Epsilon Mate: An Omegaverse sci-fi tale

Chapter 7

Jessie

I slept under the covers despite being too hot. The discomfort of this weird hormonal thing was nothing compared to my terror of the monsters lurking in the dark. Dad number twelve was still out there, somewhere, and so were the aliens. I didn't know what my quilt would do, but hiding under it was less terrifying than throwing it off and being exposed.

The dreams were bizarre and vivid. The Prime Minister appeared in my bathroom. When I asked him to leave, he transformed into a giant bug-eyed monster that chased me until I barricaded myself into my room. Then he forced his way through the walls and I woke up.

In another dream, the giant alien was holding me. Purring. I was too tired and hot to tell him to shut up. The sound was relaxing in the moment. It lulled me to sleep. Except, since I was already asleep, it made the dream change into something else.

Everything looked different in the morning. Well, after a shower. I'd sweated quite a bit in the night and it felt incredible to stand under the icy cold jets. Distantly, I acknowledged that I'd never usually have a cold shower in a million years. But right now, it was just perfect.

I wondered if there was a heatwave at the moment. Then I remembered it was October, and this was London.

I spent a bit too long in there but when I came out, I was cool, calm and collected for the first time in days. Maybe even weeks.

Ready for the email I'd received.

Got your email. Channel not secure. Meet at Cafe Geoff's. 11am.

I re-read it twice, waiting for it to make sense. When it didn't, I mapped a route to Cafe Geoff's, which turned out to have three different branches across the center of London. Which one was the right one? I went back to the guy's website to look for any clues. Contact Us was a bust. It gave an obviously fake address in Timbuktu. But the last article was more relevant. Sighted in South Kensington—Aliens. I went back to the map. It matched a coffee shop.

Great, I had a destination. Feeling like a genius for figuring out my route, I put on my old jeans and a T-shirt that had seen better days. If an alien wanted to abduct an Earth woman to mate with, I hoped they'd decide I was too frumpy or something. My hair was tied back in a high ponytail and I wore my most comfortable sneakers.

For some reason, I had a deep sense that I wasn't going to return to my room in this flat any time soon. It was a bit like that sensation of someone walking over your grave. I took care to put all my most important stuff into my shoulder bag, just in case. Then I tidied everything and made my bed, so if I didn't return, whoever came in to take possession of the room wouldn't have a mess to clear up.

Anyway, if this conspiracy theorist had some sort of underground hideout, I might be gone for a while. Or forever. It depended on whether people could repel the alien threat anytime soon.

I got on a bus and sat in traffic for the next hour and a half. The whole time, I planned out what I was going to say to this bloke. I couldn't bring myself to use his online name, which was ConspiracyGuy2019. Instead, I thought of him as conspiracy man. It was a slightly better nomer.

I hoped he could help me. I couldn't be the only person this had happened to.

When I got off the bus, it took a few minutes to find Cafe Geoff's amongst the cacophony of shops and people. South Kensington was anything but quiet, even at this time of day when most people ought to be at work.

I peered in through the window, just in case. There were no aliens in there, by the looks of it. Everyone seemed normal. People-sized. Reassured, I opened the door and stepped in. The smell of coffee made my mouth water.