriended behind our complex. She’s promised to feed them when I’m gone.

Sometimes, though, I miss the humble shoe store. Those customers know what it’s like to use a laundromat with credit machines and live on toast, canned food, or cheap pasta—with sauce if we get overtime or holiday pay. Our boss at the mall, Brytanni, gives us just enough hours to pay our bills but not enough to qualify for healthcare.

Brytanni got promoted faster than anyone in the company. From behind a cardboard display cutout of a model holding one of the high end perfumes, I glare at her as she walks by.

“Fucking traitor,” Aryssa whispers. “Gucci, Prada, and I bet even nada look good on her with all that plastic surgery. You know whose dick she's sucking to get it now, don’t you?”

“Manny, the sporting goods department manager was the last I’d heard.”

She shakes her head and points up.

“Enzo, the floor manager?”

“Nope.” She points up, twice.

“No. The franchise owner?”

She nods. “Saw her in his hovering super car last night. You know, that wicked looking orange machine?”

I chuckle at her poor description of a beautiful thing. “You’re going to tell me you’ve never dreamt of a SuperLux 750 SS model with turbocharged thrusters?”

Her brows lift in surprise. Then she nods and pulls the sample display bottle out of the box without looking. “Of course, you know what it is. I keep forgetting you were studying fuels in college.”

“I studied everything,” I grumble. “And they made me pay for it. I preferred geology, minerals, natural resources, and how we take land and turn it into power for starstream engines.”

“Sure, whatever floats your boat.”

“Or powers a ship?”

She rolls her eyes. “Why do you want to be involved in such heavy stuff when Stellar Sisters reality TV is just as exciting without the expense of training or the risk of working out there?”

“You know why.”

She waggles her head and sighs. “We all want to contribute something, Rosalynn. Sometimes, it’s okay to not be the big hero but to be the little voice in the ear of others that helps them do more, be more, and change more in this world than any one of us ever could if we tried to do it all on our own.”

I know she’s right. But it’s not easy to think my life would be so anticlimactic. I want danger, thrills—a chance to live and see what’s beyond this planet. I want a better life than being abandoned by my father, forgotten by my mother, and ignored by my sister, and I’m willing to do a lot to get it. Just not Brytanni’s kind of way. Not really.

She does favors for material things. I want to change my life, be immersed in a different homeworld, explore the galaxies and build a new family, one I can love that will want me back.

Then again, I have nothing left to lose, so I’m all in for whatever it takes. But I also have basically nothing left. I sold my things to pay for the medical exam I needed before applying for the Alien Bride Race to ensure I was capable of healthy reproduction.

I passed, barely.

They told me to eat more.

No fucking shit, lady. It’s called being low income, but not poor enough for food credits. The government doesn’t see those in what I call The Fray .

We have to take care of each other. So we team up where we can. At least, I’m always trying to find someone to work with who has my back like I have theirs.

Aryssa motions the mister to me. “Do you want to do the honors, one more time?”

I grimace, remembering my first test. It surges to the front of my mind every time we get new fragrances. “Do I have to?”

“It’s your turn.” She picks up the laminated card with our required knowledge of the products including: the ridiculous description of the scent, the name, the slogan that goes with it and, more importantly, related scents.

We have to smell it for ourselves so we can see how it compares and contrasts to the others we know. That way, if a customer asks for a scent that we no longer carry or are sold out of, we can push the new product. And since scent is deeply tied to memory, we must smell it to unlock descriptions. Unfortunately, we learn a lot about each other this way.

“Get the trash can ready,” I say.

She chuckles and kicks the round bin out from under the counter so that it rolls on its bottom rim and stops in front of me.

“Seriously, you should have played soccer.”

She grimaces. “I get bored when you’re not here. Sometimes, I just want to kick stuff I’m that fucking frustrated.”

Been there. Won’t miss that.

I sniff the ream of paper we keep on hand to clear our nasal passages and then spritz the air. I learned the hard way as a young sales clerk not to stick my nose right into the air and inhale. It’s not a great impression to throw up your first day on a job. Sandalwood Seduction is my worst enemy.

It took years to become accustomed to it on a daily basis. Whatever the company used for their musk ended up making it smell like dog breath, farts, and cat pee with a dash of Gasoline. While I can handle those things separately, the combination—I’m pretty sure—is deadly.

“Promise to teach the new kid the waft technique?” I ask.

Aryssa agrees. “The next victim of the dungeon starts tomorrow.”

We share a snicker, knowing tomorrow will be like a terrible prank on whoever takes over. But I have a surprise for Aryssa, one that might change her plans for the week.

I learned a trick in chemistry class before I was forced to quit due to growing tuition costs that has helped me keep my job.

I wave my hand through the cloud of mist, guiding it toward my nose. I take in the scent cautiously and am pleasantly relieved. It has sugary notes, a hint of spices—specifically nutmeg—and an undertone of musk and old barrel. “Okay, I’m going to call this the diabetic drunk who’s just had fruitcake because there’s an after tone of fruit like diabetics get on their breath if they drink.”

“Your mother coming to mind?”

“Maybe. It causes ketosis. I’m familiar with that scent for sure.”

“Ketosis? You’re such a nerd.” Aryssa snorts a laugh that catches the attention of a few passing customers. She teases me for my interest in science of any kind and for the mounds of books I checked out of the library in college. I don’t mind. At least I still have my knowledge even if I don’t have a degree to prove it.

I miss college, even the ridiculous unrelated classes to my major like basic health. I just wish I didn’t have to wait to learn the things I do. I always feel like I’m just a little too far behind the others, behind where I need to be.

There are people I could’ve helped, like my neighbor who died of a heart attack. I got AED and CPR trained after that. But now I devour everything. I don’t want to be stuck in a situation where I am unable to help.

Customers glance over the booth but none stop. Most of them have wearable tech from visor communicators to temperature regulation clothes that light up at the seams. On other days, when someone does enter the cloud of frothy air drowning in the ether of chemicals most normal people can’t pronounce, they often buy a few perfumes. But tonight is slow.

“Can you guess the name?” She scans the packaging.

“Something like Sweet Holiday Bourbon and described as browned sugar and fresh nutmeg with a dash of sensual mahogany and notes of rich, bronzed bourbon,” I say theatrically reaching for the stars.

“Damn close.” Aryssa chucks the empty box over her head. It lands perfectly in a different trash can. “Guess we don’t need that. It’s actually Sugared Whiskey and Spice. Now, for the designer collection.”

“Oh god, please no!” Designer level scents are always potent and can linger for days. I’m already going to have a hard enough time scrubbing free the crap already permeated into my skin. And I want to find a mate that likes the way I smell. “I just went, so it’s your turn!”

Aryssa hands me the box without looking at the labels and holds up the glass bottle. It’s shaped like a faceted teardrop but labeled in gold and has a black ombré fade from the mister to the transparent bottom. It is a stunning bottle for a perfume, which makes me wonder what it’s trying to compensate for.

I look at the name: Rising Celestial. “That’s a nasal grenade and you know it.”

She draws in a deep breath as if preparing herself for a race, and then eyes the deep pearlescent maroon liquid inside. “Might rather eat one of my brother’s home grown ghost peppers than sniff this.”

“Want to take a bet on the perfume family?” I ask.

“You have the box. That’s unfair.”

“Didn’t look yet.”

“Ten bucks it’s a chypre.” She says.

“Ten, it’s a dry woods and oriental blend.”

She is careful as she spritzes the air, and then waves the cloud toward her while I step back. My nose still smells like holiday cake but the whiskey scent is turning more and more into stank mystery socks, forgotten in the laundromat for several weeks.

“Ah, whooo.” She fans her face and sticks out her tongue as she walks away. “You were right. And I can taste that one.”

When the third in command at our end of the mall descends the stairs and walks out onto the floor, toward us, I stifle my laughter, snatch up Aryssa’s water bottle, and follow her around the central perfume tower to hand it to her.

Edral, the one who manages several of the departments in our wing of the mall, comes straight for us.

Aryssa gets the hint and wipes her eyes then takes a drink of water.

When Edral is twenty paces from the booth, I can read his expression. He looks mad as hell. Then his face screws up and his pace slows. He rubs his forehead as he approaches the counter.

“What can I do for you, sir?” I ask, folding my hands together and painting a smile on my face despite the fact I’ve just walked through the cloud she made with Rising Celestial. The burn tugs at my eyes and makes my throat scratchy, but I don’t dare blink. Edral has been known to stop payment of checks to employees who are quitting if he thinks they weren’t justified employees. Meaning, if you “check out early” you get paid like it. And us small potatoes employees don’t have the means to take him to court over a couple weeks' of pay.

I won’t even be here.

“I was going to ask if you two had taken anything out of the supply rooms. On second thought, I realize I’d know if it was one of you because of this—aura.”

“What’s missing?” I ask while Aryssa wipes her eyes.

“Pricing equipment, card readers, and other digital stuff.”

“Lots of things are being stolen for special metals,” Aryssa offers. “If they have palladium, that’s a target. Had my catalytic converter stolen out of my car last month. It’s why I didn’t meet emissions and am now walking home.

“Anyway, I’ve heard from the Emissions Inspector that it’s becoming common. That stuff’s rarer than platinum. Pala—”

She looks at me.

“Palladium,” I offer.

“That. I know it’s in some jewelry, too. Might check that department for any missing items or talk to Loss Prevention.”

“Thank you, Aryssa. I will remember you said that.” Edral walks toward the jewelry counter in another intersection.

Aryssa wrinkles her nose behind his back, looking ready to make a face or flip him off, but calmly tucks the new scent behind the counter.

I cautiously wave the fading mist cloud away from me and feel my lungs heat with the urge to cough. It might be my last day, but Aryssa still has to work here. So when Edral is gone, I choke out my cough.

“Powerful. We should turn that into a weapon,” I wheeze.

I grab the ream of paper and take a long deep breath. Hot printer paper is best. But paper is less common in our digital era. We only have it for backup copies of records when the credit readers tank. Sometimes, old fashioned ways are best—or at least more reliable.

Aryssa laughs, then turns to greet a customer. I leave her to it and notice something flying toward me from the junior men’s section. Behind us is a tower of glass vials of perfumes, some in boxes. It is thousands of credits in product.

Uncoordinated mall employees are not permitted in the ring-shaped glass perfume display.

Instinct makes me reach for the object. I catch the Frisbee and sigh with relief.

“Still got the moves I like.” Lorado shimmies by in his suit from working the men’s section, a tape measure looped over his neck. “You wanna party later? One last dance before you let an alien in your pants?”

“Nope. The only thing I ever gained from hanging out with you was to never date a co-worker again.”

He rolls his shoulders in sync with his backward moon walking steps as he leaves the atrium. “Aw. Well I had fun with you.”

“You used me, Lorado. So fuck off. And don’t you dare harass Aryssa or the new girl. I will find out. And I will make you hate that you were ever born.”

“Ooh,” he sings out, pretending he’s scared.

Ugh. Whatever.

Leaving the booth, I walk the Frisbee back to the small games section, so I can lecture whoever has the balls to play this close to the fragile stink bomb in the middle of the mall.

In a ripple of air that passed in front of me, I catch an oddly smoky scent with acrid undertones and a hint of burnt plastic.

Crap, I’m smelling burnt toast! It’s either a migraine or a perfume dizzy spell. But as soon as the world starts to warp, it solidifies again.

I blink and look around me. Down an aisle between racks of clothes, I see something shimmer as it falls to the floor.

I can’t explain the stroke of fear that curls through me with icy fingers. The events aren’t quite computing in my head, but if I were to guess, I’d say someone is in the store in a ghostcloak. Maybe it’s a petty thief. But my thoughts are slung to the last Alien Bride Race and the woman who was abducted from it by someone in that very tech.

I grab my radio and call Loss Prevention. “Hey, you might want to scan department twenty-one. I’m seeing jewelry on the floor.”

“Hold your position please.”

“Yes, sir.” But I don’t want to stay out here in the open. I’m an easy target in the walkway. My heart pounds as I think back to the starjacker of the last episode. We never got an explanation.

I hope they haven’t come for me.