I go to the now-cooled and sodden carpet near the door and collect the remains of my broken mug.

“I liked that mug,” I grumble to myself. It was just the right size for a satisfying drink. I throw it in the bin and head for the kitchen. A couple of minutes later, I return, carefully place the new mug on the table, and sit back in my chair.

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

In my mind, I reserve the right to scepticism about whatever half-truths or lies she might throw at me. Alright, that bio of me was disturbing, but I’ve always been a bit paranoid about ‘Big Brother,’ so who knows what the hidden powers of this damn government are capable of. I’m pretty sure now that she’s in some way connected with MI5 or MI6 or whatever other designation she might be hiding behind.

She’s too damn perfect in her depiction of an anonymous suit; it’s right in so many ways that it seems to me—off.

She’s around 5’6” or 7”, slim-built with short, collar-length blonde hair and blue eyes that seem to turn grey at times. She sits there, every inch of her screaming precision. The kind of person who probably irons their socks. Her cream suit is immaculate, not a single wrinkle, like she’s stepped out of some high-end department store catalogue. But that isn’t what’s bothering me.

It’s her eyes. Blue, except when they flicker grey, like some old TV screen losing signal. It’s subtle, but just enough to make my skin prickle. Something isn’t right, and the fact that I can’t put my finger on it is distracting and—

She’s talking again, but my brain’s already checked out, focusing on the way her hair doesn’t move, even in the slight breeze from the open window. I realise my mind has wandered, and I haven’t heard a damn thing she’s said.

I feel like I’m losing track of what’s real and what isn’t. ‘Am I still asleep? Maybe I’ll wake soon, drool on my chin, and the cat snuggled in.’

“I’m sorry. What?” I sigh. “Please start again.”

“I was just telling you about your test and what the scores revealed about you, Mr. Axholm.”

“Del,” I retort.

“The application process and testing, Del, is designed to uncover various aspects about an applicant.”

She has her pad in her hand again but doesn’t need to look at it. Her eyes remain on me.

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

“Pressure?” I harrumph. “It was a damned IQ test and some games. I do them all the time. Was yours different from others in some way? ’Cos I sure couldn’t see it.”

She doesn’t smile this time or look away. Her eyes are grey, serious.

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

“You don’t say,” I shoot back sarcastically. This is just getting more frustrating, and I hold up my hand to stop her reply.

“Look, lady.”

‘Why do things have to be so damned complicated?’ I prefer a life that’s quiet and uneventful. This is just sounding, once again, like so much BS, and I’m getting a headache.

“I didn’t invite you in to give me test scores or tell me I have some A-class IQ or whatever. Actually, I didn’t invite you in at all.

I’m no super genius, and even if I was, so what!”

I rub at my temples; I’m going to need some painkillers and can’t remember if I have any pills left in the drawer or just that super-strong prescription stuff they give me for my legs.

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

She nods.

“I felt it important you understood what you managed and why I am here because of it,” she replies.

“But if you don’t want that information, I can provide you with a breakdown later for you to read or throw away as you desire.”

I close my eyes with a sigh. ‘Count to ten, Del. Maybe she’ll be gone when you open them.’

She isn’t.

I take a deep breath.

“Maybe I will, who knows. This whole day’s been screwy from the start, so you may as well go on piling on the shit.”

She looks at me, assessing as if deciding what to say. She gives a brief nod.

“Things are a lot worse than most of you believe. This planet faces a crisis, one that will affect every animal living here.”

“Yeah, global warming or some other such shit,” I reply. “I’ll be long dead before that becomes my problem, and while I like polar bears as much as the next guy…” The look in her eyes makes me stop mid-sentence. It’s sad, yet determined and—something else I can’t put my finger on.

“I’m not talking about global warming or polar bears. I might also remind you that humans are also animals.” One eyebrow raises briefly.

“Touche,” I snort.

Her voice is quiet, calm, as she continues.

“Let me step back and give you a brief resume of who I am, and maybe you will understand better.”

She puts down the notepad that’s been sitting in her hands, unused.

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

I’m about to sip from my mug as she speaks. Carefully, I put it back down—last thing I need is a lap full of hot coffee.

“The who-what now?” I say, scepticism thick in my voice.

This confirms it; I’m off with the fairies, and the men in white suits will be here to collect me soon.

‘See, Del,’ I think derisively. ‘This is what you get for constant jokes about going senile.’

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

“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.”

I stand up and start looking in the corners of my room, behind the curtains, out the window.

“What are you doing?” she asks, her tone curious.

“Looking for the cameras,” I say as I move a picture frame and examine 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.”

She looks at me. For a moment, confusion passes over her face, then it becomes stern—almost frightening.

“Sit down, Mr Axholm.” She doesn’t raise her voice, but it commands in a way I can’t ignore. With a start, I sit down and look her way, clasping my hand to stop the slight tremble from showing.

As I sit there, her face slides back into its more neutral state.

“When you woke this morning,” she begins, “tell me, did you notice anything a bit unusual?”

“Perhaps,” I reply cagily.

“No people about, no sound, nothing moving?” she asks.

I look at her, eyes wide. ‘Hold it together, Del.’

My mind is racing. She’s right about the weird things going on—or rather, not going on. My thoughts race back, replaying some of the strange things she’s said, as if there weren’t plenty of those already.

‘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?” My voice rises with every sentence, breath catching in my throat.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Is this some sort of alien abduction? Want me to bend over so you can stick a probe up my arse?”

She doesn’t flinch; my tirade might as well be waves beating against the shore for all the effect it has.

“I know it’s a lot to take in,” her calm voice a direct contrast to my short breaths.

‘Hold it together, Del; having a heart attack won’t exactly solve things.’ I take a deep, shuddering breath.

“OK, I’m okay.”

‘Forget ten, just count to five and calm down.’ I feel my heart beating in my chest start to slow and look at her.

“So, what was going on this morning?” I ask. ‘Start with the simple stuff,’ I think to myself. As if anything this morning has been simple.

“Put simply, imagine if you could exist in a time between time. Well, we are—you and I, that is. In answer to your question just now, nobody is dead, at least not due to what you and I are part of.”

She uncrosses her legs and leans towards me slightly.

“Everything you have experienced so far since you woke has existed in a space less than a nanosecond in time. No sound, as sound needs time to be heard; same with the wind, opening a door of a shop, and so on. Once we have finished, the bubble will end, and your time will return to what you consider normal.”

I think I’ll have the mother of all headaches that lasts at least a week.

“You stopped time?” I feel beaten, one absurdity after another. It’s just too much. I no longer have the strength for anger and outrage. This is just so far outside my reality. I pat my lap. Misty looks up from her box, gives a little mew, and prances over to jump into my lap. As I stroke her, she purrs and brings a small sliver of safe, bland normal back into my mind.

“No, Del,” she says with a small smile at the cat.

“Stopping time isn’t possible, but let’s just say that your world so far has only a limited grasp of the concept of time. It can be,” she thinks for a moment as if seeking the right word, “manipulated.”

“Manipulated?” The word feels wrong; it doesn’t fit.

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

I close my eyes. I feel strapped into some surreal nightmare. Every concept of what is and isn’t is being challenged.

“Let’s get back on track,” Menolly says. “I know it’s a lot to take in, but do try to stay with me.”

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

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

“What does that mean?” I ask. “Intervene?”

“Sometimes a species doesn’t get past certain developmental levels. In your past, the most successful genotype were the dinosaurs, yet they never developed true sentience. Long before them, there was another seedling species very similar to your own. It died out before the monitoring started.”

‘Ancient civilisation?’ I think with a start. Did those damned conspiracy theorists actually get something right?

“By the time of a large asteroid impact, it had been determined that the Saurons were not going to get anywhere and were, in fact, preventing a true sapience from developing on the planet.”

She pauses.

“We did not intervene.”

That simple statement hits me harder than some of the more outrageous things I’ve had to deal with today.

“At the moment,” Menolly continues, “your astronomical observers are unaware that another even larger asteroid will hit the planet in five years. The rock is known but considered in a safe near-earth orbit. Six days before it passes harmlessly, it will be struck by another smaller, unobserved asteroid and diverted into Earth’s path.”

I stare at her, dumbfounded. Mouth dry.

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

I try to speak; I open my mouth. Nothing comes out—tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, and my brain feels like it’s boiling.

“But—”

I struggle to get my words out.

“You have to do something. You said before you didn’t intervene.” I know I’m babbling, my words tripping over themselves in their need 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.”

I feel the sting of tears in my eyes, tears of frustration and worry and shock.

‘Five years?’

“Mr Axholm,” she says almost gently. Her eyes are sad and grey. “You are not a nobody. As I said at the beginning, you are important.”

She brings the chair closer to mine and speaks to me quietly.

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

She clasps her hands in her lap. For a construct—whatever that is—she sure has ‘human’ done right.

“In order for it to be considered, criteria have to be met.”

She lifts a finger.

“First, the race has to show its ability to colonise more than their home world. Humanity is on its way to doing this, but it is still some years from being achieved.”

Another finger lifts.

“Through innovation and invention, they have to prove able to be self-sustaining without destroying their planet in the process.”

She sighs.

“Humanity is a long way off from this.”

A third finger raises.

“A species must pass through the time of conflict and find ways to co-exist peacefully. There have been many times in recent history when your race has come very close to self-destruction. Had this happened, no intervention would have taken place to stop it. A race determined to destroy itself is just too dangerous to be let loose on the wider galaxy.”

The final finger joins the others.

“You have to have cultural development that understands the concept of morality. While it is acknowledged that not every decision is the right one, the choice has to be made based on a sense of what is morally right.”

My head drops. I let out a long breath.

“So, I guess we’re totally fucked, then. We nearly got to Mars—Yee bloody hah. On the rest, we’re royally buggered.”

I shake my head and look up at her, right in her eyes.

“Why tell me? I could have happily gone on, enjoying my next five years, then—poof!—without ever really knowing or caring that shit was going to get real.”

I reach for my coffee. ‘Bah, cold again.’ Still, it’s wet and my throat’s dry, and I sure need that hit of caffeine.

There’s silence for a minute as I process all she’s said, and she lets me, understanding my need.

“Mr. Axho… Del. I said you met the criteria. And that matters more than you could know.”

I’m not sure I’m really listening at this point. I absently stroke Misty, her ginger fur soothing against my skin. Her purrs are reassuring in a way I don’t deserve to be reassured.

“How?” I say at last.

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

I just shrug. ‘Figures.’

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

I start chuckling; it rises up and starts to bubble out loud. I find it hard to get a grip on myself.

“You are telling me,” I splutter between breaths, “you are telling me that of all the arses on this planet, you’re relying on a broken old fart like me.”

My laugh is almost hysterical as I try to control it. With a gasp, I get a grip.

I want to care, I really do. But what the hell difference can I make? It’s all too much, beyond me. Yet she, this damned whatever-she-is, thinks I matter.

“My dear God,” I breathe. “We really are well and truly fucked.”