Del grimaced at his sodden carpet, another mess to make his life harder than it needed to be.

“I liked that mug,” he grumbled under his breath. It had been just the right size for a satisfying drink. With a sigh, he tossed the shards into the bin and headed to the kitchen.

A couple of minutes later, he returned with a fresh mug of coffee, carefully setting it on the table before sinking back into his chair.

“Right then, Menolly, how about you tell me what you think I’ve got myself into.”

He tried to keep his tone level, but his mind bristled with scepticism. Whatever half-truths or outright lies she was about to throw his way, he reserved the right to doubt them all. Sure, the bizarre bio she’d spouted about him earlier was unsettling, but his paranoia about ‘Big Brother’ had long since convinced him that hidden government powers could dig up anything they wanted.

‘Probably with MI5 or 6 or bloody 99 with all that shit she had dug up’

His gaze flicked back to her. She was too perfect in her portrayal of an anonymous suit—so meticulously right that it felt wrong.

She looked to be around five-six or seven, slim, with short, collar-length blonde hair and blue eyes that seemed to flicker grey at times. Everything about her screamed precision. The kind of person who probably ironed their socks. Her cream suit was immaculate, devoid of even a single wrinkle, as if she’d stepped straight out of a high-end department store catalogue.

But it was her eyes that bothered him most. That subtle flicker from blue to grey reminded him of an old television screen losing signal. It wasn’t glaring, but it was enough to send an uneasy prickle down his spine.

As she spoke, her calm tone drifted past his ears, but his brain had already checked out. He found himself staring at the way her hair stayed perfectly still, even as the breeze from the open window brushed past.

Realising his mind had wandered, he forced himself to focus. He hadn’t heard a word of what she’d said. His brain was foggy, as if in some sort of waking dream.

‘Am I still asleep? Maybe I’ll wake soon, drool on my chin, and the cat snuggled in.’ He briefly considered

“Sorry, what?” he asked, sighing. “Could you start again?”

She didn’t seem fazed. “I was just telling you about your test and what the scores revealed about you, Mr Axholm.”

“Del,” he corrected automatically.

Her voice remained steady, unwavering. “The application process and testing, Del, are designed to uncover various aspects of an applicant.”

She held a notepad in her hand but didn’t glance at it. Her piercing gaze remained fixed on him.

“We assessed how you handle pressure, solve problems, and your sense of right and wrong.”

“Pressure?” he scoffed. “It was just an IQ test and some games. I do those all the time. Was yours different in some way? Because I sure couldn’t tell.”

This time, she didn’t smile or look away. Her eyes, now distinctly grey, grew serious.

“Yes, Del. Very different, and far more so.”

“You don’t say,” he shot back, sarcasm thick in his tone. Frustration bubbled up, and he held up a hand to cut her off.

“Look, lady...” He sighed, rubbing at his temples. ‘Why does everything have to be so damned complicated?’

“I didn’t invite you here to give me test scores or tell me I’ve got some A-class IQ. Actually, I didn’t invite you in at all. I’m no super genius, and even if I was, so what!”

The start of a headache throbbed behind his eyes. He couldn’t remember if there were any pills left in the drawer or just that super-strong prescription stuff he avoided using.

“I like my life simple—coffee, cat, peace and quiet. Not... whatever the hell this is.”

She nodded, her expression unchanging.

“I thought it important you understood what you’ve managed and why I’m here because of it,” she replied calmly. “But if you’d prefer, I can provide a breakdown later for you to read—or throw away—as you wish.”

Del closed his eyes and exhaled sharply. ‘Count to ten, Del. Maybe she’ll be gone when you open them.’

She wasn’t.

He took a deep breath. “Fine. Go ahead and pile on the rest of the shit. Why not? This day’s already off the rails.”

Menolly’s gaze shifted slightly, assessing. After a brief pause, she nodded.

“Things are much worse than most people realise. This planet faces a crisis, one that will affect every living creature here.”

“Yeah, global warming or some other crap,” Del replied dismissively. “I’ll be long dead before that becomes my problem. And while I like polar bears as much as the next guy...”

He trailed off as her expression stopped him cold. Her eyes held a strange mix of sadness, determination, and something else he couldn’t place.

“I’m not talking about global warming or polar bears,” she said quietly. “And I might remind you that humans are animals too.” One eyebrow arched briefly.

“Touche,” he grunted.

Her voice softened as she continued, calm but insistent. “Let me step back and give you a brief résumé of who I am. Perhaps then you’ll understand better.”

She set down the notepad she hadn’t used once since arriving.

“My correct designation is Menolly 14711. I am a construct employed by an organisation beyond this planet’s parameters, part of the Sol monitoring collective.”

Del froze, mug halfway to his lips. Slowly, he set it down. The last thing he needed was a lap full of hot coffee.

“The who-what now?” he said, scepticism dripping from his voice.

This confirmed it—Del was off with the fairies, and the men in white suits would be arriving to collect him soon.

‘See, Del,’ he thought derisively, ‘this is what you get for constant jokes about going senile.’

“Monitoring?” he snorted. “Am I on some damned terror alert watchlist because of some website I randomly browsed?”

Menolly’s expression remained steady, her calm voice unwavering. “I know it’s a lot to take in, and I’m sure you have many questions and doubts. But this is important. You are important, Del. Of the several hundred thousand people who found the site and completed the tests, you were the only one so far to meet the criteria.”

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Del stood abruptly, pacing the room as he started peering into corners, behind the curtains, and even out the window.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her tone curious but unbothered.

“Looking for the cameras,” he muttered as he moved a picture frame and then examined the clock. “This has to be some sort of elaborate hoax. I’m not sure who the hell put you up to it, but you, my dear Menolly, have been rumbled.”

For a moment, her face showed genuine confusion, but it quickly shifted into something stern—almost frightening.

“Sit down, Mr Axholm!”

She didn’t raise her voice, but there was a command in her tone that he couldn’t ignore. Startled, he sank back into the chair, clasping his hands tightly to stop a slight tremble from showing.

Her face softened as she resumed her more neutral expression.

“When you woke this morning,” she began, “did you notice anything unusual?”

Del’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps,” he replied cagily.

“No people about? No sounds? Nothing moving?” she pressed.

His eyes widened. ‘Hold it together, Del.’

His mind raced. She was right—about the strange silence, the eerie stillness. His thoughts began to replay fragments of their conversation, pulling at the oddities she’d mentioned earlier.

‘You humans.’

‘Construct.’

‘BEYOND THE DAMN PLANET!’

“Are you some sort of bloody alien? Is everybody else dead or something? What is this? What the actual fuck is going on?” His voice rose with every word, his breath catching in his throat.

“Is this some kind of alien abduction?” he added, the sarcasm dripping. “Want me to bend over so you can stick a probe up my arse?”

She didn’t flinch. His tirade might as well have been waves breaking on a rocky shore for all the effect it had.

“I know it’s a lot to take in,” she said, her voice calm, a stark contrast to his ragged breathing.

‘Hold it together, Del; having a heart attack won’t exactly solve things,’ he told himself, forcing a deep, shuddering breath.

“Okay, I’m okay.”

‘Forget ten, just count to five and calm down,’ he admonished himself. His heartbeat slowed, and he turned his gaze back to her.

“So, what was going on this morning?” he asked, his voice more even. ‘Start with the simple stuff,’ he thought, though nothing about the day had been simple.

“Put simply, imagine existing in a time between time,” she began. “Well, we are—you and I, that is. In answer to your earlier question, no one is dead, at least not because of what you and I are part of.”

She uncrossed her legs and leaned slightly forward.

“Everything you’ve experienced since waking has existed in a space less than a nanosecond in time. No sound, as sound needs time to be heard. No wind, no moving cars, and no footsteps. Once we’ve finished, this bubble will end, and your time will return to what you consider normal.”

Del stared at her, feeling the beginnings of what he was sure would be the mother of all headaches.

“You stopped time?” His voice sounded hollow, defeated. The cascade of absurdities had worn him down. He felt drained, the anger and outrage replaced by a dull exhaustion.

He patted his lap, and Misty, sensing the cue, looked up from her box with a small mew. She pranced over and hopped into his lap, her purr bringing a faint sense of normality back into his mind.

“No, Del,” Menolly said with a faint smile at the cat. “Stopping time isn’t possible. Let’s just say your world has a limited grasp of the concept. Time can be,” she paused, as though searching for the right word, “manipulated.”

“Manipulated?” He frowned. The word felt wrong, like it didn’t quite fit.

“Rather than stopping time, we’ve stepped outside its normal flow, just for a brief period.”

Del closed his eyes, feeling as though he were strapped into a surreal nightmare. Every concept he thought he understood about reality was being upended.

“Let’s get back on track,” Menolly said, her voice cutting through his swirling thoughts. “I know it’s a lot to take in, but try to stay with me.”

“I’ll try, lady,” he muttered, “but I’m not making promises.”

“That’s a start.” She smiled faintly. “The Sol monitoring collective is one part of a group that observes worlds where sapient life is developing or has the potential to develop. The purpose is to watch passively and, when the time is right, to intervene as deemed fit.”

“What does that mean?” Del asked, leaning forward. “Intervene?”

“Sometimes a species doesn’t progress past certain developmental stages. In your past, the most successful genotype was the dinosaurs, yet they never developed true sentience. Long before them, another seedling species, very similar to your own, also failed.”

Del’s eyes widened. ‘Ancient civilisation?’ he thought. Could those crackpot conspiracy theorists have been onto something?

“By the time of a large asteroid impact, it had already been determined that the Saurons – the dinosaurs, were not going to achieve true sapience. In fact, they were actively preventing other forms of higher intelligence from developing on the planet.”

She paused, her expression unreadable.

“We did not intervene.”

That simple statement hit Del harder than anything else he’d heard that day, no matter how outrageous.

“At the moment,” Menolly continued, her tone calm but unyielding, “your astronomical observers are unaware that another, even larger asteroid will strike the planet in five years. The rock is already known but is currently considered in a safe near-Earth orbit. Six days before it is expected to pass harmlessly, it will be struck by another smaller, unobserved asteroid and diverted into Earth’s path.”

Del stared at her, dumbfounded. His mouth was dry, and his thoughts tangled in a boiling mess.

“It will be a massive extinction-level event,” she added.

He tried to respond, opening his mouth, but no sound came out. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth as his brain struggled to process the enormity of her words.

“But—” he managed to croak, the single syllable breaking through.

“You have to do something,” he said finally, the words tumbling out in a rush. “You said before you didn’t intervene.” He knew he was babbling, his words tripping over themselves, desperate to be expressed.

“Why tell me? Why not NASA or someone who can do something? I’m just a man, feeling older than my years, wasting away in a shitty little house.”

His voice cracked as the sting of tears rose in his eyes—tears of frustration, worry, and sheer disbelief.

‘Five years?’ Del’s mind almost froze at the enormity of that sentence.

“Mr Axholm,” Menolly said gently. Her eyes, now a deep grey, seemed to carry sadness. “You are not a nobody. As I said before, you are important.”

She moved her chair closer, her voice soft but steady as she placed a hand on his where it gripped the arm of his chair with a force that turned his knuckles white.

“Intervention is not something undertaken lightly. Mistakes have been made in the past and cannot be repeated.”

She sat back once more and clasped her hands in her lap, a surprisingly human gesture for what she claimed to be.

“In order for it to be considered, certain criteria must be met.” She lifted one finger.

“First, the race must demonstrate the ability to colonise more than their home world. Humanity is progressing towards this, but it is still years away.”

A second finger rose.

“Through innovation and invention, the species must prove it can sustain itself without destroying its home planet in the process.” She sighed.

“Humanity is a long way off from this.”

A third finger joined the others.

“The species must pass through its time of conflict and find ways to co-exist peacefully. In recent history, humanity has come dangerously close to self-destruction on multiple occasions. Had this occurred, no intervention would have taken place. A race determined to destroy itself is simply too dangerous to release into the wider galaxy.”

Finally, the fourth finger lifted.

“There must be cultural development that includes an understanding of morality. While not every decision will be the right one, they must be made with a sense of what is morally just.”

Del let out a long breath, his head dropping into his hands.

“So, I guess we’re totally fucked, then,” he muttered. “We have nearly made it to Mars—Yee bloody hah. But the rest of it? We’re royally buggered.”

He shook his head, raising his gaze to meet her unblinking grey eyes.

“Why tell me?” His voice almost cracked and his eyes glistened with moisture. “I could have gone on happily, enjoying my next five years, then—poof!—without ever knowing or caring that shit was about to get real.”

He reached for his coffee. It was cold again, but it was wet, and his throat was dry. Caffeine wasn’t going to help much, but he needed something. He gulped it down with a small wince at the taste.

The room was silent for a moment as he processed her words. Menolly waited patiently, understanding his need for time.

“Mr Axho… Del,” she corrected herself. Her voice softened. “As I said, you met the criteria. And that matters more than you know.”

Del wasn’t sure he was really listening anymore. His hand moved absently to stroke Misty, her soft ginger fur a grounding presence against his palm. Her rhythmic purring soothed him in a way he felt he didn’t deserve.

“How?” he asked finally, his voice barely above a whisper.

“You are correct in assuming the majority decision was for no intervention.”

He shrugged, a bitter smile tugging at his lips. ‘Figures.’

“There was, however, a moderation put in place,” she continued. “A chance to prove humanity’s purpose in the future of the Galactic Collective. A specification was devised to find a person—or persons—who could represent the planet’s potential. So far, you—singular—have passed the mark for the first phase.”

A chuckle began to bubble up in Del’s chest, rising uncontrollably until it burst into a full laugh. He struggled to get a grip on himself, his words tumbling out between gasps.

“You’re telling me,” he spluttered, “that of all the arses on this planet, you’re relying on a broken old fart like me?”

His laughter bordered on hysteria, but he managed to rein it in with a deep breath.

“My dear God,” he murmured, the smile slipping from his face. “We really are well and truly fucked.”