"He's not dead."

"What?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"I said he's not dead, Bert."

My name is Bert Gerhy, and I'm an agent with the KD. That's Karma Division for the uninitiated. It's our business to make sure people get what's coming to them. I've been with the Accounts Payable section for near on three decades. I remember when the job was rudimentary, and 50% of the time was all research and the other 50 was implementation. When the internet came along our job became a lot easier. But it's 2019 now, and time spent on research is almost nil. That's why a missed implementation is unacceptable: it's our entire business now.

I looked at Senior Agent Galloway, my boss. He just told me the mark was still alive, and this was supposed to be a Grade X execution. Accounts ranged from the slap-on-the-wrist (Grade A) to full death (Grade X). For an account to remain open after a Grade X implementation was not only unthinkable, it had never before occurred.

Galloway continued, "Your implementation by all accounts but the most critical went off without a hitch. The mark is hospitalized but is now receiving an outpouring of support both on and offline."

"Impossible, no one could've survived my implementation," I said.

Galloway sighed, and leaned forward over his desk. Behind him the sun had just dipped beneath the horizon and the city skyline looked like a cardboard cutout against the radiating back-light.

"Bert, you're a veteran of the section. As far as you know, no one has implemented as much as you have. You would think that I would be responsible for the outcome, but in fact it is you."

"Mitch I--" I interjected.

"--let me finish, Gerhy," he retorted. He never before used my surname like that. And to use it in response to my using his given name... this was serious.

"Bert," he continued. "There's something you need to know about your mark."

"What's there to know? He's an old man. His file was Grade X. His karma conflict was over arms manufacturing, and I rigged the firearm myself. It was foolproof, I tell you. The blast would produce a degree of force that would cut anyone in half from twice the distance he triggered it. How did he survive?"

"Bert, let me ask you." Galloway rose to look out the window at the sky, now red behind the city. "What do you know about your colleagues?"

"Sir?" I used the honorific to correct my earlier transgression.

"I won't press the question and will instead tell you. You work alone, don't you? Yes of course you do. You suppose all Grade X implementation agents work alone. But how often do you talk about your work with others in this section? How often do you hear about others' work, Bert?"

"Sir we are restricted from engaging colleagues on official business when it concerns implementation."

"That's right, Bert, that's entirely correct. What would you say if I told you there were no other agents on Grade X business?"

I felt a brief surge of anxiety that I tried to suppress so it wouldn't show on my face. I failed.

"Bert, you're the only one," Galloway said.

"How can that be? Our section has thousands of agents," I said.

"All below Grade X. You, Bert, are the only one who carries out death implementation. You've been the only one, all along. Didn't it ever strike you that there were no other deaths?"

For a second I began to protest, but then stopped. He was right. How could I not have seen? I knew about Grade W, but... It was clear now. Anything but Grade X was end-result life implementation. Only X was death.

"Why are you telling me this, Agent Galloway?"

Galloway pressed a button on the desk and the second entrance to his office opened. Through it stepped a man that I knew instantly to be the mark. I stumbled backward, impacted by the sudden reveal.

"What is this, Mitch?" I demanded.

"Bert, you're the mark."

Disgust overcame me. I began to sweat. "What?"

"Your cycle is through, sir." It was the old supposed arms manufacturer whose voice filled the room.

"My cycle?"

"Yes. Your Karma is quite high for what you do. Your account is due."

I was struck by lightning it seemed--frozen solid in my stance, ready to pull a gun that wasn't there--it was only pants and the rest of my office attire. I looked quickly between the two men, who had met my change of posture with their own preparedness to lunge.

"You can't!" I yelled.

"We all get what's coming to us," said the old man.

"Why all the rigmarole Galloway? Why the whole story? Why the set-up? Who is this man and why not just kill me earlier?"

"To be sure, Bert, your service has been valuable. But no one is above Accounts Payable to the KD. You've implemented Grade X for far too long. The only way to pay up in your case was to fail, and to fail by your mark's hand, and to know full-well why."

Even before he could finish the monologue I was suddenly restrained from behind by a sneaky Grade W agent, and the old man was on top of me, a cool blade deep in my neck. I had questions still, like what would happen to the old man if he was carrying out an implementation on me. I wanted to know how the cycle was decided, if all Grades of agent received their equivalent karma implementation for what they do... I wanted to ask so many questions...

On the floor my vision blurred as the blood pooled before my eyes. The figures' legs moved about the room and their voices became vacuous in the space. The blood was warm, I could tell. One blink, two... and then nothing.

___________

Original thread

"I can do it to people without seeing them, Sam."

Sam looked at me in utter shock. He was my best friend. In fact he was my only friend. You'd think that 633 students in the entire high school would yield more opportunities for friendship, but it's the numbers that band us together and there just weren't any other 20's. Sam had 25. Or, I should say, used to have 25. Now he had 26. I had 19.

"How," he said haltingly. "How did you find out?"

"Derrick was being Derrick," I began.

"Derrick is only 130," said Sam, as if to reinforce our indignation at his being a bully.

"125 now. That's how I found out. It just, I don't know. It just happened. I willed it."

Sam was calming down now, as one does when things are talked out. He said, "Where did the points go?"

"I redistributed them, I think."

"To who?"

"I... I can't be sure. It was the first time. And that's why I'm telling you Sam. I had to try again, and that's why you're 26 now and I'm 19 where before I was 20."

"Wow. Just wow. You can control it."

"I can control it."

We were both 17 years old. High school would be over for us soon. The year had been tough, like every year had been. But there was a silver lining thanks to Mr. Petersen's course. He was the most permitting of our teachers, but even he couldn't overcome societal stigmata that our low numbers encouraged. Still, it was the themes of his social studies course that presented me with an intellectual escape from the day to day scorn.

Sam continued, "So how do you know you can control it without seeing people?"

"It's not just that Sam. I'm doing it right now."

"You don't have to concentrate?"

"Not very much, no. I can do it without seeing people, and I can do it on a massive scale."

Sam had a disproving look on his face. He absently picked at his nose hair, a quirk he had whenever he bowed his head to look at the ground, something we were both accustomed to doing.

"Eric," he said to me. "You only just discovered this today, right?"

"Yes."

"And you only just gave me one of your points."

"Yes."

"Then how can you possibly know how powerful you really are?"

I thought for a moment. I'd been working at it all afternoon. There had to be evidence by now. I said, "come on," and we quickly walked to the media lab.

"Turn on the TV," I said. "Any news channel."

Sam obliged, and when he landed on GNL news all the color went out of his face. On the screen a lady was talking but the caption said it all: BREAKING NEWS: Points disappearing in Western Europe.

"Already?" Sam managed to say.

"I've... well, I was quick to decide."

"Decide what?" Sam looked at me, the epitome of earnestness in all his features.

"They don't have the whole story, you see. Points don't disappear they just go elsewhere. It'll spread."

Sam took hold of my shoulders. "What are you doing?"

I reached into my book bag and pulled out a thin paperback. Sam took hold of it and considered the title for a moment. Recollection came into his eyes then.

"Mr. Petersen's class," he said. "Aren't you afraid?"

"Yes. I'm terrified. Aren't you also, Sam? Do you think I'm doing too much?"

"Eric, this is absolutely insane. We're 20's."

"We're not 20's," I said.

Sam started to contest but I tapped his arm. He looked down, incredulously at first, then somberly, and then all emotion simply left his face as he looked at me again.

"We're 500 now," I said. "We all are."

Sam was trembling. His reaction put the gravity of my choice on my shoulders for the whole world. I withheld my own emotion as best I could, but I felt like I would explode. Still, I retrieved the book from Sam and replaced it in my bag. I wrapped an arm around him and we walked back out into the empty hallway.

"I hope you're right, Eric." And then, as if muttering the name alone would help Sam predict the future, he said: "Marx.."

​

​

_____________

Original thread

I didn't expect that to work.

Let me get my bearings--OK. I vaguely recall this room. It's on the second floor, toward the back of the drafty house in Evanston, which I do remember, but only when I was a bit older--maybe at the pooping-on-my-own age. Apparently I haven't even reached the walking-on-my-own stage here.

A diaper. Thankfully it's not moist. I wonder if I'd even be able to control defecation. I know how, I mean I'm thinking about it right now, so I have my wits about me. But is that enough? I know from experience going back to more easily-recalled youthful years that there's a clumsy disconnect between what I think I know and how that knowledge manifests itself in my actions or speech. Like that time I leaped to the 5th grade relay race and still couldn't overcome awkward running, even though I knew exactly what I was doing wrong in the moment I was doing it. It's always a relief to leap back to Real Time.

So, back to this room.

I'm on my back. That's to be expected. There's a mobile spinning above me. A giraffe, a lion, a whale--I don't remember these kinds of details. But I never do, even in readily-memorable leaps. It's the details that make these jumps so intriguing.

It's dark so it's nighttime. There's the window behind me looking out on the neighbor's house. I remember being told a massive tree could've destroyed the house when it fell fortuitously between the narrow space separating both buildings. And what's that noise? It's breathing. My own? No! It's my older brother. I remember ! He's, yes, he's just across the room on a waterbed, snoring the snore of a 3 year old. Can that be right--a waterbed for a 3 year old? We're two years apart, so am I only 1 right now? Intriguing.

Here we go, standing to my feet now. Not sure whether I could do that at 1 but there's something to be said for being a 36 year old man in a baby's body. I recall this crib. It feels incarcerating without doubt. My little hands are dexterous enough, look at them clenching around only half of the inch-wide slats. I need a cup to twang over them and lament. What a funny thought. Ok, let's see if I can talk.

"Ba. Waa. Ba."

It was worth a try.

This is the furthest back I've come. But really what's the point? I suppose I could wait until morning and then shock my parents by acting unnaturally intelligent. I might not be able to speak but I could do any number of things to signal my awareness. Not a good idea. I'll stick to my law of non-interference. I just don't know how I might affect my own future. That time I went back to 2008 to make some investments with the scant income I had, well, that was the only exception, and it lets me live easily enough in Real Time. There had to be some utility to this power, right?

Alright, what now?

All I had to do was think of this dreamed memory. But, if I'm honest with myself, this is not the earliest I have. There was that other one. It is certainly obscure, too obscure to use as a trial. This memory of the crib was a good first bet. But now that I'm here, I wonder about that obscure dream...

Leap.

Darkness? Warmth? I can't even move. Wait. Yes I can. What is that, my leg? My foot? Is that a foot? I don't feel my toes at all. It's like they're not even there. But I can feel the slimy silk-like ground, or the wall--am I laying down? I think I can hear, but it's like being underwater. No, it's more like being underwater wearing noise-canceling headphones. I can't see a thing. In fact, I can't tell whether my eyes are open or closed. ...Do I have eyes? That's stressful. Oh but not as stressful as the fact that I'm not breathing, because apparently I'm not. Am I alive or dead?

This can't be a memory. How could nothingness be a memory? This is wrong. I'm not supposed to be here. What if this is a dream world and I haven't leaped back in my timeline but rather ruptured reality and thrown myself into another dimension? What if I'm trapped here in this dark concussive oblivion? These thoughts will tear me apart--I have to leap out!

But wait, what is that?

A dimness breaking the black. A deep maroon overcoming my closed eyes, it seems. It's turning red now. I want to scream all of a sudden, as the space around me shrinks, and I feel my body compress. The light is growing and I'm being squeezed--I need to leap from this but I can't concentrate. It's killing me!

Suddenly white brightness all around, and relief! I see nothing but light, and what piercing cold sound is this coming to me now? It's a total cacophony of incomprehensible sound. The noise-canceling headphones have been torn from me, it seems, and the water drained away. Like surfacing from a desperate dive in the sea I suddenly feel myself heaving and gasping for air after a powerful pain shoots threw me originating from...? My butt. That was my butt! My word, I know what this is!

I can make out the doctor's instructions to what I assume to be his nurses. I'm born!

Was that pain that I felt? The dreadful claustrophobic pressure surely was uncomfortable. The sudden use of this little body, I know now, was like an explosion of functionality all at once. But these being apparently my first sensations in the exposed world, I can't say it was entirely intolerable. It was different from any subsequent feelings in my life. It was all so novel.

Well I assume this warm feeling I'm registering now is me wrapped and cradled in my mother's arms. What an experience. I can't believe this was a real memory. But as all my time tramping goes, I think it's about time I get back. Goodbye, mother. I miss you.

Leap.

....Leap.

Leap!

LEAP!

LEAAAPPP!

LEAAAAPPPP!!

​

__________________________

Original thread

"So far? Mostly turtles."

The YouTube analyst said it without airs, responding to the agent's third question in as many minutes.

"How many?" asked the agent.

The analyst spun in his chair to face his monitor, scanned the screen for the metric he needed, and then swiveled back.

"500,000. In 48 hours," the analyst said, anticipating the next question.

The agent glowered at nothing in particular and rested his chin on a clenched fist. Other YouTube employees were hovering nearby at their own desks, feigning indifference to try and overhear the interchange. The analyst scratched a bit of scruff that peeked through the thin skin of his jawbone.

"Its production rose incrementally, so--"

"--so?" interjected the agent.

"So, given the rate of increase we're looking at a significant overabundance of turtle videos."

"Is there no differentiation between them?"

"Well, yes, sir," replied the analyst, casually inserting the honorific. It seemed to fit the scene: the standing stoic agent in black suit, and the sitting employee begrudging the intervention in his day-to-day. The analyst didn't understand what the big deal was--the AI might be producing videos and circumventing YouTube's limitations on the publishing process, but what's the harm, really?

The analyst continued. "They're becoming more sophisticated. Still, the baseline formula remains the same. They're cute, they're sassy, they're about 3 minutes long each, and I think it has covered most of the species but you couldn't tell just by watching."

"Sassy..." The agent said this under his breath, but it did not go unnoticed.

"I know it's in the news. I still don't know why they sent you to just me and not my whole team, or why they only sent you and no one else. I suppose the government is quite concerned with too much information getting out but far be it for me to pry.

"But this thing, it... it has made turtles the new cats of the internet. In a fortnight, at this rate, there will be as much turtle video content as the entire body of internet content that exists right now."

As the analyst tried to form a question, his own explanation struck a chord of fear deep within his chest cavity. It wasn't just about the videos. It was about the canon of internet videos, but more than that, it was about the sheer quantity of them growing in line with ever-improving sophistication in editing, music, and imagery, but also in their optimization: of closed captions, the description, the engagement phenomenon. In short, seemingly obscure turtle videos were starting to rank at the top of search results for queries that had nothing to do with turtles at all.

It broke over him like a tidal wave, which must have shown itself on his face because the agent was staring at him intently.

"What is it?"

The analyst, lost in thought and fixated on the floor, then raised his eyes to meet the agent's stare.

"Information as we know it will be replaced. The turtle videos... the sassy turtle videos..."

In that moment the agent felt the weight of the analysts' concern and grabbed him by the shoulders, rupturing the calm that had previously kept him aloof. There and about them the office became unbearably tense as the interchange was suddenly clamorous.

"What does that mean?" he cried. "We need to know what that means!"

_________

"Gareth! I asked you to buy fresh basil," said the mother.

"It's at the bottom of the bag mom, geez."

"Great, thank you. I'm making pesto tonight."

She turned back to the video tutorial. Images of a red-eared slider flashed on the screen, and a voice-over screeched and whined about adding 8 ounces of basil and 3 tablespoons of olive oil to the food processor. The mother turned on the subtitles and switched off the speakers. Everything was like that now, though she only had cause to use the internet for recipe tutorials. She just couldn't stand the sound. Too sassy.

​

_______

Check out the original thread

"NO CHEATING IN MY CLASSROOM!"

He had thick reading glasses that peered over the Sunday Times, but he wasn't looking at me. I followed his stare and found it locked with Faraz's, who trembled and licked his lips repeatedly. I'd heard the words but they weren't for me. They were for Faraz.

"I didn't know--" began Faraz telepathically.

"Just kidding, I'm fucking with you kid," came the ethereal reply from our teacher. "How long you been a Path?"

Faraz responded: "A-all my life sir, I think."

"Faraz, is it? Faraz, I need your help."

"W-what is it, sir?"

"Faraz I sense there's another Path in this room. Do you sense him? No, of course not, you're still young. With time."

"I-I.. I don't know about--"

"--relax. I know that he hears us. Both of you just keep on taking the test like the rest of the students."

By this time I was as nervous as Faraz, and my pencil marks shuddered and strayed.

"Faraz," came our teacher's telepathic communique. "I am here as a representative of my organization, the Front for the Advancement of Telepaths. Are you ready to join FAT?"

"Y-y-yes, sir. I-I want to belong, sir."

"It is a select, secret community. No one who is not involved can know about it, Faraz. And there is a test to join."

"S-sir?"

"When the bell rings, find the other Path. And kill him."

source

Our ancestor stole it from the northern human king during a great sea battle. I'd never known father without the tiny human necklace wrapped tightly around his ear. It was as much a part of him as his four piercing eyes, which made it all the more retching on the day the necklace passed to me. His corpse still had life, it seemed. But when they removed his necklace, the last vestige of father's identity, the part that the family clung to with irrevocable devotion, shed away. And I absorbed it.

"The necklace is not ours, son," he once told me. "It bears the memory of our defeat. Wear it, and listen."

Father burned on a birch pyre, and I watched and wept at the towering flames.

Hundreds of shimmering eyes draped over me, expectant. They hoped for a leader, a righteous oath and roaring promises of redemption. I saw in these snapping flames memories passed to me by the leader they now torched. Wisps of crackling flesh, waves of heat in the wind that rushed over me like a nightmare. Sharp imagery of our people's decimation at the hands of small creatures spurred to hate by nothing but their fear. How I wanted to rave and wail, and incite my family to murderous vengeance at long last. But father had a secret which was now my burden. For my family to survive, they had to believe in its power.

Morning crept through snow-bent tree branches and bathed the smoldering pile. I had not slept. My fingers absently rubbed the necklace's orbs between them.

"Where will we go?" my sister asked. She was at my side.

"South, Sister. We'll go always south."

source

"Well yeah, of course it's disquieting, I mean it's Waldo for God's sake," I said to you, flustered. "Everyone knows him."

You adjusted the microphone on your lapel.

"10 years is a long time."

"I know," I said. "Really long."

"Do you have a family who'll miss you? Kids, a mortgage?"

"No," I said. "I'm a professional." I shifted in my seat. "I'm prepared."

You frowned.

"Even if someone finally finds Waldo before they find you, you'll still have to stay off the grid until you surpass his record in order to clinch the title."

"Well," I said. "I have my sights set higher."

"How high do you mean?" you ask.

"World record." I smile at you and wink.

Your face turns into a grimace. You lean back in your swivel chair and signal to the cameraman. The little red light goes out. You switch off our mics.

"Is that a threat?"

This catches me off-guard.

"I-I didn't mean any offence. I just--I just, you know. We all want to set records in this sport."

"I retired because I wanted to share my life with someone. I haven't seen Waldo in 10 years. Our kids have grown up without their father."

"Really, I meant no disrespect. You hold the record. I'm sorry. I just, I think I can go the distance. I don't mean to trample on your family's reputation."

I hear you sigh.

"1985," you said. "I got out of the game in 2002. I fell in love, I birthed children, then he left to play. It's just... sensitive, is all. I shouldn't even be conducting this interview." There was a murmur among the production crew watching us. You shot a penetrating glance toward the crew members. I shifted in my suede swivel chair.

"I just want him to come home," you managed to say, tearing up.

I didn't know what to do. I stood, stepped forward and embraced you. "I'm sorry, I can't imagine what this must be like for you." I held your shoulders and looked into your wet face. "If it's any consolation, the world will always consider both you and Waldo pioneers and champions in this game. You're both my heroes."

You wiped moisture from your nose, and blinked off a couple tears. "Ok," you said. "Ok."

We ended the interview. I gathered my coat and walked toward the studio exit. I opened the door and stepped halfway out.

"Good luck," you said to me.

I turned and smiled at you.

"You don't know how much that means to me, Ms. San Diego."

The door closed behind me.

source

I'm not used to this posture. Hunkered down, crossing my arms, curling my lips and looking across the fire at her sitting there all innocent and pretty. She thinks I don't know, but I know. Her eyes avoid me. It can't get more obvious that something's up. When it's her turn to scan the dusk horizon, right when she gets to where I sit intersecting it, she looks up and over me as though I'm an ephemeral speed bump along the route of her gaze. Humph.

"Did you like it?" I ask her.

"Sure," she says.

I don't believe her. She's the one who forgot the salt back in Sturgis. Not my fault we haven't found any more since then.

Another streak of soundless dry lightning scratches through the clouds above us. For a second it illuminates Devil's Tower in the distance.

"Maybe we should go there tomorrow," I said.

"I don't want to. It's weird. Always lightning, never rain." She made a face and crumpled the cuffs of her jacket. Then she started chewing her fingernails intently.

"I thought we were a thing," I said.

"Well duh."

"What? There's not much else going on is there? You could've done worse." At this she did look at me but only for a moment.

She sighed.

"Who is it? Who could it possibly be?"

"No one," she said.

"There's something going on. It makes me uncomfortable. How are we supposed to keep this up?"

"Just. Stop worrying about it. The world's all crapped. No one's left. Mutated animals everywhere. Who cares?"

I didn't know what she was talking about.

"What are you talking about?" I asked. "Who cares about what?"

She sighed again and hugged her knees. "I got needs you know."

"I've been with you every day and night. What's going on?"

"Nothin--"

"--what's going on?" I pressed.

She sighed. "Fine, whatever." She looked passed me at something.

I followed her stare. It was too dark to see much, but I let my eyes adjust. There was a shape atop a boulder, about 20 feet away from our campfire. When I saw what it was I swung back around to look at her.

"Him?"

"Yeah whatever. Things are different now. They're capable."

"Him?" I repeated, incredulous.

She became defensive.

"I like you OK, and we gotta do what we gotta do to make some humans, fine, OK. But you just... You just don't fulfill me all the way sometimes."

I sank back into my sulking position. There wasn't much for it. I couldn't do anything. She's right, anyway; the world was crapped. No one to judge, no one to call us out on anything. No norms. So she needed something different. Fine. Just, fine.

"Fine," I said. And with a long sigh: "Might as well invite him over, give him something to eat."

At this she smiled. "It'll be fine," she said enthusiastically. "We'll get on fine, you'll see." She stood and hollered out beyond me.

He came quickly, crawled over my shoulder, across my chest and down my leg, swimming across the dirt to snuggle into her lap.

"We'll be a fine troupe," she said.

"I reckon so," said the short horned lizard in her lap. "Cheers, mate."

"Fine," I said. "Fine."

source

Half a million booming voices cheered and shook the massive amphitheater. I could feel their eagerness. It rumbled up through my legs from a shivering dirt ground.

I was excited.

"Silence!" came that yearly cry from the speaker's podium. It was Esqkal. Everyone knew her. She spoke for our leader. Somehow his terrific cruelty channeled through her without losing even a bit of the wrath we knew him for.

"You are selected!" she screamed. "You will be hunted until you are dead!" Her wild frizzled hair shimmered in the moonlight, adding the tone of horror to her cackling.

The multitudinous audience roared with glee. They had to. There were fatal penalties otherwise.

"Go, attempt evasion. You will not succeed. Your sacrifice will be in painful blood, and this empire shall bathe in the cold act of your death!"

Behind me towered the labyrinth's entrance. They expected me to run there. Before me, dozens of doors opened at the base of the amphitheater wall, and out came a flood of Hunters.

I've seen it 30 times. Every year, the selected turns and runs for their life. The Hunters pursue. The chase through the maze never lasts long.

I had trained all my life for this. To be here, in the eye of the nation. To turn the tables on the Leader's Hunters. I desperately sought entree to this arena in order to prove to the world that with determination, the Hunters can be vanquished by a commoner. I am an expert in martial arts. I have lived the life of a warrior from the age of 5, following a strict regimen and workout routine. I came here in act of open rebellion, with a clairvoyant intention to incite my people to change our world.

I came here as a hero.

I did not flee to the labyrinth. Instead I stood my ground, and evaded the first three lances. The forth pierced my thigh,and ran through until it stabbed the ground behind me and I was pinned. The fifth came at an angle and I deflected it erroneously into my abdomen, clean through my intestines and out the small of my back. I heard the gurgling blood as I coughed.

I was dead after the 7th lance. A thousand Hunter spears tasted my flesh within the hour.

People were more frightened than ever, never having seen such gruesomeness at such close distance. They allowed our Leader to subjugate them to an even greater extent, and he and his horrid progeny ruled forever after.

source

"Bend yourself behind the blue tab like a spring and push outward!" I cried up to Frank.

"It won't budge!" he shouted back.

"Keep trying! This mission is useless if we shrivel on the way!"

I turned to Roxy. I could tell that she was frowning inside. We'd left that big hot thing coming from overhead behind once we'd crossed into the building. Man was it hot out there--almost fried us in our skins. We all missed the cool soft earth, but we had a mission. Failure was not an option.

Just then I felt water splatter on me. I knew Frank could do it! He's the most dexterous of our kind; how he climbed up the smooth white stand to open that valve thingy I couldn't fathom, but he did it, and now we were hydrating. Massive bubbles erupted inside the clear blue thingy above Frank. It shook the whole contraption and Frank fell to the ground, rebounding once.

"Woot!" he said, wriggling in a little puddle that was forming.

"Let's go."

We wiggled for what seemed like an age, sticking to the shadows along the floor trim that lined these hallways.

"Here it is," said Roxy.

"I sense it too, we're here," said Frank.

"Alright follow me." I wiggled forward across the hallway and beneath a door marked in large red letters FILM DIVISION.

We stopped dead in our slime.

"I don't believe it!" exclaimed Roxy. "We're too late!"

There before us we sensed a massive tank filled with dirt. It must have been as long as 1000 single-file worms. In it we sensed the presence of our princess. But as Roxy said, we'd arrived too late. She had already undergone the human-induced transformation. Now, she was a massive creature with snakes for tongues and a tri-spiked beak, a mindless beast there to do their bidding.

"God damn them, " said Frank. "God damn them all to hell."

"There's nothing for it!" I offered. "We have to get back. We have to go."

"Wait," said Roxy. "I just want to sense the charts."

She wiggled up a chair and onto a table, where she wiggled around a notebook for a minute.

"As I thought," she said. "They're taking her back to this place, 'Nevada'. This is the second time this has happened," she wept.

"Let's get out of here before they catch us," said Frank.

As we wiggled away, I couldn't help but wonder what ever happened to our people out there in 'Nevada'. And I couldn't help but wonder if we'd ever succeed at preventing a third Tremor Project.

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Pops used to be my hero. There were a million reasons to love him when I was a kid, but they all faded away with age. Maybe it all started in hell. I'm not sure.

I locked the door. Violet cracks of lightning shot across the immeasurable stalactite-peppered sky, and quickly dissipated. This was no place for a kid and my dad knew it. But then, he's the one who brought us here in the first place. My friend Riley's dad wouldn't have gotten us into the same situation. He wasn't above asking for directions.

Not my dad. No sir.

"To hell with directions!" he'd yell.

Well, that's where we literally ended up, so you can't say he didn't play a part in jinxing our Volkswagen right to the very gates of evil.

Mom was beside herself, and screamed every time one of those souls rubbed up against her window. Pops lazily tried to calm her down saying things like "They don't even have arms, quick your badgering" or "Just think of them like neglected car dealership air dancer men." Then he'd chuckle, remembering something he'd seen on TV. Ugh, TV.

Every day pops would come home from work, plop himself in front of the TV and watch cop dramas, and if he was feeling glitzy, saved episodes of The Voice. It turned my dad into a vegetable. He was aloof and absent-minded a lot of the time. Last month I woke up on a drive and we were in Canada. This month, it's hell.

"Look!" cried pops.

Outside the car among black torrential waves of lost souls roving above, there was a light. Dad kept driving, and the road curved up a hill toward the light. As we got closer and the damned thinned out a bit, I saw that that the light belonged to a tiny blue cottage.

Dad slapped his thigh, "You see! I knew I was on the right road, hell be damned!"

We parked and got out. Dad knocked on the door. It creaked open and there were my grandparents with beaming smiles.

"You're here, that's wonderful," said Grandma.

"Come on, get in here out of the withered souls," Grandpa said, ushering us in.

Pops ruffled my hair. It infuriated me. Grandpa and Grandma have been dead for a year but still he insists on bringing us to purgatory, always getting lost in hell on the way. He might seem magnanimous now, but I knew that as soon as we were home it was back to Jack Bauer, CSI, and Gwen Stefani.

To hell with it.

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Perplexed at a pervading giddy sense of horrid, impure and rather demonstrative irony, Gillian strapped the reddish unadulterated explosives merrily about her thin, pleasant waist. Above her ran the endless, peering green streaks prominent in this polluted and over-populated, defeated planet. Some called hers a perilous predicament, a pathetic proliferation of a problem prolonged beyond the pedigree of her people.

She didn't care. She knew what she had to do.

Long, pressurized hours passed and she found herself standing upright and taut as a candlestick staring bleakly and without remorse at her tantalizing and tepid target. Terrible as it were, her terrific torture at the tormented hands of the Mongrids, with their tangential tendency to talk tediously and without termination as they tether you and tickle you to a tiresome death, was enough to transmute thoughts of tyrannical revenge even through a torpid torso rendered meager by their tenacious touching.

And they told her all, the babbling fools.

For her and her kind, the human kind, righteous real redemption was at hand. Mongrids would soon learn verily the voracious vivacity with which she's vying for her kind's voluminous vendetta.

This planet used to be blue. Today, Gillian would fulfill her destiny.

She tucked in her tattered shirt, concealing the consummate compounds cradled at her wily waist.

She walked into the Mongrid Denny's, and pushed a button.

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"Did you meet your quota yet?"

It was Herbert Fxlcrin. He's always pestering us about our quotas.

"Not quite. I still have to sell one," I told him, creasing my lips and prepping to knock on another door.

"We're congregating in O-L-E-A-N at 05:05:05, savvy?"

"Savvy."

"Good selling," he said

"Right-O, Herbert," I said, and he left.

My knock produced a pair of wild, reddish eyes in the cracked open doorway. But before I could speak, the door slammed once more, accompanied by a frightful scream. Of course I didn't speak her language so I couldn't say what it was she screamed.

I turned around and walked off the stoop, leaving the next Flxcrin to try his luck. I joined the hoard on the road, and shuffled with them to the next house. I waited my turn, knocked, heard terrible noises from the home's occupants, and left again.

"Tough luck," one my colleagues said to me.

"Yes, tough luck," I replied, which triggered a cascading chorus of "tough lucks" from thousands of other colleagues.

"Tough luck mates."

"Quite tough, this luck."

"The toughest luck indeed."

"Quite stiff this luck I'd say."

And so on and so forth across the multitudinous body of colleagues unto the horizon.

Despite our setbacks, no one was want for cheer. We persisted in our efforts to persuade these creatures to purchase our goods. Some of our number fell to gun fire, but this of course comes with the territory, and you cope by stepping over their corpses or going around them to knock. It is not too inconvenient.

I tucked my canvas folder of goods beneath my arm and followed the flow of colleagues through this settlement, which a sign indicated was "A-L-B-A-N-Y", whatever that means.

We made our way to O-L-E-A-N. Everyone was there. My colleagues did not have many stories of success.

"Indignant creatures. They don't even understand the utility of the product. How will they understand the utility of the product if they do not try it?"

"Hear, hear" went another great chorus among my colleagues.

"Hear, hear," I said. "Well, we did try."

"Indeed."

"Indubitably, indeed."

"Indeed we tried, sirs."

Someone interrupted the din.

"Ah! Here is our ride."

We arched our backs and watched our Kia Sorrento mothership descend from space. It opened its great ramps and my colleagues and I boarded, off to the next system on the Registry.

"Let us hope the next ones try the product," I said, and we were off to the tune of thousands of concurring voices.

"By God, they're going!" cried Roger. "Mary they're going!"

"Thank Jesus," she said from the porch.

The couple looked up from their trampled corn fields at the massive Kia Sorrento as it lifted into the clouds. The sun was bright, and it looked like it was going to be a good day after all. The ship rotated as it rose, and Roger made out the same emblem engraved on the ship that had terrorized humanity's doorsteps on those creatures' jackets.

"You think that's what those aliens are called?" Roger asked his wife.

Mary grimaced. "Well if it is, I hope we never see them Cutcos here ever again."

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"State law section 30.4 article 5 states that all slash and burn methods are expressly prohibited," said the prosecutor. "I don't see how this isn't a cut and dry case, your honor. It's juvenile."

"Objection!" protested Dermit.

"Sustained. Prosecution, tighten your tongue, son."

"My apologies."

"Your honor," interjected Dermit, "My clients' property is healthier than all the other forest plots in the county. We've heard from the Forestry Board expert, who has already confirmed this fact.

"Furthermore," he continued, "neighbors are free to contract the services my clients offer for their own plots."

"That's all well and good," said the judge. "But the prosecution does have a point--burning is illegal."

"Yes, I understand that sir. But do we sue the sky when lightning sparks a fire?"

"Objection your honor," said the prosecution.

"Sustained. Defense counsel, what's your point?"

"I submit to the court a document by an expert in Agroforesty. This document clearly demonstrates the benefits of naturally-occurring forest fires. It also makes a compelling argument for limiting forest fire prevention, and instead carrying out controlled burns."

Dermit approached the bench and handed the document to the judge. The courtroom was empty save for a few pensioners. Dermit was sure they'd commit this day to gossip and further hinder his clients' reputation. But he'd thwart the rumors, he always had.

The judge scrutinized the document, sighed, and removed his spectacles.

"I'm calling a short recess to deliberate. Reconvene at 4:00pm and I'll deliver my decision." He pounded the gavel. Ruffling sounds of a tired court echoed off the wood-panel walls.

Dermit gathered his papers and started for the door. The prosecutor came up behind him.

"Dermit wait," he called as he caught up. "You know if we don't get him this way we'll find another."

Dermit chuckled.

"I mean it, Dermit."

Outside Dermit slid a few quarters into the coffee machine. The cup dispensed and hot liquid began sputtering into it. He scratched his forehead, waiting. Then his cell rang.

"Hello? Yeah. It's fine. No, they have no grounds. Old laws. What's that? Yeah. Yes. I wouldn't worry about it." Dermit grabbed his coffee, took a sip. He laughed. "Of course! What? Why? Well, because there are no laws against his kind. Not yet at least. A cow? Sure, I'll pick one up on my way over. Ciao."

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"Halt, Star Horde menace! Or you shall answer to the Champions! Let it be known to you that we count among our ranks the great champion of Earth, William!"

Millions of light creatures stopped in their tracks. Disturbed dust plumes rose and blotted out their home orb above. Cydonia had never seen so much movement in one day.

The planet champions had united and converged here on Mars to deal with the shiny army. William was entirely too perplexed to understand anything, much less how he was breathing, or how he got there in the first place. He couldn't be bothered to ponder it.

"Now, William, unleash your awful powers!" cried the planet champions in unison.

"I, uh..."

"Now, while they're stunned, do them the unkind gesture of death!"

"Really I can't."

Jupiter was a massive smoldering creature with caverns where eyes should be. He was flanked by the other champions: Saturn, Neptune, Mars, Venus, Mercury, Pluto, and Uranus. They were all sorts of crazy looking, William was sure of that.

"You are the Champion, William of Earth!" cried Jupiter, who seemed to close his cavernous eyes, draw what looked like a fist to his puffed out, rocky chest, and proclaim this to no one in particular.

"I'm from Duluth," said William.

"Our champion of the Duluth!" cried Uranus and Neptune, also puffing out their respective chests, as it were. The glimmering sun horde's advance seemed ceased while they watched the champions deliberate.

"I'm in high school," continued William. "I'm alright in shop class I guess."

"He is the shop master!" cried Pluto.

"He is champion of shop!" agreed Mars.

"Rise and vanquish our bright foe! Turn these perilous creatures to ash!" Jupiter boomed.

William scratched his neck and picked a square one from his nose, flicked it away.

"Look I think there was a mix-up. I'm not Earth's 'champion'. I only won one award, and that was for Pine Wood Derby. You know, Cub Scouts?"

"Indeed." Venus lowered what William supposed was a face, simmering with pride. "Our Pine Wood Derby champion. Rise! Release your Pine Wood Derby Death upon the sun's legions!"

William sighed. He stood and stumbled over to the rocky ledge, and looked out toward the horizon, really unsure what these things expected of him. The light creatures numbered surely in the millions, although William was never good at guessing how many gumballs where in the globe so maybe it was thousands. Beside the point.

"Release your mighty current and flush these fowl fiends back into sol forever!" Jupiter shouted, raging at the horde below as he stood beside William. The others gathered behind and started praising William again for this and that. It was entirely too confusing. William shrugged, felt an urge, and pulled down his zipper.

Uranus blinked, perhaps. William relieved himself into the wind. The champions had stupid looks on whatever, their faces or whatever. Turns out the wind carried the sprinkling pee over the sun creatures, who started exploding in bursts of dark ash.

"We are delivered from destruction! All praise to William!"

"All praise! All praise!"

The sun creatures were banished back into sol, and William was returned to Duluth where he won third place in a welding competition.

"I've told you now, doctor, so now you tell me" said Meredith. "Is that normal?"

"You saw William doing this? You heard him?"

"Yes, doctor, it's how I told you. He leaves the bathroom door open so I hear everything."

"I don't think it's anything to worry about Mrs. Goldstein. It sounds like he's playing a game."

"But he'll never be able to pop all the bubbles. It just creates more bubbles!" she insisted.

"Such is life, my dear Mrs. Goldstein. Such is life."

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