by Terri Lane
Spent from their joyous achievement, the couple panted between the thin sheets and traced salty skin covered in sweat. Smiles met together, pecking each other sweetly and whispering loving words. Their joy would last through the remainder of the evening and lead into another restful slumber, their dreams filled with the wonderful goals they hoped to reach after surviving the war.
***
Rushing through the streets were people caught outside of their homes, having ignored the warnings to not leave their own shelters. Many of them were being scooped up by drones and hauled off into the sky, screams echoing in the places where their bodies once resided. The local town was an absolute mess and soldiers were trying their best to keep the drones from grabbing anymore people. One young woman by the name of Alexis watched the scene, her green eyes absorbing every bit of detail through the camera lens she held. Much of it was distorted when she checked the pictures on the camera. Damn this cheap piece of crap, she thought.
While preoccupied with the faulty machine, a drone swooped down and stared at her with its large lens, seeming to scan her body as it beeped and hummed. She stared at it with wide eyes, barely blinking. What did it want? There was no way of telling whether it was intelligent life or merely following predetermined orders, but Alexis knew she had to get away before it decided to take her, too. Sprinting towards a house, she dodged people who had fallen and bounced between shooting soldiers that attempted to take down the drone following her.
Alexis dove behind a set of bushes and watched as the drone passed by, hoping it wouldn’t be able to find her. If these drones were advanced, then they would be able to pick up on heat signatures and recognize any individual bodies that they sought. It was a terrible thought that instilled panic, but she tried to push it away. She wished she could pluck one of these drones out of the sky and drag it into her basement where she could disassemble it, so she could maybe see where they were keeping all the people.
It was strange to watch them zap people out of thin air. The drones were particularly small, appearing to only hold perhaps one full person at a time, yet here they were collecting hundreds all at once, devouring entire crowds of people in the streets. Even a few soldiers had gone up with them, their guns remaining behind on the sidewalk. If she could grab that ray gun, then maybe she would have a chance at getting out of this alive. She didn’t want to be hauled away like cattle. Looking around, she tensed her body and then dove forward through the bushes to collect the gun that had been left behind by the soldier. As she raised it up to defend herself, a beam of light surrounded her body and she felt a rush of exhilaration. It was like being on a roller coaster and dropping down over the first hill.
Up she went, rushing over the city and out into the atmosphere. She thought she might even lose air, but where she was being held seemed be rich with oxygen. In fact, it was the most refreshing air she had ever inhaled, wondering how she could breathe this far up over the earth. A humming sound filled the small space which effectively drowned out any other noise and she appeared in a small room with a few hundred people surrounding her. The air was buzzing with energy, voices rising up over the general static of conversation and conveying panic.
A huge sign over a doorway read “Don’t Panic” in red letters, blinking every so often which caught her attention. As she looked around, the platform behind her rose, prodding the people forward into an adjoining room where a massive collection of people stood. There was a great deal of confusion and panic mixed with fear, many groups of people huddling together to pray or come up with a plan. No one else was around save for them, not knowing that they were occupying the belly of the great mothership hovering over the earth. The Vihatagons were watching over their collection of people and sort of smiling with gummy mouths at their harvest.
“We’ve collected plenty. Withdraw the drones and reprogram them for destruction. They must not fall into human hands!” said one of them.
“No, not yet,” boomed the captain. “Now we must wait for the cyborg.”
The confused group of people were now crying out, hoping that someone might hear their pleas as they tried to understand what was happening. A voice screeches over the speakers, attempting to tell them to calm down which causes a wave of screaming. Confused, the Vihatagon tried to repeat his message only to be met by more screaming and panic. Rolling his eyes, the captain pressed a hefty green button that translated the message properly into the language that the people could understand, listening as the garbled voice calmly informed them to remain still.
“Don’t panic,” said the voice over the speaker. “It will only make it worse. Provisions will be provided for your stay. You are all part of an amazing plan to be improved. Don’t worry.”
“How can we not worry?” Alexis cried out over the hushed crowd. “We’re trapped!”
“You are being saved,” sang the voice sweetly. “Your culture is no more and the Earth will not exist after the next orbit. There’s no need to worry about returning.”
“Saved from what?” asked a man yards away from Alexis.
“From yourselves,” replied the voice. “You are being saved from yourselves, and your ceaseless warring!”
The group roared in response to this claim, citing instances when the Earth had been rather peaceful and that they just needed some time to get their people together in order to remain peaceful. It was a chore explaining such history to these destructive creatures who knew nothing of peace. The Vihatagons’ only desire was to conquer.
On ground level, the couple woke from their slumber and looked up into the sky, watching the drones fleeing from the earth. They had attacked during their sleep! What cowards would do such a thing? As callous and violent creatures, the Vihatagons had executed a plan over their heads that they had somehow missed. Then again, they weren’t expecting such an attack this early in the morning. Trevor rushed to pull on his shirt and tensed his body in preparation, Lena stopping him before he rushed the field.
“There’s nothing we can do now,” she said to him as he huffed.
“But all those people!” he cried. “I just watched them get taken. How did they…?”
His sentence trailed off, rubbing the black hair on his head as he tried to figure out a new plan. What were they going to do now? They had been trying to avoid capture, but now it seemed they had been catapulted into a different situation. They had to take different measures. The general met them next to the radio stand and informed him that the scientists were safe, but they weren’t sure what they were doing with all of those people. It was the most massive abduction in history to date.
Surely they could retrieve their own kind back from those drones, but how? Trevor racked his brain, wondering how fast it might take them to travel by spaceship and whether they would get there in time.
“General, how many ships do we have?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. Perhaps five on hand. Why?” replied the general.
“We need to retrieve our people, sir. Do you have capable men ready to fly?” asked the cyborg while pushing buttons on his arm.
“Yes, I do,” replied the general.
As he turned to yell out a command, a hooded man ran up to the general and knocked him in the face with a gun, sending him spiraling to the ground unconscious. The couple gripped each other in shock at the man standing before them, watching in horror as the man removed his hood.
It was Mike.
***
A creepy smile crossed the lips of their betrayer, clicking and cackling intermittently while his eyes shifted between the couple.
“Mike! Are you serious?” cried the confused cyborg. “What are you doing?”
“You were part of my plan, Noble,” he said through cracked lips. “And she was, too. But it was mostly you I was after.”
“I’ve known you for years. What are you talking about?”
“My alien brothers needed an intelligent planet to invade, one that was brimming with new technology and capable minds. T
hey sent me here to scout out and I joined the military, thinking that’s where all the great minds were hiding,” explained Mike, or whoever he was. “And what did I find? The most amazingly destructive technology that I’d ever seen.”
“But you don’t look like an alien,” commented Trevor as he tried to wrap his head around the memories they shared.
The entire two years they had spent together were flashing before his eyes, the laughter and tears they had shared filling him to the brim with utter regret. It made him sick to think it was all part of an elaborate plan to take over the earth. How could he have missed that? How could he have trusted this man with his life?
“But our friendship...”
Tears were welling in his eyes as he remembered all the jokes and arguments, the amount of hugs that they had given each other during really bad times. Lena wrapped her arm around Trevor, but he pushed her aside, saying that he had to handle this.
“All part of the plan,” responded Mike with a grin. “And I’ll be beaming you up as soon as I kill that pretty lady of yours.”
As Mike wielded his gun, Trevor sprang forth and tackled the man to the ground, grappling with each other briefly as the sky darkened again. The mothership appeared to have moved over the sky, but that was merely an illusion caused by the earth’s rotation. Lena looked around for something to use as a weapon as she didn’t want to lose her precious Trevor to this horrible and deceitful thing that wrestled with him. A tentacle appeared from nowhere, wrapping its sticky suction cups around Trevor’s body which he easily broke free from. Bits of alien flesh sprayed all over the ground which Lena dodged, grimacing at the parts that still wiggled around. What was he, part octopus?
Lena located the ray gun that had skittered away from the two men fighting and retrieved it, holding it up at the man who was trying to take her cyborg away.
“Hold it, Mike,” she yelled. “Not another move.”
Trevor pinned his wigging tentacles to the ground as Mike spat in his face, green goo covering his eyes and causing him to reel backwards. Standing quickly, Mike taunted the poor Lena as she charged the ray gun and stepped back towards the field, unsure of where to take the plan from here.
“You’re not taking him anywhere,” she said firmly while gripping the gun.
“Is that so?” taunted Mike. “And I suppose you’re going to shoot me, are you?”
“I suppose I will,” she responded flatly.
“I don’t suppose you know how to use that thing,” he said with a sly grin, lips wiggling to produce an elongated tongue. “Why don’t you give me a kiss instead?”
The sound that came from his lips was the gargling, spitting language they had heard over the radio. Lena gagged in response to the question and turned her head away, trying to delete the image from her mind which would plague her for years to come. What a nauseating creep, she thought. Where’s Trevor? He was just on the ground. Panic filled her as she realized her lover had disappeared, likely dragged away by someone else who was part of this horrible scheme. She was now in a standoff with Mike, who waved his tentacle arms around and wiggled his tongue some more, green saliva dripping from the end of it and sizzling on the ground.
As Mike drew closer, Lena shouted that she wouldn’t hesitate to shoot, to which he asked why she hadn’t already done so. It prompted her to pull the trigger, but nothing shot out from the barrel. Shaking it, she tried again only to find the ray gun was empty. The trigger did nothing even as she continued to pull it with great effort. Did it really just run out of energy as she was trying to use it? She could have sworn it was full when Mike was holding it, his ooze coating the entire barrel.
“Looks like you’re out of luck, sweet stuff,” said the creepy, tentacled man. “And I guess I’ll be kissing you good bye.”
“Guess again, freak,” said Lena while watching the figure behind him.
Knocking him to the ground was the valiant Trevor, wrapping his cybernetic arm around the flailing tentacles and squeezing him into submission. The creature chortled briefly in a fit of fear, waving limbs around in an attempt to subdue his attacker. It was no use. Trevor’s arm was made of the same steel that protected the scientists and wouldn’t budge no matter how much the creature struggled. Dragging him into a tent, he secured the thing to a chair and sat in front of him, Lena standing behind him with the gun.
“I can’t get this thing to work,” she said as she panted for air.
The struggle had left her breathless, the entire ordeal feeling as if she couldn’t take in enough air. Trevor took the gun from her, pressed a few buttons, and then handed it back as it hummed. The charge was now full.
“How did you do that?” she asked.
“I’ll explain later,” replied Trevor, turning his attention to who was once known as Mike. “You need to tell me everything you know.”
“Never,” spat the disgusting creature covered in slime. “They’ll have you soon enough, even if I fail.”
“Fail at what?” asked Lena.
“Capturing you. I’ve been waiting for this moment for the past two years, hoping something would occur that was worth reporting. And then you got injured,” explained the gurgling man. “And, oh, how I wept with happiness!”
Mike chortled again, spitting saliva all over the place, which the couple dodged with ease. He then began screaming, showering spit and goo everywhere. It was a disgusting display. Perhaps he was trying to scream to his alien comrades about his capture. Could they hear him all the way down here?
Trevor punched Mike, who seemed to return to his previous state.
“What are they doing with all those people?” asked Trevor. “Why are they being taken?”
“I can’t tell you that,” replied the monster.
“You need to tell us something,” said Lena.
“Nope,” said the creature.
Lena raised the ray gun as a threat, pointing out that she could blow him away in a mere second and that he would never see his brothers again.
“Brothers?” spat Mike. “Those things aren’t my family. I was rescued from an errant planet that could hardly speak for itself. We had no achievements to speak of and most of our species was going extinct.”
“I don’t understand,” said Trevor.
“You don’t need to. My species no longer exists. That’s why they rescued me. I am forever indebted to them for keeping me alive and that’s why I’m here,” said Mike.
“So, our friendship meant nothing at all?” asked Trevor, hoping a piece of humanity still resided within the strange tentacled beast.
“Nothing,” whispered the soaked lips of the creature. “You meant nothing, until a few weeks ago. My mission was to obtain information, and until a few weeks ago, I’d obtained none. But now you mean everything.”
“I can’t believe you would do this to me! How could you?” cried Trevor, rising and grabbing the gun from Lena. “I’ll kill you!”
“Do it,” goaded the savage beast. “Do me in, Noble. Just know that they are coming for you and they will have you. They’ll also take that pretty doctor of yours. They’ll run all sorts of tests on the two of you and then throw you out into the vault of space to be sucked away with everything else. Once you are no longer useful, you’ll be gone.”
The beady eyes in his head rolled up to look at the ceiling of the tent, humming erupting from all around them as if a helicopter were landing nearby.
“Speaking of...”
Smiling, the creature chortled with pride as the sound shook the very soil upon which they stood, Lena and Trevor clinging to each other as they hit the ground. The tent shuddered under the great air blowing about them and started to fly away, revealing nothing but dust and clouds above them. A great orb occupied the sky above them as Mike continued to cackle, his hoarse gurgling filling the air with the roaring sound of wings. Clinging to her lover with her eyes shut, Lena screamed for Trevor to tell her what was going on, but he couldn’t tell. Neither of them could decipher the stran
ge thing in the sky. The dusty soot began to clog their nostrils, coughing as it trickled into their lungs.
In an instant, Lena was swept from Trevor's grip and flying up into the swirl of dust. The cloud enveloped her as she continued to cough against the dirty air, reaching out for anything to grab that might keep her on the ground. What was happening? Her eyes were stinging from the thick soot and it kept her from seeing anything around her. An awful sensation filled her gut as she rose over the ground and over Trevor, screaming for him to keep her from being taken away. The air disappeared and oxygen was restored to her lungs. Trevor’s screams died out. Silence rang in her ears. She was alone.
And then it went dark.
Book 3: Reprogram
Beneath the circling dirt and soot lay the great Navy SEAL commander, Trevor Noble, who reached out in vain to his love, Dr. Lena Clark. Just moments ago, she was lost to the great tornado of sand that encircled them as their enemy, Mike Larsen, laughed maniacally. A drone had swooped down in an effort to capture Trevor, but took Lena instead. The helicopter above was being driven by General Sanders who leaped from the vehicle and ran over to the fallen Trevor. He shook his head.
“Where’s Lena?!” Trevor cried.
“Commander! We need to get you to safety!” yelled the general.
“But Lena has been taken!” he shouted. “We must save her!”
“We need to get you to safety first!” yelled General Sanders. “You’re no good to us if you get captured too! Come on!”
The general heaved Trevor onto his back, and took him to the copter, blades spinning above them menacingly as they boarded the vehicle. General Sanders tapped a few buttons on the touch screen control panel and the copter rose up into the sky, the sound of Mike’s laughter fading into a gurgle that dissipated when they flew over to the main base next to the hospital.
It was mayhem on the ground. Dots of people darted back and forth, guiding others to safety, where they took cover from the aerial attack.