The Horton Dilemma [ONC 2022]

EARTH IN CHAOS

Over the next few days, I sit in one of the lesser-known Bevlin Laboratories buildings, next to Horton, who sits on a stretcher, hooks up to a machine, barely breathing.

The Wall TV is turned on. I've selected the "random channel generator," and news currently blares out from the speakers.

"Reptile populations appear to be increasing across the globe. An influx of crocodiles along the Pacific coast from Northern America through South America has resulted in abnormal numbers of crocodile attacks on humans. Rising lizard populations are threatening the ecosystems across the—"

I swipe right. I've heard this all. People blame the appearance of the "aliens," which might be a fallacy, and some are indeed saying that "correlation doesn't equal causation." But the fact is: as soon as Horton and his crew arrived, shit started going down.

No. That's not true. Shit didn't start going down until we attacked them. For no reason at all, I might add.

Well, the reason could be called fear. Hate. Disgust.

But the fact is: Earth is now in chaos.

The channel has switched to another news channel. "World governments are still arguing over who should have access to the humanoid reptiles' bodies, and not all of the bodies are accounted for, nor are all of the strange staffs..."

I swipe right again, and my teeth begin to gnash. Twelve glephkings are dead, and all we humans can talk about is who should get to poke and prod their bodies and their scepters.

Now the channel is on some streamer, one who's famous enough to be featured on a main channel. He is saying something about "this very moment."

"Remember this moment, children." I already hate him. Children? How patronizing. "These are the moments that make history. This is the month that us humans realized our conception of the 'natural order' is not what we once thought it was. This is like when Galileo Galilei was accused of heresy for daring to say Earth traveled around the sun—that humans weren't at the center, as we once thought. It made people uncomfortable. We hate to think we are anything less than we are.

"The discomfort has taken over yet again. Because we now have proof that we aren't at the top of the food chain. We have Reptilian Overlords. Alien reptilian overlords who came to our planet without us even realizing.

"But you know what we have that they don't, apparently? Guns!"

I make a "stop" gesture, and my WallTV shut off.

Horton's kind don't need guns. Their technology is much better. The US government doesn't appear to have any idea of the feats the "staffs" are capable of. 

I look down at Horton's own staff, at his scepter. 

Suddenly, I get a terrible idea.

Horton told me the danger of going to "higher" worlds. He told me that time there might move much slower than it does here, which means I could blink there and years could pass here. I know this.

But I also know that his people are far more intelligent than humans, that they have higher powers: abilities to telepathize and mind read, technology to teleport. And the people we met on the dust speck in my living room seemed to be less intelligent than humans, with less knowledge, lesser powers, lesser technologies. Maybe that means that intelligence increases the "higher" or the "outer-er" one goes.

The thing is: the place where my ego died didn't even feel like a higher plane.

It simply felt like the big picture. The grand scheme of things.