A Hugorag cracked open another can of soda.
It was “Chugging” the soda with glee. That would be the best way to describe how it was consuming it. It was consuming the beverage in such a way that includes chugging the whole can down its mouth during consumption and then spitting out the can after. Don’t judge, I’m sure some stuff we do is strange to alien eyes.
Edregraber (who prefers to go by the nickname Edreg) relaxed.
Edreg loved Earth's carbonated beverages. It was one of the few of humanity's creations that the alien enjoyed.
The alien was starting to get bummed out that canned beverages were getting harder to come by due to the lack of operational beverage factories. Each visit to Earth had to be done with the utmost caution, to prevent discovery. It was a tedious process of continuously having to fly the ship down to Earth and scan the ground to salvage any unopened cans.
During each soda can run, their ship would descend. Thankfully the ship was able to become invisible to the human eye. Dogs and oddly squirrels were the only Earth creatures whose eyes could view the ship. The dogs would bark and the squirrels would blare their teeth and chuck nuts at the ship as it flew by. Edreg would send out a droid that could walk out to get more retrieve the crew more junk food. The droid looked humanoid from a distance but would startle a human if seen up close. So the droid was only sent out when the area was clear. The ship was scouting out new cities each visit, their resupply options were getting slim. Either the city was already scavenged by humans, or it was burned to the ground.
Edreg gets agitated if they don’t get a can to consume at least once every 29 Moon phases. Currently, they were hiding the ship behind the dark side of the moon. Edreg cursed because those damn cans were so addicting.
They sat viewing the screen. The main screen, was quite the spectacular screen, filled with tinier screens. The hundreds of tinier screens on the main screen were constantly moving. Showing viewpoints from different places around Earth. A few of the tinier screens were blacked out. The blacked-out tiny screens were eyes that were out of commission. Edreg's vision was able to comprehend and absorb all the activity on all screens at once. Edreg always hoped to see movement someday on one particular blacked-out screen.
Edreg's shipmate Rackterberg rolled in. “Anything interesting?”
Edreg let out, what could only be described as a conservative sigh. “Not really, nothing of note. All the interesting chaos ended a few years ago, Earth is getting kind of dull”
“Have you tried changing up the viewpoints? Perhaps move the eyes?"
"You don't think that I haven't already tried that?"
"Why not try new locations on Earth”
“I’ve already considered locations that are channeling negative energies. All the interesting stuff happens in those areas"
"So..."
"We can't risk another visit to Earth to move the eyes. If we move the eyes to areas with major activity, it may not be worth the risk. At best, it’s a battle, and then all the activity soon ends. The humans are as cautious as they are. Either do their battles remotely now or finish them too quickly. The eyes can only move in 180 degrees, so the humans move out of viewpoint. We're shit outta luck. Plus, the eyes are stuck with a dull viewpoint sometime after the conflict is over. Leaving us a permanent area of no interest. At worst, it’s just a group of dinosaurs irritated at each other. Then they leave and we got nothing to look at once again." Edreg slumped down more in their chair.
"I miss our eye birds. We had so much mobility to view all the action, anytime, anywhere”
"Too risky, there still might be fake bird conspiracy theorists.
“Damn them conspiracy theorists and damn all humans in general. Those damn humans can’t reproduce quickly enough. We need more humans. The more humans, the more tension and more chaos. The apocalypse saved our channel numbers for now but it may be the cause for our project cancelation if we don't find more content soon"
“We need another content idea soon”
“Did the origin screen turn back on yet?”
“It’s on and functional. However, the screen displays no activity. I imagine it's covered with something. I recieve no audio feedback ever. It has to be either buried or packed away”
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Several years ago, "eyes", or as the humans called them "cameras", were dispersed throughout different places on Earth. The Hugorag crew decided that plushies were perfect for viewing the activity throughout the earth.
The Hugorag crew nicknamed one camera the "origin" camera as it the one that saw the origin of the apocalypse.
They tried different ways to view Earth, such as airborne cameras were similar to Earth's drones. They disguised them to look like pigeons That didn't work out, as many creations and things killed their decoy pigeons. The one Earth conspiracy group that protested that all creatures with wings weren't real, had quickly ended their approach using drones disguised as birds.
The Hugorag's ship had distributed eyes around the planet more than a thousand ago. Swapping them out every few decades with more up to date tech. The Hugorag's favorite choice to leave hidden eyes were in plushies. One such item happened to be a toy ghost plush. The aliens found that plushies tend to be held with care and kept around for long periods of time before they are thrown away.
The eyes had an option to hear and send audio feedback. The origin eyes, which happened to be placed into a ghost plushie, had been unresponsive for quite some time.
There was a small team that handled the task of speaking through and viewing yes locations. However, due to budget cuts, many of the aliens on the crew were let go.
Their employer, who also happens to be the ruler of the world Hugorago, had also ruled the entertainment industry with an iron fist.
Their employer had cut the team down to size due to the decreased activity on Earth. Rackterberg and Edreg were some of the lucky ones left to continue to project. The crew was small so they had rotating shifts to watch the feeds. The resting team would be frozen in short term hibernation. Rackterberg and Edreg were on the same rotating shift, they would often reminisce about their favorite moments in the early days of the apocalypse.
The Hugorag crew been watching Earth for about a thousand years. They had only interfered with human society when they agreed on an amusing idea that would mess with a majority of humans. The best moments caught on the Hugorago eye feeds were saved and sent back to their planet for viewing.
Sadly, the moments that were worth saving and sending back were few and far between. The content being sent back decreasing.
The Hugorag crew didn't say it, but the thought of the the projects cancelation dwelled in the back of their minds constantly. The projects cancelation would most likely mean the end of their lives as well. Their employer/ruler was not known to be forgiving.
The crew had hidden their ship safely behind the dark side of the moonl Luckily, no humans had ever seen them. Some humans have seen their competitors, who travel from other planets. The many different crews from planets trying to record some entertainment, would sell the content to different corners of the galaxy. Often times, to the Hugorag crew's employer if the content was good enough. Edreg and Rackterberg hated all the other crews, as they were reckless and were often seen and caught by humans. The lack of professionalism and carelessness in their approach had more than irked Edreg.
A competing crew from their neighboring planet, Popruhba. Had caused a major incident when they went to visit Earth for more content, they went under scrutiny when the Popruhba crew crashed onto Earth dozens of years ago. The Popruhba planet were fined heavily for their foolishness. No planet can handle the ginormous fines from the Galactic RIAU (The Galactic Recording Industry Association of the Universe).
Rackterberg and Edreg had to be stealthy on their visits to Earth to avoid fines.
Rackterberg was new and thought that Edreg’s laid-back attitude but professionalism for the entertainment industry was pretty cool. “Is there any way to move or decommission that camera?”
“Nope, only the objects the camera is hidden in can be moved, this is for security purposes to reduce the chance of our cameras being noticed. We are out of spare eyes. I know where the eye was last located, but trying to move it can be risky if the higher-ups find out about it. Our eyes are smaller than most common human eye can see, but we can’t take any chances trying to move stuff around the ground without putting in request form to do a equipment relocation request. Most of our eyes are commonly hidden in some sort of plush, but our tech team also hid some in irregular locations such as bricks, street signs, trees, furniture, trees, you get the idea. When they were placed, our first team wasn't sure what would be entertaining to record. Now, the locations the eyes were placed are now kicking us in the reebratuba. I got word back during last moon phase that our ratings are going down at an alarming rate, we have just a short moon phases left to think of a new idea before they cancel our project.”
“Thanks for reminding me. Now, I’m sure we could get more viewership if we could figure out what happened to that girl, Jasmine. The viewers loved her. Perhaps we can make a one time exception to send out just one bird drone to scout for her?"
Edreg closed all six eyes for six seconds, “tried that, no luck finding her”.
Rackerterg rolled out of the co-captain pod. “Well, try it again. I’m going back to hibernation, wake me if anything interesting happens” Edreg rolled all six eyes, “Fine, but don’t nap too long, two of us are supposed to be at their stations at all times"
Rackerterg laughed, it sounded like dolphins when they sneezed above water.
Edreg continued, "You know what, whatever. Go ahead and nap for however long as you want, most of the human population is gone anyways and I doubt anything interesting will happen for a while while I send out the bird drone”
“You sure?”
“Ideally we would wait a few hundred years for humanity to regrow to work on our next project, but we don't have that kind of time. So I need you well-rested because we need one good plan or they'll send us back to work in the mines”
Rackerterg's body shuddered, “Thanks”
Rackertergs rolled out of the room.
Edreg stared at the large screen. “What to do now….”