After calling her sister and leaving a voice mail, Poppytook the elevator to the medical offices and proceeded to wait for herappointment. Heck, even if she didn’t get selected for the program, at leastshe’d be able to get her physical out of the way early this year.
One Pap smear, physical exam and blood draw later, Poppy washeading back to Suzie’s desk. Amazingly enough, the medical reports had alreadybeen sent down to Suzie by the time the elevator brought Poppy back to heroffice.
“Okay, sweetie, I just have to notarize these items and youwill be assigned your liaison. Any questions that you have they can answer.They will have a packet of information for you to go over regarding thedifferent Warrior breeds you may be matched with. This is information that thePhaeton Warrior Council has put together so you could learn something of theirculture and be somewhat prepared for your match.”
Suzie had been skimming through Poppy’s paperwork andstamping and signing away when she paused for a moment. She looked up with asmile. “And, sweetie?”
“Yes?” Poppy asked, trying to get over the feeling thatthings were moving way faster than anticipated.
“Good luck!” Suzie followed her words with a wink.
The top piece of paper Suzie passed her was a welcome formwith Poppy’s liaison’s name.
Valerie Bennett. Well, Poppy thought, Valerie hadbetter be prepared to answer a shitload of questions.
* * ** *
Valerie actually ended up being a woman close to Poppy’s ownage. She had brown hair with red highlights Poppy was sure had never seen afrizzy day. Wearing a tailored white button-up top with a pencil skirt, sheappeared professional yet sexy. Poppy studied the outfit in admiration, knowingthat if she didn’t get selected for the Bridal Pact, she would want to investin an outfit like hers for job interviews. After introducing herself with afirm handshake and a warm smile, Valerie led Poppy to an office down the hall,her heels clicking as she set a quick pace.
“So, I’m sure you have many questions and by the expressionon your face you’re overwhelmed. Maybe we should do this over coffee,” Valeriequipped with a grin.
“Dear god yes. I didn’t plan on doing anything but turningin my paperwork today. All of a sudden I have my doc’s appointments out of theway and I’ve been here almost three hours.”
Poppy flopped into the chair on the other side of a largemahogany desk. Accepting a cup of coffee from the personal coffeemaker Valeriehad on the table behind her desk, she took a sip and tried to relax.
“Okay, Poppy, you have the hard part done already. Suzie isactually scanning your questionnaire now. Once it’s uploaded, the system willstart to sort your answers and match them with a potential husband. Suzie notedthat you were interested in your odds of being selected. Well there are onlyabout one thousand applicants in the US and we have about ten thousand profilesfrom the Warrior Council submitted so far.” Valerie said this somatter-of-factly Poppy didn’t immediately digest what was said.
Then it hit her. Ten thousand warriors.
“Did you say ten thousand?” Poppy’s gulp was extremely loudin the quiet office.
Valerie smiled and held out some papers. “Yes, we have tenthousand so far and are actually expecting about three times that amount whenwe’ve finished with their profile intake. Apparently they used a lottery systemto figure out who would be the first warriors to apply for brides. They didn’twant to overload the system from the get-go so they’re going in groupings often thousand. When the first group is matched, we’ll move to the next lotterygroup and go from there. Our hopes are to have enough volunteers to accommodatetheir large number of profiles. We’ve been open for a while and the smallamount of volunteers is discouraging but we hope once we have our firstsuccessful matches, others will follow.”
Poppy realized she was still holding the papers she hadtaken from the liaison and began to go over them. Warrior Breeds wasprinted at the top. “Suzie mentioned there were different types of warriors butI didn’t really let that sink in… What does that mean exactly?”
“Well, simply put, their society is made up of differentclasses of warriors. There are the scientists, diplomats and military breeds,from what we gather. The scientist breeds make up their doctors and engineeringwarriors, then the diplomats are usually all political figures, and well the militarybreeds…that’s pretty self-explanatory.” Valerie started pulling up pictures onher computer and tilted the screen toward Poppy.
“Military breeds are the larger of the race, normally atleast seven feet tall and bulky. Among their society they’re called Skrammon.They still fight physically in battle so they’re built for it in height andbulk. Most of the profiles I’ve seen show they have tattoos around theirtemples and dreadlocks.”
The computer screen showed a darkly tanned man who seemedattractive even though he was different from anyone Poppy had seen before.
“The Healson are the diplomats of the group. Most ofthem are political figures and are known for being keen negotiators when itcomes to arguments. They’re the ones who developed the lottery idea when itcame time to figure out who would get the first shot at matches.”
The screen now showed a slightly smaller, lean warrior withshorter hair and no tattoos on the temples. The alien’s height was still listedas six foot ten, so height must be something they all shared across the board.
“The Brakken warriors are the science guys. They makeup the majority of the doctors, engineers and teachers of the race. They areextremely smart but also strong. We’ve been told they’re always tinkering withthings and can fix almost anything.”
Tall, dark and handsome popped up on the screen. Thiswarrior’s skin was slightly darker than that of the previous two, more of acinnamon tone versus what Poppy would have called an African-American skintone. He had similar tattoos on his temple, but they seemed to be higher on hisforehead than the previous Skrammon breed and this warrior was smiling in hisphoto.
“Will I get to choose a preference when it comes to mymatch? From
