A Plain Jane Book One (10 page)

Lucas Stone

Wow, that had been
uncomfortable. No, that had been close to disastrous. He hadn't
felt this strange around a girl since he'd been a teenager. And he
genuinely had no idea why. Hell, he had been through enough and
seen enough not to get put off by a conversation in the corridor
with a woman. Yet, somehow, he’d stood there, mumbling and
stretching his shoulder as if all he’d wanted to do was run away
and hide behind the closest chair.

It must be the fatigue, he
told himself. The fact he was completely and utterly tired, the
fact that he hadn't slept at all last night, and that last night
had been pretty big, considering he’d managed to single-handedly
take down an assassin robot. That had to be the reason. Okay, maybe
not the entire reason, because he could freely admit to himself
that Jane was a pleasant enigma. From her attitude to him to the
fact she didn't sleep, to the prospect she’d been attacked by one
of the most fiendish creatures in the Galaxy and yet she’d popped
into work the very next day as if nothing had really happened. He
really, really didn't meet girls like that very often.

That being said, he had
been thankful that he’d received a call when he had. Because he was
sure that if he’d stayed there chatting to Jane any longer, he
would have inevitably put his foot in his mouth, said something
stupid, or probably just fallen over on the spot in an awkward mess
of limbs with a stupid grin on his face.

Plus, the call had been
important, very important. They'd finished the initial scans on the
artifact, and . . . well, all Alex had said was that
he needed to get his butt up to Research Lab Two pronto. And it
took a lot in this universe to make Alex Wong excited.

So as Lucas ran up the
stairs he attempted to push Jane from his thoughts, and though it
wasn't successful, at least he tried.

Chapter 6

Jane

Jane had gone back to
work, though of course she hadn't been allowed to actually do any
work. The second she’d walked in the door, was the second Mandy had
run over to her, begging Jane to tell her every single detail of
her conversation with Lucas Stone. Jane had happily spilled the
beans.

‘
Oh my god,’ Mandy said as she
sat there in her chair, shaking her head to and fro, ‘this is
incredible. I am almost definitely sure, Jane, that right now
something interesting is happening to you.’ Mandy clutched her
hands into fists and grinned wildly.

Jane bit into her lip. She
wasn't sure what to think about that. While she wanted to believe
Mandy, she still couldn't deny that there was some part of her that
flatly refused to believe that something other than the ordinary
was happening to Jane. She hadn't been lying when she’d said there
was some part of her hardwired to always return to normal, and to
never ever put herself into any danger. That part of Jane was
strong, incredibly strong; it was the part that had her continually
repeating to Lucas Stone that whatever had happened with the
assassin robot it had been an accident. Things like that could not
happen to people like her.

The rest of the day passed
quickly, though not productively. When she’d been ready to go home,
or back to a dormitory, or whatever, Mandy had clutched a hand over
her arm and pulled her sharply to the side. ‘Oh no, you are coming
to the party,’ Mandy said, her grin solid and obvious.

Jane blinked back in surprise.
‘What?’

‘
The party. Tonight there's a
party for Lucas Stone. All of the Galactic Force are invited,
though I don't imagine they expect everybody to arrive. It's in one
of those entertainment halls in the city. It's to congratulate him
for being given the command of that mission. Gosh, everybody's
going, and that means you too,’ Mandy poked Jane several times in
the shoulder.

‘
But I never go to parties,’ Jane
said simply.

Mandy threw her head back
and laughed heartily. ‘No, Jane, you never
used
to go to parties. Because you never had a life
back then, but now, now it's different. Now exciting things are
happening to you, so you have to do exciting things in order to
ensure that more exciting things happen next. Trust me, I am Hoyan,
and we know these things.’

Jane pressed her lips together
and shook her head. ‘I don't think I
should . . . .’

‘
Oh yes you sure do. Trust me. I
have no idea what is happening to you, but do I know it is far more
interesting than what usually happens to you. So you have to go to
the party,’ Mandy nodded her head as if she were thoroughly
impressed with her own reasoning, even though Jane clearly
wasn't.

‘
I don't . . .
want to go,’ Jane admitted, and as she let the words escape from
her lips, she was convinced by them. That little instinct that told
her to never put her head out had suddenly kicked back into gear.
It was assuring her that she had to go straight back to that
dormitory, to close the door, perhaps even lock it, and to spend
the entire night staring up at the sky, and certainly not going out
to parties. She could not court trouble of any kind. ‘Look, I
can't,’ she repeated again, this time far more firmly.

Mandy looked at her
disappointedly. ‘I never understand you humans, or whatever race
you are,’ her tail flicked around in annoyance, ‘my race lives for
adventure, they live for what is interesting. Humans, or whatever
you are, are far too preoccupied with comfort. You don't seem to
care how much you have to pay for boredom, just as long as you are
sure that you're safe. But let me tell you, Jane, when you look
back at your life, you won't remember the boredom and the safety,
you will remember the adventure. If you don't have any at all, then
what have you lived for?’ Mandy whipped her tail around, the point
of it dancing to and fro just in front of Jane's face.

Rather than be convinced by
Mandy's argument, Jane shrugged. ‘Okay, maybe I will think about
going,’ she lied.

Mandy clapped a hand on her
shoulder. ‘This will be fantastic. I don't know what will happen,
but it will just be so interesting. I will have gossip enough for a
year,’ Mandy suddenly clutched her hands and shook them there, a
wide smile stiffening her lips.

Finally Mandy turned and left
Jane alone, and Jane, true to her real intention, did not go and
prepare for the party, but instead went straight to her dormitory
room, closed the door, and locked it.

Lucas Stone

Good god it had been a mad
day. In fact, Lucas couldn't remember the last time so many strange
things had happened to him in the space of only 24 hours. Okay, he
could easily remember, as his life was truly peppered with the
bizarre, the terrifying, and the fraught. The point was, today had
been wild, and he was now over it. He was also now standing in the
corner of one of the largest entertainment halls in the city, a
drink in his hand, and a placid but bland look on his
face.

The entertainment hall was
packed, of course, and Lucas was the absolute center of attention.
Dignitary, after Senator, after esteemed scientist came up to talk
to him and congratulate him on his command and to wish him good
luck with his mission. Alex was even there, standing at his side,
chuckling as he drank his wine, and telling Lucas that if he got
any more compliments his head would grow so fat that it would have
its own gravity pool and would probably get its very own moon
too.

‘
I really don't want to be here,’
Lucas acknowledged very quietly.

‘
No, really? I couldn't pick that
up from the fact you’ve been standing in the corner all night,
staring into space with a sour look on your face, passing up the
chance to talk to all the women here.’

‘
Shut up, Alex,’ Lucas managed
quietly.

‘
You, my son, are in a fantastic
mood. Someone obviously ignored my recommendation and didn't sleep
last night.’ Alex shook his head.

‘
I had other things to do,’ Lucas
rolled the glass around in his grip, but didn't actually drink from
it once. He just wasn't in the mood. He just didn't want to be
here. There were so many other things he had to do. After all, the
artifact they’d brought back from the edge of Paran space was
fantastic. They’d only managed to do some initial scans, so who
knew what deeper and more thorough investigation would reveal? They
still didn't understand what it was, yet they knew it incorporated
organic technology. The Parans had been renowned for their use of
it, and had guarded the secrets to it jealously. Yet now they were
an all-but-dead race, and the few that remained could not stop
their technological secrets from being revealed.

‘
You have a fantastically
shocking and odd expression on your face, Lucas,’ Alex said with a
chuckle.

‘
Thank you,’ Lucas
replied.

‘
Something on your mind?’ Alex
tried again.

‘
The future of the Galaxy,’ Lucas
said as he rolled his bottom lip in and bit it distractedly. It
wasn't a lie, because the future of the Galaxy certainly was on his
mind, but then again, something else was on his mind too. His
thoughts kept on returning to plain Jane, as she called herself. It
wasn't just because his interaction in the corridor with her had
been supremely awkward and had reminded him so painfully of what it
felt like to be a teenager – it was something more than that. While
ostensibly everything pointed to the fact that what had happened to
her last night had been an accident, Lucas could not shake the
feeling that it was important, somehow incredibly important. Yet he
had no evidence to back that thought up. In fact, the belief
appeared to be bizarre and patently wrong. He’d read Jane's file,
and she was just as normal as she kept trying to tell him. And
normal people like her did not get attacked by assassin
robots.

Lucas was aware that he
was staring over the top of his glass at a point on the floor, gaze
fixed.

‘
If I didn't know more about you,
Lucas, I would think that you are completely spaced out. You
haven't been finding strange pills on the street and popping them
into your mouth, have you?’ Alex tried through a
chuckle.

Lucas shrugged his shoulders.
‘I have a strange creature in the basement of the Galactic Force,’
he said very quietly, ‘an artifact from Paran space that just
arrived this morning, an assassin robot in a level-three
containment field, and a woman . . . ’ he
trailed off.

Alex suddenly got an
expression that reminded Lucas of the look Jane’s colleague, the
Hoyan, had fixed him with that morning. Perversely interested was
the only way he could describe it.

‘
Woman?’
Alex asked, leaning forward,
his lips forming around the word perfectly. ‘Are you talking about
the one from last night?’ That same smile and look did not shift
from Alex's face once, and Lucas would probably need a crowbar to
get it off.

‘
It's nothing,’ Lucas
coughed

‘
Ha, of course it's nothing. So,
who is she?’ Alex’s smile became even toothier.

‘
No one,’ Lucas looked askance at
him.

‘
Does this no one have a name?’
Alex kept on grinning wildly.

‘
You have probably already read
the report, Alex, and you would know what her name is,’ Lucas
pointed out plainly.

‘
I know that. I want to see you
when you say her name, I want to see if your pupils dilate, if your
breath gets faster, if the areas with rich capillary beds under the
surface of your skin get redder.’

Lucas rolled his eyes, clutched
at his glass a little too hard, and shook his head. ‘Stow it, Alex,
I really don't need this right now.’

‘
Actually, I think that is
exactly what you need now,’ Alex said cryptically.

Lucas knew what Alex
meant, and rather than tell him to stow it for the tenth time that
night, he found some inane patch of ground to stare at, his lips
pulled up to the side in a slight grimace.

That was the other thing
about being in the public eye constantly: he was never allowed any
room to have a genuine emotional reaction to something. Right now
he could hardly slam his glass down and walk off, telling everyone
he was sick of their stupid party, and that he just wanted a
sodding holiday. That kind of behavior would not only lose him his
command, but would send his Fan Club into a frenzy. By the morning
he would have thousands of messages either stating how
disappointing he was or offering him a back rub to soothe his
stress. Frankly, most of the time it was simply disturbing to him
that he had an actual registered fan club at all.

But the point was, Lucas
never had the room he needed to be himself. He constantly spent his
time trying to be the person that everybody else thought he was
instead. It was tiring, far more tiring than actually running
around doing his job. He always had to keep an eye on his image and
what people thought about him. He had to keep an eye on security
too, and on Galactic politics, and quite frankly, Lucas didn't have
enough eyes.

‘
What is she like? Nice? Pretty?
What does she do? I read the file, said she worked in admin or
something. She human?’ Alex bombarded him with questions, hardly
taking a breath as he chucked down yet another glass of wine. The
annoying thing about Alex was that no matter how much he drank, he
did not get drunk. While Alex was human, he was only half human.
His mother was Chinese, and his father was from a species called
Yaran, and as such, Alex had a high tolerance for not just toxic
substances, but general body shock as well. It also meant that Alex
could get away with eating and drinking whatever the hell he liked.
More often than not Lucas would find Alex chowing down on a dozen
jam doughnuts for lunch, and Lucas knew perfectly well that the jam
doughnuts would do absolutely no damage whatsoever to Alex. He
could probably live on sawdust if he felt like it. Yet as Alex had
told Lucas many times, sawdust was not tasty, but jam doughnuts
were great.