Call me, Jayden. A while back, when I was a young woman just out of university, I found myself unemployed, overeducated, and nearly broke. It was my last day in my apartment as I had no money to spare for another month if I was going to follow my dreams. At midnight the doors would seal so that my biometric details would no longer open the door. I was soon to add homelessness to my list of problems. I had just finished packing the last of my things into a large duffel bag when the door chime rang. I closed my eyes and accessed the door camera via my CCP. It was the landlord. I opened the door.

  “You go now?” My soon to be former landlord, Arknug was an orc. He was short, even for one of his kind, and quite rotund.

  “Yes. I gave proper notice.”

  “No change mind?”

  “No.”

  “Why you go?” He studied me intently.

  “I’m done my university studies, so my stipend ended and I can no longer afford this luxurious abode.” The apartment was a tiny three meter by three-meter ultra-efficiency. It was fully furnished including a fold down bed, fold down desk/table, and two folding chairs. A curtain could be pulled over the corner that had a drain in the floor under a fold out showerhead, and the toilet popped out from under the tiny sink when needed.

  “You have job?”

  “I’ve been applying for positions in my field, but no takers so far.”

  “Sit down you.” Arknug always wanted me to sit down to talk. He only came up to my sternum and Orcs were not built for looking up, so he had to strain his short gray neck and lean back to see me. I unfolded a chair as the easiest seating option. I didn’t really have any place to be.

  “You no experience. No one hire. Now no home. I can help.”

  “You know of an opening in xenozoology?”

  “Different name job. My cousin business.”

  “Which cousin. Not the one who owns a brothel?”

  “Yes real work. Want study aliens. Most customers orcs. Alien life forms.”

  “Homo orcneas is a species from Earth. You are not an alien any more than a rabbit or a griffin would be.”

  “Maybe alien customers.”

  “Doubtful. No one comes to Bedford and even if they did, the aliens we’ve encountered do not have compatible biologies for brothel activities.”

  “No have sex?”

  “Some do, some don’t but since by definition, they evolved on an alien world totally different from ours, why would they be interested in visiting an Earth-style brothel?”

  “Maybe they kinky?”

  I shook my head.

  “Maybe alien workers?”

  “Does your cousin employ any non-Terrans? I don’t know of any on this planet.”

  “You take job. I finder fee. You month free.”

  “No. I’m not interested.”

  “Have other cousins. Have other jobs. Waitress dancer masseuse.”

  “No, none of those jobs either. I want to leave Bedford. Thank you for your concern though.” I stood up and folded the chair back. “Everything’s like when I moved in if you want to check it before I go.”

  “I trust you. Maybe you return. Hard find job. No place stay.”

  “There’s always a government bed.” Arknug sneered at the idea. “I’ve gathered all my things, and I have to be on my way.”

  “Sad see go. You good tenant. Never leave room. Can always talk. Also profitable arrangement.” He smiled, his jagged irregular teeth pushing into his dark gray lips beneath his beady all black eyes. Arknug overcharged me for the flat and when the university housing payment came through, he kicked back seventy-five percent of the difference to my personal account. Since the ultra-efficiency was so ridiculously cheap, no one noticed the overcharge that just brought the price up to that of a typical student studio.

  I edged past him and exited the apartment into the main corridor.

  “Goodbye Jayden. Keep in touch.”

  “You can message me anytime.” I could set up an autoreply if he actually did. He wasn’t a bad sort for an orc but once I got off Bedford; I was never planning to return.

  I headed up to the spaceport with all my meager possessions. It was already late in the afternoon. I walked through the service corridors and climbed rather than paying to use the transportation tubes. Bedford had no atmosphere and we all lived underground or in domes. I had to ascend fifty-seven levels and walk fifteen kilometers to get to the spaceport on the surface.

  In less than a kilometer, I used my CCP to find the nearest tube junction. Climbing and walking turned out to be very, very tiring for a completely sedentary person like me. They weren’t that expensive, but I still regretted any deductions from my small reserve. I prepaid for a one-way trip to the space port from my account. The tube door opened and I stepped into the capsule and took a seat. The capsule was a three-meter diameter cylinder with seating around the perimeter. It would rotate as it traveled so the one door would face whichever direction it needed to for exit and entry.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  The capsule traveled for about a minute horizontally then ascended rapidly. After travelling horizontally again for about four minutes the door opened at my destination. Now I needed to find the hiring hall. Employment sites had comprehensive lists of jobs on Bedford that you could apply for, but ships stopping at the port hired in person and on the spot. The turnaround was hours or days; there was no time for a traditional hiring process.

  Also, they wanted to assess you in person if they were going to be trapped in a spaceship with you for months. Did you have poor hygiene? Were you generally disagreeable? Did you lie on your resume? There were two advertisements for exciting opportunities that advised those interested to come in person. I wondered if there would be even more.

  There weren’t. Only two booths were occupied even though the hall had room for ten times that. I approached the first where a grizzled old goblin, whose red skin had darkened to a deep maroon, was sitting eating a bowl of unidentifiable pink goo. It must have been expensive and imported since it wasn’t one of the five basic foods. Goblins and orcs were the most closely related of the sentient Terran species, but they hated each other, so it was strange to see one here on Bedford, which was an orc-run planet.

  “Hi,” I said.

  He looked up, swallowed down what he had been swishing around his mouth, and burped. A bit of pink stuff dangled from one of his lower teeth where it stuck out over his dark burgundy lips. “You looking to join?”

  “Is this the ‘exciting off-planet opportunity’ I saw advertised?”

  “Yes. Outer Bedford Mining Corp.”

  “Outer Bedford?’

  “Yes, the planet Mocha.”

  “That’s the exciting off-planet opportunity?”

  “Yes. Forty of us there.”

  “What does the job entail? Aside from mining.” I asked even though this was hardly what I had imagined off-planet to mean.

  “You have mining experience?”

  “No.”

  “Monitoring and repairing machinery?”

  “No.”

  “Ever clean up messes?”

  “My apartment has automatic cleaning robots.” The occasionally worked. My apartment was so small I didn’t have enough to ever make a mess and if I did, I could clean the whole place without getting out of my folding chair.

  “Robots ever miss anything? Hard to clean areas? End up cleaning yourself?”

  “Sure.”

  “You could do that. Clean up for us. You sound fully qualified.”

  “I see.” Mocha was even more lifeless than Bedford if that’s possible. It was the fifth planet out and completely company owned. I hadn’t realized it was a goblin-owned company. Were they trying to move in on orc territory? It was pretty brazen for him to be here in the hiring hall even if the government claimed all species were legally permitted in all spaces.

  “How long’s the commitment?” The alternative was a homeless shelter and the dole.

  “Only for five years. Also learn other jobs.” around the station.

  “I see. And the pay?” I asked.

  “Room and board provided. A hundred thousand marks.”

  “For five years?”

  “That is per year. Pays at year end. Fifty percent immediately available.”

  “As soon as I sign up?”

  “When you arrive there.”

  “What kind of facilities are there?”

  “Station market and cafeteria.”

  “That sounds pretty good,” I said. It actually was. I could do the work. It wasn’t too difficult. In five years, I could afford a flight to a better system, assuming I didn’t go insane. Would I be the only human? The only female? It would be rude to ask. “What kind of medical facilities do you have?”

  “Goblins need no medicine.”

  “I’m not a goblin.”

  “We can contact Bedford. Ready to apply?”

  “I have a few other opportunities I’m considering, so I have to think about it a while.”

  “Only one spot available. Do not delay long. Many other applicants.”

  I looked around the empty hall, skeptical about this claim. “Okay, I won’t.”

  The next booth was five empty booths away. A bored-looking human teenager was sitting there watching a video on the desk’s pop-up screen, presumably listening through micro audio implants. She was at least four years younger than I was and had signs of undergoing aesthetic procedures to give her pointed ears, a broad bridged nose with wide spaced eyes, and high arching eyebrows. How did she afford all that work? Could she actually have elven blood? On Bedford?

  “Hi,” I said, peeping over the screen. She looked up. The video paused and the screen sank into the desktop.

  “What?”

  “You’re hiring?”

  “That’s why I’m here.”

  “What’s the job?”

  “Restaurant. You’d give people their food.”

  “Oh. On what ship?”

  “Ship?”

  “Is it on a luxury cruise ship? The ad mentions experiencing ‘a whole new world’.”

  “No, it’s here. You can check the job sites under the listing for Bedford’s Best Vegan Restaurant.”

  “I thought these booths were for off-planet jobs?”

  “Not strictly speaking. We thought we’d try this, because no one is applying.”

  “I see. I’ve never been there. They have hydroponic garden vegetables?”

  “No, purely vat-based. It’s not high-end. We only serve four of the five foods.”

  “What’s the pay?”

  “Eight marks an hour. Usually, you get around fifty hours a week.”

  “Tips?”

  “It’s no gratuity.”

  “My apartment’s three hundred marks a week. That salary doesn’t leave much left over.”

  “You can pick up extra shifts. Maybe moonlight. I’m getting paid extra for this, but I don’t think it’ll last much longer. No one has been coming to the booth. I may have to go back to picking up shifts at the Orcgasm.” I looked at her incredulously. “Just as a server,” she clarified

  “I’ll think about it, thanks.”

  “M-hmm,” she said and raised her screen back up.

  I headed over to the subsistence eatery just outside the spaceport to consider my next move. If they’d take me, the mining company was the better option, but I had severe concerns about my safety. I would never save anything being a table server. It would only make sense to take that job if I intended to keep coming back to the port looking for better opportunities. I wouldn’t be locked in for five years. Of course, if I intended to stay longer on Bedford, there were other jobs.

  When I got to the eatery, it was empty. Bedford was very rich in natural resources and no one was really poor, assuming they made sensible life choices, but government sustenance eateries and sleep centers were mandatory, so no one ever went hungry or without a place to sleep at night. I didn’t want to spend a single unnecessary mark from my personal account and would have to take advantage of them. I walked in and the sensors scanned and registered my biometrics.

  “Please, confirm that you request one meal for yourself, Citizen Jayden.” The question came in my mind via my CCP implant.

  I thought the response, “I do.”

  Two minutes later a slot opened in the wall, and I took the tray containing a meal nutritionally designed for me. Allegedly.

  The eatery was arranged with four long metal tables, each with four three-person benches on each side, leaving a small space between the benches for people to get in and out. I just sat at the end of the closest table furthest from the entryway.

  As I took my seat, someone else entered the eatery. She was a large woman, not in height, though she was above average, but shorter than I was. No, this woman was incredibly muscular. She was wearing a skin-snugging black ship-suit and deck shoes. Even though she was covered except her hands and head, little was left to the imagination. She retrieved her tray, walked directly to my table, and sat down across from me.