The first letter sat unopened on Lisbeth's kitchen table for a month. It was nondescript, lacking a return address or any identifying features. Only in hindsight did she realized the sense in that. One million is a large number until you hold it up against seven billion and see how selective the thing really was.
By now you have heard that we are seeking the one million best people from all across the world...
Fortunately for Lisbeth, they sent another letter. She expected it to be a credit card offer (she got a lot of those - her reward for having middling credit). Reading the brief correspondence, her initial assumption was that she had been pranked. Maybe Connie had sent it, or Nehal. But then she went to the internet and she searched and she saw that she was not alone. It wasn't a prank.
She had been selected.
We need you, ELIZABETH RICE. This is the most important thing you will ever do, and no one can do it but you.
The letter suggested strongly that she not tell anyone. There were questions of safety - how would the rest of the world respond? The unchosen? The ones who were not quite special enough? Because no one truly knew what it meant. Was it merely the formation of a new elite class? Or was it something more dire for those left behind?
The whispers had been everywhere, but no one - perhaps wisely, perhaps unnecessarily - had actually stepped forward and marked themselves as one of the million "best". Not in public, anyway. And so the whispers stayed whispers. No riots - not yet. No murder. Just whispers. Whispers, and so, so many questions.
Lisbeth was terrified and elated in equal measure. The terror was natural, the elation came despite her best efforts to tamp it down. She had been named one of the one million "best" human beings on the planet. What did that even mean? And why her? The note hadn't said. Online she saw the same story repeated - plenty of guesses ("Everyone says I'm very pretty" "Well, I was the youngest to an MBA at my college, so..." "I really try to be nice, and I think that's what it was"), but nothing concrete and nothing consistent.
For her part, Lisbeth tried her best not to even guess, because what would it change? She didn't think she was anything special, but she was human, and modesty can only extend so far. To be named as something so select - for something so important - was electrifying. But always those waves of excitement were chased by troughs of doubt and fear.
What did it all mean?
Again, there were theories. Most people seemed to think it had to do with climate change. "They've already got a Martian base all set up," declared a carpenter from Australia. "This planet is fucked. We're moving to Mars."
"Just a think tank," said another. "Pick our brains. See what the best have to say. Feed off our positive energy." That just seemed like gibberish to Lisbeth.
Thankfully, they wouldn't have to wait long. Lisbeth's note contained instructions for "extraction". She would need to leave the city the next week and meet her assigned driver in a gas station off the highway. That gave her pause. She wanted so much to tell Connie. She could trust Connie. Connie surely wouldn't hurt her. And it would be nice to hear someone else's advice or excitement or maybe even praise. Perhaps Connie would know what made Lisbeth so special. Or, at least, it would be nice to hear her guesses. But Lisbeth couldn't do it., though she tried.
"Have you heard...?" she asked and Connie snorted.
"All a hoax, I think," she said. "No one's come forward, right? There are no million. Just an internet hoax."
"But if it were real...?" said Lisbeth.
And Connie laughed. "Well I'm shit outta luck," she brayed. She didn't say anything about Lisbeth. That made Lisbeth resentful, but she pushed that down, too. It didn't matter. There were things about her that Connie couldn't see. Things most people didn't appreciate.
When the day came, she told Connie that she was heading down south to visit her parents. Connie didn't bat an eyelash. Lisbeth resented her even more.
Lisbeth took her car to the gas station. The driver was there, where she'd been told he would be. He said little, though he was professionally dressed and conducted himself with respect. He seemed surprised to be handed her suitcase, as if no one else had thought to bring luggage. Or maybe Lisbeth had just made an assumption about his duties. It didn't seem to matter, though - just an awkward moment, and then they were off, flying down the highway, in directions Lisbeth couldn't discern through the thickly tinted windows.
They drove for hours, such that Lisbeth was certain they would run out of gas. She tapped on the partition, asking for a break, hoping to use the bathroom at some rest stop, but the driver said they were close, as if that were all that needed to be said. They were not close, but just as Lisbeth thought she could take no more, the car pulled over and came to a stop.
They were at an airfield. A man - not the driver - escorted Lisbeth from the car. When she asked about her bags, he waved his hands and said that they would be along shortly and not to worry. Lisbeth tried not to worry.
There was a restroom on the plane, and it wasn't until Lisbeth had exited the lavatory that she noticed the other passengers on board. They all seemed so normal. Quiet. Withdrawn. No celebrities. No great beauties. What had she expected? Gray-bearded professors? Famous humanitarians? (And how would she have even recognized one of those?) Perhaps they were all enormously intelligent. Perhaps they were selfless to a fault. She wanted someone to talk to. Surely now she could talk about it, surrounded by her peers. But the engines came to life just then and the noise of the blades filled the cabin. Lisbeth took her seat, strapped her seat-belt and waited patiently. That, at least, came easily to her. Patience and faith. She was one of the one million best human beings on the planet Earth - she was determined to act like it.
The plane floated, shuddered, and swooped. Hours passed. Lisbeth could see only clouds below. She had no idea where they were going.
The plane descended over gray-green fields and miles of frost-tipped forest. She looked at the woman across the aisle and the woman smiled, mouthing the word, "Alaska". But was it a question or a statement?
The air outside the plane was crisp and biting, but they were shuttled quickly from the plane to a series of idling vans. Lisbeth saw another plane coming in for a landing and one circling around for a takeoff. More vans were arriving. More had already left.
In the van, Lisbeth sat next to the woman from the plane.
"It's Alaska," she said. "I have an uncle who lives in Anchorage. I can tell."
"What part of Alaska?" asked Lisbeth, partly to know and partly to be friendly. She desperately needed a friend just then. But the woman shrugged, almost coldly. "It's Alaska," she repeated, turning away from Lisbeth.
The vans cut down ragged, winding roads, tall, dark trees rising on either side. Lisbeth wondered what time it was. When had she left home? Had it been a day already? Her phone didn't seem to be working - she couldn't even get it to turn on.
After another hour or two, the van entered a clearing. Pressed against her window, Lisbeth could see them - the people. The others. There weren't a million, not by a long shot. But there were thousands, certainly. They stood together in the frosty clearing, shivering, some huddled under blankets and shawls. The van door opened and Lisbeth was led out into the cold.
"What's happening?" she asked the man who pulled her through the door.
"Announcement once the last group gets here," he said. "Just wait until then."
She did wait. She had given up on the woman from the plane and found a man about her age. He wasn't especially attractive, but he had a wide smile that reminded her of her high school boyfriend. She smiled and shivered. He offered her his coat. She took it gratefully.
"Where'd you come from?" he asked.
"Memphis," she said. "They didn't say where...you know. And I don't know what happened to my luggage."
The man smiled and shrugged. "Maybe that's what we're the best at - being really, really patient."
She laughed and felt better. More people flooded into the clearing.
"We'll be here forever if we're waiting for a million people," said the man, whose name was Clyde. "We're not even a tenth of the way there."
Lisbeth was going to agree, but the air was filled with a brief echoing wail as a series of high-powered speakers came to life. Someone, somewhere, was talking.
"Thank you," said the voice - it sounded like an elderly man without much of an accent. "We appreciate you coming. This is very important. More important than you might have guessed."
There was a breath and a bit of muttering. The elderly man went on. "I'll keep things simple. You are all the best...in one very important way - you came. You are kind and you are special and all of that is true. But what is most important is that you are here. And that is what we wanted - people who would come. People who would do us this duty.
"There are not a million of you here. This is but one site and we were not tasked with producing any more than 75 thousand. The rest are elsewhere. We do not know where. For your purposes, it does not matter."
The speaker cleared his throat. Lisbeth looked to the man whose jacket she was wearing. He was hanging on every word, but the smile was gone. All the smiles were gone.
"We made a bargain. It was not an easy bargain. I suspect it is a bargain we will long be criticized for. But it was the best bargain we could make.
"There are...things among us who are not human. They have been here for many years. Many, many years. So long, we have mythologized them without truly knowing them. They are long-lived and they come in the shape of man, but they are not man. They are great seducers. Enchanters of the mind. In our fictions, we have romanticized them, but they are not romantic creatures. They are like us - they live to consume. And what they consume, is us."
The crowd noise grew. The old man cleared his throat once more, the speakers cranking up to uncomfortable volumes.
"Those among us are merely the vanguard. The beginning, as it were. They are not from here, but they are coming. The host is soon to arrive. They are more than us, in every way. Stronger and more cunning. We will be overrun.
"That is - we would have been overrun, if not for the bargain we have struck. To put it plainly, to these creatures we are but cattle. Less a delicacy, and more the raw material of life. They are coming to claim the whole of this world and make of it what they wish, but that is a bloody road, even for ones as superior as these. And so, in the face of eradication, we have instead made an offering - you."
The sound of dissenting voices grew to a roar. Figures began to flee the clearing. Shots rang out. Men and women fell dead.
"It is already done," said the unseen old man. "This is our delivery. You will sate their thirst, if only for a while. And we will survive - at least for a time. And perhaps in time we will become powerful enough to stand up to these creatures and face them in even combat. But today is not that day. So we thank you... thank you for your service to this Earth... thank you for your goodness and grace... thank you for your lives... and most of all, we thank you for coming here today. Your sacrifice will not be forgotten."
The last line died in a new roar. Not 75 thousand voices shouting, but 75 thousand voices screaming, wailing, crying; and layered atop that, the sound of monstrous, unnatural clouds rolling across the sky, rumbling like cannon fire, casting frozen darkness like a veil.
And there, within that great rumbling, human cacophony, yet another sound - the screech and chirp of bats. Thousands and thousands of bats.
Lisbeth stood still in the center of that writhing pile of humans, watching quietly as the new night wrapped itself around her like a funeral shroud. Pulling the jacket tight around her shoulders, she took a deep, biting breath - waiting patiently. So patiently.
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