Xeno

Jennifer muttered a curse, shifting her bookbag’s strap from, once again, almost sliding off her shoulder. It’s like she was made without shoulders or something, the way the strap just slid its way down. And of course, the more weight in it, the faster it slipped.


Today, it was pretty darned heavy. She was toting the latest—the last, thank god!—batch of final papers to the library, where she was going to lock herself in her cubicle until she finished grading them. She had her bag of M&Ms packed—not to be touched until the halfway mark. Around her, already, students were beginning to leave for holiday break—their work was done. Just hers and the other, the REAL faculty, job now to get the grades in.


She’d also, a little ashamed of herself, tucked the comm node in her bag. Sure, it would be a lot lighter if she hadn’t, but…maybe as a treat at the halfway point, with her chocolate allotment, she would call him.

God it was just so weird. Call him. Like he was her boyfriend. You, she thought, are losing your mind. And you haven’t even started grading these papers yet. Not good.

She crossed the pedestrian path and cut in off the main traffic road onto the small campus service road, cutting across toward the library.

“Well, hello there, hotcakes!”

The voice made her jump, the bookbag sliding off her shoulder, almost spilling its precious load of chocolate (and not-so-precious load of student papers cranked out an hour before they were due). Bad enough the volume, bad enough the sentiment: she recognized that voice.

“You!” she said, clutching the mouth of her bookbag.

“Me! I see your powers of observation are keen as ever, Jennifer Silver.” The police car rolled to a stop next to her. In the driver’s seat, the same hologram she remembered from earlier. Except there was something…weird with its face. Like the mustache was eating it.

“What the hell is going on with your face?”

“You like it?”

“It looks stupid.”


“That’s exactly what June said. Which means it’s cool. I am hip to your wicked sick alien xeno slang, Jennifer Silver. With a bag of chips.”


So much wrong with that she didn’t even know where to begin. “Uhhh, could you like make it go away? It’s kind of scary.”

“You,” he said, “are no fun. Wanna see something weird?” The police officer hologram disappeared, replaced by one of himself in his robot mode. “Creepy, huh? I’m driving myself!”

At least it was something she could look at without thinking of giant centipedes. “What are you doing here?”

The hologram in the vehicle leaned toward her, “Give you a hint, honey,” he whispered. You had to already kind of know it was fake to notice that the voice wasn’t…quite…coming from the hologram. “It’s not ‘to protect and serve.’”

“Are you stalking me?” She had pepper spray in her bag. Would it help? Probably not. It certainly wasn’t on the package that it repelled perverted alien robots.

“Ah! While stalking is a venerable Cybertronian mating custom, that’s not my job. That’s the jet’s job.”

“He’s not stalking me.”

“He isn’t? Or maybe he’s just so good at it you don’t notice.”

“Ummm, think I’d notice a giant military JET on a college campus. I am not blind, you know.”

The hologram smirked. “’Course, my little pecan waffle. You know best.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Thought you didn’t like sexist stuff like ‘baby.’ This is food. Totally different, you adorable turkey club sandwich.”

“Now you’re just being obnoxious.”

“You only just noticed? Maybe you wouldn’t notice a giant jet stalking you.”

“Look, I have to go.” She patted her bookbag meaningfully. Maybe if he got uppity, she could at least whang him in the head with it. Wherever his head was in this shape. “So tell me why you’re here and what you want.”

“You sound so very, very authoritative. Rowr.” She glared him down. “Fine. Just bored. Rolling through campus scaring squishies until June gets done and we can roll.”


“June’s your xeno?” She vaguely remembered hearing the name. “I mean, your human girlfriend?”


“Yep. Whatever this grading thing is you xenos do, it’s boring.”

Tell me about it, she thought. “So, your xen—June works here, too?”

“Yeah. Pretty cool, huh. AND, Blackout’s xeno works here, also.” The hologram leaned farther toward her. He even managed to catch the light play across the chrome of his facial plates. “This place is ground zero for an alien invasion!” he stage-whispered.


She ignored his snark. “Blackout? Another friend of yours?”


“Copter. Gullible, but loyal. You should be jealous of him, Jennifer. He’s got a thing for your jet.”

That caught her off-guard. “So, like, uh, has he…?”

“Has he…fucked your boyfriend? Oh yeah. I think Starscream was his first.”

“Do you people do nothing up there but fuck each other silly?” She flinched, dropping her voice, as two passing students gave her a weird look. They didn’t even seem to notice the freaky robot sitting behind the wheel of the freaky cop car. She clapped one hand over her ear, so maybe they’d think she had a bluetooth. She was a little fuzzy on how that made the comment any less inexplicable, but….

“Nope. It’s a robo-soap opera. I mean, you know, occasionally we go into battle and blow shit up. And the staff meetings. Can’t forget about those. So. Three hallmarks of a civilized society are in place: mass destruction, staff meetings, and interfacing. We are, after all, an advanced race.” The hologram leaned back in the seat, drumming on the steering wheel. “We,” he added, “do not have this ludicrous and extremely BORING grading.”

She felt a pang of sympathy. He really sounded frustrated. And a little lonely. “So, uh, do you and June have plans for the break?”

“I certainly hope we get to practice that third pillar of civilization. If I have anything to say about it. I have been researching this ‘bondage’ thing you humans have. Along with my nifty study of your bitchin’ slang. I had researched this ‘lingerie’ stuff, but that makes no sense at all.”

“Lingerie? Wow, you really aren’t getting it.”

“Right, so explain to me, o xeno expert: how exactly it’s supposed to work? Here, allow me to add another impediment between you and interfacing. How is that a turn on?”

“It’s, well, you know, it’s like frustrating. In a good way.”

He snorted. “’Frustrating in a good way,’” he mocked. “A punch in the face is frustrating.”

“Well, have you asked June?”

“Of course not!” The hologram lowered its gaze. She’d never noticed before, but he had four of them. It made him look a bit like a bug. “Don’t want her to know, or, you know, feel weird if she’s not into that.”

“What? So you don’t want to ask her to wear a bustier, but you want to tie her up?”

“You…say that like that’s a bad thing.”

“Well?”

“I—uh, I don’t want her to think she needs some frilly nonsense—which I’d probably only shred anyway—to feel like I want her.”

Awww. That was actually really sweet. This was what she hated most about Barricade: that she couldn’t bring herself to dislike him. “That, uh, that kinda makes sense.”

“Thank you,” he said, smugly. “I know. I make a lot of sense. Unlike your weirdo jet. Have you ever heard any of his stories?”

She laughed. Oh yeah. His stories made no sense.

“Jennifer?” The voice turned serious. The change was really noticeable. The hologram seemed to flicker. “Can I ask you a question?”

She tilted her head. “Sure?” She had the distinct idea she’d just given the wrong answer.

“You and he have, you know, spark linked. Right?”

“Is that what it’s called?”


“Yeah. So…what’s it like?” The hologram flickered again. “You know, I want to know what it feels like for a xeno. Research.”


She gave him a dubious look. “Well, it feels really good. Kind of like sex—interfacing. You feel it through your whole body but also like all of your mind and your memories. And you can see right into the other person, you know? Know things about them that they haven’t told you and probably can’t really put into words—like you’re feeling their emotions and everything.” She shut up, realizing she was burbling like a teenager. And oh GOD had she just described in lurid detail having sex to an alien robot? He was going to make some pervy comment; she just knew it.

The hologram looked a little pale, and more than a bit…scared?

“You okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said, clumsily. “Hologram’s charge is running down. Sorry.” He sat quietly for a moment. Jennifer felt incredibly awkward—like she’d said something wrong that bothered him. “Hey!” he said, suddenly, brightening up. “Want to see a picture of June?”


She wasn’t really sure she did. It would be weird to see another person walking across campus and imagine them…you know…fucking an alien robot. Especially this one. But he wanted to show her and she felt a little bad about whatever she’d said that upset him. “Sure.”


The police-car computer flickered to life, showing a red-haired woman. That perfect Irish redhead too, with the nearly translucent skin and green eyes. And freckles. She was pretty cute. Jennifer wondered what the hell she saw in Barricade, who was…not cute. She leaned closer.

“Barricade.” Starscream’s voice made Jennifer jump, bouncing her head against the roof of the cabin, and Barricade’s engine to stall. “Please remove your hologram’s hand from my xeno’s backside.” Jennifer whirled, just in time to see the hologram whip its arm back in the window.

“You perv!” she said. She tried to slap the hologram, but the light rippled over her fingers.

“Come on!” Barricade said. “It’s a hologram! I can’t actually feel anything.”

“Then why did you do it, Barricade?” Starscream’s voice, on the edge of patience.

“Just proving a point.” The hologram pointed to the roof of the car. “See? He is stalking you. Cybertronian mating custom.”