The Alien Warrior King's Accountant - Loki Renard Page 0,35

home. This is my life.

There’s a tin of half-opened tuna on the counter, and that’s not helping the ambiance at all. I grab the trash can and throw it in, then start to throw out everything else, piece by piece until most of my apartment is in the trash and there’s a line of garbage bags out in the hall waiting to go down to the dumpster in the morning.

I look around at the place I have all but emptied, left with only my stained couch and my ratty rug and I wonder how I ever lived like this. Outwardly I might have been able to maintain the appearance of a functioning adult, but I was never anything better than a cavewoman with cable internet.

Now that I’ve cleaned, all I’ve really achieved is making myself feel dirty. Sweat sticks to me, and some kind of Earthly grease seems to be emanating from my pores. I don’t remember that happening on Tyrant’s ship.

Time to get cleaned up. A shower is still nice, right? Surely, even a trip to space can’t ruin the simple pleasure of hot water running all over my body. My spirits rise, almost imperceptibly as I step into the only other room in my living quarters — my bathroom.

“Oh god.”

My shower is disgusting. On Tyrant’s ship, I would stand inside the concept or suggestion of cleanliness and find myself cleansed. Here, there are curling hairs sticking out of the shower trap. The fact that they’re mine doesn’t make them any less gross.

The pipes are corroding, and the shower curtain has these little black dots all over it like the universe took a gross toothbrush and flicked it all over. The base of the shower has taken on a weird yellowish orange hue, some kind of moldy scum. Is it sentient? Probably as sentient as I am compared to Tyrant.

I know I am being hard on myself, but my disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined. There’s a spider up in the corner of the shower. I leave her with total ownership of the wet cube and return to the other room.

I’m hungry.

But there’s nobody to pull food out of the ether for me. There’s nobody at all. There’s just the sound of next door’s television up way too loud and a dull thumping from the floor above which sounds like whoever lives there is practicing with a pogo stick.

That would have annoyed me once. It annoys me now, too.

The computer is the only part of the house that feels remotely safe to me. There's something not quite human about this technology. It has always had a transcendent feel — and now I know why. This is a stepped down, toddler version of the tech Tyrant and other aliens enjoy.

I find myself sitting in front of the computer, reading the news. It’s the same news as was circulating weeks ago, with subtle changes, but with no real difference in content. Has the world always been this shallow and predictable?

Have I become an Earth snob?

8 The Real World

“It’s good to see you back in the office, Tania.” Mr. Rogers greets me as I return to work.

It is actually good to see him. He always wears the same three suits in a five day rotation. They’re all houndstooth with slight variations in color. This one is a sort of woodland green.

He, perhaps alone in the world, understands what I have been through.

“It’s good to be back,” I smile. I wore a mask on the way to work, the fabric sucking against my mouth every time I took a deep breath, reminding me of the fallibility and frailty of humankind. The bus seems like such an inane transport option now, sort of like a stone car with rollers at the front and rear you operate by pushing with your feet.

“You’ve received excellent feedback from your away assignment, so we’re looking at further foreign assignments in the future.”

That gets my hopes up.

“For King Tyrant?”

“No. For other entities,” he says, guardedly. “But we do not speak of them unless it is absolutely necessary.”

“Understood,” I say, trying to hide my disappointment behind a veneer of professionalism.

“It’s an adjustment, I know. I think you could do with some more down time before you return to real life.”

“I don’t think so. I’m ready to get started with some work.”

He gives me an overly sympathetic look. “You’re wearing one slipper and one trainer.”

I look down at my feet and discover that he is right. I am also