Illegal Alien

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.

Illegal Alien

By Plot Roach

The country was in turmoil with no clear way to fix it. Unemployment was at an all time high. People were not just losing their jobs, but their homes and their hopes as well. We were facing what was called the Next Great Depression when they came. Like angels out of the sky, our saviors flew down in silver colored ships. On the eve of what seemed like the total collapse of our way of life, they drifted down into every major city like bubbles blown by a child. Their leader visited Washington first, meeting with the president and other political leaders who had every intention of doing right by the public.

They looked like us and said that they could provide everything that we, as a species, needed as long as we played by their rules. Since we were on the verge of civilization’s collapse, we agreed.

The meetings lasted for four days, a media hush instituted that left all of the rest of us in the dark. On the fifth day, the leaders of both sides emerged. We could help them and in doing so could help our great nation, the president announced. Soon the leaders of other countries were rushing to our great nation, they wanted in on the act. They wanted their lands to prosper as well. Another visit with the aliens lead their ships to roost in even more cities placed far and wide upon the Earth.

“Everyone will do their fair share.” said the president. “And everyone will benefit from it.” But there were those who wondered what the aliens were up to, and why they needed our help so badly.

One of the ships landed in the center of the city where I lived. A call went out: everyone had to report for testing immediately. The aliens would not offer aid to us until they knew our limitations as well as our strengths. It seemed a silly and harmless thing. To sit in a booth and react to the stimulus given, while they recorded it. Some people refused, and in return were turned away when they asked for help. “Everyone will do their fair share.” became the war cry of the citizens who worked for the aliens when faced by those who did not.

I remember my mother turning away a neighbor asking for food, when she had been fired from her job for refusing to be tested. People were now asked if they had been tested by the aliens during job interviews. They claimed that it was not a deciding factor in getting hired, yet the only people who did not have jobs were those not looking for one and those who refused to be tested. I knew that our neighbor’s children were going hungry that night, even as we had more on our plates than we could finish.

When I became sixteen, and of legal age to get a job, I went to the testing facility. I filled out the paperwork given to me by the human interviewer and nodded to the alien when I was placed in the measurement pod. A few minutes later, I exited the building a little dizzy, but with work authorization card in my hand. I was told that I didn’t need to apply for a job, someone would get in touch with me and tell me where to show up.

A week later I was told to report to one of the ships that now called our small city home. I was given a uniform and ushered to the lower levels. I was lectured about my duties and where my loyalties should lay. And I was given the great and important task of ‘maid‘. I cleaned the ship of the garbage generated by the aliens, recycling whatever was possible and incinerating what was not. I was to put things in their proper order when my alien masters were out of their rooms, be it private quarters or public meeting hall.

When I was a child, before the aliens came, I had hopes of becoming an actress or a singer. These dreams were drowned in the antibacterial agents that I used to scour the floor of my master’s ship. There would be no other choice but ‘maid’ for me, even if I left the aliens’ employ. My skills had been tested in the measurement pod and no other skills were listed other than 'she likes to keep things orderly, good for clean up situations.’ No one would ever hire me as an actress. No one would ever hear me sing, unless they stood outside the bathroom when I was taking a shower.

As a race, we had everything we needed, but not everything we wanted. Evidently I was not the only one unhappy with my station in life. Some humans staged a rebellion, killing off some of the aliens while taking their technology -not that we knew enough of it to use it ourselves. The aliens, fearing further vengeance against them, decided to leave. And when they left, they took their technology with them. Gone were the days of plentiful jobs, pantries stocked with food, free healthcare and the promise of a long and fulfilling life.
Our aliens were one of the last to leave, but our little community was already feeling the brunt of the impact. People were fighting one another on the street, water was becoming scarce, and a neighbor down the hall from us in the apartment complex was shot and killed, all for stealing a can of beans from the local grocery store.

I didn’t know what to do, or what I would do, when our aliens left. My mother had left to another city, trying to find my older brother in all the chaos. I was alone in our tiny apartment, and knew that if someone tried to force his way in, I would be beaten -or worse- for our meager stores of food.

On the last day one of them approached me. I thought perhaps that it was the one who tested me, before I became a maid, but I could never be certain. They look all they same to me, though I’m sure they probably say the same about us humans. She offered to let me stay on the ship as it returned to their world, as long as I continued to work in my given position of ’maid’.

Because they looked human enough -or because I looked alien enough- I could pass among them, still doing my job as long as I did nothing to raise their suspicions. Though I would not be free to live the life that I had wanted since childhood, I would be well fed, and well cared for. And perhaps, once the riots had died down and the aliens tried to interact with the humans again, I could bring my mother and brother into my new home for a better life. I agreed, kept my head down and kept working hard. I asked no questions and was thankful of what I was given by my employers. What else can an illegal alien hope to do?