Monsters Under Mistletoe

1. Gwen

Chapter 1

Gwen

N o one in my office is paying attention to the end-of-week meeting being streamed from the 176th floor. It’s one of those things that’s the same every week. This many cases were opened, this many closed. These are the cases that have been escalated and the ones that shouldn’t have been escalated. These are the current opportunities for additional income participating in the most ridiculous gang bang ever because being a forensic accountant does not mean you shouldn’t also be a sex worker.

Same old, same old.

The numbers and names and gang bangs change. The office changes too, depending on which floor it’s being streamed from, but you can barely tell. The Forensics Accounting is Still Forensics! poster is swapped with the For Your Safety, No Humans May Board Transports in Bays 17-652 poster in the 192nd Floor office. On the 207th Floor, one of the accountants has a harnetti polecactus, which has been banned in terrestrial technocolonies but no one has reported it. No one pays attention.

But then I hear that laugh.

With at least fifty of us in this office at any given time, there’s a white noise buzz from a dozen conversations drowning each other and the streamed meeting out, but it’s the laugh of a male, deep and resonant, standing out in that subtle way that a strong bass guitar does. You don’t notice it until you do, and then it’s the only thing you can hear.

I glance up and glare at the image of Tasi, with his irritatingly shimmery blue skin, its deep ridges ensuring that no matter where he is, I’m blinded from the sparkling of some glaring line or another.

Tasi, with his far-too-crystalline eyes that could ice a soul right out of a body, metaphorically speaking. Probably.

Tasi, with his entirely unnecessary height, well surpassing seven feet, and his shoulders twice as broad as mine so he literally has to pivot to enter the forensic accounting office, and his wingspan, his freaking wingspan.

Tasi, with his big rank-stealing brain—

The soft clicking sound my cubicle neighbor, Allison, makes against her cheek is more effective than any loud bang would be in getting me to look away.

“Gwen, you need to stop,” she says with a laugh.

But I can’t. Tasi is new this year. Few alien males are allowed to live on Verlain due to security issues, and it’s only been seven months since Chrytons were cleared. He’s the first I’ve ever seen in person—or, in livestream from twelve floors above me. We’ve never actually been in the same room together. And when he got a higher clear rate than I did his first month on the job, I figured he was exchanging sex with the department lead for easy workloads. It wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened. I also wondered if he was using his computer skills to make a program that automatically generated responses. Every program Verlain has tried has had an unacceptable error rate, but not necessarily in the short-term. He could probably get away with it for a little while.

But he got those numbers honestly. I’ve been a forensic accountant for over a decade on both Verlain and Earth, only broken up by that one-year prison sentence I spent on a breeder station.

Oops.

I am fully capable of reviewing Tasi’s work to see what his trick is. Alas, his trick is being truly amazing at his job.

I’m not jealous.

But as Tasi’s numbers go up, my numbers go down, down, down.

“Maybe I should quit and be a whore like everyone else,” I grumble.

Allison gasps and flicks my shoulder with one of her devil nails. She insists on getting the longest, sharpest nails twice a month because we don’t have physical keyboards here on Verlain, so she doesn’t have to worry about her nails getting hung up like they did on Earth.

“Oww,” I whine.

“Don’t say whore like that,” she snaps at me, flicking me again to ensure a bruise, even though I know it’s out of love.

“Sorry.” She’s right. I’m the strange one for not doing even occasional sex work.

“Don’t apologize. And don’t quit just because you’re not winning anymore. Who even wants to win at accounting?”

A quiet chime resonates through the department as a notification drops on everyone’s holos and is followed by a clash of cheers and jeers. I am firmly on the jeering side as I scan the missive. Someone with a higher rank than I recently launched an initiative to make it feel more like a terrestrial office here. I was expecting industrial carpeting and fluorescent lighting. Instead, we got Food Truck Tuesdays and impromptu group activities.

FORENSICS ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT WINTER HOLIDAY PARTY

7PM-Midnight

Half Price tapas

2 drink tickets for cleared team members

Club 679Blue

LET’S PARTY LADIES AND ALIENS!!!!!!

The excessive use of exclamation marks makes me want to gag, as does the idea of partying with my coworkers. Allison is excited, though. She was raised in one of those weirdo Morman cults in Utah, so things like this make her feel like she’s getting the experience her family prevented her from having. She also murdered her forty-year-old husband when she was sixteen, so she’s way more badass than I’ll ever be. She doesn’t even have a formal education, and she’s probably going to beat me in rankings this month.

But I love her. It is what it is.

I glance back at Tasi and grudgingly admit to myself he’s probably an average accountant by Chryton standards. First Contact was a rude awakening for humans. We’re not nearly as smart as we think we are. The other two aliens in the department both rank highly enough that yeah, this is probably just what average alien accountants are capable of.

I can’t hate him because he looks so fucking perfect, either. I’ve seen just about every alien race in the galaxy, and Tasi is the most attractive alien I have ever—

“Oh my shit,” Allison hisses when she catches me glaring at him again. She loves swearing but has never really gotten the hang of it. “Will you just go up to his floor and ask him if you can touch his dick? I hear he charges very reasonably.”

I glower at her long enough to get my feelings across before gluing my eyes back to my holo. “I’m not going to pay him for sex. I don’t want sex with him, let alone paid sex.”

“Fine, be that way. But we’re going to the holiday party.”

“I don’t want to—”

“I don’t care,” Allison bites out, clipping each word into individual snappy syllables, but she grins brightly the entire time. “We’re going to go out for drinks, and we’re going to have a good time whether you like it or not.”

Not really how good times work, but who can fight that?