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The Warp-Core was undergoing critical failure. They felt the containment mechanisms slide into place as they were meant to; they felt the non-vital systems of the vessel shutting down to conserve power, hibernating; they felt the older, vestigial thrusters prepare themselves for use as the FTL travel mechanisms shut down. A signal beacon sent out a message to my home world requesting assistance, one unlikely to be received in any decent span of time.

I felt all of this as if it were a part of my body, for it were in a way. Telepathic networks linked every aspect of the ship to my mind, lending the feeling that the ship was a part of my body; every motion smooth, refined, working perfectly in sync as it had smoothly evolved to over millenia, the perfect fusion of form and function, of the technological and biological- that had just broken down in the middle of the Galactic Backwater. I felt a crushing fear as I assessed the damage to the engine room. It was completely annihilated, with no chance of repair. The mass-driver had been wiped out of existence with an anti-matter leak, and entire pieces of the system were missing. I was stranded.

Checking my coordinates and seeing what was nearby, I realized the universe must have been either kind, cruel, or it's usual unknowing mixture of both, for my Warp-Core broke down outside of the Sol System: Home of the Naked Apes.

It was with distaste that I sent a thought towards the main planet, Earth, asking for direction to a location where my ship could again be made ready for FTL travel.

Not, I assure you, that I have any resent or ill-will towards any living creation. However, they were unusual, even by the standards of the explored universe. They had been introduced to the rest of the sentient life of the galaxy when they destroyed a passing tourist with several thousand kilotons of old dirty nuclear weapons, after fearing that the passerby was the scout of an invasion force. Since then, they've been a surprisingly active species, with millions of them hired by various companies and military bodies as battlefield mechanics, due to their ability to, by some combination of instinct and dumb luck, to preform impossible technological improvisations. Unlike every other space-faring species, they spent most of their evolutionary history apart from any kind of technology, and seemed to have lucked into a specific type of spatial intelligence that let them use tools. As such, the usual method of creation, molding raw material into a seamless construct over years, with each new generation shaping old advances into new forms flawlessly, humans simply was unknown to them. They simply. . . built them, disparate chunks of metal and scrap held together by more scrap.

This was plainly obvious as I followed their direction to a "spaceport", as they called it. Hundreds of different buildings, most of them consisted of dozens of metal and glass panes stuck together. The city I flew over was a diseased heart, arteries and veins flowing through towering monoliths that held no rhyme or reason and seemed ready to collapse into dust at any moment. My cardiac systems nearly stopped as I landed. The sign "Hangar 71" hung from the ceiling, casting the gaudy green light of electrified neon on to my ship's carapace. Like their ancestral apes, the humans around seemed to have no reasoning, sprinting around from station to station, doing what I can only assume was the maintenance necessary to keep this "hangar" together, it only being metal sheets held together with struts, welds, and some form of-

"Excuse me, can we help you? We've only got so many landing spots and the sooner we can clear you out to wherever the hell you're from, the better."

Broken from my disdainful review, I turned my eyes to get a better look at the human speaking. He seemed to be the image of a human mechanic- bulging with protein structures, small bright eyes constantly darting, and covered with scavenged or constructed technology. He smelled as if he had never been cleansed, the oils oozing out of every inch of his porous skin barely covered by the overpowering scents he used to cover it up.

However, my disgust was overpowered by my need. "My Warp-Core appears to have been either damaged during travel, or to be diseased in some way. I need to be able to return home rather quickly. You see, I am returning from a scientific inquiry as to a dwarf galaxy that may-"

He nodded along up until my explanation of purpose, when he proceeded to scribble something down on to a silicon tablet before turning to a group of humans who had been in a state of inactivity, quietly conversing.

"HEY, I'M NOT PAYING YOU TO LOUNGE AROUND. GET YOUR ASSES HERE, WE GOT A BROKEN WARP-CORE. IT'S A RUSH JOB, I WANT THIS THING HALFWAY TO ALPHA-CENTAURI BY LUNCH."

The volume of his vocal vibrations felt like a telepathic assault- even more so was the whirlwind of activity afterwards. My eyes expanded with awe as I watched the workers descend on my vessel. It seemed a pack of beasts tearing apart prey, a furious ripping and tearing of my ships hull to access the core. I could only stand their astounded as they violated the form of my ship, ripping and tearing out component, leaving their wires dangling from them like organs ripped from a corpse.

One of them, wearing denim on their lower body and nothing on the upper portions, leaned out of one of the cuts they had made in the hull to yell something to his companions.

"Some kind of weird biological based system, haven't seen it before. Get me the welder and some of the parts we have left over from that Guliton ship."

It took every portion of my willpower and training to not give into my anger and disgust. Guliton technology? They were a silicon based biology, and my ship was carbon! Not to mention that it was completely incompatible, with entirely different design, and several centuries behind the technology of my ship. My ship had been crafted by our greatest sculptors, a single piece of perfection, and I could feel waves of fear and anguish roll off of me in telepathic waves as I watched it's desecration, as I watched them stab it with metal nails and burn it with torches, it's very form tortured.

Suddenly, I felt a very familiar energy on the edge of my conscious. It felt like my warp core, if it had been sent through a black hole and managed to exit. It vibrated in a frequency that made it seem as it was ready to explode, the color glowing from inside the cracked and bolted carapace was crimson as opposed to the standard teal, and the hull itself seemed to have been ripped to shreds and attached together with discolored bands and sheets of metal.

The upper-body bare mechanic that had been in my vessel came over to me, teeth bared in what I can only assume to be a show of aggression.

"Well, it wasn't anything I'd seen before, but I think we got it all sorted out. Had to reverse the polarity of the neutron flows, invert the mass concentrater and a few other small things, but she should be able to take you from one side of space to the other and back again. Now, on the matter of payment."

I quickly telepathically told him the information to my bank account, and enjoyed a quiet moment of joy as he reeled back. Despite having access to telepathic neural networks for decades, humans still refused to use them except when absolutely necessary.

With trepidation I stepped back into my vessel, feeling every change and improvised solution they had made. My ship felt, as opposed to a smooth creature or work of art, like a trash heap that, through some combination of luck and prayer, seemed to work. However, it took off, and luckily I was away from that cesspool and on my way home as soon as I was able to clear their atmosphere.

[–]Guybrushes 846 points 1 month ago
"I didn't mean anything by it!"

The human screwed up his face. "What's that?"

"I... I didn't mean anything!"

He tilted his head to one side. Oh my Simulator! Was that a sign of aggression?

"I didn't mean anything!"

"Anything... by what?" he asked. "I only asked what you were looking at. Was it the TV? This is my favourite show," he said. "Have you seen it?"

I stepped back. "I didn't see anything!" I said.

"Dude," the human said.

What was a dude? Would it come and claim my foetuses? They were gestating in my sac. How could I protect them? I'd only just accepted them from their mother. How could she forgive me?

He pointed at the screen. "The show. Have you seen it? It's great. It's about a cop. He plays by his own rules, but he gets the job done. You know?"

"By his..." I stuttered, "... own rules? Not the rules of the Law?"

He nodded, sipping a filthy brown liquid from an open container. "His own rules. Look at this bit. Best episode ever."

I turned my attention to the screen in deference to him. Perhaps this show of obsequious powerlessness would quell the raging fires of violence within him. Lit up by the primitive lights, I saw a human strike - strike! - another human in the face and demand to know where a missing child was. The victim of this crime asserted that he knew not where the missing child was; yet the first human struck him again. Again!

I turned away.

"The vehicle," I said. "When..." I cleared one of my throats. "When will it be ready?"

The human stepped towards me. I tried, how I tried! I tried not to flinch. The Discussion Warriors of Planthentintrix would have been proud of me. I belonged on the Stern Debating Battlefield of Fharginord alongside them - and if my salient argument should fail to stand up to cross-examination? Then to rest in the Eternal Fields of the Fallen.

"Give it an hour," the human said. "It's only a blown flange. We'll have it taped back up. It'll get you to Alpha Centuraui."

I laughed with relief. "An hour?" I asked, incredulous.

"Sure," he said. "If that. Oh, look! Look! Watch this bit. It's great."

The human on the screen raised a weapon to his victim's knee-joint. He demanded to know where the hostage was again. I gripped my abdomen in fearful anticipation. My foetuses quivered beneath. The victim, excreting droplets of effluent in fear, somehow explained where the missing child was.

"How did he come by this information?" I asked.

The human looked up at the screen. "What?" he asked. "Dude, he knew all along. He was the guy that took him."

Such deceit! Such wickedness! Packaged as entertainment and presented as enjoyment! Such...

The human on the screen hit the child-taker with the butt of his weapon. At this point, I kind of felt like he deserved it.

"What will he do now?" I asked.

The human looked at me, the corners of his mandible-less feeding hole turning upwards. "He's going to get the kid back," he said.

"Playing by the rules?" I asked, my voice tremulous.

"What?" he asked. "No, man. Of course not."

I relaxed, confused, and docile. "Dude," I said. "That's awesome."

Xel’thor had heard the stories about these earth men, apes really, being the paragon of mechanical ingenuity, but surely those had been exaggerations. Passing through that asteroid field was a bad idea, Xel’thor thought. The power failure to the deflector shields couldn’t have come at a worse time; the impacts from those asteroids must have knocked the crystal containment system out of equilibrium. At least the two humans seemed willing enough to help, towing the cruiser to some kind of red wooden building.

“Now don’t you worry Mr. Eltho, Clem here’ll get ya all patched in no time.”

“It’s Xel’thor”

“Pardon?”

“It’s Xel’thor, Norman. See I took the time to listen and remember your name.”

“Now, there’s no need to be rude mister,” Norman replied. Xel’thor stared at Clem and Norman. Norman and Clem had been in the field when Xel’thor’s ship came crashing down, working on a large green tractor. Great, Xel’thor thought to himself. I need to make contact with my handler halfway across the sector two hours from now. And now the fate of the Osgrellian Empire rests on a man wearing grease stained overalls without a shirt and an old man in a cowboy hat.

“Clem, if it’s quite alright with you, I’d like to oversee the repairs. You see, this ship and the contents of its data safe are actually quite important. The-”

“Yeah that’s fine Mr. Elmore. You can hand me shit from my toolbox.” Clem interrupted.

“...Great….Also, it’s Xel-thor.”

Clem plugged in a work light and slid underneath the cruiser. Norman walked over to an old radio and turned it on. The sound of country music filled the old barn. “I’m gonna go grab some coffee fellas. Clem, I’ll bring you back your usual. Mr. Velcro, would you like some coffee while ya wait?”

“No”

“Alrighty then, I’ll leave you two to it.”

Xel-thor dozed off for nearly an hour when the sound of pounding metal brought him back to alertness. It appeared to Xel-thor that Clem had merely started beating the side of the cruiser with some kind of large hammer.
“What the hell are you doing to my ship?”

“See, you got quite a few dents here mister. I’m pounding them out.”

“This may be a little too complex for you earthling, by this ship is powered by a Osgrellian crystal reactor. They’re exceedingly-”

“Delicate” Clem said.

“...uhh yes. Delicate. Very delicate.”

“See I figured that. That’s why I put it over there on yonder table. Now, I may be just a humble mechanic, but seems like these dents are poking into that crystal’s containment doo-hickey. So you aint going anywhere til we get these dents fixed.”

Xel-thor stood there speechless as Norman returned with two paper cups of coffee. “Alright, I got one black for me and one double skinny orange happy-cino for you Clem.” Norman said. “So was it like ya figured Clem? Dents causing trouble with the power core’s containment system?”

“Yeah, more or less. This one had a crystal instead of the usual anti-matter though.” Clem replied, taking his coffee. “Bigger problem is with the shields. I gave the generator the old once over, but I don’t think there’s anything technically wrong with it. Looks like it might not be compatible with the ship since it’s an aftermarket model.” Both Clem and Norman stared at Xel-thor, sipping coffee.

“I was assured it was the right model….”

“Uh-huh. Betcha that salesman was more than happy to look that up for you too, huh.” Clem said.

“Now, Clem don’t be hard on the fella. Some folks is just a little slower than others.”

“I am not slow. I’m very important and am very smart.”

“Sure ya are Mr. Xel-thor. So the way I figure it, I’ll set ya up with this older spare shield generator I got, rated for a ship of your class, and I’ll hold onto this one. With parts and labor, I reckon that should square us up.” Clem said.

Fifteen minutes later, Xel-thor’s ship took off and was in orbit in a matter of seconds. Clem and Norm stood in the field looking toward the sky. “You know that fancy shield generator was rated for his ship just fine, right Clem?”

“Well of course I know that Norman. We gotta make money somehow though, Norm."

[–]AsciiFace 159 points 1 month ago*
"You, you fixed?!" I asked incredulously, barking through the human's rudimentary language as best I could. The squat young human had red hair, and sucked on some sort of ground leaf when he worked. He was the only human mechanic on the station, and the cheapest out of all of them.

"Well, yeah. Once you tear the thing apart it ain't all that bad. Took a lil while to figure out them circuits of yers but after some experimentin it was easy to tell it was just a capacitor that was blown. Took me long enough to find one of our own that would fit, and then it was a real doosy connecting er up since I can't solder to yer biocells. Anyways, she's fit as a fiddle now." he rambled, stopping only briefly to take an oversized bite of his disgusting wheat and soured bovine excrete meal.

"Capacitor?" I asked, unfamiliar with the word.

"Yeah, you know. Charges up all that juice yer biocells are putting out so it can dump the whole lot of it all at once. You got millions of em, took forever to find the right one, all hooked up to them giant biocells in there. Sorta reminded me of them things I worked on back home growing up, we had them biocells in our tractors. Think we got em from you, us humans I mean not my farm. n`eways, I then hooked up to that big ol engine of some sort, I know it's not yer main engine - being as I did some work to that too. Man if I had a full week wi-"

"You fix main engine? What!?" I yelled, gasping infuriated chirps native to my people. "I ask simple fix, not engine! Human no place in engine!"

"Well I hadda. It didn't like the capacitor."

I stormed up the gangway, and into the control room. My cloak billowed behind me, quite dramatically I mused. I toggled several pre-flight switches and observed the metrics display.

"Fwahh!?" I gasped, as the logs of the engine start up sequence scrolled past.

"See? Innit a beut?" the human asked, suddenly standing beside me and clearly satisfied with himself.

"Engine efficiency, 80%?" I asked, my voice quieted by fear. "Only achieve 20%"

"Nah, you could get one ot ot out of this puppy if yer dang artificial quantum entanglement generator were tuned up"

"You... " I couldn't form the crude human words. "Grogggt ghorrr! hiss Sheeawwwww!"

"Whoa there buddy, whats wrong?"

"You understand? Vox generator?"

"Well yeah, I mean I don't know how she does it, but I know she ain't doin it well"

This puny human, this little miscreant. He understood the vox generator, the most powerful of my peoples technologies. The collective of beings who had managed Human integration into galactic society had closely guarded the secrets of interstellar travel to cap the transportation trade. It was quite expensive for humans to travel, at almost no cost to the pilots.

"You make 100%? You fix for me?" I ask, devious thoughts bubbling into my mind. With these improvements, I could become rich.

"Sure, but it's gonna to cost ya"

"What desire?" worry tingled my senses, he may yet know more than he lets on.

"Can yall get one of those old bull-class fighters? I've been wanting to fix one up fer the moon races, can't find one round these parts without paying an arm and a snout in shippin fees" the young man said, a hint of sadness in his voice.

This was going to be easier than I thought.

As the giant offensive sloth-like creature thundered out of the control room, Peter smiled to himself. He listened until the booming footsteps faded, Krongor had left him to begin his modifications.

"Easier `an pie" he chuffed, pulling out a personal communicator.

He selected his partner in the contacts list, and a ring tone reverberated in the cramped room. His partner picked up.

"Peter, whats up?"

"I think I got sommin."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, gonna be working on one of them Vox's all week."

"Holy shit, Peter. You fuckin with me?"

"Naw, I already got a good idea whats goin on. After this week, think I can make one myself. I even got him to get me one of them Bull fighters, would be perfect for the prototype."

Note: Thank you everyone for appreciating this so much. I am really proud of myself after having written on this subreddit for several years here and there. It has made me a better writer, but still not a good one. I am going to continue trying to work on this story and world, and hopefully you get the chance to see it if I make something of it.

[–]AsciiFace 14 points 1 month ago
SOME TIME AGO...
Peter clung to the back of his father’s pant leg, hiding his face from the giant monstrosity that was barking crude english words and hissing.

His father held up a pacifying gesture to the creature, stopping the conversation before prying Peter’s hands from his leg and kneeling down to his eye level.

“What’s wrong little man? Gagnur here is a very friendly, “ he paused, smiling at the beast, “man. Who is going to do a lot of business with us so we can get the farm back on track. Alright buddy?”

Peter just smushed his face up in embarrassment, and avoided the aliens gaze as he pretended to be interested in his footprints in the dust under their feet.

“Sorry, Gagnur. Where were we?” his father offered, gesturing with his hand towards the alien.

“Spawn show fear, no damage transaction?” Gagnur asked, having notable problems forming the hard T in transaction. It came out as a hissing barking noise.

“It is quite confusing for him. Gagnur, just one of these BioCells could power our entire farm for the rest of my natural life. I am still very interested in the transaction.” Peter’s father replied, excitement outweighing his own intrinsic fear of the beast. Peter’s father had been an engineer working in the space program before the world economy collapse, forcing him to turn to farming. What was meant to be a post scarcity society had indeed experienced scarcity.

The alien species showed great ability to understand complex english sentences, however their terse and gurgled replies were often simpler than that of a toddler learning their first words.

“Good. Desire artifacts.” the beast grunted, stumbling over the plosives. He pointed with one of his clawed appendages to the Peter’s father’s cross necklace. “Good commodity return homeworld, human artifact. ”

“Oh well I `spose so.” his father replied, touching the cross on his chest. He reached behind his neck and removed the necklace, handing it to Gagnur.

“Good, first transaction good.” the beast grumbled, almost sedately compared to the uproar he produced before. He disappeared into his lander, before returning with an oil-drum shaped and sized black cylinder. A large odd looking plug was visible on one end, Peter could not imagine what plugged into it.

Peter’s father took the cylinder, and said his goodbyes to Gagnur as he walked towards their truck. Gagnur remained presumably for other customers.

“With this puppy well be in business!” his father claimed excitedly. “And I’m going to show you how to hook her up and fix her, it’s really just a fancy battery like in your toys.”

Peter smiled, his father had been teaching him how to work on things since he could remember. He had learned how to solder on his 6th birthday, and subsequently had made his first circuits.

“Ah one day, you will be a great engineer like your dad.” his father began, rubbing Peters head. That is if we ever have a place in the world again.”

Right so, we can't salvage the worm gate system, the gravitational damper is completely toast. You're lucky you were even able to limp in here today pal. But don't worry I have a new one in stock, though it's gonna cost you a pretty penny. Now the shield buffer is gonna need to be completely taken apart and reassembled, looks like half a dozen components fried, and then half your hull is scorched. Landing gear is still licked in place, luckily we've got her jacked up in the dry dock..."

I blinked, I think I understood most of that, but dry dock? Did he mean out in the vacuum of space where my ship was tied down in place by half a dozen crude chains? Uhg.... humans...

"...and then after that, we're looking probably two or three days solid work. And a lot of labor. We do take galactic credits, but... now this is just an estimate mind you, but we're going to be looking about roughly thirty g's of work her."

"erm... G's?" I asked, puzzled by the crude simple language. Humans were notorious for it, they loved their damned double meanings and idioms.

"Oh, right, sorry, 30,000 credits."

I groaned. I could almost buy a decent condition used ship for that price, but it wasn't a Stelarian Sunridge Racer, the fastest, most complex, ships in the galaxies. I wasn't even sure there was anything here on this backwater ape ran planet that would even get me half way across this wretched galaxy. "Right, right." I held out my chip, he swiped it, contract agreed. I flopped down onto the chair and buried my head in my hands.

X-51, there are.... creatures crawling over me. Preparing self defense systems.

Oh no, the ship would not be happy about this, not one bit. 'No! No! No! Abort!' I mentally waved as loud as I could to the ship. 'DO NOT HURT THEM! THEY'RE GOING TO REPAIR YOU!'

But X-51, these primitive creatures could no way repair me... I am fully autonomous and more than capable of completely all necessary repairs within 12 cycles...

I groaned again. Damn ships, damn AIs. It didn't have any sense of time, no way to know that 12 cycles was nearly half a lifetime for my species. It was probably several generations for these primitive apes, who, apparently claimed they could fix it in a couple... days...? "Hey, ap... human , what are your days in galactic standard?"

The ape hesitated, then checked his computer. "You go by one cycle as one rotation of the galaxy, right?"

I nodded. "Yyyyup, that's the standard time frame. I know it's inconveniently long for some of the more.... shorter lived races."

The ape nodded. "Right so... my computer here says it's 1.14 times 10 to the negative 11 cycles."

The apes are.... inside me now. I hope you are happy X-51.

The sarcasm of the AI almost interrupted the shock of just how small of a unit of time that was. "You... truly, that fast?"

The ape only blinked at me, "well... yeah... there's some complicated stuff to do but it's not that bad."

Status report, damaged systems have been removed: wormhole generation system, shield systems, hull panels 2C through 15F, power core... I am now running off of emergency batteries.

"Hey can your guys take a look at my AI as well? He's been acting a little funny."

The ape typed away more at his primitive computer and stroked his chin. "Erm... we could switch the whole system out but I don't think any of us are really god with... looking over an AI. Last time we plugged one of those into our network it got distracted by the internet."

Oh yes... the internet, the very very infamous earth computer network that was reported to have... everything on it. Some alien races that had visited the world had been known to install hyperspace computer links so they could have instant access to the supposedly ludicrously addictive center of faux knowledge and whatever the great abyss dank memes were. All this from a species that still relied on a completely natural organ for thinking. It was a good thing they hadn't yet spread far from their pitiful little home world. I sighed, "fine, leave him be. I'll have him looked at when I get home."

I do not need to be looked at. My hardware is thankfully located deep within the ship surrounded by several layers of hardened titanium and self contained power subsystem that managed to survive you bouncing your ship off the gravitational well of a small yellow star.

I sighed and moved over towards the view port to look out at my ship. The primitive station in much too dangerously low orbit still relied on centrifugal force to provide the sense of gravity. Outside apes in their protective suits, their skin apparently not able to cope with vacuum had half the ship apart now. The sparks of welding, arced off of the hull. They didn't even have the ability to mold equipment together with molecular lathes!

I must report my third and fourth landing servo attachment guides have been placed with adhesive tape

I groaned, mentally cast, 'allow the humans all access they need and don't interfere with anything. That's an order.' then terminated my mental connection with the ship. I don't think I can take this anymore, perhaps I should go try this internet thing to distract me for a few of these 'days' they have.

It is said that on earth, when something breaks, everyone inexplicably becomes an expert.

Xlargok thought it was pure magic.

Just watching the creatures argue was a spectacle of its own, and Xlargok was glad he had brought his galacticom to translate it all.

"No, you gotta turn it the other way," a burly human was saying. "Here, give me the screwdriver-"

"I think it's not actually a screw," another human spoke up, eliciting deadpan stares from the other three humans. Perhaps, Xlargok considered, her mammary glands indicated a lack of the strange gift the other three humans seemed to possess.

"Naw, I reckon the crash must'a broken the glimmery bit loose, here, this part that's all beeping without sound somehow."

The burly man scratched his head, and gave the bit a bang with the screwdriver for good measure. Xlargok waved a tentacle in amazement. Somehow, the man had just banged on the hyperdrive without blowing a good chunk out of their planet. Truly amazing.

"So you were just driving by, eh, mister err...?" The third man held his thumbs underneath his suspenders and looked at the alien expectantly.

"Xlargok," Xlargok beamed the word into their minds using his mental gland.

"Right, right, xander. Fancy costume you got there. Don't worry, we'll fix up your car in no time."

"It's all the gadgets that he's put on it that's probably caused this in the first place," the burly man muttered, and the other two hummed their agreement.

"Isn't it that part there that looks even more odd than the rest?" The mammary human spoke up. "Honestly, I still think there's something very fishy about this whole-"

The other three shushed her. "Don't be rude now, Jane," the man with the suspenders said in a tone that Xlargok assumed entailed some local cultural significance.

The burly human turned to the lightspeed warp and gave it a good bang, and suddenly the control panel lit up again. Xlargok enthusiastically clapped his hands, all six of them.

"That did it," the man said triumphantly.

"Hey, you just hit the part that I told you was odd!" the mammary human said indignantly, but the other three ignored her.

"Thank you, humans." Xlargok beamed at them, pleased with the adjustments. He got into the minimization room of his ship, kicking off the anti-gravity and soaring off.

The four humans stared at the sky for a while after he had disappeared, saying nothing.

"Strange fella," one of them concluded finally. "Must'a been from New York or sumthin'."

[–]Spoon_stick 108 points 1 month ago*
Zarp's pleasant cruise of the Milky Way was interrupted by his ship's robotic voice.

85 seconds of flight time remaining, land immediately and commence repairs.

"WHY?!" Zarp screamed helplessly at his ship. He had no idea what was wrong, and that really irked him. As a people, the Roflings pride themselves on intelligence. But for some reason, repairing a ship was beyond them - or more accurately, beneath them.

Manual driving disabled. Destination set for 'Jim's ship repairs', Australian Outback, Earth.

"No not Earth!" Zarp cursed to himself, knowing that he didn't have time to visit a more civilized mechanic shop. He had heard terrifying stories about Earthlings. Their primitive behavior was the butt of many Galactic jokes. However, they seemed to excel at repairing ships.

Zarp's ship touched down with a magnetic thrum. He tentatively approached the shop. Zarp glanced around him, suddenly wary of being ambushed. Barren desert land stretched all around, Jim's shop the only building in sight. Corroded metallic structures littered the surrounding land like corpses after a great battle. Two huge earthlings were perched on the end of a land ship; small smoking sticks held away from their bodies with thick meaty arms. Zarp gasped as they drew the smoldering cylinders up to their mouths and inhaled. Must be some sort of primal assertion of dominance, Zarp thought as he noticed the two apes sizing him up.

Zarp knew how a business worked though, so he swallowed his fear and approached the earthlings. The larger of the two men jumped to his feet and approached him; one of his muscled arms stretched outwards, pointing directly at Zarp.

"I mean you no harm!" squealed Zarp as he recoiled in fear. "I just wanted my ship repaired!"

"Relax mate!" The Australian man grinned happily, "name's Jim. Was just gonna shake your hand."

"Oh of course, I forgot about that ritual. I am Zarp." Zarp looked at the ground, feeling both relieved and slightly embarrassed.

"No worries! Lets take a look at your ship!" Jim walked confidently over to the ship and started examining it.

Zarp watched in amazement as this being he thought of as stupid and primitive navigated his way around his ship more fluently than any Rofling he knew. Jim was checking oil consistencies and analyzing atmosphere containment. Zarp was impressed as he noticed Jim using all his senses to help diagnose the problem. He was smelling the gravity thrusters, listening to the warp shields power up, and using his skin to feel if things were fitted correctly. Zarp realized he had seriously underestimated the earthling's skill. He watched in awe while Jim danced around his ship with a subtlety and finesse that betrayed his appearance.

"This things farked!" Jim said finally as he pulled a scorched proton aggressor from the ships belly. "We'll chuck a new one in there and you should be sweet."

Zarp powered up his new ship.

Repairs complete. Ready for flight

Feeling completely at ease now, Zarp remembered some of Earth's hand gestures. Looking at Jim, he pointed his thumb at the roof as the ship gently lifted off the ground.

Dex and Neil

"Ayy, are you..." He interrupted himself as he sloppily chewed a giant wad of gum with those giant white gnashers one called molars. "... Dexter Higgins?" "No, good fellow, my name is Dextrodicus Hignosticus, of Gliza." The ape furrowed his massive brow, big, brown, dopey eyes gazing at me with an intense confusion I had not ever seen in anything but house pets. He spit out his gum into the sand, and I impulsively took a half step back. "I'mm'a call you Dexter." "No, no, that's not my..." I stopped myself. If I overexerted him, he might have an aneurism. Or worse, I'd give myself one. "Fine. Yes. 'Dexter Higgins'. And what's your name?" The human paused, as if taking time to consider his answer, to make sure he didn't get it wrong. "Neil." I didn't have much of a response. "Oh", was all I could muster. Neil have me a skeptical frown. "So, what happened to the ship, Dex?" "Uh, what?" The human sighed. "Your ship... It crashed." I nodded. "Oh, yes, indeed." "That's it, over there?" He pointed to my ship, its chrome finish glistening in the Martian sun, the beautiful curve'd saucer hardly scratched by the less-than-stellar landing I had had only hours ago. "Yes, Neil." "What, you dropped outta orbit?" "Yes, my consoles died, and I had to maneuver into an aerial skid, in order to-" "Don't need your life story, Dex." How rude indeed. He neared the ship, and I followed, just to make sure he didn't make off with anything important to me. He put his hands behind his back, and paced around the ship, eying it from every angle. He scratched that strange, out of place patch of fur all humans seemed to have on their heads as his stout body bent down to examine the exposed Deuterium Converter. He must have sensed my three eyes watching him, because he turned his head, raising an eyebrow. "Somethin on your mind, chief?" "No, human. Carry on." "Cool." He was silent for a second, then: "Y'all look funny?" "Beg pardon?" "Glizans. Y'all got them three tiny black eyes on that huge forehead. It looks weird on that long, thin body, you know? Like, how do y'all hold your head up?" "Well, it's how I hatched, Neil." "Y'all hatch like birds?" "If it helps you understand, yes." Neil nodded, and turned back to the ship. I couldn't help notice his own odd frame, now that it had been brought up. My species were, unlike humans, tall, thin, often described as graceful, or elegant. Humans were different. Their blocky, clumsy shapes seemed evolutionarily disastrous. The Glizans might seem far superior to the average onlooker, and we arguably were in every conceivable sense. Humans had no hive consciousness, no natural camouflage, no naturally occurring thermal vision, no telekinetic powers, etcetera. But as Neil stuck out his arms to fiddle with the Deuterium Converter, the reason for the Human species' continued existence became apparent: fingers, five on each hand. Glizans as a species only had two fingers per hand, and no thumbs. And while their telekinetic powers did a great deal to compensate, it did little to compare to the precision of those slender digits the humans possessed. That, combined with their level of intellect, however low it may have been, allowed them to solve the complex puzzles of nature, and conquer their planet, rising to the stars among the other sentient races. I was torn from my train of thought as Neil approached me. "Have you tried turning it on and off again?" "I... What?" "Nothin'", he said, turning back to the ship. He was suddenly struck with an idea, as I noticed a smile creep across his face. Confidently, he waltzed up to the ship, and, raising his boot high in the air behind him, put all his might into a tremendous kick that shook it like a tin can. "What the hell are you--?" I didn't have time to finish the sentence. With a wailing and a whirring, the ship sprang to life, and began hovering off the ground, prepped for me to enter from below. "I..." "No need to thank me", Neil smiled, tipping an imaginary hat. "That'll be five hundred bucks."

I blinked my fourth eye that was underneath the broken DeepSpaceCraft as a drop of liquid lubricant fell on it blurring my vision in that eye for a moment.

"Pretty sure it's a leaky lube tube down there that's causing the trouble," I said to the human mechanic.

The human stopped scratching his facial carbon outgrowth and looked at me, the strange alien with the freely-moving body parts, in a non-threatening but uncomfortable manner.

"How do y'all have sex?"

Really these filthy creatures can only ever think of procreation. Isn't there enough of them on this planet now for them to stop worrying about species growth? One would say, yes. One would also think these creatures would go easy on their procreation drive but it seemed like there was some sort of fault in their programming that even after filling up their home planet to the point that there were now human refugees in all corners of the galaxy, all that they ever think about is that. Procreation.

"Umm, we let our creative assets mingle in a procreation capsule every twenty four months."

"You mean to say you have sex once in two years and you don't even get to be there?" His speaking part bent awkwardly at the edges indicating he was finding humour in my description of my species' procreative practices.

"Yes," I replied testily, "can you fix this or what?"

"Sure I can fix it." He replied in a straightforward manner, "I just need some size 74 spark plugs from your dealer and the socket wrench. Mine broke last night fixing another one of your crafts."

"That must have been Ben. He's always buzzing around in this area."

"Aye, Ben. The ladies love Ben. They say his tongue goes places nothing else has ever been."

"I am sure that is so," I replied vaguely and placed the order for the spark plugs.

"Say what's your name?"

"Chad."

"Ok Chad, see here's the thing. Before I get your craft fixed you got to do me a favour."

I looked up at him with what I hoped would be their version of a crushing glare.

"What is it?"

"Could you have one of your eyes up my butthole and see if I've got anything strange growing there like a tumour or something?"

I sighed in relief.

"That will be possible. You have to clean it later though."

"No problem. Gee thanks, Chad. Not a lot of humans would consider that appropriate."

"It's ok, umm guy. It is just your body. It's like you help me fix my craft and I check out if there is a tumour in your anus."

[–]rockeh 46 points 1 month ago*
The creature's thought patterns were simple. Its intelligence... call it a very indulgent average. Speech networks were rudimentary at best.

And yet, it seemed to understand what was wrong with the drive. SELF understood the creature's understanding, despite not understanding the drive. SELF was Explorer, SELF's whole existence geared towards discovery and assessment. Other minds had created the ship, the practical expression of discoveries and philosophies dreamt up by yet others.

And this primitive understood how it worked and what was sub-optimal about a technological artifact millions of years more advanced (local star-relative years). The thought unsettled SELF. It did not fit within SELF's worldview. A species had certain parameters within which it expanded its knowledge and understanding, and the creature's species was well below the threshold at which they could begin to comprehend the processes that bypassed the constraints of space-time.

The creature shouted, gleeful triumph with a strong undercurrent of frustration directed at the ship's drive, an orifice on the shortest limb causing some vibration of the atmosphere. This happened every time the creature shouted, while normal speech was a jumbled mess that SELF sensed would be better left unparsed. Its speech was chaotic and veered from subject to subject every few seconds.

Its habit to cause atmospheric vibrations, most unconnected to its speech, was also disturbing.

Still, SELF did not sense any ill-will from the creature, only the frustration of a faulty drive and the glee at, possibly, being in the presence of a far more advanced mind.

It crawled out of the open hatch and selected a tool from a nearby container, returned to the hatch, and began twisting one of the color-coded rods. It spoke of dissatisfaction, then, abandoning the tool, cast around on the ground for something -- it knew not what, only a concept of utility in its mind.

It selected a rock.

Not a tool, not something to make a tool, not something useful in any capacity in a star-ship. A rock. It crawled with the rock back into the hatch, and began to pound at one end of the casing.

SELF observed. This volume was well-charted, but a direct observation of one of the native life forms was still valuable. This, despite a total lack of mutual understanding of the processes at work.

The creature exited the ship, screaming its success, the associations inferred from the vibrations being of biological and moral correctitude, yet applied to the ship. SELF pondered the meanings, and decided to privately lower its estimate of the creature's intelligence.

SELF slid into the ship, and felt shock. The ship's systems responded several pulses faster than before the accident -- which shouldn't have been possible, as the ship had been brand-new. SELF shot out of the atmosphere, feeling giddy at the smoothness of the ship's responses. SELF decided to ignore the unease caused by the ease with which the primitive had solved a problem too hard for an advanced mind.

"And what did you do at the park today, sweetie?"

"I fixted starfish!"

"You fixed a starfish?"

"Yes! It felled outta the sky! And I fixted it! It was broken and a icky spider came out of it and it was sad cause the starfish was broken and I fixted it!"

"Well aren't you a clever little munchkin. How about some ice cream, Engineer Munchkin?"

"Yay!"

[–]trjones1 79 points 1 month ago
It took a few seconds for the speaker of the auto-translate to sputter to life.

"Just hit it a few times."

I asked the translator to repeat what the human had said.

"Just hit it a few times. Synonyms for 'hit' are strike, batter, impact."

Was the meat bag really asking me to physically injure the spacecraft in an attempt to make it functional? How could I even explain to the small brain that my species was non-corporeal, existing in a nether dimension where physical interaction with the craft wasn't even possible?

The human made more sound.

"Here, let me do it" the auto translator said.

Soon, the human was wriggling through the non-aqueous liquid shielding of the craft and entering the inner bio support unit. This was a grave violation of quarantine procedures.

More human sounds came from the earthling and before I could secure the very sensitive navigation crystals, he was striking the inner panels with his palm. I panicked, knowing that the slightest dislodging of the crystals would forever lose the plotting required to return to my home galaxy.

"See, you just gotta get it like this," the auto translator finally announced as the ape's hand repeatedly impacted the console. When nothing happened, he pulled out a long-handled device with steel at the end and started to strike more vigorously.

As is standard operating procedure, I charged the heat ray to neutralize the human's assault on the spacecraft. It was slow coming on line, though as the man with his primitive tool continued to hit the navigation panel and I saw my chances for returning to my far-off home slipping away.

Finally the heat ray was ready, but just before I was to discharge it on the man, the familiar hum of power cells came back. Soon, the bio chamber was bathed once again in its normal pink hue.

"See, that did it" the human said through the auto translator as he slipped through the non-aqueous liquid shielding back to the ground.

"Thank you!" I commanded the auto translator to say to the human as the now fully functional spacecraft rose off that horrible rock.

[–]FlyingPlatypus314 50 points 1 month ago
Humans are far from being the smartest species in the universe, but they surely are known as the best mechanics. This fact is almost unexplainable but anything they get their hands on gets turned in a functional gadget (most of the times they get turned in weapons but let give this guys a break, they aren’t that evolved).

Even though I knew the stories, seeing this happening is a whole different thing, that’s why I stare flabbergasted as the half-evolved creature roam through my spacecraft, scattering and checking everything without a second thought, while I try to think on how to tell him to get his hands of my spacecraft I hear him say, using his ancient auto translator:

“Have you tried to turn it off and on again?”

“Why would I do that?”

“OFF and ON again!” the auto translator rang in the way you would speak to a kid, as he turned the engine off and on again almost as if hoping for a paranormal event about to happen making the engine magically start working again.

“If it didn’t work before why would it work...” before I finished the engine started.

“Stupid Alien.”

How was that possible? He wasn’t even a proper mechanic, he was an average old farmer, the typical earthborn human who thinks space travelling and diplomacy are for “young people who can’t keep their nose off things they shouldn’t mess with” and even then he fixed a topnotch spacecraft as if it was nothing much, the best spacecraft in the whole galactic fleet was fixed by an average human.

I board my spacecraft and lift off as fast as I can. As the galactic leader I always dismissed the rumors about the humans as stupid. But now I see they are not to be underestimated, we should focus all our forces in either annexing or exterminating them before the tear the universe apart.

The human slid out from under the ship, blinking as he came back into the light. The expression on his face made me worried that I would be stuck here for even longer; I had already been on this technology-forsaken world for half a local rotation, and I had no desire to spend any more time than was absolutely necessary.

"How long's it been since ya put oil in this thing?" he asked.

I blinked.

"Ummm.... In local time...." I quickly punched some numbers into my wristband calculator. "It's been.... two thousand and sixty three rota... days."

The mechanic's eyes widened. "It's been six years since ya got yourself an oil change?! Well there's your problem! Can't imagine the hell you've been puttin' on your engine.... Well that should be an easy fix at least. Mkay, gimme ten."

Before I could ask him what "Ten" meant, he had grabbed a large black bottle and disappeared back under the ship.

A short time later he slid back out and signaled for me to climb into the cockpit. Upon seeing that I was settled, he placed a pair of headphones over his ears and told me to try to start the ship. Once again, I heard the sputtering sound of the hyperdrive failing to complete initiation. I shook my head. Another failure. And this planet was supposed to have the best mechanics.

I turned to thank him for his attempt, only to see that he had climbed up next to the window to stare in at the control panel.

"Whassat blinking light?" he asked.

I looked where he pointed. "That's the hyperdrive light, the whole reason I'm in here in the first place."

"Oh!" he said with glee. "Well why didn't ya say so? I tell ya, people come in here all the time sayin' their stuff don't work and they don't know why, when it's sayin' it right there! So, this light, it's not s'pposed to be blinking, is it?"

"Well.... No," I said, confused. "It's supposed to be solid, but that means there's a problem with the engine."

"Kid," said the mechanic with a laugh. "That ain't an engine problem, that's a computer problem. And there's only one way to fix a computer problem."

He leaned in close.

"Have you tried turning it off and on again?"

I am the smartest among my people, the klathu, which are among the most intelligent in the quadrant. Only one thing amazes me, confuses me, even dumbfounds me. How stupid the race known as humans are. How they complain about this. Or complain about that. They scream out into space as loud as they can. Yet they lack the technology to receive any response. They don't yet speak the galactic language yet. They argue over what language they should speak, or have wars over a primitive fuel. Pathetic.

Yet, the potential they hold, terrifies me. Not everybody sees past the flaws, 'they still have external genitals, there is no way they can stand up to our evolutionary achievements." is what they say.

But I know differently, they have tapped into things that no other species could. 2 of their years ago they discovered what they called the higgs boson. Every culture in the quadrant theorized it's existence, but not one could find it. But the humans, they did, even without the genius of a thousand cultures. They are the ones. Although not many cultures found out that these monkeys are the ones. The highest in the quadrant decided with a small group who would 'discover' it. It is also noteworthy that the humans showing everyone up followed immediately by there falling on there face. Every species that found out about the new particle and how to get it swiftly found out how it could be useful. It controls the very mass of everything, so naturally it revolutionized everything.

But it wasn't then that I realized their intelligence. It was when I crashed. I will spare the details, it was quite embarrassing, but I landed in this man's field. I was able to minimize the damage but the landing rendered me unconscious, and busted my ship in many areas. And i hadn't the parts or the knowhow to fix it.

When I cam to i found myself in a tiny room, furnished with artifacts just slightly smaller than they should be. At first I was confused. Then I saw a creature, I recognized it to be human. "Howdy, big guy"

At first I was dumbfounded, this primitive thing has taken me into it's home not knowing a thing about me. It smiled or so I think, among many that is universal, so I assumed it was for humans, "you not from around here? Are you."

"No, I am not" I replied, in my own tongue, and my universal translator responded a second later telling him in his.

He chuckled "that was a joke big guy, you have arms that come to your knees, and you are a full 11 feet tall, with grey skin! Nothing like that round here"

"My vehicle", I snapped, not wanting to get caught up in some low conversation about how we don't look the same. But truly I was slightly offended he thought my clothes were my skin. "Where is it, I can't be here much longer. The air is poison to me." this was a complete lie. No species in the universe as far as we know don't breath just like the humans. Cept for a water dweller. I just wanted to shut him up. So I could get back to my surveying of different stars.

"Well it took me a bit to figure out. But I think I know what's wrong with it." he said in a tone that sounded somewhat proud. "I even think I know why you crashed" at first I thought this was ridiculous, that this unevolved creature could figure out my ship. In fact from what i gathered this thing was a farmer, he actually gathers plant matter for other of his kind to eat. But remembering the boson I inquired.

"Yup, ya see, I found where the fuel should go, and found something glowing in it, figured that was alright, ya are an alien after all, but if ya follow this line that goes into the engine, there is a break in it, yur leaking every where, man. That caused something in the back to blow" he said all of this like he was absolutely sure what was going on. He had many thing's right. Although him calling the hyper drive combuster an engine was a tad primitive he was on the right track. And the glowing bit, he was inches away from a mixture that his species never laid there eyes on before, I was amazed he correctly identified it as fuel.

"You are smarter than you look"

"I get that a lot, ya want me to fix-er-up for ya?"

"You don't have the right metals here, but a temporary fix using some titanium from this earth may be enough to get me home"

After that he fixed me up, it only took one of their planet's days, (an afternoon for my species), while he was getting the pipe, I wrote down a formula for a much stronger form of titanium that the earth wouldn't be able to invent for another hundred rotations. I told him to tell no one about me, told him of this metal, and left, to do my job. Terrified, of what I had done. I had given them a tool that could allow them to get into even playing grounds with us. Knowing of there warmongering ways, I regret doing what I did. But also, slightly excited, for how it will all turn out.

Every Chinese family celebrates Ching Ming a little differently. Not everyone burns paper money at the cemetery like they teach us at Multicultural Day at school.

My family has a barbeque at the beach where we sail paper ships out to sea. The Pacific Ocean reaches from California to the coast of Canton, so our paper boats are how we let our ancestors know we have not forgotten them. That’s what Dad told us.

This year Dad and my uncles let us kids put the boats in the water, having us wait until the tide goes out, so the little ships will be pulled out to sea. My kid brother Paul flails about in the water as he tries to push his boat out faster than mine.

Grandpa is not here to complain. He is frail with bowed legs that barely carry his weight. The bags under his eyes have started sagging into his cheeks and he is always muttering in the Chinese my cousins and I barely understand.

Once Uncle Jim gets the firepit going, the aunts crack open the coolers and spread the food. At sixteen I’m one of the older kids and have to help cook the chicken. My cousin Keith roasts a fish he caught off the pier.

By the time the food is ready we can’t see our boats any longer, lost beyond the waves.

So I’m surprised when Paul trots back after dinner with a wet paper boat in his hands. It is his. He’d colored it when he made it, so the ancestors would know it was from him.

“Did they not want it?” he asks.

Uncle Jim takes the boat, unfolds it, and we lean close to see what’s inside.

A gold ring.

“The hell?” I say.

But Uncle Jim has already closed the paper around the ring and he jogs over to Dad and the uncles, calling to them in Chinese.

“There’re more boats,” my brother says.

He’s right. The waves have deposited three more.

We scoop them up and shake them apart. I find a gold chain and an earring; my brother another ring.

“Bring them here!” shouts Dad, waving his arm.

“What is this?” I ask.

“Gifts from the ancestors.” He grins. “They haven’t responded in a long time, but I think they know it’s been almost twenty years.”

“Is this some old custom you never told us about?” I picture the uncles slipping away and packing little boats to wash up for us. But Paul’s boat had been his.

“You’ll see soon enough. Roast some marshmallows with your cousins. It will keep you warm until Uncle Richard comes back with Grandpa.”

“I thought he didn’t like traveling anymore.”

“He’ll come to meet the ancestors.”

“This is weird,” I say to my brother.

But we roast marshmallows anyway. My cousin Dana is a college freshman and says this might be some Buddhist thing. I don’t think so. I’ve never seen Grandpa pray to Buddha. He keeps an idol in his home, but it looks like a weird fish.

Uncle Richard returns and opens the side door to his mini-van. “Grandpa is here, kids! Come say ‘good-bye!'”

Shouldn’t it be “Hello?”

Then something pale and squat slides through the door, covered loosely in a fraying bathrobe. It is Grandpa. I know from the horrible bags beneath his eyes. His hair is gone, and his skin slick. He waddles two steps and raises an emaciated hand to greet us. His fingers are webbed.

Paul whispers, “What’s wrong with him?”

“Grandpa is getting old and it’s time for him leave us,” says Uncle Richard. “He will go with the ancestors.”

Go where? It is dark, and very late. There is no one on the beach but us.

The bathrobe slips from Grandpa’s shoulders revealing a boney torso and pale, oily skin. He can no longer stand straight, his legs bent and protruding like a frog’s. In a gurgling voice he speaks Chinese to his sons and their wives. My cousins, brother, and I huddle together.

“Something about letting us know,” says my cousin Heather. “They want to take us to the water.”

I look to the surf, where waves have deposited another five boats on the shore. Shadows bob in the darkness, just out of reach of the firepit’s light.

“Mom, what’s happening?” I ask, when she comes over to us.

“When your father’s line gets very old, the sea calls to them,” she says. “I know it’s a little scary, but it’ll be all right. The ancestors are generous and they’ve allowed your dad and I to have a good life.”

“Then one day Dad will go like this?”

“And you will too.” She gives me a kiss on the head. “But it’s all right. That won’t be for a long time.”

The shapes drift closer, coming in with the tide. I see pitch-dark eyes, hear the slap of water against webbed hands. I don’t want them any closer. I back away and bump into Dad.

“Come on,” he says. His hand closes around mine, inhumanly strong. “It’s time to meet the ancestors.”

My mom always told me that everyone was good at something. She'd say that to cheer me up when I failed math, or when I didn't make the cut for the football team, or when I tried playing the trumpet and it sounded more like someone torturing a whale. One night, while watching a falling star from my backyard, I got so fed up with not knowing what I was good at that I wished for the ability to find out. I only wanted to know my best skill; in hindsight, I should have been more specific.

The first trip was utterly terrifying. One warm August, at the age of 17, I didn’t wake up in my own bed ready to go to class. I woke up in the body of a grown man, tall and strong. I wasn’t in control of the body, though: more like a passenger. Able to observe, but not change. We had a big protein smoothie for breakfast, then we went out and won the U.S. Open. I learned that this man’s skill was tennis: after that win, he was officially ranked best in the world.

Those are the easy ones. Hell, some of them I’ve already heard of from watching the Olympics or whatever. I can identify their skill pretty much as soon they open their eyes and look in the mirror. And then I’m thrown back into my own body like I never left. Well, almost: I always get just a little nugget of their skill. I won’t be winning Wimbledon any time soon, but my serve is much improved since that experience. Part of them comes back with me.

Some of them are a bit more difficult to recognize, but it becomes apparent once they use their skill. I spent a week living on the banks of the Ganges river as a 60 year old woman, trying to figure out what the hell she was known for. Then the rains came and one of her baskets broke. Within minutes she had woven a new one so tightly that it could be used to get water from the river. Best basketmaker in the world. I’ve also lived as the world’s best fisherman, best violinist, best realtor, speedcuber, and even the world’s best yo-yoer(who, might I add, is far more full of himself than any other expert I’ve been in). None of them have taken more than a few weeks to recognize, because the best at anything always has to practice their skill.

This time it’s different. I’ve been here for 2 months now, and this guy, Alan, is the most mundane person I’ve ever met. He sells oil rig machinery for a living, so we spend most of our time driving around the Gulf Coast, staying in one crappy motel after another. And he’s not a particularly good salesman either, so that can’t be it. He doesn’t seem to do anything else with his time. When not working, he reads, watches TV…. Nothing.

Alan rose from the bed and opened his eyes. I was barely even paying attention anymore because of how boring this guy’s life was. Oh boy, another breakfast of cheerios, I thought. Same as every other morning. But then I realized that it was still dark outside.

Alan didn’t put on his normal work suit. He put on one of those Adidas track suits with the three stripes down the side. I’d never seen him wear that before. Are we going running or something? Maybe he’s an ultramarathoner. That one would certainly be a trait I’d like to take back; I’ve got the stamina of a jellyfish. But that idea went out the window when he went into the bathroom and put on a wig and makeup. I’d never seen that before either. We came out looking like a completely different person; a woman, actually. Best…. Burlesque show performer?

We got into the car. Now I was eagerly paying attention. It was finally getting interesting. Alan jumped on the interstate going 70 and headed inland. He didn’t seem to have a particular destination in mind, and just pulled off at a random exit.

There was nothing there. Even the McDonalds at this truck stop of a town wasn’t open 24 hours a day. Only the gas station’s lights were still on. Alan drove until he found a random house with darkened windows. I was desperately trying to think of how this might reveal his skill. Was he a CIA agent or something? Was he a master thief?

He didn’t knock on the door; we went in through a broken basement window. The answer was looking more and more like ‘thief’ as Alan crept up the stairs and through their kitchen. But why was the world’s greatest thief breaking into some random home in a run-down suburb that had seen better days? Shouldn’t he be, like… breaking into the Louvre or something?

In the kitchen, Alan grabbed a knife from the countertop. Oooooh no, I thought. No, no, no. I was helpless to stop him as he entered a child’s bedroom and plunged the knife through a Dora the Explorer blanket on the bed. The girl’s scream awoke her parents, who came running right into Alan’s trap and were stabbed in the back as they rushed to their daughter’s bedside. After this, I had to shut my eyes as Alan carried out a gruesome ritual and began to clean up the bodies. Before we left, he hand-wrote Hallmark cards from the “Farewell” section of the local pharmacy and left the cards on their bodies.

The next morning, Alan rose from his bed and ate his cheerios like nothing was wrong. As usual, the morning news was on the television, and maybe he paid more attention to it than normal. Finally I felt a surge of joy ripple through him as the story that he’d been waiting for came on: the Greeting Card Killer strikes again. I finally realized Alan’s skill and vanished from his mind.

I’ve never felt so good to be back in control of my own body. I couldn’t even get out of bed; I just shivered in horror and vomited over the side as I relived last night's events. But then I realized that I knew Alan. I knew his name, where he was staying, where he’d hidden the evidence. I knew everything! I dashed into the kitchen and picked up my phone to dial 9-11.

From the corner of my eye, I spotted a knife gleaming on the counter. And as a wave of nervous energy and excitement sent a chill down my spine, I also realized what I’d brought back from my time with Alan.

If you liked this one, you should subscribe to /r/Luna_Lovewell for a ton of other stories!

"Wait," I said, and blinked. I was standing in the exact same spot, the lamp still in my hands, the genie floating in front of me. For a moment I wasn't sure if anything had changed, if I had just slipped into some fugue state for a second. Then the genie nodded to me.

"Your wish, O Mistress?"

"Wait, ****," I said. "You're screwing with me. You - did you just take me back in time to before I made my wish to go back in time?"

The genie made a little shrug. "As you say, O Mistress. I am but a humble genie. If my future self sent you here, I am yet to know of it."

"Oh **** this," I said, and barely restrained myself from throwing the lamp to the ground. "You know what this is like? This is like that guy who gets to ask one question to the smartest guy in the world. So he asks, 'What is the best question I could ask you, and what is the answer to it?' And then the smartass says, 'That was the best question you could have asked, and this was the answer to it.' That asshole!" I flung the lamp down anyway and it bounced off the ground, leaving a dent. The genie flinched and regarded it sadly.

"That was my home, O Mistress. I shall still have to live in it."

"I don't care!" I yelled back. "I wanted -" Ugh, I was so mad I was on the verge of freaking out. "I wanted to change my biggest mistake! And you took me back in time before I could make the wish! I - I thought I had a chance, you piece of shit!" I swung at the genie and there was a burst of sparks, and the sensation of all the little hairs on my arm being singed off. "****! ****!" It felt like an open wound dipped in alcohol. "It's all this recursive, pseudo-philosophical bullshit! And the real answer is: **** you, you're a Farking idiot for trying! You're an idiot for trying to be better than yourself! You're an idiot for actually trying to do some good for once!" My eyes were stinging. "Here's your answer: I'll spit in your face and pretend I'm being wise!"

"Ah," the genie said, and reached for my arm. I kept it cramped up, holding it tight, but finally relinquished it to him. His massive hands were warm, like heating pads, and somehow driving the stinging down. "I believe I understand, O Mistress." He looked at me hesitantly.

"Yeah?" I said. "What? What? So spit it out already."

"That was no rebuke, O Mistress," he said. "That was simply the truth of your wish." He released my arm and spread out his hands and grew like a bonfire, like a forest fire. Like what Moses must've seen at the burning bush. He'd been holding my hand. I collapsed, expecting to be swallowed whole. "I have been gifted the boundless capacity of the universe," he said, and his voice echoed like a bell. "And pressed into service of mortal souls. I am limitless potential. I am a heart's desire. I am the burning wish of humanity made manifest." His burning eyes met mine. "And now I am made yours."

He cooled, still bright as an ember, and once more took my hand. "No matter what you have done previously," he said gently, "no matter your greatest regret, it pales in comparison to what you have yet to achieve. If you were to waste your one wish on mere regret, that would indeed be your greatest mistake." He released my hand and floated backwards, arms folding into position. "That mistake has yet to be made. Your wish remains intact."

I swallowed hard, and so as not to look at him turned my eyes to the discarded lamp. I picked it up, turning it over, seeing the dent I had made. "I - I'm sorry about your lamp."

He waved it away with a smile. "It matters not, O Mistress," he said, and pressed his fingers into it, smoothing it out. "You see? A small mistake, of little concern. Nothing that cannot be fixed." He met my eyes. "Now, are you prepared to make your wish?"

I held his lamp, rubbing my thumb over the newly-smoothed surface, seeing my own reflection looking back to me. "No," I said. "I'm not ready. Not quite yet."

“This is the Void’s domain.”

“I mean sir, I wouldn’t go quite that far,” the ensign said hesitantly, “I mean it is clearly disturbing. An atmosphere composed of majorly oxygen and nitrogen, a surface temperature of around 79 percent the boiling point of water. Oceans made of this water of all things.”

“You’re just proving my point,” I pointed.

“Just getting to the point sir. But there exists life there.”

“What,” I gaped at him. “Life? In this hole? They must be agents of the Void Caller himself!” I made a sign with my two hands to ward off evil. “Creation guard us from the void’s foul influence.”

The ensign looked at me with clear distaste. The bloody new generation. Thinking with their new advances in technology they had blazed past the need for Creation’s guiding light. Now of all times we needed his guidance the most.

“No sir, these are not demons. In fact the dominant species calls itself ‘human.’”

“They are self-aware?” I asked incredulous. I had expected microorganisms or lower order beings, but a species with intelligence in conditions like this. My mind swam with the possibilities, they could not be Fluorine-based life forms. I looked at the atmospheric and ground samples. “Carbon-based life” I whispered.

“Quite correct sir,” the ensign said, clearly impressed. Bah, the arrogant idiots thought that just because we followed the righteous path we were ignorant fools. There is a reason why he is ensign and I am captain of this expedition. “Most of the life is carbon-based, with only a few micro-organisms not so.”

Despite my hesitance, I was intrigued, not only had we found life outside our solar system but life so fundamentally different, even if it were most likely influenced by the Void itself. I looked through the glass window from our scout ship on their moon. The planet looked, not beautiful no, the colors were too bright, too alien, but it was certainly stunning. To not admit would be an injustice to the world.

“So these humans,” I asked, testing the unfamiliar word on my tongue, “how advanced are they? At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if they were a Class II civilization.”

“Barely Class I sir. They have yet to master even nuclear fusion.”

“But they are space-worthy?”

“To some degree sir,” the ensign said hesitantly, “they do not care much for space anymore sir. In fact, their furthest reaching probes are just beyond their solar system, but not outside their star’s local influence even.”

“But from these reports,” I motioned towards the data-pad the ensign had given me, “they have the capability to establish colonies, and can manufacture a very basic generation ship.” My eyes scanned the flowing data, and I continued, “their physics are advanced enough that they can find even the light speed loop hole.”

“Yes sir…but they are too focused on each other.”

I frowned. “Elaborate, ensign.”

“Yes sir,” all disrespect was gone from his tone and face, we were now in business. There was hope yet for him. “The last century especially they have fought each other with increasing ferocity. They turn their technology against each other, fighting one another almost constantly. There- there were two instances of them dropping nuclear weapons on their own species.”

“What?!” I exclaimed, “are they suicidal?” Wars I could understand. Our species in its very infancy waged some wars. But to drop nuclear weapons on one’s own species….

“How many died?”

“Thousands sir…thousands.”

“That’s insane,” I whispered. Once more I sent a silent prayer to Creation. “How are they thriving? That must be half their species!?”

“No sir. It is not even a thousandth, far from it. These humans, they have a population of approximately 7 billion.”

I gulped in the sterile air. 7 billion. My mind couldn’t quite wrap its head around that number. Our species had a population of roughly 100,000. 7 billion hopes, dreams, ambitions. All bound to one little globe.

“That’s why they fight,” I breathed. “They actually experience scarcity, and can actually afford to kill one another.” My species had never experienced this scarcity. It was a purely theoretical term up until now.

“Sir our species never experienced this phenomenon no, because our technological advances kept in pace with our relatively slow population growth.”

“But these animals…”

“Yes sir, they fight each other for sustenance. They trade things for paper. Some starve while others live in mansions.”

My face grew grim.

“You will suggest annihilation won’t you Captain?” The ensign asked is a low voice.

I nodded. “Even if you don’t accept these as the heralds of the Void’s as the Creation Scriptures say, you have to see their destructive potential. They cannot be allowed to grow more advanced with that competitive attitude.”

The Ensign mulled it over, biting his lip, then nodded. "I suppose so sir. I don’t think they are some supernatural demons, but this is the closest we can get. I think you will have the council’s support. You certainly have mine."

"I appreciate it," and I found, surprisingly, that I meant it. To have the support of their generation was testament to the severity of this danger. Creation's forces must persevere, even if it sometimes meant doing the opposite.

"Um, sir," I said, shuffling my feet. "I think -" I glanced backwards at the closed door. "I think this has really gone on long enough, don't you?"

Dumbledore lounged easily behind his massive desk, his eyes twinkling like the little spinny silvery things he had all over his office. "Has it?" he said cheerfully. "You haven't been caught, and you haven't graduated, so I think you've quite a way to go, Simon. I must commend you, though, you've done a splendid job so far. Your teachers are quite impressed."

"It's not hard," I said, rubbing my arm. "They're not - I just don't know what you're trying to prove anymore." I shook out my sleeves onto his desk, unloading the flash powder, the teacup I'd secreted away, my lockpick set, and a spool of thin, almost invisible string. "They're not - I'm sorry to tell you this, sir, but this isn't a good school!"

Dumbledore's eyebrows went up. "Is that so?" He leaned forward and picked up a lockpick, turning it over in the light. "I'd be very interested to hear your opinion, Simon, I daresay it will be more enlightening than what your teachers had to say."

I threw up my hands. "They're terrible! One of them - you've got a ghost teaching, you realize that? Doesn't realize he's dead. You've got Professor Snape - my god, that man loves to play favorites. Which is part of how I've gotten this far, since I'm in Slytherin, but really, it's terrible! Blatant favoritism all over the place! Last year, you made Hagrid a teacher! He's terrible! Nearly got one of the students mauled every lesson! I mean, I like him, but he shouldn't be teaching!" I pushed off from the desk and made the rounds of the room. "And even the teachers who aren't horrible, they're - well, they don't pay much attention to us, do they? As long as we can perform the trick -" I waved my hands over the teacup and palmed it away - "That's it. That's all they're looking for. Nothing about theory, nothing about - about understanding it, you just pronounce the words right and get the motions down and memorize a bunch of names and try not to get bubotuber juice on your bare hands -"

Dumbledore rose to his feet, a complacent smile on his face. I coughed and fell silent. "I'm sorry, sir," I mumbled. "I mean, I'm glad to be here, I was ecstatic when you first came to me, but it's been four years and ..." I shook my head. "Every year it's something! One of your teachers was possessed, and then a Farking giant snake started killing people, and then an escaped convict showed up, and then -" I let out a breath. "It's the stress, sir, the stress. It's not that I'm a perfect faker, I'm competent, if that. It's just I don't know how you expect anyone to learn anything at this school!"

"Simon," Dumbledore said kindly. "Do you really think anyone actually comes to Hogwarts to learn anything?"

"Uh?" I said.

Dumbledore strode to the window, his robes flowing behind him, and gazed wistfully out at the school grounds. "It's magic," he said. "You wave a wand, you say the magic words. You mix the potion ingredients in the right order. There's nothing to learn, really." He turned around to face me. "You could learn all this at home, really, by one of those - what do you call them? Dictaphones?"

"Tape recorders?" I said.

"Recording tape?" he said. "How odd," and shook his head. "You know why I invited a Muggle to study here?"

I slowly shook my head.

"When we isolated ourselves from Muggles," he said, folding his hands behind his back, "it was a sin of pride. It was an arrogance that led us to remove ourselves from the natural world." He made the slow rounds of the room, delicately touching his trinkets. "A wizard doesn't need society, you see. He doesn't need neighbors. He waves his wand, and the world bends to his will." He sighed deeply. "Without Hogwarts, we'd be a population of autodidacts and madmen, flying on our own individual courses. The pureblood houses? The Blacks, the Malfoys? That's what you'd see more of if we didn't force our children to socialize with each other for seven years. A hundred bitter, inbred islands lashing out at anyone the slightest bit different from them."

"Sir," I said, frowning, "you sort children into four houses and make it so that's what defines them for the rest of their lives."

Dumbledore shrugged whimsically. "Better four than a thousand."

I sat back in my chair, trying to process this massive revelation. "So, I'm here because..."

Dumbledore knelt across from me, bring his face to eye level. "I want to teach them, Simon. That there's very little separating us and Muggles." He held his fingers together. "That there's the barest film of difference separating us from each other. Imagine, you graduating from Hogwarts! Living among wizards! That would be quite the surprise, wouldn't it?"

"B-but sir," I stammered. "That's - that's a lot to ask of me, sir." I fidgeted in my robes. "What if they find out? Or - It's not going to prove much, is it? So one Muggle could fool them." I slumped my shoulders. "That's not going to prove much of anything."

"Simon," Dumbledore said, straightening up. "In your four years here so far, have you observed your fellow students struggling as you have? Have you found their performance in class perhaps ... less than magical?"

"Sir...?" I said, squinting up at him.

The gleam was back in his eye. "Simon, whatever made you think you were the only one?"

“Sir, we’ve checked and rechecked the translations, and we are 100% positive that this is what they said,” General MacMillan said. The army-man’s eyes were blazing intensity, and he knew what he wanted to say. However, attacking the invaders had already been written off the board by higher powers than he.

“Five minuets,” the President said. “Five minuets. Not minutes. We’re sure it’s minuets.”

It wasn’t a question, but the general answered, “Yes.”

“Can Eminem even do a minuet? Doesn’t he do…I don’t know, do rappers even dance?”

“From what I understand, no, sir, they just bounce around and speak rapidly.”

“How can he tell the history of the entire Earth in five minuets?” The president leaned back and rubbed his chin where a beard had grown until five minutes before he entered the political stage. That had been over twenty years ago, and now he wasn’t sure that anything in his experience would save him now. “Especially if he can’t talk.”

“We have people working on it. Choreographers in Hollywood, and others of those ilk. Folks who worked in the opera.”

“But why Eminem?”

“We don’t know. We still have the option of a tactical, nucle—”

“I told you already, I’m not going to go down in history as the president who caused interstellar war. We give in to their demands, Eminem will dance the history of the Earth, and they’ll begin trade with us.”

“Sir, I strongly reco—”

“Just have your people keep an eye on it. I’m going to give Eminem a call.”

“Yeah, I got it, just ask my daughter Haley,” Eminem said to the person who was teaching him ballroom dance.

“How’s his progress?” the president asked.

“Better than I would’ve expected, just watch his turn on the Cambrian Explosion,” Rick Leon, Eminem’s personal tutor, said. Mozart was playing in the background. “It’s beyond graceful. The way he moves…it’s just impossible to interpret it as anything but a true representation of Earth’s 4.5 billion year history.”

“So you think he’ll be ready?” As the president spoke, Eminem performed two forward steps, swinging his open hands behind him each time. He spun and stepped sideways, raising his arm as though holding the gentle Earth on a string between his fingers. “Never mind.”

Eminem walked to the stage that stood on the National Mall, where the aliens had requested the performance take place. He felt awkward without a microphone in his hand, but he knew it was up to him to save humanity.

Critics, artists, and everyday people watched in rapture as he danced the five minuets. Never in the history of the Earth had anyone seen a spectacle that was simultaneously so stunning yet beautiful, so intense yet graceful, so confident yet lacking that egotistical nature of the rapper’s life works. Put simply, it was the culmination of the entirety of human culture.

By the end of the first minuet, people cried. At the closing of the second, they wept. At the end of the third, they closed their eyes, feeling unworthy of the sight that unfolded before them. The fourth minuet ended, and paramedics were on the scene, resuscitating and performing first aid on those who had lost consciousness due to the sheer magnificence of the act. The fifth started, and came close to an end. Those able to witness it, those who had endured the crazed glory of the dances thus far, were the only people to hear the rapper say, “Look If you had. One shot. Or one opportunity. To seize everything you ever wanted. In one moment. Would you capture it. Or just let it slip?” He then dropped his pants and mooned the alien mothership.

A short time passed, and the invasion began.

after several years of working as an IT drone. On my last day of work at my old job I got a text from the tech lead of the team I would be joining.

"Come by after work to meet the team and have a few beers".

I arrived around 7pm. There were quite a few people still around but to my surprise the tech lead who had hired me was packing up his desk into a box. I was kind of surprised but he seemed upbeat and glad to see me.
"Yeah, sorry to be leaving before you officially join the team. I got a great offer I can't pass up. Friends got their A round funding and it is an equity opportunity. You'll do great though. One piece of advice though,"
and he handed me three envelopes.
"Four pieces actually. Piece zero, and I'll tell it to you now. When you run in to trouble blame me. After you've seen my code you'll probably think it is shit. Hell, you're smart, you probably think everybody else's code is shit."
He continued "When you can't blame me anymore open the first envelope for the second piece of advice. You'll know when." and we went off to meet the team and have a beer.

I officially started on Monday and it was going great for the first couple of months. Then a product manager started breathing down my neck why one of my features was late. I had been frustrated with how hard it was to add the feature to the existing code and I found myself blurting, "The problem is not with my code, it is all of the old code I am having to rewrite because it is so terrible". I realized I was using the old tech lead's first piece of advice. So I continued, "Man, the previous tech lead's code is absolute garbage. It is amazing the whole thing hasn't fallen apart already." Since everyone looked sympathetic I knew I had made a good move. For quite a long time I made sure I was working hard or at least look like I was working hard and occasionally grumbling about the shit I had to deal with.

After a couple of months I was still producing at a good rate but I had now "rewritten" or at least claimed to have rewritten most of the bad code. I could not longer use that excuse. One Monday morning before the weekly sprint meeting I realized I was in a bind. I needed make sure that I had lots of work on my current assignment if I was going to avoid being assigned to a new project with "the customer from hell". I only had a few minutes before the meeting and after nervous peeing (twice) I still had no solution. I suddenly remember the envelopes. Digging through my messenger bag I found them and grabbed the first. While in the restroom for a third nervous pee I opened the envelope sitting in the stall. There was a card inside with one word "Refactor" and I had my solution.

A few minutes later at the sprint meeting I revealed that all my work rewriting the bad code, boy that was a lot of work, had revealed amazing opportunities to refactor the architecture and put us on a lot better footing. It would take a lot of work but I knew what needed to be done and it would really pay off. This proposal got a number of cautious nods and after a short discussion it was decided that I would proceed with a major refactoring of the product architecture.

A couple months later and my "refactor" was nearing completion. It did fix a few problems, the new APIs were more aligned with my personal preferences and I had gotten the chance to replace a few libraries with trendy ones that I wanted to get on my resume. Honestly though I felt like a fraud; my refactoring was just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. I played out the ending stages of the refactoring but inevitably the time came when management was eager to use the new code in a product. Having no other option I agreed it was ready and that I was eager (not really) to see it shine in a product.
The first product to use it would be with another team. After the first meeting it was clear that they were really sharp and they immediately pointed out some shortcomings of my APIs and design. After a bit more wrangling they agreed that my module could meet their needs as long as I was dedicated to supporting it and them. My management agreed and they were now my customer.
Their product design proceeded and as they continued to get more experience with my module they kept finding new flaws in the API and bugs. I tried to fix them as quickly as possible but I was one person working to try to keep an entire team happy. I couldn't keep up. After a late night of bug fixing I was headed home exhausted in an Uber and wondering how I was going to be able to keep up. As I nearly drifted into sleep in the back seat I remembered the envelopes. I found the second envelope in my bag and opened it with the third solution, again one word. "Indirection".

Meeting with my "customer" on Monday I explained the bandwidth problems I was having meeting all of their team's requirements. I explained that what would work best is if they built a local interface in their project which called my API. That way the interaction between their system and mine would be localized and they would only have to make changes in one place if my API had to change. They had seen that I was tapped out trying to support them and agreed that they could build a local API which meshed better with their system that simply called my module to do the actual work. It took them a while to disentangle their code from my module and build their interface. By the time they came back with a few bug reports against the version of my module they had been using I promised them that I had much improved version to use. Once a few bugs were resolved the systems were again integrated.

They got closer to shipping their product and I kept getting bug reports from them that my library wasn't behaving correctly. I was forced to explain that the problems they described hadn't been there when they had integrated directly against my library--the problem must be in their local interface. Progress was being made towards shipping the product but there were still frequent mysterious problems.

Meanwhile my management was pretty happy with how integration of my code was proceeding. My director had talked about it as a collaboration success story at an executive meeting. My team members, who I had little interaction with as I was supporting the other team, were also congratulatory though they didn't seem to be as believing that I deserved my apparent success. I was pretty sure it was going to be a disaster actually. So when a college buddy emailed me about a business plan he was writing I offered to help. A few days later they were talking about me being the "Software VP" for their startup. I wasn't sure but it would be a founder position with equity so I couldn't just say no. I was trying to figure out what to do when I got an email saying that the team building a product with my module was having real problems with their scaling tests. They had done some analysis and were certain the problem was with my module, they didn't have proof, but had some pretty compelling analysis and wanted to meet tomorrow. Gulp. Just then my manager came by, apparently not having read the memo yet and introduced me to a fresh young programmer who was joining the team. He introduced me as one of the team's stars and he should seek me out for mentoring. I politely agreed but had other things on my mind.

Stewing in my cube without much clue how to fix the reported problems before the upcoming meeting I thought back to mentoring I had received and realized I had one more envelope.
Opening the third envelope I discovered the fourth piece of advice. It was brilliant. I called my friend and told him I was "down" to be the software VP for their startup, contacted the new kid on our team slack inviting them to come by for an overview on my module. I then sat down wrote my resignation email and completed the fourth piece of advice, "Make three envelopes."

"...I'm sorry, Rafti you will have to repeat that? they did what?"

"um, well sir, they seem to have... I mean initial reports are that they have, um... exited their... planetary orbit"

"I see, Rafti. We knew it would happen eventually, although this is sooner than anticipated. I take it they finally managed to harness the atom for this?:

"well... its, uh... no. see sir the early reports indicate... no nuclear traces"

"No atom?"

"N... no sir" Rafti shifted nervously in the air, his gaseous form growing slowly more solid under his superiors gaze.

"Rafti, this species only discovered the power of the atom 2.173 eros ago, a mere 20... what do they call them? 'Yeers?' ago and they promptly used that power do destroy one another. Not brilliant creatures to say the least.

"Correct sir"

"Yet now you tell me they have entered lunar orbit WITHOUT the atom?"

Rafti was a near solid mass now and had gradually dropped close to the floor under his increased density

"Rafti, we have manned this Corvette for over 5.96 eros together. There is no need to allow your nervous system to control you, I need you to bringoneselfapart*"

> *Unglerian term for "pull yourself together"

"Yes sir" Rafti slowly allowed himself to dissipate, calming his nerves. Such was his anxiety that he had almost touched the ground, a terribly shameful thing in Unglerian culture.

"Now explain to me, how did they accomplish this?

"Highly energetic degraded biological mass sir"

"What are you referring to?"

"Sir, you recall when our kind first discovered this galaxy?"

"Yes"

"You recall the Precursors?"

"Yes, a mighty species. Wise, humble they contributed greatly to the Endubla Council in its formative years.... What did these humans call them again?"

"Dinosaurs sir. In one of their languages it means 'Terrible Lizard'"

"Ah yes, Dinosaur, 'terrible lizard'. What a misnomer Rafti, these were truly marvelous beings... why without them the Cruliian Civil war may never have ended"

"Indeed sir, and were it not for the result of Comet 68x8tg8x3's impact and the subsequent ice age they may still be contributing to galactic peace".

"That was a sad day Rafti, the passing of so great a civilization. Such was their honor that knowing no other species in the galactic realm could brave the cold they allowed themselves to be martyred. Our species deemed this planet dead. That is until these odd monkeys came to be".

"Correct sir. The Precursors were indeed noble creatures. Very deserving of the half Ero we set aside in their memory...." Rafti trailed off

"Now what do the Precursors have to do with these sapiens and their galactic endeavors?"

Rafti was beginning to condense again.

"Well Admiral the... Precursors, their bodies of course degraded over the millions of years since. They were biological in make so it was natural that their cells would.... decompose.

"Of course"

"Sir, these humans have... well taken to using the Precursor decomposition as a fuel source"

"......"

"sir?" Rafti was once again barely hovering above the floor, as he watched the admiral. He had never seen his superior officer even flinch much less condense as he was now.

"......"

"Admiral?"

"......"

"Admiral Folxca? are you alright?" Admiral had lost all composure. He now sat as a solid object anchored to the ground.

"Rafti, they are using the soul matter of Precursors to fuel their ambitions..."

"Sir..."

"They are literally powering their galactic endeavors with the sacred cells of Precursors..."

At this Admiral Folxca simply stopped. Never before in the 13.5 eros that Rafti had lived had he seen a fellow Unglerian so still.... so solid.

"sir?"

"Rafti if this species, these.... monkeys.... only a few million years old.... have already gain access to the Precursors Quantamic Energy Source.... this could mean extinction for our cosmos on a cellular level. You've seen what they...

"sir"

"I mean these creatures just used the power of the atom to eradicate some of THEIR OWN SPECIES what happens when..."

"Sir"

"We must alert the Cosmological Council, we must get all species on stand by we must...."

"SIR!"

Floxca stopped. Never before had Rafti shouted at him.

"Rafti?"

"Sir they haven't figured out Quantamic Energy"

"But you just floated here and told me..."

"Sir, they are using it through an incendiary propulsion system"

"..... what?"

"Well um yes sir they are using the liquid decompose. The refine it and then light it on fire to create a controlled explosion. They used a series of these explosions to escape orbit sir."

"...Rafti let me get this completely clear. They are taking the dead cellular mass of the great Precursors, which hold the power of Quantamic Energy and they are 'lighting it on fire to create explosions'?"

"Yes sir"

"And these explosions work how?"

"Well they, um they are contained in a chamber of the ship they use to power into orbit".

"....."

"They are quite literally riding large controlled explosive devices sir"

"Rafti, take us home"

"sir?"

"Take us home. I've had enough. Leave a probe to monitor them, we cannot allow such vicious, insane creatures to harness Quantimic power but I doubt we need fear that. It would seem clear they are incapable of any rational thought"

"yes sir"

"Lighting the Precursors dead bodies....explosions.... I am done with these damnable apes and their chaotic ways, we'll give them another million years and come back to check on them"

"I... I can't believe it." Lieutenant Grog said, looking through his astro-binoculars.

"Believe it, Grog." General Kug grabbed the binoculars out of Grog's massive, three-fingered hands. "They're hurling Betelgeuse at us."

"But... but how!?" Grog turned around to look at his commander.

"I..." Kug looked out into space, his fist clenched tightly with anger "I have no idea. And I don't think they do either"

Kug looked at Grog directly in his eyes. "Lieutenant Grog, you are the most decorated war hero in the Doonak Empire. When we took on the humans to save the rest of the galaxy, we believed that we were the only ones tough enough to take them on, but those... those sons of bitches are so goddamned crazy!"

"How can I help, sir?" Grog saluted.

General Kug looked at the ground, wiping a tear from his eye. "It's obvious now that we can't beat them. We need you and the other soldiers to help evacuate the women and children and prepare for our final stand here against this unbeatable enemy."

"For honor, sir." Grog performed the traditional Doonak farewell dance.

"For honor, soldier. May the creator have mercy on our souls."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The small, crack team of rookies flew along in their space cruiser, the ten billion gigawatt red solar lamp duct taped to the top of it.

"Okay guys," the leader addressed everyone on board, "Let's go over this again, one more time. The boys back home managed to put up enough destructive interference around Betelgeuse to cancel out its light pattern, and sent us on our way with this huge solar lamp so that it looks like we're Betelgeuse. Now by the time we get to the Doonak home world, they'll have all probably evacuated except for like a couple hundred of their strongest guys. Once we get there, they'll be so fixated on us they won't notice the ten or so brown dwarfs we managed to move on the OTHER side of their planet that'll smash into the whole thing and blow 'em all to hell. Any questions?"

One soldier raised his hand. "Yeah, uh, isn't this all a little over complicated?"

The leader chuckled and lit his cigar. "Exactly."

Reassignment

Leslie felt tired. He assumed he was supposed to, since this was the way he (and everyone else in his class) had always felt. As he awaited his turn to be called to the front of the stadium—to be branded with a new job, new housing arrangement, possibly a new spouse and pet dog named Sophie—he wondered what his new life would look like. Would he grow old as a construction worker, perhaps? Or an office manager, whatever vague responsibilities that entailed? Maybe a simple cashier at a grocery store, because in spite of new technologies, people still had to eat, and robots were no good at helping the elderly pack their vehicles with groceries.

A quiet groan escaped him. He felt even more tired now. He entertained an unexpected thought: Is this all my life is now? Is this all I can look forward to? A job?

His name was called. Not his real name of Leslie Farringer Hill—a confluence of his father Leslie’s name as well as that of his great grandfather Farringer—but his Assigned Name of 2099356. Leslie climbed onto a stage in the middle of an arena, where a line of stoic elders grasped their wrists and stared at him with grim indifference. Leslie sat beside dozens of civilians like himself, who sat before the Automated Work Reassignment bot, waiting for their assignments.

Leslie placed his forehead against wide screen and allowed the machine to dig a thin needle into his cerebral cortex. The pain was minimal, surprisingly—like the pinch you get when you pierce your ears. When it was done, Leslie and his classmates left the stage, and the elders announced, “Next!”

No applause. No congratulations. Just “Next.”

Leslie’s grandfather said that Reassignment used to be exciting. People were given the option—key word, “option”—to change jobs if they were unhappy, medically disabled, or better suited to another field. A good many of them got to choose their own jobs—a foreign concept to Leslie’s class of 2118. But then, the option to “choose” meant that jobs were in abundance, which had not been the case in half a century.

When the first version of the Primary Automation Network—or PAN—was released, there was high demand for workers needing to maintain the program’s vast webbing of databases, neural connections and information flow. Then the tech got smarter, and work done by human hands became outdated; PAN began functioning on its own, running its own updates and anticipating its own needs.

The human population, however, continued to rise, while jobs declined. Nowadays, you got what you got. You didn’t argue or complain. If you did, you’d starve—and they’d let you.

“Hey, Les, what’d they stick you with?” Travis Dollman asked. Leslie noticed the shifting of his eyes back and forth as he gazed into his Internal Personalized Interface, which accessed the ever-growing layers of PAN.

“Don’t know yet,” Leslie replied. He wasn’t in a hurry to find out, either; he would have to live with his fate for the rest of his life. “How about you?”

“Reading the job description right now,” Travis said. He sounded distant, lost in the world of PAN. “Looks like… Oh, hey! Not bad! Chief Agriculture Overseer for the… Ah, shit, in the Swamps. Oh well, it’s good pay. Wife Meredith, Doberman Pixie, son named Liam. And triple supply of rations on a private acre. Not bad.”

Travis blinked, tuning out of his IPI. “Aren’t you gonna look at yours?”

Leslie shrugged. “Later. I’m tired. Had to do a double-shift last night, didn’t sleep much. I think I’ll go crash at the apartment.”

“Well, at least look and see if you still have an apartment first.” He grinned slyly, like he was telling a good joke that Leslie would never get. “Who knows? Maybe you landed a gig with Infinitum. They get crazy-good benefits.”

Leslie returned a shy smile. “Doubt it, but… Maybe you’re right.”

Leslie pulled up his IPI and dove into PAN’s universe. His system calibrated updates in seconds, a nice blinking clock telling him that it was 59 percent complete… 73 percent… 95 percent…

When it finished, a welcome letter greeted him. It read:

Congratulations on your Reassignment, 2099356! You have been reassigned to occupation:

SERIAL KILLER

That didn’t sound right. It sounded like… well, not anything that Leslie had heard of, actually. The only thing familiar to him was the word “kill,” which was spoken when something electronic sparked in his office and the Electrical Technicians had to “kill” the connection. He supposed it could also pertain to when the elderly had reached their time of Passage, when they grew too old to perform their jobs appropriately and were euthanized; it was sometimes morbidly referred to as the “time of killing,” a phrase Leslie and the general population repulsed.

But “serial killer” was something new to him. Below his title, an icon of a file folder blinked deep red at him, indicating the position was high level and top secret. Which meant upper echelon access into the depths of PAN, which very few civilians knew about, let alone explored.

Below that was a list of his benefits package: Fully-furnished housing on a five-acre plot (an ungodly amount of living space in today’s economy), wife Blaise Parkham, a gray Persian named Mufasa, and five times the normal ration supply delivered weekly to his doorstep.

Holy shit, Leslie thought. He blinked and closed his IPI.

“Well?” Travis asked impatiently.

“Uh… Something in agriculture, too.”

Travis squinted at him. “Something in agriculture? What the hell does that mean?”

“Yeah, I dunno. It’s a lot to read and I’m too tired. I’ll, uh… talk to you about it later. Need to rest.”

Leslie nearly ran out of the building. He felt Travis’s suspicious gaze on him, but he brushed it off. He felt uneasy, his adrenaline pumping faster than he was used to. If he was going to live in high-class, he needed to figure out what his job entailed, and he couldn’t concentrate with Travis’s never-ending monologue in his ear.

Leslie walked down the street, passing beneath the mousetraps of tram cars that ran noisily all day and night. Directly outside of Town Hall, a line of Individually Automated Vehicles awaited their passengers. He’d never had a car—had only set foot in one once, in fact. He had always relied on his feet for transportation. The 120-degree heat and omnipresent cloud of smoke lingering in the air had ceased to bother him.

About halfway home, a sleek charcoal vehicle stopped beside him. A door popped open and a charming female voice spoke: “Passenger 2099356, you may now enter your vehicle.”

Mine? No way. Not mine.

A few seconds later, the voice beckoned him again: “Passenger 2099356, please enter your vehicle and select your destination.”

Leslie warily stepped into the car. On the dashboard was a map of Ponderosa Pines, with a blue circle in the top left corner that read, “Home.” Leslie selected it, and 45 minutes later arrived at a large residence on Old Bakery Avenue. It was surrounded by a stone fence. The car approached a broad metal gate. The gate’s sensor connected to the car’s dashboard and asked for Leslie’s fingerprints. Leslie placed a hand on the screen, his identity was verified, and the gate opened.

Inside the fence, pine trees rose to staggering heights, dropping streams of needles and cones as the wind tossed them about. Beyond the trees was a stone mansion, painted white with black highlights around the windows and door frames. Two cars were parked out front—one for him and one for Blaise, he presumed.

He exited the car and entered into a wide-open living room, freshly painted and sparsely furnished. A chandelier hung above a staircase that led to the second and third floors.

In the far room at the other end of the house, a 90-inch television blasted music videos. Leslie could see the back of a woman’s black-haired head.

“2099356, I presume?” the black-haired head asked without turning around.

“Call me Leslie.”

“Call me Blaise. Or 2105344, I don’t give a shit.”

Lovely.

Leslie climbed the stairs and found a bedroom with a double-king bed, which he presumed he was supposed to share with Blaise. Upon it, a royal gray Persian named Mufasa yawned at him, his red collar jingling as the cat shook his head.

Leslie climbed into bed and refreshed his IPI. The number of databases he could access in PAN as a Mini Mart clerk—his first job—numbered in the low 100s. As a serial killer, they numbered at 989, 341, 863—and the numbers rose every few milliseconds.

Leslie frantically searched for anything related to “serial killer,” and began queuing thousands of historical documents and videos and biographical entries to download simultaneously. An alert rose on his IPI stating that his downloading power was insufficient for such high-speed traffic—would he like to upgrade to the latest version 13.4.57?

Latest version? he thought. I never imagined upgrading to anything higher than a 3.0.1, let alone the latest version of IPI software.

He agreed to the Terms of Use and—without suffering penalties to his weekly rations, to his surprise—the latest update of IPI was downloaded.

And with it, seconds later, gigabytes of information about serial killers from the infinite PAN.

Gigabytes of blood, torture, dismemberment and murder. Videos that immortalized the terror of the victims as well as the ecstasy on the faces of the voyeurs who slayed them.

Gigabytes of autopsy reports from the 21st century detailing the gunshot wounds, burns, incisions, and dismemberments of millions of victims—and the biographical recounting of the sadistic rituals the preceded them.

Gigabytes of accounts detailing how to stalk a victim before the kill; how to kill and dispose of a body; the best tools to make it quick, or make it slow…

Leslie’s vision turned white as the information was pummeled into his IPI. He blinked hard to log out of it. Then he turned over the side of his bed and vomited all over the hardwood floor. He vomited four more times until his body ached and vibrated.

His IPI popped up unexpectedly—which shouldn’t have happened. There were built-in codes which disallowed the software to act without permission from the host. But, Leslie thought, maybe it was just a feature that came with the high-profile job. A new message alerted him:

Greetings, 2099356! Your first assignment is:

LYLE MCCATHERN

Location:

1573 E. FAUBREY LANE

Time to Complete:

26 HOURS

Shit, what does that mean? Leslie thought.

“What do you think it means, numb nuts?” he argued aloud with himself. “It means you have to kill him.”

“Kill what?” Blaise asked, standing in the doorway. Leslie startled at her appearance.

“Oh my god,” Blaise exclaimed, noticing the pile of vomit. “Are you sick?”

Leslie hurriedly covered the vomit with the bedsheets. “Uh, no… Don’t worry about it. I’ll clean it up.”

“You said you need to kill something,” Blaise said. “Is there an electrical problem? Do we need an Electrical Technician, or something?”

“No, no. I’ll handle that, too, don’t worry.”

An awkward silence hung in the air. Then, another message appeared in the IPI:

Instrument of Choice:

HATCHET

Leslie’s heart plummeted into his guts. He nearly puked a seventh time. He choked it back, swallowing painfully.

Blaise sat on the other side of the bed. “So… I guess we’re married now. You wanna… I dunno, go on a date, or something?”

LYLE MCCATHERN. 1573 E. FAUBREY LANE. 26 HOURS. HATCHET.

Jesus Christ.

“Did you hear me?” Blaise demanded.

“Yeah, a date. Sure. Tomorrow. I have some work to do.”

Blaise scoffed. “Already? Jeez, you just started, like, an hour ago.”

Leslie nodded uncertainly. “Lots to do, I guess.”

***

His first kill was awful. And messy—really messy. Why a hatchet was chosen for him, he didn’t know. But he sensed that, somewhere beyond the IPI, PAN itself was watching him. He’d been in the workforce long enough to realize that if you didn’t fulfill your job requirements— all T’s crossed and I’s dotted—you wouldn’t be granted leeway or forgiveness. Your rations, valuable as they were, would be first to suffer.

After that, shit would keep rolling downhill.

Leslie accessed his PAN downloads on disposing a body and then how to extract evidence from a crime scene. He had to vomit multiple times into the garbage bags he used to mop up Lyle McCathern’s remains. He finished at the 23-hour mark, and PAN was satisfied.

A new message appeared, with an icon of a cake with flaming candles beneath it:

Congratulations on completing your first assignment, 2099356!

Next assignment to be uploaded in:

56.6334 HOURS

As the slaughtered remains of Lyle McCathern—just some Joe Schmo who worked at a brewery, it seemed—incinerated in a pit beside him, Leslie cupped his hands over his face and sobbed.

He sobbed. And retched. And sobbed some more.

Then he went home and stayed in bed until his next assignment.

***

He went on dates with Blaise. They exchanged half-hearted conversation. He stroked the fur along Mufasa’s spine, making the cat purr contentedly. He sat in front of the television with his new family and watched movies to which he couldn’t pay attention.

Because the information lurking in his mind was as alluring as it was insidious. Leslie didn’t appreciate the allure, but he acknowledged it was there. He found himself accessing crevices of PAN that housed information he would have never considered. Some of the terms he came across—murder, crime, torture—had been deleted from public access decades after PAN was invented, Leslie discovered. With centralized control of PAN solely in the hands of one corporation, Infinitum, coupled with the mandatory law that IPI’s be implanted at birth, it was easy for them to conceal and reveal whatever information they wanted.

And now Leslie had unrestricted access to it.

At the 56.6334-hour mark, Leslie received a new message on his IPI. He uttered a worried half-groan before the software consumed him:

Good afternoon, 2099356!

Your next assignment is:

JAMES AND JILL HAWTHORNE

Location:

MILDRED’S COFFEE HOUSE

Instrument of Choice:

GLOCK 43 WITH SUPPRESSOR ATTACHED

Time to Complete:

2 HOURS

Leslie searched for Mildred’s Coffee House on his IPI map. It was nearly an hour away by car. And he had no idea where he would have the time to find a Glock 43, whatever that was, and kill two people—two of them. In a public place.

“****,” he whispered.

“What’s wrong?” Blaise asked, not looking away from the television.

“Work again.”

“Do you know when you’ll be back?”

Leslie sighed. “Soon, probably.”

The car door opened automatically for him. It received notifications when Leslie received missions. It sped down the highway at top speed, as if it understood his time constraints.

Then, a hidden compartment opened beside the map screen. Leslie reached in and extracted a couple of things. First, a handgun—the Glock 43 with a silencer, he guessed. He’d never held a gun before, so he sifted through dozens of links on gun handling before reaching the coffee shop.

The other items included a denim jacket, a fake goatee, sunglasses, and a baseball cap representing a team he didn’t recognize.

PAN is teaching me how to be a serial killer, Leslie thought. He applied the accessories. He was grateful for the gesture, but didn’t expect PAN’s courtesy to last long; the automaton had never done him favors like this before. No sense in expecting the generosity to guide him through the rest of his life.

Mildred’s was packed with people. Leslie had no idea coffee was such a hot commodity at one o’ clock in the afternoon. The line dumped out of the front door and onto the surrounding sidewalk. Leslie took his place in line behind a fat couple and a yipey Yorkie with which they rubbed noses. “You’re such a good boy,” they coddled. “Oh, what a good, good boy.”

Leslie scanned through PAN to find out what James and Jill Hawthorne looked like: He, a pretty-boy millionaire-looking barbie in real estate with slick gray hair and an attractive layer of stubble; she, also a slick-haired real estate agent enticing enough to be in modeling or porn—whichever PAN deemed most productive, Leslie scoffed.

Music blasted inside. People between the ages of 25 and 35 dominated the dining hall. Leslie glanced around, and spotted the couple in the corner. They looked sulky, certainly the least lively of the crowd, as if they’d just had a fight.

Jesus, there were a lot of people. How could PAN expect Leslie to fulfill his job with three dozen witnesses surrounding him? He felt sweat seep from every pore on his body. His IPI announced that he had 35 minutes and 14 seconds remaining… 13 seconds… 12…

“****,” he mumbled. “****.”

In a panic, he nearly retreated to his IPI for guidance.

But then it hit him. That word: Panic.

“How can I help you?” a bored, acne-infested barista inquired.

“Um… Three black coffees, please,” Leslie replied. He paid for the drinks, then carried them over to a low table surrounded by beanbags on which the still-sulking Hawthorne couple resided.

Leslie took a deep breath. Here goes.

“Hey, friends!” his voice boomed. They looked at him with suspicion and confusion.

“Remember me? It’s Marty! Your old pal!”

Jill looked at James, and he returned her concerned glare. “I don’t—” Jill began to say.

Leslie interrupted her. “Come on, you remember me! From college! We took the same algebra class!”

“I didn’t—”

Leslie cut her off again. “Here. Black coffee, just the way you like it. On the house. Come on, let’s get a picture together, what do you say?”

Impatiently, he gestured for them to merge together on one chair. “Come on, squeeze together, don’t be shy. You’re married, for crying out loud! You’ve seen each other naked!”

The Hawthornes laughed nervously. Leslie felt as nervous as they sounded.

He retrieved a phone from his pocket and loaded the camera app. “Alright, now, smile and say cheese!”

They did. Just before Leslie dialed the “Take Photo” button, he uncovered the Glock from behind his denim jacket. Jill Hawthorne noticed it. Leslie pulled the trigger twice—a quick “one, two.” Jill’s surprise turned to terror, then to realization that she’d been shot and was seconds from death. James died without knowing he’d been shot.

The camera snapped a picture.

Leslie stuffed the gun back in his coat and sprang to his feet. “HO!” he screamed, waving his limbs wildly. “Holy SHIT! Sweet mother of CHRIST! SOMEBODY HELP!”

Curious eyes moved to the dead bodies.

Then: Panic.

Beautiful.

Leslie allowed himself to be swallowed by the frantic herd as people stormed to the front door and created a bottleneck. He was nearly crushed by the fat couple with their hideous Yorkie as they struggled to push through the doorway. Finally, he separated from the crowd and sprinted to his car. He selected “Destination: Home.” It took him nearly fifteen minutes to catch his breath, and another ten to slow his heart rate. He followed the procedures on shirking the evidence, then returned home.

“You’re right,” Blaise said, still sitting in the same place on the couch as when Leslie had left. “That was quick.”

“Yeah,” Leslie said, feeling breathless. “Easy day.”

He retreated to the king bed, where he expected once again to vomit and sob. But he didn’t. In fact, he felt… good. Really good, actually. His IPI congratulated him once again, this time promising to deliver a tray of expensive cakes and sweets to his door within 24 hours.

Cakes aside, he felt lifted, as if the adrenaline boost had filled him with helium. He liked this airy feeling.

And something else: He didn’t feel remorse, as he had after bludgeoning Lyle McCathern. The bullets were quick and not nearly as messy as the damned hatchet. He could get used to bullets. It felt less personal. More like a job.

And that’s exactly what it was.

***

Leslie killed half a dozen more people in the subsequent month. A sleezy waitress in Nevada; a hokey bartender running for mayor in California; two airline attendants from an Asian country he didn’t recognize (just some dull, primitive society that had outlawed PAN, as Leslie understood it).

His murders became famous on the news, though the media gave him the piss-poor, unimaginative name of the Ponderosa Pines Executioner. With millions of databases he could download in seconds, Leslie learned from the mistakes of the idiots of the past centuries. No evidence had been found to incriminate him. Fortunately for him, the criminal justice system had been gutted to the point of near obsolescence in the last 100 years. Thanks to the strong-armed, omniscient PAN, people knew what stepping out of the parameters set forth by PAN meant. They knew that a crime against PAN, no matter how small, would risk their lives.

What they didn’t know—but Leslie now did—was that a crime against PAN meant a violent, prolonged, agonizing death. PAN ensured that jobs of such a specialty were still around—and well-compensated.

Not only had Leslie gotten better at killing—when he wasn’t actually doing it, he was shuffling through thousands of digital archives learning about it—but he thought he’d gotten better about not caring about it. That is, until he had to kill two teenage parents of a four-year-old.

Leslie hadn’t noticed the kid standing in the hallway, watching as Leslie duct-taped his parents’ mouths shut, strapped them to chairs and started drilling holes in them (the instrument of choice was an electric drill). He hadn’t noticed the kid until he’d burrowed a drill bit deep into his mother’s skull and killed her.

“Ah, shit,” Leslie muttered.

The kid had just stood there, sucking his thumb, taking it all in. They stood in silence for a full minute. Then, Leslie left the kid alone in the house, got in the car, and went back home. Realizing the magnitude of what he’d done, he vomited for the first time since Lyle McCathern.

“Goddamn it,” he grumbled. He repeated it louder. “Goddamn it.”

He punched the dashboard. Then he did it again, and again, wailing on the thing. He started slamming his elbows and knees and feet around the car’s interior, screaming and cursing. He threw himself about until it hurt, and continued until he felt like one giant, throbbing ache.

Weakly, he picked up his phone to dial the police. A picture of the Hawthornes’ dead bodies, taken just seconds after Leslie shot them, flashed on the screen. Leslie’s lips trembled, and he broke out into hysterical sobbing. He threw his phone aside. He’d forgotten about that picture. His first instinct was to smash the damned thing, destroy all traces of evidence.

But Leslie couldn’t just ignore the kid. He’d already left him alone in that house, amidst the grotesque corpses of his parents. He’d hate himself forever if he just left the kid like that. He needed to call someone to that house to get the boy.

One of the things Leslie had repeatedly stumbled upon in the PAN archives was the remorselessness that seemed to be inherent in the most famous killers. Most of them felt no pity for the victims or their families, no regrets for their actions. In fact, a lot of them claimed they would do it again if they ever got out. They didn’t have to think about how not to feel bad.

Leslie wasn’t that lucky.

He dialed the police number and reported a break-in. Then he hung up the phone, and forgot about smashing it. He felt tired, more so than he’d felt at Reassignment last month. How he longed for a chance to change jobs, like his grandfather Farringer had done before him.

“I can’t keep doing this,” Leslie spoke out loud. “I’m not… I’m not a serial killer.”

He knew PAN could hear him, even when he wasn’t logged in to the IPI. Leslie expected the IPI to activate any moment to deliver a personal message from PAN saying Leslie was out of line. A reminder that “breach of a worker’s protocol with daily job-related task ensures penalties commensurate with the worker’s offense, with punishments to be fulfilled in accordance with PAN Law 00841.”

Yeah, Leslie had known it by heart since his early childhood school days. It meant that whole violent, prolonged, agonizing death thing.

But no message came. Surely PAN had heard him, but it didn’t have anything to say.

Leslie rolled over to cry some more.

***

Leslie threw his phone down on the king bed. It landed next to Mufasa, who sniffed it considerately, then flinched away with disgust. Leslie barged into his bathroom and slammed the door shut. He felt overheated and sweaty. He turned the shower faucet to cold. He didn’t bother to remove his clothes. He stood beneath the water until cold tremors shook his body.

There was a knock at the bathroom door. “Are you okay?” Blaise shouted.

Leslie didn’t answer right away. Blaise asked him twice more, her tone of voice becoming more afraid each time.

“Fine,” Leslie mumbled. “I’m fine.”

A message arrived in his IPI:

Greetings, 2099356!

Your next assignment is:

BLAISE PARKHAM

Location:

1066 OLD BAKERY AVENUE

Instrument of Choice:

GLOCK 43 WITH SUPPRESSOR ATTACHED

Time to Complete:

3.43 MINUTES

No. No, something was wrong. A bug, a glitch. Something. It wasn’t right.

“What the ****?” Blaise’s scream sent shivers along Leslie’s spine, as strong as the cold water shivers he felt now.

Leslie shut off the water and dashed out of the bathroom, water cascading off his sopping clothes. In the bedroom, Blaise stared incredulously into Leslie’s phone.

“What the **** is this?”

She held out the phone, which brandished the image of the dead Hawthornes. Leslie’s heart pounded wildly, then sank into his bowels.

“Why were you looking through my phone?” he asked. His voice was steady in spite of his shivering.

Blaise snorted. “Really? That’s what you’re going to say? Tell me what the **** this picture is doing on your Farking phone, Les.”

“I can’t.”

A bitter smile drew across Blaise’s lips. She shook her head slowly. “These pictures were on the news. Are you the Executioner?”

Leslie’s silence and downward gaze told Blaise all she needed to know.

“Jesus Christ…” she said.

The timer in Leslie’s IPI dipped below two minutes. The numbers pulsed in blood-red, in sync with his own heartbeat. PAN began listing the consequences of Leslie’s failure to complete the assignment.

Leslie held up his hands, both empty, for Blaise to see. “I’m going to get a towel. When I come out, let’s talk.”

He retreated into the bathroom. He picked up his gun. He returned to the bedroom and pointed the muzzle at Blaise’s chest.

Her eyes widened. “You can’t be serious.”

Leslie’s IPI counted down the seconds: 52… 51… 50…

“It’s your job now, isn’t it?” Blaise asked. “The Pines Executioner thing. It’s why our rations are so high. Why you keep disappearing, sometimes for days.”

40… 39… 38…

Leslie thought of the kid standing in the hallway, and Leslie standing beside the dead parents. It occurred to him that PAN knew everything, including what Leslie was doing right at that moment. It knew every detail about every killer before him. And it was adding Leslie, the first serial killer in 100 years, to its database. Leslie Farringer Hill, the Pines Executioner. He slaughtered a family and ruined a kid’s life… because he was Reassigned.

“No,” he whimpered, a line of tears running past his nose. He shook his head angrily. “No.”

19… 18… 17…

Leslie hurtled the gun against a far wall. “Get out of here,” he commanded.

Blaise didn’t hesitate. She dropped the phone and sprinted for the door, leaving Leslie as alone as he’d left the little boy.

The timer expired. The IPI deemed the assignment a failure. It commanded Leslie to stay in his place of residency, reminded him penalties would be issued in accordance with PAN Law 00841… So on and so forth.

Leslie stripped out of his clothes, lay naked on the bed, and stared up at the ceiling. It was the last time he would set foot in a house like this.

He stroked Mufasa’s cheeks and chin, enjoying the hum of the cat’s purr.

***

Days later, once the Law Enforcement Branch had caught up with PAN’s report on Leslie’s failure to provide adequate work output, they came for him. They broke into Leslie’s bedroom, stuffed his head in a black bag, and shoved his naked body into a car he couldn’t see.

He spent two weeks in a cold dungeon. The walls echoed with each breath he took—as well as every beating, stabbing, and burning his hoarse voice protested.

A week into the torture, a voice spoke to him. A woman’s voice, though it sounded deep like a man’s.

“What do you know about the Rebellion?” the voice asked.

“The what?”

A fist collided with Leslie’s solar plexus, knocking the air out of his lungs.

“Tell me what you know about the Rebellion,” the voice said.

Leslie struggled to catch his breath. “I don’t… I don’t know…”

“Search him to make sure,” the voice instructed.

The hands that had winded him grasped his head and held it still. A high-pitched whirring sound drew close to his head.

Then a sharp stabbing pain electrified every nerve in Leslie’s body as a thin metal wire was inserted into his cerebral cortex. Leslie screamed, but couldn’t tell if the high pitch was from the wire or his voice.

The pain lasted a long time. How long, Leslie couldn’t know; there was no sunlight to guide his sense of time in the dungeon. Eventually, it stopped, and Leslie was allowed a brief break.

“Anything?” the woman’s voice demanded.

A low, grunting man spoke. “Nothing.”

“How thorough was your search?”

Hesitation in the man’s voice. “Pretty thorough.”

“‘Pretty thorough’ does not mean thorough. Do it again.”

The whirring sound. The blinding pain.

And more screaming.

***

The sessions went on for days. Leslie’s nerves throbbed and he could barely move.

The door to his dungeon squeaked open. Footsteps approached his quivering body. He tried to speak—“no, please, no more”—but his voice was too hoarse, his lungs too tired, his body too shaky.

“Come with me, Mr. Hill.” Leslie recognized the deep-toned woman’s voice.

Leslie didn’t move.

The woman sighed. “Get him up.”

Strong, rough hands lifted Leslie by the armpits and dragged him into a bright hallway. The light pierced his eyes and brain. He scrunched his eyes closed, providing mild relief.

Minutes later, when he could open his eyes, Leslie saw he was being led into a large courtroom. He sat before a panel of disinterested elderly people in black robes. Their table was raised several feet higher than Leslie’s chair.

A gaunt-faced woman with blonde hair sat in the center of the panel, peering down at Leslie’s naked figure. “State your name for the record.” Her voice was sharp.

Leslie tried to speak, but his throat burned. He swallowed a few times to soothe the sandpaper feeling, but still only managed to grunt a few painful syllables.

The woman rolled her eyes. “Your name, please.”

Between hacking coughs, Leslie managed: “L-Leslie… F-Farr-ring-ger… H-H-Hill.”

“Mr. Hill, you have been charged by the High Court of Infinitum and Our Majesty the Primary Automation Network with failure to produce adequate service to the Union as part of your daily job duties. The proper punishment for such an offense, in accordance with PAN Law, is death.”

Leslie didn’t respond. This wasn’t news to him. He’d expected to die days ago. He was baffled that he was still alive.

“However,” the blonde woman continued, “upon reviewing the information extracted from your IPI, it appears you are the victim of a glitch in PAN’s system. The glitch was detected just hours ago, and is believed to have been caused by a virus implanted by a faction group known as the Rebellion.”

Leslie shook his head. “I… I’ve never heard—”

“I know you’ve never heard of them, Mr. Hill,” the woman interrupted impatiently. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Your Reassignment to the position of ‘serial killer’—a position that is not a true occupation, but a primitive criminal activity banned by PAN law—is something the Rebellion fabricated within PAN’s framework. The virus corrupted parts of PAN’s processing centers, and you were unlucky enough to be at the receiving end of this treachery during the Automated Work Reassignment. Due to your unwitting compliance in an act of treason against the Union, through no fault or knowledge of your own, you have been exonerated of all charges regarding your work performance failure.”

Leslie breathed deeply. “So… I can live.”

“Correct, Mr. Hill. However, after discovering your hidden identity as the Ponderosa Pines Executioner and your role in the forceful removal of nine workers of the Union, you will incur penalties commensurate with those listed in accordance with PAN Law 09663, as repayment for their sudden loss in productivity.”

“But I get to live.”

The woman rolled her eyes again and ignored him. “You will be Reassigned in the main lobby of this building before leaving. You will then be escorted to your new place of residency, where you will be allowed one day of rest and healing. Beginning Monday morning, you will report for work as specified in your occupational handbook.”

A large book was thrust into Leslie’s arms. He was given clean clothes and a ride to his new 12-by-12 apartment. And, of course, he received a new job.

He spent hours reading the manual on how to perform his duties as an Agricultural Secretary.

Eventually, he fell asleep and dreamed about nothing.

***

Life went on. Leslie went to work on Monday and discovered that he was Agricultural Secretary to Travis Dollman, and so realized his fate was to not only file papers and answer phone calls but to endure the endless monologue of his new boss.

New stories of the “PAN glitches” began to pop up in the news regularly. Leslie wasn’t the only one Reassigned to a fake job. Apparently terrorism, gun smuggling, and rioting were circulating as legitimate occupations in the Work Reassignment Centers, and authorities at Infinitum hadn’t figured out how to counteract the damage that had been done.

Leslie took a huge cut in his ration supply: 0.25 times the average distribution (down from five times the normal amount in his previous “occupation”), to be carried out for the rest of his life. That was okay. Leslie could learn to live with less food and electricity.

A month into his job as Agricultural Secretary, Leslie’s bruises and lacerations had healed. He had a half-dozen scars where the probe had been inserted into his brain. He thought about his previous Reassignment every day, and the chaos and trauma it caused him and others.

He leaned against a rounded metal fence at the side of a river that crept between two cities. He felt a hand touch his spine. He spun around and saw the face of Blaise Parkham.

“Hey, you,” she said sadly.

He nodded politely. “Hello.”

“You made it out in one piece.” She rubbed a finger over his scars. “Well, not quite, I suppose.”

“Is there something I can do for you?”

“No. I just wanted to thank you for what you did.”

Leslie’s eyebrows furrowed. “For what I… did?”

She handed him a flyer, black and white with intricate geometric patterns in the corners. In the center, it read:

RAISE YOUR FISTS

FIGHT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

DOWN WITH THE GOD MACHINE

JOIN THE REBELLION

Leslie glanced from the flyer back to Blaise. “That was you? Everything I did… was because of you?”

She shrugged. “Not me personally. But yeah. My people.”

Leslie balled up the flyer in one hand. He felt angry enough to rip the metal fence from the ground.

“You used me as a tool. For what? This?” He shook the balled-up flyer in his hand. “The Rebellion?”

“For a chance to live a free life.”

“A free life?” Leslie shrieked. “Why in God’s name would you want that, if this is what we have to go through? We have work, housing, a steady supply of rations. Why do you care so much about your stupid cause that you’re willing to **** everybody else to get it?”

Blaise pursed her lips. “Because Infinitum is pumping out killers, too. Not serial killers, but silent ones. They go into the houses of Rebellion members and black bag them. We don’t ever see them again. Those people you killed? We assigned you to do it because they were killing us.”

“Really? A brewery worker, a couple of real estate agents, a waitress? Two parents with a four-year-old child? These are the evil Rebellion killers?”

She nodded, ignoring the sarcasm. “Yes, they were. And they are just a microcosm of a massive, suppressed regime sanctioned by PAN itself.”

Leslie shook his head. He couldn’t believe it.

As if reading his thoughts, Blaise said, “You don’t have to believe me. But it’s true. Have a look for yourself.”

She offered him a tiny cardboard box large enough to house a wedding ring. Inside was a small chip with long, thin needles attached to it.

“I know your access to PAN is limited again. This will give you full access to all of its databases for 12 hours. After that, it fries. It’s not traceable, the encryption guarantees that. Just… take a look and see for yourself that I’m telling the truth.”

Leslie pocketed the device. “I’ll think about it,” he muttered bitterly.

“I’m sorry we used you,” Blaise said. “I’m not proud of it. But my convictions haven’t changed. I know why it had to be done. We had to send PAN and Infinitum a message. If I had to do it again, I would.”

“You would let me kill a boy’s parents in front of him again? For what? A chance at chipping away fragments of the so-called God Machine?”

She shook her head. “Not so you could kill a child’s parents, no. But for a chance to give that child a free world again, and his children after him? Yes, I would.”

They were silent for a long time. They stared at the horizon, the unwavering buildings set atop the restless water below. “PAN and Infinitum don’t care about us, Les,” Blaise continued. “They don’t care about anything but productivity, output, results. As long as they get that, the ends justify the means. They don’t care that we’re human beings, that we need more than just a stupid job. We need a purpose. And we need the room to find out for ourselves what that means.”

Leslie clenched his teeth, unwilling to release his bitterness. “I have a purpose. I’m an Agricultural Secretary. That’s what I do.”

Blaise stuffed her hands in her pockets and gave Leslie a light, sympathetic kiss on his cheek.

“Let me know if you change your mind.”

She left Leslie alone by the lake.

Leslie retrieved the tiny device from his pocket. He weighed the device and the crumpled flyer in his hands. He unfolded the flyer, smoothed out the wrinkles and read it again.

When he got home, he laid in bed for a long time, staring up at the ceiling. He unwrapped the tiny device and considered it.

He logged into his IPI. Then he lifted the chip to his forehead, and dug the needles into his scars.

I felt at my chest, feeling the ceremonial knife slipping between my ribs, piercing my heart. For a moment I could feel my heart pumping blood even with the knife lodged firmly within it. A warm sensation spread from my wound throughout my body. "I dedicate my life to Satan, may my eternal soul serve him forever more in the unholy pits of the Hells." Thoughts of fire and brimstone warmed my mind as I slipped away into death...

I blinked open my eyes, I was standing somewhere pleasantly warm and smelled slightly of fireworks. I was so taken by shock that for a long moment I failed to really absorb my surroundings. I was standing in front of a wrought iron gate, it was somewhat unimpressive, standing only chest high. Above the gate hung the words: 'Abandon a bit of hope but not too much hope ye who enter here.' I frowned, if I was where I thought I was, something didn't add up.

In a bit of a daze, I pushed open the gate and walked along the cobbled road leading to 'The River Styx'. At least that seemed to be consistent with what I had learned. To my chagrin, I walked up to the titular river. The water was crystal clear for one thing, and it was barely larger than fifteen feet across, moreover, it looked to be no more than six feet deep at its deepest. On the river sat a slightly bobbing paddle boat with a young woman at the main seat.

"So, are you Charon?" I hedged.

She replied in a cheerful high pitched voice, "Nope, that would be my brother. He works in a different place," she giggled, "My name is Sharon."

I sat down in the seat beside her, "Wait, what 'other' place is this then?"

"Oh, this is Heck. Essentially it's for folks who didn't quite rate Hell, and didn't manage to squeeze into purgatory."

"Oh ship," I paused, going over what I had said, "Wait, did I say ship? I wanted to say ship."

She giggled in a trill of infuriating humor, "Oh, we're not allowed to swear here. This is Heck after all silly."

"Son of a witch," I tried to swear.

She laughed again, I swore to kill the witch if she laughed....What did I just think? I would stab the punt....Shuck? Pass? Swat?

I pulled at my hair, now firmly in the grips of an existential crisis. "Let me get this straight, I can't even think bad words here?"

She giggled that infuriating giggle again, I longed to strangle her, but I couldn't seem to move my arm to actually do the deed. "Of course not silly! This is Heck! You should have gone to Hell if you wanted to swear."

I placed my head in my lap, clutching my head. I heard music on the air, I whipped my head up and asked, "What is that sound? I think I recognize that song."

She nodded vigorously, "That's Mr. Roboto, by Styx. We named the river after them, the boss is a big fan."

I shook my head, "At least your boss has a decent taste in music," I realized that we should have been across the pitiful excuse for a river ages ago and paid attention to our progress. We were making large, lazy circles in the river, going nowhere.

I looked at Sharon, staring death at her, "Why the shuck are we going in circles?"

She giggled, "You're not paddling silly! I would have told you, but you seemed to be enjoying the chance to talk!"

I wringed my hands, and tried to stop imagining my hands around her neck. Grumbling, I began to paddle, the boat evened out its course and swiftly made it to the other side of the river. As I stood to exit the boat, Sharon waved and said, "Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto," in perfect time with the song.

I tried to flip her off, but managed only to give her a friendly wave. I nearly screamed in impotent fury.

I needed to get the heck out of here.

I walked along the friendly looking path, following signs for 'Circle of the Danged'. I came to the gateway which seemed to be made from old minivan parts and suit ties. A woman in a paisley dress walked out to greet me, her hair in curlers and a shoe held threateningly in her right hand.

"What the heck is this?" I winced at the censored word. Why was hell censored? I've been able to think and say it the entire time....Ah, because before I was just using it as a place, not a swear. I suppose this place obeys pre-teen edgy logic on swearing.

I was surprised to receive a swat on my rump from the haggard looking woman. "What the shuck lady?" I was answered by another swat on my tuchus.

"Don't you try and use that kind of language around me young man! I'll paddle your behind!" she said sternly, waving the shoe menacingly in front of her.

"Sorry ma'am," I surprised myself by saying.

She looked slightly mollified, "Now go clean your room mister. It's atrocious in there."

"Wait, what level of Heck is this?" I asked, confused.

"This is talking back to your parents, now don't make me tell you twice."

"I know," I muttered, "I'll go clean my room."

I found myself in my old seven year old self's bedroom, and looking around at the room from a significantly reduced height.

"Ship," I said, my voice two octaves higher than I was used to.