Tales of the Multiverse: Volume 3: They Came for Dinner

By Kathleen West

An alien race called the Whatchamacallit? has discovered something irresistible about the human race – that they are delicious to eat. They have arrived on planet Earth with the intent of harvesting humans as livestock. They have demanded tribute under the threat of chaos to modern civilization.

Greta Müller (an Earthling) and her friends, both “artificially intelligent” entities and horse-like alien creatures, offer hope to defeat the Whatchamacallit? who consider humans an inferior life form to be done with as the alien threat pleases: to be on their dinner plate.

A top-secret group of military, scientists, and government officials discovered that Earth faces a grave threat unless they give in to the demands of the hungry Whatchamacallit? aliens. They are on the hunt to find Greta and collaborate on how to repel the alien threat.

Allies are also on the way to help. But first, they must travel across the galaxy and evade capture by those who deem them criminals.

In this sequel to “Predator and Prey”, old friends and foes return to aid in the continuing story of the greatest alien threat against human civilization. The Whatchamacallit? came to Earth for dinner and to seek revenge for the murder of their queen.

Kathleen West is an engineer who uses the logical side of her brain so often that her creative brain begs for attention. She received inspiration for her novels through strange and vivid dreams that detailed how people from different times, places, and worlds died.

Kathleen decided that these ghost dream stories should be shared in her Tales of the Multiverse® – stories that in another dimension of space, our deepest imaginations, or perhaps in another time or place, may have happened to you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Dec 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781387651894

Book preview

CHAPTER

1

THEY CAME FOR DINNER

Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Gryffon looks into a computer tablet device that alerts her of a high priority message

Red Alert

United States Air Force Colonel Samantha Gryffon held her computer tablet in front of her pale face. Hidden components opened on her tablet surface to show an armada of flashing red lights. Each light strobed in sequence with a loud, repeated BEEP! The tablet tried to visually impair and distress the unauthenticated user. A repeating verbal warning announced that the local police had been dispatched. Then a loud, annoying alarm painfully pounded her ears and head. The back side of the tablet device contained special labeling:

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Authorization: Project Green Book - Senior Leadership Only

Clearance: Top Secret

Special Security Access Required: Optical Scan Validation

Warning: Monitoring in Progress. Unauthorized possession or access to this device is a federal offense. Violators will be found and persecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

---

Oh, I forgot! said Sam. There are contact lenses on my eyes.

Sam carefully removed the contact lenses from her blue eyes. She then, once again, placed the tablet in front of her face. A green light appeared and the sound of an unlocking mechanism alerted her that her tablet device was ready for use.

Sam cautiously opened her secure tablet to see a white glow of mystery. She had anticipated what would be on her screen. Disappointed at the delay, she immediately had to two-factor authenticate with both her username and password and with a tiny device containing an RSA SecurID cryptographic code that changed every 60 seconds. Sam had barely finished entering the code when a new code appeared, invalidating her previous login credentials. Trying a second time, she successfully unlocked her tablet screen to find multiple folders. One folder caught her eye with a bulging red flag, a new notification. Clicking on the highlighted folder she discovered that she had 9 new secure messages. Skimming the list, her attention focused on the one message labeled: Subject: Audio Visual Content # 3.

The United States government had received a new communication from the alien entity. The first two transmissions from the aliens had frightened Sam. She sought insight into the threat and what they wanted.

What demands will they make now? What could she do to stop it? Could this transmission give them new insight into the threat? Are they still hunting to find the Earth girl who survived their wrath? Sam wondered.

She noticed that there was a media attachment to the message and proceeded to read the introduction from her project team lead, the United States Secretary of Defense (SecDef) Deputy.

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Subject: Audio Visual Content # 3

To: Project Green Team

From: Secretary of Defense Deputy: Stephen Early

Message: Project Green Team. This is the latest transmission from the entity received by laser communications from their vessel parked on the sunny side of the moon. This was received approximately two hours ago and my engineering team has already determined its origin is sourced from the alien entity and not available on any content servers on this planet. Watch and prepare to discuss this and more in our daily status meeting at 1500 hours.

---

Stomach acid burned Sam’s insides. Fingers clenched inside her mouth, a nervous reaction to her panic attack. She combed her fingers through her blonde hair in a frenzy. The last two transmissions from the aliens were threats. She feared that this would be worse than the others. Sam double tapped on the file to open the media file titled Audio/Visual Content Part 3 on the tablet in full screen.

Breathe. Just breathe, Sam thought. Open the video, cover your mouth, and just watch. Don't scream.

Sam, Don't Scream

The Air Force colonel opened the video. Sam noticed that the video resembled one that she had seen before. The alien entity had previously sent a video transmission a few months before this video. But that content originated from Earth, on a YouTube channel called PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). The original video showed the mistreatment of broiler chickens at a poultry farm located in the United States. Sam remembered that the Secretary of Defense deputy stated that no content servers on Earth served this new adaptation of the original transmission by the alien entity. Instead of showcasing cruelty to farming poultry, it featured humans as livestock, from birth to slaughter.

The alien entity simulated a human baby being lifted out of an embryonic sack by mechanical arms. His cries echoed amongst thousands of others nearby. Next, the scene cut back to show the original PETA video of the mass hatching of baby chickens. It became evident that the alien entity had intended to contrast how they could farm and harvest humans from referencing the controversial PETA video regarding broiler chicken farming. The aliens seemed to believe farming humans should be done similar to how humans farm their food.

Robotic handlers inspected each crying baby for its gender and health. The healthy babies were placed into a crate categorized by gender, just like the baby chicks (as seen in the original YouTube PETA video). The ones deemed to have defects were immediately separated and tossed on a conveyor belt, just like the unwanted baby broiler chickens.

What came next made Sam sick to her stomach. True to the original PETA video showing broiler chicken farming, the aliens simulated the treatment of unwanted human livestock by having a macerator kill the unwanted babies. Blood and guts spewed from the blades and then their remains chopped into a red sludge that was shown packaged into containers for food distribution on the alien entity's home planet.

Don't scream, Sam thought. Instead, the colonel spewed vomit in the private room. She aimed for and hit one corner and its walls. The putrid smell lingered and scratched her throat with nastiness. She desperately needed water and to clean up her former lunch. She held her hands over her mouth and nose to cover the vomit smell and prevent herself from further vomiting. Sam continued her focus solely on the screen as to not lose details as the video continued to play.

Once again, the video cut back to the original PETA video, the scene where the baby chicks had undergone vaccinations and then debeaking. Sam later learned that chicks in poultry farms routinely have the upper part of their beaks cut off so that they don’t harm others. Because of overcrowding and a stressful environment, many otherwise peaceful birds attack and hurt each other. The poultry farmer routinely cuts off the chicken's beak in a practice called debeaking. Well, what could possibly top that? Sam wondered. Oh Shit. They are actually... doing that... and no pain medication either.

The video then showed robotic and mechanical hands placing little hands and toes in holes to cauterize the tips of nails. Each baby screamed bloody hell. Some form of a muzzle was placed around their mouth so they could only open wide enough to breathe and drink from a force-fed bottle.

Sam felt her fingers and toes tingle. She then massaged her hands around her mouth in nervousness. She could almost *feel* their pain in her own fingernails. Why would they show these torturous scenes to us? Sam questioned.

The screaming babies deemed healthy were transported to a farmhouse. At the farmhouse, the babies crawled over caged floors without diapers or clothes. Mechanical arms and tubes fell from the ceiling in orchestrated movements to auto-feed the babies through their muzzles. Additional hoses washed and sanitized their excretions.

Just like the broiler chickens used in farming, the genetically altered humans also grew at an accelerated rate with multiple growth hormone treatments. Still unclothed, they were free to roam around the farmhouse. Some fought others until they were separated and caged.

Every day seemed boring and monotonous for the farmed human-like creatures. The daily feeding, exercising, and washing cycle continued for approximately a year until the depopulation day. One rotation of the Earth around its star equated to approximately 15 years of a normal human development lifecycle, except these beings were nothing like humans.

The creatures resembled humans in most ways, except that the teenagers had never gone through puberty and were completely sterile. By way of a cranial implant, the robotic farming machines forced the creatures to build up their muscular-skeletal system by daily forced exercise. Each had bulging legs, arms, and a chest full of meaty muscle. The implants inside their brains made them subdued.

Similar to the farming method in the PETA video, depopulation day was the day when the livestock was transported to a slaughterhouse. That's when the walls began to move towards each other. The stock of teenage human-like creatures was forced into a single file line. A conveyor belt moved the livestock into small, individual cages where they could no longer move around. Cages were stacked 20 by 20 on a large vehicle that moved them to a processing facility. Unlike the broiler chicken farming transport, the creatures did not voice their distress. Because of the brain implants, they fell into a relaxed dream-like state.

The video then showed the human-like creature being cleaned and sprayed with a sanitizing fluid. Each was electrically tased to be still while in its cage. The immobilized human was then wrapped, boxed, and then shipped to a final location, their grocery store.

Lastly, the alien entity video explained that this was only a simulation. In the final scene, a desolate human civilization was laid waste. The Earth was entirely void of humans and their civilization. It was a warning. It warned what could happen to the human species if they did not cooperate. The alien threat would over harvest the Earth of humans, and then farm them like livestock animals. Animals that humans once farmed as food.

What Black Eyes See

Naiche sat perched on his cliff overlooking the desert region of where he grew up.

Naiche sat perched on his cliff overlooking the desert region of where he grew up, Apache land, his land. The Native American peoples had habituated the Southwestern United States for thousands of years, long before the European colonists. Today he imagined the weather hotter than remembered and the land redder and more desolate. The air tasted stale and dry, with a bit of sand dust floating around in his mouth. His tongue circled the brittle particles around his cheeks to properly feel the experience of being there. But instead, nothing but dry dirt was whistling around in the air in front of him.

There could have been a cloud of dust that day. Yes, there was a cloud of dust that now floated around him. The dust cloud had formed because a desert lizard had scurried to a nearby bush, starling a jackrabbit. The rabbit began its dart across the unprotected terrain in search of safety and shelter. Before the jackrabbit could spot another sage bush to hide, a brown coyote spotted him. The coyote began the chase in pursuit of its prey. The mad dash across the desert encircled Naiche, while both the rabbit and coyote spun a tornado of dry dirt cloud around him. After a loud scream, the battle ended.

The dust cloud settled enough for Naiche to watch a giant red-tailed hawk. An eye of the hawk followed the coyote as it walked off with its prized rabbit. The hawk desired the jackrabbit for himself. Naiche watched the hawk circle the coyote as it walked away. But instead, the hawk changed its trajectory and flew towards him. It landed and perched right next to Naiche to say...

Good morning, spoke the familiar face. Are you ready to go?

The cliff that Naiche had imagined morphed back into the boring urban views of Washington, DC. the capital of the United States. The hawk eyes turned into the gray eyes of a human, a white man by the name Hawkens, whom Naiche liked to often imagine as a hawk, circling around and spying on him.

Hawkens was an Army man, Warrant Officer rank, who served as an intermediary and a liaison between Naiche and his shaman abilities. Hawkens thought it odd that security did not catch Naiche climbing to the highest peak and edge of the hotel building. Naiche did not care, all that mattered was that he was there.

Naiche lifted himself from his seated posture of meditation and took another look down over the edge of the roof. He thought of himself flying off the roof, flying away from the hunter hawk who stalked him. I could do it,