Chapter 1: Technical Difficulties
The road had gone quiet in that particular way it only did after sunset—long, empty, and faintly unreal, like something abandoned rather than merely unused. The last of the prom traffic had long since peeled away toward brighter streets and safer drives home, leaving behind only the thin ribbon of highway and the low, endless whisper of insects in the dark.
Sally Forth walked along the shoulder with her heels dangling from one hand, their straps looped over her fingers like an afterthought she hadn’t yet decided to discard. Gravel crunched underfoot in an uneven rhythm, the hem of her dress catching now and then against her knees as she moved.
She was still hot with it—annoyance, embarrassment, that sharp, lingering disbelief that clung to the back of her thoughts no matter how far she tried to put the prom behind her.
Henry.
She exhaled through her nose, a short, humorless breath, and shook her head.
There had been a moment—just a moment—where the night might have been something else. Not perfect, not even particularly special, but decent. Predictable in a way she could live with. Music too loud, decorations too earnest, the slow realization that this was one of those milestones people talked about more than they actually enjoyed.
And then Henry had gone and decided—unilaterally, apparently—that the evening came with… expectations.
She adjusted her grip on the shoes, the thin straps biting lightly into her fingers.
“Unbelievable,” she muttered.
A car passed somewhere in the distance behind her, its headlights briefly stretching her shadow long and thin across the roadside before vanishing again, leaving her in the dim wash of starlight and the faint glow that hung low over town.
She kept walking.
There wasn’t really another option. No ride, no convenient rescue waiting just out of sight. Just the road, the dark, and the steady rhythm of her own steps.
The air had cooled since earlier, the kind of soft chill that settled in slowly, unnoticed until it was already there. It lifted a strand of her hair at the nape of her neck, carrying with it the faint scent of asphalt and summer grass.
For a while, that was all there was.
Just Sally.
The road.
The long, quiet stretch of night.
And then—
Something changed.
Not all at once. Not dramatically. Just… enough.
The insects stopped.
Not faded—stopped.
Sally slowed, more from instinct than thought, her steps losing their rhythm as the silence pressed in around her, sudden and complete in a way that felt wrong for an open stretch of countryside.
“…Okay,” she said under her breath.
The light came next.
Not headlights.
A pale wash spilled over the road, like moonlight gathering instead of falling—pooling directly above her. No beam, no direction. Just presence. Growing. Steady. Wrong.
Sally stopped.
For a moment, she simply stood there, heels hanging from her hand, dress stirring faintly in the unnatural stillness.
She tipped her head back.
Above her, where the sky had been empty a moment earlier, a broad, saucer-like shape now hung—silent, unmoving, as though it had always been there.
The source of the light.
And she was standing dead center in it.
“…Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”
A thin, tinny hum crept into the air. Barely noticeable at first, it rose in pitch and presence, pressing in around her.
The smell followed—metallic, sharp, ozone-bitten, like the air after lightning struck too close.
A prickling ran over her skin.
Goosebumps—electric, insistent—lifting the fine hairs along her arms and the back of her neck.
The hum climbed.
Sally felt, rather than saw, the sudden flash. An all-over warmth on the nearside of uncomfortable. The accompanying zap! was soundless, smelling of electricity and tasting of iron.
The cone of light snapped off, leaving Sally’s shoes to clatter unseen to the ground and her clothes to flutter down over them in darkness.
Sally felt, rather than saw, the flash—an all-over warmth just shy of uncomfortable.
The zap! that followed was soundless, sharp with the scent of electricity and the taste of iron.
The cone of light snapped off.
Her shoes hit the pavement with a hollow clatter.
A moment later, her dress followed—settling in the dark where she had been.
Reassembly was a greasy, shuddering sensation, like being poured through a cold sieve.
Sensation returned in a sickening rush. The hum was louder here, a grinding, rhythmic thrum that vibrated in her teeth. A smell of ozone and something sour, like overheated plastic, filled her nose. She was cold. Terribly, utterly cold.
And she was upside down.
Her vision swam into focus—a jagged, humming void of flickering holographic grids and exposed wiring. The air was sharp with the smell of burnt circuitry. Half a dozen smoldering, footprint-shaped scorch marks were baked into the cracked metal floor below her.
Her head throbbed. Her bare back was pressed against something cool and humming that wasn't there. A forcefield of some sort, holding her in containment and in a weightless state she decided.
“Uh,” a voice said, startlingly close. “Munk. The subject's reconstitution is… sub-optimal.”
Sally twisted, a movement that sent a fresh wave of dizziness through her. Her perspective tilted. She wasn’t just against the panel. Her legs were up, her head was down, and her bare backside was resting squarely against the surprised, smooth, grey-skinned face of a creature hunched over a dented console.
He recoiled, large, liquid black eyes blinking rapidly. He was small, scrawny even for what he obviously was, with the classic elongated head and slender limbs of every tabloid newspaper cartoon she’d ever seen. A grey alien. He was licking a glowing control stick, which now dropped from his three-fingered hand with a clatter.
“Sub-optimal is a category error, Rebo,” another voice, flatter and bored, replied. Across the bay, a bulkier grey alien idly kicked a discarded human shoe—her shoe, Sally realized with a lurch—its sole still warm from her skin. That was Munk. “The form is intact. The orientation is incidental.”
Rebo’s large eyes, fixed on Sally from his new position a foot away, had dilated. The curiosity in them was intense, unnerving. He wasn’t looking at her face.
He was looking at everything else.
Sally became aware, with a slow-motion horror, of her own nakedness. The cool air of the bay washed over her skin. Her tiny breasts, the overlarge nipples taut from the chill. The narrow waist, the broad hips now angled precariously above her. All of it, utterly and completely exposed. And from Rebo’s vantage point, currently upside down, he had a full, unobstructed view of her most intimate human features.
“Incidental,” Rebo echoed, but his voice had lost its mischievous edge. It was pure, unadulterated fascination. “Right. Incidental.” He didn’t move away. His head tilted, just slightly.
“Put me down!” Sally’s voice cracked out, sharp with panic and a fury that was quickly burning through the shock. She tried to move, to cover herself, but her limbs felt heavy, uncoordinated. The teleportation, or whatever it was, had left her muscles feeling like wet string.
“The subject vocalizes,” Munk observed, tossing her shoe aside with a dismissive flick.
“I’m not a subject!” Sally snapped. She managed to get a hand beneath her, pushing against the humming console. The world lurched, and she slid down the panel with a yelp, landing in an ungainly heap on the warm metal floor. She scrambled instantly into a sitting position, knees drawn up, arms wrapped tightly around her shins, trying to make herself small.
Rebo took a single step forward. He moved with a jerky, curious grace. “You are soft,” he said, his voice a high, reedy whisper. “And pink. And… smooth. The diagrams were not inaccurate, but the texture variables are fascinating.”
“Don’t you come near me,” Sally warned, her heart hammering against her ribs. The fear was there, a cold ball in her stomach, but it was being steadily choked by outrage. This was too stupid, too humiliating to be real. Prom with Henry was one thing. This was a cosmic joke.
“I am merely observing.” Rebo crouched, bringing his large eyes level with hers. His expression was one of intense study. “The mammalian reproductive biology is an inefficient design, but the external configuration has a certain… aesthetic inconsistency. Your lower abdomen, for instance. The hair pattern is absent. Is this a cultural modification or a physiological anomaly?”
Sally’s mouth fell open. She had no words. None.
Munk let out a grating sound that might have been a sigh. “Collection protocol specifies containment, not dialogue, Rebo. Initiate the sedation sequence.”
“In a moment.” Rebo’s attention hadn’t wavered. He reached out one of his long, slender hands, three fingers splayed. Not to grab her, but as if to trace the air just above her shoulder. “The color gradient across the dermis is also notable. A flush response. Is this a thermoregulatory function or an emotional indicator?”
Sally smacked his hand away. The contact was strange—his skin was cool and dry, like polished stone. “It’s an ‘I’m about to lose my mind’ indicator! Where are my clothes? What is this place? Let me go!”
Rebo looked at his hand, then back at her face, his black eyes wide. “Tactile aggression. Interesting.” He seemed delighted. “Your defensive posturing is structurally compromised by your seated position, yet you exhibit a high degree of neurological arousal.”
“You’re a teenage alien nerd, aren’t you?” Sally said, the realization dawning with surreal clarity. “You’re just some… some spotty, scrawny, alien teenager who’s never seen a naked girl before.”
Rebo straightened up, his posture suddenly defensive. “I am a certified bio-scan technician.”
“You were licking the console.”
“It was leaking ionic fluid! It was diagnostic!”
Munk kicked another piece of debris—a twisted bit of metal that clanged across the floor. “Sedation. Now. Or I report your… incidental observations to the Overseer.”
A flicker of something like fear passed through Rebo’s large eyes. But then he looked back at Sally, curled naked and furious on the floor, and the fascination won out. His hand darted out, this time with purpose, not just curiosity. His fingers, surprisingly strong, closed around her wrist.
“Let go of me!”
“The sedation is for transport,” Rebo said, his voice low and quick, as if sharing a secret. “It is unpleasant. A brief paralysis, auditory hallucinations. I can… delay it. If you answer more questions. About the softness. And the pinkness.”
He was pulling her up. Sally resisted, digging her heels into the grimy floor. She was stronger than she looked, stronger than he probably expected a “soft, pink” thing to be. For a second, they were locked in a shaky stalemate, her human musculature against his wiry alien frame.
His large, dark eyes were inches from hers, reflecting her own terrified, furious face back at her. In them, she didn’t see a monster. She saw a rebellious, mischievous kid in way over his head, armed with terrifying technology and a bottomless, inappropriate curiosity.
She stopped pulling. She went still.
“Okay,” she breathed, the fight leaving her voice, replaced by a calculated weariness.
Rebo paused, suspicious.
“You want to know about soft?” Sally said, her voice barely a whisper. She let her body go slightly limp. “Okay. But you have to let go of my wrist. You’re hurting me.”
He glanced at his hand, then released her immediately, as if her skin had burned him. “Apologies. The structural integrity of human connective tissue is poorly documented.”
Sally rubbed her wrist. She stayed seated, making herself look smaller, more vulnerable. She met his gaze. “The questions. But not here. He’s watching.” She flicked her eyes toward Munk, who was now tapping a screen with an air of profound boredom.
Rebo followed her look. A spark of understanding, of conspiracy, lit in his deep black eyes. He gave a quick, almost imperceptible nod.
In that moment, Sally Forth, barefoot and naked on an alien ship, understood two things with perfect clarity. She was in profound danger. And her only possible ally was a horny, rebellious grey alien teenager who thought she was a fascinating science project.
She had to get out of this bay. She had to get some clothes. And she had to use this weird, unsettling curiosity as her only tool.
“Okay,” Rebo whispered back, his large eyes gleaming with suspicious enthusiasm. “I know a place.”