Shuffling idly onto a long queue of other human laborers at the gloomy monorail station, you await the next carriage destined for the industrial zone. A hefty gunk of exhaustion still clogs your mind from the endless seven day work weeks, and you fail to notice, in your haze, the irritation of the person you cut off. On the other side of the platform you witness a previous shift disembarking, returning to their cubicles after their 16 hour shifts. What you wouldn’t give right now to be stepping off that train and heading for a night’s rest. It was all you had to look forward to in this miserable shithole under their rule.

An announcement breaks your longing. It seems to echo from the sky itself down into your mind and the groggy minds of everyone around you. The voice is a deep baritone, and it grips your attention, demands it even, by shoving aside any other thought you might entertain.

"Attention all humans of Zone 61,Consequent to recently uncovered treasonous activities now since effortlessly foiled, all rations are reduced by 33% for the next 14 solar cycles as punishment for these acts. The direct perpetrators and secondary facilitators are all slaughtered, but we remind you that law and order is a community effort. Your failure to report these treasonous activities to your Nothor masters was a tacit endorsement of them which shall not be tolerated. We also remind you that your minds are open transcripts to us. You will be caught.Zone 61 is now on a first level caution. We strongly encourage you to avoid a transition to a second level caution, which shall invoke bloodline cullings.You may return to your duties now."

A mixed murmur of shock, confusion, despair and anger swept up and down the line. Your own anger boiled over from a mixture of fatigue and sorrow. How can they expect us to work relentlessly like this on fewer rations? What right do they have to inflict any of this upon us? Nothor bastards. This can't go on. There has to be a way to be rid of them.

You feel an instant back-arching chill in your spine and skull like someone pouring arctic seawater down your back.

"Did you not understand what you were told?" said a voice.

"Or has your stunted human memory declined to below acceptable levels, rendering you incapable of remembering what you were just told?" it said again.

A pit developed in your stomach. You were caught.

A male Nothor strutted into view from a nearby access tunnel, his arms casually clasped behind an ivory Olympian body of world-ending power that’s archetypical of his race. His blue mane of feathers bobbed with each step, but the glowing green irises of his eyes were laser focused on yours. You felt your limbs locking up and going numb as he seized control of your nervous system.

This was it. You were finished. You just became another example to everyone around you. You tried to close your eyes in anticipation of the alien exploding every organ in your body, or hitting you so hard and fast that your body combusted, but you couldn't even do that.

He stopped about four feet in front of you, appraising you with nigh-omnipotent senses and a hyper-intelligent mind no AI could match, doubtlessly analysing every facet of your mind and body down to the individual atoms and molecules.

"Your feeble thoughts are perilously close to insurrection, human. Correct them now, and don't ever think that about us again," he said.

You weren't sure if he was projecting his mind-voice into other human heads around you, but you saw the other people to your left and right clear away from you, forming a wide area within which you stood alone with this seven foot tall superbeing. It was hard to even think straight in his presence; it was like intellect being suffocated, unable to focus on forming even a single word inside your own mind. Your focus was interrupted and wrestled back to him. Even inside your own head, you had no way to resist, or even articulate a response.

"I'll be monitoring your mind from now on, so I'll know if you do," he said. His eyes peered down at you smugly, daring you to differ. You didn't.

He smiled with grim contempt, turned and started walking down the line of terrified humans, his eyes darting from person to person, undoubtedly scanning for more rebellious thoughts.