March of the Slabs

It started on March 1^st. Or rather, it ended on March 1^st. The world as she knew it, that is.

First, GPS and satellite communications went silent, and contact with the ISS was lost. Within twelve hours, the rain of fire started. Satellites, abandoned boosters, and all the junk humans had polluted Earth’s orbit with began to fall. Most of it burned up in the atmosphere or landed in the sea, but that still left enough to bring devastation to population centers world-wide.

For people in remote areas that relied on satellites for communication, the world went silent. The rest of the world, relying on the undersea cables, took to the internet. Container ships were lost at sea without GPS. Trans-oceanic flights ended up far off-course. A cruise ship ran aground when the captain tried to keep in sight of land to navigate down the coast of British Columbia.

By March 12^th, when the rain of fire had ended, not a single large city didn’t have at least some fire and impact damage. Then They showed up.

Everyone called them the “slabs.” Thousands of huge, black rectangles, like floating paving stones, featureless and silent, hung in the air above the largest cities, menacing and implacable.

What appeared to be clouds of dust rolled out of the slabs, covering every inch of the cities and spreading out to the countryside, ignoring the winds and moving on their own power. Electron microscope photos of them appeared online; barely 500 nanometers, they were neither viral, bacterial, nor fungal spore. They were the nanobots that science fiction had promised, but they weren’t made by humans.

Aside from a slight tingle on first contact with skin they did nothing. No strange illnesses, no mutations or mind control, no special powers. Like the slabs themselves, they menaced merely by their presence alone, but did nothing visible.

A brave few tried to engage the slabs, firing artillery, missiles, even taking to the air in fighter jets and bombers. To say it was ineffective would be to overstate the impact. March 14^th, someone launched a nuke against the slab hanging over New Delhi. When the dust cleared, it hadn’t budged. That was the last news anyone had from abroad.

The internet went down on March 14^th, after the failed nuclear attack in New Delhi. The slabs generated waves of massive EMP bursts that destroyed electronics and the power grids worldwide.

That night, roughly four billion city dwellers saw the night sky as it had not been seen in a century. The Milky Way splashed against the stars, broken only by the shape of the slabs. And still, the slabs were silent, while the cities beneath them emptied.

Susan walked north out of the suburbs, amid the dead cars on the freeway, following the scattered crowd. Her aunt had refused to leave her house, instead outfitting Susan with a pack of clothes, a pack of food, a box of ammo, and a pistol which Susan kept tucked into a side pocket of her pack where it was safely hidden and easily retrieved.

As she got closer to the crowds, her hand stayed hidden in the pocket of her pack, gripping the pistol. Some dug through cars, looking for anything useful; others chose to sleep in the cars; and still others, like herself, continued to walk.

When dawn broke over the hills, Susan sat down by the side of the road to take a break. She shrugged out of the packs and moved the pistol to her lap, under the edge of her sweater. In the food pack she found breakfast bars and pulled one out. A woman stood looking at her, a question clear on her sunken face.

“Are you hungry?” Susan asked.

The woman nodded, and Susan pulled out another breakfast bar and offered it to the woman. “Thank you,” she said, her voice soft.

Susan was still working on her own breakfast bar when she realized the other woman had already wolfed hers down. “Still hungry?” she asked.

The woman nodded.

“You can have more, if you tell me your name,” she said. “I’m Susan.”

“Aura,” she answered, slightly rolling the r.

Susan handed her another bar. “When was the last time you ate?”

“Three or four days.” Aura took her time with the second bar. She took a breath as if to speak but remained silent.

“What is it, Aura? You can tell me.” Susan had finished her bar and wished she’d brought more water.

“I came for my cousin, he’s a migrant worker,” she said.

“In the fields?” Susan asked.

“Yes.”

“You haven’t eaten in three or four days?”

“No. We ran out before the border, and the coyote put us in a van that dropped us in the city.”

“You’re welcome to travel with me,” Susan said. “I can use the company.”

Aura’s eyes pooled with tears. “Thank you. I’ve been so scared. Some men tried to—,” she faltered.

“I can imagine.” Susan showed her a small flash of the pistol in her lap. “We’ll keep each other safe, yes?”

“Yes. I’ll carry this one.” Aura stood and lifted the heavier food pack.

“Are you sure?” Susan asked. “It’s heavier than the other.”

“Yes, but it’ll get lighter as we eat.”

“You’re a smart cookie,” Susan said. “What did you do before you came to the US?”

“Factory secretary,” she said. “All I needed was a little English, and to smile at the gringo bosses.” Aura smiled a crooked smile.

“Your English sounds perfect to me,” Susan said.

“I was going to say your Spanish sounds perfect.”

They looked at each other for a moment, trying to decide if one of them was deluded.

Susan gave up on the question. “And your cousin is here somewhere?”

“Last he said, he was in the vineyards.”

“So, northeast of here, in the valley. Then that’s where we’re headed.” 

Susan tucked the pistol in her pants pocket and shrugged on her pack. They were ready to get back on the road when a low rumble from the south got their attention. The slab was doing something.

A thin cylinder, the size of a skyscraper, extended from the bottom of the slab. It detached from the ship and slowly moved down. As the bottom of the cylinder disappeared behind the buildings, a roiling cloud of dust and ash rose around it. When it stopped moving down, the top expanded to a sphere.

The sound rolled across them, like an extended explosion, the leveling of skyscrapers in a crushing destruction. Susan felt a moment of relief, knowing that it was downtown, and not in the suburbs of her aunt’s place.

The slab started to move, for the first time since it had shown up, gliding north. Susan and Aura watched it glide overhead, large enough to be a city in its own right. Neither moved, transfixed by the spectacle, and frozen by indecision.

The slab stopped less than a mile ahead. There it sank until it seemed to be on the ground. It stayed there for more than an hour. The illusion was broken when it finally did set down completely, dust rolling out from all sides as it sunk tens of meters into the earth, crushing any buildings, vehicles or heaven forbid, people unfortunate enough to still be under it. The sound of rumbling, felt through the ground itself, lasted for several minutes.

Opening like a flower, the former top of the slab stood as four triangular sides, perpendicular to the ground. Slowly, those sides folded out at ground level, studded with unfamiliar buildings and landscape. When it had finished, a new city lay directly ahead of them, straddling the freeway.

A voice carried on the wind, at once incomprehensible, and completely familiar. “The Empire claims the star Draesis and its system, as vital to the needs and desires of the people of the Empire. It is the will of the Empire that this wild system be civilized, and the natives be made full citizens. As a token of respect for the natives, the Empire has renamed the star Draesis to its native name of Sol. We offer food, shelter, medicine, education, and the technologies needed for this world to house a trillion. Armed resistance will be met with force. Those who wish to maintain their primitive life will be offered a place to do so, once we have established a safe reservation. After this world is civilized, the Empire will modify the second and fourth planets of the Sol system for habitation and open them up for all citizens of the Empire.

“Come to the nearest outpost to join civilization and leave behind your scrabbling in the dirt. We offer the culture and teaching of thousands of worlds, over thousands of millennia. You are now citizens of the Empire, and as such, have all been inoculated against all known diseases, and given your universal translators. Long live the Empire.”

Susan looked at Aura. “D—did you understand all that?”

“Yes, it was in Spanish.”

“I thought it was in English.”

“Universal translators?” Aura asked.

“Maybe the nanos? I don’t know.” Susan looked back at the outpost. “You’re really speaking Spanish?”

“Yes. And I guess you’re really speaking English.”

Susan nodded and took a deep breath. “Which way, Aura? Try to go around it to find your cousin, or back to the city?”

“Around. The vineyards are no more than a day’s walk from here.”

Fleets of flying vehicles poured out of the outpost, heading in all directions, but the bulk of them headed south towards the city. The roar of a prop engine got their attention. A vintage fighter plane zoomed overhead, flying low.

The plane zeroed in on the outpost and began to fire. Green sparks shimmered in the air above the outpost, the machine-gun fire doing nothing. Then a loud whoosh, and the plane disappeared in a cloud of dust. The sudden silence was shocking.

“Armed resistance will be met with force,” the voice said. “Long live the Empire.”

Susan and Aura turned east to move around the outpost when one of the flying vehicles landed nearby. Susan gripped her pistol.

“No!” Aura said. “They’ll turn you to dust.”

Nodding, she released her grip on the pistol and took her hand out of her pocket. They stood silent, waiting to see what was going to step out of the vehicle.

A short figure with wrong proportions stepped out. It had two short legs, a stout torso, two long arms that almost reached the ground, and a bald head above. A mask covered the lower half of its face, and fine, iridescent scales covered the rest. Large blue eyes with no visible sclera and a slit pupil scanned side to side in wonder. It wore a skin-tight garment in stripes of green and gold, without visible seams or joins. Apart from the head and top of the face, only the hands, covered in the same scales, were visible. It had three fingers and a thumb on each hand, with a small, vestigial nub where a fourth finger might have been.

“Hello, native females! I’m Alacurananaxin, but you can call me Nanax,” it said. Its voice was strange, and whatever language it was actually speaking sounded impossible for human speech, with its clicks, pops, squeaks and hisses.

“I’m, uh, Susan, and this is Aura.”

“Are you male or female?” Aura asked.

“Both and neither. My kind are hermaphroditic; we can both lay and fertilize eggs.” Nanax’s eyes turned a darker blue as a hint of uneasiness played around them, then returned to their bright blue.

“That makes for an uncomplicated dating pool,” Susan said. “Kind of envious. How many of you are there?”

“In the outpost? In the expedition? Or in the Empire?”

“All.”

“There are just over 50,000 citizens in the outpost, and 6,000 outposts on this planet. Over 700 trillion in the Empire.”

“That’s 300 million aliens just landed on Earth,” Aura said.

“Right! And there’s another trillion lining up to colonize this system. You’re lucky we discovered you before the Conglomerate.”

“Discovered? You discovered?” Susan was agog.

“Now you know how my ancestors felt,” Aura quipped.

“Fair enough.” Turning back to Nanax, Susan said, “I suppose the Conglomerate are the bad guys and the Empire are the good guys.”

“Nothing so simple,” Nanax said. “We have a colony at the closest star, the one you call Alpha Centauri, and the Conglomerate have been trying to expand to our borders. It’s all about space to live. The Empire’s not perfect, but I’d rather deal with our AI Emperor and elected cabinet than the Conglomerate’s autocracy. Besides, they sterilize worlds and settle. We colonize and try to incorporate.”

“I guess it does sound better than the alternate,” Aura said. “Although I wish you’d have left us alone.”

Nanax ignored the comment. “I’m so excited to take part in this colonization,” Nanax said, eyes tinged with pink. “I heard you natives were tetrapods and I just jumped at the opportunity! So many hexapods and octopods and decapods in the Empire. We tetrapods only make up about twelve percent of the population. Oh, your nanos show that you’re dehydrated. Would you like some water?”

“Our nanos show?” Aura asked. “How are you seeing them?”

“I’m a doctor, so I can see every citizen’s health status when it’s deemed necessary.” Nanax reached into the vehicle and pulled out two containers. “Here, drink up. Doctor’s orders.”

Susan took one of the containers and tried to twist off the top. It didn’t budge. She tried to pull it off, still nothing.

Nanax’s face animated with unvarnished amusement. “Silly me, I should show you how to open it.” Taking another container from the ship, Nanax held it up. Pulling the mask down, Nanax blew on the top and the seal popped open with an audible hiss, after which Nanax drank down the entire container.

Susan blew on the top of the container and it popped open. The container grew cool in her hand, and she took a test sip. Water. Nothing special, just water. As she drank it down, she saw concern cross Nanax’s face. “What?” she asked, before she realized the pistol was peeking out of her pocket.

“You should dispose of that weapon before you get any closer to the outpost. The automated defense system may vaporize you for it.”

“Thanks for the warning, but we’re going around the outpost. We have to find her cousin.”

“Simple enough.” Nanax focused on Aura, then seemed to stare off into space. “Your cousin is in a vehicle heading for the outpost. He should be there in…,” Nanax’s eyes closed and fingers twitched, “five minutes. Sorry, had to convert from Imperial timescale to local.”

“How do you know it’s him?”

“He shares the right amount of DNA to be the offspring of one of your parent’s siblings.” Nanax’s eyes turned a pale yellow. “Did I get that wrong?”

“No, you didn’t. We have to go to the outpost,” Aura said. “Get rid of the gun.”

Susan pulled the gun out her pocket, dropped the magazine, pulled back the slide to eject the round in the chamber, then handed the weapon and magazine to Nanax. “Have a souvenir,” she said.

Nanax’s eyes turned bright pink. “That’s… that means a lot to me. I understand how important weapons are to a warlike culture. I’ll cherish this.”

“Warlike? Fair enough,” Susan said.

Wrapping the pistol in a piece of cloth and stowing it in a box, Nanax said, “If you’d like, I can give you a ride to the outpost.”

Susan looked at Aura, who shook her head. “That’s all right, we’ll walk. It’s not far.”

“Okay, stay safe! Long live the Empire and all that!”

At the outpost, Aura’s cousin whisked her away from Susan. Unsure of what to do, she was considering returning to the city when a tall, four-armed creature with six eyes accosted her.

“Citizen,” it said, “please, follow me.”

Susan shrugged. Despite the strangeness of everything around her, there was no sense of danger. The creature led her to a small room and offered her a seat.

She felt something tickling her mind; eerie but not frightening. In a flash she knew the history of the Empire, all 3,731 races that inhabited it, and how their government, elections, and money worked. She knew their measurement systems, for time, mass, length, and temperature, and all the derived units based on them, energy, area, force, volume, and so on.

“That history, it’s just what the Empire wants to teach, right? To look good to the natives?”

“Second age,” the creature said.

“Bloody. Horrific. How could they… oh.” The horrors the Empire wrought in the Second Age were part of the knowledge she’d been bestowed. Not the sort of thing a whitewash would leave behind.

“You look strong for a human,” the creature said. “Would you prefer a manual task?”

Susan thought about it. “What about your faster-than-light travel? Can I learn that?” She was certain that would be forbidden knowledge for “savages” like herself.

“Astronavigation and physics. You can find accommodation near where you entered. Be back here tomorrow to begin your lessons.”

The next two weeks were a blur, her mind filling with concepts she doubted any human physicist had even pondered. She knew the secret to folding space, and once learned, it seemed simple. When she finished her training, she spoke to the captain of the incoming transport ship and secured a spot on the return voyage to the Empire’s center.

Susan had just enough time to take a flyer to her aunt’s place to say goodbye, then she’d be leaving on a shuttle from the outpost. After returning from a night at her aunt’s, on March 31^st, another 6,000 outposts landed on Earth, and Susan left it.