by Bryan Nyaude
“Who are you, alien man?”
My body automatically took a defensive stance barely flinching. However, his movements did not seem to show any evidence of hostility. Instead, he flicked his left fingers on his vehicle and frowned at me suddenly. It felt like he was toying with my feelings to see how I would react. I raised my fists and placed my left foot back to gain a stronger leverage.
The alien man looked at me and laughed untimely. “I can tell by the way you stand, that you have no advanced combat or martial arts experience. The way you clenched your fist tells me, that you are a scientist and not a combat veteran. You have some skills in acrobats and you are a very fast learner. The way you position your body tells me, that you’ve seen way too many martial arts holograms and you need to stop. Trust me, kid, you can’t beat me, even if my hands were tied. There is still a lot you have to learn about this universe before you can challenge me.”
Rude! But how could he know so much about me that quickly? His descriptions were accurate, but not all of them were entirely true. I had stopped watching martial arts holographs, four years ago, after Rose left. It just didn’t seem as interesting now as it did when I watched them with her. I gazed back at him again and suddenly noticed he didn’t have an oxygen tank on his back, meaning he could breathe this air too. His clothes dated back to 200 years ago and so did his hunting hat. Just where did this guy come from? How could he also breathe without an oxygen tank? Was he even human? My first assumption that he was an alien shape shifter seemed highly logical now. But what did he want from me?
He suddenly made a gestured movement and slowly leaned to the left an inch, while letting out a huge sigh, like he was relieved or something.
“That was pretty reckless what you did there, in the sky,” he chuckled, shaking his head like I had done something stupid. “Not a lot of men will resort to blowing themselves up with a javelin bazooka, just to save their own skin in the process. I don’t know how you managed to survive that. Your body must be made of something special, that much I can say.”
“Yeah, well, I work out a lot,” I replied sarcastically, giggling like a maniac. “But still, I have no idea how my armor is operational after that EMP knocked out all of my systems and battery pack.”
“Well, I fixed it,” he quickly answered me and turned his gaze away from me, for just a second, looking somewhere across the terrain. “It was a piece of cake really, only a matter of re-calibrating the backup circuits towards the central processor and rebooting back all the power radically. Simple mechanical physics, really!”
I seriously had no idea what he was talking about. I lost him somewhere at central processor or something— Mechanical Physics wasn’t exactly my forte or area of expertise. The level of his intelligence definitely screamed super, advanced alien to me. I don’t know, maybe, I was being feeble or senile. His facial expression changed drastically as he became serious and more intense.
“Now, kid, tell me who you are and who sent you? I won’t go easy on you because you are just a kid?”
This alien man looked dangerous, and I could tell just by looking at him that, he could handle himself— well, in a fight. I was completely unarmed and unfamiliar with my new surroundings. My weapons had been stripped away, leaving me at a large disadvantage. Best option at the moment was to flee at fast as I could.
“Hey, I don’t have to tell you anything,” I lashed at him strongly. Seconds later, I realized that was maybe not the best response ever. “I just want to get back to my crew and finish my mission.”
He looked at me in a strange way like he was observing me and asked, “how old are you?”
What! Was he making a mockery out of me? His questions seemed to pop up out of nowhere, barely staying on one subject. I had only experienced these types of random questions in a basic psychiatric evaluation. It made perfect sense now, considering all the variables in front of me. He was asking me simple logical questions, while at the same time evaluating my personality.
I had no way to prove my theory, but to avoid further troubles I told him, “I am Den Atmas, special space biologist, with unit 5 of the Earth Battalion, and I am 24.”
“Oh wow! You just recently came from earth? This is great, I haven’t seen another earthling in centuries,” he said in amazement and stood up straight.
Centuries! Just how old was this man? If he was talking centuries, then he must be very ancient. I wanted to ask him how old he was; however, my conscience stopped me as to warn me not to provoke him. Mother always said it was rude to ask the elder their age; although, that seemed extraneous, since he was some alien shifter.
The alien man moved away from his ship quickly, approaching me with no guards on. If there was a time to strike him down, it was now. My fists shook steadily, but I kept myself restrained.
“This is wonderful, how did you get here?” he asked me, with a facial expression filled with curiosity. “Where is your ship? Tell me everything and ending with how and why you blew yourself up in the sky.”
Could I truly trust him? I decided to take a risk and told him everything, starting from our ship burning through the planet’s atmosphere, to how I got here—only excluding my family background and mission details. I also hid the crucial part about the crystal I had acquired, thanks to that last encounter with that monster.
“So, tell me, who are you exactly? Or the most obvious question is, what are you?” I asked him now that I had answered most of his questions. “You are not human, are you? No person can withstand this gravity or breathe normally in this toxic air.”
I assumed, I had told him enough about myself to clearly gain his trust. The alien man looked at me all of a sudden, once again with intense eyes, like he had a borderline personality disorder and walked back to his vehicle.
“I’m complicated,” he said slowly like he was savoring every breath of air he took.
“So you are alien then?”
“Answer is yes and no.”
“That is not an answer. Then tell me why is your skin gray? Do you have some sort of parasitic disease like version 3 Leishmaniasis or Argyria?”
“No, I don’t, kid, you are pestering me with a lot of questions.”
“Well, can you at least tell me how old you are?”
“I’m a lot older than you, now listen, kid! There is one thing I can tell you young one, if we don’t get off this planet and get back to earth, things are going to get rough. There is a lot more going on than you can imagine. Trust me on this, some things in life are better off left unsaid and others better dealt with immediately.”
Gee! Who would have guessed that? Didn’t he think I didn’t know that, already? As far as I was concerned—things were getting worse and worse with each day on earth. The tenacity and replication speed of the terror beasts was way too much for any man to handle. Even with the combined strength of a billion armor suits, it was just too overwhelming to take on. All we could do was restrain their movements with metal walled barricades and giant superguns, which seemed to rip apart the planet in the process. It was safe to say, in a year from now, the creatures would outnumber the remaining human population 50 to 1.
“From what I can tell in your voice, something has happened on earth, just as I had predicted decades ago,” the man said and fell silent.
Just who exactly was this man? To be able to survive the planet of the terror beasts for so long meant he had quite some experience in the art of war. The possibility that he was also an alien trying to deceive me did not slip my mind. The only question that remained was how I would react should he assault me.
“If you are human, then how did you get here?” I asked with a serious tone. Asking him random questions was getting tiresome and irritating. This man had answers I needed, and I was determined to get them now.
To my surprise he said, “I will answer your questions all in good time, but right now, we really have to go. I managed to stabilize the nuclear core in your armor from exploding for a brief time period. It s
hould be good for another few hours, until we get to a main reactor and shut it down. Do you know why that suit has a nuclear core?”
My gut told me he wanted to change the subject at hand, to something of his own personal interest. My chest itched so terribly, causing me slight yearning of discomfort. I wanted to scratch it away, but the armor was the only thing in my way. Oh yeah! I remembered he had just asked me an important question.
I shook my head as to say no and then looked up, to hear his answer.
He shifted his gaze and sighed in disappointment, before responding, “It’s because that suit was meant for a one way mission. In other words, soldiers who wore that armor could never return from battle. They would fight like berserkers until their hearts stopped beating, resulting in the armor exploding, and destroying every enemy close to them. I never liked that man’s exoskeleton creations and weapons. Honestly, I find it revolting to see one of his inventions here again in front of me. That armor will not be easy to remove, so you are stuck with it for a while. You must be an idiot or desperate, if you are willing to sacrifice your life so easily.”
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” I responded briefly.
Although, I would probably blame it on the surge of dopamine that rushed through my body the first time I saw the suit. But now, everything was simple and clear. I had to get back to the main ship and alert everyone about what had occurred during the recon mission. With my com link system and the navigational unit going berserk, it was not going to be an easy task. On top of that, I was stuck with an alien man, who I knew nothing about, in the middle of nowhere!
Wait! I still had the crystal with me somewhere. I quickly went through my armor, looking for it until I found it in my inner chest pocket. The sphere felt small and smooth in my right palm—it was still glowing a tiny, bright light, although it was not clearly visible because of the sun. I stretched my right arm outwards, exposing the crystal to the natural elements.
“Fascinating,” the old man commented, observing the crystal from my hands. “May I see it, please?”
His eyes widened as he came closer to observe it. I noticed that he barely had any wrinkles on him. He looked like he was in his 40s or something close to that. Was he immortal? The look in his eyes gave me a sudden nerve wrecking feeling I couldn’t shake off. His greedy desire was glittered all over his eyes, like stars in the sky.
“I have never seen anything like this before. Where did you find this?”
Should I tell him? I mean, I knew nothing about this man or where he came from. In fact, I didn’t even know his name at all.
“Tell me your name first,” I muttered, glaring at him seriously, and watching his every reaction.
“Fair enough,” he replied and backed away from the subject, like he was avoiding his past life.
“Come on, old man,” I whined in frustration. “Just at least tell me your last name, or the first letters of your full name.”
“No kid,” he chuckled and stretched his arms out wildly. “I don’t have to say anything if I don’t want to and I would prefer if you drop the subject, right now. You youngsters are persistent indeed, rather annoying if I may add.”
I was no expert in psychology or behavioral analysis, but from what I could tell, he had trouble trusting people. But then again, I was the same, in a totally different way. What I couldn’t figure out was how he had managed to fix the suit nuclear core without causing it any further damage. He must or might have had some engineering background, which could only mean one thing—he was a scientist like me. I slowly put the crystal back into my inner pocket and looked around for any of my weapons or supplies. Oddly enough, they weren’t there anymore, and if I had to guess, I would say they either blew up or this man took them. This whole situation looked totally like a blitz from a badly written script. The armor let out a sudden cringe noise, completely catching me off guard. The alien man had done a hefty job patching it together. I concluded, I had at least two hours before something bad happened. Luckily, the suit’s power system and gravity controllers were orbiting slightly within stabilizing zones. The nuclear core was, however, a different case; it was destabilizing at critical proportions.
“Let’s go,” the alien man commented, getting into his vehicle. “I will accompany you to your main ship, then we can get off this planet.”
Something about the tone of his voice was off, but what exactly? He was hiding something very important. Why did he help me? What was he after, and why was he so determined to leave?
“What do you get out of this?” I questioned him because the clues were just not adding up.
Instead of answering, he ignored me and kept readjusting the controls on his hover vehicle. I could clearly tell that he heard me—because for a slight second, his movements jolted strangely.
“A way off this miserable planet,” he answered and looked at me with a serious and unfazed expression. “I am done answering questions. Now get in!”
Could I tell him that the ship’s engines were nonfunctional? If I did, would he still be willing to take me back to the ship? I decided not to tell him and boarded his mobile vehicle without saying anything. I still didn’t trust him as I focused completely at everything around me, on alert for anything suspicious. It was clear that this man was after something valuable within our possession.
“I took some data off your navigational scanner and plotted a coarse while you were asleep. Hope you don’t mind,” the man said and chuckled a little bit.
“Have you ever heard of boundaries and privacy?” I asked, being sarcastic.
“Nope! Been on my own for a few centuries so privacy takes a whole different meaning to me,” he responded and let out a small laugh.
“That’s still rude!”
Was this man messing with me, right now? It was clear that being alone for so many years had ruined his manners completely. Well, I guess it would be the same for any man. I mean, being trapped in the middle of a foreign planet, with a horde of beasts everywhere around you, could really do a number on someone’s mind. Was this also my fate—if I failed the mission? Definitely a frightening thought in my own opinion. I leaned my head slowly against the vehicle’s seat, while positioning my arms on my thighs gently. The mobile assault vehicle took off and began to hover 3 meters above the grass in a constant motion. Whoever built this was a genius; it was filled with some of the most sophisticated technology and infrastructure I had ever seen. This man couldn’t have built this, could he? I mean, this was his vehicle, after all; but there was no way a mere human could be build this alone, was there? Or was he even human at all? I had observed his hands earlier and they had looked a bit strange. They were a dark, grayish rough color that almost looked similar to a terror beast’s scale skin, almost asymmetrical. Shockingly, he was highly unusual, even for a human or alien. His intellectual level was beyond genius, unlike anything I had ever seen before. To be able to profile me by my sudden moves, and tell me everything accurately to the last detail, was impossible even with a dream analyzer. Was I looking at one of the most intelligent scientist in the world or someone incredibly lucky at guessing? As the mobile vehicle began to move, I decided to test him and hear the truth for myself. There were so many mysteries surrounding him that it became too overwhelming not to ask him any question.
“Hey, old man, how have you survived this long on this planet?”
With the terror beasts wreaking havoc of earth, he had managed to do the impossible for so long. He didn’t answer at first, as he pointed his fingers to the dashboard of his vehicle. The dashboard controllers beeped out loudly, sending echo frequencies through the area. The results were then displayed on the monitor, allowing him to pinpoint the exact location of his targets. Ingenious!
“When you are as old as me, kid, you discover amazing things in life. It happened few decades ago, when I discovered something strange while on patrol by mistake,” the old man stated, looking straight ahead.
His eyes glimmered with
a faint light while his face remained motionless.
“By dispersing highly dense electro neutrons into the area, I can detect any object displaying a terror beast’s energy and cause a rippling effect in the area, allowing me to tell exactly where they are. These are much more complicated to learn than I thought possible; however, like wolves, they hunt in packs and multiply once every month. Fortunately, their lifespan is really short, which is how they have not managed to overrun this planet”
What! On earth these creatures were multiplying at a speed far more incredible than this. What did this all mean? I didn’t want to tell him all the details about terror beasts being on earth yet, since I didn’t know how he would react. It was certainly obvious to me that he wanted to go back to earth as soon as possible. Telling him that disaster had befallen our planet would surely crush his spirit, which was something I didn’t want—yet. The sensors on his monitors went off and he began to slow down a lot. He stopped the vehicle completely, in silence, and told me not to speak. From a distance, I heard the cry of a terror beast from somewhere in the forest. There were more that followed after it, like they were communicating with each other. The sensors on the monitors showed more than a dozen creatures ahead of us, heading east from our direction. We were more than a hundred meters away from them, which was bad considering they had highly sensitive ears.
“On this planet, it’s all about survival of the fittest,” the man commented, in a whisper to me. “You only fight when you are cornered; otherwise, it is best to just stay out of sight.”
Right! If I was to make it out of this alive, I had to listen to him and do what he said, for now. I just hoped the others were doing much better than I was. As soon as the scanners stopped displaying the terror beasts’ energy signal, the old man turned on his vehicle, and we started moving again.