Chapter 2

Mike felt like screaming and yelling and smashing, he felt like struggling, and running, anything to get the stranger's hands off of him, anything to get away. He had wanted desperately to repel the bastard that had beaten and robbed him, but he hadn't been able to.

In his mind, Mike had killed the man who attacked him a dozen, no, a hundred times. He had strangled, knifed, shot him. But in reality, he had done nothing, and all he had to show for his inaction were two bruised ribs and a bloody nose.

Mike found himself in the cool, antiseptic smelling environment of the downtown hospital. Although his ribs were his only real injury, the doctor he had spoken to had wanted to keep him for observation overnight... He had also wanted to run a series of blood tests after Mike had mentioned that the man who had beaten and robbed him also spit into his mouth. Mike dreaded the results.

He sighed, sitting on the semi-comfortable bed and reading the semi-interesting book he had purchased from the hospital gift shop. Someday, he thought, he would look back on this experience and chuckle. He had been about to commit the only sin that God could not forgive, and here he was alive. Alive and in a hospital, not from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, not from some bungled attempt at suicide, but because his attempt on his own life had been completely destroyed by the giant wino who had stolen his wallet.

'Perhaps, ' Mike began to think, 'perhaps I can move on. Maybe this was a sign, telling me that I should stick around a while longer.' He seldom dwelled on things like that; he had been an atheist since he was in primary school. He would never consciously admit that something deep in his mind always seemed to cry out that there might be, there just might be some truth to all this God shit.

Mike turned out the light on the side of his bed, set down his book, and tried to get some sleep. The drugs helped.

In orbit around the only moon of the planet earth was something that no human had ever seen before. It absorbed all the radiation that it came into contact with, including radio signals, and even light. It was invisible to telescopes and to the naked eye. It was in a geosynchronous lock with the light side of the moon, facing the planet earth, and was capable of monitoring every form of communication used by man. It was also an artificial environment for the many creatures that lived inside of it, creatures that looked much like the inhabitants of the planet they were watching.

These creatures had a zero unemployment rate; each and every one of them had a job. Most of them, well over 90%, had the same job: To monitor the humans of earth, and to make reports on their observations. Once these reports were complete, they were run through a computer so advanced that we can make no earthly comparison, and the results were passed to a group that had another job, to analyze the results and make recommendations on what actions to take to correct particular situations on our planet that these creatures considered to be unbalanced. The group that made these recommendations was made up of most, but not all, of the rest of the population of this artificial world, which was called "Dark" by its inhabitants. The rest of this alien workforce were mostly administrators, genetic planners, and another group, which will concern most of our attentions, a group which was tasked with carrying out the recommendations that the others labored to prepare. This was the Special Task Team, or STAT. Among all of the millions of residents of this artificial world, this vast minority, less than one half of one percent, were the only ones that would ever breathe natural air, the only ones who would ever know the kiss of the wind on their faces. They were the only group that would ever come into contact with the people they toiled to watch over.

Dran-0210, or just Dran when he was off duty, was having sex with a very unattractive woman. He closed his eyes as he pushed his penis in and out of her vagina in a fast, unvarying thrust that seemed almost mechanical. He imagined some of the attractive women he had seen undressed in the community baths near his home compartment earlier, and his penis stayed erect. He thought of one in particular, a very busty redhead with a nice ass that he had fucked a few weeks ago, and he was near his orgasm. He imagined a prostitute that he had seen during his last mission on earth, only yesterday, and this pushed him over the edge. With no sound and no change in rhythm, Dran came into the woman below him. When he was finished with her, he climbed off of her prone body and left the room. There had been no words spoken throughout the entire experience.

This scenario was not terribly uncommon on Dark, and Dran and the woman he had been servicing were used to it. Several months before, Dran and the Woman's Genetic Planner had advised them that the their genetic profiles indicated that a child created by both of them would be assured of the best of both of it's parents genes, and would therefore be an asset to the workforce of Dark. The two prospective parents had met, first in the Genetic Planner's office, then informally for a meal. Though they found that they did not like each other much at all on a personal level, they decided to accept a contract to have a child. It was a rare opportunity to be selected to contribute offspring and neither of them wanted to miss it. Dran had not mentioned that he found this woman, Eevl-21210, ugly; it would not have helped matters. Besides, he only had to see her once every fifteen days until she was pregnant, and then never again. He hoped though, that they would have a boy. Ugly women were rare on Dark, and he feared a daughter would share the mother's looks.