BP11- Gabriel Aguilar

The story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale”, is a story that relies on the reader’s suspension of disbelief at the very end. However, in the beginning, we are within a relatively grounded sci-fi mystery. I think the natural progression of this story is a sort of expansion. If we are to assume that the second ending happened and isn’t getting erased in an extended version of the story, I think we get even more off the rails. In the original, we swap from a mystery into a bit of Whodunnit-style scene. It just gets less and less realistic and a bit more goofy.

So to extend the line of thought of the author I think that making the story go even further off the rails would make sense. We pick up directly after it is revealed that the main character, Douglas Quail, discovers that he actually did have a run in with those aliens. However, that throughline goes even deeper in this version of the story. Immediately after exposing this truth the director of the operation on Quail, transforms. A tiny, alien pops out of the face of the man and immediately tries to assassinate the occupants of the room because Quail exposed their species.

Luckily Quail is able to subdue the creature by trapping it within a strap of the hospital bed he was previously attached to, and from their his mercy is graced with gratitude once, more as he has spared the creatures for a second time. After a fair amount of interrogation it is revealed that these sprite-like aliens have actually been living all over Earth, and that they were here in an attempt to hide from an even greater and more powerful alien species on the other side of the cosmos.

With this bit of information and an aside from the creature about how Quail’s wife was actually the one who invited them to this planet all those years ago when they were children. The cast converges and begins to make an attempt at fortifying their planet. However, now that the name of the species has been spoken out loud the greater aliens know where they are, and the name of the planet they are inhabiting. In order to save both the human species, and the sprites as they begin to be called, they develop a plan to mask the planet Earth as another planet entirely, all the while keeping their operation as covert as possible. What ensues is a mad research developmental phase in which everybody on the planet works together to disguise their home. We end the story with a singular ship blurring into the Milky Way Galaxy by using faster than light travel. A great rumble and a flash of light is seen in the sky and it is left unclear as to whether the greater aliens moved on or if they destroyed the planet in one fell swoop.