Fair Trade

By: submission | July 10, 2026

Author: Hillary Lyon

Moj awoke to three white-coated beings hovering over her, murmuring amongst themselves. One leaned back to choose an elongated needle-like device from a tray of gleaming instruments. Another swabbed her arm with a moist, stinging pad.

They pressed the needle against her skin, and the needle bent. The white-coats tried additional implements, and each either bent, or broke.

Finally, one white-coat had the idea to try to pierce the inside of her elbow, where her gray-green skin was softest. The needle slid in successfully.

The white coats jabbered happily and began extracting samples of her essence.

* * *

How much of my essence do they need? Moj wondered. Two white-coats left the room carrying trays of fragile vials containing her essence, leaving one to finish taking samples. The clumsy one.

Enough! Moj growled when the needle twisted painfully against her arm bone. Her patience was at an end. Rising anger flushed her greenish skin crimson, altered her blood into acid.

The white-coat startled, witnessing these sudden, unanticipated changes. He stumbled backwards, dropping the syringe, which he then stepped on. The broken instrument leaked Moj’s blood-acid on the floor, and when it combined with oxygen it created a stupefying fog.

Panic made the white-coat breathe faster, which made him inhale more of the fog. He slid down to the floor and slept.

Moj popped her restraints and retrieved her transportation cuff from the collection of artifacts the white-coats had on display in the glass cabinet in a corner of the examination room. She deftly entered the extraction code, and when she pointed to a bare spot on the floor, a glowing blue-white circle appeared. She grabbed the white-coat by his collar and dragged him into the circle with her.

She tapped the blinking green button on her cuff, and the two of them burst into a shower of glowing glitter. The circle quickly shrank until it disappeared entirely.

* * *

On board the mother-ship, two silver-gloved, hulking Reptilian aides were waiting beside the rim of the transportation portal for Moj and the white-coat. Upon arrival they took the white-coat and half-walked, half-dragged the slowly rousing human towards the elevator.

“No no no no no no no!” The now fully-conscious white-coat wailed as he twisted in the firm grip of the Reptilians. To the white-coat’s ears, their laughter sounded like toads croaking in a dark and musty swamp.

“Hey!” Moj yelled, immediately silencing the white-coat. She’d been on Earth enough times to become proficient in the majority of Earthen languages.

“My species and your species,” Moj continued in her best British-statesman accent, “came to a trading accord long ago, and every government on your planet is a willing—though covert—partner. The resulting benefits move both civilizations forward.”

The white-coat groaned.

“Too bad you were left out of the loop.” Moj nodded to the reptilians to move on, adding, “Your situation is merely part of the agreed-upon exchange program.”

As the elevator’s transparent doors began to close, Moj shrugged her thin green shoulders and pointed out to the now-dispirited white-coat, “Fair is fair.” The doors came together with a wet, sucking sound before the elevator slid down to the vivisection lab, two levels below.