"- he's an asshole."

"Yes, makes him really easy to blackmail."

"I tentatively expect that people who are by temperament wildly unsuited but who you can keep in line through dubious means will not pass the alien's super creepy vetting process."

"Fair enough. We shall start with people I actually like."

"They're so hard to come by."

"I will put together a list."

"And I told the reds I'd send them a list of the dead."

She does that.

thank you

Tola's kids can come here if their grandparents there don't have room

is the asshole who stored a thing in a red neighborhood not going to do that again?

More details about the situation forthcoming when they get declassified but it won't happen again.

She checks that the surviving reds have been released and sends them all the same explanatory email and then goes back through the portal.

Isel can go down from the terrace through a staircase, also lavishly decorated, the handrail is supported by hollowed out cylinders of quartz. There is a flame inside each cylinder. And that is just the handrail.

The staircase leads her to a foyer of sorts, there are a lot of pictures on the walls. Felix's family. His twin brother's wings are white but have each a pair of claws on the "wrist" part, he is often show floating in the air simply ignoring gravity. His younger sister has four blue wings with a colorful shimmer about them, one picture shows her manipulating water and light for a beautiful rainbow effect. There is a large picture of the siblings, their parents and what is obviously a set of grandparents up in the clouds smiling. Some other pictures show friends, including one that looks like a green scale-skinned humanoid.

The nameless alien spots her through an arc. He is sitting on a couch and waves. "Hi again! Here, leave Felix's hall of absolutely loneliness."

She sits down. "They want to know when the red can be sent out to the ocean. Can I have a name so I can figure out who his caretakers are and get him out of here quickly?"

"Okay. I actually don't remember if Felix's knows. I don't think I got every memory from him, but I can show you."

He searches in his pocket everything for the kid and shows her.

"Do you have his parents' names?"

"The mom was Lafa," he frowns and resorts to the pocket everything.

Lafa Ilat and Entim Fased.

He stares at them for a moment.

"I've never met them," he says thoughtfully.

"They died."

"I know. I saw them. My first words were 'oh, no' reacting to their death."

He looks up at her curiously, gauging her reaction.

He shrugs as to say "forget about it."

"What are the news?"

"I said you'd demanded we release all the survivors in the local red district and let them go home. You didn't actually but I didn't think you'd object to being leveraged to get that done. I told the rest of the reds and they're sad but not too scared. There is politicking going on over who gets to have a pocket dimension. Aitim's handing it. Aitim's the best person for it, he'll get you good people and he'll end up absurdly personally powerful which is a good thing because he's about as progressive as one can be while still having a shot at accomplishing things."

"Okay. Is there like... an official story out yet?"

"Nope. That's a problem because we don't want to panic the rest of the world, and some places might try kidnapping the aliens."

"Yeah, I don't even think that would be a disaster, but it would be a chaotic mess. Uh, how irretrievably broken is Felix's standing with your government?"

"We are incredibly bribeable with the prospect of somewhere for our children to live. I think maybe it'd be better if he didn't interact directly with very many of them but they will definitely be civil if he wants to. I told them vetting on the pocket dimensions would take a couple of weeks, is that right?"