[ WP ] Aliens have just made contact with Earth . Strangely enough , it seems that human technology is superior .

The assistant to the secretary of the script-writer for the President of the United States was in quite a hurry. When an “ all-hands-on-deck ” message went out to someone of his less-than-important status, you could guarantee something interesting was about to go down. He didn ’ t want to miss a moment of it. 
 
 “ Good morning, Mr. Brownstein! ” he said upon his arrival. “ Must be an exciting day! ” Mr. Brownstein barely glanced up from his furious typing. 
 
 “ We ’ re gon na have to go live with this before the sun comes up, this is no time for pleasantries. Linda hasn ’ t responded to the alerts, I need you to get in there and get me some more information. There ’ s no damn template for this one. ” 
 
 “ You want me to sit in on a meeting with the President himself? ” The assistant to the secretary of the script-writer for the President of the United States was mostly in charge of coffee runs. His heartrate quickened and his palms began to sweat at the prospect of taking notes at an real-life, top-secret security meeting. 
 
 “ Don ’ t got a lot of options here, bud, ” Brownstein scowled, waving him off. The assistant to the secretary for the script-writer of the President of the United States straightened his tie and marched through the ornate wooden doors ahead of him. 
 
 -- 
 
 “ Mr. President, I understand what this could do to your career, but there is simply no precedent for this. We can not afford a mistake, we MUST be prepared for all possible outcomes. Their envoy could arrive at any time, our top diplomat is not answering her phone, the Russians are already firing up their satellite lasers and we could be looking a real war-of-the-worlds situation here! They will want to speak to our leader, so you must be prepared to bluff our way out of an invasion if it comes to that. We need to convince them that our military strength is formidable. ” 
 
 “ With all due respect, Mr. Secretary, I understand that your focus must be on the defense of our country and our planet, but if we threaten them we may miss out on the opportunity to make some serious technological advancements quite literally overnight! When they arrive, we must be absolutely courteous- “ 
 
 “ I ’ m the President of this damn country and I ’ ll deal with this ‘ invasion ’ or whatever it is how I see fit. I can ’ t believe I hired such buf – “ The President ’ s words were cut off by the sounds of yelling from just outside the door. The room went silent, the tension in the air tangible. Then the door creaked open. 
 
 “ Umm, hey, sorry, is this the right place? ” The men and women in the room stared blankly at the creature in front of them. “ Sorry, uh, can you understand me? I ’ ve been studying your language but this is all pretty new to me… ” 
 
 Eventually the President cleared his throat and said, “ are you…I guess we ’ ve been expecting you? ” He sounded uncertain. In all the excitement, they had yet to discuss what to expect, but they were all surprised to find that their alien envoy looked somewhat like a sleep-deprived college student with antennae, knocking sheepishly on the door. They had figured some grey little creature with a big head would beam down from the heavens and tell them he came in peace. 
 
 “ Uh, yeah, sorry, I ’ m a little nervous here, first time, you know? ” the alien let out what seemed to be an attempt at a laugh, but trailed off quickly in the face of the blank expressions in front of him. 
 
 The head scientist for the Division of International and Space Affairs was the first to break the silence. 
 
 “ Well…welcome! Have a seat! I guess can we start by asking you some questions? ” The alien nodded his assent, antennae wobbling comically, and took a seat looking very much like a nervous teenager who just got sent to the principal ’ s office. “ Wonderful. I must know, how have you overcome the atomic breakdown that occurs when matter travels at speeds great enough to traverse distances of such length without the crew growing old and dying? We ’ ve known other planets likely support life, but our spaceships simply can not withstand the journey… ” 
 
 “ Oh, umm…yeah…well, I think maybe our spaceships are just really sturdy? I ’ d have to ask one of the engineers… ” 
 
 “ Oh. Right then. Well, how do you keep yourselves alive, what kind of wonderful technologies do you have for maintaining food and hydration and climate on such trips? ” 
 
 “ Oh, I think we have some kind of farm thing on the ships. Um, I ’ m not totally sure though. That would probably be a question for our engineers as well… ” he laughed nervously again. 
 
 “ Can we…can we speak to your engineers? Or others? A leader, perhaps? ” The President interjected, sounding very much like a cranky soccer mom asking to speak to the manager at the grocery store. 
 
 “ Yeah, well, here ’ s the thing, we didn ’ t really plan to make contact here, I ’ m not even sure where here is exactly…we just picked up on your messages and, well, this is kind of embarrassing, but our GPS isn ’ t really working all that great and no one on board knows how to fix it so we thought maybe you could help us out…they just sent me down because I speak the most languages but honestly I studied linguistics in school, so I don ’ t really know too much about our technology… ” 
 
 The room was silent again for a while. 
 
 “ Well…we can have one of our engineers take a look at that GPS I guess…can you like, beam us up or something? ” The alien gave the President a blank look. 
 
 “ Beam you up? Um, well, I was actually hoping you could do that. I had to parachute down here and my pod is lying on that lawn of yours, it ’ s a little banged up at the moment… ” 
 
 The President sighed. 
 
 “ Well, why don ’ t we start by sending someone out to fix that, then… ” 
 
 -- 
 
 The assistant to the secretary of the script-writer for the President of the United States followed the rest of the country's most important men, plus the linguistics major from another planet, out of the room. Brownstein watched them pass, then asked him, 
 
 `` Well? Should this speech focus on calming panic, looking to the future, new friends? Give me something to work with here...'' 
 
 `` I'm not sure they're gon na go public with this one yet,'' responded the assistant to the secretary of the script-writer for the President of the United States. `` I think they're going to call in a mechanic first.'' 

