“I miss the smell of ammonia rains,” he told her one night, his voice a low thrum. “And the silence. Your world is very loud, Sata Jones.”

Sata laughed until she cried. And for the first time in a long time, she didn’t know if her client was joking. That was the thrill of it. With Sata Jones, you didn’t just manage the talent. You held on for dear life and enjoyed the ride.

The idea hit her like a falling satellite.

Glom started to change. He’d spend hours staring at the moon, his translator chip spitting out sad, low-frequency pulses. He stopped mimicking her dance moves and started meticulously drawing star charts on her walls with a crayon.

Glom rumbled, a sound like a happy earthquake. “Excellent. But I have one condition.”

“What’s that?”

Not the kind of secret about a failed audition or a forgotten line—those were boring. This secret was a living, breathing, seven-foot-tall, sapphire-skinned alien named Glom, who had crash-landed in her backyard compost bin three years ago.

“You know,” Sata said recently, as a contestant on Love Island dramatically dumped a glass of wine on her rival. “I think I’m gonna quit the agency. Start managing you full-time.”

“Sata,” Glom rumbled one Tuesday night, his three glowing eyes fixed on her TV. He was watching Dancing with the Stars . “The biped with the glittering torso. She is… emotional. Why?”

First, it was a bit part on a high-budget sci-fi series, Nebula Nine . Glom played an alien bartender. The director told him to be “menacing but curious.” Glom, having no concept of acting, simply was menacing and curious. The scene went viral. Critics called it “authentically otherworldly.”

Glom wanted to be seen, too. But if the government or, God forbid, a rival agency like CAA got wind of a real extraterrestrial, he’d be poked and prodded in a secret lab, not guest-hosting The Tonight Show .

Today, Glom is the highest-paid entertainer in the galaxy. He has his own production company, “Ammonia Dreams.” He hosts a cozy podcast called My Alien Perspective where he interviews other “neuro-spicy” beings, both human and otherwise. And every Friday night, he and Sata sit on her worn-out couch, watching bad reality TV.

“That’s Cheryl,” Sata said, not looking up from her laptop. “She just got eliminated. She’s doing her ‘crying but smiling’ face. It’s a classic.”