"Some are calling it Trialgate. It's a global phenomena involving teenagers even in our own neighborhoods. Is it mass hysteria, a colossal hoax, or perhaps something more? Join News on 7 at 6 when we sit down with a panel of experts to break it down. "

The voiceover pulled my attention to the streaming newsfeed and I shifted over to sit by my homework station. That had sounded like information was coming out into the general public in a major way. I shut down the newsfeed and pulled up the results from my Google Research Assistant. I didn't want to wait till 7.

There was information now, it was almost too much. I ghosted through a couple of news aggregators reading clickbait headlines and a few summaries, then jumped over onto a couple of forums and scanned the message boards. Without really thinking about I popped up my note-taking software and started clipping relevant details for it to auto sort.

After about an hour, and way more serious attention than I had ever given an academic research project I stopped and checked over the notes. The three most popular interpretations of the whole trial thing were wildly different with different levels of evidence.

The most common was some kind of flash mob style global hoax perpetrated by thousands of groups of teenagers all with various motivations. Since I'd lived through the trials and seen powers with my own eyes, hell even had powers now, I was calling bullshit on that one.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Next up was some kind of convoluted conspiracy thing where the illuminati, or the greys, or whoever had perfected some kind of broadcast mind control device inducing hallucinations of the trials and all their changes. I wasn't going to go grab tinfoil from the kitchen to make a hat, but it did bear considering. How do I know the difference between a supernatural occurrence that gave me magic powers and tripping balls hard enough to think I have powers? I tried to think of a way to logically test it and couldn't come up with anything. In the end I decided that as long as things stayed consistent it didn't matter. If I was in a padded cell right now having a delusion, I should try and enjoy it. Had to be better than just staring down at the sleeves of my straight jacket right? There was zero benefit to acting like this was all just an illusion.

That left the third most popular option. I was lumping the religious God was testing us in with the aliens are invading people. Whether they rolled up in a ufo or a chariot of fire, some outside entity had introduced the trial system onto earth. I was pretty sure this was the right answer.

The trick now was to drill down into the how s and why s of the trial system so I could use and abuse it. Was it setting the stage for an actual invasion? Was it an uplift project before they introduced us to the rest of galactic civilization? Was it just for shuts and giggles? Alien minds are alien by definition. Would it even be possible to understand why they'd introduced the trials?