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Alien abductions are common now.
Well, it's not really abductions, the way they happened in old sci-fi movies. There's no flying saucers, no big eyed gray creatures, no probes.
It's just what people call it when one of the Titans snatches someone up like a little kid picking up a hamster. Alien abduction. It's fine though. They always put you back.
The Titans came out of nowhere. One day, Earth is spinning around the sun like normal. Humans are the dominant species. Alien robots are the stuff of bad fiction. The next day, they're part of life.
Their ship landed, and they stepped out, and there was mass panic. But they didn't really do anything. Communication was tried, on both sides. Like, you could really tell they were trying. But their speech sounds like someone tossed an old dial-up modem in a blender. Our voices might be too faint for them to really hear. They mimic a few of our sounds and gestures. If you wave at one, they'll wave back. They smile. It probably means what it means when a human smiles. We hope.
They're very polite, for alien invaders.
They'll speak if a human tries to speak to them. They'll even write their beautiful, complex sigils on the nearest surface and patiently wait while the latest hopeful linguist or scientist or anthropologist takes photos. They'll let our people follow them around if we want. They mostly just go about their business, whatever it is. We're not sure what they want.
They're kind, though. They try to help.
There was a disaster, a few weeks after their arrival. A bridge collapsed after a winter storm. One of the Titans was nearby. The robot caught a car that skidded past the edge. It was really gentle. Reports say the car was barely dented, and the passengers didn't have a scratch on them.
Then the robots helped. The first one stayed there, standing in the icy river. It carried cars from one side of the broken bridge to the other. It took a while, but it kept traffic moving. That was really nice because the next bridge was miles away. Another Titan arrived and cleared out debris from the busted bridge. When construction crews arrived to fix the bridge, the second Titan continued to help. It held bridge supports in place and moved construction materials wherever the crew pointed. The bridge was rebuilt in record time. When it was done, both Titans wandered off. They paused and waved when a bunch of drivers and the construction crew held up a big sign saying “Thank you.”
We don't know if they understood, but we tried.
That set the tone of most human-Titan interactions. They mostly left us alone, but if something happened, like a big fire or an avalanche or what have you, a Titan would intervene if they were nearby. People got used to just sitting still if they got grabbed by one. There was usually a good reason.
They lifted people down from burning buildings and stopped cars from driving into flood waters. But they did odd things, too. Maybe they were trying to communicate. Maybe they just wanted to show us a pretty rock they found.
Every so often, a Titan would just lift up a random human and hold them for a few minutes, then put them back. Sometimes they'd point at something. The sky. A waterfall. A bird. Sometimes they would just smile.
It's a little freaky, suddenly being held in a giant hand three or four stories above the ground. But they never drop you, so it's fine. I've been grabbed a couple times. One time I was moved out of the path of a tornado. That was exciting. Another time, I was out hiking and one of the smaller Titans found me. Maybe it thought I was lost. It carried me to the waterfall I was hiking towards. We stood there watching the water pour down and splash into a pool for a while. Then the Titan took me back to the start of the trail and let me go. I waved. It waved. I got back in my car. It turned into a car and drove off.
Yeah, that's a thing they do. They turn into vehicles. It's weird. They're too big. The one that carried me to the waterfall was easily thirty feet tall. But it turned into a VW Bug. No way could all that robot fit into that itty bitty car. I've seen video of one turning into a Mini Coupe. Where do all the parts go?
Some scientists managed to lure a bot in car mode onto one of those truck weighing stations on the highway. It weighed about two tons, which made sense for that size of car. But then they got it to transform, mostly by the use of lots of poster board and stick figures and jumping around like idiots. It weighed a lot more than two tons.
So they kind of broke science. At least everything we understood about mass and weight and space and size.
It wasn't all smooth sailing, though. There were a few mishaps. Some people tried to attack the Titans. That was the dumbest thing I've ever seen. A bunch of idiots from some doomsday prep wanna be militia got together all their biggest guns and marked a line in the sand. And waited. And waited. And finally a Titan wandered kind of close enough. And they shot at it.
I'm not sure the Titan even noticed at first. And when it did, it just looked at them. And walked away.
There was some talk about military intervention. The militaries of several countries joined together to say, quote unquote, “Fuck that.”
Some politicians made noise about bombing the Titans. Cooler heads prevailed. We didn't know if they'd even notice the bombs. And where did you aim one, anyway? They wandered all over the place and half they time they were cars. What, did they plan to nuke random mini vans?
If they were hostile, we'd have known what to do. We'd have fought to the end, I'm sure. But they weren't. They were friendly, and patient, and kind. After a while, people just got used to them. We coexisted in a weird way.
Hopefully, someday, we'll figure out how to say 'hello' properly. Until then, we smile and wave and they smile and wave back.