District 69 by Jenna Powers

District 69
    By Jenna Powers

    Angela stormed out of her boss’ office, furious that he wanted to place her article somewhere in the middle of the online paper. Her article on the dangers of allowing aliens to live on Earth should have at least made it to the top half of the page, not snuck in as a small paragraph with a
    ‘read more’ link, at the bottom right hand corner. She spent months researching the aliens, which many people referred to as “roaches” on Earth. Her six inch, black heels clacked across the office floor, her steps short due to her skin tight black silk skirt, her large breasts swaying underneath her loose fitting blouse.
    It had been 45 years since the “roaches” first arrived on Earth. Angela herself had only witnessed their arrival through old video footage, while her mother and father were lucky enough to have seen it in real time. At first, scientists had thought that the object headed towards Earth was a meteorite, causing wide spread panic. When the alien ship burst through Earth’s atmosphere and appeared above the city of Detroit, people were amazed. A mix of confusion, amazement, wonderment and fear had filled everyone on Earth.
    When a smaller piece of the ship landed in one of the projects of Detroit, District 69, people all over the world swarmed in, waiting to see what the aliens looked like. Angela could still remember the first time she saw the video, a crowd of people waiting outside a giant rectangular piece of metal. The doors slid open, a bright light shining from the inside as figures began to emerge. They were standing upright, like humans, however they had 3 different pairs of arms.
    The lower pair were clawed, like that of a praying mantis, poised to strike, the middle pair were very human like, with seven fingers protruding from a palm, while the upper two were more cylindrical, with small suction-cup like circles all around.
    The 3 different pairs of arms were connected to a human like body; however their bodies did have ribbed texture throughout the abdomen area, like that of a cockroach. They had necks that protruded; slightly longer than that of a human and capping off at the top was a bug-like face, giant eyes on top of a smaller head with a pincer like mouth, two long antennae protruding from between their large eyes. The video footage captured the screams, shouting and gasping as the creatures stepped closer.
    Angela could clearly remember the ridiculous efforts of the “ambassadors” as they had tried to communicate unsuccessfully with the aliens. It wasn’t until their 10th year on the planet that both humans and roaches could actually communicate. The creatures picked up the English language quickly; however they were somewhat limited, initially, in being able to pronounce certain words. The concept of time was also hard to explain to the aliens, as they appeared to have no sense of time. By around the 25th year, the aliens had set up a small complex within District 69, to a mix of acceptance from the public. The people of Earth thought that the aliens would provide information, technology, the answers to the universe, but instead, they were met with requests for space.
    There was a small exchange of technology around the 30th year of their arrival, allowing humans to understand how to create a different energy source than the waning gallons of oil, ineffective lithium ion technology and dangerous nuclear technology. However that small exchange was not enough and different companies vied for competition to get as much technology out of the aliens as possible, all were unsuccessful. Angela grew up near District 69
    and had always walked by in fascination of their technology as they continued to grow upward.
    One odd thing she had noted since she was a child was that even though their construction continued, their numbers appeared to remain the same.
    When Angela first interned at her current online newspaper, she managed to report on the subject of whether or