TeeTee has a job to do. A job that leads him to the café…
Everything about humans fascinates TeeTee but books and their stories draw him the most. His job to observe requires he move among people, always intimidating, but the café and attach bookstore provide a perfect place to sit and people watch. Also books. So many books. Excellent coffee. And books.
Nearly to the end of his observation period, TeeTee must make a report to his superiors. Soon. Now TeeTee faces a choice.
And the wrong decision risks upending everything.
TeeTee at the Cafe is available to read for free until the 15th of November, when another story will be posted. For readers who would prefer to read on a device of preference, or who would like their own personal eBook of this story, you can find it here.
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TeeTee at the Café
A Café Story
He stepped hesitantly into the café from the bookstore. TeeTee liked bookstores but the café was noisier and there were a lot of people at the moment. Probably should have tried this when there were no people in here. Most of them wouldn’t even notice him, he reminded himself. He was just “getting a coffee” the way everyone else was and no one looked twice at someone just going about life being human.
If he could navigate the conversation with the human behind the counter, then he could sit with his drink and everything would be fine.
There were some concerns about what coffee might taste like. As he eased through the café, trying to look casual and not awkward and out of place, he glanced at the drinks on other people’s tables. Some were very dark brown and smelled sharper, more bitter. Others had a lot of white milk or foam on top. They smelled sweeter. So a coffee with milk seemed the best choice. TeeTee liked sweet things.
And books. They had so many books here.
It was such a lovely and unique way of gaining knowledge. So much effort to acquire the knowledge. Time and attention and focus. He loved that about it.
Where he came from, knowledge was just there. You plugged into the central computer, directed your thoughts to the appropriate inquiry. And then the knowledge happened. Books were old school. Very very old school. A lovely historical artifact. Except that all the books were new in this time, so he didn’t have to worry about turning their pages or reading them in an unprotected environment.
This was a new-to-him bookstore and he loved the quiet and murmuring reverence. Or maybe that was just his own reverence. But there weren’t a lot of noisy people in the bookstore at the moment. Plenty of people. They just weren’t being noisy.
But the café was the sort of place people sat and talked. There were, he noticed, also still people sitting around reading books. No one was looking at them or pointing fingers either. No one seemed to care that they were sitting alone reading. How lovely.
He would do that. Or pretend to do that while he watched the people coming in and out of the café, going about their normal business. That was the part of his job he liked best. Just watching all the people. He could watch people for hours.
Having a proclivity for the main activity of his job was very useful.
There seemed to be only a few tables open, and only one against a wall. It was a thickly cushioned and worn looking chair with a small table next to it that gave the impression of a side table more than a restaurant table. If no one took that one, he’d choose that seat. It gave a good view of the entire café, and if he turned, he’d still be able to see into the bookstore.
The human behind the counter had a faint blue glow around her, not something the humans would notice, but something he could see with his variant energy implant. That particular shade of blue meant she was a person who could use magic. How interesting. He wondered if he’d watch her use magic to make the coffee.
Oh but that’s right, most humans didn’t believe in magic, so it was a more hidden thing here. And no one else in the room would have his implants, so they wouldn’t see the blue halo around her. He wanted to ask if anyone else knew she used magic, but he’d learned very early on in this assignment that he couldn’t just bluntly ask things like that. Humans reacted badly.
She smiled at him as he ordered, “Coffee, with the milk and sugar, please.” And then gave him a little side-eye look as she rang up his order. With her magic, she might be able to tell… But again, he wouldn’t ask. Just in case. If something about him bothered her, she didn’t say so out loud and simply got his coffee in a bowl-sized mug that was warm when he cupped it between his palms and smelled like roasted beans and vanilla.
There was a giant gray animal on the stool next to the register. A cat… Species Maine Coon. Very fluffy fur. It stared at him with very pale blue eyes, but it didn’t hiss. The cat also had a blue halo, though it was fainter than the woman’s. And darker. Very interesting. TeeTee considered asking the cat if he was magic, because cats were much better about those kinds of questions, but the humans would overhear and they’d look at him funny. So he let it go. But he did give the cat a small wink—he was practicing winks—and the cat gave him a small nod and then closed his eyes and went back to sleep on his stool. The stool looked very small for a cat that size, though. Perhaps his person could get him a larger one?
TeeTee considered asking the woman if she’d considered that, then remembered that cats had ways of getting precisely what they wanted and if the cat had wanted a larger stool, he would have one.
TeeTee carried his bowl-sized mug of coffee to the seat he’d spotted on coming into the café, trying to appear a normal human, walking around other tables that were full and trying not to draw undue attention. When he settled in his seat, and no one stared after him, he felt like he’d succeeded.
One woman sitting at a center table with a smaller cup of something that steamed and a book with the title Years Best Erotica on it did glance his way, gave him a small nod, and then returned to her book. TeeTee nodded back in a way that he hoped passed for human, but he needn’t have worried because the woman had already returned to reading by the time he remembered to make the return gesture.
For some reason, that particular woman drew his attention and he stared at her for some time, running through the various filters in his implants, trying to discern the aura around her, and each filter failed, returning with an “unable to diagnose” reading. How strange. The woman wasn’t human, though, he realized. Something else. There were somethings elses on this planet that were not humans but could look like humans. That must be what the woman was, one of the something elses.
Though, most of those he could analyze now—he’d incorporated the data for each into his implant’s database. There was nothing even close or analogous coming up for this being, though. How odd. And very interesting.
He considered approaching her to ask questions, but she looked so content and happy reading he decided he could wait. He suspected she wouldn’t react the way humans did to questions about magic. And might not even be surprised by TeeTee’s real nature. But again, he didn’t want to interrupt her reading.
Studying the various people—and otherwise—sitting around the café gave him a great deal of contentment. He did so enjoy his job. Unfortunately, his time here was nearly at an end and he’d have to return with a full report and analysis of the planet in this current era.
How to report? What would he say? Should they intervene? Or should they leave this place to continue on its current trajectory?
On the one hand, the human inhabitants of this planet seemed bound and determined to destroy themselves. On the other hand, they also created such wonderful things like art and film and books! Their stories were rich and fascinating, maybe because they lived such short lives and then died. The other inhabitants of the planet were equally fascinating, but they’d found a way to exist and live here without changing everything and potentially killing everything. The current crop anyway. There had been that time several billion years ago when that species of bacteria evolved and destroyed the entire planet as it existed then, changing it into the sort of planet it was now. He supposed destroying and rebuilding was what some species did.
Still, things had come a lot farther than that original upheaval. This planet had been this sort of place for more time than it hadn’t.
If his kind interfered, they might save the environment for most species, might prevent the destruction and reformation of this planet into something else.
But then there would be no humans and no books and no sweets. Oh, except that one sweet that the insect…bees, that’s right. Bees made a sweet. A very yummy one. That might still exist. But the sweets the humans made using such unexpected elements from their environment would be gone.
A loss, for sure. And the stories, the books… He wasn’t sure his kind would go to the trouble of preserving those relics. And that would also be a shame.
Perhaps it would be best just to let them all carry on as they were. If they destroyed everything, that would be their own doing and his kind would have had no hand in it. He sometimes thought his kind too arrogant anyway. What if they did pluck all the humans and human-like things off this planet? That would change the ecosystem completely and maybe that wouldn’t be better. Or maybe it would. But he often thought the idea of his kind making those decisions was the very definition of hubris.
Not unlike humans themselves.
Oh, his supervisor would balk at that comparison. TeeTee would definitely get a reprimand for that. Good thing he’d be able to edit his thoughts before turning them into his superiors.
He watched as humans came and went through the café, watched families and isolated people. A woman with a dog came in, the dog wearing a little coat that declared he was working. Ah, yes, a seeing eye dog. TeeTee loved that some species on this planet could cooperate that way to balance differing abilities. The blind woman made her order and her dog sat peacefully beside her, not reacting at all to the cat—sometimes cats and dogs didn’t get along—and the cat with all the magic around him didn’t react to the dog either.
More people came and went. Some with books. So many books. The stories. That was the thing about humans. All the stories.
A man with a laptop came into the café, looked around a little nervously. The woman behind the counter with magic greeted him by name. Frank. His name was Frank. TeeTee liked that name. Frank. It had a nice chop to it.
Frank greeted the woman at the counter as Nina—so Nina the magic person, which was also a nice name—and after she got Frank a coffee, she stood chatting with him until a seat near the back opened, then directed him to it quickly. Frank hurried to the seat. When he settled in, he took a deep breath and his shoulders relaxed. Like he felt better being in that seat.
TeeTee wondered at that. He used his implants to scan Frank, but he was just an ordinary human. No magic or implants and auras that separated him from the other humans around him. He sipped at his coffee for several moments, then opened his laptop and stared at the screen for even longer, occasionally typing in something, then going back to staring at the screen.
After precisely ten minutes of this, Frank set his cup aside and started typing in earnest. As TeeTee watched, Frank seemed to disappear. There was just typing. Typing and typing. A pause. Then typing again. Another slightly longer pause, then Frank typed more. But it was all the typing. As if the man had become the typing.
It was such a strange experience to watch Frank at his laptop that TeeTee’s curiosity got the best of him and he did something he almost never did. He adjusted his implants so that he could see Frank’s thoughts.
He rarely did this because it violated his directive to observe and catalogue human activities and interactions. Their thinking and even their motivation for those interactions were to be gleaned by external observations. The rule was in place because digging into the minds of other species could affect the neutrality of an observer. TeeTee was already afraid he’d tipped past neutrality some time ago. But watching thoughts would definitely affect his analysis of this planet’s most destructive species.
Still, watching Frank type, pause, type furiously for a time, watching his persona vanish into the typing, as if he were becoming someone else, was fascinating.
TeeTee scanned the café, trying not to make it obvious that he was scanning the café. No one was looking at him. Not even Nina behind the counter or her magic cat. People continued to pass between bookstore and coffee shop or enter and leave through the main door. But no one even glanced at him. The woman with the steaming drink and her Best Of book seemed completely engrossed in her reading. She didn’t even glance up at TeeTee when his gaze skimmed over her.
If anyone might notice TeeTee’s activities, it would be that woman. But he hoped she’d continue to ignore him.
Nervously, he turned his attention back to Frank, watching him type for a bit longer before finally giving in to his need to understand all the typing and pauses and most importantly, that strange way that Frank disappeared into all the typing. TeeTee let his eyes narrow, adjusted his implants, giving them the mental commands that would send them into the right mode, and then eased into the pictures that were floating through Frank’s mind…
“You really going to kill me?” the man tied to the chair said, his smirk ballsy and confident for someone tied down with a gun in his face.
Delilah stared at him, the man who’d murdered her sister, her sister’s dog, the man who caused all the harm and torment to her family afterward, taunting her, taunting them. He was untouchable. No one could stop him. He could do whatever he wanted.
Except he couldn’t just then. He was tied to that chair, the duct tape tight around his chest, ankles and arms. Delilah had ensured he was secure, that he had no weapons. He was helpless.
But he’d seen her hand shake. She’d never killed anyone before. Wasn’t sure she could. And he knew it.
All her planning, all her thoughts of revenge, and she waivered at the last moment.
If she didn’t kill him, he’d get out and kill her. And he’d do it slowly, painfully, ensure she suffered before she died. The way her sister had suffered. If she killed him, she’d probably be the one to go to jail, the one punished for what he’d done.
She ran her free hand down her hip, smoothing down the tight skirt of her cherry red dress. She’d gone to a lot of trouble to lure him here, get him away from his guards, drug him… Spent months following him and ensuring this would work. It had. He was right there. Her gun was loaded.
Courage or cowardice? That was her choice.
But she wasn’t sure which of those two options involved shooting him.
TeeTee blinked hard when Frank leaned away from the computer and the images in his brain stopped scrolling through the scene. Frank sat back, took a deep breath, stretched his hands. In his brain were tumbling words and images but the story wasn’t scrolling anymore. Just random options. And the thought that he wasn’t sure if he wanted his heroine to be a killer or not.
And TeeTee nearly got up and went to Frank and demanded to know what happened next! To keep going. To finish the scene! TeeTee had to know. Does she kill the murderer of her sister? Does Delilah go to jail if she does or does she get away? What happens when the murderer’s guards come looking for her? Where are they now?
TeeTee could feel the excitement, the tension, the…stakes! in the scene. Fiction. He knew fiction because he loved the human books so much. Even before coming here, he loved stories and fictions, and the humans did such compelling fiction! He hadn’t known before slipping into Frank’s thoughts that Frank was a writer, but now that he knew, he wanted more. He wanted the story. He wanted answers.
Frank? What was Frank’s last name. Had he written other books? Were they in the bookstore next door?
TeeTee slipped into Frank’s thoughts long enough to find his last name—there was a stray thought about some cover art his editor had just sent him and his name was written on that cover. Then TeeTee stood and ignored the way the woman with the Best Of book glanced up at him and he hurried into the bookstore, where he found four of Frank’s books. Four! Four to read. He wondered if they were the same type of book. What did they call it…? Crime that was it. Crime fiction. Those were very exciting.
He took all four books to the counter and paid for them in the local currency then brought them back to his table in the café which had remained empty surprisingly. Then he went to the counter and bought another drink because he’d been here long enough to know that he must pay for seats in places like this. He almost stumbled when two other café patrons looked up at him and stared for a moment.
Oh no! In his enthusiasm he’d given himself away. He’d revealed he wasn’t human.
But then the two people went back to their conversation and ignored him. He let out a long breath and hurried to his table and his waiting books. The woman with the Best Of book lifted her mug to him, a kind of solute, and then went back to her own reading.
TeeTee made the gesture with his face he hoped was a smile, then turned his attention to his books. Frank had not returned to typing yet. He was still staring at the laptop. So TeeTee had time to read.
He was a fast reader, so he was through one of the books by the time he looked up and realized Frank had closed his laptop. Wait! Had he finished the scene? What happened? The book TeeTee had just finished was fantastic. The twists and turns, the rough danger, the excitement, the revenge. So satisfying when the criminals got their punishment. TeeTee loved the way Frank told his story.
And he wanted more.
He watched Frank leave, tapping a finger against his table and bouncing his leg. Would Frank be back? Would he finish the story? How long did he need?
TeeTee checked his implants…
Oh. He was supposed to report on whether his people should interfere with this planet or not within the week, local time. But…
But was that enough time for Frank to finish his book? And what about the next book Frank wrote? Obviously, he’d written a few before this current one. He would probably write more. Would they be the same?
If TeeTee’s people eliminated the humans on this planet, TeeTee would never learn what happened in these stories. Never learn what other stories Frank might write.
Tragedy.
His own choices were as complicated as Delilah’s had been. If he allowed his people to interfere in the trajectory of this planet by eliminating humans so the rest of the planet survived, he would be ensuring no more Frank books. The planet might remain habitable longer. The other species here might not evolve into beings that would eventually destroy it.
But maybe they would. If TeeTee had learned anything, it was that evolution was a strange process and sometimes—often—it held the seeds of destruction at its core. Destroying humans might save the planet. But it might not.
And it was still possible the humans would turn things around and save their own planet. It was possible. Humans were very multifaceted. That was one of the most prominent parts of TeeTee’s reports.
He sipped at his coffee, which was a delicious invention, and mulled over his options. It was always possible Frank finished his current book before the final report was due. And TeeTee would just have to be content with that.
Or maybe he could…delay the final report. What was a decade, give or take? It would hardly mean that much to the planet. With luck the humans wouldn’t decided to destroy everything in the next decade. And that was a long time for Frank to write books. Who knew what stories he might tell.
Plus, there were all the other books to read. TeeTee hadn’t really made much of a dent in all the various stories humans had to tell. Their nonfiction was fascinating, but he could get much of that information from his implants. But the fiction… That was unique. All of it. Every story was unique. Every author told something a little different.
Hmm. Maybe he could delay his report for a couple of decades. Not longer. There was only so much time he could delay his superiors. They seemed content in their base at the bottom of the ocean now, but eventually they would grow restless and wish for a full update, not just the regular reports he sent. Still, he could probably drag this out for another few decades. Give all the humans time to create even more stories. Maybe he’d be able to read them all by then. Or he could figure out a way to save the stories?
He’d have to think about that. Yes. He needed more time. Time for Frank to write more books, time for all the other authors to create more fictions. And then, in a couple of decades, maybe it would be enough. He could decide then.
The woman sitting at the table in the center of the café, who’d been reading the Best Of book, got up and collected her things. But instead of leaving through the front door, she passed TeeTee on her way to the bookstore. She paused beside him, and for a brief moment, TeeTee shrank back, afraid he’d been identified and was about to be hauled off to a testing facility of some kind. But the woman simply pulled a book out of her large handbag and set it on the table next to him.
“If you like Frank’s work,” she said, “I think you’ll find this author very entertaining, too. She’s got about fifty books out, so there’s a lot of good reading there if you decide you do like her work.” The woman smiled.
She had interesting eyes. TeeTee wasn’t sure he’d ever see eyes quite like hers. The implants had trouble interpreting the color, which was very unusual for a human. And, TeeTee remembered, the implants hadn’t been able to really latch onto her aura either. What a strange human, she was. Or whatever she was if she wasn’t human.
He glanced down at the book she’d left for him. The cover was a bold red color with a title in large font and the author’s name across the top. When he turned it over, the information on the back told him this book was another crime story, like Frank’s books. “She’s written fifty of these?” TeeTee asked in awe.
“And if you like this author, I have a few more recommendations. You’ll be reading for decades, easily two, maybe even three. But I’m sure you’ll enjoy all the books.” The woman winked.
TeeTee blinked up at her. Had she… She couldn’t have known he was thinking about delaying his report for two or three decades, could she? She couldn’t know about his report. The wording had to be a coincidence.
“If you’d like more recommendations, I’m here regularly,” the woman said. “I’m sure I can help. My name is Agnes. Agnes Waters.”
Before TeeTee could give his own human name in exchange, as was the human custom, she left with a little wave over her shoulder.
TeeTee looked down at the remaining three books by Frank and the new book that Agnes Waters had left on his table. They all looked very good.
He went to the counter for one more coffee, returned to his table, and cracked open the book by the new author. Fifty books, plus all of Franks, plus anything else Agnes Waters might suggest… That was a lot of good books to read. He’d need time for all that.
The final report would just have to wait.
TeeTee flipped to the first chapter and sank in to the new book, happily sipping his coffee.
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Thanks for reading TeeTee at the Cafe. I hope you enjoyed it. If you’d like your own personal eBook copy of this story, you can find it for sale here. You can also peruse the previous Café stories that are individually available for sale here.
And if you missed any of the first six months of the cafe, those stories can be found in STORIES FROM THE CAFE: VOLUME ONE, out in eBook, paperback, large print, and hardback editions!
Don’t forget to check back on November 15th for the next Free story from The Café!
TEETEE AT THE CAFE Copyright © 2025 Kat Simons
All Rights Reserved. No part of this story may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This story is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.