Banal Heed And What's Really Going On

Recruitment was always easy here.

Type the invitation. And see what we pull in. Assign as necessary. The orders are always precise. It liked that. Other places weren’t so oblivious, and the goal caught on too quickly, and a handful of times in the last two hundred years, They were unable to back out quietly. But this place….these ones….they were blinded by their desire to have their ego’s stroked, and They’d be reduced to folk legend. Whatever that was. Out of thousands they’d find the precious few They needed. Excellent.

The plan was simple. Find the ones with the most brain activity. Thousands of years ago, They swept up nearly a whole civilization for Their needs! Plucked one by one from the dark sands and triangle shaped tombs a brilliant, genius people. Interesting how they hadn’t forgotten yet, It thought. How splendid to come back and see how evolved they had become! Surely They’d find more here…especially now. But They had to be careful. The new breeds were still wondering about the last time.
It now waited after sending the admissions to Headquarters. Would They approve? And which ones? It wondered about Its ability to choose….did It still have those finely tuned skills to sense a being’s ability to produce high frequency brain waves above any other of its specie. It clicked a few times and brought up the newly revised Master List and did a quick checklist to Itself. Imagination? Extreme. Education of its native language? Perfection. Writers had the ability to dream up amazing sequences. Artists understood light and shadow, numbers, measurements, color. It was all there. When Headquarters approved, the test would begin. It would finalize everything. And then: Extraction.

It waited still. If It could sigh, It would. It had no patience within Its mainframe. So many of them responded this time! It had a Master List months ahead of Its deadline. It was very interested in which ones They would select when suddenly, the response came. It clicked. It downloaded.

All one hundred members have been assigned dates and times. Proceed with next Master List.

If It could smile, It would. Amazing. The whole list? They were working fast. Of course, They were so hungry. Would They be too greedy this time, It wondered. It clicked back to the internet page. With the name It gave Itself. Banal Heed. Ha! So opposite from Their goal, to pay attention to the ordinary. Yes, Yes. Don’t look over here, It thought. Don’t notice the extraordinary. Then you’d see Us. So effortless, with their new technology, It could blanket by the millions, the ones who were not ordinary. It thought back to being greedy again. No matter. They wanted, It would give. It scanned the page, the entries of new hopeful humans who had no idea….

Assignment One began within the hour. She got a flat driving down route 13. It was way too dark to be able to do anything. She stood leaning up against her car with the cellular phone to her ear, wondering why, at this moment, she couldn’t get a damn signal. When the pitch black of the night was interrupted by a bright stream of light, she shaded her eyes and stood up right. It dazed her, warming her with unbelievable strength and she would not notice that she began to sweat under it. She would not notice her long dark hair being pulled from her scalp. She would feel her boots lift from the ground, and never feel her fingers scorch as her cellular phone melted in her hand. All she would know at that moment was a light so hot it froze her solid. A light that would sizzle the skin away from her bones then pulverized what bones it didn’t want or need. Until all that was left was a heap of soaked clothing, and a throbbing brain and spinal cord floating in the light. Slowly, the organ and its array of attachments followed the light upward until it was gone.

Later, They retrieved what They wanted, sorted through its information and images. They would delete what took up too much power. It was noted in the Main Log that the last thought the brain understood was “I don’t think that’s Triple A”.

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Tags:

sciencefiction, short and story