Chapter Text
When the Affini first arrived on Earth, I felt a sort of grim satisfaction. At long last, I thought, the Terran Accord is finally getting its comeuppance. Finally, I told myself, as I watched those kilometer-long ships fall from heaven, trailing fire like comets, finally, these sons of bitches are going to get what they deserve.
Of course, I knew all the rest of us were royally fucked too. I didn't believe the Accord propaganda about the Affini being mindless, savage monsters who lived only to eat us. Nothing that primitive and animalistic could be so rapidly pushing the Terran Cosmic Navy back to Earth. Sure, they tried to hide it, but the problem with fascists is that they're only good at lying to the people who already want to believe them. Anyone who didn't drink the Flavor-Aid could easily put two and two together and see that the Accord was losing, and badly. We could see what resources were short, and where they usually came from. Whenever "great victories against the alien menace" were brought up, they always seemed to be happening around stars under communications blackout, so nobody could actually check.
Of course, nobody could say anything of the sort. Questioning the Accord's official position was at best fruitless and at worst actively dangerous. The most you could hope for if you pointed out the contradictions in their account was silence; they'd pretend they just hadn't heard you, and move on to the next talking point. More often, you'd get publicly denounced as a naysayer, a coward, a demoralizer, an emotional saboteur trying to sap Humanity's resolve. As the prospects of the war turned increasingly dire, anyone who dared question the Accord was arrested for sedition.
Still, I knew nobody with a military capable of wiping the floor with the TCN was beating a furious warpath toward Earth with benevolent intentions. That's when the propaganda turned on a dime, seamlessly transitioning from "mindless, savage monsters" to "brutal, merciless collectivists." Everyone had to make sacrifices for the war effort, or we'd all be under the thumb of ruthless alien overlords who'd press us all into slavery. We all had to do our part, "else the light of human dignity will drown under the darkness of an alien sky," one unusually competent Accord wordsmith wrote. That felt like a sort of confession: the Accord had picked a fight it couldn't win with a force that could crush it between finger and thumb. We were all fucked because of a decision the Accord had made - business as usual, honestly. That described every major historical of the past 400 years.
But finally, finally, finally, the Accord was fucked right along with us. Yes, I would suffer. We'd suffer. This monstrous sleeping giant that the Accord had awoken was going to crush us all - but it would crush us all. Nobody would escape; the CEOs, the politicians, the cops, they'd finally meet with consequences they couldn't squirm their way out of. They would all have to pay the price just the same as we would. So, as I stood on the roof of my shitty tower block and looked up into the sky, watching those first ships touched down, I felt vindicated.
It was an absolutely blistering evening in early April. Even though the sun was setting, the temperature had climbed into the low 40s, and half the building was sweating themselves dry on the roof with me, all of us looking up at the sky as the alarms sounded across London. Some people yelled, others cried. Me? I was just trying desperately not to smile. I knew nobody would take kindly to an expression of joy over the Accord's collapse, and I half expected to get thrown off the building if my lips so much as curled upward a fraction. But God it felt good to see our feckless, fascist leaders finally fuck something up so hard they couldn't run fast enough to escape the backblast. In that moment, my most fervent wish was that when they chained us up and dragged us off to the mines, our new alien overlords would put me next to the Primeminister and look away for a few seconds.
In retrospect, I think the funniest thing is that the Accord never knew how right they were; they just lacked the imagination to see the future we actually got.
It all happened with terrifying speed. Even in their wildest dreams, the Accord couldn't even have envisioned a restructuring of society so fundamental and so fast. Not everything changed overnight, but a whole hell of a lot did. Most of us got no sleep that night, wondering exactly what fresh hell we'd be subjected to, but by the time the sun rose in the morning, London's skyline had changed. Not just because there were giant half-plant, half-metal starships hanging silently in the sky overhead, but because you could see so much more of it. The smog had cleared up, and the air particle index on my phone showed a number low enough that I'd never seen it before. I was pretty sure I could see all the way out to the South Downs from my window. I was getting ready for work when a group email popped up that somehow seemed to have been mailed to everyone in the city:
Good Morning, Cuties!
My name is Asterid Euphorbia, Sixth Bloom (they/them), and I represent the Affini Compact's Bureau of Xenosophont Wellness and Care. I'm delighted to inform you that you are no longer required to come into work today - or ever, in fact! Now, I know that most of you poor things are used to having to work to accrue "money" and pay "rent" to secure a place to live or things to eat, but please don't fret! The Affini Compact will also be assuming management of all "rental" accommodation, so none of you need to worry your cute little heads about moving out or finding somewhere else right now! In the longer term, we'll be conducting inspections of your habitat units to make sure they're all safe and comfy for you to live in - but again, don't worry, if your dwelling doesn't measure up, we'll be happy to build you a much better one! All will be provided for in the Affini Compact!
If anyone has any questions, the Bureau of Xenosophont Wellness and Care will be setting up information kiosks throughout the city, staffed by friendly Affini who are just dying to meet all you little sweethearts!
Looking forward to seeing you all,
Asterid
Pushing past the bewilderingly twee and condescending language, I realized that in one fell swoop, I'd lost my job and my flat was now the property of an alien bureaucracy. It had barely been 14 hours. Given that I no longer needed to rush to catch the Underground, I decided there was time for a decent breakfast. I had enough food in the fridge that they couldn't screw me out of that, at least. So, at the start of the end of the world, I made myself a proper fry-up. Hell, once I'd had a coffee, I cracked open a beer. What's an enby to do in such times, other than drink at 8 in the morning? Best apocalypse of my life.
I didn't know it until later in the day, but the the Accord central government completely folded just before midnight London time, and had already signed the instrument of surrender by the time the sun rose here. The Accord's propaganda and information suppression apparatus was being torn down that morning, but even the ruthlessly efficient Affini couldn't do it instantly. Most of the official channels just played a level tone, and displayed the Terran Accord flag with no instruction other than "PLEASE STAND BY." So, without an easy way to know the truth, or even a steady stream of our government's lies, I spent most of the morning and afternoon watching social media, and looking out of my window. But there was so much speculation and hearsay that eventually, I took the risk of stepping outside and going for a walk to see for myself.
The Affini were everywhere throughout London. Impossible to miss, really, even if they hadn't been three meters tall on average. They just looked so... alien, and not in a way anyone was used to. The Rinans had been mammalian, just like us, but the Affini - walking, talking plants, crudely shaped into a rough approximation of the human form, and somehow even less familiar for it. The way they moved, the way they looked, the way they spoke. It was so different to anything I could've imagined. I think just as much as anyone else that day, I had no idea what to make of them. Somehow, though, it wasn't the Affini themselves that attracted the most attention - it was their companions.
I perfectly remember the first time I saw a floret. The vacant smile, the glassy-eyed stare, the lurching gait, the collar around his neck and the leash of vines leading back to the smirking Affini who held it. The complete lack of shame as he absent-mindedly pawed at his crotch in front of everyone. It's fixed in my mind like nothing else. I'd never met him, but as a matter of fact, I knew who he was; I'd know that face anywhere, even with the softened jawline, the long hair and the odd floral dress he was wearing. That used to be Rear Admiral Dwight de Vries of the Terran Cosmic Navy. He did most of the frontline press briefings throughout the early stages of the war, until one day, with no fanfare, Vice Admiral Sepulveda took his place. Now we knew what happened to him, at least. So this was what the Affini could do to a person. This is what they intended for us.
I also perfectly remember, at that very moment, making two very firm resolutions. The first was that I could never allow this to happen to me.
The next week brought more changes, all of them terrifying rapid. Money as a concept vanished, almost literally overnight. Grocers and supermarkets would now give you as much food as you could carry, completely free of charge - and if you wanted more, well, an Affini would never be far away, and they'd be only too happy to help "cuties like you" get it back to your flat. Sometimes, the moaning little creatures they tugged around by their necks would carry a couple of bags, just for a pat on the head from their new owner. It was during one of these grocery trips that I first learned Affini could conceal needles in their vines, and that their bodies naturally produced drugs powerful enough to render a human a barely sensate, gurning simpleton with a single nick of the skin. I'd say I learnt this from one of the victims, but she was so blasted out of her gourd that she could barely string three words together. I actually learned it from the Affini who now owned her, who told me all of it in such a matter-of-fact way that you'd think it was discussing the weather.
Then it asked me if I wanted to try.
It took all the willpower I had to keep my composure. I couldn't lash out, couldn't get upset, or perhaps it would take offense, decide that I was too rebellious. I'd heard a lot of rumors that week. A lot of people in London had gone missing; chief among them the politicians, the super-rich, almost every police officer, most of the active-service military stationed around the city, but quite a lot of regular people as well. Or they hadn't gone missing, exactly; a lot of them were perfectly easy to locate. The Affini had taken them, and if you believed the rumors, some of them had started to look exactly like Rear Admiral Dwight de Vries. I had made two very firm resolutions. The first was that I could never allow this to happen to me.
No thanks, I said. I was fine. Are you sure, it asked, with all the disbelieving astonishment of a person watching a traveler refuse a drink of water in the desert. No, I'm fine, I insisted, but thanks for the offer, though. I didn't like the look it gave me, but it didn't press the issue, so I got my groceries home without further incident. That was the last night I cooked in that flat, though, because the next day I was informed that my entire tower block had to come down. The whole building was riddled with health hazards, the Affini declared, and they just couldn't allow the possibility that any poor dears come to harm in such a way. Not to worry, they were absolutely willing to work with us on building new habitats for us, and they'd even let us help design them to our own specifications! They'd even move our stuff around for us.
I immediately caught on to how the game was going to be played; quicker than a few of the people in the tower block, who pitched fits over it. The guy from flat 228 ended up getting so heated about the whole affair that one of the Affini present saw fit to drug him and haul him off on the spot. I recognised this for what it was: the carrot and stick approach. They were testing us for rebelliousness. They'd abruptly wreck some aspect of our lives, promise to provide a solution on their terms, and see who raised a fuss; anyone who did would swiftly end up a slave. I had made two very firm resolutions. The first was that I could never allow this to happen to me. So, as years of living as a nonbinary person under the Accord had taught me to do, I kept my head down.
True to their word, the "hab" they built for me - in under twelve hours, no less! - exactly matched the specifications I'd asked for. I wanted something with the same layout as my old flat, and they delivered. In fact, not only did it have the same, comfortingly familiar layout as my old place, the pipes didn't hum ominously when you ran the hot water for too long and the paint wasn't peeling off the walls. The Affini architect who worked with me lamented the space constraints of the new plot of land they were building on; it told me that I could have a much bigger hab if I moved to one of their ships, where "extra rings could be added 'splickety-lit,' as I believe you adorable critters say!" That was a painfully obvious trap, so I politely declined.
As the days went past, I assembled a better picture of what the Affini were doing to us. They called it "Domestication," and it was a well-oiled machine that they had employed on hundreds of sentient species before us. Affini would meet an alien civilization, subjugate it by force and then take any member who was insufficiently cooperative as "florets," a sort of permanent slavery "for their own good." I had made two very firm resolutions. The first was that I could never allow this to happen to me.
It's genuinely surprising to me, really: our society, so touchy about transgender and non-binary people that we regularly had to dodge pogroms if one of us wore a scrap too much leather, suddenly turned around and accepted us. I suppose it was nice to not have people just assume I was a man anymore. I suppose it was nice not having to worry if yet another one of my rights was going to be rolled back at the behest of a grudge-holding trillionaire. I could wear what I wanted when I wanted, without worrying I was going to become a hate crime statistic. This, too, was part of the game: the Affini were clearly big on freedom of expression, as long as it made you smile and was never used to criticize them. In fact, the more I learned about the Affini, the more I understood how suspicious it'd look if someone like me repressed themselves at all. If anyone harbored lingering resentment against people off the binary, they kept it firmly to themselves; they didn't want to become a Domestication statistic, after all.
Perhaps it sounds absurd, but I'm actually less surprised how quickly everyone accepted Affini tugging their charges around on leashes and casually molesting them in broad daylight. People had gotten so used to the Accord crushing us under their boot and preaching strict morality while not practising it. I guess that when the Affini came along, installed themselves in their place and openly said "we can take you as sex slaves and you just have to deal with it," it was refreshingly honest. The ruling class had always gotten to indulge in whatever sexual debauchery they wanted; certainly, nobody was in any position to tell the Affini what they could and couldn't do with their captives. And, as one notorious comedian put it: "nobody's homeless, everybody's eating good, the skies are the clearest they've been in four centuries, and hey - at least our new overlords are only into adults, am I right?" That really did seem to be it: the Affini were, if nothing else, much more competent and benevolent as rulers than the Accord were, although that was hardly a high bar to jump. In return, everyone seemed content to let them slake their bizarre sexual urges, so long as it was on somebody else.
And it was really very, very sexual. The Affini didn't seem remotely ashamed of it. In fact, they seemed to revel in the attention that they'd get from bystanders whenever they'd bring one of their squirming, writhing concubines to a shuddering climax. It was difficult to maintain my composure during those times, and it would often happen unpredictably. I'd be out in the park, or at some public gathering, and there an Affini would be, pumping their floret full of drugs and tentacles. I had made two very firm resolutions. The first was that I could never allow this to happen to me.
When I say that they were unashamed, I don't just mean that they didn't care who saw. It was as if the Affini wanted to push this as one of the core facets of their being. The internet - steadily enhanced by Affini technology - quickly flooded with "florn," a type of porn focused around the uninhibited sexual ecstasy of humans succumbing to the wiles of their alien captors. More kinks than I could possibly imagine was catered for in lurid, pulsing detail, and as an enby who had to survive 38 years in the Terran Accord, I could possibly imagine a great variety of kinks. Particular, loving attention was given to the breaking - the moment when a human's independence and sense of self completely shattered, the light left their eyes and they moaned in despairing, vacant bliss as they surrendered totally to their new gods.
The very first time I had seen a floret, I had made two very firm resolutions.
The first was that I could never allow this to happen to me.
The second was that nobody could ever be allowed to know how much I wanted it.