Hope and Despair in Equal Measure

Finally, the solstice reached its zenith precisely at 3:32 AM, 03/03/30. A complete alignment of all celestial bodies in the Sun's orbit. It would take about an hour for this effect to be observable on Earth, by which time it would be too late. I planned this night to perfection, checking the movements of the planets for two years straight to ensure that I would not miss my chance. No amount of planning, however, could account for poor hand-eye coordination. As the final minute ticked away, I bump into my laser array and tip it over. It almost falls off the cliff, but I barely manage to catch it. I check my watch and I have mere seconds to correct my fatal error. I pull the laser back up and just in the nick of time, a green beam erupts into the heavens at 3:33 03/03/30 exactly. A lightspeed message writing my exact galactic coordinates, traveling parallel to all 8 planets. Even if Alien Life is hundreds of light years away, and I’m long dead by the time my message arrives, any intergalactic civilization would necessarily need to warp the space-time continuum to travel the universe and consequently have access to time-travel technology. If they were out there then they’d come.

The laser pulses in spurts, letting any interested party know my exact location. I wait, with bated breath. The stars shine brightly, my secluded location free of light pollution. As the minutes—3:34, 3:35, 3:36—pass, I wonder where they must be. With time travel, alien races could arrive precisely when they want; tardiness is a deliberate choice. Why are they keeping me waiting? 3:37, 3:38, 3:39. As the clock reaches 3:40, I realize they aren’t coming. There won’t be a planetary alignment like this until 2130, and I will be long dead by then. But I know that’s not the problem—I had been precise with my calculations, and butterfingers aside, I still managed to fire my laser at the exact right time. 3:41. I realize aliens aren’t real. Exhaustion hits me like an 18-wheeler as I collapse onto my knees. The accumulation of months of sleepless nights finally catches up to me, and I feel like screaming and passing out all at once.

My eyes shoot open as I scream. I smash my laser to the ground and stomp on it, the lens shattering under my shoes. “This is what I get for buying parts from Walmart—a cheap piece of shit!” Finally, I throw it off the cliff for good measure, deciding that I should have let it plunge into the inky blackness all along.

After cooling down, I sit back, taking in the scenery. From this height I can see the big city sprawled beneath me, sparkling reds and yellows and blues shining from faraway buildings and cars. Above it is the sky, filled to the brim with stars; I can even make out the Milky Way. Between the city and the stars, the entire horizon is a mosaic of natural and artificial lights. I’ve always known that behind that neon glow are cold shoulders and closed doors, but now even the stars mock me—lifeless dots, holding in place dead, empty worlds. What I know for certain is that every light I see is somewhere I do not belong. Then the lights start moving.

The stars move out of their assigned positions, growing in brightness and intensity. I soon realize they are getting closer, not brighter. They grow from pinpricks to circles to orbs. Soon, each is as large and bright as the sun at noon. They converge, then separate, several of the miniature suns dispersing until there’s only one left. It grows in size and luminosity until I see nothing but the uncanny light surrounding me. Swallowed by the unending light, I can’t tell what is up or down, left or right, or front and back. It feels like I’m drowning, or falling, but I realize I’m floating. With no reference for height or dimension, my ascent could be minutes or hours long. The assaulting, penetrating light overwhelms my senses so that I can’t even try to time myself. I’m in a dimension without time, matter, or space—only an overwhelming present.

In the midst of total sensory chaos, I find my North Star: I’m being abducted! My nihilism is quickly dispelled as my crumbling worldview is reconstructed before my very eyes. My plan has not failed—I’ve really contacted an Alien Civilization! I can’t wait to update the guys at the convention about my big break! Any panic or distress is replaced with excitement and wonder as I welcome the light, arms outstretched, awaiting the embrace of a greater intelligence!

However long this process takes, I know when it concludes—not with a thud but with a splash. At once, heat and light and wind are replaced with cold and dark and wet. My body goes into shock as I try to take a gulp of air, only for my lungs to be filled with liquid. My body flips into fight or flight, trying to resist drowning and emerge from whatever watery pit I am submerged in. My limbs flail madly, trying to breach the surface of the brackish, earth-flavored liquid flooding my sinuses. Despite my best efforts, the substance does not give. I remain suspended, and it becomes obvious this is some kind of slime.

After a beat, I realize this semi-solid liquid is not drowning me, and I can breathe through it. Looking out, it gives the world a weird green tint and makes it difficult to get a full view of where I am. But I see, in front of me, another person—a woman—trapped in suspension in an upright, ovaloid capsule. Next to her are rows and rows of other people trapped in the same contraptions, unconscious and floating in stasis. The Suspended Animation Pods, I gasp—or try to—as I take a huge gulp of slime. I would gag if my entire respiratory system were not already flooded with the same liquid. Still, not even this visceral experience can taint my excitement. I am about to be put into Cryosleep, like all the greatest Sci-Fi movies. In fact, I’m feeling really tired right about now. I want to stay awake, like a child waiting for Santa to come on Christmas, but I think it's about time I rest my eyes for a bit…

This must be what being dead is like, I don’t have any other frame of reference. I think this is a dream. Ancient, foreign stars stretch endlessly over the horizon-no, there is no horizon is there? All I see is as far as light can travel endlessly through the vacuum of space. I see behind me… everything. Everything that mattered to me up to now. Saturday Morning cartoons with dad. My sister’s first words. School. Lots of school. Too much school. Bullies, seeing those bullies become more successful than me. Browsing supernatural forums until the sun creeped through my window. Mom dying. Dad drinking. My job. Blank faces existing but not living with me, as separate as opposite ends of a magnet. Bills. Every country, every person that has ever lived and died stuck on some blue dot that quickly becomes indistinguishable from the background radiation of the universe.

That nostalgic feeling is interrupted as I become aware of the capsules. I am ejected from the prison with no clothing or belongings I had before my encounter. Seems like all our possessions are liquidated by the green slime. I realize I am plopped onto a conveyor belt alongside my fellow prisoners. I evacuate the slime in my lungs, eyes, and nose, allowing me to have a better view of my surroundings.

I gawk at the complex, something like a massive holding facility, lined wall to wall with those strange devices filled with green slime. It looks like a large warehouse or auditorium, the walls a swirling silver material that shifts before my eyes. Ahead of me are complicated mechanical instruments, processing our group with industrial efficiency. Residue of the slime is blasted off with pressurized water, what looks like some form of sanitizer is sprayed on top of us, then some kind of clothing is assembled to cover up our naked visages, printed and wrapped around us to fit our proportions exactly.

After this process is completed for me, I tap the shoulder of the man in front of me. He is perhaps a few years younger than me, twitchy and obviously terrified of the entire situation. He jumps when my hand touches him, looking back at me.

“Its unbelievable, isn’t it”,

After a moment, the guy regains some of his composure and nods quickly.

“We get to make first contact! Who would have thought that WE would be Earth’s ambassadors on the galactic stage, aren’t we so lucky?!”I lean on the guy, treating him like a fellow comrade in a great mission.

“What’s wrong with you?” Terror floods the poor man’s face as he pushes through the crowd in front of him to get away from me. Well, not the first time, won’t be the last, I think morosely. But I do not blame myself for skeptics being blind to the opportunity we have here. There can only be one First Contact, after all.

At the end of the conveyor belt there is some kind of auditorium, but not one designed for human comfort. We are dumped into a concave pit, the surface wide enough that we can all stand on it, but not comfortably. A voice over the intercom buzzes to life:

“Commence the Interstellar Integration Program.”

After a beat, a chute opens in the roof, and descending from this hole is a creature I have never seen before, either in life or in alleged Area 51 leaks. I can’t tell what is skin and what is clothes, the being appearing to have feather-like structures covering its visage. It kind of flies/floats above us, which makes me think the feathers might be functional, but it could be an anti-gravity device. Its facial structure is bizarre; it has a complex mouth with multiple interlocking mandibles, each mandible tipped with an eyeball. Its anatomy would never allow it to speak a human language, yet I can understand it perfectly (due to a universal translator, of course—once again Star Trek is prophetic).

“Greetings, volunteers!” The choice of word causes a stir through the audience, many of the assembled clearly disagreeing with the label. “I detect some consternation, but I assure you are truly the volunteers of Destiny. It is your fortune that you have been chosen for this great enterprise, for who could say that amongst 8 billion lifeforms, you select few that have not been chosen to ascend to the Heavens?!”

“Hell yeah, we’re the Chosen Ones!!!” I began whooping and hollering, the single enthusiastic voice in a crowd of quiet, unsettled people. More than the extra-terrestrial floating above us, everyone turned to look at me like I was the real alien. Suppose that makes sense-I’ve always felt more alien on Earth than anything else.

“We’re happy to see your cooperation in this great work,” a crackling, gargling noise emerges from their mouth as the universal translator snags on a poorly translated idiom: “but the river doesn’t water the mountain. We should explain what you’ve signed up for.”

“Sign up for what, you literally abducted us!” Some oaf interrupts the Host, barking like an ill-behaved dog. Complaints filter through the crowd, the boldest and stupidest among them doubting the insight of such an advanced species.

“Oh shut up!” I yell back. “You haven’t even let…” I struggled for a bit, realizing I didn’t have a proper name or pronoun to use for our host… that’s it! “Our Host finish talking, let the… alien make his point” This may have caused a fight in normal circumstances, but we were stacked so tightly together that there was no point trying to close the distance. My interruption mainly quieted everyone, though the buffoon kept on grumping.

“Thank you, good citizen” Being directly called out by the Host was, without a doubt, the best moment of my life so far. The Host points an appendage to the ceiling, the swirling silver metal morphing into something like a screen. In large lettering it says: “Welcome to the Interstellar Integration Program, your new life in the stars!”

“You see, the Stellar Sanctum is always interested in welcoming new members into our Intergalactic community.” Cute, simplified figures of different species are welcomed happily through a gate by either the Host themselves or a member of their species—it is difficult to tell the difference with the art style. “However, the stresses of galactic civilization has been known to be lethal uncomfortable for our freshman citizens!” The same characters catch fire, freeze into perfect rectangular ice blocks, or dissolve into a puddle. A shriek of terror echoes in the auditorium, but I’m left unphased: surely this is just normal exaggeration from any PSA.

“Due to these unfortunate past fatalities accidents, we realized that sending our recent immigrants into the great, wide universe without any support integrating would only make their and our lives harder!” Mob mentality rules; most people here simply are too scared, unable to mentally cope with the existence of aliens. Free thinkers like me, who have long since accepted this inevitably, murmured amongst themselves. They were cautiously optimistic, seeing that the aliens have some concern for their wellbeing and needs as humans in space. Even the brightest here seem to still be unable to overcome their primitive flight or fight response: they don’t get that, like pets at the vet, they are being dragged kicking and screaming into salvation.

“Logically, the best way to help new friends integrate into the established species is to graft traits of our species onto you!” The screen demonstrated thus, with different body parts of the different characters swapped between each other, allowing them to perform some adorable task, like rescue a cat-like creature, or sunbathing in volcanic heat, or play an absurdly complicated wind instrument.. “This will increase your survivability productivity in our great organization and help make new friends by overcoming your insufferable ugliness” This did sting a little, but it probably another glitch where the Host lets us down a little easier. Besides, from their perspective, we are probably as ugly as they are to us!

This revelation sweeps over the crowd in waves: first confusion, then cries of disgust and despair, followed by outrage. “You’re experimenting on us?!” “What about my rights!” “You can’t just do this to us—we’re people too!” “We won’t let you turn us into monsters!”

I’m too awestruck to comment: it’d always been an obscure theory even in the ufologist community, but this is first hand evidence of Grey Gene-Seeding. I am full-blown partisan for the theory; the most logical reason for Grey abductions is their atrocious fertility rates, which they are trying to solve by creating Alien-Human hybrids. “And I get to become one”, the idea only really became real once I spoke it aloud. Only in my wildest fantasies did I allow myself to indulge in this concept: an artificial evolution that would elevate me beyond the concerns of earthlings and to become a true galactic citizen. The promise the Host offered, a new life, a new body, a new home, enticed me more and more.

“Now I understand your species is attached to the illusion of body autonomy,” the bird-bug condescends. “But we want to assure you that this transformation is only reasonably painful and entirely necessary for your survival in the next phase of the integration program.” Its clawed appendage gesticulates to the screen: the projection of a planet comes into view, an approximately Earthlike rocky world. It has a spattering of water but its biomes are far more diverse than Earth’s: a volcanic section like an open blister on its crust, Vulcan pillars descending into verdant valleys; a frozen pole stretching across the east of the sphere, white frostbitten glaciers standing sentinel over haunting winter forests; a massive rainforest swallowing an entire continent under strangling vines; a vast black sand desert sucking every bit of light into its all-encompassing dunes; a jagged mountain range cutting through each biome undaunted, august amongst the lowlands of this world.

A sixth biome reveals itself as the planet rotates. City lights are visible from space all across the planet, but unlike Earth these are electric oases, disconnected from each other and stranded in the midst of extreme environments. It becomes apparent with this context that surrounding these urban centers are signs of pollution and environmental destruction. Smog makes parts of the planet invisible, disgusting green deltas dump chemicals into the terrestrial seas, transforming the oceans into a swirling abyss of yellows, reds, and sometimes blues.

“This is—” Clicks and warbles emerge instead of words as the translator tries to prescribe a proper title for this planet. Finally, it lands on: “Gordus” Despite the Host’s polished domineer, the harsh consonants landed heavily: whatever this world had in store, the name Gordus commands respect. “It is truly a remarkable planet, a microcosm of our wider universe. Almost every environment that exists in Sanctum Space can be found on Gordus, and this is no Nature Preserve.” They point to the glowing lights as seen on the dark side of the planet. “A true Sweatshop Galactic Factory, it has every industry that you would find in every single represented Planet. This will be your new home from now on, until it has taught you all its lessons”

Host points at the different biomes of the planet, listing out the lessons he hopes we will absorb from these lands. “Each of these environments will test how well the human animal can function in the wider universe, data that we will collect and aggregate in order to help future humans find a proper place in the Empire” the sentence ending in a crackle. “Suppose even if we are being polite, a federation so fair as ours could be described as an Empire at its size. But that only is emblematic of how successful we are at incorporating new planets into these united systems.”

The planet disappears as a new diagram fills the screen, comparing side by side an individual human and a group of us. “There is no time limit or deadline to complete on Gordus, you may stay as long as you’d like, but to leave you must complete the prerequisites for a role on one of our represented planets, also known as” crackle, “A ‘Class’”. The group is shunted off-screen as it focuses on the individual, wearing the same uniform that was printed onto us. “You see, because there is limited space and resources on every planet, to prevent unemployment and reduce competition for jobs planetside we have created a ‘Job’ System.” The little avatar has several alien planets appear next to him, as well as rudimentary symbols that seem to imply different Classes. His body morphs, implying the imminent mutations awaiting us, as his attire and equipment alter with the new symbols and planets, the same symbols with different planets yielding radically different appearances.

“Open positions across the galaxy will be uploaded onto a Brain-Computer Interface during the procedure, allowing you to browse and gain experience points, or ‘EXP’ towards your desired positions. Once you’ve gained the necessary ‘Levels’ towards a certain Class or combination of classes, you can submit an application to be awarded a transit ticket to your delegated planet and job. Gordus is a fantastic opportunity to gain EXP and levels towards your desired Job, so don’t rush to the nearest shuttle once you have the minimum prereqs. Keep grinding, and aspire for higher level classes and roles in our preeminent Job System!”

It's clear that the Universal Translator accesses the internet to base its translations. Between my work and my research I'd left it on the backburner, video-games and especially RPGs were an important part of my balanced Sci-Fi diet growing up. X-Com, KOTOR, Mass Effect all informed my dreams of Space Fantasy, and apparently informed this demonstration. It's only natural that aliens would try to use our games to relate to us, relaying their administrative system using game mechanics.

“Moreover,” the Host continues: with a flick of their (wrist?) the group is summoned to replace the singular. “Your species’ success in this program will determine Earth's standing in our competitive entrance process. The more humans ‘graduate’, the higher your status will be, until we can finally officially integrate your home planet into the Sanctum. Our policy for extra-territorial travel is very strict, but there are no limitations for interstate travel. If enough of you succeed, then you will be able to go back home, if that’s what you really want”

I can feel the mood of the crowd has changed. Reluctant glances are shared between some, tired faces coming to a resigned conclusion.

“But how long will it take?

“Does that even matter? I’ll move heaven and earth to get back to my kids! Even if that means…”

“I’m scared of what will happen if Earth gets taken over but… I want to go back to school. I want to go home!”

Then opposition has its turn, outrage and disgust shouting down any thought of collaboration.

“Who knows if they are even telling the truth? We might be experimented on for our whole lives!”

“We can’t just let them mess with our bodies without a fight, I’d rather die than let them change me!”

Unrest builds in the pit, arguments breaking out as everyone debates whether they should accept defeat or die for their freedom. I’m staying out of it mostly; I don’t have a horse in this race. Yet I notice the Host acting strangely, their eye topped mandibles skittering in an unrecognizable facial expression. Finally their mandibles stopped moving and he reached a limb to his “mouth”, not even caring to disable the universal translator: “This batch is spoiled. Send them to recycling. Send out the harvesters” For the first time since the start of this, I’m scared: the riot must have spooked them, they are going to kill us all! The rest of my fellow volunteers are too distracted arguing amongst themselves to note the threat of imminent peril, or perhaps even welcomed death by the sound of it. I’m not about to be a crab in a bucket and let all these people drag me (and themselves!) to an early grave.

“Let me go first.” The crowd falls silent, as I make myself the center of attention once again. “I’ll be a demonstration, let everyone see what they’d be missing out on. Make them see that it's totally safe. Please, I’ve been dying to join you my whole life. I’ll be an example for the human race!”

“What an enlightened volunteer”, Host chirps happily, floating down towards me. “And here I thought I was going to need to sign euthanasia release papers for all of you! You’ve saved me quite a lot of work, you have my gratitude Prototype.” I wish I could understand the last word: Host puts a great deal of emphasis on that word, but it’s filtered through garbled nonsense that’s incomprehensible. I’m not too concerned though, it just means that the Host understands that I’m not like the others: I accept him and his world like they never could.

Suddenly I feel myself floating into the air, ascending up with the Host towards the ceiling. As I look down on the masses, their eyes now solely fixated on me, I savor the attention. I was used to being ignored in life but for once I'm the star of the show. Among the crowd, three people stick out, managing to express more than shellshock and lemming mentality.

“Traitor”, a hiss emerged from a wiry man with spiked hair. “Selling out your whole species to be a glorified lab rat."

“Please, don’t do this” a broken meek voice leaks from a sad long haired woman, collapsing to her knees. “I can’t believe this is happening”, her voice collapsing into heavy sobs

“That crazy SOB is actually doing it?”, a tomboyish girl looks bewildered, but wipes her nose and flashes a cocky grin “I thought he was talking out his ass but, to actually go through with it you have to be crazy brave or bravely crazy. Maybe he’s on to something…” A cocked head with a mixture of disbelief and begrudging admiration is the last thing I see in this room as a cavity emerges above me, the ceiling opening a vacuous maw to pull me into the above floor.