Chapter Nine
She broke free of David and sprinted over to a console to the right of the space couch. There she worked some dials and switches, and alarm ran across her face.
“Damn. We don’t have much time perhaps six to ten minutes or so maybe a little longer. One of your satellites has spotted my saucer and is scrambling some of your defense air vehicles to this location.” she said and frantically began twisting dials and throwing switches on the pilots console.
David joined her at the console and she turned and continued to worked some controls and typed on the flat, built in keyboard. Soft “beeps” could be heard as she hurriedly entered data on the keyboard.
“I have set my ship to re-enter the worm hole. It will take a few moments to initialize, and it will be close. I must leave NOW and so must you, David”
“I, I can’t leave here that quickly, my car has a flat. But you just go. Take off. I can walk back to my sister’s house. It’s only ten miles down the road.” anxiety washed across his face.
“Oh my I forgot, that’s right, my ship disabled one of you vehicle’s runners.”
“Your ship did what??”
“You don’t think it was coincidence that your vehicle actually had a ‘flat tire’ at this particular place and at the precise time my ship landed, do you?” asked Aleena in a probing voice and made an impish face.
“Uh, what do you mean? This wasn’t a coincidence? You caused me to have a flat tire at this exact spot?”
“Yes, my saucer was scanning vehicle identification plates in isolated areas and then searched the earthly computers containing the registration information. From those files it found the personal files and searched for a qualified medical professional in one of those isolated areas so I could land and be examined in seclusion.”
“Your qualifications and location met my needs the best, so with a quick laser pulse from space, you car was disabled and waiting for my arrival,” said Aleena as she softly ran her fingers across David’s cheek while smiling and fluttering her eyelids vampishly.
“Amazing.” said David. “I was selected. And by the most beautiful extra terrestrial I have ever met.”
“You mean the ONLY extra terrestrial you ever met. Anyway I need to fix you vehicle’s runner, and quickly. Come on and hurry.” She flashed her emerald eyes at David.
Aleena swiftly walked toward the decontamination exit hatch.
" Ok good. No unusual organisms were found on you, or outside the saucer. It's safe to disable the decon unit."
She keyed in a couple of commands on the panel, and the outer door of the decon unit opened to the outside of the saucer. The chilly night breeze entered the saucer.
They both hurriedly stepped through the decon unit and stood on the alcove at the top of the stairs looking out into the dark desert night lit only by the brilliant canopy of twinkling stars
“So that’s your land vehicle with the disabled ground runner?”
“Uh, yeah that’s my car with the flat tire. Actually it’s more than a flat, the tire is in shreds and won’t hold air,” responded David pointing to the rear tire on the facing passenger side.
“Wow. My saucer did mangle that ‘tire’ badly, but I can fix that. That’s easy. We have to get you out of here. If you are found here you will be detained by your authorities and you may never be seen again. Believe me I know of these things.” said Aleena in a voice becoming increasingly panicky.
She placed her hand on a small rectangle within a larger cabinet sized rectangle at the top of the stairs. A door opened where there was barely a crack to show where the door was. It was if the door just appeared and swung up. She withdrew a device that looked like some kind of electronic rifle.
David noticed that it looked to be about three foot long and had two antennas with small disks at the end of each and that resembled the barrels of a double-barreled shotgun with small six inch satellite dishes on the end. There were two other smaller antennas one on the top and one on the bottom of the device both about a foot long or so stalks.
He watched as she held the “rifle” with her left hand on a grip halfway down on the bottom of the device like the grip on a shotgun, and with her right hand she unlocked the barrels from their stored position and aimed one of the barrels at the rear tire, the shredded tire, and the other barrel at the good front tire. She also unlocked the top antenna and pointed it to the sky, and unlocked the bottom antenna and pointed it to the ground.
She made some adjustments on the small digital control panel on the end facing her and small low “beeps” could be heard as she tapped the screen and made the adjustments. Then a long continuous low tone sounded and a green beam illuminated the front tire while a red beam illuminated the shredded tire on the rear rim.
David could also hear a strange sound coming from the top and bottom antenna. He followed the line of sight on the bottom antenna and saw a hole develop where the bottom antenna was pointing to the ground.
As he watched the shredded tire began to repair itself. In a few seconds the tire was completely whole and it inflated so quickly that the back of his car actually bounced.
A moment later, the unit shut down. David’s flat was fixed, and the tire was like new.
“Wow, if I hadn’t of seen it with my own eyes I would never have believed it. That’s amazing.”
“Not really. The machine just reads the molecular structure and repairs the broken what-ever using molecules the machine gets from the surrounding atmosphere and from the matter it atomically separates and transports from the ground matter and air."
"We’ve had this technology for about two hundred years now. DUPlicator REPairer or DUPREPs are as common and inexpensive as a home computer is on your planet. This one is a few generations old.” said Aleena and replaced the DUPREP and closed the cabinet.
She quickly turned to David and placed both of her hands on his upper arms. “I really have to go now. Those atmospheric vehicles will be here in less than three minutes. I’ll have to lift off and then I have to make up some time. I don’t think I have been out of the worm hole long enough to be too late for my next delivery.” she said with a little sadness in her voice.
“I don’t know how to quite put this Aleena, but I am crazy attracted to you. In fact, I have never been attracted to a woman as strongly as I am attracted to you since my wife died. This is totally bizarre but for the second time in my life, I have found a woman that I feel that I can truly get along with and you’re an alien. Light years away. I can’t even get a flight out of town to visit you. How many people get a second chance at love?” said David, a little heatedly.
“I know I feel the same about you. The men back on my planet are too interested in making lots of money and getting the most beautiful, youngest, woman as a trophy wife like they say here on your planet . I would love the chance to try a relationship with a real man. One who knows what he wants and one knows himself, more specifically you.”
“Really? I find all this so hard to believe."
“But the feelings that I have for you I want to continue, as crazy as this sounds. Yes, I would love to see you again and get to know you. I cannot believe I am saying this, but come back.”
"I can never tell anyone that I met you. I mean who would believe that I met a beautiful extraterrestrial human woman in the desert who stepped out of a flying saucer from a 1950’s science fiction movie and we fell in love. I would lose my license.” he cried. Sadness washed over his face for a moment.
“And I can never tell that I took an illicit drug, fell out of the worm hole onto Earth and met you. I would lose my job, my benefits, and be the laughing stock of my company.”
“What, for the drugs or for landing on Earth?”
“Both.”
“Your planet is on the technology forbidden list. We cannot introduce ANY our technology into your society that would be catastrophic. Illicit use of the DUPREPS on your planet woul
d turn this world into chaos.”
Damn, I never thought about it like that.”
The alarms in her ship grew louder and more urgent sounding.
“I have to go.” She glanced a watch looking device on her wrist.
“The worm hole harmonics are will be ready in forty-two seconds for me to reenter. I must leave now and get to the worm hole opening.” she said anxiously, squeezing his arms.
“I wish we had more time,” he said putting his hands on her hips.
“I know. So do I. I’ll be back, not in a company vehicle, but I will be back. I promise. I can’t let what we started end. Our meeting was not a chance meeting. It was meant to be.”
“I can make it back to your planet in two of your hours in my sports morph. I don’t know when, but I promise I will be back.” said Aleena her eyes pleading with David.
David and Aleena hugged. He experienced sadness and a joy all at the same time. He could feel Aleena’s the rapid beat of her heart as he hugged her.
David broke their hug and went for his wallet.
“Here is my personal business card. It has my address on it. Can you find my house?”
“Yes, I can cross reference this with the maps that we have of your world. Information to your world is so easy to obtain.” said Aleena with a little twinkle in her eyes.
Aleena hugged David again, then as they stared into each other’s eyes, both moved in closer and kissed a gentle kiss. Then without a word they broke their embrace and she turned toward the saucer. David scrambled down the stairs, turned and saw her wave once more. He waved back and she disappeared into the saucer. The stairs retracted. With a low quiet thud, the stairs closed, becoming a piece of the lower hull of the saucer.
David turned around and jogged back to his car in the chilly night, but he didn’t feel the cold at all. In fact his ears were hot.
By the time he was halfway to his car he could hear noise from saucer as it rose to an audible hum; like that the noise from a transformer on a telephone pole. The saucer lifted off the desert floor, and the three landing struts closed against the sides of the saucer and they too became part of the hull.
The saucer ascended rapidly and by the time He reached his car it was dime sized in the blackened, star lit, night sky.
He stood by the driver’s door of his car and watched the saucer become a pinprick of light like one of the thousands of stars overhead, and in an instant it vanished into the vastness of dark space.
He let out a sigh, and shrugged a two shoulder shrug, and wondered if he would ever see Aleena again. How bizarre he mulled, that the woman he is most attracted to in two years is an extraterrestrial and lives light years away on another planet in another galaxy. Who could he ever tell about this? Who would even believe him? He shrugged again and opened his driver’s door.
He got in and started his car closed the door, and stared through the passenger door window at the spot where the saucer had just lay. He slowly shook his head and put on his seat belt and shifted into drive. He pulled away from the side of the road, and he thought about the occurrences of the last forty-five minutes or so. He sped up to fifty miles per hour and the uneven road gently bounced David in his seat.
Just seconds after he got up to speed three military jets screamed overhead to find nothing but empty air where in place of the saucer. He could see them in the distance making a large swooping turn, and then fly back over a few hundred yards to the west and then bug-out off to the east.
The jets didn't return. He thought about all that happened, challenging his experiences and wondered if it all really happened, or was it some night desert hallucination. He wrinkled his brow and the corners of his mouth turned up into a wicked smile as he thought that the time he spent with Aleena.
He drove for about ten or so minutes in deep thought of all that he experienced, and thought of Aleena and what she said about coming back. Abruptly, his cell phone emitted a short series of beeps indicating he was within the range of a cell phone tower.
His phone immediately began ringing. It was the hospital inquiring about his ETA to the hospital and that Mrs. Caldwell was already in labor, and that they have been trying to get hold of him for a couple of hours now.
"Yes, yes I'll be there in", he referenced his console clock, "about an hour and a half." he said and he asked a few pertinent questions on Mrs. Caldwell's progress and gave some instructions and pressed the END button.
He put his phone back on his console and increased his speed. He could see the asphalt ribbon of a highway about a mile ahead of him and the light from the highway light poles. He was still grappling with the recent events.
She said she is coming back to visit? How can she do that?
He smiled in wonder and his eyes moistened a little.
He pushed the pause on his steering wheel radio controls and the CD player began playing.. The night was so beautiful, clear, and star lit.
His favorite song was playing and he began to sing the lyrics “You may be right, I may be crazy…”
He smiled and chuckled softly to himself and adjusted his posture for the long ride back.
The End
About the author:
I grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana in the sixties, and read a lot of science fiction and watched every sci-fi movie that came out. When the movies were really, really, bad, I mean below a B movie, mom and I would turn down the sound on the TV and make up our own dialog.
It wasn’t until the late 80’s that I started to write sci-fi stories. Flat Tire was the product of an idea from one of my creative writing teachers that took hold. She said, “If you run out of ideas for stories, make up a story around an everyday object or event.”
I was going to work one nasty, rainy, dark, morning, and on the side of the road was this very pretty, pregnant, woman standing under a golf umbrella behind her car with a flat tire. This was BCP (before cell phones) so I stopped and changed her tire for her. She offered to pay me, but naturally being the gentleman that I am, refused payment and wished her a healthy baby.
I don’t remember the exact sequence of events, but I had a dream. No, nothing like MLK, for mine are a lot more bizarre. And I joined together my event with the pretty brunette with the flat tire and a beautiful space alien landing needing medical attention. Maybe her being pregnant would have been more exciting but not this time. This was the birth of Flat Tire.
I hope you enjoyed my novelette, Flat Tire. I like writing novelettes because they can be read in an about hour or so and I like to call my writings Snack Reading. Snack Reading is great at lunch when you want to escape the rigors of the day for an hour or so or for those nights when a book is too long. Leave me a message on how you liked my story at:
https://barrybbegault.wordpress.com
My stories are not the hard core science fiction, but more of the Twilight Zone type of science fiction. The people take center stage not the science; science is just a prop.
All of my covers for these type novelettes will be in black and white as to pay homage to the Twilight Zone type of stories.
Coming Soon.
I am working on my blog so I have my readers interact with me and learn about my weird thought processes for some of these stories. Also to announce the latest stories either coming out soon.
For the Sake of Art – Wire form artist wakes up as an android one morning.
Switched in Time – A 45 year old man is switched in time with his 20 year old self.
Visit my blog at https://barrybbegault.wordpress.com/ and let me know your thoughts on my writing and thanks for choosing my story to read.
Keep on reading.
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Flat Tire Page 9