The Planetary Systems Preservation Committee Decided We Needed a Nanny

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

“Thank you for calling Geeks For You. My name is Harry. How can I assist you today?” That’s not my name, but I’m not telling a stranger on the phone my real name. That’s a great way to find trouble that I have no intention of finding.

The script starts out fine, but devolves rather quickly with a turn it off and turn it back on again solution, followed by five minutes of hemming and hawing about what the problem could possibly be, and resulting in having the customer mail the product back to us so that we can repackage it and send them a replacement that someone else just sent us.

Does the company plan to actually fix any problems?

No. No, the company does not, but I get paid whether the problem is solved or not.

I don’t get paid enough to care about the customer, so I don’t. I do my job, keep my head down, and sign off on my average annual reviews. I’ve done the whole work-harder-than-everyone-else thing, and all it did was allow others to take advantage of me, therefore I don’t do that anymore.

“Oh my god!” The outcry from one of my coworkers over by the window has everyone looking up from their desks to find out what’s going on.

I put my caller on hold for a second and pop up over the low wall of my cubicle to look over. I don’t see anything right away, just a bunch of cubicles, but then another voice echoes the first and a third voice asks, “What the fuck is that?”

A few of my coworkers leave their desks to find out what’s happening and gather at the windows, looking out. I glance outside and freeze. My stomach flips at the sight of a huge UFO hanging out in the sky over the city. “Holy shit,” I croak, feeling the fear of the unknown in my throat all at once.

My supervisor’s boss’s voice pulls my attention away from Armageddon. “Ok people, break it up. Get back to your desks. This is work time, not gawk-at-the-skies time.”

Oh yeah, Chad’s that kind of douche. He struts over to the window, waving people away back to their desks.

Some people return to work, but more people stay at the window until he threatens everyone’s jobs.

Since I don’t know if an alien invasion is going to end in the death of humanity or if we’re still going to have to deal with the capitalistic hellscape we’re in now, I sit my ass down and return to work.

In a stunning turn of events that no one could have predicted, the customer I was helping has hung up. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the alien ship hanging out over the city.

“Woah, that’s a big ‘un isn’t it?” Chad’s voice carries all the way from the window to the back of the room. “Bet they’re here to bring us into the space age.”

I blink at the back of his head.

Who here thinks that the aliens are here to give humans technology and space travel? Anyone? No? Just Chad, then? That’s what I thought, too.

As I serve out the rest of my shift like the prison sentence it feels like, no one calls and our warden keeps us up to date by describing the happenings in a loud obnoxious voice.

People are running. There’s a five car pile up. Nothing happening with the spaceship. Oooh, the police have arrived on scene.

Et cetera.

At the end of my shift, I clock out and run out of the building, looking up at the massive ship overhead and worrying. Obviously I’m worrying. Only Chad would stand there like he’s got nothing to fear. Well, I guess Chad and all the other manosphere bros with small minds and smaller dicks.

Yeah, yeah, every dick is beautiful, blah blah blah.

I’m talking metaphorical dicks, not actual dicks.

I’m talking guys who don’t think women are people.

I’m talking the most homoerotic homophobic straight guys on the planet.

Those are the guys who’re going to be telling each other they have nothing to fear from the big ass alien ship hanging out in our atmosphere.

In case it wasn’t obvious, I hate those type of guys on a moral and philosophical level. They’re part of the worst part of humanity. Murderers, rapists, and manosphere bros. Actually, I bet the Venn diagram of those three things is a circle.

Wellll… maybe not. I don’t think any of the Chads are smart enough to get away with murder. Still. They are the worst of humanity.

I usually take the city tram to the parking lot where I leave my car in the morning, but when I arrive at the tram station, it’s packed, and everyone is silently watching the multiple TV screens that usually tell us the tram schedule.

I stare at the face on the screen, and every muscle in my body tenses as if I can run fast enough to get away from what I’m seeing.

It’s not that the face on the screen is terrestrial. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s that it’s familiar in a terrifying way.

Have you ever been afraid of the dark? What kind of monster hid in the dark that caused humans to evolve a fear of it?

The shadow being with glowing red eyes and long claws?

Too many teeth? Or the obscured face covered in black hair?

Why are we afraid of pale creatures with too many teeth and black holes for eyes? Maybe because

They’re

Real.

The alien isn’t a monster in the dark; it just fulfills all the parameters of those monsters. Too many teeth? Fangs? Check. Black eyes? Scraggly black hair? Check. Pallid complexion? Claws? You guessed it! Check.

They look human-ish, but they’re definitely not human, and they are terrifying.

A message in comic sans, of all things, scrolls across the bottom of the screen on a loop, and it takes me a long time to read the whole thing because the alien is there being alive, real, and terrifying. It’s hard to look away long enough to read the message.

Planet 45789stp, locally known as Earth, is now under the control and jurisdiction of the ScaryDarkAlienVampire Empire. Resistance will result in re-education.

And that’s it. That is the entirety of the message.

I take a deep breath, look away from the ScaryDarkAlienVampire, (why all one word?), and I head toward the station where my tram will be waiting for me. I’ve got to get my ass home if I want to ride out this alien invasion in my pajamas.