At the same two-seater table where I’d fallen in love with him three years ago, Brad pleaded with me over his turkey-tomato wrap. “Julia, I know you broke up with me because I never put your feelings first. That was wrong, and I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”
Though relishing his burst of humility, I hesitated.
“We risked going to prison for a flashlight?” Big Ricky’s voice dropped to a deadly whisper. Meager light from a flickering yellow streetlamp outlined the alley’s brick wall and a dumpster off to the side. A brisk September breeze swept past them as Ricky and Jimmy crept down the alley. You wouldn’t have guessed…
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She points to my scarred neck. “You’re one of them?”
I turn up my collar and bury my nose in my book. The woman sitting across from me leans forward, waiting for a response.
I don’t look up. Get another seat, lady.
She takes the hint and rifles through her carry-on bag.
Sadie was seven years old, sitting next to her father on the flat roof of their low-slung barn as they watched farm workers move through the fields under the harvest moon. The mechanical whir of the robots filled the warm September air, and crickets sang along. Their metal limbs gleamed as…
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“All right, Ms. Fessenbender, I found a forgotten login this morning and pulled your password from the keystrokes: WH!$k3r5.” I presented my session summary to petite, gray-haired Florence Fessenbender. “Oh, and you forgot that you fed Whiskers today. Albacore Supreme for a lovely Persian.”
Florence smiled. “Thank you, Vesta.” Rummaging through her purse…
I slipped my left foot into one high heel, hopping on the other while I swung out an arm to grab my purse, steadied myself, and wrenched open the door. Thirteen minutes to get to the subway, seven minutes to my stop, six minutes to get coffee, and four minutes to run to work. Perfect.
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When I heard about our scientists’ mutation experiments, I laughed. When I saw their results, I loaded my guns.
Tranquilizer guns, of course. As the lab’s lead animal caretaker, only the pistol on my holster was deadly.
“Don’t you have anything that’s not dangerous?” I asked Dr. Jantz, our lead geneticist.
“Surveillance to Headquarters, code red in Sector Five.”
I frown, tapping the holo-desk to activate the map. “The city square again? But we just—”
“Shh.” My boss, Josef, pushes his archaic spectacles farther up his nose, eyes locked on his screen.
I open my mouth to protest, think better of it, and check my smartwatch.
“Rope secure?”
“Check.”
“Snacks on hand?”
“Check.”
I passed a bag of freeze-dried oranges to the shadow shaped like my roommate and watched him fumble to open it in the dark.
“Ugh. Connor. This is the best you have?”
“We’re in space, Barrett. Not many options.”
He sighed and shifted on the lumpy mattress.
“Once upon a time” is how the inhabitants of Earth begin their tales. But we are not Earthlings, and this is not a story of fiction. Gather ‘round as I recount how Moonfolk first encountered these aliens and how cunning and wit kept our world safe.
It was an ordinary day. Children were at school in the lunar craters.
Pastor Shantel peered through the little window of the flying saucer purring at three hundred miles per hour. Tsulee, the leader of the blue alien children, sat beside her, watching the screen track their progress to Area 51.
The craft flew high enough to be a speck from the ground but low enough…
“You’re Sam Luger, second baseman for the Carolina Reapers, right?” Dr. Frewer’s thick Texas accent preceded him into the examination room.
“That’s right.” I shifted nervously. People usually didn’t recognize me away from the ballpark.
Frewer smiled. “I suppose you think it’s a little weird that an optometrist called you, instead of…
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