So, picture this: The year is 2032. The conspiracy theorists are in a riot because they were right. A sleek silver craft lurks above the Earth's atmosphere, and we sure as hell aren't far enough in the study of space travel to own it. All we've really managed is to stop by our neighbor's yard, pick up some rocks and look on in wonder at our house from so far away - at least from a galactic standpoint anyway. Which was all well and good because at the rate we're going we're going to need to move soon anyway.

For lack of a better description, our house is looking a little run down and a little overpopulated. We're a full-fledged family living in a one bedroom studio of a house if you will.

We've nearly ruined our planet. There's too many of us and not enough of everything else. Not enough money, not enough jobs, not even enough safe spaces to sleep.

I'm lucky. I live in a one bedroom apartment with 5 other girls. Together, we manage to afford the impossibly high rent of the outskirts of Saint Petersburg, Florida.

At least it isn't Tampa. We'd whisper in consolation to each other when a night was particularly depressing. A hurricane blew in and pretty much sunk the small connecting arm of our little peninsular city a few years back. The first direct hit from a hurricane in like 100 years. It was awful, but it also happened to cut off most of the crime that had slunk over from the dark city streets. Sure we had a bridge now, connecting Pinellas Island back to the Florida mainland, but there was just enough distance to keep us relatively safe.

The rest of the world isn't much better. So surely there wasn't much of a reason for an alien craft to be sitting in the upper Earth atmosphere just...lurking. Y'know unless they wanted something from us.

Which they did.

After weeks of waiting, watching that silver smudge rise and set along with the sun, we finally were contacted. One by one, each country received a hail from the ship's Communications Lead. A discussion went on with the secretive higher-ups of our government detailing what the Val'Dornn wanted I'm sure. Us - the masses - however, were not privy to that information.

All we knew was they called themselves the Val'Dornn, a race of nearly all male aliens. And, wouldn't you know it. They'd come in search of women -- human women.

Next thing we know our government has introduced The Genetic Lottery, or the Temani Bercari as it was supposed to be referred to in the Val'Dornn's native tongue. The Lottery was completely optional to all unattached women between the ages of 18 and 40. Should you enroll you were awarded a sum of $2000 for a swab of your genetic material.

Five minutes of your time and the remnants of a cotton swab in your mouth and you'd have enough money to not only pay your rent for three months but also pay your fertility dues as well if you were a woman that is. Honestly, it was a steal if you were in a pinch and if you were willing to overlook the verbose 24-page packet filled to the brim with legal jargon. Most women did.

After all, you can overlook most anything if you're desperate, and the mandatory taxation of all fertile women above legal age that had yet to undergo steritech procedures had a lot of women desperate. That's our government, y'know, regulating population and making a quick buck by taxing women because they "make the children...not the men".

A little over a year ago the Temani Bercari was introduced on planet Earth. It was 382 days ago to be exact. It took 382 days for an enterprising woman to dig up questionable tenants in that 24-page packet.

There's an uproar, as right there should be, over that packet and the vague notions it outlined. The government portrayed the Temani Bercari as a means by which to study the human genome, which is honestly questionable in and of itself. What would male aliens need with the DNA of human women?

"They're trying to combat an illness inherent in their female population, which is the basis for the staggering difference between the population of males and females of their race," our government cried. They'd insinuated that it was merely a way to create a cure for a weakness in the arm of the Val'Dornn's X chromosome, which impacted the birth of females of their race exponentially each generation. The government failed to mention that the gifting of one's genetic material wasn't the end of the study.

Cecilia Marie Bird, a young woman in Houston, Texas outed the fact that should any woman participating in the lottery showcase genetics compatible with said cure could at any time be called up to the sleek silver ship for continued testing. Should said woman later be found to 100% compatible with furthering the Val'Dornn cure she would henceforth be considered a female of their race and therefore would relinquish her Earthly citizenship and would remain on the Val'Dornn ship. And, here's the kicker, as compensation the Val'Dornn have offered 'monetary recompense' to the government housing any Earth woman discovered to be a quote-unquote "cure-delivering female".

That last part really drives home the concept that maybe, just maybe, we'd been misled and mostly by our own government.

Luckily, however, in 382 days while countless women unknowingly signed their lives and rights away, not a single one has been called to the ship. Not a single woman has even been contacted for a partial or minute genetic cure match. It almost appears as if the Val'Dornn's chance at a cure doesn't rest on our little blue planet after all.