Likely a pretty common choice for a last meal. Decadent, dripping in butter, and not so exotic that it would be denied. The guard sets the plate down in front of me, sending splashes of oil in all directions. He rolls his eyes.

"Another one wants lobster, huh?" The guard sneers at me before sending a glob of spit in my direction. "Fuckin' boring."

I don't reply. I learned not to speak to these men early on, it only makes their sadism worse. Obviously I'm no saint, but these people... well I'm not sure I should even call them 'people,' they're monsters. At least I had a reason, even just a small one. These guys, they just get off on the violence. Their sick smiles when they reign down the make that clear enough. They're all in on it, too, judging by the cameras convienently switching off whenever they decide it's time for some torture. System's fucked, and I know it because they're so much worse than I could ever be, and I'm the one being put down.

"I'm going to enjoy pullin' that switch," the guard cackles at me while I take my first bites, "They say it's not supposed to be painful, but I can tell it is. I know bad it hurts when the volts fry your brain. I love it.

I can feel the shellfish passing down my throat as I scarf it down. I'm not even using the butter at this point, just trying to eat as much as I can.

"And I especially love turnin' down the voltage so it takes longer to kill you." His perverse giggle rises to a hearty, repugnant laugh. "There ain't nothin' you can do about it! You eat as much as you want. In the end, I'll still get to kill you."

As my last bite passes down my narrow throat, I look up to him. "Will you?"

His face scruntches in anger. Were the circumstances different, I'm sure I'd be in for a hell of a beating. Soon, though, I can see on his face that he understands what's happening. He rushes over just as my blood pressure drops and my body starts going into shock.

"You little shit, what the fuck are you doing? You're mine to kill!" He belows.

I lift my swollen face to him, opening my eyes as much as I can. When he gets close to try and save me, I spit directly in his hateful, beady eyes.

"Get fucked."

"First Class, now boarding," the clerk says over the primitive loudspeaker.

I have no idea what 'First Class' means, or why basic travel even has classes, but that's what my ticket says. I walk up to the ticket taker and they scan me in. I get a few weird looks when they see my name, but that's pretty normal. So long as I get on the plane, they can look all they want. Though, Research and Development really needs to develop better geographic steering so they can get agents at least close to where they're supposed to be. At least they got me to the right year this time.

I follow the line as we slowly file into our seats. I'm in the aisle and a man with short grey hair and a smug smile takes the window. I peer at his face, and a spark of recognition hits me. I can't quite figure out exactly who this man is, but I'm sure I've seen him in one class or another.

"I'm John," I say, using the fake name I'm told is common for this period.

"Jeffrey," he says, without looking up from his phone.

I pull out my disguised datapad, still connected to the internet of my time, and search Jeffrey 2019. The engine auto-populates a last name: Epstein. I start reading through the wiki entry.

My jaw drops.

I quickly shut my gaping mouth so as not to arouse suspicion. This bastard is one of the few humans that can really be called true, objective, scum-bags. According to the dates, much to my surprise, he gets arrested after this plane ride.

I grit my teeth. I can't actually interfere with him or his arrest, nor can I get him to name names before his 'suicide.' Our dossiers are extremely strict when it comes to changing the past, at least when it comes to large scale stuff. However, a smile creeps across my face when I realize something. I can't do anything truly impactful, but that doesn't mean I can't be the literal worst seat neighbor in history.

I reach into my bag and have the constructor make me a bit of pasta. When adding the ingredients, I turn the sections for onion, garlic, and fish as high as they can possibly go. I'm not even sure why the options can get so strong. These amounts aren't normal in any time period, even in those few decades in the 26th century when a chemical spill muted everyone's smell and taste.

I notice the bastard's nose turn up as I retrieve my pungent meal from my pack. I take a bite. It's disgusting, but I don't care. Mid-chew, I lean in, as close as I can to him. I'm entirely too close to his face and he tries to scoot away. I invade his bubble even more in response. He'd hate this even if my breath didn't smell like a months-neglected dumpster behind an Italian restaurant in the summer.

"SO WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN NEW YORK?" I nearly yell directly into his ear.

The rapist's face scrunches in disgust as he flinches from the noise. "Business," he says, clearly trying not to gag.

I lift the armbar to get even closer, making sure his legs are as squished into the wall as they can be. "I'M MOSTLY JUST TRYING TO SEE THE WORLD, YOU KNOW?"

"Could you give me a little more space?" he asks me, keeping his nose away from my mouth.

"OH SURE," I bellow, "I WOULDN'T WANT TO INVADE YOUR SPACE WITHOUT YOUR CONSENT."

His brow furrows a little at that, so I keep prodding.

"YEAH, NOTHING WORSE THAN SOMEONE WHO DOESN'T UNDERSTAND PERSONAL SPACE. IT'S LIKE WE'RE ALL PEOPLE, YOU KNOW? EVERYONE HAS A RIGHT TO AVOID BEING TOUCHED BY SOMEONE ELSE."

"Uh-huh," He mutters, squirming a little in his chair.

"HEY, YOU WANNA PLAY CARDS?" I ask, pulling a deck of cards out of my pack and immediately spilling them all over him.

The sentient pile of garbage sighs and puts his face in his hands.

"OH SORRY ABOUT THAT! COULD YOU HELP ME PICK THOSE UP?"

He starts to collect the extra-slippery cards, trying to make a pile in his hand. When he's preoccupied, I flick my finger and my kinetic ring sends most of them flying out of his hand again. I have to hold my face tight to keep from laughing as he curses to himself. I do this several more times until finally he's almost got them all back to me.

I take the opportunity to lean in close again. "THERE'S A FEW MORE ON THE GROUND, CAN YOU GET THEM?"

Epstein rolls his eyes as he reaches down, picking up a few and handing them back up. I drop them on his head, profusely apologizing to let my breath waft into his space. When he reaches for a particularly distant card, I use my ring again to push it just an inch out of his maximum reach. He's stretched out as far as he can go, getting so close only to be a tiny bit out of reach when he tries to grab hold of it.

"I can't get it," he finally says. Small bits of sweat are dripping down his forehead. Good.

"OH, LET ME TRY." I shove myself down into his foot space, mildly crushing his legs with my shoulders. I stay down there for a good five minutes, making sure he has as little space as possible.

"Maybe just leave it," he begs.

"THAT'S THE CARD WITH THE POKER HANDS FROM HIGHEST TO LOWEST! HOW ELSE AM I GONNA REMEMBER?"

"Come on, man, please! Just get a new deck!"

With a final quiet giggle, I use my ring to easily bring the missing card back into my hand, finally sitting up as the bastard sighs in relief.

A few hours pass much the same way. At one point, the scum-bag needs to go to the bathroom. I pretend to be asleep for a few minutes while he tries to wake me to get out. When he's finally 'woken' me, I give him the smallest amount of space to escape. Once he starts down the fuselage, I wag my finger, and his foot suddenly catches on nothing. He stumbles into a giant bodybuilder wearing a scowl. As he quickly apologizes, I make him trip again, this time nearly sprawling on the angry man's lap. After some heated words that make Epstein's face pull back with fear, I finally let him continue his walk to the bathroom. Once in there, I wait until he's started his business and then use the ring to cause some impromptu and powerful turbulence. Nothing that would crash the plane, of course, but enough to give him an incredibly unpleasant time. When he comes out several minutes later, he wears the face of a truly troubled man. I have to hide my face so he can't see my silent laughter.

"SO WHAT DO YOU THINK OF ALL THIS STUFF COMING OUT ABOUT USING PHYSICAL DISCIPLINE ON CHILDREN?" I ask unprompted once he's seated again.

"Uh, I don't know," he stammers, eyes closed, as if not seeing me will stop me.

"I THINK IT'S GOOD WE'RE TALKING ABOUT HOW BAD IT IS. I THINK YOU'D HAVE TO BE THE MOST HORRENDOUS PIECE OF SHIT TO HURT A CHILD."

His eyes snap open and widen. I hide my smile on the side of my face.

"I'M NOT LYING. IF YOU"-I look directly into his eyes-"HURT CHILDREN, PEOPLE WHO ARE SO VULNERABLE, SO INNOCENT, YOU"-I point to him now, right at the center of his chest-"YOU AREN'T EVEN HUMAN AS FAR AS I'M CONCERNED."

His entire body tightens. He only responds with scattered muttering. I can see in his eyes that his mind is going a mile a minute. He obviously can't be sure that I know what he's done, but he also can't be sure that I don't. He says nothing for the rest of the flight as the conflict burns in his mind. I continue to spill drinks, loudly muse, and step on his toes. He starts to get used to it, but I'm still having fun.

The plane finally starts its descent. My joy is coming to an end. Soon, I'll have to go get work done. Perhaps I'll try and get into his head one more time as we pull up to the gate.

"Do you have anyone waiting for you?" I ask, letting my voice fall to its normal volume.

"No," he says flatly.

Red and blue lights start flashing through the windows. We stop half a mile from the gate and the door opens. We look toward the entrance of the plane as several law enforcement agents walk into the aisle and make a beeline for our row.

"Are you sure?" I say, letting my grin take over my face.

The rapist glances to me in confusion before his face quickly turns to horror. As they put him in cuffs and lead him off the plane, I make sure he can hear my laughter.

Through the lens, Beth could see her former home. The shrinking continents were colored a pale tan, with only the lightest smatterings of sickly green near the watery poles. She looked at the United States, zooming in on her homeland in the Rocky Mountains. Supposedly, her family originally lived in the state of Florida, but that was generations before her or her father. The peninsula was gone now, smothered by a hot, angry sea.

She put the telescope down and rubbed where it was pressed against her eye. The skin was beginning to protest more and more after a week of intense Earth-gazing. After a few teary blinks, she carefully slid her glasses on her face. She had to be careful; if she broke them, she couldn't fix them here on the Red Planet.

Once she could see again, she noticed her father had been waiting quietly in the doorway of the room. His clean, polished nails tapped the metal of the prefab as he held up one eyebrow with impatience. He wore a tailored suit with pinstripes and a slightly lighter black than the one before, just as distinct as the last seven. His gelled hair hadn’t been disturbed since his shower this morning.

“I’m worried, Beth.” He shook his head as he paced into the room. “You seem to spend more time watching the Old World than living in the New.”

Beth sighed, “I just hope the people we abandoned are alright.”

“Tsk, tsk.” Her father narrowed his brow. “An ugly and inaccurate word. We didn’t abandon them. They simply lost the drawing. They’d have been expected to do the same to us, had they been lucky.”

“Lucky…” She let the word leave her lips with a weary breath. She stared out the window of her room, watching the families of Dome Plymouth go about their days. So many faces were familiar to her. Men and women introduced as uncles and aunts over the years despite her father having no siblings. Most had lived in houses as big as his back on Earth and now occupied the largest prefabs. Over two-thousand people lived in the first settlement of Mars, supposedly a representation of all humanity, but she recognized over two-thirds of them.

“Come now, honey,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder, “be happy. We’re alive and starting a whole new adventure! In fact, Jeff Polek and his wife are throwing a party tonight. The first one ever on Mars. Best get out your finest necklace and earrings, are they still packed?”

Beth frowned. “I didn’t bring any jewelry. Why would that be useful?”

Her father’s mouth dropped. “None? It weighs so little, why didn’t you bring at least something?” When she gave him an irritated stare back, he started rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Well, I’m sure they’ll understand. Just be in your dress in a few hours.”

“I didn’t bring a dress, either,” she snapped, “I thought I would be terraforming and farming, why the hell would I bring a flimsy dress?”

He scoffed and looked at her as if she’d wet herself. “Why would we be the ones doing those things? We’re not laborers, we’re not built for that! For God’s sake, you’re blind without your glasses!”

So why am I here? She thought but smartly didn’t utter. “Right. So, will the laborers be at this party, too, then?”

His eyes fell to the ground, then to the ceiling and around the room. “Well, no. They unfortunately still have work to do. They're already a few days behind on building. Don’t worry, though, we made sure they knew their efforts were appreciated.”

“Should we be worried about our resources running low?” Beth asked.

“No, no, no, of course not!” Her father waved dismissively. “The other planners and I have made sure of it, we know exactly how to keep the labor force moving until the job is done. That’s really what corporate management is all about. Workers tend to get lazy if we aren’t around to keep them motivated.” He shrugged casually. “It’s just how things go.”

Beth knew better than to argue. She turned around and rolled her eyes, making sure he couldn’t see her disagreement. She removed her glasses and brought the telescope back to her eye again to spy on the Old World. What she saw made her freeze. Her hands opened without her permission and the telescope fell to the ground, the glass inside shattering from the impact.

“Beth, what the hell?!” her father yelled, “I spent a fortune to get that for you!”

She could do nothing but stammer, her vision still fixed on the dot in the sky that used to be her home. “It’s… it’s…”

He picked up a few large bits of glass that fell out of the broken telescope. “Spit it out, Beth, what are you muttering about? What did you even see?”

“Fire!” she spat, “and ash! The whole damn planet is charcoal!”

“What?” He scrunched up his face as he reentered the room and opened his own telescope to peer at the stars. “My God…” he whispered once he saw what she had.

“What the fuck happened!?” Beth cried.

“How the fuck should I know?” her father snapped, “I had nothing to do with it!”

As they stood, stunned at the sight, the windows suddenly flooded with a jarring blast of light. The pair covered their eyes and a booming voice pierced deep into their minds:

“Humans! Exit your homes! This is not a request! We have an address!”

The words echoed in Beth’s skull. The authoritative speaker clearly didn’t care if the message was painful. In fact, the order likely was supposed to hurt. What better way to get attention? She thought when the pain receded. Her father’s brow was creased with worry as they shared a glance. They nodded at each other with understanding and walked to the front of the house. Her father depostied the glass shards on the table near the door to the prefab as they exited their home.

Dust filled the outside air as all the families in Dome Plymouth filed out into the streets. Some brought weapons with them and tried to look upward into the glaring brightness that hung above. The crowd surged and in both sound and shape, the people’s fear spreading like poison gas from a smokestack. A few minutes passed, and a few stubborn stragglers stumbled out of their homes, holding their heads and grimacing. Once it appeared everyone was out, the lights dimmed, revealing a massive metal craft hanging above the plexiglass snowglobe that housed the remainder of humanity.

A section of the ship detached and started to lower. Upon it stood several shapes. Each was encased in an armored suit made of sleek, purple steel, but they were clearly different species. A few looked at least vaguely humanoid, but of differing heights and head shapes. One’s mask jutted forward in the shape of a beak and another had extremely long legs relative to its body. On the left end was a creature that held itself up with thick arms while its bottom limbs hung meekly from its center. The last creature was nothing but a strange blob with what appeared to be over a dozen tentacle-like appendages sticking out in random directions.

The alien with the huge legs held out its proportionately short arms. “Humans! We have been watching you for some time now!” Its voice rang in their heads again, much to their dismay. “You’ve abandoned your kin back on your dying homeworld. We regret to inform you that that world is now gone.”

“You burned it!” Beth’s father screamed, his finger pointing to the sky. She elbowed him, but his accusation was already in the air. “You killed them all!”

“They were already dead!” the alien said, his tone turning bitter and severe, “in the months it took for you to travel to this world, their civilizations starved and crumbled. They quickly waged wars for what was left, and soon after atomic fire ended the conflict without a victor. Most died in the radiation, and those that survived were wasting away in agony. Hunger, thirst, and DNA alteration are horrifying ways for any creature to die. Nothing could have saved them, so we ended it quickly.”

Beth could tell her father, as well as many of the other planners, wished to continue the argument, but the voice never paused to let them.

“You have one final chance, last of Earth’s life. We cannot allow you to hop from planet to planet, destroying each in the same manner as the last. Nor will we give you assistance before you can prove you are deserving of a place in the galactic realm. If you fail in your task and send Mars to its destruction as you did Earth, we will make sure your toxic species ends here. Success will net you both a suitable world to live on and a place in the domain of the Milky Way. Prove yourselves or fade into ash.”

As the last of the alien’s speech sounded, the platform rose back into the craft. The ship suddenly lurched forward and sped away faster than the humans could perceive. As the stunned crowd bent their necks to the cosmos, Beth felt her father’s hand on her wrist. He started to pull her through the crowd, and before she could say anything, they were back in their house. Jeff Polek followed shortly after, the stout man hurrying as fast as his paunchy body let him. Beth looked between the two, still in a daze from the alien's revelation. However, her father and Jeff wore looks of determination. Both had hard faces, their brows folded in thought, their eyes darting around as ideas filled their heads. Curiously, the two corporate giants almost seemed to have had experience in dealing with this sort of thing.

“Clearly, we need to be careful here, Rudy,” Jeff said, a balled fist under his chin.

“Agreed,” said Beth’s father, “their technology is pretty far past ours currently, but with your blueprints, we might be able to match them, so long as we are good enough at hiding our cost-cutting measures.”

“I’ll get everyone together at the party tonight, the leaders will all be there already. We'll make sure to get a ruse going so they think we're heeding their commands.”

“Yes,” Rudy mused, “We have to get some fear in the laborers, as well, weapons need soldiers to wield them and xenophobia is going to be the easiest to sell. We should also make sure their pairing up and reproducing sooner rather than later. I know most had families back on Earth but we need to make it clear that it’s their patriotic duty. We need to start building manpower again.”

Beth’s face started to fall as she began to understand. “You mean for us to fight them?” Her jaw dropped and she took a step toward her already disapproving father. “Why? Weren’t we going to be more conscious on Mars than we were on Earth anyway?”

Jeff glared at her, then to her father. “Take care of this, Rudy. I’ll see you tonight.” He quickly left the prefab and into the dispersing crowd still outside.

“What does he mean by that?” Beth put her hands on her hips.

“You have to understand, honey, if we do everything that they’re asking of us, things are going to get hairy fast. We have to cut corners if we’re going to build an economy-”

“An economy?” she asked, “what do you mean an economy, we need to focus on surviving!”

“This is part of surviving.” He wagged a firm finger at her. “We need an economic status quo. We’re the smartest, the strongest willed, and if we don't stay at the top, the rest of those morons don't have a fighting chance.”

“You and your friends let the Earth die and rigged a drawing so you and all your families got to escape the hell you created!” she hissed, “then you made sure the laborers were torn from their families so you could run them ragged while you could sit on your ass-”

She felt the sting of his hand before she knew what had happened. The silver ring on his finger had struck her cheekbone, sending lighting through her face. When she touched the spot, her fingers came away with blood.

“How dare you, you ungrateful brat!” he sneered, “I worked my whole life so we could live like the kings we are! We are the hardest working! We are the most intelligent! We aren’t at the top because we’re lucky or privileged, we are at the top because we goddamn deserve to be! And I won’t be disrespected just because you’re too weak to realize how the world works!”

“How you’ve made the world work!” Beth growled, shoving her father into the wall, “and you’re going to kill us all again just so you don’t have to sacrifice your status!”

His eyes went cold. “I refuse to give up my way of life. The other planners refuse as well. Nothing you can say will stop it.”

“No…” She shook her head. “I can’t say anything to change your mind, nor the minds of the other elites.” Beth took a deep breath and backed up to the table in the entryway. Her father stared down at her his face turned to stoic ice. He was an exterminator watching a rat.

Her fingers wrapped around a shard of glass the size of her hand as he spoke again. “You can fall in line, or be removed, Beth. Those are your options. The same options given to the laborers, the same ones my ancestors gave those beneath them. I have no problem doing what needs to be done.”

She watched him step closer, all the muscles in her body tensing. “Neither do I,” she said quietly.

He cocked his head. “What are you-”

His voice turned to gurgles as the shard pierced his neck. Beth’s hand bled as well, but she didn’t care. A tear fell from her eye, and with it went the last of her happy thoughts about the monster that had raised her.

“It has to change now.” Her voice was shaky, but not from lack of determination. “This is our last chance. I’ll rally the laborers and we will cut out you and your kind. We will make something better.”

Rudy coughed as he fell to the steel of the floor. “You're our kind, you foolish girl.” He spat his words with bitter hate and blood.

“And I will do everything I can to fix what we’ve done.”