Fictitious Rhombicuboctahedron

A greasy, sweaty middle-aged mob boss laid back in his reclining office chair, panting from the several sandwiches he had just finished swallowing. He listened to the 80s music that was playing in the main room of the strip club that he owned and trickled its way into his office. Earlier he had had some meetings with less fat but no less greasy mobsters discussing the regular business. He sighed and his breathing returned to his normal regular high-chested shallow huffs.

He rubbed his belly as he looked around the room, pausing at the club's "hall of fame," the stained whiteboard that nobody ever properly cleaned, the mid-size safe where some local buffers lay, and the... "What the hell?!" the man exclaimed.

Lifting his polo shirt he examined the thing between his folds on the left side of his body. It was hard like plastic and some part of it could move, or well, it twisted as his fingers moved awkwardly between the flaps—it was almost out of reach. Eventually he twisted it a bit and felt a soft feedback from the knob locking in a position. He felt a little odd, but nothing significantly out of the ordinary, nothing a strong mind like his couldn't handle.

The thing was too far away and his arms and fingers were aching from the awkward position already. He got out of the chair and went into one of the VIP rooms where there was a big bed and mirrors on the ceiling. He took off his shirt and laid down on the bed sideways, his meat falling away and making the thing in his side clearly visible. It was a big red turning knob embedded in his side. It had some writing on it, but it was too small to read from the mirror on the ceiling.

Not without effort, but significantly easier, he could reach the knob and turned it back in the opposite direction. He felt it click once, and then he couldn't turn it any further. The very slight funny feeling disappeared as soon as the button was reset. Without much thought he tried turning it the other way—it clicked and clicked and clicked ten times until it wouldn't turn anymore. It jolted through his body from his toes through the blubber to his head and a full breath was forced, the sudden expansion making cracks appear in his tar-riddled lungs, but this was just the beginning of his physical and mental pain.

He turned onto his back and the floodgates opened—he could no longer speak or think clearly. It was as if his body was completely paralyzed.

Talk about bad timing... one of the girls walked by the room and heard the mess of a human that was inside. Carefully she walked in and saw the big man being a wreck. With professional expertise she found the switch and as the clicks progressed he grew calmer and calmer. She made sure not to turn it all the way down.

"You can't just turn it up completely," she said, "and in your profession you shouldn't turn it up further than a third."

The surgeons looked at the sedated blob of a man on the table, the machine pumping air into his lungs, his overworked heart beating slowly. The X-rays had shown that the knob was just hanging there in his side, in an unimportant region and not really hooked up to anything. With just a few cuts the thing came out, which looked just like a regular knob from an electronic component distributor like Mouser. It was indeed not hooked up to anything in the body. Neither did it have any other components, as nothing was visible inside except the expected potentiometer and small circuit board without anything that looked like a battery or antenna.

In recovery, as he was waking up from the anesthesia, he immediately began to sob. Earlier one of the surgeons had been twisting the knob to see if anything would happen right before cutting it out.

The letter

The day before, a regular Tuesday, everybody got the letter. It arrived by regular mail in over 7.000 different languages worldwide. Paraphrasing for brevity: Good day / tomorrow we'll come to visit EARTH / at NOON / we have NO WEAPONS / prepare FOOD & SNACKS. This ensured that in a matter of hours the air sirens went off and global military entities readied themselves for full-out all-destroying war. Some people prepared food and snacks.

And as they letter stated, at the precise time they landed all over the world, especially in cities and villages. The spaceships were rather unimpressive, as they weren't more than paratrooper parachutes that would be discarded after touchdown. They could steer a little, the last 20 meters or so they used thrusters to make sure they landed safe, avoiding any humans. They didn’t bring anything of interest, not even a bit of alien technology more advanced than ours.

Thomas was there

The box gently touched the street. His heart was beating in his throat, the crowd (who ignored the request to stay at home from official government outlets; risking severe earthly punishments for doing so) was buzzing. The box was maybe 20 meters away. You could feel the heat of the thrusters for a second before they turned off.

With a pneumatic hiss the hatch opened. In the box was a bit of light, so you could see the 3x3 chairs in which humanoid aliens sat. Very human like they undid their harness and one by one exited the box.

They looked like normal people, maybe a bit ambigious, and slightly different from each other. They were men and woman, about thirty-ish. The clothes they wore were casual human clothes.

"They look massively uncomfortable," the woman standing next to him said. And indeed, they were rubbing their arms and putting hands into the necks of their shirts and sweaters to rub out itches. Then they promptly started to undress, quickly and determined. In less than a minute they were all stark naked. They didn't have bellybuttons, otherwise what you'd expect.

"That didn't go as planned," one of the female-looking aliens said. "Apparently these bodies get very, very irritated by clothes. I hope you don't mind." She said while looking into the direction of the group of people Thomas was standing with. "Any of you got any snacks?"

A puzzling silence came over the humans. Thomas was thinking about the Oreo's he had brought. "I do," he said and started to get it. The female-looking alien started walking up to him. He opened the pack and the alien took some cookies. "Is it okay if I hand them out to the group?" she asked.

And that was that, that’s how the aliens came to earth.

The nudity!

The nudity of the aliens did a lot to a lot of people. Some states started arresting them for indecent exposure, but what's the justice system to do with naked aliens? It would turn prisons into nudity camps and create all kinds of new problems.

Another strategy that was shortl-lived was to force them to wear clothes. They'd gladly put them on when you asked them, but as soon as they reasonably could they'd wiggle themselves out again.

Three unnamed men and a few aliens

The gags they put in their mouths were unnecessary, One knew. One also knew that Two and Three knew this, and One was aware that they knew that he knew. Still they did it, as they always did. They had been working together for almost eight years now. Small team, in the night, grabbing one or two persons and then proceed according to the instructions given.

The first time they got the assignment, it was business as usual. They grabbed some of the aliens on the first night and took them away. Then the information extraction began, which ended in two dead aliens and no information at all. After reporting the failure, the same assignment was repeated, and virtually every night since. The leadership was desperate to know more, they increased payment and allowed for more severe measures to be taken. By now, many, many night later, anything went.

Yet none of the tortures, techniques and drugs yielded any results. Tonight was another night, an old warehouse and two gagged and bagged aliens sitting on two chairs in the middle of the space. Bright lamps right in their faces.

They look so human, One thought, as he saw them sitting on the chairs, hands and legs moving a little occasionally, sweat in the palms of their hands. But also so unhuman, without belly buttons and always stark naked. He walked up to them, removed the hoods and looked at them. They looked back, calm and unbothered. Their breathing was regular and deep. Then they started looking around, curious to see all the things around them.

“Let’s just kill them and call it a night,” Three said, “I mean, this is a waste of time.”

Two made a sound that agreed with Three, and pointed his gun towards the female alien.

“Wait, wait…” One said. “Jesus christ man!” He exclaimed as Two already shot her. Blood splattered all over One and the alien slumped in the chair.

1: Goddammit. We gotta stop this. 3: Waste of time. 2: I just want to go home. 1: I’m all over, christ 3: Yeah like pay attention 2 2: I’m so done 1: We’re all frustrated, but jesus when I tell you to stop you stop 2: Let’s do the other and go home 1: No STOP! 2: All-right allright 1: I’m undoing its gag

One undid the gag and the alien politely thanked him for that. He asked for snacks, and Three told him no and One gave him a piece of gum, which annoyed Two and Three.

"What do you think we should do?" One asked the alien.

"The easiest would be just to let me walk away." The alien replied casually. "You don't have to carry my body and it saves them the hassle of replacing me."

"Who's them?" Three asked.

The alien shrugged.

Closing

Then the accident happened. For the humans it happened in the blink of an eye. Something big out of space flung with impossible speed right at the earth and turned everything to dust.

It had been a few kilometers since he had seen them. He walked through the deserted street, glancing over his shoulders frequently, eyes darting at anything that seemed to move. It was grey and cold and the night would come soon. Eventually he reached a Jeep dealership on the corner of the street. A few of the windows were smashed; people found shelter here before.

Without a sound he slipped in through the broken glass and listened very carefully, making sure he was as silent as possible. He tried listening for several things, breathing, footsteps, electronic hissing, water running, anything moving at all. There was nothing. He allowed his breathing to return to normal, deeper, more regular.

Slowly he made his way through the space. The large windows let the dimming light in. The Jeeps shone with their polished and unblemished paint. In one of the outside mirrors he checked his face, which was unshaven and dirty. He bared his teeth, looked at the grime on them, and covered them again. He tried a closed-lip smile.

There was a toilet and some sales offices on the ground floor where sales staff met with customers, all without any sign of life. The upstairs offices with solid doors and windows with blinds were for internal use. Those he could use, as oversaw the whole building. He just had to make sure to check for an alternative exit.

He looked at the street for a while, then made his way upstairs. The first office was void of useful things, drawers plundered and left open. Judging by the pictures this used to be the director's office. Next-door they had a storage room with a server that was stuck in a boot loop. First a beep, fans starting, disks spinning, clicking, failing and coming down. He unplugged the chord and moved on.

There was one office left to check, the conference room. The door was ajar, and a faint light was barely visible from the now dark building. The hairs in his neck rose. The light was so faint he hadn't seen it before. If someone else was here, he could still sneak out unnoticed and find another place to sleep.

He considered leaving right away, but there was also the trouble outside earlier as well. Maybe it was wiser to deal with who or whatever here and now rather than a complete unknown elsewhere. Reaching overhead he took the machete out of his backpack, as he noiselessly made his way to the door. He focused as he pushed the door open and peeked inside.

The conference room has several rectangle tables pushed together and some office chairs in disarray. The light came from the beamer standing on a cabinet in the back and projecting on the other side of the room. There was nobody. His hand was already on the power chord of the beamer to shut it off, but then he noticed what it projected:

The Annulment form

• Is stored inside all Jeeps, all models
• Easily reachable from the fuel cap
• After signing, instantly enforced

There was an illustration as well. It showed an undone fuel cap, and a rolled up document inside the fuel inlet.

Adrenaline kicked into his system and he immediately stepped outside the room. Through the windows he could see headlights of cars reflecting on the opposite building. They knew where he was. His heart was beating in his throat and his mouth dried up. He looked at the Jeeps downstairs and ran for the staircase and went down as fast as he could.

First he fumbled with the cap for a few seconds, then just jammed his machete in the gap and broke it off. He could see something rolled up inside. Cars screeched to a halt outside. He unrolled the document, it had a line to sign. Men were screaming outside. He ran to one of the desks and took a promotional pen. Some windows shattered. He put the pen to the paper and started to scribble. He heard many footsteps behind him. He finished his signature.

As if the dealership was made of theatrical flats, the walls fell outward and revealed the open streets. When he turned around, he could only see only the back of the heads of the men retreating. They got back into their cars and vans and left. The last taillight turning the corner turned the light off.

The dazzling instructions of the training program were still ringing in his brain as he was placed in front of the terminal. It was a swim or sink type of situation, and it was already sinking. The beep boop tiddly toot was ringing on the tingler and one of the monitors had seventy six circles doing rounds in a triangle shape. Twisting the knob that belonged to the monitor, the triangle tilted and revealed the 3D space where the circles lived. If he had only been born with a stereoptical lobe or better he wouldn’t have to use this stupid knob, but instead use some kind of wearable monitor one for each eye. He glanced towards one of the other new ones, who did perceive depth on a neurological level, and it didn’t even think about using the knob. Didn’t have to.

Oh god the toodly bitties then ticked right to the beat of the circles moving in and out of a certain pattern (a three-day experienced recruit would have known it as a B3, yet this guy misidentified it as a much rarer 90ZB) and moved his talking bits to an audio receptacle and made some unholy sounds as the clickclack was pressed and one of the (let’s consider them) feet pressed on a certain array of pedals. They went up and down and sometimes the feet would get caught in the mechanism and bleed(?) and hurt but he had to go on.

The circles didn’t do as he wanted, not at all, and as he heard his own voice over the tiny terminal speakers he shivered all over. The knob was twisted in the other direction, the circles now seemingly moving mirrored and as he aggressively twisted accidentally the bip was bipped and the screen added colors. “Holy” the thing started, realizing it was an everyday B3 and, if you wouldn’t have known him until now, almost skillfully reverse the pattern on the array of pedals. Now for the proper procedure, he just had to speak some more sounds and send some waves over the touchmachine.

There had been some alarm going off in the space, he was aware of it but no cycles could be spent on such tasks. It had to be solved. He already heard the electrical humming of devices that torture - you don’t want to be the one they make an example of, as they do with every batch - and tried not to think about the mere meters they were behind his back as the procedure was finished and the circles collapsed into one circle and the triangle faded and the feet let go of the pedals and the light stopped flashing and the beeps stopped beeping.

It was alright.

Humming receding, it was alright.

Now he has some moments to look at the terminal. The screen with the circles was somewhere on the right and it was a somewhat smaller one. There were eighteen other screens in various resolutions and dimensions. In total a terminal has 240 plain buttons, 27 pedals and various input machines so something would fit the thing that sat in front of it. There were two speakers and several knobs for those with various visual impairments. There were sliders and switches and things that pull out or push in. Some switches were digital and some were analog. There was always more than three ways do do a thing, and that was a good thing? The training program had said so.

The array of dots in between two of the monitors blinked all green and then blue and one by one the two hundred or so dots would die out and then the next thing would need doing. He twisted his lookers to scan the "operating floor". It was unimaginably big, as he was told in the training program, one operating floor contained more terminals and operators than some planets had inhabitants!

His friends from the training program (NOT mister stereoptical) were not near. What were their names again? He almost remembered a few. Not many were local - he was the only one - and all others were brought in by the company. It didn't pay too well, but a thing's gotta eat.

They teach you only one of the three ways in the training, the rest you have to find out. By accident? It didn't matter. One of the things that it learned itself was that if the pedals were chorded in the right way it didn't even hurt and could influence some of the visual interfaces so the stupid knob wouldn't need to be turned - what a relief.

The time was up and the work resumed and a sinking feeling appeared as three monitors showed the familiar circles moving in various patterns and in different rhythms. Pedals were pressed chords were made and for a short time the thing flowed with the circles and made them do what they needed to do. The various sounds and other feedback mechanisms reduced their excitations.

Electrical humming appeared again. It had gone alright hadn't it? things were as they should be on three of the monitors. Quickly he scanned all the screens, only three were on.. one was a little brighter than the ones that were really turned off... he flicked the screen and it... turned on? Well the circles went into the bad place according to the training. A message relaying a critical state was flashing on the latest monitor.

BZZZZZZZZT

A sharp pain entered his body.

BZZZZZZZZT

Before the pain had any chance to recede, the next jolt arrived. He almost passed out, but was aware of something grabbing him and forcefully dragging him over the floor. They were not taking him the way he had gotten in, it was somewhere towards the middle. He felt his body scrape against the hard floor and he felt bruising and some bleeding.

BZZZZZZZZT

With a light push (how bothersome that THEY needed to PUSH him, it felt like!) they sent him over the edge and into the hole. Due to the low gravity on the planet, the fall itself could be described as mildly pleasant. Every now and then there was the light of another floor of beings and their terminals, before he fell onto the pile of other beings at the bottom. Quite some were passed out (or passed away) from the earlier shocks, others were groaning, complaining and crying and dying at the bottom of the pit.

It was odd, for they were suspended for a while, then they would sink a half a meter or so. This pattern was repeated twice before another being dropped down into the hole, luckily not on top of him! But soon another, and another. He couldn't understand most of them as their languages were foreign to him, but that might actually be a good thing considering the situation they're in. Nobody wants to hear any of their cries! But it also didn't take long for there be enough beings falling down that he was completely buried in them. Breathing became more difficult. There were only grunts.

The thing now was the heat of the bodies concentrating, unidentifiable liquids dripping down, and the rhythmic moving down the tube. They must be in there with hundreds if not thousands of them. The lower they got, the louder a first ticking and later clanging sound appeared. In between the clanging, a growling noise appeared. And it become louder, and louder. They were almost there.

Deafeningly now a clang sounded, growl growl growl, and clang again. He could feel cold metal at the bottom if he stretched his feet(?). He almost passed out as breathing had become virtually impossible. Clang! And he fell.

He fell into the grinding teeth of the grinding mechanism, tearing and crushing and grinding whatever it was that made him. Below the grinding mechanism there was a particulate collection container, which guided his bits on a cleated conveyor belt, transporting him to the part of the building where he would be further processed into budget livestock feed for various third-world planets.

The End

Scene:

Empty stage with a little bit of unspecific mess in the background. The Wizard and the mouse are on the stage. All actors are dressed casually. On their heads they carry a tv antenna with their name in big foam letters hanging between them. E.g. Mouse has Mouse, Cat has Cat. Optional: The wizard wears nothing but a bathrobe without antenna and name.

WIZARD

Mouse! Want to see magic?

MOUSE

Sure thing

In the background CAT appears on the stage and listens.

WIZARD

Take a look at your watch!

Mouse looks at his watch

MOUSE

Yes and?

WIZARD

Now look again!

Mouse looks at his watch again

WIZARD

The time changed!

The wizard moves his arm in a conjuring way and makes some WHOOSH WHOOSH noises.

WIZARD

Magic!

Mouse is visibly impressed, but at a loss for words. CAT comes closer.

CAT

Mouse, Wizard is an idiot. You're an even bigger idiot.

The wizard and the mouse look at CAT.

CAT

You're all idiots.

CAT walks off the stage.

MOUSE

Let's go.

Wizard and mouse walk in a circle and lift up cheap chairs from behind the stage, bring them to the middle and sit.

WIZARD

This coffee is good.

MOUSE

Their water is too.

GOAT walks onto stage, is surprised to find WIZARD and MOUSE.

GOAT

Ohowow! Wizard and mouse!

Goat slaps his knee.

GOAT

I just ran into CAT and he told you have magic.

WIZARD

That's a wizard's greatest feat.

GOAT

Is it tiring?

WIZARD

All the time man.

GOAT

Word. Tired all the time.

The wizards makes his conjuring moves again and some whoosh whoosh whoosh sounds and pulls a coin out of a pocket. They all look at it.

WIZARD

Goat, take this. It's your personal piece of magic takes makes you un-tired all the time.

Goat takes the coin.

GOAT

Ohowow! This is too much. I can feel it radiate!

WIZARD

Take care man.

GOAT

Thanks.

Goat walks off the stage.

MOUSE

You're a good guy.

They sit in silence for a while.

MOUSE

Let's go.

WIZARD

Mouse, before we go, we need to talk about something. I know that you know that I am not a real wizard. I don't want you to say anything about that, if you do we can no longer be friends, but it is important for me to tell you that I know.

Mouse looks up. Then looks at the wizard. Mouse nods.