"What are those for?" I asked, staring at the quantum keys in her hand.

"You'll see," she said, and proceeded to inspect her snakeskin outfit, I presume to find a place to store the keys.

I'm very patient. But my futurecasting was all over the place, and my mental timer was telling me we had to hurry. That said, I wasn't going to hurry into the unknown. My unsatisfied curiosity was getting the better of me, and I felt like I was going to snap if I didn't find out what was going on.

"You need to tell me what's going on. I'm getting super frustricated, and you won't like what happens next. I bite. I scratch." I pointed at her and scowled. "What are those keys for? Who are you?" I demanded.

She raised an eyebrow at me, then stared.

Silence.

She continued to stare. I watched her violet eyes, the tint of green at the core. The beaming light highlighted the streaks of violet in her hair.

So I stared back at her, matching her violet for what I assumed were my vibrant blue eyes. Take that! I thought to myself. I'm pretty good at staring contests.

She winked at me.

I shivered. She was cheating.

And she continued to stare at me.

"You have beautiful blue eyes," she said. She licked her lips.

Fuck me! I thought, all too human thoughts flooding my brain, my heart rate noticeably accelerating.

"Fuck you, you demon!" I cursed at her.

She staggered toward me, holding my gaze. In my peripheral vision I spotted the keys.

"What? No pockets in that suit of yours," I joked.

"You like my suit," she whispered, limping closer, eyes transfixed.

"You shall not hypnotize me," I proclaimed. "Your womanly wiles are wasted on me."

She was in touching distance. I could sense her breath before I felt it.

"Womanly wiles," she laughed venomously, breathing on me. Her eyes were so close and mesmerizing, but her breath smelled foul, like she hadn't had a chance to clean her teeth in months - because she probably hadn't.

"Ha ha," I said, pointing at her. "Your breath smells."

I caught a slight shift in her face and posture, barely noticeable being unplugged. She actually looked like I had hurt her feelings, and I immediately regretted it. She had been locked up for who knows how long. But as soon as it had come, it had gone and she was back to her seductive staring.

I stared harder. I held my hand out to keep her at bay.

She retaliated by taking my outstretched hand and placing it on her hip.

"Cheater!" I screamed.

The snakeskin suit felt exactly like that, smooth but with reptilian scales that seemed hard and soft at the same time. I tried to ignore the curve of her hip as she came close again.

"So, you don't want to kiss me?" she said, another foul breath finding my nose.

"No! But ... but ...." I stuttered, making an ucky face at her. I tried to think of something to say back other than your breath is disgusting and I'm going to vomit. Instead, I just kept stuttering like a fool at her.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

She moved my hand around to her butt. "What about my butt?" she said.

I walked right into that one, butt it was worth it (Hahahaha! Get it? "But?"). She was winning this battle. Stupid human body! I wanted my tech back to distract myself from human chemistry.

"But," I retorted, moving my hand away from her. "We could just stand in close proximity," I suggested, "with my head on the other side of your head."

"Our bodies touching," she said, moving in for the kill.

Oh, this is going to be bad for me, I thought.

She had just brushed up against me the slightest, before she kneed me harshly in the groin and shoved me to the ground.

The fuck. I had seen it coming, and I didn't care.

***

She tried to move past me as I recovered. I was doubled over but held onto my glen10 this time. As she was pushing to door open, I did something I hated doing. I got up, grabbed her arm, and spun her.

She winced and fell back against the wall.

I stared at her angrily.

"I need exposition!" I shouted, stepping forward. "And fast."

She punched me in the face.

"Motherfucker!" I said, holding a hand to my left eye.

"You first," she said, gritting her teeth in pain, fists still raised, the wall supporting her weight.

"@kittyboy. Extrovert. Wavepilot. Investigating creepy lab in our part of space." I needed to stop letting her get her way, I realized, but as long as she responded in return, I could save it for another time.

She nodded, the half of her head with hair bobbing along. She brushed a mess of curls away from her face.

"@auroraloon. Introvert. They were using me for tests." She crossed her arms at me, like that was that. Then made for the door again. "I know a way out."

I pushed my way out first, taking it as a small victory. I surveyed the hall as she followed me out.

"Okay, @auroraloon. What about the suit and the keys? That looks high tech. Doubt they'd play test dummy with you wearing whatever that is."

She paused.

"Tell me as we walk," I demanded. "Which way?"

"Left," she said. "Then two rights, a left, and up a stairway half a level. There's an emergency exit."

I gestured for her to follow, and we got moving.

"I remember being in one of the rooms," @auroraloon reflected. "I don't know how I got there. They must have removed the virus from me. I don't know. I have flashes of fighting, of different people's faces, of body parts, of blood. I remember waking up in a different room. I don't know how much time passed."

"I could probably figure it out by looking at how much the roots of my hair have grown out, before the color starts," she added. "But all I know is that when I woke up they had me strapped to a table. Then suddenly everyone started packing up. Emergency evacuation. Protocol 6, they said."

She shook her head at me. I continued on down the hall.

"No," she said, shaking her head again and waving at me. "Right here."

"What's right here?" I asked.

"Right. Right here." She grunted in frustration. "To your right. We go to the right. The opposite of left."

"Oh," I said. "Right. Thought you were shaking your head because, you know, trauma and horribleness."

"No, you're just bad at directions. But yes, horribleness."

I was offended.

"I'm offended," I said. "I have an excellent sense of direction. The best in fact. The sun is that way." I pointed down and to my right. "But I suck at following directions."

"The sun is that way, you idiot." @auroraloon pointed up and to her left, with her middle finger wagging at me.

I shook my head with rigor. "Whatever," I spat. "It works when I'm outside. I'm all turned around in here."

"R i g h t..." she said, nodding her mocking head at me.

Urgh! This was frustrating! I really do have great sense of direction, I swear.

"The suit? The keys?" I prompted.

"I'm getting there," she replied. Down the blindingly lit hall we continued, @auroraloon in her mini-sun outfit blazing the way. "I heard them talk about escaping. Two of them were arguing about spacecycles. One wanted to take them. The other said no. They didn't have the range to get them out of Extrovert space."

Spacecycles! That was awesome! Yeah, the range wasn't too great. You could hop around a few moons or asteroids and have a blast doing it. They had solar power backup, but it was very low power, emergency only type of thing, unless you were really close to the sun.

"So the keys? Spacecycles," I said. "And the suit?"

"I found it in one of the labs," she said offhandedly. "They just left me here. I got free and was looking for the keys."

I wanted to believe her, but there was still a lot that didn't make sense to me. The suit fit too well. She knew where the keys to the spacecycles were. But my terror-o-meter was telling me we needed to keep moving, so I dropped it.

"Left here," she said.

"What was left here?" I said, looking around. "I don't see anything."

"Noooo," @auroraloon groaned. "We go left."

I laughed. "I know. I'm just tormenting you."

Sometimes my sense of timing is bad because as I giggled at her, her eyes widened, full of violet fear. The noise behind me told me the zombies were coming. Shuffle shuffle. Groan groan.

"Well, we should hurry," she said. "That way."

She pointed to the right.

"But you said, Noooo, we go left," I repeated.

"I was tormenting you," she chuckled, and hobbled quickly down the right corridor.