A Cozy Concession (Under The Influencers Book 3), page 1
A Cozy Concession
Book Three of Under The Influencers
Copyright 2026 by E. M. Foner
One
Hadley added a dollop of Greek yogurt to the bowl of oatmeal she’d left to soak on the counter overnight. Then she peeled back enough of a banana to start lopping off chunks, gradually working the peel back further to finish the job. It took a few more seconds to get the Greek yogurt and the banana mixed into the oatmeal with her spoon, and then she brought the bowl to the kitchen table, where her white-haired landlady was sipping a cup of tea.
“Aren’t you going to pour a glass of orange juice on top and make it truly disgusting?” Betsy asked.
“This is good,” Hadley protested. “I got the idea from Mona. Oatmeal and yogurt have always been two of my breakfast favorites, but I could never put them together because yogurt in hot oatmeal is gross. If you let cooked oatmeal cool, it congeals, and then it really is disgusting. By soaking oatmeal overnight, it absorbs the water without cooking, and it’s healthier. The biggest benefit is that it retains the right texture at room temperature, so I can add the yogurt and banana.”
“Soaking overnight to save time in the morning is how we made oatmeal seventy-five years ago when I was a schoolgirl. I swear that all the healthy food preparation methods Mona talks about on her channel are copied from how we did things before television commercials ruined everybody’s eating habits.” Betsy paused and took a sip of tea from a hand-made ceramic mug which depicted an alien spaceship shooting down a missile with a laser beam. “Do you know where Carl went so early this morning? I heard him start his motorbike as soon as the sun came up.”
“Phil texted last night and invited him to audit a day of colonist training at the old airport,” Hadley said. “Carl is creating a new channel that combines his old artificial intelligence apocalypse followers with Phil’s survivalist followers, and he’s going to talk about opportunities for leaving Earth.”
“Are you planning on emigrating now?” Betsy asked, unable to hide the disappointment in her voice. “I just know Peter will start pressing me to move into an independent living facility so I won’t be alone.”
“We aren’t going anywhere,” Hadley said. “There wouldn’t be any point in Carl repurposing himself as a colonization and interstellar guest worker influencer if we were leaving. There’s no such thing as faster-than-light communications, so he needs to be on Earth to do live call-in shows and post daily content. He’ll continue in his role as an interpreter for the Mechanicus, sharing what they’re willing to tell us about interstellar travel opportunities, and he’ll present the video that Phil sends back from the colonization mission, though the memory chips might take months to find their way to Earth through the galactic mail system.”
“It’s ironic that the galaxy depends on hand-carried mail for interstellar communications. Last week at the dentist’s office, I read a magazine article that listed the top ten occupations that are expected to go away in the near future. Postmen were either third or fourth.”
“What was the top one?”
“Computer programmers,” Betsy said with an amused smile. “Artificial intelligence is going to replace them all.”
“But after the Mechanicus took over Earth eight months ago, the first thing they did was to ban us from further development of artificial intelligence,” Hadley pointed out after swallowing. “I heard AI was already impacting employment for computer programmers, but without advancements in the technology, they aren’t going to go away altogether.”
“The magazine was from before the invasion. You know how dentists are.” She took another sip from her apocalyptic mug and said, “Peter and Mona should be back from their honeymoon today. You could have knocked me over with a feather when they announced that they were going to Japan for two weeks, but maybe long flights have become more attractive since all the jet engines were replaced with alien technology. Neither of them speak the language, and I don’t think many Japanese outside of the large cities understand English.”
“Don’t forget about the instant translations you can get from phones these days. It’s awkward, but it’s a million times better than a phrase book.”
“Japan is supposed to be a beautiful country, but I think I would find all of the old people depressing,” Betsy said. “I asked Walter for the median age in Japan, and it’s just a few months shy of fifty. A third of the population is over sixty-five. I know I’m not in any position to call the kettle black, but who would go to a retirement home the size of an island for a honeymoon?”
“Peter is sixty-three, and Mona just turned sixty, so they’ll both fit right in,” Hadley said. “Besides, it’s not like we’re doing much better these days. None of the women I worked with in Manhattan had children.”
“Walter. What’s the median age of the population?”
“The median age of the US population rounds up to thirty-nine years,” the cylindrical speaker on the kitchen table responded immediately.
“Rounds up?” Hadley asked.
“It’s a new setting that Carl applied for me,” Betsy told her. “I don’t need to hear decimal places for numerical answers unless I ask for them. And the important takeaway is that the median age in Japan is almost twelve years older than it is here. I wonder if there will be any Japanese left in another century or two.”
“Ligena, the leader of the Mechanicus first contact team that’s renting space in the bunker, is always asking me why humans stopped having children at the replacement rate. I probably give her a different answer every time.”
“It’s religion, you know, or the lack thereof. You don’t see any shortage of children among our Amish neighbors, and it’s the same around the world for people of faith.”
“I thought economics was a stronger factor,” Hadley said. “It seems that as a country gets richer, the women have fewer children.”
“Correlation does not equal causation,” Betsy said. “And I think you’ll find that rich countries have low levels of religiosity. You may find plenty of people who have spiritual beliefs, but that’s not the same thing as faith.”
Hadley scraped her spoon around the bowl to gather up the remaining smears of yogurt and asked, “What’s the difference?”
“You know that I’m not a person of faith myself, but I’ve long observed that people get back from religion what they put in. Being a person of faith is a way of life, not a checklist of beliefs, or an hour a week listening to some singing and a sermon. Following the rules and being a member of a closely-knit community of co-religionists requires a lifelong investment. Learning a few yoga poses and opening yourself up to the love of the universe is a different thing altogether.”
“I’ve never really thought about it,” Hadley said after licking off the spoon. “My mother used to take me to church if she could find the version she grew up in close enough to whatever base where my dad was stationed, but she never really talked to me about it. Even when she was dying, religion just didn’t come up.”
Betsy sighed. “What got us on such a depressing subject? Oh, right. The honeymoon in Japan. I do hope Peter can keep the business going, because whatever he says about having enough to retire, I know he isn’t ready yet. He’ll work until seventy-five like his father did and die in the saddle.”
“Don’t tell Mona that. I’m sure she hopes to have him around for more than another twelve years.”
“Arlene was Peter’s first employee at The Good Apocalypse, and you know how much of the load she carried for him. Is he planning on hiring a new office manager, or will you be taking over Arlene’s duties?”
Hadley grimaced. “It hasn’t come up yet because Phil and Arlene didn’t start the colonist training until Peter and Mona left on their honeymoon. The truth is, publishing the newsletter and managing the website only takes me two days a week at this point. I’ve been spending most of my time supporting the influencers where they need me and guesting on their shows. Arlene took care of all the business dealings with our vendors, but sales of prepper supplies have collapsed since the Mechanicus invaded, so that part of the business is much less work than it used to be. I think the last few months, Arlene spent more of her time cooking for everybody than doing office work.”
“I’ve heard a few of your guest spots,” Betsy said. “I think you should become an influencer yourself. Have you considered co-hosting with Carl?”
“I’d rather do office work,” Hadley said. “Maybe I can just take over Arlene’s duties and Peter won’t notice.”
“I hope this doesn’t sound mean-spirited, dear, but you aren’t that good a cook.”
Hadley laughed. “I know that. Do you see me protesting when Carl makes breakfast for us? I meant I would take over vendor relations and handle the general office work.”
Betsy tilted her mug to get the last of the tea out and then got up to rinse it in the sink. “You should talk to Peter,” she said over her shoulder. “I think if you give being an influencer a try, you’ll find that it’s not that bad. With all the changes that have come to the world, it seems to me that if you look around a bit, you could find a subject you like that’s still wide open, especially for someone with your connections.”
“My connections? Everybody I know works for The Good Apocalypse.”
“Do you want a scone?” Betsy asked, helping herself to one from the cookie jar.
“I’ve already hit my calorie target for the morning because I’m driving to the office rather than walking,” Hadley said.
Betsy sat down again, nibbled a bit from her scone, and asked, “What were we talking about? I remember, now,” she continued before Hadley could reply. “You’re friends with the leader of an alien first contact team. I doubt there are a dozen people in the world who can say that. Even though the Mechanicus kept most government employees in their jobs to provide services and add a gloss of legitimacy to their occupation, everybody knows they run the show. Who’s better connected than you?”
Hadley opened her mouth to reply and then thought better of it as Betsy’s words sank in. “I don’t know,” she finally admitted. “But is that fair? After all, who am I to be telling millions of people how to live or what to think? The only reason I took this job last year was that I was going to write a novel about all the crazy preppers. Then I found out that everybody working for The Good Apocalypse was saner than I am, and possibly nicer to boot. Now you’re suggesting that I take advantage of my friendship with Ligena to build a following parceling out the insider information I get from her?”
“Every great person in history got there by seizing opportunities when they presented themselves,” Betsy said. “I’m not saying that you have to set an ambitious goal, like taking over the world. But do me a favor and think about it before Peter gets back later today. Otherwise, you may find yourself agreeing to whatever idea he came up with during his honeymoon, because I’m sure he ended up talking to poor Mona about work half of the time.”
When Hadley arrived at the office of The Good Apocalypse, which consisted of an expanded and renovated farmhouse with an attached barn and a silo that had been converted into an amateur astronomical observatory, a floating Mechanicus robot with four metallic tentacles waved her into a parking spot like an aircraft marshaller on a tarmac. The robot’s actions were all the more puzzling since there were no other vehicles present. Peter had taken his truck to the airport, and none of the influencers owned cars.
A small woman with high Asian cheekbones and long jet-black hair, just a year or two younger than Hadley, burst out the front door onto the porch. She was wearing augmented reality glasses and had motion controllers strapped to each of her wrists. “How did I do?” she called to Hadley. “Did you think a Mechanicus was controlling the robot?”
Hadley looked from Fumiko to the floating robot and then back again. “They finally gave in and let you have one?”
“On evaluation, but you know what that means,” Fumiko said. “It combines the best features of a drone and a robot all in one package. I would sell my soul to keep it. I would even become a collaborator.”
“You already are a collaborator, or at least that’s what you tell everybody who watches your channel,” Hadley said, unable to suppress a smile at the former drone and robot apocalypse influencer’s enthusiasm. “Are you going to do a show about the robot today?”
“I’m going to do a show about it every day until the batteries or the fusion thingy that powers it runs out. Watch this.”
The augmented reality glasses darkened as video captured from the robot’s cameras was projected on the lenses, and Fumiko manipulated her wrist controllers, sending the robot high into the air. It floated over to the dome at the top of the former grain silo and began drumming on it with all four tentacles. Thirty seconds later, a head poked out of the telescope slit, and Glen yelled, “Chill, Fumiko. It’s the third time in twenty minutes, and it’s not funny anymore.” Then he spotted Hadley and added, “I sent you a show transcript to edit into an article for the newsletter. And Peter just texted from the airport. They’ll be back later this afternoon.”
“Why so long?” Hadley called back. “Is there something wrong with his truck? I could go pick them up. It’s only a half-hour drive.”
“He texted from Newark, not the regional airport. They’re waiting for a connection on one of those little planes where the pilot will tell them to sit on opposite sides of the aisle to distribute the weight evenly. And if Fumiko asks you to let her pick you up with the robot, I’d take a pass,” he added before ducking back into the observatory.
“Coward,” Fumiko shouted, and then turned to Hadley. “I’ve been practicing for the last hour with everything that’ll move, including the old dirt bikes, and they weigh a few hundred pounds. Don’t you want to be the first person to fly with a Mechanicus robot holding you up?”
“You’re forgetting about all of the government leaders they detained during the first couple of minutes of the invasion,” Hadley reminded her. “I’ve seen video of a robot flying off with our secretary of defense, who was screaming like a little girl.”
“But you could be the first person to do it voluntarily.”
Hadley made a dash for the front door when she noticed that the robot was descending and seemed to be angling in her direction. “Don’t you dare!” she shouted at Fumiko. “I swear I’ll tell Ligena that you can’t be trusted with a robot.”
“Sheesh,” Fumiko said. “I was just kidding. Ligena was asking about you a few minutes ago, and I told her you’d be in soon. I think she went to the kitchen for a coffee. She’s gotten totally addicted since having that treatment with enzymes or whatever that lets her drink it without running to the bathroom.”
“Thank you,” Hadley said. “And don’t try to pick up my car with the robot.” Before the words finished coming out of her mouth, she already regretted them. Rather than staying in hopes of preventing Fumiko from carrying out the inevitable experiment, she gave up and began walking down the long hall from the office in the front addition, through the original house, and into the former shed that had been converted into a country kitchen.
Ligena, a female Mechanicus whose body was covered with long red hair like an Irish setter, was staring at the coffee maker, waiting for the dripping to stop. Laura Ann, the former financial apocalypse influencer who was now the leading interpreter of Mechanicus economic policies, was seated at the kitchen table with an open laptop, working through a list of questions.
“—and once our barter credits float, you’re saying that they’ll be good anywhere in the galaxy?” Laura Ann asked the Mechanicus.
“Anywhere in the galaxy that uses the same system,” Ligena replied in her strangely accented but fluent English. “While it’s entirely possible that Earth will have no goods, services, or even fallbacks like rare metals that will interest a particular civilization, once your barter credits float, they’ll be transparently exchanged into the goods and services of some other species that will be desirable to the aliens wherever you go.”
“I understand how that could work with civilizations that have been connected for centuries or longer, but establishing relative values for the millions—”
“Billions, even trillions,” the Mechanicus interrupted her.
“—of goods and services offered in trade by the galactic community must take an extended period of contact to work out.”
The dripping had almost halted, and Ligena poured herself a cup of Peruvian coffee in a large I’m an Alien Invader novelty mug she’d ordered off the internet. She replaced the coffee pot under the drip and then turned and saw that her human friend had arrived. “Good morning, Hadley,” Ligena said. “Do you have time? I just received a message from my father, and you and I need to talk.”
“I have as much time as you need,” Hadley said. “The only thing on my schedule today is getting the newsletter squared away, and most of that is done already. I’ll just grab a coffee, and then I’ll wait in my office until you finish with Laura Ann.”
“She’s never going to finish with me,” Laura Ann said. “There’s always another question. Will you come on my call-in show today, Ligena?”
The Mechanicus blew on her coffee, though to Hadley’s ears, it sounded more like a drawn-out sigh. “If you think it will help,” Ligena replied. “I’m just not sure that the people watching are actually listening to what I say as opposed to waiting for me to display simian behavior.”
“I’m sorry about that caller who offered to pay to see me grooming you, but all female influencers get those creeps from time to time. I’ve lost track of how many fetishes people have asked me to act out for them on camera.”
