I was soon proven right when I heard an echoing voice that could only be a human using an amplifier to magnify his words. “Per an order signed this morning, and due to the sensitive nature of the topic, all interviews must be scheduled through the legal representation of the household occupants. Anyone loitering on or near this property or releasing footage of the residents of this address will be arrested for compromising an investigation directly impacting the security of the Terran government. The sentence for which is one hour’s confinement! Leave. Now!”

The drones' spoken voices were silent, and a moment later the steady hum of their hovering flight began to fade away. Perhaps the ‘one hour confinement’ seems to be very little in the way of punishment… but herein lies one of the most dangerous facets of human creativity.

They have a long, long familiarity with how to hurt each other. They are masters of torment and suffering. They are not the masters of their world and the top dlamisa of their food chain because they are the strongest or even the fastest. They reached the top because they are the single most homicidal, vengeful, blood hungry species that their deathworld has ever spawned. And they turned that venomous violence on each other more than any other species I know.

For centuries they punished crimes with mostly either death or mutilation, or they would sentence people to become tools that work, known as ‘slaves’, or they would confine people into place, leaving them to suffer and die. But with the long arc of the arrow of justice, they began to enact more just penalties that fit their crimes and did not encourage more criminal activity. Centuries in the past, robbery was punished by death. But so was murder. So a robber would frequently murder his victim because… why not? He lost nothing and decreased the odds of capture.

Pragmatic and sensible reforms were often subordinated in favor of exploitative ones, and one nation which formally banned the sale and ownership of humans, included in their constitution an exception that allowed humans to be used as slaves as a penalty for crimes. It wasn’t until years before the advent of their modern unified government that this finally changed.

But what does this have to do with their petty punishment of ‘confinement’ you may ask? After all, are they not too ‘soft’ now? No.

With ‘confinement’ a human is placed into a room, strapped into a seat, and then when the machine is activated, they experience something… very different than the normal world.

While a minute can pass in the real world, as little as one or as many as ten years can pass in the realm of their mind. A terran hour is sixty minutes. Their ‘one hour confinement’ is an offer to let a person experience a sixty year sentence, growing older, weaker, sicker… all while believing it is real. They experience a cast of characters, and even alternative dystopian worlds. They may live out a lifetime as a slave in a mining camp from the novel series ‘Who Endures’. Or they may find themselves living as a barely surviving primitive hunter from ‘Scales of Trust’.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Or they may just experience being locked in a room with no human interaction… experiencing the nightmare of minute upon minute of a life slipping away. This technology has its benign uses, but in terms of their punishment of crimes?

True the sentenced party will wake up eventually and find that they are their youthful selves again and only a little time has passed, but the memory of their time trapped in the imaginary world was never going to go away. A more benign use of this technology is to use it to help criminals engage in reform, gaining help from artificial intelligence powered therapists who help heal the broken pieces of the human and rejoin society.

But this is not an option for every crime.

That is the horror of ‘confinement’. It is rarely used save for intervention purposes or the more severe threats to the public, interfering with a government investigation would be one such circumstance.

It was warning enough to get the drones to leave before they started getting traced. Though knowing how persistent humans tended to be once there was a mystery or curiosity or something else of special interest to them, even if it were just bragging rights? Let me just say I suspected from the start that it was a temporary relief.

Fauve listened to the same growing silence before asking me, “We’re going to have to speak publicly soon, aren’t we? All of us? And I’ll have to face… that disgusting orc again?”

“You’re a child, I’m no expert, but I think they make exceptions for you.” I said that without thinking, and the truth is, it was a lie. Not that I wasn’t an expert, I definitely wasn’t, but I had no idea one way or the other. But the haunted, heavy eyes of hers were so full of dread, I just wanted her to feel optimistic.

The relief on her face when she leaned back the same as me, stretching out her legs and holding herself up against the mattress with her arms behind her, made it worth it. Her breathing relaxed and normal color returned to her face, a little bit at a time.

It’s strange how humans change things. How they change their world, themselves, each other, and as it turns out, even wandering alien University students from beyond the stars.

Not that long ago, I wouldn’t have considered lying just to make someone feel better. I wouldn’t have attacked anyone, let alone attacked on someone else’s behalf, especially if it put my planned career at risk. But now here I was, not only had I done both things, but I’d done them without any regrets. Or rather, any regret but one.

And now, while it was quiet, while it was quiet and I was full of gratitude and welcoming her company and she was at least briefly relieved of fear, I thought I should tell her.

She put one hand on my tail and began to rub her palm back and forth over it, pressing it into the mattress on which we sat. Like my professor said. ‘If a human initiates physical contact, you should assume you have been adopted.’

I think he was right, and all three of my hearts ached. ‘I have to tell her…’ I realized. I didn’t want to, but if things go that way, dlamisan bureaucrats do not play around with rules and orders. ‘I’ve been lucky so far at least.’ I told myself, steeled my nerves, and while she stroked and stared down at my swishing tail that moved like it had a mind of its own.

‘I need to prepare her now.’ I told myself again, cleared my throat, and looking out of the side of my eye at her face I said, “Fauve… you know they may make me leave Earth, no matter how this comes out, right?” I asked.