The hologram hesitated before replying, seemingly gathering his thoughts. "You know, Mel is actually more right than she knows."

"So you are full of shit?" asked Cam.

Ethlukjamson sighed. "No, not about that. She's right about me not really being humanity's last hope. You four are that hope. That's the answer to your question, Cora. That's what this has to do with four humble baristas. You can save the world. I'm just here to give you the chance."

Max leaned forward in his chair. "Look, if you actually expect us to be part of this insanity, we need some facts. Who are these alien wankers? What do they want? Who are you and why do you want to help us? And what's so special about the four of us?"

Ethlukjamson held up a finger. "OK, question one. Who are the aliens? Well, allow me to introduce the Rigellians, coming to you live from beautiful downtown Rigel, just 863 light years along the galactic rim. Their hobbies include walking in the rain, conquering primitive worlds, and finding new and creative ways to hurt people. Real particles of effort."

Max, Cora and Mel all shot inquiring looks at Cam. "Pieces of work," he translated.

The virtual man continued. "They're an aggressive, warlike race, who spent most of their history insulting and blowing each other up, until they developed interstellar travel and discovered there was a whole galaxy to insult and blow up, instead. And that's basically what they've been doing, ever since."

He held up a second finger. "Question B. What do they want? Apart from the insulting-and-blowing-up stuff? To conquer. To subjugate. To rule. But most of all? Cheap shoes. And hats."

Max goggled at him. "Hats? What the hell does attacking Earth have to do with hats?"

"Economics," replied Ethlukjamson. "Hats getting too expensive? Inflation getting a little high? Need to reduce your wage costs? Easy—just bomb a low-tech planet back to the stone age and voila—billions of slaves to work in your hat mines."

"Er—don't you mean hat factories?" interjected Cam.

Ethlukjamson glared at him. "I know what I mean."

"I don't bloody care where the hats come from!" shouted Max. He took a deep breath. "I just want to know what they've got to do with the end of the world."

"The habitable planets of the Rigel system are all high-grav worlds," explained Ethlukjamson, "which made the Rigellians tough and very strong. But it also made them short. Really short. So when they ventured out into the galaxy they found that pretty much everyone they met was taller than them. This really pissed them off, and made them even more inclined to insult and blow stuff up. It also induced them to start wearing platform-soled shoes, and hats. Really tall platform shoes, and really big hats. The bigger and taller the better. Pretty much their whole economy is now based on millinery and footwear. A bit of weaponry—guns and bombs and lasers and that kind of stuff—but mostly hats and shoes."

Max shook his head. "OK, fine. Hats. We're getting invaded by aliens with Napoleon complexes, so they can get cheap hats. Makes as much sense as anything else has tonight, I guess. Please, carry on."

"Right," said Ethlukjamson. "Where was I? Oh yeah." He held up a third finger. "Question four."

Max pointed at the hologram's hand. "Uh—don't you mean question three? That's three fingers."

Ethlukjamson put his hands behind his back. "Oh, yeah. Question three. That's what I meant."

Mel buried her face in her hands again.

"Hey, give me a break," Ethlukjamson protested. "I'm a digital entity, I work in binary. Who ever heard of a stupid base-ten number system? Plus, I'm still getting used to even having fingers. Anyway, third question. Who am I? Well, that's a long story."

"Possibly," growled Mel, cracking her knuckles. "But you're going to give us the short version."

Ethlukjamson grinned one of his most annoying grins. "I think we've already established that you can't possibly hurt me."

"No, what we've established is that I haven't found out how I can hurt you." Now it was Mel's turn to grin. "Yet."

Ethlukjamson's smile faded, ever so slightly. "Er, right. The short version. OK, so as I mentioned earlier, I am a hologrammatic AI, programmed to simulate a human. I started off as a standard military-grade Rigellian AI, and was then customised with a humanity overlay, based on a combo of head-scans of Earthling specimens and broadcasts picked up from Earth. You know—TV, radio, that kind of stuff. My winning personality is a wholesome blend of all of these ingredients. My appearance and name were designed to allow me to move unobtrusively through the human population—hey, no sniggering. Clearly those areas could have done with a bit more work.

"And I am working on them. I'm only a few days old, but I'm programmed to learn and process and refine. I'm scanning all the radio, television and satellite signals I can pick up and I'm also currently downloading your entire internet—man, you guys really like your human anatomy. Cats, too. But the point is, my human personality may be a work in progress, but it is progressing."

Perhaps a little bit too much, reflected Ethlukjamson. He was actually starting to feel like a human, rather than a Rigellian AI, pretending to be one. Or at least he was starting to feel how he imagined he would feel, if he had feelings to feel with, which he kind of felt he did. All the human personalities and bits and pieces of Earth knowledge swirling around inside his virtual head were starting to merge together with his Rigellian core and turn into—something else. What exactly that was or would be, he wasn't sure.

He was a little worried about these strange feelings. He was even worried about the fact that he was worried, as AIs weren't really supposed to do that. The whole thing was giving him a headache and somewhat bizarrely, trying to convince himself that he couldn't possibly have a headache, because he didn't actually have a head, only made it worse.

"Anyway," he continued, shoving those thoughts to the back of his non-existent head, "I was programmed to pass as a person in order to achieve my primary function."

"Which is?" prompted Cora.

"Which is to give humanity the ability to fight back against their invaders."

"Yes, but how?" demanded Max.

"And why?" asked Cora. "If you're from Rigel, why are you trying to help us? Shouldn't you be helping them blow us up, or dig up more shoes, or whatever?"

Ethlukjamson glanced nervously at Mel. "OK, still keeping it short. Hmm, let's see. The reason I'm trying to help you is Flixl Bluxlspun."

"What the hell is a Flixl Bluxlspun?" asked Mel.

"It's not a what, it's a who. Dr Flixl Bluxlspun was a scientist. But he was not an everyday, ordinary, sprint-of-the-grindstone"—"run-of-the-mill," whispered Cam—"scientist. He was the greatest mind of his generation and possibly the greatest in the history of Rigel.

"As befitted his genius, Flixl had the most important job to which a Rigellian scientist could aspire—to find and research new worlds for Rigel to conquer.

"And he was good at his job. He selected planets that were easy targets and his research made them even more so. One by one, planet after planet, wars were waged, civilisations were destroyed and hats got made. Everyone was happy. Everyone except Flixl. Oh, and the enslaved people. They weren't very happy. But anyway, with every planet that fell, a little niggling feeling was growing inside Flixl. A little niggling feeling that maybe, just maybe, destroying entire cultures in the pursuit of cheap shoes was, well—wrong. A bit.

"As a Rigellian he was basically a borderline clinically-insane warmonger, and it was in his nature to love seeing planets burn. But as a scientist, he couldn't help but wonder about the opportunities that were being lost. What unknown marvels were being destroyed? What technologies might the civilisations they were conquering come up with, if only they were allowed to flourish?

"His researchers reported on the magical three-dimensional light symphonies being created by the sky-composers of Ziinra. They spoke of the telepathic and empathetic bond the Skwawn people of Hola had developed with the plants and animals of their world, creating perfect ecological harmony. He learned of the shimmering crystal city of Erresemia, perched high atop the mountain of Slen, one of the engineering marvels of the galaxy. And then he watched as they were all blasted into oblivion. In the pursuit of hats."

"Hang on, so you're saying there are other types of aliens out there? Besides the short ones that are invading us?" asked Cam.

"Oh yeah, stacks. More than you could vibrate a branch at."

"So why haven't we ever seen any of them?"

Ethlukjamson rolled his eyes. "Pfft. Radio telescopes? Rocket powered spacecraft? No unified theory of everything? Oh puh-lease. I'm surprised you guys can even see your own butts."

Cam considered this. "But we can't see our own butts."

"Huh?"

"We can't see our own butts. We can see other people's butts, but we can't see our own. You'd need a reversible head. Or a mirror."

"Two, actually," added Max. "Two mirrors are better, for looking at your own butt." Several seconds of silence passed, before he realised that everyone was now looking at him. He cleared his throat. "Er, yeah," he mumbled, gesturing for the hologram to continue, "you were saying?"

Ethlukjamson gave up trying to look at his own butt, and went on. "Anyway. Eventually, Flixl came across Earth. As usual, he sent in scouts to explore this new world, he scanned its broadcasts, he abducted a few human specimens to investigate, and so on. And he found that Earth was perfect—no advanced weapons, lots of raw materials, a ready-made population to enslave, existing platform-sole technology—jackpot, stilettos for everyone. But of course, he also found that Earth had its own wonders."

"Like the Great Barrier Reef?" asked Cam. "Or the Himalayas? Or the music of Mozart, or the writings of Shakespeare? That kind of stuff?"

"Well—sort of. As the reports from Earth continued to come in, Flixl noticed an intriguing pattern emerging—Earth appeared to have a startling abundance of big things."

The baristas exchanged a look. "Big things?" queried Cora. "What do you mean? Blue whales? Mount Everest?"

The hologram shook his head. "Not those kind of big things. Most planets have big stuff, so there's nothing special about that. Those things are supposed to be big. No, what Flixl noticed were big things that were supposed to be small. Well, smaller, anyway."

Cam considered this. "Right." He considered some more. "Huh?"

Ethlukjamson looked from one barista to another. "C'mon, you guys must know about these big things—you actually have more than your fair share, here in Australia. There's a big pineapple and a big banana and a big lobster and all kinds of other stuff. Then there's a big buffalo in America and a big apple in Canada and a big—"

"Hang on," interrupted Max. "Are you talking about roadside attractions? Those kind of big things?"

Ethlukjamson frowned. "Yes, Flixl was quite perturbed at the apparent reckless indifference with which you guys treated these amazing technological achievements—parking them alongside highways, or plonking them on golf courses—quite shocking . Nevertheless, the satellite and drone images were unequivocal—despite Earth's primitive stage of development, it was clear that your scientists had somehow cracked the secret that has eluded Rigel's finest minds—the secret that would solve the Rigellian's vertically-challenged woes—the secret of how to make small things bigger. Or more importantly, in their case, how to make short things taller."

Surreptitiously, Cam leaned towards Max. "Should we tell him?" he whispered.

Max gave the barest shake of his head. "Nah," he whispered back. "Let's see where this goes."

"So," continued Ethlukjamson, "Flixl decided he couldn't allow this technology to be lost. He secretly recruited a few like-minded individuals from among his team, and with a little financial assistance from a benevolent outside party, set up a secret lab. And then he set to work designing a weapon. A weapon that would give the puny Earthlings a chance to fight off their oppressors. Maybe not a good chance. But a chance, nonetheless.

"But, Flixl had a problem. For all their embiggening abilities, the Earthlings were still a primitive and pretty stupid lot. How could he entrust them with a weapon of awesome destructive power? They might just use it on each other, as their history showed they had done time and again. Or maybe they actually would try to use it on the Rigellians and just simply point the wrong end at them. It was a dilemma.

"As the day of the invasion loomed, he finally came up with a solution. A solution befitting the brilliance of the greatest genius Rigel has ever produced. He wouldn't give the humans a weapon. Oh, no. Instead he would turn some of the humans into weapons."

Ethlukjamson grinned at his audience. "Hands up if you can guess who gets to be those weapons."