Thank you, Harnsis, Martinez thought. Remembering the hard work the insectoid doctor did to help decorate his apartment. Glad beyond everything, his house looked like an actual home.

  “You can have a seat at the table. I set out what we will be studying tonight,” Shiksie said happily as she closed the door.

  Martinez nodded and headed to one of the two seats around the table, taking in the rest of the soulless house. A feeling of something being so wrong about the place crept up his spine.

  He pulled some textbooks and notebooks out of their precise cover and alignment. Martinez flipped through the first one; the book seemed to be a basic introduction to GU medical services, detailing employees’ roles, how payment works, and other various details such as licensing and possible career routes.

  Martinez knew everyone else in the shop was a direct GU employee, and he was the odd man out since his checks were still coming from the Human Navy.

  Off to the side of the first chapter was a small red tab pasted to the page. Written in immaculate Galactic standard were directions to open the notebook of the same color. Sliding the red notebook toward him and flipping it open, he was astonished.

  Are these handwritten? Martinez thought as he traced each word, looking for any slight deviation in the handwriting.

  To his surprise, he did not find any; each word was perfect, straight lines, right angles, and all the same height and width. The tome was a testament to the thoroughness of the writer, who was currently across the room, happily humming to herself.

  The notebook’s contents outlined what he had seen in the first chapter of the textbook, but they were far more detailed. It covered everything he could possibly think someone might want. The flawless notes were beyond just the textbook’s essential information, such as founding dates and why certain aspects of the GU were set up in their current form—dates of meetings, locations, and even the names of attendees.

  Shiksie had even annotated the sources where all this information could be found. This notebook might as well be someone’s dissertation. Martinez was confident many people had become doctors on far less work.

  Martinez looked up at Shiksie as she walked over with a few water bottles and a tray of snacks. He was unsure what to think about these notes; he had known Shiksie was diligent. But this was a whole other level of persistence.

  Shiksie’s vibrant emerald eyes traced the room and landed on Martinez. She narrowed her gaze, seeing him staring right through her. “Is something wrong? Are you not able to read my handwriting?”

  “What the— no,” Martinez said, confused while gesturing at the notebook.

  Shiksie pulled her chair next to Martinez after setting down the plate of food on the table. She leaned over his shoulder at what he was looking at, the warmth of Martinez wafting over her. “Then what’s wrong?” She questioned.

  “This looks like it was printed. How long did this take you?” Martinez replied.

  Shiksie tapped her claw on the table for a few seconds, her eyes slowly tracing over each of the colored notebooks. “Each one, about a week of writing time. I never thought about how long it took me to collect all the information. I did all that long ago.” Shiksie sighed.

  “Ok, so you did not make these just to help me,” Martinez chuckled, “ I was worried that you might have.”

  Shiksie ears twitched for a few moments. “Why would that worry you?” Shiksie questioned, her cold eyes filled with that warmth Martinez had caught mere glimpses of when outside the Director’s office.

  “Putting in that kind of effort for me would be insane,” Martinez said, gesturing an open palm at Shiksie. “I’m not worth that.”

  “I don’t see it that way,” Skiskie said without hesitation. Her cold monotone had melted away, replaced by a gentle, motherly tone.

  She turned in her chair, creating more distance between her and Martinez. She gestured at the mountains of color-coded books she had lined the walls of her den with.

  “I made all of these for myself when I went through the program you are now stuck in,” Shiksie purred.

  Shiksie looked back at Martinez before continuing, “You are well worth me letting you use all my old notes, even if you don’t see it that way,” she finished with a toothy grin, her sharp fangs shimmering in the bright light of her home.

  Martinez could not help but chuckle. Shiksie was beyond anything Martinez had thought about her. So far, he had assumed her to be passionate about her job and private about the rest of her life. Now, he was starting to understand that her job as a nurse was her life.

  “Now then, let’s focus and get you some practice,” Shiksie said, pushing over her datapad. Its bright blue screen depicted more of the notes Martinez had become familiar with when he was reading in the shop. “I still have the quizzes I used for myself when I was in the course.”

  “I haven’t even started to study yet. What use would I have with the quizzes?” Martinez questioned, looking down at the datapad.

  “Hold on, I was getting to that, ‘’ Shiksie sharply replied, slightly annoyed as she covered the datapad with her hand.

  “You know you always interrupt me when I’m trying to explain something?” She subtly hissed, berating Martinez the same way she scolded the other orphans when they started to get to her.

  “Do I?” Martinez questioned, unsure of what she meant.

  “Mmm-hmm. You often do when I’m trying to help you at work,” Shiksie sighed, giving Martinez a patient smile.

  Martinez thought back to work, and all the times she had been working directly with him. He could recall a few times when he had done that just today. Martinez had not seen it as interrupting her; he was just bringing up his concerns or questions. Martinez wondered why she had not brought it up then, especially if it bothered her.

  “I’m sorry, I guess I might do that,” Martinez regrettably agreed, awkwardly scratching the stubble on his chin.

  “I’m just trying to help. Can you please let me finish explaining?” Shiksie purred as she uncovered the datapad.

  “I will try not to interrupt,” Martinez replied. A feeling of slight guilt grew in his chest.

  “Hmm, thank you. I do appreciate it,” Shiksie smiled.

  Martinez felt his face flush slightly. He was not sure why Shiksie dropping her cold facade was affecting him like this. Glimpses of who was underneath that icy tundra of professionalism were happening more and more. A burning curiosity had been lit inside him each time it happened. He wanted to see who was inside all that ice.

  Dousing his curiosity like a cold bucket of water, Shiksie returned to her usual professional tone. “Now, with your time hack for your test, we will go through two weeks of study tonight. With you taking a break after you pass each quiz.”

  “Easy enough for you to say?” Martinez grumbled.

  “It is easy enough for me,” Shiksie replied, her tail excitedly brushing across the floor. “I’m not the one who said— Oh yeah, what was it— ‘So what if it’s a lot of work?’” Shiksie retorted, a smug grin on her lips.

  Martinez groaned and rubbed the back of his head, somewhat regretting that he said that to her. “Yeah, I guess I did say that.”

  “That you did, but I also did say I would help you,” Shiksie giggled. “So I guess we both have to live with what has happened.”

  Martinez could not deny that she was indeed right there. The three notebooks in front of him were only small pebbles compared to the mountain of documents lining the wall behind them. Today’s study session was the first of many the two would have over the next local year.

  “Yeah, you got me there,” Martinez said, pulling out his datapad to start jotting notes on. “Let’s get started; we are already burning daylight.”

  “Yes, it will likely be very late by the time you are done today, so let’s get to work,” Shiksie chuckled as she slid the first book closer to Martinez.

   SECTION FIFTEEN

  BOOKS HIT LIKE BRICKS

  Martinez’s lips started to dry out, his throat slightly burning as he swallowed another salted piece of jerky. He appreciated Shiksie for buying them snacks but wondered why they all had to be so salty. He reached across the table and pulled over his now nearly empty water bottle. As he sucked down the last of the thirst-quenching liquid, his eyes traced across his previous quiz attempts laid out on the table.

  A tiny flicker of pride glowed in his eyes as he gazed at the scores at the tops of the pages. Each number was written and circled in bright red, written in Shiksie’s perfect script, looking more like printing than something made by hand. Martinez was initially skeptical about her writing, even with her notebooks in hand. But when she wrote anything, it was done with the same dexterity and care of any sutures.

  The first score was abysmal, getting only a meager 7 out of 100 questions correct. Shiksie told him that she had expected him to score slightly better, but since he had taken that test before they started studying, the results did not bother her. Quite to the contrary, she was glad because it gave her an idea of what Martinez truly understood about the GU and its medical services; simultaneously, it also showed Martinez how little he knew about the wider galactic community he had jumped head-first into.

  The rest of Martinez’s scores were slightly better; after another six attempts at the quiz and nearly seven hours of studying under his belt, his score had climbed up to a mediocre 65. It was still a failing score but was a galaxy distance of improvement over the first.

  Between Martinez’s failures, Shiksie bashing him over the head with flashcards and questions, Martinez was texting with Lysa. He was glad to hear that she had a good class. She and Sergeant Fienel were the only two in class today. Martinez got his answer about the history between the two. He had curiously wondered because they had seemed rather friendly during his and Lysa’s arrest.

  The Sergeant apparently was why she started attending martial arts classes in the first place. After scooping her bloody and beaten off the concrete a few times, he convinced her to start training and enrolled her in the same class. After that, she just never stopped training and had been doing so for years at this point.

  “God, this is difficult,” Martinez gasped as he wiped a dribble of water off his chin.

  Martinez looked across the table at Shiksie; how tired she became was evident in her body language. The usually prim and proper feline alien slumped in her chair, her tail draped across her lap, its tip languidly swaying back and forth, brushing lazily against her calf.

  “I forgot how much I hated these tests,” Shiksie bemoaned as she flipped to the next page of Martinez’s latest attempt at the first chapter quiz.

  It had been years since Shiksie had to take a test like this and far longer since she had seen this exact one. She could hardly recall half the information she was grading, which had been pushed out of her mind by more exciting and relevant pursuits. Namely, she preferred just to study what she wanted at the time.

  Having someone dictate what she had to learn seemed pointless, especially when that information would not be relevant to her work. That aspect of college was something she always struggled with, even if she did constantly get high marks; most of the first few years of school had been filled to the brim with irrelevant drivel.

  “I hear that. I’m not a huge fan of studying in general,” Martinez said before he popped another of the small meat sticks into his mouth. “Unlike you.”

  “What makes you think I’m a fan of studying?” Shiksie replied as she glanced up from the papers.

  “Oh, I don’t know, maybe the mountain of books? Or perhaps how you read up on a new species every week?” Martinez scoffed as he stood up and walked toward the sink.

  Shiksie sighed and placed another incorrect mark on the test. At that point, Martinez had already failed this attempt, but she would still do her best to help him. Giving him an accurate grade was her end of the bargain.

  “No, it’s not that,” she yawned, moving her pen to the next question.

  Martinez flicked on the faucet and started to fill his bottle back up. He could not believe he had already been through four bottles of water; Shiksie had done the same. Their food and water intake increased as they gradually got more tired, a pitiful attempt to stave off sleep. Since Martinez had no coffee and Shiksie could not drink caffeine, it was about all they could do to keep conscious.

  “It’s not?” Martinez questioned, “I figured you were just the type who loved books and learning.”

  “Nope, I have— other reasons for always studying so much,” Shiksie replied as she jotted the final score onto the latest quiz attempt.

  Martinez raised a brow, noticing the pause she took midway in her speech. It was unlike her to not have a smooth, buttery-like voice. He flicked off the faucet and returned to his seat.

  “Yeah, like what?” Martinez questioned as he lowered himself back into the chair. He groaned as the tight muscles in his back screamed at him for sitting back down.

  “It’s nothing happy, just some really old memories,” Shiksie said. She tossed the scored quiz to Martinez. The stack of papers slapped into his chest and plopped on the table. “67, by the way.”

  Martinez let out a frustrated huff as he grabbed hold of them and started to review his quiz.

  “Well, shit, I guess another attempt is needed.” Martinez yawned.

  “Yeah, try one more time. If you fail again, we will call it for the night,” Shiksie prompted as she wiped at her tired eyes.

  “Yeah, that sounds good. Lemme just review the quiz and my notes again, then I will give it one more shot,” Martinez said as he reached back towards the red notebook and pulled it over.

  Shiksie grumbled a confirmation and resumed reading through her datapad while Martinez reviewed his quiz. She planned on reviewing the next chapter Martinez had to study, hopeful he would pass the next attempt, and they could start the second chapter tomorrow. However, with him still failing chapter one, that seemed more unlikely, and with her mind being tugged at by old best-forgotten memories, she did none of that.

  She sat absentmindedly staring at the intro page to the next chapter; Martinez’s question tugged at her mind, pulling her into a long locked-away portion of the lexicons of her consciousness.

  The visage of those long since faded memories slowly came to the forefront of her thought. The foggy images of her parents crossed her vision as she tried to remember their faces. She released an exasperated sigh, realizing she could not even remember what they looked like in life anymore.

  The only image of them she could vividly remember sent a guttural shudder running down her spine, and her ears would tuck low against her head; The battered corpses of her parents being pulled from the mangled truck clear in her mind.

  That fateful day had been seared in perfect detail into her soul.

  It was a bright summer day; the three of them were loaded into the vibrant blue truck her father had rebuilt. The soft floral scent of Shiksie’s mother filled her lungs while Shiksie happily sat in her lap, playing with the small Farutin plushie—the same one she kept at her bedside.

  All while her father next to them happily sang along to the radio, filling the cabin with his deep baritone notes. They were going to the mountains north of Draun on a day trip, hoping to spend the afternoon hiking in the woods. Shiksie used to love being out in nature and being around water. All of that changed that horrible day.

  Her father shouted, sending a jolt of panic through Shiksie and her mother. That stupid drunk driver careening around the bend in front of them so fast Shiksie had not even registered them.

  A quick jerk of the wheel sent Shiksie and her parents careening off a bridge and down into the icy river below. The few moments of freefall were the longest in Shiksie’s life, the approaching blackness of the river slowly encroaching on her, like a void of death she could do nothing to avoid.

  Even now, seeing deep water or being out in the woods sent her mind reeling back to that day. Her claws extended, and her heart began to race, readying themselves for a fight against the monsters in her mind.

  Shiksie ran through the events of that day over and over again, spiraling deeper in on herself, further into her sorrow.

  It was far easier to ignore those memories when she was alone, but being around people was dangerous; their happy smiles and joyful actions would almost always pull her back to those times. That happened whenever she let anyone close; their kind words would melt her facade away, exposing the vulnerabilities beneath.

  She long grew to hate that people so well accepted her facade. They truly liked it and bought it as the real her. Even Martinez only knew her as the frosty professional front she put up, not the scared, shivering kit still being pulled out of the river by paramedics.

  “Shikie, are you alright?” Martinez asked, shaking her shoulder and ripping her back from distant memories.

  Shiksie looked up at him and blinked in confusion. Her mind raced, wondering when he got so close to her. She practically reeled back from the heavy pine scent.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Aren’t you going to start your quiz?” She questioned swiftly.

  Martinez looked at her, a grimace growing on his exhausted face, with deep bags underneath his bright bark-colored eyes. He looked her up and down, causing Shiksie to scoot herself back a little bit, unsure of his intense gaze.

  “I finished a few minutes ago,” Martinez said, gesturing at the quiz on the table. He pulled his hands back and sat down, his chair far closer than Shiksie last remembered it being.

  “Shiksie, you were basically in a trance. I was trying to get your attention for a few minutes after I got back from using the head,” he said while leaning back. “Are you good?”

  A few minutes? It couldn’t have been that long, Shiksie thought.

  “Yeah, I will be fine, don’t worry about it?” Shiksie said, attempting to wave him off. She took a deep breath to put her glacial facade back up quickly. She leaned forward and reached out, trying to pull the apparently completed quiz towards her.

  Martinez placed his hand atop the papers, sliding them further away. “You can’t lie to my face like that. I know something is up,” Martinez said firmly.

 

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