***Ummm… I accidentally changed tense in this chapter and was too lazy to fix it. Please forgive me. I'll try to be better next chapter.***

I'd forgotten to mention the part of my new job that really was new to me: working the front desk. Each week, someone from the department got stuck doing it, and we rotated the duty. Why? Simply put, it was one of the most boring jobs in the empire.

I sat behind the dark brown metal box, sighing and drumming my fingers on the keypad of the black laptop provided for use at the desk. Moby was lying on his belly, idly kicking his metal legs while drawing little faces in the dust.

I settled my head in my claws, letting my eyes drift nearly shut. All I do at the desk is take walk-in requests and help others pick up the requests they made. I stick a little coiled gray vacuum tube into their pack to make sure they have the right clearance, then wave them on their way. Frankly, it was even more boring than listening to my old taskmaster croaking out his "team spirit" speeches.

Then she sauntered in. Her eyes flamed like rubies under a spotlight. The silver bangles running up and down her arms jingled as she walked, swinging her hips like one side was broken. Her head was held high. She radiated an air of importance, like royalty, but I knew she couldn't be a tallest because she was only a head or so taller than me.

Her skin shined in the overhead lights. She'd obviously coated herself in a fine powder to get that sheen, as the flowery scent of her powder was drifting my direction. I smiled, trying not to choke as it diffused into my lungs. "Can I help you?" I coughed out.

"You're new," she observed sharply. A bit taken back by her harsh bluntness, I simply nodded. I knew my eyes were thought-revealingly wide as I faced her. "You must be here to replace the guy that accidentally got blown out of an airlock. Poor guy, but if he was going to sneak into a soldier's only function, it was his own fault," she self-righeoutly informed me. Again, I played it safe and simply nodded in her direction.

Without warning, she let out a nerve-piercing shriek, pointing at my head. "Your antennae! They're split! How did that happen?" she cried, eyes wide.

I felt embarrassed. "I don't really remember. It happened when I was a smeet," I stammered. "I'm told it was because I almost froze to death."

"Chemical accident," the strange Irken female chirped, shoving her own split antennae in my face. I hadn't even noticed. "You don't meet many like us." Going for some kind of record, I nodded again. "Well, I should probably get my requests and go."

"ID please," I said politely, clicking to clear off the computer's dancing tallest screensaver.

"Willow One," she said brightly. That means she has a very rare name. Popular names, like Red or Scotch, can have and ID number in the thousands. We don't generally use our numbers in casual conversation, but without them, it would be impossible to tell who wanted what.

"Here they are," I said politely, handing over the books. I notice the clearance level: 11. I'm impressed. I've seen a couple level 10s, but this is the first time I've seen an eleven. She takes the books in her hands and waits while I scan into her pack, chattering all the while about how fascinating the subject of genetics is. Only when she's gone do I realize exactly how quiet the library really is.

I'm just settling back in my seat when the teleporter fires up, and a package drops into view. Lifting it, I study the label. "It's for you, Moby," I say, sounding a bit confused. I hand it to him.

Eagerly, he tears into it, sending packing paper flying in all directions. "Oil!" he squeaks joyfully. "That's what I wished for!" I can't help but giggle a little. Every SLAW unit gets their monthly can of oil, and since I hate getting dirty, it's a lucky thing they change their own oil. Why would he waste his wish on something he was going to get anyway, I wonder? Then again, I think, what else could a happy little robot like that want? I look towards the door the sauntering Willow exited through only moments before, and I silently hope that what just left wasn't the answer to my wish.

======

The next few weeks are uneventful. I eat, I sleep, and I do stuff. I'm starting to get used to the Massive, as "massive" as it may be. At least, now when get lost, it's usually for less than a half-hour. I'm kind of ashamed to admit how often I get lost, as I used to live in the largest city on Irk. I figure I'll get it eventually.

I'm starting to meet the other six librarians, and two historians. The historians are the tallests' personally handpicked choices, and they report history the way the tallests want them to. I'm not sure if this is really right or not, but who am I to question the actions of the tallests? I'm sure they don't call them all-knowing for nothing. The historians are Jez and Gyo. I think Gyo has a bit of crush on me, but that's another story for another time. Jez is too airheaded to notice much of anything beyond his computer. If he didn't have his HAR, historian assistant robot, he'd probably lose his own head.

The other librarians are Susen, Sharlet, Carlit, Brie, Flo, and Flaw. Only Flaw has green eyes, and the other five are all red-eyed. They're nice enough, if a bit of a gossipy bunch. I finally see what the headmaster was talking about when he said all the girls wanted to go to the Massive to flirt with the tallests. Tallest-spotting seems to be these girl's official sport.

Joining them for lunch, I listen politely, but rarely join into the conversation. Today, it's Carlit who's had a sighting. "I was walking along the catwalk, and guess who was two stories below me?"

"Who? Who?" comes the resounding, eager answer.

"Tallest Purple!"

"No way!"

"Liar, liar!"

"No, I wouldn't!" she gasps, a hand on her chest. "He was feeding those flesh-eating blue plants he keeps."

"Flesh eating?" I ask. That doesn't sound nice. I'm not sure I'd like having something like that in my garden.

"I would have called for his attention, but another stupid servant drone got his head stuck in one of the plants, and our tallest seemed a bit occupied."

"Trying to pull him out?"

"No, laughing."

The girls launch into a fit of laughter themselves. Moby scratches his head. I make a mental note to tell him that I didn't get it, either. What's so funny about a flesh-eating plant? I'd be scared to death if one had me by the antennae.

As if to answer my thoughts, my antennae were suddenly clasped in a firm grasp. Squealing like a Dlor before the slaughter, I flail my arms. "Help! It's got me!" I shriek, loudly enough to cause the others around me minor pain.

"It? Now I'm an it?" an insulted, female voice asks. I turned around to see Willow. She flashes me a huge grin, her eyes shutting and becoming V-shaped lines in the process. She seems overly happy about something. "You got a minute?"

"I have to go back to work really soon…" I mutter, feeling ashamed to have reacted so severely.

"That's okay, this will I only take a minute. I wanted to know if you'd like to talk a walk with me when you get off from work. I can show you places around here you'd never find on your own." Strangely, that sounds more like a threat than an open invitation to me.

So, to be safe, I say yes, sighing in the process. My name should be changed to "she who does things simply because they're the safest way." Some Irkens would say I lead a boring life. I think they've never read the books I have. Who needs putting my body in harm to have exotic adventures?

Walking along because Willow's saunter, I can't help but notice how I've never met another Irken like her. She's always chatting away, not even noticing if the other half of the conversation consists of me doing nothing but twitching my antennae. She walks like a slinking feline, her jewelry chiming on her wrists.

"Doesn't all that silver get in your way when you work?" I finally ask, hating myself for doing it. I've got to learn to stop blurting things out. She pauses, grinning brightly at me. That grin is unlike anything I saw back on Irk, even on other Irkens.

"Nah, not really. I'm a scientist," she says. After a split second's pause, she adds, "I make Smeets."

"That must be fun," I say, "Seeing all that new life."

Her antennae drop visibly. "I never get to see what I made, really. I just conceive them, not hatch them."

"Oh. Sorry."

She shrugs her slender shoulders. "Hey, no problem. You didn't know. No spots off my pack." We cross in front of a giant observation window, the blackness of night beyond only punctuated by the shining of stars. Willow pauses to watch a couple of toddleIrks playing together. A small girl with deep, reflective purple eyes and bows in her antennae is getting a piggyback ride from a small red-eyed boy. A green-eyed smeet is watching from nearby, sucking on a stuffed Irken doll. The boy trips, spilling the girl across the floor. The smeet laughs hysterically at this.

I watch Willow pick the squirmy little girl back up. "Thanks," she says. She tries to run off, when Willow clamps onto her arm. "Dee, this is my new associate, Original."

Dee studies me, her antennae bobbing. I wonder if I'm earning her approval. "That's a funny name," she says, sticking the head of her stuffed Irken doll in her mouth.

Willow scolds her quietly before turning to me. "Original, this is my daughter."

I'm not sure what daughter means. "What is a daughter?"

"Well, to use a term you'd be more familiar with, I was her maternal gene donor," Willow says, letting the toddleIrk run off to rejoin her playmates. She watches after her, her eyes nearly tearing up. "Look, you can't tell anyone I know that. It's… not allowed in the rules… to find which smeets you're related to, but when I learned I'd been chosen for a combination of my brains, influence, and my impressive but not wondrous height to have a child, I had to know who she was. It was more than a mistake on my part."

"Why?"

"I found out her paternal gene donor was one of the tallests."

***

Well, those of you who have read "Invader Dee" already knew that. If you haven't, WHAT'S KEEPING YOU?

Heh, no, I kid. Umm… yeah. Input in the form of reviews is appreciated, but I'm not going to threaten to stop writing if you don't review. I've always hated it when people do that.