While the specific elements of humanity’s home world are not all that uncommon, their combination in their entirety rather is. For one thing, it exists in an orbit just far enough from its star to allow the chemical, dihydrogen-monoxide, to exist in its liquid state. And golly do they ever have a lot of it.

So much so, it’s a wonder they settled upon the name, Earth. I mean, really?

When it isn’t frozen solid or otherwise wending its way through the fairly thick atmosphere, ‘water’—our subjects’ preferred colloquialism—covers some seventy percent of the available landmass. Virtually all life on their planet relies on it in one way or another. Indeed, most of them can scarcely go a day without imbibing it, and that’s if they do not outright live in it.

Can you imagine?

Fortunately, humans have evolved past that weakness already, many of whom can go weeks without ever touching the stuff. As one might imagine, this factored heavily in our selection of Subject #2.

Next, we come to the previously mentioned atmosphere. Close to ninety percent of it is composed of nitrogen and oxygen, leaving the rest to a host of trace elements, including argon, helium, and neon. 'Water’ is usually present in its gaseous form, as well, ranging in concentrations from near zero to approximately four percent.

We have yet to determine which of these elements are most critical for the survival of our subjects, but previous experiments have revealed that if they are not constantly submerged within something very close to their own atmosphere, most humans will die within a matter of moments.

Indeed, the list of things that will instantly kill a human is so long, just naming them all would span the entire series. While they can briefly survive temperatures low enough to freeze their precious water, they certainly cannot once it reaches its boiling point. They require a steady supply of food, imbibed at least monthly and in specific combinations derived from their own flora and fauna, else their organs will cease to function. They can scarcely even withstand direct exposure to the light of their own sun.

The short of which is, choosing a suitable planet upon which to conduct our initial experiments has been an exhausting chore. Many of our interns even went so far as to quit in protest! Nonetheless, we have prevailed.

Enter the planet, RA-291.

< Cut to overhead shot of a slightly-too-green, Earth-like planet >

First discovered in the February of 27223 EGP, by the doggedly-prolific explorer, Ralph, this specific planetoid has heretofore remained an irrelevant footnote in our species’ history—the reasons for which are obvious at a glance. Nonetheless, the abundant wildlife and atmospheric conditions are very nearly perfect for our purposes.

Which is not to say that they are perfect. For one thing, this particular world has a rather disturbing tendency to produce—

< A large, egg-shaped object begins to slowly drift across frame >

—I say, hold on. Who launched the delivery pod? I haven’t even finished introducing the planet!

…

Misfire? Well, that won’t do at all! Now, we’re going to have to redo the entire monologue. Hurry and retrieve them before—

…

But that’s ridiculous! What kind of idiot would design an external docking mechanism like that?

…

What does that have to—? Cheap should not equate to non-bloody-functional! Can’t we use the transferral system?

…

I know that, you blithering…

…?

No, Timothy. I’m not mad at you. Just… pull the whole pod back through the bay doors, and we’ll—

…

Are they really? Well, that’s a spot of bother… Have you adjusted our projections for their angle of descent yet?

…

Oh, dear.

*****

For some reason, Mark’s subconscious mind had decided he would have a grand time reliving his one experience riding a roller coaster. He could still remember it vividly.

It had been his tenth birthday party. All his friends had been there, beyond excited to learn that the Judge Roy Scream was to be riding in reverse that day. To be fair, the line had been long and the day hot, so young Mark had not exactly been set up for success. Nonetheless, he had tossed a sidewalk pizza just over the second turn, and his dignity had never recovered.

Which is to say he woke up screaming…

…only to discover he was trapped in some sort of glass coffin, the whole room was shaking like a paint mixer, and his stomach felt like it was about to evert itself. And the only explanation he had for any of that was a singular red light just overhead irritatedly blinking at him to do something about it.

He decided to scream some more.

What he was not expecting—and given the situation, that list was short—was for someone else to start screaming back at him. Startled, he turned toward the noise.

“Marlboros?!”

He thought he detected a brief flair of hostility overtaking his most regular customer’s otherwise panicked screaming, but it was hard to tell. Most of her available body language was being used for pounding against her own prison—every strike of which was echoed by the glass with a pattern of red lines streaming resentfully away from her fists.

Not that his reply was much better. To be sure, he had a fair number of questions—and pressing ones at that—but they were competing against the veritable mountain of expletives his trembling psyche had strung together to help deal with the situation. The result of which left him struggling to do more than perform what was otherwise a remarkable impression of a screeching gibbon.

Naomi gave no visible sign of appreciating his accomplishment.

The exchange done, Mark felt his next course of action should involve some attempt at escape, and thus began pounding against his own enclosure.

It reacted poorly. After all, it had simply been trying to protect its passenger. What did it know? It was only a hyper-sophisticated AI developed over the course of thousands of years by some of the greatest minds in the universe. So what if the heat sensors along the bow of the ship had just melted? The apes wanted out? Out they would go!

*

Timothy? Where… exactly… did we purchase that delivery pod from?

…

I beg your—do you take me for a complete tit? ‘Your uncle knew a guy.’ What guy? Who goes around selling interplanetary xeno-delivery systems out of the back of his van?

..—

No! Never mind. I don’t want to know. At least that way I can retain some level of plausible deniability.

…?

…It’s for the best I don’t answer that right now.

*

Mark’s pounding soon revealed his own dizzying array of lines and patterns, which blinked just as redly at him as everything else thus far. Few would accuse him of being the sharpest tack in the box, but he was not completely lacking in pointy bits. Even he could tell a flashing red meant some sort of error.

Not that he had expected much else. His pointy bits were still directed toward using his bare fists to break through the glass—giving a fair estimation of just how blunted they truly were.

However, to his surprise, the lines actually shifted beneath his hands until they were centered beneath a large square. An instant later, the coffin emitted a cheerful little chime, and the angry red from before turned a refreshing green… all save a single, remaining line leading over to and connecting with Naomi’s cage. The implications of which were obvious.

“Marlboros!” he yelled. “The box! Touch the big, red—”

Before he could even finish, her palm slapped against something unseen, and her coffin lit up like a Christmas tree. The next moment, he felt a lurch noticeable even above the constant shaking. But his cage did not open. Instead, the outline of the square in front of him began to degrade in a clockwise fashion. Rather like a fuse.

“Uh…?”

The pods began to slowly tilt upwards.

“Oh, I don’t like this,” he heard from his right. They were the first intelligible words out of her lips, but she need not have bothered. The screaming had conveyed much the same. “I don’t like this at all!”

“Hey, it could still be okay,” he began, trying to remain positive. The lines were still showing green, after all. Green meant good. “Maybe these things are just setting us upright before—”

He forgot whatever else he was going to say when the explosive hissing of a pressure seal coming undone heralded the opening of a pair of bay doors just over their heads. He might have even experienced a passing moment of relief on seeing the sunlight streaming through…were it not for the torrent of flames licking around the edges.

Then the doors ripped off.

In that instant, Mark realized three things. One, there was far too much sky out there for his comfort. Two, the occasional glimpses of ground zipping past were both way too distant and curved to bode at all well. And three, vertigo was not helped by the knowledge of what was causing it.

Which was probably why he did not catch a fourth—and far more crucial—item.

“Oh, hell no!” Naomi shouted and started pounding on the glass again, trying to get his attention. “The timer! The timer thing is about to—!”

But it was too late.

With a sound vaguely reminiscent of potatoes launching from a pair of air cannon, their pods were forcefully ejected from the safety of the ship, through the flames, and into freefall. Predictably, Mark’s view of the next several minutes was almost instantly obscured by an acute lack of self-control, so he could be forgiven for missing the violent explosion their exit had only just evaded.

Naomi had not, however. Nor did she feel much the better for it. While their deaths had been postponed somewhat, she was only too aware of the ever-flattening horizon and the huge pile of debris now floating over their heads—assuming they lived long enough to worry about it.

“Come on, you stupid thing!” she shouted, franticly pounding against the glass. “Give me something. A hover device? Scramjets. A fuckin’ parachute! Anything!”

The glass only continued to flash redly at her. However, once it realized she had no intention of letting the matter drop, it finally producing a very-annoyed-looking button. Which she pressed with some haste. It made a point to save the behavioral data.

Blinking with surprise and no small amount of confusion, Naomi stared at the miscellaneous swirls, dots, and patterns the glass presented. None of it told her anything beyond what she had already gleaned from the horizon still spinning in the distance, nor could she perceive any difference in her rate of descent. So she resumed her pounding.

The glass instantly replaced the image with another. And another. If Naomi had been paying attention, she might have noticed that each of them represented significant shifts in the patterns displayed, however they all remained equally incomprehensible… at least until the glass began trying visual aids. These, finally, gave her mind enough to chew on to slow the abuse.

Strange topological maps and graphs flashed past the screen, all labeled with various, bizarre symbols, only to be exchanged with still others, some clearly astrogation charts and maps of planetary alignment. Then, with one last pound, a final image was displayed.

And this one…

Naomi blinked, dumbfounded. “The hell?”

This one looked like a NASA scientist had taken aside a six-year-old, quickly given them an overview of atmospheric entry mechanics, then dumped a box of crayons in front of them so they could draw it all out. But computer animated.

In it, there was a flat plane along the bottom—complete with rough sketches of trees, grass, and little waving people—and the sky above with a little dome on top to represent the edge of the atmosphere. Somewhere along the middle, there was a dotted line. The top half was flashing red. The bottom was a nice and calm blue.

Her pod—and she knew it was hers from the circle around the stick-figure woman and all the flashing arrows pointing at it—was still descending through the red. The gas station attendant had been marked similarly, though for some reason, his eyes had been X’ed out and there were several green swirls emanating from his pod.

Naomi stared for some seconds uncertainly. On the one hand, she now had a somewhat nebulous idea as to what was being communicated—even if what she was supposed to do with it still escaped her. And on the other, she had a sense that she was being insulted somehow.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

However, the outside edges of her pod looked like they were starting to heat up in much the same way as the unfortunate remains of their last vessel, so she set her sights on communicating her desire to not explode to the display. These mostly involved attempting to drag her displayed pod back upward with her fingers, a lot of swearing, and eventually more pounding.

This was quickly met with a new button, the pod having learned how to distract its unruly passenger. Naomi went to press it immediately, however this time, the button dodged out from underneath her fingers and left a minor shock in its place.

“Ow! The fuck?! You—” Naomi cut off her instinctual diatribe once she noticed a series of lines moving to connect the button with the figure of her descending pod and a pair of what could have been wings extending out from it. “Yes. That. That’s what I want.”

She tried to press the button again but, again, it dodged out of the way with yet another shock for her troubles.

“Damn it! What did you do that for?”

The display responded by drawing several more arrows toward the demarcation between the red area and the blue, then threw up another of those fuse-like timers around the button.

“I have to wait? Why? What possible difference could that make?”

A new screen popped up just long enough to replay the image of the ship exploding.

“Oh.” She glanced again at the glowing edges of her pod and the beginnings of flame starting to lick their way upward, and chuckled nervously. “Are you sure? I—I still think slowing down might be a pretty good idea.”

Several new images appeared, all showing clips from the early days of man’s aviation and with a common theme of airplanes getting their wings ripped off. Followed by another replay of the ship exploding just for good measure.

“Ah…”

*

It should here be noted that the intuitions of our viewing audience are one-hundred-percent correct. Every item under discussion between the pod-interface and Subject #1 should absolutely be automated. Allowing a manual override of such an advanced system by an undeveloped species would be beyond reckless.

However, it would be a mistake to equate undeveloped with unintelligent. Our subjects are well aware that they were taken against their will by beings with unknown and potentially hostile intentions. As such, it is absolutely critical that we establish a degree of rapport.

By allowing the destruction of our delivery ship and providing an illusion of self-governance—and make no mistake, this was facade entire—the AI-control mechanism has established a token separation within their minds from their heretofore unknown captors via the means of our own technology.

Or more simply, it helped them escape thus earning their trust. Let us cross our forelegs that this gambit has worked.

And for those bemoaning the cost of such of a venture…

Hmm… yes. The cost…

Timothy, remind me to—

*

Mark flailed listlessly in an acrid soup of his own making, only half-conscious. At that point in his existence, he was rather convinced he had had enough of it and would gleefully have put himself out of his misery if it meant never having to experience something like this ever again. The vertigo. The spinning. The smell.

The floating chunks that kept flying back into his mouth…

Worse, the screen in front of him would not let up with its incessant, angry flashing, as if he did not already know how undeniably screwed he was. However, after some time of this, the screen flickered, and a nice, big button appeared with lots of arrows pointing at it. Mark pressed it immediately in the hopes of at least putting an end to the strobe effect.

What appeared in its place was a simplistic but recognizable image of the two descending pods rapidly approaching some sort of demarcation line—similar to the one Naomi had seen but without the cartoony bits. The button had another of those fuse-timers around it, but this one was nearly spent. And it had started flashing with some urgency.

Mark pressed it again, almost completely out of a desire to get it to stop.

The instant he did, gravity reasserted itself. He—and the rest of the liquid—slowly squelched into a cushion at his back as the pod ceased its spinning and began a smooth glide through the atmosphere.

Mark nearly cried with relief. The ride from hell was nearly over. But more than that, he could see from the image displayed that not only was his own pod safely through the demarcation line, that girl’s was, too. He had saved her!

He smiled proudly. This would have to earn him some major points!

He turned to one side and spat out an undigested peanut.

*

Now that the excitement is over, let us turn our attention toward an important choice we must make as overseers of this grand experiment. Humanity’s preferred habitats are the previously-discussed population centers they build for themselves. Unfortunately, RA-291 has no such areas.

While otherwise abundant in the sorts of wildlife our subjects might find vaguely familiar, there are no species which produce the kinds of tools necessary to manipulate its environment nor even those which can communicate with one another beyond certain basic ideas. This will necessitate our subjects to start from scratch, as they say.

So then, the question: where to put them? The more extreme environments would lead to a very short experiment indeed! It can be neither too hot nor too cold. There must be plenty of ‘water’ but not too much. And they require abundant food sources.

Thus, let us select something in an equatorial region. Perhaps on one of the smaller islands where the fauna will not trouble them over much…

< The view descends over an island chain extending off of a peninsula and slows to a stop over the final one >

…Ah! Here we are.

Scans show a good amount of vegetation. Temperatures are well within tolerance levels. Being an island, it is inconceivable that they should lack for water. And nothing particularly nasty in the nearby area.

Yes, this should do nicely.

Now, there is nothing left for us to do but release our subjects and watch as they take their first steps…

…on a new world!

*

Naomi pressed her face as close as she could to the glass, trying to get a good look at her surroundings without actually touching it. The instant her pod had landed, the computer had produced a cheerful-looking button over an animated pair of doors opening… which doggedly chased her fingers around any time they got too close. But there was no way in hell she was going to fall for that.

Oh, sure. The sky was blue. The nearby ocean was rolling in with a soothing cadence. But the plants?

Those were sitting right in the uncanny valley of the pseudo-natural. There were lots of fern-like grasses swaying in the breeze, but unless the base of the plant was buried underground, each of them consisted of only the single frond. She did not know of any species of fern like that. Meanwhile, overhead was something that would have been familiar were its leaves not the size of an entire tree’s canopy. Then, covering the rocks nearby was what might have been moss. Emphasis on ‘might.’

Several possibilities were competing for space in her head. Her knowledge of plant life was not exhaustive, so it could have been some tropical island she had never heard of. But with the pod… and the exploding ship?

She grimaced conclusively. If that were the case, getting near those plants would almost certainly be a death sentence. There was only one thing ‘they’ could be counted on to do both well and prolifically, and that was making weapons.

Meanwhile, across from her, the other pod was just landing, affording her a good look at it for the first time. The glass only covered the front half like some kind of bulbous eye while the rest was reserved for sleek machinery. It all looked very high-tech, but she had never had much interest in that sort of thing. All she could say was that it was white and clearly meant to hold a person.

The passenger of which scarcely hesitated before palming the glass open and falling to the sand below.

“What an idiot,” she muttered ruefully.

In truth, she did not blame him. Much. The ride down had certainly been traumatic, and the poor guy did not seem to have handled it all that well. But just because you could start kissing the ground in relief did not mean you should. There were probably land mines out there.

“Hey,” she called. “Are you alright?”

He started to shake his head but quickly froze in favor of resting his forehead in the sand. “I’m fine,” he called back, obviously lying. “Just need to rest a minute.”

“Any nausea?” she persisted. “Tingling in your fingers? Can you feel your lips turning blue?”

He managed to lift his head just enough to fix her with a glare. “I’m motion sick, not a damned Whiscaaaarp… Ugh. Never mind.” Woosily, he climbed to his feet and began stumbling toward the water, pausing only long enough to glance ruefully at the sun once he exited the shade… and perform a startled double-take on passing one of the man-high fronds.

Naomi watched him with intense scrutiny. “Hmm… no mines so far. But those ferns have got to at least have some gnarly-assed neurotoxins going on. Or else what’s the point?”

Her pod responded by animating a little stick figure of her opening the door and celebrating happily. She flipped it off.

Once at the shoreline, the clerk kicked his ruined shoes off and began vigorously scrubbing at his face and arms. She wanted to tell him not to forget his hair, but she honestly doubted he would live long enough for it to matter. And sure enough, after about a minute, he began to sniff at himself curiously.

“Uh huh. Here it comes…”

“Hey, Marlboros,” he called over his shoulder. “Does the ocean normally smell like pee?”

She sat up straight. “Pee?!”

Quick as a flash, she slapped her palm against the much-relieved button and jumped down to the sand below. Then, making certain to give the plants a wide berth—and also glancing at the sun, it was ridiculously hot beyond the shade—she lightly toed her way toward him. “That’s ammonia! The ocean shouldn’t smell like ammonia.”

“Is that bad?”

“It isn’t good! How strong is the smell?”

“Uh…” He sniffed at his arm again, even going so far as to give it a curious lick. Like a complete moron. “It’s kind of making my eyes water.”

“That’s because its trying to dissolve them, dumbass. They used to use that stuff in glass cleaner.” She turned to glare at the rest of the island suspiciously. “I knew it! There has to be some kind of government lab around here.”

“It isn’t that—hold on. Government lab?”

Stumbling from the water, he paused a moment to take in the rest of the island for the first time, then started scanning the skies. But it was just a normal summer’s day. No moon. No stars. A few clouds in the distance… with a mildly green tint along their edges.

“Uh huh. You see that?” Naomi said, following his gaze. “I’ll bet they pumped us full of LSD while we were out.”

The clerk stared at her incredulously. “Okay? You got any more ‘Nam stories to tell me, Grandpa?”

She glared at him. “You think I’m joking?”

“I think you’re nuts,” he replied immediately. “Do you honestly believe our own government would go through the trouble of abducting us, shooting us into space, and pumping us full of drugs, only to then shove us into some kind of high-tech re-entry pod the likes of which I’ve never seen all so they could strand us on a remote island full of gigantic lily pads?!”

“Yes,” she replied. Deadpan. “But those are definitely a giant species of Colocasias, not Lily pads. They’re from entirely different families. And I’m pretty sure this is an archipelago. I got a pretty good look on the way down. Anyway, why? You got any better ideas?”

“Well…” He floundered for a moment. “It just seems like a lot of wasted money.”

She only snorted. “And you think we’re trillions of dollars in debt because of welfare?”

He started to shake his head. “I didn’t—look, all I’m saying is, let’s not jump to any conclusions. I don’t know if you saw that… thing that grabbed us. But I did. It wasn’t exactly… human.”

This time it was Naomi’s turn to fix him with an skeptical eye. “What are you suggesting? That it was aliens? Don’t tell me you buy into that conspiracy nonsense.”

The clerk just stared at her, agape.

“Look, I’ll agree that the situation is insane,” she began. “But what’s more likely? That a bunch of aliens climbed into their flying saucers, and zoomed across the galaxy just to do all those things? Or our own government… who everyone knows is corrupt as all hell?”

For a time, her co-victim’s pock-marked face assumed a thoughtful expression, unable to formulate a counterargument. She did not blame him. Few enjoyed being confronted with the truth. Fewer still were ready to accept it.

However, his next words were not ones she had been expecting.

“Your wrist is flashing.”

She stared at him, not following the change in subject. “…What?”

He pointed. “Your wrist. It’s blinking red.”

Naomi lifted her hands quickly, panic already rising in her throat. Sure enough, there—just beneath the skin of her left-hand’s wrist—was a dull, blinking light.

“Oh, God…” She began scrubbing at the spot furiously. “It’s a bomb! They planted a bomb in me!”

“Are you serious?”

“Of course, I’m serious! That’s exactly the kind of thing they would do. It’s gotta be some kind of proximity triggered device to keep us from escaping.” She glanced up just long enough to scan the area again. “Quick! We need to get back to the—”

Her head snapped back to stare at him, and she froze, her mouth slack.

He straightened uncomfortably and began smoothing his still-unfortunately-spattered work polo. “What? Did seeing that thing in your wrist give you a sudden appreciation for my masculine physique? I’ve heard stress can do that.”

She only just scoffed, barely even acknowledging the comment. She had heard stories about this sort of thing on the message boards but always dismissed them as flights of fancy. The technology simply was not there yet.

Somehow, this guy had been overlaid by a simplistic diagram of the human body, conspicuously in the same vaguely-insulting style the pod had been using. The two were clearly linked… but that had been on a screen. There was no screen now. There was only her own eyes.

Shakily, she reached up to feel at her face, but there was nothing there. No glasses. No phantom sensation of VR goggles. She was not even wearing contact lenses.

“Holy shit,” she breathed. “That’s… that’s not possible. How would they link up the nerve endings?”

“Huh?” The clerk stared at her in confusion for a moment before shaking his head. “Look, weren’t you freaking out about a bomb a second ago? Maybe we should—”

“No, shut up. Shut up,” she said vaguely, waving him away. “It’s no bomb. It’s—well, it might be a bomb too, but…”

She trailed off, trying to understand what the diagram was telling her. And trying to decide whether to trust it. Or herself. The possibility of this all being a drug-fueled hallucination was high.

But if she were to trust it, something was clearly wrong with this guy. His air passages and throat lining were flashing in red, and another of those buttons had appeared off to one side with lines connecting everything. There was also a timer, but this one was burning away so slowly, she could barely tell it was moving at all.

“Your throat hurts,” she proclaimed abruptly, finding his eyes again. “Doesn’t it.”

“Yeah…?” he admitted, then wiped his nose against his sleeve. “That tends to happen after tossing cookies, if you didn’t know. And that ocean water didn’t help much. I think you were right about there being a chemical plant around here. My nose won’t stop running. That might even explain why the plants are so big. I think I saw a movie about that once.”

She pursed her lips contemplatively. Whatever reservations she might hold for having something like this embedded into her skull and the loathing she felt for the people who had put it there—she was going to make a fortune in hush money once she got back to civilization—she had to admit that computer-thing had only been helpful. So far. And in the here and now, her options were to either push the button… or not.

But if she did and nothing happened as a result, that would make the hallucination theory much more plausible. She nodded, liking the sound that.

“Hey, let me know if you feel anything strange,” she said, swatting at the air.

He followed the motion uncertainly. “Like what?”

“Less ‘what’ and more ‘whether,’” she replied absently.

“Huh?”

She ignored him. There was too much information flickering past her eyes to bother with inane questions, and none of it was in any sort of format she could understand. However, after a couple of seconds, it settled down into a new display, much the same as the one before but with a couple of bars over his head. One was about three-quarters full and green, while the other was white and completely full… but steadily ticking down.

“Hello?” he tried again, clearing his throat. Then he shook his head dazedly. “Come… Come on. You’re… you’re starting t-to freak me…”

Abruptly, he threw himself to one side and began violently coughing and dry-heaving into the sand.

She grimaced, clearing her own throat sympathetically. “Damn… inconclusive.”

He was still recovering from motion sickness, and with an over-exposure to ammonia, this kind of thing was not exactly unexpected. And it would be just like a hallucination to provide some half-backed yet plausible excuse as to why it should—

An air pocket forced its way out of her throat, and she had to fan her face to disperse the scent of acid.

“Ugh…”

She blinked rapidly as tears filled her eyes. That was not like her. She had never been one to lose her cool just because someone else—

There was no more warning than that. Before the thought had even finished filtering its way through her mind, she was on her knees, just as violently losing her lunch as was the clerk. Her throat was on fire. Her lungs were not working. Mucus and blood starting oozing from her—

*

Ahem… I think we all get the picture, so for the sake of decorum, let us discretely pan away while these two… er… regain their composure.

Golly, what an episode, eh what? It isn’t every day you get to see an uncontrolled atmospheric re-entry… even if was mildly staged. But I won’t tell anyone if you won’t. We can let that be our little secret.

Now, I know you’re all wondering just what is going on with our test subjects at the present moment, and I’m quite certain many of you have figured it out already. Just don’t spoil it for your friends! They’ll find out in our next episode:

The VENUS!

…

Well, that was an utter cack! I don’t envy the boys down in editing, I’ll tell you that much. I don’t know how we’re going to salvage—