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Short stories: A science fiction mystery

by Bruce Whitten

Created on: May 14, 2009

Armageddon Blues

I picked a bad time to be President.

When the alien ship landed on the White House lawn, you just knew they meant business. The landing wasn't very spectacular at all. There were no bright lights and noise, no flashing death rays, nothing movie like or exciting at all. Just a plain gray metal saucer (it wasn't even shiny!) that only hummed a little as it landed. It clanged a little, then a door opened letting out five pure white aliens with plain gray jumpsuits and big black eyes. They walked up to the nearest Secret Service man and said "Take me to your leader." which he did, after all, despite the joke and everything else, you just knew they meant business.

Have I mentioned that I picked a bad time to be President? I did? Oh.

Anyway, at that moment I had been reading a report on the state of the world's ecology. I won't bore you with the title, it was long and
pointless, just the way Congress likes it. I had commissioned the report myself to keep my campaign promise, the purpose being to assess just how bad off the Earth was. It took thousands of scientists years to gather all the information. Every detail was checked and
rechecked, every measurement recorded and confirmed. Make no mistake, all three hundred forty nine typewritten pages of the report were accurate. Unfortunately, the news they contained was also very bad.

The Earth had less than a decade before the damage caused by pollution, overpopulation, and all the rest of the things people do, caught up with us and started to kill us in earnest. Some of us would starve, some would succumb to disease, some would suffocate on the stuff we call air, most would kill each other over dwindling resources from a planet that will have lost the ability to support its inhabitants. The worst part was, there was no way to save us. Only if every human being were evacuated right this minute, would the human race survive, even though the Earth still wouldn't. But how do we move everyone, and where do we move them to?

See what I mean? Bad time to be President.

So the aliens were shown into the Oval Office. Without any hesitation, they stepped right up to my desk and said, "We are here to take possession of your planet. It has been awarded to us by what you might call The High Galaxy Council. You have not paid your taxes to said Council. We have paid your taxes and claimed Title of this planet under Galaxy Law, Chapter XXXII Liens and Mortgages.
The humans inhabiting this planet will be exported

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