I rubbed my forehead in a desperate attempt to convey my annoyance. It did not have the intended effect. Mac was still rambling on with his questions. Not even the classic pulling at my eyelids could sway him from his appointed duties or anyone else for that matter.

    The table held more interest to me than the conversation. It is remarkable how with some of the galaxy’s most advanced technology, we still ended up with the same generic ass plastic folding tables that have existed for decades back on Earth, thousands of lightyears away. It could have easily been purchased from any big box or hardware store. The same goes for the chairs. Humans are weird. Instead of designing superior equipment, they took the time and effort to duplicate the standard models perfectly.

    For the umpteenth time, I let my perception go over the details of this room. The extra sensory perception I developed was like how daredevil can ‘see.’ I toyed with the idea of calling it my ‘devil sight,’ but the Grey alien Harry said that name did not translate well into his language. For me, it was a particular cluster of neurons in my brain that processed all sensory input. The experts say that the process runs parallel to my other senses. Not that you can fully trust someone who calls themselves an expert on a subject we didn’t even know about two years ago.

    Mac finally stopped talking, and the guy in front of us felt like it was his turn.

“I served with the Peace Corps after law school. That didn’t last long, though. A few months in, my mom got sick. So, I went home and got a job with the local district attorney. That is where I was when the abduction happened.”

    The room fell silent as I gazed out the window. The window was of advanced construction but not material, from my understanding. The 3D printer aligned the molecules in such a way that made the glass tougher, and the overall design lowered the heat transfer rate of the room. When clean, it was like they weren’t even there. Which was a nice distraction from the unpainted drywall.

    “Captain Dimitri,” Harry said, drawing my attention. We have been sitting in this room several hours a day for five months now. Mac and the others could keep a friendly diplomatic face on this, but I was having trouble. A swift kick indicated they were eagerly waiting for my spiel. Which I started in the same way I did every other time.

    “This piece of paper means nothing,” I told the man while tearing up his resume. I hadn’t even bothered to learn his name. “When are you people going to get it through your idiotic skulls? I don’t believe anything on any resume. I don’t even know whose bright idea it was to start writing them. We didn’t see any the first month we were conducting these interviews. Then bam, everyone has one.”

    “How else are you supposed to review our qualifications?” he asked.

    “How the fuck am I supposed to verify any of this information,” I retorted. “Every letter on this page could be a lie. Your name, age, education, work history, and the rest. Is it possible you are being one hundred percent honest? Yes. However, not one thing here or anything you have said has told me what I really want to hear. Why do you want to join us as we travel the stars? NEXT!”

    The man showed his unhappiness as he stood up and started walking towards the door. Which opened with more force than needed. Resulting in the door bouncing off the wall yet again. Seeing the massive dent in the drywall brought a smile to my face. Every day, people storm out of this room, and every night, someone fixes the wall. I offer job security for sure.

    A woman eagerly walked in and passed out resumes to us all. Everyone eagerly read it while I pinched the bridge of my nose. There is no way she didn’t hear me rant. I am starting to think this is all some sick game Mac engineered.

    “What is your biggest weakness?” Lucy asked. Her questions were the worst. Prior to our abduction, she worked as a bartender for nearly forty years. Foresight, intelligence, and cultural adaptability were not her specialty. However, she was fiercely loyal to Mac during our captivity. Nothing is as important as loyalty. That quality cannot be properly illustrated on a resume.

    I have grown some serious trust issues since our captivity. Our abductors, the Seraphim, formed a group of powerful humans. They called themselves The Council. Thirteen collaborators went on to install their our people as leaders of smaller groups. Many of which still hold authority today. Our mission is too important to risk having a Seraphim lover on my ship mucking about.

    “I am overly stubborn,” the woman said after pretending to think about it.

    “Next!” I said in a powered command. It was something I learned to do by chance during the breakout. If I put willpower and magic into my words, a person is compelled to do whatever I say. Each syllable takes significant effort. I’ve learned only to use short words. The crew glared at me as she hypnotically walked out of the room, and I slumped in my chair from light dizziness.

    “I guess she wasn’t that stubborn,” I replied to their looks. In their defense, I was supposed to give everyone at least five minutes before kicking them out. They also didn’t like me using that power. It was kind of a cheap trick.

    The next woman appeared in my perception. I didn’t sense her entering the room. One second, there was an empty chair; the next, a woman was sitting there, and there was a new resume in front of us. She obviously intended for this to impress us. Many people have made flashy entrances. The crew was as tired of them as I was with the resumes. So, I occupied my time by making a paper airplane out of hers.

    “On your planet,” Harry said. “There are two mammalian species. They are commonly called Grizzle Bears and Silverback Gorillas. These are two apex creatures. If a prime specimen of each enters into a fight to the death. Who would be the victor?”

    The little alien known as Harry was a member of a species called Greys. The only extraterrestrial member of the crew at the moment. He was about five feet tall, which was average for his people. Unlike legends of his kind, he possessed proportionately thick arms. However, the elongated hands and large head were accurate to stories. His head was nearly three times what one might expect from a human, and his skin had the slightest green tint. Aside from that, he looked human.

    It was their environmental suits that gave them their name and fed the legend. Their species had innate telepathic powers. Because of that, they identified each other from thoughts instead of physical features and smells. So, their suits reflected the more utility of their physical form. The suits were all grey and looked featureless from far away.

Harry and a small group of Greys have decided to remain with the human settlers for now. Due to circumstances outside of their control, they have become outcasts from their people. Admittedly, I had a hand in those events. Aside from Harry, the Greys here harbor a little resentment towards me.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    That wasn’t his or his species’ actual name; those were derived from a universal translator we all have in our heads. To me, he is Harry. To other people, he could be Susan. How the UT works with Earth languages is a bit tricky. Over three million humans representing every continent and nearly every country are on this planet. Harry told us that, on average, a space fairing species has four unique languages. A sign that humans were far from ready to explore the stars.

    “I don’t understand the question,” the woman stammered.

    “Gorilla or bear?” Catherine said simply. During captivity, Mac befriended a telepathic person name Stephanie. When the implants were turned off, her abilities developed exponentially. I’d originally wanted her to join the crew, but she was unable to spend significant amounts of time around small groups. To that end, Stephanie has recommended three people, and we have accepted them onto the crew. Catherine was one of them. She has minor telepathic powers, which aids in the interview process. Unfortunately, she refuses to let me call her Troi and will not wear skin-tight leotards.

    The two other members of the crew were tasked with guarding the ship. My paranoia would not let me leave the ship by itself. It also kept me from allowing the interviews to be on the ship. Lucy would often trade off with one of them for guard duty. Just because they were not physically here, that didn’t mean they didn’t get a vote. The interviews were recorded and streamed to the ship.

    “Bear, I guess,” the interview said doubtfully. I tossed the paper airplane. It fell immediately.

    “You guess?” I asked her, ignoring the airplane. “You don’t have anything to add to that?”

    “No.”

    “Next!” I yelled. No power behind the command this time. Harry’s question was a classic-style interview question. He was a xeno-cultural anthropologist by trade. His people utilized various tests to determine one’s place in society. According to him and the other Greys, it works out pretty well. So, Harry has taken great pleasure in researching and conducting the interviews. We all appreciated his enthusiasm.

    I paid special attention to the interview. Her visage started to vibrate. I knew right away she was manipulating light and sound to make it seem like she disappeared. Her skills were extraordinary, for sure. I wondered if she was purposely manipulating air molecules and other sensory factors. That would have been the only way she would have gotten past my perception. If only she put more effort into Harry’s question. Then, I might have entertained her a little bit longer.

    A man came in and sat down. He was carrying a briefcase that made me suspect he brought resumes but decided not to pass them out. The aura he was emitting felt like a wave of stink. A sign that he was powerful and had not put much effort into controlling himself.

    “Next!”

    “Please wait,” he begged.

    “You have plenty of potential, sir,” Mac said. “We have previously stated that a minimum control over one’s aura was required to join our crew. It is entirely possible that you could learn to control it before our next contact. However, if we don’t hold to these requirements, then we will find exceptions for anything.”

    “This is a universal standard,” Harry added. It has been interesting to see how people grew accustomed to the Grey’s presence. In the first few days of interviews, people would panic anytime Harry talked. Their growing acceptance of the Greys gave me faith in humanity and our future among the stars.

    “Next,” Lucy said sternly.

    “Hey, that’s my line,” I complained. We waited for someone else to walk through the door. It took an embarrassingly long time before we realized no one was coming. I reached out with my perception to find no one was waiting for an interview. Mac got up and confirmed that it was empty with a nod. To our disappointment, we agreed to sit here for a fixed period of time for interviews. This meant we all had to sit around and wait for another thirty minutes.

    “How many people have we interviewed all together,” I asked no one specifically.

    “Thirteen thousand and fifty-two,” Harry said confidently. “That is not counting the less formal interviews on the Charon or the ones when we first landed. I was not there for those, and do not count them.”

    “You weren’t there because every time someone saw you, they freaked out,” Lucy explained.

    This was extremely true. Everyone was nervous around the Greys at first. Me, Mac, and Lucy lived on our ship with Harry, and it took us a few weeks to get used to seeing him. One time, I went to the cafeteria to get some food. He was just standing there, and I screamed when the door opened. This was after I spent the day before training with him.

    “Those early interviews were little more than people running up to me asking to join the crew,” I explained yet again. “Even then, I made no final staffing decisions without discussing it with each member of the crew. We all have to live together. There is no avoiding people you don’t like on a ship that size.”

    “Not like being planet-side,” Mac added. “Where you can easily avoid the Counsel. By the way, Sir Captain Fancy pants Sir, the Counsel has started to include me in all their requests for meetings. It is getting in the way of me not wanting to talk to them.”

    “I’m sorry. They have been pestering me about the launch date, crew size, and members. I’ll give them a call when we are done here.”

    “Heavy is the head that wears the crown.” Catherine said. I responded with a scolding look that made her slunk down in her chair. There were rules about discussing or even hinting about my royal status. All of the provisional leadership, myself included, agreed that democracy is the best way to proceed forward. With our powers and magic, it would be too easy for a dictator to rise to power. The Council is still working on different ways to keep that from happening.

    I extended my perception outward to see if there was anyone left in the building. This took a fair amount of concentration and left me somewhat blind to areas I wasn’t directly observing. A risk under most circumstances, but I was among trusted friends. Structures like this were specifically designed to allow those with this kind of perception to function. Our captivity has spurred a desire for as much transparency as possible.

    There wasn’t much to be found in the building. A functionary at the main entrance, a few maintenance robots, and a small rodent-like creature in the basement. No hint of anyone else entering since the last person left. Snapping out of my trance, I looked at the time.

    “Let’s make like a tree and split.” I told my crew.