Page 33 of Technically Abducted (Nereidan Compatibility Program #4)

Finn

Three weeks.

Three weeks since I came back to my apartment with a container of alien gems and a hole in my chest where something vital used to be. Three weeks of going through the motions of my normal life while feeling like I'm watching someone else live it.

I've tried to get back into the routine.

Responding to client emergencies, fixing systems, maintaining the carefully controlled chaos of my workspace.

But everything feels muted, like I'm experiencing life through thick glass.

Even my successes—and I've had some impressive ones, including completely rebuilding Rosa's entire network infrastructure—feel hollow.

The gems sit in their container on my desk, untouched. I can't bring myself to research their value or figure out how to sell them. They're beautiful, undeniably, but looking at them just reminds me of Tev'ra's reluctant expression when he handed them over.

My phone buzzes with another client call, but I let it go to voicemail. I'll call them back in a few minutes, fix whatever's broken, collect my fee, and continue existing in this gray limbo that's apparently my life now.

The knock on my door is unexpected. I don't get visitors. Ever. My social interactions are limited to phone calls with clients and the occasional text exchange with Alex. Physical proximity to other humans has never been something I seek out.

But when I check the security camera feed, it's Alex standing in my hallway, holding two cups of coffee and looking uncharacteristically serious.

I let him in, noting how strange it feels to have someone else in my space. Alex has been here maybe three times in the years I've known him, always for work emergencies that required in-person collaboration.

"You look like shit," Alex says by way of greeting, handing me one of the coffee cups.

"Thanks, you too," I reply automatically, though it's not true. Alex looks fine—clean-shaven, well-rested, the picture of someone who has their life together.

"I'm serious, Finn. You've been weird since you got back from your mysterious family emergency." Alex settles into my one guest chair, looking around my apartment with the careful attention of someone conducting an assessment. "Want to tell me what's really going on?"

I take a sip of coffee and consider my options. I could lie, make up some story about family drama or personal issues. I could deflect with work talk or technical problems. I could shut down the conversation entirely and send Alex away.

Instead, I hear myself saying, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Try me."

The words hang in the air between us. Alex's expression is patient but concerned, the look of someone who's genuinely worried about a friend's wellbeing.

When was the last time someone looked at me like that?

When was the last time someone cared enough to show up at my door with coffee and demand answers?

"I was kidnapped by a hot alien doing an assessment program," I say, aiming for a joking tone that doesn't quite land.

Alex laughs—a short, surprised sound. "Right. Okay, Finn, very funny. Come on, what's really—"

He stops mid-sentence. The laugh dies on his lips as he really looks at my face, sees that I'm not smiling, not setting up a punchline. His expression shifts from amused to confused to concerned.

"Wait," he says slowly. "You're... you're serious?"

"Completely serious."

"Finn." Alex sets his coffee cup down very carefully, like he's afraid sudden movements might break something. "Aliens aren't real. You know that, right?"

I just stare at him, letting the silence stretch until he starts to fidget.

"Okay, you're freaking me out now," Alex continues, his voice getting higher. "This is some kind of breakdown thing, right? You've been working too hard, not sleeping enough, and your brain is—"

"He was seven feet tall," I interrupt. "Blue skin that literally glowed when he was aroused or embarrassed. Golden eyes with vertical pupils. Gills at the base of his neck."

Alex goes very still. The color starts draining from his face.

"He lived on a research vessel in space. Could project any star pattern on the ceiling—Earth's sky, or his homeworld's with multiple moons."

"Stop," Alex whispers.

"His name was Tev'ra. We had this empathic connection where we could feel each other's emotions—"

"Finn, stop." Alex's hands are shaking now.

"His parents were worried about me adjusting, so they sent him a recipe for comfort food—"

"STOP!" Alex shouts, shooting to his feet so fast his chair topples backward. "Just... fucking stop talking!"

The silence that follows is deafening. Alex is breathing hard, staring at me like I've just told him the world is ending.

"Alex," I say quietly. "What's wrong?"

"This isn't funny," he says, his voice barely audible. "If this is some kind of joke, if you somehow found out about..."

"Found out about what?"

Alex runs his hands through his hair, pacing to my window and back. "You can't know about this. Nobody knows about this. I never told anyone—"

"Alex." I stand up, noting how he flinches when I move. "What happened to you?"

"Nothing happened to me!" The words come out too loud, too desperate. "It was a hallucination, okay? A really vivid, really fucked up drug-induced hallucination that felt real but wasn't!"

"When?" I ask simply.

"When what?"

"When did you have this hallucination?"

Alex stops pacing. For a long moment, he just stands there, shoulders hunched, looking like he wants to run.

"I was sixteen," he says finally, so quietly I almost miss it.

My heart starts pounding. "Alex..."

"I was getting high a lot back then. Bad crowd, bad choices." The words come out in a rush. "One night I was walking home from a party, completely wasted. There was this light. Blue light, everywhere, so bright I couldn't see anything else."

He's not looking at me anymore, staring out the window like he can see the past playing out on the glass.

"I woke up in this white room. Sterile, like a hospital but... different. And there was this person standing over me." Alex finally turns to look at me, and his eyes are bright with unshed tears. "Blue skin. Tall. Golden eyes that looked... scared. Like he was more afraid of me than I was of him."

The coffee cup slips from my fingers, hitting the floor and sending brown liquid across my carpet. Neither of us moves to clean it up.

"He seemed young," Alex continues. "Inexperienced. Kept apologizing, saying there'd been a mistake, that he wasn't supposed to take me. I was so fucked up I barely understood what was happening."

"How long were you there?"

"I don't know. Time was weird. The whole time, I kept telling myself it wasn't real. Because the alternative—that I'd actually been abducted by aliens—was too crazy to consider."

Alex sits down heavily on my couch, like the weight of the memory is too much to carry standing up.

"But it felt more real than anything else in my life," he says quietly. "And that's what scared me the most."

I sit down across from him, my mind racing. "What happened when you got back?"

"I woke up in the same alley where I'd been walking. But I felt... different. Clean. The craving for drugs was just... gone. Like someone had reached into my brain and turned off the switch."

"You got clean after that?"

"Immediately. Completely. Everyone thought it was a miracle. Even I thought it was a miracle." Alex looks at me with an expression I can't read. "Because I thought the alien thing was just my brain snapping from all the drugs."

"But it wasn't."

"No." Alex stares at me for a long moment. "If you're telling me you were actually abducted... Jesus Christ, Finn. I've been carrying around this memory for ten years, telling myself it was fantasy. Ten years of thinking I might be crazy."

"You're not crazy," I tell him. "It was real. They're real."

"My entire life," he says quietly. "My sobriety, my career, everything I've built—it's all because of an alien abduction."

"It's because of you," I correct. "Whatever happened in that room, you're the one who stayed clean. You're the one who turned your life around."

"But if he hadn't taken me..." Alex trails off, shaking his head. "What if I'd died in that alley? What if he accidentally saved my life?"

The possibility hangs in the air between us, heavy with implications neither of us wants to examine too closely.

"Alex," I say finally. "The alien who took you—did he seem like he'd made a mistake?"

"Absolutely terrified he'd screwed up." Alex meets my eyes. "Why?"

"Because if he broke protocol by taking a minor..." I pause, thinking about everything Tev'ra told me about procedures and assessments. "What if there are different rules for situations like that? What if the system is more flexible than they made it seem?"

I shake my head.

"And yours was recent?"

"Three weeks ago." I glance at the container of gems on my desk. "He brought me back with those as compensation."

Alex follows my gaze, his eyes widening when he sees the crystals. "Holy shit. Those are beautiful. What are they worth?"

"I don't know. I haven't looked into it." I can't explain why the gems feel too painful to deal with, why they represent everything I've lost rather than what I've gained.

"Finn." Alex's voice is gentle. "You're in love with him, aren't you? Your blue alien."

I've been avoiding thinking about it in those terms, focusing on the loss of connection rather than examining what that connection actually was.

"It doesn't matter," I say finally. "He sent me back. Standard protocol. I'll never see him again."

"Maybe," Alex says slowly. "Or maybe there's more to this than either of us understands."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm serious, Finn. You said this was an assessment program, right? That implies there are different possible outcomes. Maybe your blue guy thought he was following standard procedure, but maybe there are exceptions."

"Even if that's true, what am I supposed to do about it? I can't exactly file a complaint with alien customer service."

"No," Alex says, and there's something in his tone that makes me pay attention. "But you could make some noise. Draw attention. Force them to respond."

"What kind of noise?"

Alex grins, and for the first time since he arrived, he looks like the tech genius I know him to be.

"The kind that gets noticed. The kind that can't be ignored.

" He pauses. "You want answers, Finn? About what happened to me, about what happened to you, about why they think they can just kidnap people and send them back with shiny rocks? "

I look at the gems again, then back at Alex. For the first time in three weeks, I feel something other than hollow sadness. Something that might be anger, or determination, or hope.

"What are you suggesting?"

"I'm suggesting we do what we do best. We break their system. We cause enough digital chaos that they have to acknowledge us." Alex's grin widens. "How do you feel about writing some code that's guaranteed to get alien attention?"

The idea is insane. Dangerous. Potentially catastrophic for any hope of seeing Tev'ra again.

But it's also the first thing that's made sense to me since I stepped off that transport platform three weeks ago.

"What did you have in mind?"