An Alien, a Time Machine, and a Loser

The end of humanity is imminent. Alfred, an extraterrestrial, has been working on Earth for the last 50,000 years. His job is to observe and record every detail of humanity's development for his employer, the Intergalactic Corp-they run the local galactic cluster. But Alfred's current assignment is about to end, along with humankind. His advanced monitoring equipment has predicted a chain of events that will end all human life in the next thirty days. Tragic as that is, Alfred is more concerned about starting over on a primitive planet and waiting millennia for things to become interesting enough to entertain him again. The Corp strictly forbids its observers from interfering with their assignments in any way-but there's a loophole. Alfred just needs to find the world's biggest loser and convince him to single-handedly save the world. Skylar Holden is the world's biggest loser-at least one of them. He has received the short end of the stick his entire life in everything he has ever done. Even though he's genuinely talented, he can never get a break. He has no money, no friends, his job sucks, and his apartment is a dump. Constant disappointment has made him cynical and lazy to the point where he has basically dropped out of life. Then he's abducted by an alien who gives him a mission. Humanity's continued existence now rests entirely on the shoulders of a loser who has never succeeded at anything.