Matthew believes in aliens, but his mother doesn't. The recent news of humanity's alien heritage might change her mind...
 

     “We’re descended from aliens,” Matthew said, jumping up and down excitedly in front of the TV screen.

     “That’s nice, dear,” his mother said from behind a women’s magazine.

     “Did you hear me?” Matthew said. “Did you hear?”

     “Yes, dear,” his mother said. “We’re descended from aliens.”

     “But do you know what that means?”

     “Oh yes, definitely, dear,” she said, peeping over the magazine to give a brief smile. “It means we’re the descendants of aliens.”

     “No! It … well, yes, but … but it’s bigger than that. It’s like … revolutionary. You know, something that will change our whole perception – like that Copperknickers guy, the one who discovered the world was round.”

     “Oh yes, dear – the world is round.”

     “I know that! That’s not what I was … oh, never mind.”

     Matthew turned the TV off and sauntered off to his room. The truth was, he knew, that his mother had always taken him for a kid with a great imagination. At eight years of age, of course, there was no denying that. However, she often thought he came up with wild and fanciful ideas – fantasies, even, and undoubtedly she thought this was one of them.

     But it wasn’t. It had just been broadcast that the scientists working on the Human Genome Project had made a major breakthrough on the 97% of supposedly “junk” cells that the human genome carried; they discovered they were alien genes, that our survival on a paltry 3% of our gene structure was an anomaly in the aliens’ genetic plans gone wrong (though right for us). Indeed, it meant that we were more alien than human, though dormantly so, and even if the aliens had long died out, Matthew was excited by the very fact that it was now proven that they existed, and not only existed, but actually interacted  with and, indeed, helped to create, humanity.

     Matthew had always suspected as much before, of course. His baby sister, for one. He always thought she looked like an alien: huge egg-shaped head and big bulging eyes staring out at him as if he were another species. He even suspected that the strange gargling noises she made were interstellar transmissions that would make sense to some strange race halfway across the galaxy.

     He opened the door of his room and walked in. Techman, his robotic toy (or, as Matthew called him, friend) was sitting on his bed, staring out the window.