“So you’re the Interviewer,” Noah says.

There is no response.

“How do we do this? Do I just—”

The Interviewer seizes control of Noah’s memories, and the ‘interview’ begins.

“Whoa, okay, you’re already in my head. Guess I’m not getting dinner first.”

Noah shudders, then focuses. He needs to get this right.

“So, I imagine you want to start from the beg— Oh, no, okay, I guess you’re choosing where to start. A fan of in media res, I see.”

Noah’s voice and thoughts become one, and the world gives way to memory.

‌

∎ ∎ ∎

I had just finished stacking up a display of razorhorn heads in a rather Jenga-like arrangement when my assigned representative entered my store.

Semermen Lassmen Bondmen Serment was an officious looking man with green skin the color of guacamole vomit.

To call him a man stretched the definition of that word far past what we might usually use it to mean. He was not a human, but an alien, with a frog-like head and appendages that were closer to tentacles than limbs.

An alien accountant. Or something very much like it.

Standing in my new shop, smiling at me.

Ready to show me the wonders of corporate life.

Semermen Lassmen Bondmen Serment

[The Corporation] Representative

Position: Satisfaction Coordinator

“Hello hello honored Merchant First Class! Have I got the best news for you?”

“That’s… not how you’re supposed to say that. It’s supposed to sound rhetorical, not like an actual question. And that’s not my rank.” This wasn’t my first rodeo with the representative, but his species’ odd way of speaking—and Semermen’s ‘poetic’ take on it in particular—was still a pain to deal with.

“Come come, we have much to discuss,” he said, heading toward the back of my shop. “Feel free to make yourself at home.”

They learned manners and social cues through our entertainment. Just between me and you, they weren’t the smartest aliens you’ve ever encountered.

Well, that I’ve ever encountered. I imagine you’ve encountered more.

I sighed and joined Semermen, who was seating himself at what looked like an oversized dinner table but which was actually one of the armored plates of a razorhorn alpha, which I’d yet to set up a display for.

“So what’s up?” I asked as I stood beside him. I wasn’t letting him rope me into sitting down again. I got paid the same no matter how long he spent trying to pitch me, so I’d just as soon have it over with quickly.

“The sun, I believe. And my alveoli!”

“Uh huh. I mean, why are you here?” It sounded harsh, and I didn’t want to get penalized for impropriety—a condition of our recently renegotiated agreement—so I slapped his ‘arm’ good-naturedly before I could catch myself.

He looked down at it. “Ah. Is this another human gesture?”

“Yeah,” I said, subtly wiping my now-slimy hand on my pants. I’d need to wash them soon, as the substance would eventually eat through the material.

“Of friendship?” he asked with large watery eyes.

“Uh, sure. Yeah. Friendship.”

“Then I shall endeavor to satisfy your friendship desires.”

“Eh… good. I think.”

“Oh indeed it is splendidly grand. Now let us begin our process of great joy and happiness and profit. Much profit.” He giggled as he pulled out a ream of paper from nowhere and slammed it down onto the table, which actually cracked under the weight.

That was going to hurt its resale value.

I should have expected nothing less from him, but as usual, I wasn’t expecting him in the first place.

Semermen’s big eyes grew wide. Not his eyelids, which he didn’t have, but the eyeballs themselves, which stretched and distorted, like demented silly putty. He stared at me, then at the table. “I think you broke it.”

“No,” I said vehemently, “we’re not doing this again. That was all you.”

He tittered. “No worries my friendship boy, we’ll just include that in your starting credits. No need to mention it in my satisfaction report. No siree indeed no need whatever.”

I sighed. At least he’d finally gotten it through his head that I wasn’t a girl.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

I slid the document stack in front of me. It actually took a good deal of effort. The stack had to weigh at least two-hundred pounds, and it was rough paper, so didn’t slide easily over the less-than-smooth armor-plate table.

“You’ll find everything is grand, the changes minor. I wouldn’t want you to waste your time reading it.”

“It’s fine,” I muttered, standing at the edge of the table and flipping through the contract, looking for a specific section.

I could feel his giant eyes on me as I read.

“Lease my own land?!” I cried a minute later after finding and reading the ‘caveat’ section. “What kind of bullcrap is that?”

“Oh the very best kind. And of course daily property tax, compounded daily, is of course due daily, per each franchise.”

“Property tax on rent? How is that fair?”

“Uh, you see good sir, it is technically a lease, and so of course, we could not in good conscience not allow you not to not pay.”

I rubbed my face and groaned. “Please learn to speak normally. That is one of the most confusing sentences I’ve ever heard from a sober person.”

“Oh, do not worry my good lad lovely, you are not being charged with a crime. Everything is wonderful and grand. We are sure you will keep up with your rent payments and taxes.”

“My rent?” I squinted at him. “I thought you said it was a lease.”

He chuckled. Distinctively nervously. “Ah, erm, this interpreter…” he looked around as though for an exit, gooey sweat beading on his knobbled forehead, “…not what they used to be.” He forced a laugh and slapped a tentacled finger against my arm so hard I flew across the room, whereupon I slammed into the pile of razorhorn heads I’d just spent the past hour stacking, and fell to the floor.

I groaned, and then my world went black as the entire stack of heads buried me.

‌

∎ ∎ ∎

“My dear girl, worry me this is a travesty. You need to put some meat on you.”

The accountant’s nonstop blathering brought me back to consciousness.

“Please stop talking,” I croaked. “And I’m a boy. I thought we’d pinned this down already.”

“Of course of course my boyish girl.”

I grunted, lifting my head and taking stock. I was lying a few feet away from the collapsed pile of heads. He must have pulled me out.

Great, more clothes to wash. Hopefully the collapse hadn’t created any dimensional holes in my floor. We had enough of those around here already.

I quickly checked over my body to see if I had any extra holes.

“Oh she’s confused,” Semermen worried to himself. “You must have a concussion. Come let me help you stand to your wobbly feet. You mustn’t lie down like that. You must stand stand stand. It is not good for concussion to sleep like that. You could die!”

He shouted this last so loud I felt my eardrums crackle.

I groaned and let him help me up as he continued rambling on, talking about valuable business partnerships and amazing future opportunities.

“Next time,” I told him, “don’t try to copy our physical interactions. You’re too strong.”

He put a tentacled hand over his mouth and let out a coquettish laugh. “Oh you’re too kind good sir.”

“And please train your interpreter on some newer movies.”

“Oh there will be no more movies. The broadcasts are all the entertainment any civ needs. Yay!” He jumped up once and clapped his ‘hands’ together.

I liked him better when I expected him to be a boring accountant.

By this point, you’re probably wondering how I got here.

No that’s okay don’t answer.

Let me just back up and tell you how I wound up in this situation. It’s kind of a funny story.

At least if you’re not me.

‌

∎ ∎ ∎

I had a wish. A dream. A life goal. A purpose, you might even call it, I daresay.

And now see how Semermen has rubbed off on me. I’m beginning to sound like the scoundrel.

As you might have guessed, the fulfillment of my life goal hadn’t turned out like I expected or like I wanted.

Have you ever had one of your wishes granted, only to find out it’s not at all what you want?

Yeah, probably not. Do you even have wishes?

Anyway, that’s what happened to me the day the world changed. Though, it wasn’t really a day. It was a year.

Sort of.

We were first informed that our world was going to change on New Year’s Eve 2020 in most of the world, New Year’s Day 2021 in Australia, via a rather odd letter.

At first, it was thought to be a hoax. Some people took it seriously, but not the majority.

There were admittedly other things going on at the time.

A time in which I was living in Byron Bay—something like a rural, extra-crunchy Beverly Hills, but in Australia. So basically more bugs, more sun, more things that will eat you. That aren’t human. This wasn’t Florida, where that kind of thing happened at least thirteen times.

It’s true, look it up.

Anyway, I ran a small bookstore slash bike shop slash coffee shop. How I came to be in such a position at the tender age of twenty-one is a long story, but it involves a dingo, a rich girl, a very attractive professor, an unfortunate coincidence, a global pandemic, and student loans.

I’ll save you the tedium of hearing it, and just say that I wasn’t given much choice in the matter.

That said, I didn’t hate my situation. The store was half a block from the beach and less than two from the apartment I was staying in, so my commute was short. And it was a nice town, devoid of the normal monsters you associate with Australia. At least at first.

Things would change once The Corporation and its system arrived.

But at the time of that letter, that was a year away.

That bloody letter.

It arrived via unknown means to everyone in a position of power, including presidents, prime ministers, legislators and representatives of all stripes, and, for some inexplicable-at-the-time reason and why I knew about it, business owners.

That so many people had received it all at once all around the world and without any postal marks or even envelope was interesting, but people wrote it off as a prank, or maybe an ad campaign for some movie or game. Merely an interesting distraction occasionally popping up in the news.

It didn’t help its credibility that in many languages it read like a bad machine translation.

Even though I had normal memory back then, I read over it so many times that I still recall it perfectly.

This was the message we received:

Controlling member of unincorporated civilization, your Region has been inducted into the Corporate Civilizations. Welcome. As is standard procedure, you are receiving this missive one [Largest Standard Age Notation] before your assigned system arrives to assess and enhance your home. It has been determined that only one planet in your Region is conducive to Corporate culture.

And that was it. Short and simple, no instructions, no sinister warnings, just a simple statement that something was coming a year hence.

Weirdest of all—okay, maybe not of all but still quite weird—was the bit about the largest standard age notation. At some point that changed to year. Words on paper generally don’t change on their own, so you can see how it would be a point of interest.

Given the internet being a thing, and all the conspiracies it had brought to light, you might think something like that would be investigated.

You’d be right.

But if you thought anything would come of it, you’d be wrong.

Maybe the global pandemic happening at the same time had something to do with that.

Now look, I wouldn’t call myself paranoid, or a conspiracy theorist. Just a realist. Some things just didn’t make sense. I mean, look how the world ignored the letter. And you exist, the whole system thing. I’d say I was more right than wrong.

Okay, sure, I was wrong about a few things, but in my defense, I never claimed to know for certain the Earth wasn’t a globe, only that I couldn’t verify that myself. At the time.

I mean sure, the physics said it was a globe, but I’m not a physicist. You realize the whole mess is just based on axioms?

You know what that means? Something taken as fact, something that doesn’t need to be proved. Something self-evident.

To that I say, self-evident to who? To what?

To us?

Well, I think the system’s arrival shows that our understanding of reality was, at best, woefully inaccurate.

Which is part of the reason why almost no one was prepared when our world was finally invaded.

But I was.

Just not enough.