Rowan sat at the bar of the most expensive club in the market section of the space station Pax Orbis and let his best friend Stefan buy him drinks during happy hour. Rowan drank an amber light alcohol that approximated a lager while Stefan drank the blood of a cat girl, which was special that night.
Rowan raised his glass and clinked it against Stefan's goblet. "To the best vampire buddy a man could have, thanks for buying me a pint Stefan."
Stefan was a stylishly dressed pale humanoid with pointed ears, long slick backed hair and pointed teeth. "How many times do I have to tell you, I'm not a vampire, I am a nictid. N-I-C-T-I-D Rowan. Our empire spans three times as many stars as your republic. Our culture is rich and our history long." He dipped his finger in his own drink and then stuck it in his mouth. "Man, I was hungry." He then took a large swig and stuck his tongue out like he was a rock star making Rowan laugh. Rowan always admired Stefan's taste in clothes, his merchant business had always kept the nictid in the best styles.
"Stefan, why do you always buy me drinks after work?" Rowan asked.
"Because you're the only human in the sector that I know of. Being your friend brings a certain prestige."
"Why don't other people do it?"
"Because male aliens only want human females, and alien girls would drop their dates at the first sign of you showing interest. I, on the other hand, am a lech and a philanderer, and have no trouble with jealousy." He sipped his blood. "Did you know that you just won the station's most eligible bachelor award this year?"
Rowan laughed and said, "What a bunch of baloney. No one's interested in me."
"Not true, what about my cousin I set you up with, why didn't you keep that up. She was so into you."
"Stefan, she opened a vein in my wrist and didn't stop drinking until I passed out. I didn't have enough blood pressure to get it up. I had to go to medbay."
The vamp crossed his arms and said, "She apologized, your just tasted too good. She asks about you from time to time, wanting to know if you stopped eating such greasy foods."
"Good grief."
"I know you won't date a slime or a graxlian, why not a lycan?" He punched Rowan in the shoulder. "I see those girls stare at you all the time."
"I see how well endowed their men are at my job. I cannot compete." He put a palm to his face and said, "And do not mention graxlians in my presence today."
"Why? What happened?"
"Those guys blew up the last cuck android the brothel had. Stabbed him right through the gut. The poor guy is half burned and the control circuits are fused together. I have to order the replacement parts tomorrow morning, but I don't know how long they'll take to get in."
"Sounds like you're screwed my friend," Stefan smiled, baring his fangs. He looked at a fellow nictid who walked past and gave her a wink before looking back at Rowen. "I thought cuck play was the brothel's bread and butter."
Rowen sipped his beer, nodded, and said, "Apparently fucking a human cyborg isn't enough these days. They want to humiliate the men as well."
"They're just angry that you humans left the space station a hundred years ago. Hell, you guys built it to foster peace among the spacefaring species."
"Can you blame them for leaving? Once the slimes and the mantisoids got a taste of terran poontang the humans couldn't go anywhere on the station without getting harassed in some way or another. After decades of trying to find common ground, all mankind found was a bunch of horny monsters. I don't blame them for going behind the great mine field. I think the only reason why you all don't jump me is that I'm too fat for your liking."
"That's a lie my friend." Stefan licked the dregs of his glass and motioned to the bartender for a second. "They're not after because you're fat Rowen, the reason is that you're too ugly."
Rowan gave him the finger and Stefan blew him a kiss in return.
The man downed the last of his beer and shook Stefan's cold hand. "I have to get going, unlike you, I can't drink my dinner. I also have combat training."
"You humans and your video games."
"As a citizen of the republic I'm required to put so many hours into simulated combat. It's not my fault they make it so fun. You'll be here tomorrow?"
"Same as always," Stefan nodded as another goblet of blood was slid to him by the bartender.
As Rowan waved and walked out the door nearly a half dozen females of various species approached Stefan and were peppering him with questions while looking at Rowan as he walked out the door. "Girls, girls, I'll tell you everything he said, but I must ask that at least one of you sits on my lap, it helps with my memory."
…
Rowan went through a quick scan MRI, DNA sampling, and finally retina scanning before the two foot thick hatch of the human section of Pax Orbis opened itself to him. Some nictid girls in leather watched him enter but backed away when the station's security autocannons pointed their barrels at them.
He walked down an empty corridor and smelled the stale air. The only noise he could hear were the circulator fans that were barely necessary now that he was the only person in a section of the station that was meant to house and feed fifty thousand people.
He took the causeway that passed over the vegetable gardens growing under pink high intensity LEDs. Rowan had stopped finding it funny that the robots were always harvesting the produce to just throw it into the compost bins. The amount of food one man ate could never make up for the fact that the automation systems were designed for so many more people.
Rowan had to walk further than he had to when he headed to his quarters. When he first arrived, Dicia, the station's AI named Dicia, had placed him in the highest class accommodations in the abandoned human section of the station. After a few months he chose new lodgings at the section's rim, even though it had a little less radiation shielding.
The overweight man put his eye up to the peep hole of his apartment's door and a faint red light scanned the blood vessels on his retina. The door opened and his nostrils were filled with the aroma of instant ramen cooking in the auto-kitchen. He stepped inside and kicked off his boots and slid on slippers before walking to what he wanted to see.
The apartment's main feature was its view of the outside. The far wall of the living room had floor to ceiling port windows and he could see the beauty of Avior 7, the name of the planet that Pax Orbis circled twenty times every day. Centuries ago, Avior 7 was decreed to be a neutral nature preserve in the Pax Orbis accords signed by all the species known to man at the time. For the most part, the regulations were observed and no permanent settlements were constructed on the surface of this blue and green world.
Rowan walked up to the window and put his hands against the glass. Below him he could see fluffy clouds coasting over turquoise seas. Lush continents spanned the equatorial regions while deserts and mountain ranges dominated the northern hemisphere. The great south sea took up the rest of the world. Polar ice caps dusted top and bottom of the world.
The man sighed before walking to the auto-kitchen and taking out the steaming bowl of ramen. The appliance that kept him fed barked at him saying that his consumption of fresh produce from the gardens was well below the necessary intake required for healthy living. He responded by hitting the mute button on the appliance.
He sat at the long glass dining table with his shelf stable food and ate in silence. Rowan didn't care much for politics or current affairs so he didn't turn on the news. Most likely the human news was about maintenance of the great mine field or some celebrity scandal. He could never wrap his head around alien politics at all. The noodles were chewy, savory, and delicious as always. He could feel his fingers start to swell up from the sodium in the food. Looking over at the clear fridge he could see his abundance of his ration of produce slowly wilting. It would be another day before he could send it to the composter and get a tongue lashing from the agrobot.
Leaving his dishes with the auto-kitchen to be cleaned, he walked to the den and put on his VR headset. Rowan couldn't afford nor did he want a bioport installed in his cranium. The real reason was he didn't trust the medbay to be able to handle any problems with it if things went wrong with it. Rowan didn't know how long it was since the robots had a medical library update.
After the virtual world formed around his avatar, Rowan decided to find his best human friend. Going through the menus he selected the Paris server and was transported to the streets of his favorite city. What was great about the place was that he could literally close his eyes, click somewhere on the map and be within a hundred feet of a cafe.
He walked up to one and took a seat. Virtual waiters looked and saw he wasn't interested in any virtual food and just let him be. His favorite pastime was to watch the other users down the street and come up with elaborate stories about them. One granny with a poodle could be a secret agent, while the young couple could be planning to steal the Mona Lisa.
Going through his control menu's he shared his location with his contact list and within five minutes she walked up to his table on the sidewalk and smiled. Paige's avatar was a young woman with shoulder length dark brown hair and green eyes. The summer dress showed off her slender figure. While he had lost hope in being anyone's boyfriend, real or virtual, he always hoped that Paige's avatar looked the same to her real form. Her bright smile always made his heart jump. Rowan's avatar was fairly accurate, but shaved off about fifteen percent of his weight. It was just enough to make himself feel better without feeling guilty of outright avatar deception. Paige had moved to Pax Orbis two years ago and worked up in the control section of the station, somewhere even he couldn't enter. They had met up online while they were combat training.
Rowan stood and gave Paige a hug that his real hands never felt and said, "Hey Paige how was your day?"
"Oh the same old stuff up in control. The climate systems need constant monitoring and there was another brawl in the general section between the graxlians and mantisoids. I had to send in the riot androids, five graxlians are in med-bay."
"Sounds like a tough day, I'm glad you could make it," he replied smiling. He gave a small nervous laugh before continuing. "You're looking lovely as always, is that a new dress?"
"Oh this little thing?" She twirled around while holding the brim of her hat. "I saw it in a magazine and had to render it. I'm glad you like it. You never told me how your day went." She sat down, put her hat on a chair, and pulled her silky hair behind her ear.
Rowan gulped. He never was fully transparent about his work on the station. "It was a tough day, customers had broken some equipment and it's going to take weeks to have it repaired. I think we're going to have to scale back our operations for the time being."
"That's horrible Rowan," Paige put a graceful hand to her small mouth. "If you need the station to expedite any shipments to your business, say the world and I'll move mountains. You just have to send me your business coordinates and…"
"That won't be necessary, really. You know I have trouble accepting help. Especially when I can't return the favor."
Even Paige's frown looked cute to him. "I don't understand why you have to be so silly about these things. Us humans need to stick together. You're all alone down there, the only friend you have is that blood sucker." She placed her hand over his on the small table; Rowan wished more than anything to feel it actually be there.
"Hey, Stefan is one of the good ones. At least you know he's a womanizer. I only ever saw him get into a fight once when he put his hand on a married slime girl." He laughed and continued, "you should have seen his face, when the husband engulfed his head trying to drown him."
They both laughed politely for a moment before Paige put on a look like she was going to ask for something. "Hey Rowan, I wanted to ask you something before we started combat training today. I've always wanted to come visit you in the general section and I wanted to know if I could come crash at your place."
"Heh, there's no need. The human section can house thousands, and there's only me in here. I bet Dicia could get you a spot anywhere. I would be worried about you coming to the general section anyway, it's not safe for human women."
"I'm sure the station's control systems will keep me safe. The command crew wouldn't let anything happen to me. I don't want to be alone in the human section either. Come on Rowan, please?"
Rowan thought about the last time there was a transport flight between the control section and the general section of the station. Both parts were completely sealed off for the sake of security and that was the reason why Paige and Rowan never met face to face. Meeting online and playing in combat simulations was one of the few things that Rowan looked forward to during his day. He just didn't want to disappoint her when she met the real him. It was probably months if not years before the next scheduled transfer flight happened so he shrugged and nodded. "What the hell, sure. There's plenty of room in my quarters."
"Oh Rowan, I could kiss you!" Paige wrapped her digital arms around him, but he did not feel her touch. "I can't wait. You won't regret this. I will need your mobile contact info though, so I can reach you."
Rowan wondered why she needed that info so soon, but thought it would be rude to refuse. He handed her a slip of paper with his number on it and said, "Here you go. We should head over to the station defence server or we'll be late for training."
Paige nodded and the couple sitting at the cafe vanished leaving no trace.