By Bret Chandler
The CIA knew everything about Samuel Todd. A man with average intelligence who lived an unimpressive life. He worked in a comic book store, played Dungeons and Dragons, ate Doritos, and drank beer. He scribbled stuff in his composition notebooks, but never published. And out of eight billion people, the aliens chose him for the negotiations.
The people in dark suits and sunglasses looked important. Nick Furey, S.H.I.E.L.D important. So Samuel followed them to the limousine. It was the fanciest thing Samuel had ever seen. With a bitter glare, the President watched Samuel fiddle with the temperature control.
“Son, do you understand what’s going on?”
Samuel turned the air conditioner towards his face.
The President took off his sunglasses and leaned in. “Do you understand the extraordinary nature of this situation?”
Samuel smiled a big toothy grin. “You’re President Vorhees, aren’t ya?”
The President sat back in his chair and put his sunglasses back on. This was going to be a long ride.
***
Out of the Air Force One window, Samuel could see the large silver ship about fifty times bigger than the giant bean he saw at Millennium Park in Chicago. It sat by a military base in the middle of the desert.
The nervous General Moss glared at Samuel’s awestruck face. “Look, situation’s dire. The Centaurians—that’s them—they’ve told us our time as an independent species has expired. Now nobody knows why they picked you, but they did. So, you’re job, you’re only job, is to go on that ship and just do what they tell you. K? Samuel?”
Samuel nodded robotically.
A bead of sweat dripped down General Moss’s forehead. “Sam, what’s one thing you love more than anything else?”
Samuel leaned back and turned his eyes to the ceiling, scratched his chin. “Well, I got gobs of notebooks. Poems and stories. Just keep ‘em in my closet. Big stack…” Samuel raised his hand close to his chest. “‘Bout yay high.”
General Moss leaned in. “All right, Sam. When you go on that ship, you think of your notebooks. Think of your writing. You wanna be able to keep on writing, right?”
“Uh huh.”
“Then you make sure the Centaurians know that without humanity, you couldn’t write. And that we need to exist…Can you do that, Sam?”
Sam nodded. “Uh huh.”
***
The inside of the alien ship looked remarkably the same as outside the ship. When the door closed behind Samuel, he stood alone in a vast desert. There was no base and no giant silver bean spaceship. Other than that, the world was Area 51. Samuel looked around. He did a full one-eighty. Nothing for miles except the dry land and the blue, blazing sky.
Then he saw it.
Out in the distance he could make out a little dark dot. It got closer. Not only that, the dot had legs. Legs and a head. This was a person, or maybe it was the Cent…Centar…whatever they were called.
Samuel waved his hand. “Hello! I mean…Greetings!”
Samuel could make the full thing out now. It was a man in a suit. When he got close enough, Samuel could see his pale, clean-shaven face, and sunglasses.
Face to face with Samuel, the man didn’t smile. He just reached out his hand, ready to shake.
“Oh.” Samuel grabbed the man’s hand. “Samuel Todd.” A brief silence and Samuel continued. “So…You a Centa…Centarariariana…” Samuel curled his lip, tried again: “You the alien?”
The man made a finger gun and fired. “Bingo.”
“Thought so,” Samuel said. “I was told you wanted to meet with me. That right?”
The alien nodded.
Samuel squinted his eyes in the sun. “You gonna kill us all?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
The alien took off his sunglasses, and Samuel stepped back, shocked. “You…you’re me!”
“Another version of you,” he said. “One we created. Thought it’d be easier for you to have this talk if you saw a clean cut, successful version of yourself.”
Samuel stood, flabbergasted.
“We’ve watched your species for over a hundred years, and we’ve decided that your species has run its course. Some say your species is not worth continuing without regulation. They think some of your species should be taken back to Centauri B, and kept there, like in a zoo, while the rest are…destroyed.”
“Oh, that’s not good.”
“No, it’s not. But some think you should have one more chance. And that’s what this is. So a lottery was created, with all the people on Earth. The person chosen would have to make the case for humanity. You, Samuel Todd, were picked.”
Samuel had never won anything in his life before. Now he’s the random one taken out of all the billions of people to make their case?
“So, Samuel,” the alien said, “Is there any reason your species should go on living?”
Samuel kicked the dirt. He couldn’t think of anything the aliens hadn’t already thought of. It was like a writer's block, which he often had.
Samuel raised a finger. “Hang on…” Samuel reached into his back pocket and pulled out a little notebook. He flipped to a page and handed it to the alien. “There. That’s my favorite one.”
The alien took the little notebook, his confused eyes on Samuel.
“It’s a poem I wrote,” Samuel said.
The alien nodded his head and looked up at Samuel, then he went back down to the notebook and nodded more. “Huh…”
“I-it’s a work in progress…”
The alien kept his head down and raised an eyebrow.
Samuel reached out to take the notebook. “Lemme just—”
“No,” the alien pulled away. He eyed Samuel with surprise. “You wrote this?”
“Uh huh.”
“You have more?”
Samuel raised his hand to his waist. “Got a stack about yay high.”
It was Samuel’s first acceptance. And it saved humanity.
About the Author
Bret Chandler hails from Chicago, Illinois where he lives with his wife, kids, and cats.
For work, he teaches middle school social studies.
In his free time, he plays his guitar, writes, and enjoys time by the fire with a glass of port.
Tara Campbell is an award-winning writer, teacher, Kimbilio Fellow, fiction co-editor at Barrelhouse, and graduate of American University's MFA in Creative Writing.
My time at Nambucca Valley Community Radio began back in 2016 after moving into the area from Sydney.
Geraldine Borella writes fiction for children, young adults and adults. Her work has been published by Deadset Press, IFWG Publishing, Wombat Books/Rhiza Edge, AHWA/Midnight Echo, Antipodean SF, Shacklebound Books, Black Ink Fiction, Paramour Ink Fiction, House of Loki and Raven & Drake
Brian Biswas lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA.
Sarah Jane Justice is an Adelaide-based fiction writer, poet, musician and spoken word artist.
Tim Borella is an Australian author, mainly of short speculative fiction published in anthologies, online and in podcasts.
Barry Yedvobnick is a recently retired Biology Professor. He performed molecular biology and genetic research, and taught, at Emory University in Atlanta for 34 years. He is new to fiction writing, and enjoys taking real science a step or two beyond its known boundaries in his
Emma Louise Gill (she/her) is a British-Australian spec fic writer and consumer of vast amounts of coffee. Brought up on a diet of English lit, she rebelled and now spends her time writing explosive space opera and other fantastical things in
Ed lives with his wife plus a magical assortment of native animals in tropical North Queensland.
Alistair Lloyd is a Melbourne based writer and narrator who has been consuming good quality science fiction and fantasy most of his life.
Merri Andrew writes poetry and short fiction, some of which has appeared in Cordite, Be:longing, Baby Teeth and Islet, among other places.
Mark is an astrophysicist and space scientist who worked on the Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn. Following this he worked in computer consultancy, engineering, and high energy research (with a stint at the JET Fusion Torus).