Tucker's eyes gleamed with excitement as the scenery changed from a desolated road to a very crowded alien spaceport. Aliens of all shapes and sizes walked past the hitchhiker, not giving him any attention. He had been teleported to a big spaceship port far, far away in the galaxy.
"Yes! YES! I knew they were real! Oh, oh! Look at that one! That one looks just like the gray from that alien autopsy video! Oooh! That one looks tall and strong! Ohh, ahh! That one is smaller than a chihuahua! Is that a fancy-looking sink or a very hydrated alien? There are so many different kinds of them!"
Tucker had found undeniable proof that aliens existed. His wish couldn't have been more accurately granted. He was ecstatic.
"I can't wait to tell everyone back on Earth! Finally, all those years enduring ignorant normies mocking me and calling me nuts didn't go to waste! Oh, but first I'd need to take some photographic proof..."
Tucker put his tattered gloves back on his hands and took out his camera. He was too paranoid to use smartphones that took away his privacy, so he always carried around an old-fashioned instant camera.
He pointed the camera at a little green man holding a lollipop. The alien looked back at Tucker arching his eyebrow quizzically.
"Eh, whatcha looking at?" The alien looked a bit pissed with Tucker, as he seemed to be in the middle of a serious conversation with a red muscular alien in armor.
Weird, the alien spoke English. But that wasn't that surprising considering the Government was forcing the masses to speak this universal language. Why? Because the Government are all a bunch of aliens too, duh.
*Snap* Tucker took a perfect shot of the little green man and his lollipop, and the resulting image was printed into paper in seconds. Tucker was so happy. This little photograph was the ultimate proof aliens existed!
"HEY! What the hell, man!" The alien was completely grossed out when he realized what Tucker had done. "Did you just take a picture of my junk?!"
Tucker was confused. Maybe taking pictures without permission wasn't a good idea, but Tucker was an interplanetary tourist, surely the alien would understand. Besides, the alien was wearing jeans. It wasn't an indecent shot. Wait, why was there a fleshy cable connected from inside the alien's open fly to the pink, veiny lollipop?
"I'm sure you wouldn't be smiling so much if I took a picture of your junk during your own Spaceport Security check! Gimme that!" The alien took the photograph and ripped it into tiny pieces. "I, Apache, never forget a face, even an ugly simian face like yours! You'd better stay away, pervert!" The green man left as he closed the fly on his pants.
"Oh no, that was my proof!" The young human felt dismayed. He tried to gather back all the little pieces but-
"NEXT!" A red muscular alien with a large bald head cried out with his extremely baritone voice. The letters "Spaceport Security" were soldered in the chest of his armor. "Present your Universal ID at once!" He growled.
The Spaceport Security guard had been present during Tucker's little exchange with the green alien from before, and he had his suspicions this pink hairless ape was up to no good. So there was no need for courtesy. "Passengers with no Universal ID will be subjected to the Spaceport Security screening and assigned one. If one can't be assigned, the infringing passenger will be ejected."
"Ejected?" Tucker repeated.
"We throw you down the chute into the vastness of space, where surely you'll be able to think about your actions for a short period of time before you freeze to your eternal demise." The guard let that sink in. "It's the same procedure we do to the feces that travelers all around the galaxy deposit on our restroom." He gleefully noted.
The human gulped. "But I have my ID right here!" He said, wiggling his ID card on the red guard's ferocious yellow eyes.
The guard examined the puny piece of plastic. "It doesn't say anything about what planet you are from. It doesn't even state your species!"
The scaly red alien had a point.
"I'm a human! From planet Earth!"
"Earth? Hahahaha! That's the fakest name for a planet you could've come up with!" The guard flicked his smartwatch and ran a search on his species database. "There are no entries for "human"... I say you're full of bullshit."
That was to be expected as the human race had not yet made contact, at least officially.
"We can't make you an Universal ID if you don't belong to an established species." The guard coldly said.
"Couldn't you make a new entry in the database?" Tucker pleaded.
The guard laughed again. "That would take months or even years. Just think of all the paperwork. No, it'd be much simpler to transmute your body into one of the many species we already have registered."
"What?!" Tucker shouted. He? Become an alien? Ten minutes ago he couldn't prove they existed and now he was about to become one? That was crazy! The Spaceport was filled with thousands of different aliens of all shapes, sizes, cultures and bodily functions. What if he ends up looking like a freak?!
He couldn't agree to such a thing, but on the other hand, being freezed to death as his body was disposed into the emptiness of space didn't sound any better.
"We'll perform a screening of your body and I'll choose a suitable species for you. Considering how well we are getting along, I'll make sure to choose carefully." The red guard from Spaceport Security, who in his personal life was called Cole and engaged in sadistic pleasures, grinned evilly.
"Wait, I don't even get to choose what species I'll be turned into?! And what do you mean, a 'screening' of my body?!" Tucker thought back to the sight of Apache having to take out his 'lollipop' in public.