Introduction.
It was commonly known as The Big Joke. The question of whether or not we were alone in the universe was answered with a resounding uh... kind of? Maybe? From a certain point of view? When humanity achieved contact with extra-terrestrial intelligence they found themselves talking to other humans on another Earth. At first it was thought that perhaps they were receiving a convoluted echo or had inadvertently communed with a parallel dimension, but that was not the case. Soon thereafter more Earths were found and the full extent of The Big Joke began to be realized.
By current estimates it is generally thought that one in every ten thousand stars has an Earth orbiting it, meaning at least a hundred thousand blue-green globes in the galaxy. There were differences between worlds, however it seemed that the galaxy had been the victim of a lazy assed copy-pasting deity. Many lab coats were burned, yet humanity's spirit of discovery could not be quelled even if its sense of wonder was severely bruised.
There was plenty of mystery to go around. Not least of all what or who had made evolution behave like a program rather than a natural process. As science progressed and shaky communication lines were established between Earths people discovered that their similarities ended at genetics. Cultures and societies had developed in wildly different ways even on a single Earth. The only shared historical milestone was the arrival of the angels.
Technically there was nothing supernatural or divine about them, yet terming the visitors as angels was a common enough consensus to stick. Although a minority of Earths had abandoned religion, the vast majority had at least had several during their history and human-like metaphysical creatures were a frequent feature. The comparison to angels was apt as the beings were telepathic and remarkably empathetic. Also, they glowed white.
The angels traveled within huge spaceships that bopped the speed of light on the nose and thought the supposed law was cute. They would always appear after an Earth had made contact with another Earth, never before, with the official reason of the angels being 'in order to soften the blow.' For all intents and purposes they were an intergalactic seemingly benevolent diplomatic pity party.
They were often met with fear, mistrust and violence, helped little by the way they circumvented governments, yet they were so far beyond even the most advanced Earth that they had nothing to fear. Some Earth powers attempted to hide the existence and arrival of the visitors, however when said aliens could effortlessly hijack most all media devices and telepathically reach anyone without access to said technology, cover ups were equally futile. The angels had something to say and the message was for all and not just the select.
As well as bringing messages of peace and hope they also offered an invitation. A thousand humans from each Earth were given the opportunity to join the angels and journey to their own world, or more precisely the world they designed to cater to the joys humankind could experience. The place had many names, but the angels often referred to it as its more overblown title; The Hyper-Dynamic Planet of Pleasure.
The Cat
Rosa hid within her mouse costume, showing not an inch of her skin and tried to act as unassuming as possible. She had been mostly successful in avoiding notice, though one of her fellow passengers had asked if she were a furry. The woman did not know what a furry was and would have been reluctant to identify as one if she did. Where she came from entertainment was strictly controlled and monitored to never contain any sexual content. Sex was dirty and should never be discussed or explored.
Of course repression almost always leads to perversion and Rosa's particular flavor was the anthropomorphic cartoon animals that filled her world's television screens. The cartoons were meant for propaganda and moralizing, however for Rosa they were the fuel for her sexual fantasies and wet dreams. She did not choose her degeneracy, it chose her.
She envied the black and white world the animal characters lived in whereas in her own no good deed went unpunished and punishment was swift and brutal. She found her escapism in designing and creating costumes based on her man-animal fantasies. Rosa was poor, however she worked in a clothing factory that left huge piles of waste from which she pilfered pockets full of fabric and lint. It was technically stealing, a crime that often left caught perpetrators maimed, yet Rosa could not resist feeding her obsession.
Rosa fashioned dozens of masks and costumes in the little free time she had, though her progress was often slowed by waking fantasies of furry hands spreading her legs apart so that snouts could ravage her intimately. Her fingers were frequently used for more than sewing.
Even just using leftovers, Rosa became highly proficient at her insuppressible hobby and was currently hiding within one of her creations, a girdle and waistcoat sporting white mouse. She was still unconvinced that she was aboard a space faring technological miracle and not some over-elaborate pervert trap set by the government. Her anonymity was the last bastion of defense she had and even if she knew it was a flimsy one, she would not give it up easily.
She was a little taller than the average woman with creamed coffee toned skin and possessed the slim build of someone forced into a day to day struggle of making ends meet. The girl still possessed ample hips and bust, a fact she kept hidden to avoid unwanted attentions. Against the expected style she kept her dark frizzy hair short, more for practical reasons than any strong desire to rebel.
The transparent saucer slid below the cloud layer with a silent grace that Rosa would have thought impossible were she not standing within it. Truth be told, almost all of her recent experiences had been beyond what she believed possible. Standing within a see-through spaceship as it descended towards an alien planet had to be the highlight so far though.
All around her people screamed and gasped. In any other situation she would expect such cries to be ones of terror or grief; not so here. Here her fellow humans were expressing excitement and awe. It was so bizarre; only a week ago she had been on her own Earth just trying to get by and not get noticed, now she was looking down on an entirely alien planet.
The first thing she noticed were the colors. Everything below her was illuminated in cascades of lights. Huge graceful spires reached up towards her even as the saucer descended towards them. As she got closer she noticed that a lattice of wires crossed between the peaks upon which people clambered and shot across via what she guessed were zip-lines. Rosa held her breath when the shuttle dipped down to weave between the upper layers of the suspension cable playground. Some of the tourists waved at Rosa and her fellow new arrivals and she shrunk back into her costume reflexively at the attention.
Rosa got a fright when a couple of people landed on top of the see-through shuttle with a muffled thump. She risked a glance up through the crowded vehicle, expecting to see masked law officers announcing their arrest, however it turned out to be children making faces against the clear surface. She let out a nervous giggle; surely this could not possibly be a hoax, it had to be real. The kids flew off using some kind of jet pack as the saucer moved on from the tangle of spires.
Back in clearer airspace the girl in the white mouse suit dared to push into the crowd in order to get a better look at her surroundings. Past the spires were scores of buildings in the forms of spheres and ovoids. Like the craft she was in they were mostly transparent and within she could see thousands of people. Each globe seemed to house a different activity; one contained a strobing light show where people danced, in another the crowd seemed to be floating or flying, a further sphere held an orgy.
It was the most graphic thing Rosa had ever seen. Despite premarital sex being illegal, she was not a virgin, yet she had never seen other people in the act of procreation, let alone so many at one. Flesh writhed against flesh in such a concentrated press that it would be impossible to try and count individuals. Often only changes in skin tone was enough to tell where one person started and another ended. Rosa's mouth went dry as she could do naught but stare. Others around her noticed the orgy and there were smattering of gasps and curses, however the girl barely noticed transfixed as she was by the scene.
"We will be landing shortly," a serene voice announced from seemingly everywhere at once.
She felt shock, followed by shame, followed by embarrassment. The woman looked around for the runway to distract herself. Past the forest of spheres there was the most normal thing she had yet seen, a commercial district featuring shops and roads, further afield she spied an actual forest. There was no landing strip to be seen and she wondered exactly how and where their glass ship would discharge them.
The shuttle slowed its descent, Rosa's apprehension rose. What was going to happen? When she was visited back home by the angel she had not hesitated in taking up its offer of temporary escape, yet as her trip through space had gone on she had developed more and more doubts. Disembarking and standing on alien soil seemed like it would be the ultimate betrayal of her home, a final nail in her coffin.
"Hello, Rosa. Do not be afraid," the voice said to her. It felt different than when it had made the previous announcement, more personal, and not just because it used her name, "I'm speaking to you telepathically, so there is no need to speak; just 'think' at me. Try it."
The girl almost ignored the voice as it was all too easy to give in to self-pity and loathing, however her need to be polite made her reply, "Um... ok. Hello?"
"Very good!" said what she assumed was an angel, "How are you doing, Rosa? I felt something was wrong. Would you like to talk about it?"
