Nisha woke up once again to the sounds of the sand crunching under the pressure of dozens of bare, six-toed feet which were splayed into two sets of three toes. She turned on the audio for her video feed, which she left on during the night in case something happened while she was asleep. She still believed in transparency because the world needed to know reality. She also stayed transparent in the hopes that a form of crowd sourcing might lead to solutions regarding how to deal with the Omanji.

“Rachel,” she whispered. “Wake up, you’re snoring.”

“What? I don’t snore.”

“You do, listen.”

Nisha played the last 20 seconds for her.

“Oh, that’s awful. I hope you aren’t broadcasting.”

Nisha smiled.

“Just kidding. I wrote an algorithm that mutes the audio broadcast when snoring is detected. I named it MuteRachel, in your honor.”

“You’re so bad. I’ll get you.”

“Yeah right, I’m doing you a favor. Shh,” Nisha said. “They’re here.”

“They’re early today,” Rachel said.

Rachel turned on her eyepiece to catch up on the latest news.

“Check this out, overnight 50 more large spheres entered orbit around the earth. That makes 100 in orbit now. I hope they have good air traffic controllers up there. The spheres are doubling every day or two. I’m afraid to look outside the tent and find out what they’ve done overnight. Even a single crawling builder drone is hard to fathom, let alone billions.”

Nisha felt sleepy from the exhaustion of the past two weeks. She was slow to reply.

“I know what you mean Rachel. Every living being, structure, drone, sphere, or element of technology by itself is incredible. It’s hard to wrap my head around all those things happening at once. All I want to do is experience everything I can. The adults scare me, but I can’t wait to talk to the children. I find it funny they don’t try to come in the tent any more after the first time. They politely wait outside. Maybe similar privacy customs exist in their culture. Let’s go find out what’s happening.”

They opened the door to their tent. Things had changed.

“Whoa.” Nisha said. “Rachel, how many of these big towers were built last night?” Nisha said.

Rachel counted.

Nisha smiled and said, “17,3,43,31 …”

Rachel tried to keep a straight face but broke down as Nisha continued saying random numbers.

“Nisha, stop, I’m trying to count. Fine, I’ll let the eyepiece do it.”

They laughed.

Rachel gazed over the colony as the sun rose behind her producing a thousand little suns reflecting off the sinuous towers.

“They built about 35 new towers as far as I can tell. 35 may seem like a lot, but if 50 spheres entered orbit last night and if each holds one million Omanji, they need 15 more to keep up the pace.”

She zoomed in with her eyepiece.

“There’s a sea of about 100 billion builder drones working on the newest towers. That’s twice as many as yesterday. They swarm like locusts from this distance.”

Nisha became silent for a minute or two. Rachel watched in an apparent trance.

“Are you okay?”

“Oh, I’m fine. I’m thinking about things. They’re like a wave that’s washing over us. Will we be here in a year or two, or a month or two? How long will the doubling go? Where’s Priya in the colony? The place is beautiful, but I hate it because she’s being held captive in there. I can sense the voices of the human children. I heard the Omanji children also, walking behind the tent. Let’s go visit them before I start to cry again.”

“Me too,” Rachel said. “People are depressed and 50 new spheres in orbit aren’t going to help anything.”

The alien children viewed pictures of Earth’s animals and humans in silence on Bok’s large screen on a picnic table.

“Good morning, Bok.” Nisha said in a cheerful voice.

“Good morning, Nisha and Rachel,” Bok said in his electronic voice. “Please sit down at the table.”

Nisha glanced over at Rachel in mock surprise.

“They’ve been working on human etiquette.” Nisha said.

“Yes. How do they learn so much in such a short span of time?”

Nisha shrugged her shoulders.

They sat down. Bok held out his translator.

“I’ve made some improvements to my translation device. We’ll test the new features today. We’re looking at pictures of animal life forms on this planet. Even though Earth is smaller than Oma, more species of animals exist here than on Oma because there’s more land area. We’ve been learning about Earth from the elder teachers.”

While Rachel studied Bok closely, Nisha watched the pictures scroll across the screen.

“Why do I see pictures of humans mixed in with these animal pictures?”

“We’ve been studying the animals of Earth in our daily classes. Humans are one of our favorite Earth animals along with the aye-aye, saiga antelope, tapir, chameleon, and some other species. I ordered a chameleon and my friend Sol who isn’t here ordered a human. Young humans are the most popular Earth pet. They’re hard to get because the elders stopped harvesting them. We don’t know why. They’re more popular right now than the Yoots from back on Oma.”

Rachel glanced over at Nisha, whose face was turning red. She made the x sign and Nisha muted the audio.

“Bok, we’re hungry so we’re going to eat. We’ll return soon, so stay here,” Rachel said.

She grabbed Nisha and they walked into the mess tent before she could say anything.

Nisha picked up the ‘new banana’ and shook her head.

“Ever since the Cavendish banana became extinct like the Gros Michel banana did in 1960, I haven’t been able to get used to the taste of this new species.”

“I don’t like them either,” Rachel said. “The kids like them better though. We’re just old school now. Nisha, what are you thinking?”

“I want to kill him and kill all of them,” Nisha whispered. “He has some nerve taking my Priya and the other children and thinking that it’s okay. And calling us harvested animals.”

“Calm down,” Rachel said. “Remember, these are just Omanji children. They’re regurgitating what they’ve been taught in their studies which Bok mentioned. Biologically, we really are just another animal species on Earth. An opportunity exists here to change their thinking. The adults are rigid but we’re connecting with the children so let’s find out if we can change their thinking about things. Okay? Breathe.”

Nisha hadn’t practiced her morning yoga since the Omanji arrived.

“Sorry Rachel. I’m out of sync with everything. If I don’t do my yoga and meditation, I go crazy, especially if things aren’t going well. I need to resume my morning routine.”

She closed her eyes for a minute.

“Okay, I’m ready to go back. You’re right. If I begin to appear like I’m losing my sanity, wink at me, okay? Make the x sign if you want me to mute the audio portion of my broadcast.”

“Okay,” Rachel whispered.

Nisha finished her ‘new banana,’ ate a bowl of her favorite steel cut oatmeal and turned on the audio portion of her video broadcast. After that, they walked back to the children who were looking at more photos.

Nisha walked over to Bok and sat down.

“Sorry Bok, I needed to eat something. Now, where were we?”

Bok pulled out his translator from a fold of skin which looked like a marsupial’s pouch.

“I said humans are the most popular Earth pet we’ve discovered.”

“Ah yes now I remember,” Nisha said, trying to maintain her calm state. “I want to know why you own humans as pets.”

“I find it difficult to explain with a human language,” Bok said. “They give us joy. Humans own pets. Do they bring you happiness?”

“Yes, pets bring us happiness and unconditional love,” Nisha said.

Bok watched the other children gathered around the table. The group had expanded to about 50 now.

“Humans and Omanji both love pets,” Bok said.

“Yes,” Nisha said as she took another deep breath. “However, we don’t take other humans as pets. You’ve probably studied that humans used to enslave other humans. However, in the modern world, civilized humans don’t own humans as slaves or pets.”

Bok hesitated and turned gray.

“What rules do you have which allow you to take another animal as a pet? Humans are animals.”

Nisha stared at Rachel and bit her lip.

Rachel said, “If a species isn’t as intelligent as humans, is not near extinction, and they aren’t dangerous to human society as a whole or to the owner, our rules say we can own the species as a pet. Many other rules exist, but those are the main rules.”

Bok quickly replied this time.

“We’ve been studying humans. The Omanji operate under the same rules as humans. We own pets which aren’t as sentient and intelligent as we are.”

Nisha glanced over at Rachel. Rachel winked and Nisha attempted to pull herself together. She gave her next statement some thought, glanced at Rachel, and decided to speak her mind.

“My daughter Priya is not a pet. She’s different than a dog or a cat. She is self-aware, she’s probably living in fear, she wants to be happy, she can talk and discuss things intelligently.”

“I haven’t seen Priya, but I’ve seen the human children walking around. Before we domesticated them, we noticed only minor differences between humans and other animals. Let me examine your main point. We’ve tested many of your higher animal species for self-awareness. We agree that Priya and other humans are more self-aware individually than other animal species on Earth. Some of your aquatic mammals, apes, elephants, and birds show varying degrees of self-awareness. Humans show varying degrees of self-awareness also. A one-year-old human is less self-aware than an adult chimpanzee. Some humans are mentally impaired and aren’t as self-aware as average humans. However, no human we’ve tested up to now is self-aware on a species level.”

“No human is self-aware on a species level?” Nisha said. “I don’t understand.”

“That’s my point,” Bok said. “If you don’t understand the concept of species-wide self-awareness, you aren’t self-aware as a species. As a species, humans aren’t self-aware just as a lower animal isn’t self-aware as an individual. In other words, humans are often unaware of how other humans think and feel. We’ve observed in humans that misunderstandings are common, and they result in arguments and wars. Humans divide into special interest groups to establish a base level of communal self-awareness. Even within these sub-groups including couples, there’s a lack of self-awareness as a group. Humans are a long way from being self-aware as a species in our estimation. The Omanji are fully self-aware as a species. Therefore, we own human pets in the same way as humans own other animals as pets.”

Nisha and Rachel turned to each other and said nothing. Bok continued.

“Judging from your reactions, at this moment each of you doesn’t know what the other thinks, except you disagree with me. First, you’ll need to discuss thoughts verbally using your primitive air vibrations and this inaccurate language of yours. You have no direct connection to each other. You aren’t group aware. If two humans who like each other can’t be self-aware together as a group, then the entire species is at risk because self-awareness eludes the whole. Even within a single individual, humans are often not self-aware. How often have you not been sure why you’ve done something or felt a certain way? From what we can tell, humans often exhibit self-unawareness. Therefore, in our estimation humans aren’t fully self-aware on an individual level, or on a species level. Does any of this make sense to you? I may not be explaining this concept in a way you understand.”

“I understand your point Bok,” Nisha said. “You’re right when you say I’m not aware of what Rachel is thinking right now. So, we aren’t self-aware as a small group of two humans. Also, you’re correct in saying sometimes I do things for reasons not known to me until later. You’re right in saying humans aren’t self-aware on a species level. However, as an individual, I’m aware and engaged with you in this conversation right now even though I’m not sure what you’re thinking. No other animal on Earth can engage you in this way. So, I don’t think you should own humans as pets.”

“Yes,” Bok said. “I understand your points and I’ll research the issue further. Humans are partially self-aware. You’re somewhere in between an Earth chimpanzee and an Omanji.”

Bok glanced with one eye at his friends gathered around the picnic table and continued.

“Right now, I’m aware of all voluntarily disclosed thoughts of my friends standing here. Everyone volunteers most thoughts. As juveniles, we’re self-aware as a group. When we reach maturity, we’ll be allowed to merge into the Omanji collective awareness and participate in self-awareness on a species level.”

Rachel had to wink at Nisha several times to get her to calm down.

“I notice Rachel’s eye motions and your reactions to them. This is an attempt at communal self-awareness. There might be hope for humans to become fully self-aware.”

“You’re arrogant.” Nisha said. “You may think humans aren’t self-aware and you may be right on some of your points, but I think you Omanji aren’t self-aware on an inter-species level. The Omanji abducted us as pets, and you aren’t aware of how humans feel. Therefore, you aren’t inter-species aware.”

The group of young Omanji turned to each other silently for several long seconds.

“In that case,” Bok said. “Humans are also not self-aware on an inter-species level. We watch how you treat your animals. You own pets, consume them as food and enslave them into hard labor without understanding how they feel. Do you know how a horse feels to be ridden by a human? Do you know how a rat feels to be subjected to experimentation? You don’t because you aren’t self-aware on an inter-species level.”

Bok examined Nisha and Rachel with both of his roving eyes.

“You two are angry but you don’t change color. We should continue this discussion at a future time after you calm down.”

Nisha closed her eyes for a few seconds.

“Don’t worry Bok. Humans get angry and later they calm down. We can be angry and honest with our friends and remain friends. I want to be your friend Bok. I’m angry because you’ve taken my Priya and the other children. I want them back. They aren’t pets and won’t make good pets. You’ll understand as time goes on. I wouldn’t want a human as a pet. We make terrible pets because we’re independent thinkers. We aren’t docile or easily tamed by your so-called domestication process. What did you do to our children? I want to know the truth.”

Rachel turned to Nisha and gave the x sign to mute the audio.

“It’s okay,” Nisha said. “Humanity deserves to know the truth no matter how bad.”

She glanced at Bok as a mother might do to a child when the child has some explaining to do.

“Please continue Bok. What did you do to them?”

Bok turned vibrant and pleasant shades of blue and green. He was happy to tell them about the enhancements.

“We’ve given the young humans group sentience and group self-awareness. We’ve improved them.”

“And how exactly did you, improve them?” Rachel said.

They both stared at Bok with a steaming intensity.

“You’re angry, so I’ll explain what happened slowly and simply for you.”

Nisha and Rachel glanced at each other and shook their heads in disgust.

“When we first arrived in orbit around your Moon, we examined your planet and its life forms. We already knew things about Earth from a probe that visited a long time ago. We thought humans would make the best pets, so we arrived and sampled the DNA from thousands of them. We identified improvements which could be made to correct some deficiencies we noticed in the humans.”

“So, let me get this straight,” Nisha said. “You’re telling me you needed to make improvements to humans before they would be suitable as pets?”

“Yes,” Bok said. “We liked the humans, but deficiencies needed to be corrected to make them more interesting companions for us.”

Nisha glanced at Rachel and clenched her fists.

“And what deficiencies are those?” she said. She put her hands on her hips.

“The elders determined that unmodified humans in the wild didn’t possess adequate intelligence, and group sentience, and group self-awareness to perform as high-functioning pets for us. So, we made two main improvements in addition to correcting genetic defects.”

Nisha tried to keep herself under control, but she couldn’t help letting her disgust show.

“Tell the world about these improvements Bok,” she said.

“First, we implanted a small device in their brain so they could communicate with the other human children and with us directly without having to speak. I have a similar device in my brain. The human children communicate more efficiently now. The device adapts to integrate seamlessly into the dendrites of neural cells which are pathways between the speech centers and the more sentient areas of the human brain. Now when she thinks and wants to speak, she has the option to transmit those thoughts directly to the wider group instead of to only a small group via air vibrations.”

“They can read each other’s minds?” Nisha said.

“Not exactly,” Bok said. “It’s like how you communicate now. You can choose to speak or be silent. The human children have a choice to open their thoughts to the group or not, via the transmitter. If they’re open, then others can know their thoughts.”

“A couple of weeks ago, sounds, like thousands of electronic voices flowed through my mind,” Nisha said. “Were those your voices transmitted via this implant?”

“Yes. We realized our transmissions were being carried too far and you might detect them. We adjusted the transmission’s amplitude and frequency, so you can’t detect them as easily. Only 1% of the human population we tested perceived those vague static transmissions. We learned humans in that 1% are highly capable of adapting to the implants well enough to allow communication. That’s why we took a youthful subset of those humans. Their young brains are still forming, so they’ll better adapt to the implants. Also, they’re old enough to handle the genetic modifications. The procedure is like the procedure which will be performed on me when I come of age.”

Nisha appeared overwhelmed and couldn’t talk, so Rachel stepped in.

“Tell us about the genetic modifications.”

“We thought humans would make better pets if they were more intelligent, so we enhanced their intelligence and their life span,” Bok said. “Some pets don’t need to be intelligent, but humans are more interesting when they’re more intelligent.”

“So how did you enhance their intelligence?” Nisha said, checking to make sure this was being transmitted to the world.

“First,” Bok said. “We sampled the DNA of humans of average intelligence, emotional and logical capability, the ability to distinguish fact from fiction, and 107 other measures of intelligence. After that, we sampled some humans with higher levels of emotional, intellectual, and general intelligence. We analyzed the data and found the genetic differences which resulted in higher overall intelligence. We modified the DNA in the children to increase their intelligence past the point of the most intelligent humans we observed. The neurons need to grow and forms new connections, so the increase will take months to fully take effect. We’re observing significant intelligence enhancement already in only a couple of weeks. The results are beyond our expectations. Then, we sampled long lived humans and determined the genetic reasons for why they live longer. The genetic reasons are the same as with my species. The DNA degrades over time during cell replication. Stem cells die. Our DNA is 70% like human DNA and 4% near identical. Our DNA is arranged in a double helix like yours, and it has the same four nucleobases. You call them guanine, adenine, thymine, and cytosine. However, the code is arranged differently because our evolutionary history is different.”

Nisha and Rachel glanced at each other in amazement.

“How can you affect intelligence and longevity in a fully formed human?” Rachel said. “We’ve figured out how to make basic genetic changes to some plant and animal species, but the procedure must be done to the first stem cell after fertilization, so the DNA change gets propagated to the entire organism as the cells divide.”

“Yes, that’s a problem,” Bok said. “We didn’t wish to incubate human embryos and wait for years to find out if the changes worked, so we modified the DNA in most cells for longevity and in every brain cell for intelligence.”

Nisha eyes opened wide.

“What?” she said. “You modified the DNA in most cells? About 40 trillion human cells live in the human body, with many times more bacterial cells. How did you modify all those human cells?”

“We use small organically synthetic drones which can enter a cell and make the required changes to the DNA. Each cell must be modified one at a time. We inject about 10 billion drones into the blood stream, so each drone only has a few thousand cells to modify, and the job is done. Many hours are required to make the upgrade. Afterwards, the drones exit through the urinary tract. The humans reported some tingling while the drones were working so the drones emit a mild sedative to make the process easier for the humans. Every human we’ve taken as a pet is now modified.”

Nisha slumped in her chair. She realized what this meant. She glanced over at Rachel.

“My Pree has been modified. She’s dead as I know her.”

She leaned over to Rachel and cried in her arms.

“What’s wrong?” Bok said.

Nisha couldn’t answer but Rachel could.

“In her mind, you’ve killed her daughter. She will never be the same.”

Bok paused as he watched the other young Omanji gathered around the table. He turned gray.

“I thought she would be happy that we improved her offspring. Priya and the others will be happier now and live longer.”

“You don’t understand Bok,” Rachel said. “Nisha and all human parents like their children the way they are. The entire human species is angry at you. Those children will never be the same. Even if you were to reverse the process, they would forever be changed.”

Bok glanced at Rachel and said, “Yes, the DNA modification process can’t be reversed just as water can’t be made to flow backwards in the same way it flows forwards. When I come of age not long from now, I’ll undergo a similar DNA modification process in my brain so I can merge with the Omanji collective awareness and become fully self-aware on a species level. That process is irreversible. Each Omanji citizen must make the decision alone and can elect to not undergo the procedure. Approximately 99.9% merge, and those who don’t, live freely in a separate colony with others who don’t wish to merge. On Earth, we have yet to form a colony for the other 0.1%.”

Nisha managed to stop crying and glanced at Bok.

“I want to talk with Priya. Now. Where is she?”

Bok hesitated again and glanced at the rest of his friends with one eye. Then he focused back on Nisha.

“Most of the children are under the ownership of Omanji families, but they’re still undergoing domestication. I don’t know where Priya is. I can’t access that information, and I won’t have access until I merge with the collective awareness.”

“Bok, can you search for her? I need to talk to her immediately. Humans needs to know that the children are okay.”

“Yes, I’ll search for her. I know where the children are being domesticated. The locations are in the third tower next to the road over there. However, I can’t access information about individual human children. I’ll find out if I can learn more. We’re getting messages from our parents, so we must go. We can talk later.”

They abruptly left and ran across the desert to the colony. They looked like a herd or a swarm. Nisha muted her audio stream for a brief time.

“How did I do? She whispered to Rachel as she switched on a noise canceling device. “I don’t want even the Omanji to hear, so speak softly.”

“I think you did well. You stood your ground and asked him tough questions. You challenged him and he didn’t seem to mind the debate.”

“He’s arrogant and they all are,” Nisha said. “They say it’s okay to own people because they have an edge in intelligence and technological toys.”

“He may be arrogant, but I think the adults are much more arrogant. He’s our best chance. I think you need to do your yoga and meditate twice per day starting right now. You’re the world’s connection to the Omanji and we need you to be strong.”

“Good idea Rachel. I’m going to the tent to do it right now. I had my yoga mat brought to our tent today so I can get started. Um, I’ll start as soon as we eat dinner. I’m hungry after all this talk. Anxiety makes me eat.”

Nisha turned on her audio.

As they walked to the mess tent, Rachel got a notification and she turned to Nisha.

“Guess what? Another 50 large spheres are in Earth’s orbit. That makes a total of 150.”

They were oblivious all day to the construction, but the colony was visibly larger than the day before. Dozens of new towers were in varying stages of completion.

Rachel breathed in to calm her nerves.

“I estimate more than 150 billion builder drones are working on the new towers. They’re like a giant swarm of insects. If you watch for a while, you can watch the towers grow right in front of your eyes.”

“You’re right, the structures are growing,” Nisha said.

They walked into the mess tent to eat dinner.

“Looking at the colony used to be a fascinating novelty, with all of those artistically twisted shapes and forms,” Nisha said. “Quinn loves the designs. Now it’s so complex it’s mind numbing.”

As the sun sunk low to the horizon behind the expanding colony, the last light cascaded through the silvery towers creating a dim red glow between them.

“It’s beautiful, but where will it stop?” Rachel said as she gazed over the new and permanent looking arcology.

“There’s no way to know,” Nisha said. “This is beyond an exploratory outpost. They are serious about living here. I have more questions to ask when we visit with them again. They seem like early risers. I wonder how their circadian rhythms are handling a 24-hour day. The length of their day might be of any length.”

Nisha yawned.

“I’ve been running on about three hours of sleep each day for most of the past two weeks. I’m going to sleep early.”

After saying good night to their families and giving the President and the DHS an update, they were soon fast asleep.