Page 69 of Folds
When I showed up, Izu Karel was waiting, next to the holofoam sculpture they installed to impersonate Earth flora. It looked nothing like a tree.
He didn’t look any less intimidating in civilian wear. More, if possible—the outfit had more seams than a pressure suit and hugged every inch of him with bespoke menace.
I’d expected a thank you, maybe some formal request for a maintenance favor. Instead, he said, “I would like to take youout,” in that rumbling accent, as if he’d just stated the time of day.
For a second, my brain bluescreened. The Bozad weren’t exactly famous for their subtlety, but this was… direct, even for them. My only previous experience being asked out was Mara’s third cousin on Ganymede, who’d wordlessly tapped three hearts on my public feed and then spammed me a protein bar meme. Izu Karel’s voice had none of that mealy shakiness, and he was very clearly not asking about shifts or borrowing my tools.
He stood there, chin tilted. His hands remained visible, nails neatly groomed, resting on the table between us with the casual certainty of a gambler already holding four aces. Space station etiquette did not prepare me for this.
It took effort not to laugh. Not at him, but at myself for instantly assuming I’d misheard.
“Take me out,” I repeated, because my mouth was on autopilot and apparently needed to stall for time.
“Yes,” he confirmed, unblinking. “On Bozad, custom dictates reciprocation of significant favor. You have provided one. We will eat and drink. You may select the venue.”
It was, if I was parsing this right, both a debt dischargeanda date. I had zero data on the correct response for interspecies courtship, so I did what every respectable human does when faced with the unexpected—reverted to type and suggested the bar.
“Um, The Hangar is still open?” I said, maybe a little lamely. The Hangar was the closest thing we had to a nice restaurant on the space station. It was more bar, but the food was also excellent. “The drink selection’s decent, and it is a little classier than Plasma Pub.”
“Within acceptable parameters. Do you possess appropriate attire?” He said it with the deadpan gravity of evacuation protocols. I had to cover my smile and duck my face down, pretending to swipe at phantom lint on my sleeve.
I could never tell if the Bozad grasped nuance, or if they just didn’t see the point in it. I wanted to say, “Does this look like awardrobe that owns a second outfit?” Instead, I looked down at my jumpsuit (spotless, for once) and said, “You want me to show up in a dress code I don’t have?” There was a challenge in it, but also an involuntary eagerness.
“The venue should reflect the favor,” he said, “and your standing. Choose something you consider… elevated.” Subtle emphasis on the last word, though his poker face didn’t move at all. He could have been a statue or a murder-bot, but I’d seen enough life in the flick of his eyes last week to know he was baiting me, if only barely.
“I’ll think of something,” I said, standing. “Tonight?”
“I will be present at The Hangar at 20:00 shift. You may arrive at your discretion.” He performed a little bow, not quite mocking but one degree off sincere.
I’d never in my life put so much thought into an outfit. Mara caught me, of course, standing half-naked in the drypod.
“Do you even own a dress?” she asked, as I debated between my least-stained jumpsuit and the actual dress my mother shipped me when I first left Earth, with a note about “first impressions” on “suitable partners.”
“I don’t know if I’d call this a date,” I said, wriggling into the dress. It was ancient—synthetic silk, black, and too tight in the shoulders, because apparently I was bench-pressing my trauma in my sleep.
It looked way better than I remembered. The fabric shimmered if you caught it just so. The dress hugged where it needed to and slouched casually at the hips, and my legs looked longer in it. I watched Mara’s eyebrows do a delighted little jump, which I tried and failed not to preen over. I did a half-turn in the pod’s mirror wall and pretended to adjust the strap, just to see if it moved with me. It did. I had no illusions about my body—compact, function over form. But in this ancient relic from the Mercer matriarchy, I looked like trouble worth chasing. If I’d been a betting woman, I’d have put money on the odds that Izu Karel wasn’t ready for this.
Mara, doing her best to wrap a respectable friend’s concern in sarcasm, said, “Are you planning to seduce the entire bar or just your blue friend?”
“It’s a work function,” I said, but my ears burned. “It’s not like a real date. It’s a… diplomatic obligation.”
She cackled. “You’re wearing heels. Diplomatic, my ass.”
I ignored her and took another critical look at myself in the mirror before heading out to The Hangar. People were already crowding the entry when I got there. Most of the station worked on staggered day-night shifts, so The Hangar was never empty, but the way they’d set the lights tonight made it almost cozy. I shouldered my way past some dock-jockeys in dirty mechsuits, feeling a weird flutter at the thought of being early.
Etta caught my eye from behind the bar and immediately did a double take like she’d just seen a cat riding a jetbike. She gave me a two-finger salute and started pouring something neon and hazardous into a glass.
I spotted Izu even though he was hunched respectfully in a booth sized for humans. There was no way to miss him—the iridescent skin popped against the matte gray of the table, and his hair messy as it had been the first time I met him, which told me he styled it that way. He wore civilian clothes, tight at the chest and arms and strange in color, kind of a deep violet that must’ve meant something in Bozad culture. His posture made him smaller, but I could tell he was still scanning the bar like a predator learning to smile.
He looked incredible. I mean, if I’d had to sketch out a fantasy ofalien prince, undercover,it would have been maybe thirty percent of what I saw in that booth. The blue shifted, micro-patterning with the station’s weird bar lights so it looked like his veins glowed and faded in secret messages up his neck. Beneath the thin civilian shirt, you could make out cable-thick muscle. I hadn’t noticed before, but his irises matched the outfit almost exactly, a violet so deep it nearly went black when he focused on something.
Me, in this case.
He must have caught me staring, because he stood the second he saw me, and for a split second, stumbled over the protocol of a human greeting—was it a bow? A handshake? Instead, he just hovered by the table like gravity was optional, expression unreadable but gaze molten and unblinking. If he’d been trying to look nonchalant, he’d failed spectacularly.
“You… adapted.” He pointedly did not look down at my dress, but it was obvious that’s where his attention was glued.
I grinned, unable to help myself
