After we made the decision to treat this like a first date, things improved drastically. We started off with the question game, a staple for all first dates. Since we’d been wallowing in self-pity the last few cycles, I almost forgot how moody and unpredictable Eve could be; now as a celicapoz, Eve must’ve allowed another part of her hivemind to take control, which made her almost seem like a different person—at least a different version of herself.

  We’d asked each other all these date questions before, and while Eve knew most of my answers, it seemed like all of Eve’s responses were entirely new; her favorite color was new, favorite animal was different, her choice for a dream job was different even. She wasn’t talking about living a quiet life back on Earth, instead she was saying how she would like to get involved in the academia of fringe science, started talking about things she’d been researching in her downtime—shit that went way, way over my head.

  This celicapoz Eve was a little more reserved than normal, more logical and precise, maybe even a little shyer. It made me wonder if she was putting on a role, or maybe this was just a different part of her hivemind she was finally giving some focus, a part I hadn’t really seen before.

  It was also wild how focused Eve was when I talked, like she was really listening to me even though my answers were all pretty much the same as ever. The way Eve looked at me when I talked, the way those pure blue eyes stayed locked with mine as I told her things I surely told her dozens of times before, as weird as it might sound, I started getting a little nervous—like I really had first date anxiety.

  There was some way Eve could affect me I would never be able to properly articulate. She could inspire me, make me want to do everything in my power to succeed, but she could also intimidate me, cause me to second guess myself or worry I might be making a mistake.

  I was actually nervous wondering how the date would go, hoping it would be a success.

  Our food was delivered then, and sure enough my meal looked like a raw steak, but when I bit into it, I found it tasted like it was almost overcooked, as weird as that was. Eve had some seafood tentacle platter, eating delicately while keeping her eyes on me.

  “So tell me about Earth.” She said with obvious interest.

  As silly as it might seem, I was silent for a few moments as I thought of what I should say, how I could describe my home world to this beautiful alien girl—as though she didn’t already have an encyclopedic knowledge of it.

  “Well, it’s a really beautiful blue planet, with lots of oceans and seas, with lots of green forests.” I told her.

  “The forests are green?” Eve asked, sounding surprised.

  I rolled my eyes, but continued on, “Yeah—mostly. The water and sky are blue, and our grass and most of our trees are green. But there’s tons of other vegetation on the planet, flowers and such, those can be any color you could image.”

  Eve’s smile was dreamy, “Sounds beautiful.”

  I nodded and smiled too, “It really is.” I paused again, thinking over my answer a little more, “But there’s a lot of ugliness to the planet; people are greedy, they’re selfish, they hurt each other constantly. There’re wars and slavery on every continent, and we’re destroying nature faster than we can conserve it.” I sighed and shook my head, “I don’t know how much longer it will be around.”

  Eve cocked her head to the side, “What of their technology? Is Earth close to entering the space age?”

  I shrugged, “Predictions show it might still take a few centuries, so we’ll have to survive that first, and honestly I don’t know if we can.”

  “What is life like on Earth? Is it peaceful?”

  I tilted my head back and forth, “For the most part, yeah. Some people will complain about living in a horrible country while living better than the vast majority of the world, while people living in squalor might be fine with their situation and what little they have. Everyone has different comfort levels, different ideals and different dreams. It’s part of why we’re always fighting, but also why humans have accomplished so much. Sure, some humans do horrible things to each other, but we talk about the human spirit back home and what all it can accomplish, and honestly, I haven’t seen anyone talk about that for other races in the Empire; I think our human spirit is something that makes us special—unique. We march to the beat of our own drum, forge out our destinies and look at things that aren’t and make the decision to change them—to make them better.”

  It was then I realized despite my distaste for the human government, after dealing with the Empire they weren’t all bad for the simple fact at least they were made up of humans—for all their human flaws and faults. At least it was an evil I could understand.

  “I’m proud to be human.” I confirmed.

  Eve smiled brilliantly so I could clearly see who she was, beyond the camouflage of the celicapoz, with that adoration for me deep in her pure blue eyes, “Humanity sounds rather remarkable.”

  I nodded once, “I might be an unremarkable human, but I’m glad I’m a human all the same.”

  Eve shook her head slowly, “I don’t think you’re unremarkable, rather I find you to be quite extraordinary—fascinating really.” She turned aside as a little blush rose on her pale cheeks, “I’d say you’re quite the beautiful human too.”

  I could feel a little heat rise in my cheeks too over Eve’s compliment; despite the intimacy we’ve already shared, despite the fact I’d already bent Eve over every way imaginable, right now she had me totally entranced in this new-date energy where it all felt unknown and exciting, and I couldn’t help but react to her little roleplay as though it was all completely real—as though it wasn’t a play at all.

  If she hadn’t been contained within her inhibitor field, I honestly would’ve asked her if she’d implanted some mind spores in me or something that would make me react like this—turn me into a nervous wreck over this supposed first date. Instead, I figured I must’ve just matched her attitude somehow.

  I still never fully understood it, but there was some kind of energy that passed between us, something that connected us beyond normal attraction, something powerful and ancient beyond mortal comprehension; something beyond void space, something that caused Eve to see our future together so she would seek me out.

  Of course that was something I didn’t even remotely understand, and I wasn’t about to worry about it now. Instead, I figured I would just try and enjoy the first-date feeling.

  Once we finished our meal we paid with Imperial credits, then got up and left together, arm in arm—the curious vyranes gawking at us all the while.

  We continued down the walkway, still enjoying the last rays of daylight with the brilliant sky that looked like a watercolor painting.

  “How about we look for some place that could serve us desert? I’m feeling like some vyrane ice cream—if such a thing exists.” I offered.

  Eve trilled a happy little giggle and leaned closer against me, “That sounds nice, and you can keep talking about Earth while we look around.”

  I nodded along, “What else do you want to know?”

  “What did you do for fun on Earth?”

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  I laughed at that, “More like what didn’t I do for fun. I was always trying out my next big project or passion; I had a hundred interests and a hundred hobbies, always collecting more along the way too.”

  “What were some of your favorite hobbies?”

  I tilted my head back and forth in consideration, “I really like working on my art, drawing or sketching, even painting a little. Won some contest back in high school where my painting was hung up in a gallery. It was sold too—got $300 for it.”

  Eve stopped in her tracks and looked at me, “Adam, you never told me that before.”

  I quirked my eyebrow up, “What, about painting? I’m sure I mentioned it along with my other—”

  Eve shook her head quickly, “No, about the contest, you’ve never mentioned it.”

  I shrugged, “Oh, guess it just kinda slipped my mind.”

  Eve smiled then, “Imagine that, playing around on a fake first date, and here I learn something brand new about you.” She laughed at that, then squeezed in tighter against me, “I think we should have first dates more often.”

  I chuckled, “Will they really be first dates then?”

  Eve’s smile turned mischievous, “Of course, I’ll don a different alien form and persona every time, something new for you to play with.”

  I smiled too, “Sounds good to me.”

  Eve giggled then, “I figured you’d enjoy it.” She waved it off as her personality seemed to resettle to celicapoz once more, “So now tell me about this contest.”

  “Right right.” I sighed contently, “Well, it was for some big art fair for a few of the surrounding counties, so bunch of schools were participating. It was all about the art of what’s in your heart, and while you could submit any kind of art, I ended up going with traditional canvas painting. Before, I’d only dabbled with sketching and working on some graphic novel art—had a little comic strip published in the school paper a couple times.”

  Eve held up a finger, “Another new fun fact.”

  I quirked up an eyebrow, “Have I really not told you all these stories?”

  Eve waved me off again, “We can talk about that later, get back to the contest story first.”

  I chuckled and shook my head, “Yeah okay. Anyways, the reason I wanted to try traditional is because anytime I tried to just sketch something, it wasn’t abstract enough—didn’t seem like it was from my heart. All my sketches were of people, creatures or scenery—stuff that would fit in a comic. So one day in the art room there was some ratty old canvas that someone had started and abandoned, and I dunno, it kind of just called to me, made me want to try it out. At first I painted over the old work with some plain whites, but I ended up with these cool plain spirals that I wanted to build off, so I started adding color, and before I knew it, the whole canvas was covered up with a mishmash of colors to the point it looked like a big, spiraling rainbow.”

  “So you submitted that work for the contest?” Eve inquired.

  “Fuck no, it looked like shit—something you’d see on a cheap t-shirt. But I liked the idea of painting over the project to keep the intent behind it, so again I went over it with some whites, but not enough to completely block it out. Then I went in a different direction, adding in mostly darker colors—storms blocking up all the spiraling rainbows, spattering of smoke and blood too.”

  “Then the combination of light and dark, that was the award winner?”

  I laughed, “No way, just looked like some edgy teenager ripping off Jackson Pollock—darkness killing a rainbow or some nonsense. No, the third project is what finally stuck; I took the old spirals and dark spattering and chose a single color to cover them all with, a light blue for the dark spots and a dark blue for all the light. Why blue? Couldn’t tell you. But I just kept painting over and over with these blues, over all the other colors, but somehow the intent was still there—the contrast to light and dark. And that’s what I ended up submitting.” I explained.

  “What happened with the contest?”

  I shrugged, “Well I turned it in, definitely didn’t think I had a shot at winning anything though; I used crappy acrylic paints, and it looked so lumpy and uneven from all the repainting. But when it was put up before the other work from my school, the judges all gravitated towards my painting, said they could see the internal struggle within. I guess that makes sense with how I struggled to get the damn thing finished. From there it was put up in a gallery with the other winners from the area, it was graded and I won some award—not first-place or anything—but once it was all finished, some old art-nerd wanted to buy my painting. I never even thought of selling obviously, but he came at me right away preparing to bid for it—like I had any idea how to price the work. He offered $300 outright, and I think he was expecting me to haggle with him or something, so when I took the deal right off he seemed really surprised—pleased, but I think he expected me to try and squeeze more out of him.”

  “I wonder how much you could’ve gotten from him?” Eve mused.

  “The first-place winner was a huge sculpture that sold for $1,200, but I doubt I would’ve gotten anywhere near that. I was fine with the $300, it was enough for me to get that gaming laptop I’d been saving for.”

  “That’s amazing Adam, I can’t believe you had your work placed in a gallery and sold, all while you were still a student.”

  I waved her off, “Only painting I’ve ever sold, so don’t sound too impressed.”

  Eve cocked her head to the side, “Have you done much painting since?”

  I shrugged, “A little, but not much. Canvas art supplies can be expensive, so usually I just rework old canvases, paint over them so they still have their heart or whatever. My art is fleeting, gets reworked or redone when I feel like it. I feel like that adds value, but just for me really.”

  Eve smiled, eyes dancing with adoration, “You never cease to surprise me, sometimes you can be so goofy and na?ve, other times you astound me with your depth and introspection. Makes me a little jealous I don’t have such an artistic flair.”

  I scoffed at that, “Really? You don’t think it’s art what all you can do with your biomass—make biology your plaything?” I gestured to her, “Even this body you’ve created, that all came from you, your imagination; I’d say that’s a work of art same as anything.”

  Eve rolled her eyes, “Oh please, I wouldn’t say it’s art any more than you growing your hair and fingernails is art—of the dead skin flaking off you. It’s just a biological process, impressive to be sure, but nothing artistic.”

  I wasn’t deterred, “What is it people always say? Life imitates art. Well, you create life—you shape and mold life to your whims. I’d say that creates for some really amazing art.”

  Eve stopped and turned to me, looking in my eyes for something.

  “You’re serious, you really think what I do is art?” She inquired.

  I was almost surprised by her response, “What, why not? You’re creating things, shaping things, molding them. The art contest way back when was about the heart of art, so what about you who can manipulate life? Isn’t the most basic part of life the heart—the center of everything?” I reasoned.

  Eve opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. Still, she looked confused, and I really couldn’t understand it.

  “Evie, seriously, what’s going on?”

  Eve’s smile was soft then, serene even, “Adam, I’m always worried you’ll look at me and my Predazoan powers and see a monster. From the first time I transformed before you on Earth, I was worried you would reject me, which was why I developed that devious plan to entrap you since I was worried that would be the only way to have you. Instead of being afraid of my powers, of the monstrosities I can create and become, you stand before me and tell me it’s art. I don’t know if it’s because you’re so strange yourself, or maybe it’s just because we’re meant to be together, but the fact you see the beauty in what I do, no words can describe how much that puts my soul at ease.” She turned then, fully facing me, putting a hand on my cheek, “Even though the Empire has put this physical barrier between us, in this moment, right now, I feel closer to you than I have in a long time.” She smiled brightly then, and I could see the ghost of tears shimmering in her eyes, “I love you so much Adam, and I promise you I’ll do everything in my power to foster and nurture the creative spirit within you.”

  I leaned down and kissed her, deeply and passionately—annoyed the staticky barrier was between our lips and our tongues, but as Eve said, I felt closer to her than I had in a long time.

  It was true of course, I was never really afraid of Eve’s powers, not really. Afraid of what she might do with them, sure, I had my concerns, especially way back. And even for the future, I worried how inhuman she could be, but not because of her abilities, instead it was about her actions or attitude towards other people—how dismissive she could be over their lives.

  For Eve, her powers just seemed a part of her—amazing, miraculous powers. So she could crush me like a pop can? I trusted she wouldn’t. So she could devour an entire planet? I knew she’d only do that if she had a really good reason. No, even when I discovered her back on Earth, with those strange tentacles that could magically appear to wrap around me, I was never afraid of what she could do—never turned off by those abilities. I mean one of the first things she ever did was hug me with those manifested tentacles; seemed pretty benign to me.

  My Eve was wise and intelligent beyond anything I could understand, just as she could be volatile and violent to the point it was actually frightening. But I saw what she could do and create with those powers, how creative she could be, how beautiful her unique forms were.

  There was no doubt in my mind Eve was every bit the artist I was.

  We held each other there for a time, separated physically by the battle armor and the inhibitor field, but always connected through our hearts and souls.

  Eve pulled back then, eyes shining with love and just a little bit of mischief, a sense of contentment there despite all we had to deal with.

  “So, what do you want to do now?” Eve asked in a quiet voice.

  I smiled, “Well, forget ice cream, I’m wondering if I have the chance to get lucky on our first date.”

  Before I even finished speaking, Eve had her tablet out and was setting up the hover-car service to pick us up, “Yeah, you’re going to get more than lucky tonight darling.” Eve’s smile turned playful, “You get to break in a new body.” Her expression grew sultry then, “And I mean completely new.”