Manipulate (Book 1, Alien Cadets)

Postlogue

Akemi zoomed through the space station, virtually of course, blending the view of each security camera in make-believe flight. She could almost feel the ship’s atmo brushing past her cheeks.

At the same time, she monitored four ships docking with the station and gave one of them a stern warning about adjusting the atmo in their airlock before pressurizing with the space station. She sealed their dock until they confirmed. The Tergre were funny little aliens. They seemed to regularly forget that not everyone (in fact, nobody but them) breathed a mixture of helium and selenium. It was a deadly combination and made humans squeak in rage before they died, which wasn’t a pleasant or dignified way to go. And if somebody didn’t watch the little buggers, they would open-dock their ship to the space station and let it all dump into her clean hallways.

Akemi finished her indoor flight and unslaved the cameras to continue their normal rotations. She could still see every viewpoint, if she focused on it, but there was no need. Instead, she began composing her next fashion blog.

Her blog followers didn’t know she wasn’t human anymore, because she wasn’t allowed to reveal her AI existence. But since she didn’t know more than a handful of them in person, nobody missed her yet.

Today’s fashion post would be about the new cadet uniforms designed by Shara (specifically made less itchy, by Sam’s request). In the past, Akemi generally followed Japanese fashion, like the fantastic 19th century retro look. But now she had new worlds to explore. Sort of. She was the computerized hub of the Spo space station, and lots of species were starting to visit Earth. Some were curious, lots were greedy, and some were dangerous, but they all wore interesting clothes. Well, except for the weird Crosspoint, who dressed in fluorescent body paint.

Akemi finished up her blog with some pictures of the cadets in their new, ‘spacy’ attire.

The space station was a safe place for Akemi, or her brain, since it wasn’t built for space jump. She’d suggested to Sam that she be moved aboard, and the Spo had been surprisingly happy to oblige. Akemi guessed that, despite publishing a statement condemning the Rik scientists who killed her, they were still terribly excited by the potential of the human brain in a spaceship.

Akemi answered a few blog comments while sending another message to Nat and Sam. She had become Sam’s personal secretary/translator for all his alien communication. When Earth’s trial went public, many species seemed to assume that Sam was sort of a king. It was causing more than a few disgruntled conversations in high places, which amused Akemi to no end. Now the ambassador from Merith wanted to visit Earth, and he insisted on seeing Sam.

Sam thought the misunderstanding was funny too, until an alien prince sent him twenty slaves of a species they’d never heard of before. As far as Akemi knew, the ‘slaves’ were being temporarily housed on a small island in Indonesia – as they seemed to enjoy the warmth and even the Spo didn’t know how to communicate with them or if they were sentient.

Nat and Sam were in huge demand, both on Earth and abroad, but Nat still made time to come to the space station regularly, to ‘visit’ Akemi. There were huge celebrations on Earth, in the weeks after the trial was aired, but already the good will was beginning to fade.

Akemi gave a virtual shrug, making the Spo captain jump as the lights in the engine room dimmed. Just for fun, she’d linked some of the station’s non-vital systems to her peripheral nervous system. It was hysterical when she got the hiccups.

Regardless, with the ambassador’s message passed on, Akemi had more work to do. That morning she’d downloaded the newest footage from the documentary that Shara and a couple of her Rik friends were putting together. Sam had hooked them up with a Hollywood producer named Apple who didn’t seem to mind (or even notice) that she was working with aliens. The culture of Earth was in high demand, as the newest species on the Council, and Apple’s video (with the help of the Rik) would showcase the culture of Earth from a trade perspective. Like a virtual catalog, Apple said, and who didn’t love a good catalog? Akemi already had requests from eight species to see the video when it was finished.

Akemi settled in to watch, and the only thing she missed was a bucket of popcorn.

And while she watched, Akemi also sorted through a list of alien names and faces – the newest applicants to join the Human Apprenticeship Program.

The End.

****

Thank you so much for reading my novel; I hope you enjoyed Manipulate as much I enjoyed writing it!

If you want to read more about Akemi, Sam, and Nat (but mostly Akemi) I hope you check out the sequel, Captivate.

http://www.wattpad.com/story/4798726-captivate-manipulate-book-2

Thanks everybody!

Corrie Garrett

A bunch of people have asked me questions about Manipulate - why I chose certain names or events, or how I came up with characters, and if you'd like to know about that, you can read the author's note that follows. :-) Thanks again.