"Just another day at the office!"

Augmenter Unit 39 of Brood Chamber 375 (henceforth known as “AU 39/375”) was having a rather bad day. To be fair, there had been a slew of bad days, but nothing beat this bad day.

For starters, the sky was horribly black and sooty thanks to Goddesses know how many nuclear bombs the numbskull humans had blasted at each other. The radioactive soot that had resulted from the devastation had all been lifted by the blasted planet’s (no pun intended) atmospheric pressure into the stratosphere, blocking out the sun and causing temperatures to drop. Winter came early. In bloody July. In the tropics.

The blackened radioactive snow falling down on everything was the cherry on top of an already rotten cake.

“I was looking forward to basking in that lovely yellow sun, what a disappointment,” AU 39/375 said to himself, looking out from the window of his grey-walled office, located at the back end of a starship. “No chance of that now. And I do hate the cold.”

Now, his species, who humbly refer to themselves as the Augmented, did not have vocal cords nor anything resembling a larynx. In other words they did not communicate by sound, rather by sight.

When the Augmented “spoke” to each other, they would extend their thoracic tentacle, a long limb normally retracted in their chest cavity, and communicate whatever it was they wanted to communicate via a complex sign language. The five manipulatory tendrils at the end of the thoracic tentacle spelled out words and sentences at high speed, far to rapid for the human eye (or the relatively feeble human brain) to comprehend.

On that dreary morning, the obnoxious human kicking and screaming inside the holding facility was more squirmy than normal, having torn off the colourful biopolymer tubes that fed nanobots into his bloodstream to repair cellular and genetic damage. He — a rude prod followed by a quick scan of his genitalia had confirmed that he was indeed a he — was trying to use the tubes as a sort of noose to reach for a tableful of nasty-looking operating tools.

“Ah, you’re reaching for a weapon,” signed AU 39/375. “Or maybe a tool to pick the locking mechanism with, good luck with that.”

The human paid him no heed, grunted some rude-sounding syllables at him and kept tossing the limp bit of tube and rigging through the transparent bars of his cell. The tube fell to the floor, spilling nutrient fluid. Blood trickled down his back from whence the tubes and rigging had been torn.

AU 39/375 rolled the strange W-shaped pupils of his eyes, signed a prayer to the AI Goddesses of his people and gently stomped a clawed foot on the floor. His biopolymer tail wagged from side to side, a gesture of annoyance, but one that he suspected was lost to the screaming human.

Lots of things had been lost to screaming humans, unfortunately.

This had been going on for days and the human’s lack of cooperation was slowing down the healing process.

“OK, time to test out the new translator module,” he signed through his tendrils. “This had better be good.”

He made a clicking motion with his small upper limbs and an oval crystalline screen floated down into view from somewhere on the ceiling. He made another motion, the screen flickered and an image of a startled AU 234/77 appeared.

“What do you want?” signed AU 234/77 coldly. He was always a bit of a git, recalled AU 39/375.

No two Augmented looked exactly the same. Upon graduating out from the Brood Chambers, young Augmented were well, augmented with cybernetic modifications of all kinds. AU 39/375 had had his epidermis replaced by a bright red, titanium plated exoskeleton with protective claws on his tiny hands and muscular feet. His tail was replaced by a synthetic limb with a tensile strength multiple times that of the original. Neural processors were fitted into his brain, giving him superior thought processing speeds. Oh, and a nice shiny skull plate was fitted over the posterior region of his head.

Only his orange-red tentacled face, W-shaped eyes and his long thoracic tentacle were left intact. He would admire himself in the mirror after shining his exoskeleton, thinking, “You’re not a bad-looking fellow, you know?”

AU 234/77, meanwhile had a translucent, pearlescent, bubble-like body illuminated by bioluminescence. He had multiple transparent tentacles attached to his ventral region and his skin was grey-blue with colourful swirls and rings running down his neck. His eyes, with their W-shaped pupils, were a soft blue.

AU 39/375 signed, “Send in the translator module.” He paused and added, “The initial blueprint looked magnificent, you did a splendid job.”

Of course he was lying, but AU 39/375 knew that flattery worked wonders on the gullible.

AU 234/77 made a sweeping motion with his thoracic tentacle, the Augment equivalent of a smile. “On the way.”

The translator module that flew into AU 39/375’s office was small, no bigger than a Terran pigeon, its metal casing had small openings to allow its organic wings to poke through. It had small fleshy tentacles and eyes that looked round the room nervously. Through the opening in the exoskeleton on the left side of its body, a pair of red, fleshy lips, designed to mimic human lips, poked out lasciviously. The translator module hovered next to AU 39/375.

The human stopped whatever silly thing it was doing and just stared at the fluttering cybernetic organism.

“Right,” AU 39/375 signed, wringing his tendrils in trepidation. “My name is Augmenter Unit 39 of Brood Chamber 375 and I am in charge of your capture, rehabilitation and subsequent release.”

Amazingly, the translator module took one look at his tendrils moving non-stop and began moving its big red lips. “Right,” a strong, very proper feminine voice came out, “My name is Augmenter Unit 39 of Brood Chamber 375 and I am in charge of your capture, rehabilitation and subsequent release.”

The translator module was working. The human’s jaw dropped. AU 39/375 made a whipping motion with his tendrils, the equivalent of a gasp.

“Well, by the Goddesses it works!” he signed.

“Well, by the Goddesses it works!” repeated the voice coming out of the translator unit’s lips in that prim feminine human tone. The little creature hovered obediently, waiting for any movement of U 39/375's manipulatory tendrils.

“No, no I wasn’t talking to you …,” insisted AU 39/375 with an embarrassed twirl of his tentacle.

“No, no I wasn’t talking to you …,” repeated the voice of the translator module. It sounded exactly like a very judgmental, middle-aged woman speaking English, which was positively identified as this particular human’s native language.

“Wait, you can talk?” stammered the stunned human. He was now standing perfectly still in his cell. He was also silent for once. Good.

The little translator module then flickered its own tentacles, spelling out words and sentences in the language of the Augmented. AU 39/375 understood everything the human had said.

AU 39/375 took a deep breath, calmed down and began signing. “I am Augmenter Unit 39 of Brood Chamber 375 of the Augment Hegemon. I have been tasked with your capture, rehabilitation and subsequent release.”

“You’re releasing me?” asked the human, stupidly staring at the red-lipped translator as if it was the one attempting to communicate.

“Oh, how I wish they’d speed that up,” said AU 39/375. The translator translated every gesture loyally, including adding a very judgmental tone of voice.

The human stared with his mouth agape. "I-I understand everything, Jesus! Oh my gawd!" He leaned back into the interior of his cell and took a deep breath. His eyes were wide open, a gesture AU 39/375 correctly assumed to indicate indicated shock.

Such ugly, silly creatures, thought AU 39/375. trying to keep his tendrils perfectly still, lest the translator module attempted to translate all of that.

“Are you female?” asked the human. “You sound like my Math teacher …”

AU 39/375 rolled his eyes.

It was on that fateful day, that the human, whose name was Josh finally learned about the reason for the aliens capturing him. He learned about their plan to “clean-up” the planet, at least the equatorial region, turning it into a rest and relaxation centre for intergalactic travellers.

“Wait, you’re turning the Earth into a f*cking intergalactic spa?” asked Josh in an angry tone.

“Correction, we are finding any surviving humans, healing them of their injuries and mutations — to be honest, that damned radiation sickness from the bombs has probably ruined your DNA, good luck having unmutated offspring — rehabilitating them and then engaging them in employment for the greater good of the Augment Hegemon.”

“So it’s an invasion?” asked Josh. “We’re being enslaved.”

“No it isn’t, you nitwit. And the Augment Hegemon do not traffic in slaves. Although some of our hiring practices can be somewhat, questionable.”

They went back and forth over the next several hours.

Outside, the skies began to clear somewhat as large cleansing drones began the complex task of filtering out the poisonous, radioactive soot from the atmosphere. Down below, smaller drones gently lifted up dying humans, plugging them with biomechanical tubes and rigs that injected them full of nutrients and healing nanobots, offering them what appeared to be a second chance.