Planet Nine

“Ooh, I got a good one!” Matchmaker 3791 shouted from her desk. “It’s a widower wishing to reconnect with his high school sweetheart.” She rubbed her hands together like a giddy child. “Maybe I’ll have them seated next to each other on a flight to the town where they grew up. He will be on his way to his daughter’s wedding…and she…hmmm…” Matchmaker 3791 paused and looked up. “Any ideas why she’s going back?” She looked around the room as everyone else read their daily assignments from their screens. “Hello?”

Teacher 516 rolled his eyes. “Different story, identical ending with all you Matchmakers. Surely, you’re tired of granting the same ooey gooey wish over and over?” Teacher 516 continued reading his assignment. “I’ve got another late bloomer begging for puberty. You think these kids would learn by taking a look at their peers, but they’re so stuck in their own little worlds—the Spotlight Effect, I think it’s called. ‘Everyone’s looking at me and noticing my flaws’ says the voices inside their heads. Well, a severe case of acne and a few voice cracks in drama class will teach this one not to rush Mother Nature. Sheesh.”

“You are so cruel, sometimes, 516! There are other ways to teach lessons than the hard way.” Matchmaker 3791 turned back to her granting device. “So…do you think they should move back to their hometown and get married there? Or maybe they both have a bucket list item to live in an obscure town like…like…? Obscure towns, anyone? Ideally, somewhere with a stunning outdoor wedding venue.” Matchmaker 3791 looked around, and when no one responded, turned back to her screen.

“This one’s a first.” Scientist 4488 stood and adjusted her glasses. “Listen up, fellow Grantors. I’ve got someone trying to crack the code on Planet Nine. This could be very interesting.”

Teacher 516 got up from his seat, walked over to Scientist 4488, and looked over her shoulder at the screen. “We should all put our heads together on this one. Seems there’s some potential in that wish for all of us.”

Scientist 4488 put her hand on her chin and nodded. “Indeed. She might carry knowledge about our planet that we don’t even know. And perhaps she could stop the assignments? We’ve all agreed how exhausting it is granting wishes day in and day out.”

A crash interrupted their conversation.

“Incoming.” Teacher 516 said without looking up from Scientist 4488’s screen.

“Well, it’s about time. They’re definitely coming in slower lately. It seems there’s an epidemic of selfishness on earth these days.” Matchmaker 3791 shook her head.

“Nah. I’ve been around longer than all you Grantors, and I’m telling you that these things come and go. Just when you think there’s not a considerate soul left on earth, a whole bunch of new Grantors come in at once. Let’s get back to work on this one, 4488. And would someone please go to the newbie room and provide the orientation? We all heard the crash. Whose turn is it?” Teacher 516 scanned the room.

“I’ll go,” Lifesaver 2370 called from his desk and stood. “My assignment was a no-brainer—a drunk semi-truck driver was heading straight for her when she placed her wish. I was able to reroute the semi to hit a tree instead of her. Piece of cake.” Lifesaver 2370 walked to the newbie room, opened the door, and offered his hand to a young woman wearing a white coat and stethoscope, sitting on the intake table, rubbing her eyes.

The woman took Lifesaver 2370’s hand. “Where am I?”

“Healer 11003, you are on Planet Nine: Wish Grantor Headquarters.”

“Healer 11003? What? I don’t understand. I was on my way to the parking garage at the children’s hospital where I work, and then I must have passed out or something,” she paused and looked around, “but then all of a sudden I was here.”

 “Yes, you must have wished on a star—Planet Nine actually, people confuse our planet for a star—that’s part of the problem. Anyway, you wished that you could make wishes come true, yes? That’s how we all get here. Like it or not.” Lifesaver 2370 handed Healer 11003 a packet. “Read this. It has everything you need to know. I’ll see you in the granting lab tomorrow morning for your first assignment.”

Healer 11003 flipped to the first page and read the lines under “Grantor Guidelines.”

1. Grantors must grant one wish per day in whatever way they choose to make the wish come true.
2. Each human gets a maximum of one wish per lifetime.
3. No one leaves Planet Nine once they arrive.
4. Failure of Grantors to grant one wish per day results in a new two-wish-per-day minimum, with an additional wish per day added for each subsequent wish ungranted.

She looked up as Lifesaver 2370 was walking away. “But wait. What if I want to leave?”

Lifesaver 2370 looked back over his shoulder. “Please reread guideline #3. No one leaves. The best we can do is find a way to relieve us from fulfilling the assignments. And the scientists across the planet have been working on that for decades, to no avail.”

Healer 11003 glanced back down at the packet, and Lifesaver 2370 left her and headed over to Scientist 4488’s desk, where several Grantors now stood.

Matchmaker 3791 put her arm around Lifesaver 2370 as he approached. “2370, have you heard about 4488’s wisher? She wants to visit our planet. We’re thinking we should grant her wish. Then, maybe she can help us shut down the assignments. Thoughts? No one has ever gotten this far. Maybe she can save us!”

“All in favor, raise your hand!” Mindshifter 6993 exclaimed as she stretched both her arms into the air.

Scientist 4488 looked around. “Okay, looks like we’re all in agreement. Here goes nothin’.”

The crash came seconds later.

“I’ll do her orientation?” Scientist 4488 headed toward the newbie room. “Does anyone want to join me?”

Teacher 516 approached her and linked his arm in hers, “Let’s do this.”

They entered the newbie room and saw Scientist 99622 smiling in awe. “I did it. I’m finally here. You must be Grantors. It’s an absolute honor and pleasure.” She rose quickly to shake their hands, as if they were celebrities. “I can’t believe I made it! I’m actually here with you. I have literally spent my entire career trying to figure out how to get here.”

“Congrats, I guess?” Scientist 4488 reached out to shake her hand.

“You guess?! You are miracle workers. You make dreams come true. And it took me decades to figure out who was behind all the wish granting. This is my life’s work—being  here, figuring this out, meeting you..it’s all so—”  

Teacher 516 cut her off. “So congrats and all that. But honestly, we were pretty excited to see you. Because we need a break. Like a forever break. Some of us have been granting wishes for longer than you’ve been trying to figure out Planet Nine, and it’s all just too much. We were wondering if you could help us stop the assignments.”

Healer 11003, still sitting on the intake table, tossed the packet over to Scientist 99622, adding, “Look, I thought I wanted to make wishes come true too, but being stuck granting other people’s wishes every day for life? That’s some kind of cruel punishment.”

Scientist 99622 looked around the room at their faces, “I see. Well, I hadn’t considered this point of view. And if anyone deserves a break, it’s all of you. According to my research, it’s simply a matter of disabling each of your granting devices. Have you tried that?”

Scientist 4488 nodded, “We, scientists, have discussed this multiple times in our quarterly meeting, but we thought it came with too much risk of our daily assignments increasing.”

“If granting is disabled, then how can assignments be completed? I do not agree this is a risk.” Scientist 99622 shook her head. “Are you sure all the Grantors want this? Shall we take a vote before we proceed?”

“We are sure. All Grantors across Planet Nine have been working on a way to shut down the assignments for as long as I can remember.” Teacher 516 looked Scientist 99622 up and down. “Do you really think you can do this?”

“I do. I will just need access to one granting device.”

Teacher 516 led her out of the newbie room and into the granting lab. He called all the Grantor Stations across Planet Nine to announce the plan. Scientist 99622 sat down, typed in a few short key commands, and immediately, all Grantors saw “GRANTING DEACTIVATED” flash in large red letters on their screens.

The room exploded with cheers and whoops and clapping. Matchmaker 3791 passed around bottles of champagne, hugging each Grantor as she handed them a flute.

After several minutes of celebrating, silence settled over the room. Lifesaver 2370 whispered, “Wait a second, everyone. Take a look at your screens.” Her voice crescendoed into a shout. “Take a close look at your screens!”

Behind the red flashing letters, the assignments—the wishes—continued to appear.

“Oh, you’ll never believe this!” Matchmaker 3791 began. “I have a 54-year-old empty nester. Three-time cancer survivor. Spent 27 years caring for her deceased sister’s children. Never married. Wishing to fall in love for the first time, now that the kids have left the house. This is going to kill me if I can’t grant it.”

“You? I have a rich and famous one.” Teacher 516 whined. “You know how much I love those! I had a new idea for granting a yacht and then having it capsize, almost drowning the wisher and his family. Near misses are most enlightening.”

“You have got to be kidding me. Grantors, I just got a wish from a molecular biologist one step away from a cure for diabetes. She’s so close and needs me!” Scientist 4488 typed the granting commands on her granting device over and over and then then put her head down on the keyboard.   

Matchmaker 3791 put her hands over her eyes. “Maybe if I don’t read it, I won’t feel so bad.” She peeked at her screen through her fingers. “What do we do now? I can’t live this way—I just can’t read these wishes every day without the ability to make them come true!”

Lifesaver 2370 nodded. “I agree. We need to reverse this immediately. 99622, how do we reactivate the granting devices?”

Scientist 99622’s eyes widened. “I’m so sorry. So, so sorry. But…but I don’t know how to reactivate the devices. I only know how to disable them.”

Matchmaker put her arm around Scientist 99622. “This is not your fault. We got ourselves into this. Now we will get ourselves out. Grantors, there’s only one thing we must do—we must spend every day finding a way to reactivate the granting devices.”

Everyone nodded and turned back to their devices. Teacher 516 sat down in front of his computer and commanded. “Grantors, let’s get to work!”