Page 28 of The Planetary Systems Preservation Committee Decided We Needed a Nanny

I let out a sigh, thinking maybe I shouldn’t be the voice of humanity, but then again, at least I’m a realist. Someone else might try to undersell how defiant humans are even when defiance is stupid. As a species we have some kind of oppositional defiance disorder, and I’m going to be real about that unlike some people who’d want to always highlight the best of human resilience and tenacity.

I mean, we are resilient and tenacious, but we’re always that in the face of opposition. It’s a flaw when we’re being resilient and tenacious against the people trying to save us from ourselves.

My phone buzzes.

Unknown: LOOK UP.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Me: The ceiling is ceiling-ing

What else am I going to reply? I’ve told them they’re morons half a dozen times, but they’re persistent like a low-hanging fart. Someone needs to light a candle.

Vera taps on her vambrace thing and a projection of the sky above us hovers in the air like a 3D hologram. I didn’t realize our PDAs could do that.

“Is the empire taking these texters seriously?” I ask, wondering why Vera would be intrigued enough to pull up a picture of the outside.

“They are less threatening than the InvasiveParasiticBodySnatchers, but they have proven their own ability to evade our search and rescue team,” she explains, and the view on the hologram suddenly shifts.

I barely catch a glimpse of smoke before it resets to an image of one of the empire’s ships hovering over a city I don’t recognize off hand. The ship shudders in place and then it implodes, collapsing in on itself in a fire ball that literally puts itself out. No debris. No collateral. The ship is simply gone.

“What the fuck just happened?” I demand, stepping closer to the hologram.

“The ship assigned to seven was destroyed,” Vera replies with a terrifying, deadly rattle that literally sends me involuntarily to my knees.

On the hologram, the image of the admin comes up and the scrolling text below appears in what I assume is the alien language. I barely clock the image as Vera’s terrifying rattle intensifies, and I lose control of everything. Tears drench my face as I soak my pants and uncontrollable sobs hitch my breath. I curl into the smallest ball I can make myself, terror seizing my very soul.

Vera’s rattling growl suddenly cuts off, and the sound of her footsteps retreats from me. “I offer my apologies, Ollie Teakwood. My… spouse was aboard that ship. She is safe. She contacted me after the announcement of fatalities.”

I hear her, but it still takes a few minutes for my muscles to decontract and relax enough for me to move out of my fear-ball. Logically, I’m aware that Vera induced an instinctual fear response in me, but I’m not feeling all that logical right now. I’m emotionally overwrought and still shaking from the terror that keeps rearing back up. With trembling hands, I use my teleportation privileges to get back home where I drop everything and cry until I’m completely wrung out.

Eventually I get myself into my shower, washing away everything I can. The lingering feeling of fear feels like it will never go away, but I remind myself that Vera did not necessarily mean to fuck me up like that; she was responding to the attempted murder of her spouse, which is completely understandable.

It’s likely that my extreme response is like the sex pheromone thing with Lora, and Vera could not have known I would be so affected by her angry pheromone or whatever.

And even if that’s all true, I’m still not ok.

After I drag myself out of the shower, I pick up my PDA to text Vera to let her know that I’m going to take a few days to recover. I don’t say anything else because it’s not ok that she did that to me, but I also don’t want to regret speaking out of turn right now, either. When I pick up my phone to ask Bee if she's working, there’s several new messages from the empire.

SDAVE: Ship FRED self-destructed after human technologists who’ve claimed responsibility set off the self-destruct sequence.

SDAVE: Two ScaryDarkAlienVampire enforcers lost their lives saving the spawn aboard the ship.

SDAVE: Search and rescue teams have reeducated thirty human technologists involved in the destruction of Ship FRED.

SDAVE: Oliver Teakwood will report to Dr. KAL for psychological evaluation and therapy at 0900.

SDAVE: ANNOUNCEMENT: InvasiveParasiticBodySnatchers have been discovered in every region. BE ADVISED: InvasiveParasiticBodySnatchers inhabit dead or dying beings. Please report EVERY DEATH AND EVERY NEAR-DEATH to the nearest ScaryDarkAlienVampire. DO NOT ENGAGE. Humans engaging in violence will be reeducated.

SDAVE: COUNTDOWN TO INVASION: 40:12:39:04

The countdown is live.

Holy shit. Forty days until the invasion force of the body snatchers will arrive, and they’re already in every region. That’s every city in the world. Fuck.

Unknown: WE WILL NEVER SURRENDER.

What the fuck is wrong with this human group of potato heads? They caught thirty of them, but there’s still at least one out there trying to cause chaos.