Page 27 of Rizzed Up By My Alien Neighbor
Perfect.
I graft my fabricated identity onto his record. Adjust the metadata. Inject Alliance-grade false entries into Earth’s antiquated systems. Tax filings. Credit history. A small freelance consulting firm listed under the innocuous title “RJ Financial Solutions.” The bank flags the sudden activity, but I reroute the alert into a mail server that’s still delivering spam about discount hoverboards. Within ninety minutes, Richard J. Wilmont is not only real—he’s boringly credible.
I lean back in the creaking chair I salvaged from a dumpster and let out a slow breath.
“I am now...a tax person,” I whisper.
The words feel like treason.
Back home, warriors are forged in fire and ceremony. Here, I am built from keystrokes and PDFs. But survival is survival.
The next part is harder.
Real estate acquisition.
Even with digital credentials in place, Earthlings are absurdly concerned with something called “employment continuity.” I doctor a few pay stubs. Craft a social media presence. There is, apparently, an entire platform dedicated to images of breakfast. I post a bowl of oatmeal with the caption “Fuel for spreadsheets.” The algorithm rewards me with three likes from bots peddling cryptocurrency scams.
Humans are so weird.
I find a modest dwelling listed as a foreclosure special. Single story. Weather-worn siding. A detached garage that sags like a dying beast. It’s exactly the kind of place no one would look twice at.
And it’s directly next to Vanessa Malone’s house.
That gives me pause.
There are other listings. Other zip codes. But the compad’s predictive heuristic, based on subtle environmental patterns and celestial alignments, pings with a rare probability spike when I linger on this address. It’s the same anomaly that flickered when I touched her hand. The same algorithmic static I felt during the Jalshagar surge.
I am not a creature prone to superstition.
But even I know better than to ignore the Grand Design when it tugs.
I authorize the purchase.
In less than twenty-four hours, Richard J. Wilmont becomes the proud owner of 209 Prairie Lily Court. The house next door to the woman whose very scent short-circuits my neural relays.
Fate is a cruel strategist.
And yet, I feel something dangerously close to anticipation as I confirm the closing documents and falsify a mortgage signature.
My ribs ache as I move. The burns on my shoulder itch under the synthetic skin overlay. Every muscle screams for rest, for regeneration, for the safety of a Vakutan medbay.
Instead, I am crouched on the floor of an abandoned radio shack, surrounded by stolen Wi-Fi, posing as a man who files 1099 forms.
I should be furious.
But I’m not.
Because for the first time since the jump tore me from time and space, I have a place to go. A plan. A foothold on this bizarre little world with its ketchup monuments and warlike squirrels.
And maybe a reason to stay.
The hardware store smells like a dying battleship.
Not in the usual sense of scorched wiring and ozone, but something more... insidious. The place reeks of old sweat, rust, fried circuit boards, and an unmistakable whiff of artificial butter. My olfactory sensors struggle to categorize it—popcorn, maybe? Burnt. Over-salted. Slightly damp. Like someone tried to weaponize movie night and gave up halfway through.
I step inside, ducking beneath a flickering OPEN sign. The ceiling fans creak like neglected mech joints, their rhythm mismatched. Fluorescent lights hum overhead, bathing the narrow aisles in a sickly yellow glow that reminds me of emergency beacons on a failing cryo-pod.
There’s too much.
