After twenty four centuries the Council of Aelin decided to take a look at the people of Earth again to see what they had been up to. Separately six individual recruits were deployed across the planet Earth....

* One arrives in the middle of a gang fight and is immediately shot out of surprise by one of the gang members. He feels perplexing disorientation upon being shot, like if you mistakeningly walked into the wrong hotel room to find a toweled man rubbing on deodorant standing outside the bathroom looking at you. He never made it back to Aelin to report his findings.
* One appears at a baseball game and watches a fan accidently spill a drink on another guy and start to fight. The Aelin recruit is baffled by the irrational fanacticism. Not until the drunken brawl is broken up by security does the Aelin gather her surroundings enough to realize that she was involved in watching a game. Still she fails to grasp what could instigate the reaction between the two humans.
* One sees a robber with a gun stealing a woman's car but not before raping her in her own backseat. The Aelin tries to save the woman from the assailant but the young victimizer gets away before he can catch him. He attempts to console the beaten woman who is in shock and bleeding.
* One quietly appears while a artist is intently working on a painting. After secretly watching the artist paint for a bit, she slips out the open sliding door through the yard, finding a young woman walking her dog down the street. The Aelin follows her for a while before walking into a grocery store and watches people shop for food.
* One sees people working in a car manufacturing plant while they plug and scan in parts. The Aelin has problems seeing the people at first, they look like machine parts themselves. At a later point fails to see why people are needed for these tasks at all?
* One stands in to see a cook in his kitchen busily preparing food for his dinner guests who arrive in half an hour. She savours the aroma's and pinches a taste while the cook isn't looking and quickly leaves to not startle the intent chef. She reports that humanity, despite having bad taste in movies and wallpaper, has an exquisite talent for concocting casserole.


There's a question that this makes me ask and that is, if aliens were to come spontaneously and randomly to visit you going about your day, what would they see you doing and is it something you are proud of? Also, since this story involves extra-terrestrial characters, suggesting it's of a cosmic scope, there should be some retrospection on what we are doing as a human species together, in other words, how things are going. Realizing that once we've figured out what is happening in our own little lives, that there are millions of other humans populating this bigger thing we all share and inhabit, and looking at what are we doing as a collective to make this the best as possible. If we were to have dinner guests over to our house what would we want to serve? Assuming we'd want to provide a healthy and tasty menu for our guests.