By 2250, society stratified into social engineers,

By 2250, society stratified into social engineers, consumers, and drones. The drones cleaned toxic sites, kept the robots in order, and were corpsicles for interstellar shipping.

I was one of the few who slipped between the cracks. I was hiding in the mountains on Xen IV - running from the system for the better part of my life. My trials began in

earnest on my thirteenth birthday, when the cyberchutes plunged to the ground around my campsite, and they stole me away to a life of adventure and cold food.

We were strapped into gurneys and forced to turn dials and push buttons. Since we didn't understand their alien tongue, we weren't sure what we were doing. A green neon screen

above our gurneys flashed alien signs. After a while of clicking and turning dials I realized we were processing some sort of orders. One of this and one of that and then again and

then a giant alien screwed a red lightbulb into my nose. Wow did that hurt. Then they gathered around with metal tong connected to a wire and tried to pull out

in time but we all know that method of birth control is fatally flawed and so I was accidentally inseminated with the alien's seed. This was 8 months ago. My nose had healed but

The doctor performed a scat scan to assess the contents. "Hmm, three parts unborn alien, two parts thai food," he said. "Your body rejected both." Thai food? I didn't remember

ordering anything. Stupid alien and his infernal communicator! "Wait!", the docotr said, "One last scat scan...bobiddity bo boo dow dow DOW skibidity