I sat at another small table with a monitor on it, and the woman who guided me out started using the communications device to ask for vacancies. The Captain had not re-emerged from his office, although I could see him watching me through the windows.

I was pleased that he had suppressed the strong male instinct to use his ovipositor on me. He smelled much better than the other officer had, but I didn’t want to have another painful wound inflicted on me even if it was biologically necessary for species reproduction. The idea still sent shivers down my spine. I would have to get used to it if I wanted to join the ranks of mature females in half a year, but I would need the time to accept such a grotesque and potentially painful system. Fortunately for my peace of mind, the exact system seemed to be concealed by clothing, and I was beginning to understand the need for clothing, besides simply protection.

We emerged from the station, and this time, fortunately, there was a taller vehicle with a door on the side, one which had several women already inside of it. There were rows of seats, several of which were already filled, and took an empty one next to a very small woman. Was this an immature human?

I discovered that no, this woman was very elderly. Her unfinished look and white hair was not the lack of mature coloration, but rather the result of great age. F’lok’nyran did not change so drastically until they were ready to expire, but this woman seemed excited to be alive. I soon learned that her name was Beverly, the names of all of her children, most of her grandchildren, and several dozen cats. I also learned about every one of her health problems in great detail. All in the course of one 12-minute bus ride. Elder humans certainly seemed eager to pass their knowledge to younger generations, even if all I had said was ‘hello’.

We got to another building, and I learned about nearly every landmark along the way including their history. Fascinating tidbits interspersed among the names of offspring and cats. The shelter had, at one time, been a large Presbyterian Church, whatever that meant, and their last priest had been a pretty but simple man who was known for bedding his parishioners and most likely died in some sort of war that happened in a place called Vietnam.

I also learned that Chicago had used to be a center of trade, manufacturing, and commerce before ‘demdamyunyons’ ruined it. I was, in fact, the only person with pale skin on the bus, and apparently, that distinction was important for some reason I couldn’t quite fathom.

It made me curious about the criteria that the system used to construct my body. The original owner was darker-skinned, but I had been placed in an area where my subspecies was immediately obvious and notable. Was it something designed to increase the stress I was under for some unfathomable, testing reason? Or did different subspecies have varying attribute bonuses and it simply chose to place me where there was the most appropriate donor? Humans had widely varying attributes, and I had to wonder why mine were the way they were. Why was my Charisma so high? Was it simply to match F’lok’nyran empathy with something similar among humans? Or was it intended to aid the eventual recruiting quest?

Many things were unknown about the intelligence that guided The Game of War. To most of my species, it appeared as a simple, analytical database query tool, but other races reported sarcastic, almost abusive behavior, sometimes seemed positively inclined towards their every action or negative nearly to the point of hostility.

So far it had behaved towards me like a friendly but aloof instructor, and I wondered what could be done to discover more of its motivations if it had any, and eventual goals beyond facilitating the adventurous and connecting distant civilizations.

One of the most curious things about The Game of War was something called adventurers. My former race had never created an adventurer, nor had any ever visited our world, but supposedly some of the least civilized, youngest, and frankly least mentally stable species in the alliance occasionally produced them.

They were people that were so unbalanced that they regularly and casually risked their lives, and gained great rewards in return. They faced off against horrors that most sane civilizations avoided entirely, and were supposedly responsible for ensuring those horrors could not reach civilized worlds. The whole thing was shrouded in mystery, but I had to wonder if the subtle encouragement towards inducting Humans into the game was because they might be suited to facing these things?

Was I considered suitable to be an adventurer? If so, I would be the first, last, and only F’lok’nyran to have ever had that experience. It sounded awful, but if I could do so, would it be responsible to not take advantage of the opportunity to protect people from threats potentially even worse than the Sintar? I may not have chosen to become a warrior and would have avoided it given any excuse, but a warrior I had become.

I sighed and shuffled into the shelter with the rest of the people from our vehicle. When we entered, there were already a number of inhabitants. The sky outside had gone dark, presumably from the world’s rotation away from its primary, and humans appeared to be primarily, if not entirely, diurnal. Visibility was slightly reduced, but the city was seeded with lights to allow clear visibility in even the darkest hours.

Helpful women in multicolored smocks guided us to where we would be sleeping, and then to the dispensary, where a table with delightful smells was covered by large trays filled with a surprising variety of sustenance. With various helpful suggestions, I eventually chose something called chicken cacciatore, with additional portions of something green called broccoli, some pasta salad, and a slice of something called a lemon cake.

The food was delicious, but I was very careful to only eat until the hunger sensations ceased. The amount of variety in food was astonishing. I was especially curious about the chicken cacciatore. It was covered with a sweet and slightly tangy red sauce mixture, with various additions I had no idea how to classify. Whatever plant had produced the thick chunks was quite tasty, and my teeth made short work of the delicious fibers that sort of broke apart in my mouth and on my tongue. It was slightly salty, in contrast with the sauce, and I finished it with gusto. If Earth ever started trading with other species, I am sure it could export its vegetable production at enormous profit.

I had once read a semi-banned bit of information when I was younger on some of the more savage species that were part of The Game of War but were not part of the alliance, like the Sintar. Supposedly some of them were so brutally savage that they actually ate pieces of their foes. Humans, on the other hand, appeared to be very careful with their food supplies and even chemically altered many of them by applying heat called cooking.

The human digestive system was evolved enough that it profited from this heat application in some way, and it allowed their diet to include an enormous variety of otherwise inedible plants. I mentally gave Humanity a huge boost in my mind for such forethought, since among the F’lok’nyran eating was not a form of entertainment, one simply ate refined plankton. My former race did not possess human taste buds, which were a highly specialized form of scent, and thus took no more pleasure from ingesting than they did from excreting, beyond avoiding body complaints.

We each received a small bag containing various hygiene items including a way of cleaning teeth of meal remnants, two items to clean both hair and body separately, a brush to avoid tangling your hair after cleansing, something that was supposed to reduce the build-up of strongly scented cooling emissions under your limbs, and several other items, including odd pads that were supposed to be used by females during a monthly menstrual cycle to prevent bleeding.

The woman who was manning the table near the entrance was kind enough to explain the function of each item but was looking at me oddly when she started to explain how human reproduction worked. Human females were expected to waste their eggs each month until they found the perfect male to fertilize them.

This was innate in their bodily functions, and while I could appreciate the hygienic concept of constantly refreshing your eggs and then clearing out the unfertilized ones after they passed their useful age, it still seemed absurdly wasteful. Of course, deeper behind this was the idea of carefully cultivating each offspring rather than simply allowing the survivors of the breeding pools to consume the unfit, so I guess it made sense. It was my system now, like it or not, so I’d best learn to love it like a native.

One of the most disturbing things I discovered was that males regularly abused their breeding privileges and that this was the major reason that many females were in a place like this. So far, both males and females had seemed surprisingly equal, but the idea that males would inject their ovipositors forcefully and against the receiver’s will was frightening. Their parenting instinct must be terrifyingly strong, but on the plus side, this sounded like most offspring would have an incredibly protective and supportive trainer in their male guardian.

I could understand why females would retreat to privacy and shelter among their own kind when threatened with involuntary breeding, however. A wound and then, I discovered, 75% of a local cycle would be required before the parasitic offspring could be safely released and raised.

Apparently during a large part of that period supporting the parasite became a full-time job for the female, making her nearly helpless as her body shifted its chemistry entirely towards the support of the offspring before its Birth. This was the side effect of their flexible minds requiring an incredible amount of placental oxygen and nutrients, it made enormous demands on the female’s body and required the female to enter a transformation cycle nearly equal to pupating before its birth.

The worst part was if the female had multiple offspring, she had to transform and modify her hormonal system at every single level each time before reverting to normal afterward. Human medicine was surprisingly advanced, but they had not created a system that could safely reduce these demands without harming the grubs. Some women were fortunate indeed to be able to carry multiple larvae at one time, so they would have to go through the cycle less frequently, but it was correspondingly a harder cycle than usual. The chances of having multiple offspring at one time were somewhat random, although apparently, it was an inheritable trait.

I wondered why they did not choose to breed the simpler cycle of multiple larvae at once exclusively and received an evasive answer about something called ‘love’ that I couldn’t even begin to understand.

After we received our implements of hygiene, several of us were allowed to join another smocked lady at what they called the donations closet. It was much larger than a simple closet, though, filling an entire room. My bloodstained support garment and tube top were condemned as whoreish and ruined, which explained the initial reactions of those police officers… I was unintentionally wearing a uniform that proclaimed I was available for unrestricted breeding! In addition, the support garment was far too large, and I was gifted with three new ones, much smaller and vastly more comfortable, referred to as a 32 B. they were also clean and dry and while not new, they were a clear and marked improvement over the old one.

I was directed to toss my old garments, except for the pants I wore, and received a package of six garments designed for wearing under my clothes that were brand new. They also gave me a garment that was exclusively for sleeping, a fuzzy pair of pants with a lightweight top with shoulder straps that had an amusing illustration of a stuffed animal with some sort of folded conical hat on its head with little Z’s over top, and several tops called Tee shirts.

I even received a sort of robe called a dress and a new pair of pants and something called a skirt. I gave them the impractically-tall shoes and received a much more useful pair of flat-bottomed, soft shoes in return, as well as another plastic package containing 8 pairs of foot coverings meant to be worn for sleeping or under the sneakers.

I felt well-outfitted, with several days of fresh and clean clothing, and when I was finished hygienically serving my body’s cleanliness needs with a fall of deadly acid called a shower, I felt more-or-less tolerable again. Human hygiene was much more complicated than that of the F’lok’nyran since they seemed to build up more contaminants without the constant flow of boron to cleanse them, but I was especially glad to get the patches of dried blood I found scrubbed off.

Surprisingly, while I was showering, one of the other women made a tentative offer to breed! At least I assumed that was what she was offering. I quickly shook my head, since I had no idea how that would work without her possessing an ovipositor, and it seemed an enormous amount of wasted effort without result. Even if she had been capable of helping me produce offspring, I was still illegal, and her scent and presence did not give me any of the warming or interest indicators that I assumed were associated with a good genetic donor, unlike Big Mike and the Captain.

I simply apologized to her and said I was not interested, and she shrugged and turned back to her shower, but I could see that she was still examining my body as I cleansed myself. If she was subjected to repeated involuntary breeding, I could understand her desire to associate exclusively with females, much as Big Gay Mike preferred to associate exclusively with males. It was a useful adaptation to a stressful situation, although I had to assume that it might have a detrimental effect on your social and breeding options. Were females capable of forced breeding with reluctant males? An interesting question to explore later.

I had noticed in the shower that all of the women who were comfortable undressing and cleaning themselves in front of the others had much richer skin tones than mine. They did not have any marks suggesting that they wore clothing while darkening their tone with skin exposure to sunlight, so they were either naturally that way or they allowed themselves to remain nude in the sunlight for long periods to make sure that the tone was even. Would it be profitable to try and absorb enough sunlight to match their skin tones? And would doing so unclothed violate local taboos? I had no idea, but looking more like a native was bound to make me less of an obvious foreigner and target.

Two of them, like me, apparently had no hair on their lower abdomen. Both of them seemed younger and healthier than the majority, although the one that was the youngest at 15 seemed to grow such hair. One of the two was the woman who had approached me, and I assumed this was simply a natural variance.

Several of the women had large wire cages with wheels that they packed their belongings into, and while such a conveyance was unwieldy, it allowed them to bring their belongings with them in their travels. I asked for some method of transporting my new bounty and received a worn bag with shoulder straps that I could conveniently fit all my clothing and my purse into. It was soft, so when we finally retired for the evening, I used it as a way to prop my head up while I slept, a procedure many of the others were adopting as well and had suggested as a way to avoid theft.

I had no idea why someone would take it, though, as we had all been offered the same opportunities from the closet. There were several women, mostly those with the wheeled cages, who were muttering and making odd noises that suggested a tentative grip on sanity, and I wondered if their problems included an extreme acquisitiveness, especially since several of them glared or made warning noises at anyone that so much as approached too closely to their cages.

Everything matched the behavior of a civilized society, except, perhaps, for the treatment of those who had lost their sanity. They seemed to be mostly ignored instead of taken in hand and treated, sterilized, or recycled based on the depth and reason for their lost grip on reality.

There was a computer in the main room, that I could just barely reach from where I was lying down preparing to sleep, so I spent some time with telepresence exploring it. It was far less powerful than the one at the police station, but its security was easily brushed aside by simply bypassing the memory locations.

It sent information requests out through the hub and received replies via a light signal sent along cables of transparent glass. It was amazingly fast, much faster than transmitting electrical signals along metallic gold wires, with far less signal loss due to resistance and material inconsistency or degradation. Not as fast as telepresence, of course, but for a large network rather than the sort of enchanted hub I was used to, it was an amazingly advanced mundane answer.

I soon learned the signals, and how they were routed and labeled in packets with all sorts of identifiers attached. Many of these were simply superfluous ways of tracking the originating location and could be safely bypassed when creating my own packets. By the time my body grew weary enough for me to take a rest break, it was deep into the evening enough for most of the women in the room to be asleep, except, oddly, for the two women who didn’t have bodily hair, who were shifting under the blankets of one of the beds together and making odd pained sounds.

I managed to set up a telepresence amplifying enchantment on the hub, and also a small, hidden compression-coded algorithm for converting data and packets into something I could use easily instead of having to concentrate on translating it as I searched. With the enchantment, anyone capable of telepresence within about a 144-mile radius should be able to easily send out queries to the inefficient search engines and receive the packaged images and information, referred to as web pages in their minds.

Of course, anyone with telepresence could also cause the machine to move or do things that it was not designed for, such as activating its internal motors, warping its metal frame, or reconfiguring itself, but I decided not to add security to prevent it, since it was not my property and it would require serious microassembly to allow it to function in a new or unintended configuration.

Ready access to information was extremely comforting, and I finally lost consciousness.

When I awoke, the lights were activated, which had awoken me. I had slept well, but during my long period of unconsciousness, I’d lost almost a third of the local day! My brain had worked at some problems I was unconscious of. It was a wonderful response, allowing me to divorce myself from certain stresses the previous day without conscious effort, and I marveled again at the human flexible mind gift, clearly designed to protect itself from dissolution through various mechanisms.

These creatures were built to survive just about anything that didn’t immediately kill them and to retain their sanity, and I had to wonder what sort of extreme situations would have caused certain members of this group to lose their grip on reality. Most of those so afflicted were of advanced age, and I wondered if this facility declined with age.

As a bit of an experiment, I brushed one of the younger, unstable cage-carting members with my hand as we went through the line in the morning that seemed to be muttering to herself and glaring about. I used the Rapid Regeneration as I did so, and was startled and not entirely pleased when she seemed to panic while we were showering. We were invited to depart afterward, with our new belongings, and I was somewhat gratified to see her talking intensely and coherently with the lady at the computer as I left, her wheeled cage which I identified as a shopping cart seemingly forgotten.

I was supposed to return to the police station this morning and had eaten something called Bacon and eggs for breakfast. I had to reflect on the poor taste of whoever had named the vegetable, but last night I had found something called eggplant that reassured me. The bacon was crispy, salty, and delicious, and I wondered if it was some sort of gourd that they smoked for the texture. I was feeling nutritionally fulfilled and healthy this morning, so I started walking toward the station rather than waiting for the bus to pick me up.

The oddest thing I had discovered so far, and one of the most backward, is that there was no direct link between labor and sustenance, but rather a medium of exchange, similar to game credits. There were apparently no dispensaries for food and other necessities, and some humans actually starved. Even amid plenty, they could die from a lack of basics.

It was barbaric, but humans seemed to have far less of a sense of responsibility than many other races. Fortunately, there also seemed to be a sort of support structure for many of those who were incapable of useful effort, rather than a simple repair and recycling for those who would discorporate due to disability. If all humans had this insane personal survival mechanism, I was a little surprised that there was not a carpet of insane or disabled on every street in the evenings.

I was dressed in a pair of pants I had received, that were loose and referred to as sweats because they were designed for physical fitness efforts, which humans cooled with a water emission called sweat. I also had on one of the tee shirts as well as a support garment underneath. I was attempting physical fitness, running lightly, enjoying the incredible speed humans seemed to possess as I worked the muscles in my heart, lungs, and legs.

The new shoes were dramatically easier to run in, and the buildings seemed to whip by at nearly insane speeds. My new Backpack was on my back, and I was grateful for the support garment both for its prevention of possibly painful flopping as well as the fact that my white shirt with an odd sort of robotic animal called an AT-AT on the internet, was starting to soak through with sweat. If not for the garment, I might have violated local custom due to the transparency of the fabric when wet.

The run was longer than I had expected from the bus ride, and at one point I guess I surprised a group of males similar to the ones that had murdered my prior host. They were not the same ones, however, so I ignored the sense of punishment that arose from their appearance, their jeers of white bitch and sit on my cock, whatever that meant, as well as commands to stop.

This was probably not the best location for physical exercise, but I seemed to be beyond their reach and speeding away by the time they noticed me. Except for one, who started running after me. I kept pressing, though, and even though he seemed to run faster than me when a strange pain developed in my side and he caught sight of the police station I was running towards, he stopped and turned away.