For a minute you put your hand on the little white box next to the door, but nothing happens. So you knock, and the door opens right away.
A guy with a military jacket and a ponytail stands in front of you. He’s got a nice gray goatee.
“Everything okay?” he asks.
You nod.
“Love the beard,” he tells you.
As you take a seat at the nearest desk, you examine the handful of others in here. A woman with tattoos and camo pants. A guy wearing an old uniform as if he’s from World War II. And a few others—rough-looking men who all seem like they really could fit under the crazy vets category.
Soon another man comes in, appearing to have just woken up and slipped on some clothes himself. He’s got thick, messy hair that he brushes back with his fingers. He’s a younger guy, maybe in his thirties. He yawns as he walks to the front of the room and doesn’t even look at any of you seated at the desks. He just opens a folder in his hand.
“So you guys know the drill and the process. The implementation period will commence in exactly twenty-four hours, blah blah blah . . .”
The “teacher” standing in front of you closes the folder. “Look—none of you got this gig because you’re interested. So let’s not waste time talking about anything else you need to know about this Earth. You get it—who you are, what you’re supposed to do, what the mission is, right? Okay . . . let’s just forget about what the misters want to do with us.”
The misters?
This is your chance to know what’s going on. And now that you finally have it, the guy’s too tired to teach?
Maybe he really is some slothful human. Aliens can’t be lazy, can they?
“Any questions?” he asks the silent room.
You look around, but nobody is even paying attention to him. Everybody’s just sitting, waiting, staring vacantly.
Do you ask the teacher who you are and what the mission is? Go here.
Do you not say a word and play dumb for a while? Go here.
COMFORTABLY NUMB
YOU’RE SURE THE MOMENT you ask these dudes for the truth will be your last moment alive. You’ve got a better chance of saving the world if you let them send you home—they may think they can wipe your memory, but this mind’s like a steel trap.
“Send us back, Jack.”
“Fine,” Gold Helmet says. “You made your choice.”
One of them starts playing dance music over a speaker somewhere. A kind that lulls you to sleep.
Strangely, you feel like you’re in a video game or something. Like Tron, maybe. Sure sounds like it, at least.
You’re floating and racing, and you can see John Luke right ahead, hovering and eating a snow cone. You try to say something to him, but it just comes out sounding like song lyrics.
Where are you?
What’s happening?
Hey, aren’t you supposed to be waking up—?
You open your eyes and smell the bacon. Like, you’re literally smelling bacon.
You’re home again in your familiar bed, resting against your favorite pillow.
It’s good to be back.
Or as Tom Petty says, it’s good to be king.
You stretch, get up, and head out to see the missus and enjoy your breakfast.
You give Christine a kiss as she cooks up some eggs and bacon. But you also notice something strange on the counter. Something you haven’t eaten for years.
“Are those Froot Loops?”
Christine nods. “Yeah. The most amazing thing yesterday—they were giving boxes of these out at the grocery store. Free.”
You nod. “Free’s always the best price for me.”
So you decide to go ahead and fix yourself a bowl. A little appetizer with the good stuff.
As you eat the crunchy, colorful cereal, you have this weird sense of déjà vu. You don’t know why, but you’re thinking of John Luke and space and garbage for some reason.
“You okay?” Christine asks.
“Yeah, sure. I’m fine. It’s just—it’s nothing. Nothing at all. Think I had some really weird dreams.”
So you keep eating the Froot Loops. They’ve never tasted better.
In fact, nothing’s ever tasted better.
Nothing at all.
THE END
Start over.
Read “Look at the Stars: A Note from John Luke Robertson.”
INTO THE GREAT WIDE OPEN
YOU WAKE WITH A JERK, totally disoriented. A glance out the window reveals the surface of an orange planet, and it’s getting closer and closer.
Soon you’re dropping toward the ground faster than you can say—
Boom! Pow! Crash!
You’re down.
Turns out you had no time to say, “We’re all gonna die! I’m sorry, John Luke—you were always my favorite. I love you, Jack!”
Turns out you didn’t need to, either.
With the pod half-submerged in sand, you crawl out the back and find yourself in the middle of a desert.
You adjust your space suit and make sure you have your trusty tea cup with you.
John Luke trips and falls headfirst into the sand as he’s trying to get out the door. You help him up and watch him wipe off the visor of his helmet.
“Which direction should we head?” he asks.
“Whatever we do, we have to stick together.”
“And avoid the humans. Or things that look like humans.”
You glance up and see a sun hovering over you. But this doesn’t look like the sun you’re used to on Earth. This one has a different shape, a slightly different color. Hey, it’s not square and purple or anything like that, but it’s clearly not the trusty sun you’ve come to know and love. It’s as foreign as the strange, endless sea of desert in front of you.
Your guess on where to go is as good as anyone’s.
“Let’s just head straight. It’s flat in this direction.”
John Luke nods. “Sounds good.”
You’ve been walking for almost thirty minutes when you hear a distant humming sound. Soon it becomes the sound of a whirring engine approaching. Both of you are sweating and scorched and thirsty.
You peer over a sand dune, hoping to see a familiar spacecraft. Instead you spy a dark, dilapidated machine rolling over the sand like some kind of sci-fi bulldozer. Several androids are following it.
You feel like this is happening a long time ago. And, like, in some galaxy far, far away.
Yeah.
Maybe it’s the start of some epic adventure.
As long as it doesn’t involve any tiny, cute creatures with antlers, you’re good.
THE END
Start over.
Read “Look at the Stars: A Note from John Luke Robertson.”
DELIRIOUS
“HEY, JOHN LUKE, wait here for just a minute.”
You leave him in the hallway outside the bathroom, walk to the back of the spaceship, and enter a maintenance room, making sure the door is shut tight behind you.
Then you scream out loud.
You grab your nose and pinch it. ’Cause look here—that can really sting. And it just sorta wakes up the eyes right above the nostrils. It’s like you’re saying to your eyeballs, Don’t make me come up there!
Then you stretch your mouth ’cause you got some talkin’ to do.
“You listen here, Jack, and listen good. You don’t scare me, and you don’t know me, and you’re messing with the wrong guy!” This is all just practice, but CLINT can probably hear you anyway.
You throw a few air punches and play a little air guitar.
You clench your teeth, then open your mouth wide and sing, “La, la, la,” about a hundred times.
Then you start singing the Bee Gees’s “Stayin’ Alive.”
Let it go, Jack. Leave it all in this room.
You begin to dance.
“Think you gonna stop me? No way! I’m not going down.”
Okay.
That feels better.
You open the door again and head back to where John Luke is waiting impatiently.
“Where did you go?”
“Never mind. We have an important decision to make.”
Do you head to the computer access room, hoping you can figure out how to disconnect CLINT 1999? Go here.
Do you try to wake up Commander Noble so he can deal with this situation? Go here.
I WON’T BACK DOWN
“I DEMAND THE TRUTH!” If you’re going this route, may as well be dramatic about it.
“Would you like to go first?” D. says to his cohort, P.
“Certainly,” the low, menacing voice of P. replies. “In the end it will not matter anyway, right? Their minds will be blank slates.”
“Nah. Don’t think so, Jack. We’re getting out of here. You don’t know who you’re messin’ with.”
“But of course we do. Do you think it was a coincidence we decided to show up at this particular moment? The whole world will be talking about the missing Duck Commanders. Gone AWOL in space! Meanwhile, our invasion will commence.”
“Invasion is such a harsh word,” Mr. Gold-Plated D. says.
“True. How about visitation?”
“That’s better.”
“Our goal is threefold. To infiltrate. To assimilate. To disintegrate.”
“How about ‘to exaggerate’?” you say, wiggling with your arms tied behind your back. Unfortunately they still won’t budge. “So where are y’all from?”
“We are from a solar system called Bananarama.”
You and John Luke can’t help laughing.
D. shakes his head. “It’s very funny until we do something to you all.”
“Annihilate every human being,” P. adds.
“Oh, is that it?” you joke. “Thought y’all were gonna say something scary.”
“The creatures on this spacecraft will be sent down to Earth. To America. To places like Chicago and New York and even to ‘good ole West Monroe.’ They will resemble bankers and lawyers and moms and clerks and kids. And slowly but surely, people will start to change.”
“Change?” you ask.
“Yes. Change. We will use the very thing that will be your undoing. Processed food. Like the kind you saw when you came in here.”
“What?” you say. “You’re gonna annihilate us by giving us Froot Loops?”
“Yes. And Velveeta cheese. And Mountain Dew. And Doritos. And Snickers.”
“You’re messin’ with my diet!”
“Soon you’ll all be . . . well, infected.”
“Affected,” D. says. “I prefer to say affected. We’d like to think we’re impacting people in a positive way. Even if they don’t realize it at the time.”
A loud blast goes off behind Daft Punk, momentarily blinding you and almost bursting your eardrums. For a second there’s only smoke and dust floating around you. Then you feel something jerking and grabbing at your hands.
“Hey, leave me alone,” you call out as you’re coughing.
“Silas, it’s Commander Noble. We gotta get you guys out of here.” He frees your hands from the chair.
As the dust settles, you see the gold and silver helmets on the floor where the men (or aliens) are lying. Pilot Ben Parkhurst appears behind John Luke, trying to undo his ropes.
“Where’d you come from?” you wonder aloud.
“Long story we’ll save for a duck blind,” an out-of-breath Commander Noble says. He quickly unties your feet. “Come on.”
You stand and help John Luke up. The two of you follow Noble and Parkhurst out of the room and into a hallway.
“We’re going to the ship. We just gotta make it there,” Noble says.
The four of you run down the corridor. It’s plain and bright and lit up like an Apple computer. Then it splits into three passageways.
Do you start to—?
But before you’re given options to decide where to go, a blistering rain of bullets tears into the wall in front of you. You and Commander Noble dart into a passage on the left to get away from them. But John Luke and Parkhurst take another route.
“John Luke!” You stop.
“He’s in good hands,” Noble says as he pulls you forward.
More bullets rip into the wall.
“Think you just saved my life, Jack.”
“Keep moving!”
You run down the hallway for another ten minutes with unseen enemies pursuing you. Then you open a doorway, and you’re in a window-lined corridor that borders the hangar.
You can see the DC Enterprise.
“I programmed the door to stay closed,” Commander Noble says, pulling a door shut behind him. “But they’ll probably try getting through it anyway. You stay here for a minute. Okay?”
Before you can say anything, Noble darts through another door into the hangar and toward the DC Enterprise.
Now you’re faced with a decision.
Do you stay put and wait? Go here.
Do you run into the hangar toward the DC Enterprise? Go here.
SHOCK THE MONKEY
“WE’RE DEFINITELY OBTAINING these for the mission,” you say, telling yourself not to say hey or Jack, ’cause you’re undercover.
“Is that correct?” the woman asks. Her eyes suddenly seem to darken.
No, not just darken. They went totally black.
“And how will you be using them on the mi-EEEEEEs-sion?” she asks.
Does her voice sound like—?
“Sir-EEEE?” she asks.
Did she just say “Siri”? Does that mean she can read my mind? Weird.
“We’re going to blow up the capital,” John Luke blurts out.
The woman stands there, looking at you. No, she’s glaring, Jack.
This isn’t gonna be good.
She starts to smile.
“The capital?” she says.
John Luke shrugs and gives you an I-didn’t-know-what-else-to-say look.
“It’s a complicated sort of plan,” you say.
“I seeEEEEE.”
You and John Luke look at each other. Then both of you start to run.
“Did she just—?” John Luke asks as you run down the hall.
“Yeah, I heard that sound.”
“It sounded like—”
“I know!” you yell. “Just come on. Keep runnin’!”
You turn the corner, and you’re faced with three figures.
They’re not dressed as pirates.
They’re not a schoolteacher or a hippie vet or an ordinary teenager, either.
You think of the chattering and squeaking sound the woman made.
Sounds like some kind of monkey!
That’s it. That’s what they are.
They’re monkeys. As tall as you. Holding guns and appearing to be smiling.
It’s a real, true Planet of the Apes. Except they didn’t come from our planet!
“You dumb humans,” one of them says.
“Wait, hold on. I can explain,” you start to say, getting in front of John Luke.
But it’s too late. They’ve got you cornered. And all you can think of is a terrifying fact.
Monkeys are planning to take over the world and nobody’s gonna know.
THE END
Start over.
Read “Look at the Stars: A Note from John Luke Robertson.”
BIG SHOT
YOU DON’T BOTHER LOOKING through the slot. Instead you do something that might be crazier—you open the door, John Luke leading the charge with his cowbell.
Hey, maybe you should’ve planned and prepared some more for this. But it’s like John Luke’s driving: sometimes you just gotta hang on for dear life!
Then again, sometimes he hits a tree that suddenly sprouts out of nowhere.
Two men in black jumpsuits spin around as you crash through the door. Two helmets—one silver and one gold—rest on a table.
John Luke starts banging the cowbell. And . . . it sounds exactly like a cowbell.
The men appear to be normal guys in their twenties. Except for their eyes. Their eyes look a little like—
Disco balls?
“It’s not working!” John Luke shouts as he keeps banging the cowbell. It only makes noise. No electronic blasts. No explosions or fire.
One of the men walks over to a table and picks up an object that resembles a deck of cards.
He’s moving slowly, grinning, acting like this is all fun and games.
He takes a card and whips it toward you like a magician might. It lands against the wall.
This time you hear an explosion.
He does it again, and the second card narrowly misses your head. It explodes on impact with the wall behind you.
“Don’t y’all ever use normal weapons? Come on, John Luke!”
You guys rush out of the room and head down the stairs.
Go here.
DA FUNK
YOU DECIDE TO HEAD TOWARD the DC Enterprise, so you dart out into the hangar. But right when you do, you see John Luke standing up against the wall, watching and waiting.
You’re about to call out, but then the DC Enterprise explodes.
There’s instant chaos in the hangar as men and women dash by you in all directions, either trying to escape the burning spacecraft or trying to help put out the flames. Meanwhile you rush toward John Luke to make sure he’s okay.
That’s when someone steps in your way. It’s the silver space helmet belonging to one of the members of the so-called Daft Punk. Call them Not-So-Daft Punk.
He’s standing over John Luke.
John Luke’s on the floor, trying to crawl away.
Now P. is holding out his hand to John Luke. Is he trying to help?
You’re about to say something like, “Hey, Jack, whatcha doin’?” but then you hear the alien talking.
“John Luke . . . I am your father.”
John Luke shakes his head. He’s crying. Sobbing. He’s out of his mind now. “No. That can’t be true. It’s impossible!”
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