The room seemed to deflate as the number hit them. Almost two hundred million people had died because the Omegas didn’t understand humanity. Two hundred million men, women, and children died, because of a misunderstanding. The population of South America had been in the nine hundred millions before the mass deportation of the country, but with these numbers, it was hard to stomach the loss of twenty percent of their country. Blackshade swore to himself that he wouldn’t let something like this happen again. Even if he had to sit the giant aliens down like school kids and force the information down their throats!
With their report given, the death toll team dismissed themselves and walked out of the room. A few of the people in the room excused themselves and left as well. Blackshade figured that they were leaving in order to cry in private. That was fine, when the number had breached one hundred million a handful of the people had passed out from the shock. Two people, a man and a woman, had panic attacks and had to be removed from the room by the Secret Service. It was a disastrous mess, but they were doing everything they could to alleviate the damage.
The citizens of Candaerica were not happy. Mass protests were occurring all over the country. Some were demanding that the Presidents use the military to take back South America from the Omegas. Some were demanding that the country sue the aliens and force them to leave. Others were claiming they were at war and that it was time to rise up against the alien oppressors. They all disgusted Blackshade. Those people were either so stupid, so blind, or so arrogant that they honestly believed that violence, or humanity’s laws, were really going to stop the Omegas from doing whatever they wanted. None of them grasped just how tenuous the situation was. For the first time in human history, the possibility of their extinction was highly probable. For Blackshade, the protests were nothing more than white noise compared to the constant searching for survivors and dispatching transport crews to rescue them. Blackshade knew that despite the fervor of the protests, eventually they would burn themselves out, and the people would return to their regular lives, confident that they had accomplished something.
Blackshade leaned back in his chair and ran his hands over his face. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he was finally beginning to feel tired, or maybe he was just exasperated. He wasn’t sure. With a sigh, he leaned forward and logged back into his fleet of voyeur drones. He was searching the ocean for any survivors that he may have missed during his previous searches. Most of the South American people had been located and were accounted for. In fact, according to the most recent South American census numbers, more people had been accounted for than were reported in their last census. Of course, those numbers were usually not correct, especially considering the fact that the technological level of South America paled in comparison to Candaerica’s. So he continued to scan the islands, just in case there were any more people out there that needed to be rescued.
Soearth pulled a chair up next to him and set a plate of pods down between them. Judging by the bright colors of the pods they were made from various fruits. Over the past week, Blackshade had become very fond of Soearth. His insights and opinions had been invaluable during the crisis. It had been Soearth’s idea to put displaced South Americans in hotels and to pay for it by letting the hotel use the charges as tax write-offs. With taxes as high as they were, every major hotel chain jumped on the offer as soon as it was made. Not only was the man highly intelligent and an excellent problem solver, but Blackshade found he simply enjoyed the man’s company. His easy going attitude was a nice relief in comparison to the ‘win-at-all-costs’ mentality he had grown accustomed to over the years. Today, as Soearth joined him at their table he looked concerned.
“Bill, I hate to bring this up, but I must ask. Have you been sleeping at all since you’ve gotten here?” Soearth asked peering at him.
Blackshade grinned, he was wondering when someone was going to notice. He leaned back and stretched theatrically before answering, “Nope. I haven’t slept in two weeks. It has something to do with how long I was close to the Omegas, I think. Up until a week ago I had no need to eat or drink anything either. Some scientists in New Mexico noticed similar effects on the Air Soldiers stationed around the Omegas’ ship. None of them had been effected for as long as I have, but they all noticed a change in appetite, sleep schedules, and the need to use the latrine.” he explained, amused.
Soearth’s bushy eyebrows raised up on his head. Blackshade watched word, ‘Interesting’ run across his forehead. “Does this concern you at all?” he asked curiously.
Blackshade shook his head, “Not at all. It makes a certain kind of sense. My friend, Zahera, said that the scientists thought the Omegas must have a technology that recharges us and gives us a kind of tune-up once we’re close enough to them, or their ships. If we really are nothing more than machines that they created, then it makes sense they would have some sort of automated maintenance feature for us. Just like we do for our machines.” Blackshade explained.
Soearth nodded slowly and looked like he was about to say something when his eyes went wide, and he pointed at something behind him. Blackshade knew what Soearth was pointing at before he spun around in his chair. With a look like that and the direction he pointed, it could only mean one thing, the Omegas were finally doing something.
When Blackshade’s chair finished spinning him around, what he saw confused him. It looked as though every voyeur drone watching the Omega ship was retreating away from it as fast as they could. In fact, after a brief scan of a status display, he saw that every voyeur drone inside the South American continent was now fleeing towards the closest outer border. It was as if they had all received an eviction notice at the same time and were eager to obey it. Articles began pouring out of the internet full of news bloggers complaining about losing control of their drones. Many of the people blamed the government, saying they hacked their drones for one reason or another. Others blamed the Omegas themselves, which was what Blackshade assumed was the cause. Of course, he had the advantage of knowing it wasn’t humanity causing this, because he was in the room where a decision like that would have been made. Whatever was about to happen, the Omegas did not want the drones in South America anymore. Blackshade turned back towards Soearth to see if his friend had any idea what this new development meant.
“Well, you’re the brains of this outfit.” he said semi-jokingly, “What do you think is happening? Why kick all the drones out of the continent?”
Soearth shook his head, “It’s obvious, isn’t it, Bill?” Soearth responded. “They don’t want the drones to be in their territory anymore. Probably for whatever they’re going to do next.”
“And that is?” Blackshade asked.
The word, “Really” flashed across Soearth’s forehead as he answered, “It’s obvious, Bill.” Soearth answered flatly, “The Omegas are ready to begin building their base.”
Blackshade’s eyes widened. He had been so caught up in finding the displaced citizens of South America, he had completely forgotten why the Omegas had removed them in the first place. Quickly, he did a search to see if any of the voyeurs had been left inside the borders of South America. He had a very strong desire to see exactly what was about to happen. Just has he had feared though, there were no drones left inside the continent that weren’t in a full retreat. Desperately, Blackshade searched for anything he could find that would allow him to see what was happening. That’s when an idea occurred to him, frantically he began typing away at the inputs searching for cameras that may still be operational on the ground in South America, especially in Brazil. To his delight, millions of options came up on his display. He quickly accessed one after the other trying to find one that had an angle that would show him the spacecraft. Most of the cameras were very old, and the resolution of their displays were of an incredibly poor quality. The images that those cameras did display were far from reassuring. Animals that were once people’s pets ran in packs along abandoned streets, hunting for food. Huge fires had broken out, reducing
some of the areas to ash. There were numerous signs of flooding from where people had left sinks or bathtubs running before they were transported away from their homes. The cities showed the worst signs of the abandonment. From the looks of things, some people had been teleported away while driving their vehicles. This was common in areas that hadn’t made the jump to fully automated conveyances like Candaerica. Those vehicles had continued to drive, unaided, after their human pilots had been taken away. Many, if not all, had crashed violently into the surrounding buildings and fields, starting massive fires and trillions of dollars in damage. To Blackshade’s eyes, it looked like the entire continent had been hit by numerous high yield bombs. Even if the South Americans could return home, many of them would have nothing to return to but destruction and misery.
Soearth tapped him on the shoulder, “Look at this, Bill.” he said, awestruck.
Blackshade brought up an echo of Soearth’s display. It showed an incredibly detailed top-down view of the Omega craft, which, compared to the low resolution displays he had just been looking at, made the ship look almost life like. “How did you get this view?” Blackshade asked, surprised, “Did you find a drone they missed?”
Soearth chuckled at his question, “Of course not. The idea that the Omegas would miss a drone and that we would find it is ludicrous!” he chastised, pointing at his display, “I have simply used the Hubble II Space Scope and realigned it to focus on our friends in South America. I had been using it to watch their Mothership, but this seems more pertinent, don’t you agree?”
Once again, Blackshade was impressed, he had forgotten about the rest of the Omega ship. The thought of the massive spacecraft still orbiting the planet did little to alleviate his sense of foreboding. “Good thinking!” Blackshade said, trying to distract himself, “What are they doing?” he asked, studying the display.
“Nothing as of yet, but there are still drones in the region. I don’t think they’ll enact the next phase of their plan before they’re all outside the borders of the continent.” Soearth explained. “They’re removing the drones for a reason, and time doesn’t seem to be a variable they’re concerned with.
For the next few hours everyone watched the display that Soearth had provided. Dozens of tiny displays showed the status and location of every drone still fleeing the continent. As the drones cleared the borders of South America, the corresponding display would close out giving the collage of displays a sort of countdown feel. It was discovered that the moment the drones were outside South America’s borders control returned immediately to whatever agency or citizen owned them. Naturally, the first reaction for most people once they had control of their drones again was to try to return to South America and continue reporting. Unfortunately, the Omega’s generosity did not stretch far enough for a second chance. The moment a drone crossed back into South America, it completely shut down and fell to the ground. Hundreds of drones now littered the borders with just as many angry bloggers demanding the Omegas pay for their now defunct drones. Already, there were petitions all over the internet urging, and in most cases demanding, that the Candaerican government make the aliens pay for their ruined drones. Blackshade was disgusted by this. How anyone could think they had any way of making the Omegas do anything was beyond him. Had society become so deluded that they didn’t realize just how insane and empty their petitions were? Blackshade had to push those thoughts to the back of his head for the moment though. As he looked up, there were only five drones left inside the border, so whatever was about to happen was going to happen soon.
When there were only two drones left, the Omega ship began to heat up. The Hubble hadn’t begun reading a shift in temperature, like what had happened when the Omegas transported all the people off the continent. Instead, the ship became a dull orange in color, like metal in a blacksmith’s forge, then it became a searing yellow, and then a bright, painful white. Heat rippled from the ship distorting the air for hundreds of yards around it. It suddenly became very clear to Blackshade why Tremendous had said he couldn’t be with them for the creation of their base, he would have baked alive inside the ship. There was no reading of what the actual temperature of the ship was, apparently the Omegas didn’t want them to have that information, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out the ship was plasma hot.
As the very last drone exited the continent, the Omega ship moved with an amazing burst of speed. It moved so fast that the air the ship displaced burst into flame for a moment. The only way anyone was able to follow it was because of the searing white light that streaked across the sky in the ship’s wake. It was as if the ship was scorching the very air itself as it passed through the sky. The Omega ship traveled like a white hot fireball from the southwestern corner of Brazil to the southeastern corner of Panama in less than a minute. When it reached its destination, the Omega ship plummeted into the ground where Panama’s border met with Colombia’s. Where the ship touched the land the earth either disintegrated or exploded, leaving nothing but smoke and debris in its wake. The Omega ship ran itself back and forth from one coastline to the other erasing the land in-between. After approximately twenty minutes it had gone below the sea level and continued its scrubbing motion for miles below. The Omegas had broken off the land connection between Central and South America by erasing a ten-mile-wide section of Panama.
“There’s the last .01% they asked for.” Soearth said in awe. There had been some debate on the math once it was accepted that the Omega’s had claimed South America for themselves. There was a .01% disparity between what was given to them and what they were taking. As Soearth has just eloquently stated, this initial land erasure by the Omegas corrected the discrepancy once and for all. No one responded as they watched the Omegas reshape the continent.
Ten minutes passed before the Omega ship reappeared by shooting out of the ocean, sending a mile-high geyser of water blasting into the air. Blackshade would have found the sight incredible had he not been so numb from watching a ten-mile-long section of the planet get erased from the map. The Omegas’ craft streaked high into the air before racing towards the city of Caracas. Once there, the ship plummeted back into the ground sending plumes of smoke, dirt, and ash in every direction. As the hull of the ship made contact with the city everything in its path either melted, exploded, or simply disintegrated on contact. The ship, still blazing white, ran itself across the land reducing the city to a fine rubble in less than twenty minutes. It was like watching a massive white board eraser run across the continent, obliterating everything it encountered. Residual explosions occurred fairly regularly as the destruction caused catastrophic reactions inside the once proud city. Some of the explosions were the size of city blocks, but in comparison to the destruction wrought by the Omegas, the explosions were pathetic.
The ship ran itself from east to west in ten mile increments destroying everything it touched. Buildings, historical monuments, mountains, hills, lakes, schools, and homes; nothing was sacred and everything was destroyed with impunity. Some of the people inside the room began to weep as they watched the unfathomable destruction. President Novatrix, who had been watching silently, left the room abruptly, shortly after Caracas was wiped off the map. Blackshade was not surprised to see many others follow her lead. This was very difficult to watch, and yet he found he couldn’t look away. The only solace Blackshade was able to take from the situation was that no human life was being taken during all of this.
Once the Omegas were finished with Caracas, the ship picked up speed and began running itself along the land flattening and destroying everything in its path. In a matter of hours, most of the northern part of Venezuela and Guyana were gone. Nothing but fine debris, and burning rubble was left where the ship passed. Massive swathes of forest, as well as all the animals still living in those areas were crushed, killed, and destroyed as the searing hot spacecraft tore through them.
“Why are they doing this?” Blackshade asked out loud. There were only a few people still in the room, and
all of their eyes were glued to the display.
Soearth was the only one that responded, “They’re bulldozing the continent.” he answered, his voice catching a little as his emotions got the better of him. “You must destroy… before you can create.”
“All of that history… all of those animals… the cities…. those people’s homes… how could they do it?” Blackshade asked, sick to his stomach. The ship was now tearing through San Cristobal, obliterating everything in its path much the same way it had in Caracas.
Again, it was Soearth that replied, “Do we hesitate to destroy our machines when we no longer require them? Don’t we demolish the old to make way for the new? Have you ever felt guilty for destroying a hornet’s nest you found on your house, or poisoning an ant hill that you find in your yard?” Soearth offered in explanation, “The Omegas see us as a curiosity. Property at best, and nothing more. Just as we would see a machine we had created if it had built a home. We created it, therefore we own it, and anything it created. Therefore, they’re free to do with us as they please. We should be grateful they deemed us worthy to negotiate with prior to reforming South America. Instead of a couple hundred million dead, it would have been closer to a billion.” Soearth said with tears in his eyes, “Didn’t the Omegas tell you we were made in their image? They are very much like us… or, to say it correctly… we are very much like them.”
Blackshade hated the man for saying that, no matter how true he thought his statement might be. He didn’t want any association with what the Omegas were doing to South America; yet he couldn’t deny Soearth’s reasoning. The Omegas didn’t see humanity as living beings, but as old, out of date machines that they had left here to rot millions of years ago. Had it not been for humanity’s current condition, the Omegas may have just destroyed the entire planet in order to harvest the resources it contained. He supposed he should feel lucky that his species had been interesting enough to avoid being slaughtered by the Omegas so far. At least it gave them a hope for survival. For after seeing this, there was no doubt in his mind that Humanity didn’t stand a chance in a fight against the Omegas. The petitions running around the internet suddenly made sense to him. Society hadn’t figured out that humanity was no longer the dominant species on the planet, and that major changes were coming. He had a feeling that the next few months, if not years, were going to be very humbling for humanity, and he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.
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