World leaders were in a panic. Already, more insects were appearing upon our virtual shores, floating through torn portals like boats emerging from the fog. But what was their message? They arrived with neither greetings of peace nor threats of war. They merely stood in our IR environments, their heads reaching the ceilings of our offices, staring at us with their silvery eyes as they chirped indecipherably. And soon we found ourselves in one of two camps: those who’d fed ants sugar crystals and watched them build tunnels in glass terrariums, and those who’d held magnifying glasses over their backs to watch them curl and incinerate under the sun’s concentrated ray.

A Victoria’s Secret store closed when two massive grasshoppers appeared, pushing racks aside as they clattered through the aisles. A Carnival cruise had to refund payments when one of their immersive ocean liners became home to a dozen escaping mantids. A group of toddlers were terrified by a gigantic bleeding grasshopper that had appeared in their day-care center. And, finally, an Alabama county clerk named Frannie Sheffield had an anxiety attack when a praying mantis appeared at her office’s immersive picnic. Her round face was broadcast on all the channels as she lay in her hospital bed, voicing the request of an increasing number of Americans. “Squash them,” she said to the cameras.

It was a phrase soon chanted by others. They emerged in our communities with signs and T-shirts. “Squash them,” they chanted outside the corporate offices of our immersive-content providers. The Fraternal Order of Police issued a unified statement condemning the interstellar creatures. Religious leaders quoted Bible verses about pestilence, infestations, and blights, and conservative talk show hosts gave inaccurate history lessons on the boll weevil. “What we need to do,” a Georgia senator said, “is put up a firewall so powerful it’ll roast those crickets.” And finally, an immersive-home owner in Pendleton, Oregon, loaded a virtual shotgun and opened fire on the mantis that had emerged on the front lawn of his online home. We saw his face on the news stations the next day, the carcass of the creature behind him. “If the corporations aren’t going to keep us safe,” he said, “then it’s up to us to defend ourselves.”

THE OFFICIAL RESPONSE

The president appeared on our smartphones, and we took off our IR goggles and gathered to hear him. America, he announced, was under attack. The immersives had precipitated a national crisis that threatened our cities, our homes, and our way of life. And despite the claims of liberal media outlets, these creatures were neither docile nor here in peace. These bugs were intergalactic predators opening the doors of our immersive worlds in advance of even more horrific insects, and their appearance in our digital world was nothing more than a prelude to their invasion of our real one.