Original Design

by William Latoria

  Today, for this meeting, only the male president was present. Blackshade wasn’t surprised by this. Putting both of the country’s leaders in the same room with aliens seemed like an unnecessary risk, even if the aliens claimed to mean humanity no harm. The current male President of Candaerica was Julio Koopa Silvia. His Hispanic ancestry was evident in his smooth, light brown skin, short black hair, and rich brown eyes. President Silvia was a big man that had made many of Candaerica’s citizen’s swoon, with the bulging muscles that covered his body. Many of his campaign speeches were given from podiums constructed in gymnasiums or workout clubs, which gave him an almost cult-like following. Despite the amount of time he enjoyed spending at the gym, President Silvia also had an amazing sense of humor, and it was not uncommon for him to crack jokes in the middle of a presidential speech. His physique and inviting personality saw his approval ratings from heterosexual women and homosexual men skyrocket. Since his election however, news bloggers had been reporting that he had started to become more arrogant and condescending when the cameras weren’t on him. Some said it was the power of his office, others seemed to think it was just his true colors finally shining through. Despite this, since taking office he had maintained one of the highest approval ratings ever held by a Candaerican President.

  Now, Blackshade found himself approaching a man that he had only ever seen on the internet before. He knew he should feel a sense of awe and inspiration by being in his presence, or at least be a little star-struck, but instead he felt nothing. Compared to meeting the Omegas, meeting the President fell pretty flat. By all accounts, President Silvia was a brute of a man. It was common for people to feel intimidated when first meeting him, but when compared to the Omegas, Blackshade found the man to be hollow in comparison. The words, ‘They are magnificent’ scrolled across President Silvia’s forehead as they approached, which Blackshade was very pleased to see. After seeing what Myopia had thought about them, it would have been disappointing to discover that one of the Presidents shared her opinion. Tapping his foot on a floor sensor, he took a seat next to the Omegas in front of the President.

  Artificer and Minder sat in the outer seats, leaving the chair between them for Tremendous. Before Tremendous joined them, it pointed at the President with its first two fingers. Secret Service agents began moving forward to interpose themselves between the aliens and the President.

  “STOP!” Blackshade barked at the agents, in his best Commander voice, “Tremendous isn’t going to harm the President. He’s making it so that he can understand their language, that’s all. Stand down!” When the agents stopped, Blackshade was surprised they had listened to him, until he saw the subtle hand gesture made by the President that clearly had been what had really stopped them.

  “It’s ok.” President Silvia said in awe, rubbing at his head, “I think the Colonel is right. I feel fine.” he said, smiling.

  “Can you understand me, little one?” Tremendous asked kindly.

  President Silvia looked up at the massive alien that towered over him, “Your voices are beautiful!” he answered in total sincerity, “Yes, I can understand you. How did you do this?” he asked curiously. Blackshade was impressed. The President wasn’t scared of the Omegas at all. That, or he was hiding it extremely well.

  Tremendous explained how it had made it so that he could understand the Omega language and then proceeded to program the rest of the humans in the room so they could follow the conversation as well. A few of the congressmen and women fainted after the effect took hold of them. In fact, every person sitting at the California desks blanched when it was their turn and immediately passed out, with the senior delegate urinating on himself during the process. After the med-drones revived and perked everyone up, the meeting continued.

  “Where do you come from? Why are you here?” President Silvia asked.

  Tremendous sat down before responding. Blackshade thought the Omega found the chair quaint, like if a modern human had sat in a chair from the dark ages. He wasn’t sure if he should find that insulting or not.

  “We come from a galaxy trillions of light-cycles from this one. In a part of the universe that teems with life. We are explorers and researchers primarily, but when forced, we can become militant. We have come to your planet, because years ago we left your kind and other biodegradable materials here to be broken down by the planet’s natural destructive forces. We were forced from this system by our enemies, and it took millions of years for us to push them back far enough to allow us to return. I know you cannot fully appreciate our surprise when we discovered what you have become and how this planet has evolved. Please believe me when I tell you that you, and everything on this planet, is unlike anything else in the universe. We have come here and made contact with you in order to study and better understand how this came to be.” Tremendous explained politely.

  Blackshade saw that President Silvia easily followed what Tremendous told him, but like any politician, he had questions, “What do you mean we’re different? How so?” he asked inquisitively.

  Tremendous grinned, “I am glad you asked.” it said enthusiastically, “For starters, the fact that you exist as you are is inconceivable!” the Omega began, “I apologize if you find that offensive, but please try to understand, my race created you. You are wonderfully complex machines that worked for us for thousands of cycles. It was not until you became obsolete that we discarded you here to biodegrade so we could return and harvest the resources for other projects. When we were finally able to return and found that not only had you reactivated, but thrived on this planet that was designed to destroy you, we were astounded.”

  Silvia nodded politely, “We worked for your species, you said. What did you have us do? What role did we serve in your society?”

  Blackshade thought this was an excellent question. He had wondered about this as well but had never felt that the moment to ask the question presented itself. He leaned forward in his seat to better hear the answer.

  “When you were created, our war was waging intensely across the universe. Our foes were mighty and required our military assets to be stretched to our limits. Even with our allies, we could not afford to deviate our resources for tasks other than military. This made gathering required resources almost impossible. That was when the brightest and most ingenious of our race created you. Small, compact, resourceful and adaptable machines programmed to collect, harvest, hunt and stockpile all the useful resources on a planet. After we claimed a world, we would dispatch thousands of you to its surface to begin collecting anything of value on or in the world. You were self-sustaining, so we could drop you off, leave you there for decades, and when we returned we would easily collect all of the resources. You were very efficient scrappers!” Tremendous explained encouragingly.

  Blackshade saw in all capital letters “WHAT DID HE JUST CALL ME” dance across the President’s forehead. It was all he could do to suppress a groan.

  “Scrappers?” President Silvia asked, bristling. Blackshade could tell the term had offended him. Racial slurs of any kind were illegal, and President Silvia was known to be very sensitive to such terms. According to the internet, President Silvia had grown up in a lower income neighborhood and had been exposed to racism frequently during his childhood. It was thought that because of this, the President was more sensitive than most to any kind of racial slandering. Since being voted into office, he had pushed much stricter punishments for anyone being found guilty of racism or a hate crime. Blackshade looked at Tremendous, hoping to see that the Omega had noticed that the term had offended the President. He felt relief when he saw that it had.

  “Scrapper is a nick name we used to refer to your kind back when we still utilized you.” Tremendous explained simply. “The corporation that created gave you the label: Near-Life Synthesized Perpetual Self-Energizing Automatons, which is quite a lot to say when referring to your kind, so you can understand why we gave you a simpler name.”

  Blackshade didn’t think the Presid
ent had been placated by this answer, “I see…” he began, a shadow falling across his face, “You say that you left us here to decompose so you could use us for resources, please elaborate on this.” Murmurs of assent came from around the room as the President made the request.

  If Tremendous noticed the shift in attitude, it gave no sign, “Of course!” the Omega stood and waved a hand in front of it. A flawless projection appeared in the middle of the room, showing in great detail, everything it described. By the time Tremendous was finished with its explanation, Blackshade felt as if he had been there. “As I said, you were created to harvest resources on planets we conquered during our war against the Kritchet. This enabled us to better employ our forces without having to worry about more menial tasks. For thousands of cycles, we used you for this purpose, and eventually you received upgrades as the corporation came up with new and extraordinary ideas.” he explained, as the projection changed from the Earth to a humanoid form. The figure shown looked much more like what Blackshade had seen during his first conversation with Tremendous.

  “Your first upgrade was your body’s ability to improve based on what skills you utilized the most. So, if you regularly lifted heavy objects, your body’s muscular structure would improve. If you gathered up hard to find objects, your optical inputs… or eyes… would improve. If you spent a lot of time underground retrieving resources, then your ability to see in darkness would improve. If you climbed a lot, then your dexterity would improve. These improvements made it much easier to dispatch you to planets where your particular skill sets matched the environment. So if the planet was mountainous, Scrappers with better climbing abilities were dispatched. If the planet was mostly liquid, then the Scrappers that were phenomenal swimmers would be dispatched. You see where this is going, little one?” Tremendous asked amicably. As the Omega voiced each example, the projection would show the humanoid form performing the task. Blackshade was amazed by how real it looked.

  “Your kind received numerous upgrades over the millennia, but one of your most profound upgrades was also the reason we had to use a planet to biodegrade you rather than just do so on our ships or on inhabited worlds.” Tremendous stated. As the Omega made mention of this upgrade, the projection switched to an extremely detailed image of a human’s small and large intestine, as well as the rectum. A few of the delegates in the room squirmed in discomfort at the realism of the image.

  “When this upgrade was integrated into your system, we were still using projectile weaponry.” Tremendous said, sounding ashamed, “The Kritchet and their allies are notoriously difficult to defeat, and the most intelligent of our race were constantly trying to discover new ways to inflict lethal harm upon them. They discovered a way to create a poison so toxic, that if as little as a gram got into their system, it would lead to their death. The substance created was hundreds of times more toxic than expected, which was terrific, but the only source of it was you.” Tremendous paused as it pointed to the projection. In intimate detail, the rectum displayed began voiding itself onto the floor. There was no sound, but the sight was so realistic Blackshade could almost smell the refuse. He was not alone; many of the delegates gasped in disgust.

  Tremendous continued the lecture as if it hadn’t noticed, “The fecal material you create was the most potent toxin known in the universe at the time, and because of that, when it came time to dispose of you, it had to be done on a planet we never had any intention of colonizing or using for any purpose other than… if you will forgive the term… a recycling center.”

  Tremendous waved its hand and the projection shifted from the voiding rectum to the planet Earth. As Tremendous continued, the projection zoomed into the planet and showed a primordial version of Earth with dinosaurs everywhere. The dinosaurs shown were incredibly detailed and Blackshade found himself awestruck by the majestic nature of the beasts. He was also surprised to discover that most of the dinosaurs were not the scaled lizards he had been taught they were. The skin of each dinosaur differed greatly and seemed to be dependent on how they moved. Dinosaurs that flew were covered in thick, scaly feathers. Dinosaurs that walked on four or more legs were covered in thick, dark fur that reminded him a lot of bears. Those that walked on two legs were covered in scales both large and small and their coloration differed from plain browns and blacks to vibrant oranges, reds, and greens. Dinosaurs that swam were covered in fish-like scales while those that slithered had flesh similar to a pig. This revelation alone would change the way scientists understood dinosaurs for years to come, and he wished that voyeur drones worked inside the Foundation. One of the many security features of the facility was that no recording or transmitting technology worked inside the walls.

  Completely unaware of the insights Tremendous had just given them, the Omega continued, “As time progressed, so did our technology and understanding of the universe. As such, your kind became obsolete, and it became inefficient to continue using your technology. As a rule, we try not to waste resources if we can avoid it. The universe is vast, but resources, especially the resources required to create something as sophisticated as you are, are somewhat rare. We found this section of the universe and had judged it a dead section of space. There was no reason to colonize here because most of the systems were dead or deemed highly toxic, and so far removed from any civilized section of the universe that defending or supplying a colony here was inefficient. So we chose this solar system to use as our dumping ground. A cosmic trash solar system for our waste, to be broken down by the planet’s naturally occurring destructive and decomposing properties.” At this, the projection zoomed out and showed a space eye’s view of the planets in the Milky Way. Readouts appeared and pointed out various planets displaying in bold red letters: ‘TOXIC / UNINHABITABLE’ Blackshade also noticed that there appeared to be a planet indicated on the projection he had never heard of before on the opposite side of the sun in relation to the Earth’s location. Before he could give voice to this, the projection changed to a massive ship, similar in design to the ship currently in orbit over the planet, firing on Earth. As the weapons hit, the entire planet burst into flames. Mountains fell, oceans boiled, and everything that lived on the planet became charred ash.

  “In order to ensure the indigenous life on the planet did not interfere with the decomposition process, we bombarded it from orbit to ensure the planet was perfect for our purposes. Then, once the planet was optimal for decomposition, we deposited all of your kind on the planet as well as other biological waste materials. None of you were activated when we did this, as that would have been cruel. We ensured that every Scrapper was ceased before being dumped here. We also dumped other toxic substances here as well to be decomposed over time, since this solar system had been designated for that purpose.” As Tremendous explained all of this, the projection showed numerous ships dumping all manner of dead aliens, plants, and other indescribable things onto the surface of the scorched Earth. Blackshade was taken aback by the sheer amount of refuse that covered the planet, both humanoid and alien. It was an intergalactic charnel house with the dead piling up to form mountains, and fill craters. Never in his worst nightmares could he have imagined a more horrid landscape. If this wasn’t what Hell looked like, Blackshade thought the Devil could easily learn a few things from this image. Hearing Tremendous describe it while watching it happen on the projection was surreal and very unsettling.

  “For many cycles, we deposited our waste here until the Kritchet found us.” Tremendous told them, flicking its wrist at the image. The projection shifted once again and showed a massive organic ship with thousands of tentacles extending from it at all different angles. The Kritchet’s ship made the Omega’s ship look like a small child’s toy. What appeared to be thousands of large dots began coming out of the Kritchet ship towards the Omega ships. The Omegas began flying away in what was obviously a full retreat shortly before the Kritchet ship began firing. One of the Omega ships was slower than the rest and some of the projectiles fired from the Kritchet
’s ship hit it. Where the projectiles hit, instead of exploding, the alien projectiles stuck and extended long tentacles back towards the massive ship they had been fired from. The Omega ship tried to escape, but something seemed to be slowing it down significantly, because it wasn’t moving nearly as fast as it had been. As the Kritchet ship moved into range, the tentacles from its ship interlocked with the tentacles on the Omega ship. What happened next wasn’t a slow process like Blackshade thought it was going to be, the now joined together tentacles pulled the Omega ship into the Kritchet ship and was, for lack of a better term, eaten by it. Blackshade saw a profound sadness spread over Tremendous, Artificer, and Minder’s faces as the projection showed it all happen in superb detail. With a wave of its huge hand, Tremendous banished the image.