Humans and other Aliens: Book 1

by Winzer, Alexander

  “It’ll be interesting to hear their stories. I wonder if they’ve already had contact with the aliens…” Suki was still talking about the strangers, while Chris was musing about how she would feel in his arms.

  He opened the door to his room and was about to pull her in when Suki suddenly froze. “I’m not sure if this is a good idea… not after what happened the last time we…”

  Chris understood her apprehension. She was right. This was not the time for another alien encounter. Chris nodded and kissed her gently as she slowly followed him into his room. “Maybe you can tell me more about the tree on your arm… I like it when you tell stories.”

  Jon and Eva were the first to arrive at the meeting room that hosted the first gathering of their substantially enlarged team. “I was wondering… Do you think we should name our task force? We’ll soon be acting openly, in public, and I thought it might be a good idea to present a unified front. We need a name and maybe even some kind of uniform so people are able to recognize us.”

  “That’s a great idea,” said Jon. Why not… he thought. Uniforms had been used for thousands of years to display authority, a special skill, or power. People were used to it and they tended to follow and trust individuals who wore some kind of formal outfit.

  “Maybe Delta Shield… it would point to Delta as the one who leads the team to act as a shield against the alien attackers.”

  Jon didn’t mind Eva’s suggestion. He didn’t really care too much about the name; for him one was as good as any other.

  Chris and Suki were next to arrive, followed by Ivan and Peter, and a minute later by Zoe who accompanied the new arrivals.

  Jon explained their current situation, their mission goals, the portal guns that were at their disposal, and everything else that he deemed important. He made sure to go into some detail regarding the first step, the pairing-up process, which would require analyzing each person’s DNA sample to reveal the closest match of the opposite sex. The more he explained, the more he was surprised that none of the people had any questions; they simply sat there, calm and relaxed without the smallest sign of astonishment at all the amazing facts that he so elaborately presented.

  “Do you have any questions? I’m sure all of this sounds very strange, maybe even unbelievable, so please ask.”

  After a few seconds of silence Ciaran slowly started, “I’m not sure yet if you people are mad or if you’re serious about all of this, but I don’t really care. I’ll do what’s necessary to help and if that requires time travel, jumping through portals to somewhere else on the planet, and even being assigned a woman as my partner in life and death, so be it.”

  Jon was not sure how to take his strange comment, but multiple nodding heads seemed to support Ciaran’s statement, leaving Jon with not much more to say than, “Well, OK, thank you for your support. As you’re all keen to meet Delta… please follow me.”

  “They really are keen,” whispered Eva into Jon’s ear, noticing how fast everyone jumped up from their seat.

  “It looks like he’s the only reason they all came here in the first place. I hope they won’t be disappointed,” replied Jon.

  Eva nodded. “I don’t think you have to worry about that.”

  * * *

  Delta sat at his desk, studying the reports about the new arrivals. Jon observed the faces of the people as they spotted Delta. He thought that he could notice disappointment in some; maybe they had expected something more spectacular, something truly alien, not just a handsome-looking young man in a tight, blue and silver skin suit.

  “Hello, Delta. My name is Anaya and I’m honored to finally meet you. I’m sure everyone else feels the same. Please tell us, how can we help?”

  Jon was perplexed. He’d just explained their role in this complicated undertaking in minute detail… Was he really so bad at making himself understood?

  “How can you help…? Earlier today I read an interesting story. I guess some of you might be familiar with it, but I will recount it anyway.

  There once was a man walking across a field, when suddenly a tiger appeared and started chasing him. He began to run, but the tiger was closing in fast. As he approached a cliff at the end of the field, the man grabbed a vine and jumped over the edge, holding on as tight as he could. He looked up and saw the furious tiger above him. When he looked down into the valley below, he saw that there were another two tigers hungrily awaiting his fall. He looked up again and saw that two rats, one white, the other black, had begun chewing on the vine. He was sure that his lifeline would give way any moment, when he suddenly saw a single strawberry growing close by. Holding the vine with one hand, he reached out, picked the strawberry, and put it into his mouth. It was utterly delicious.”

  Delta smiled and looked at the astonished faces of the group of people who had so eagerly awaited his presence. “Now… how can you help? I want you to be like this man. I want you to enjoy this precious strawberry. I want you to live every moment as if it were your last. I want you to be fearless, without hope or self-concern. I want you to be shields that protect humankind even if it means that this very strawberry might be your last. Will you do that, not for me, but for life itself?”

  Jon observed how their faces changed from uncertainty to glowing support. It was again Ciaran who answered. “I’ll do it. Yes, I will.”

  Most of the others nodded, except one, Indrani, who looked like something puzzled her. “You are asking us to be shields for mankind, but we are peaceful beings, we are in tune with life. Why should we change what has been initiated not out of malice, but for the sake of the whole?”

  Delta smiled at her and touched her hand. “Humanity as it is does not deserve this mercy. But you will agree that it is only ignorance that keeps people from seeing their mistakes. Humanity suffers from a sickness, a disease of misidentification. Wouldn’t you like to see what happens when the disease has been cured?” Delta looked into her eyes and continued, “Look at yourself. You are life that wants to live. There is a natural drive to survive, to flourish, and grow. This force is a powerful ally. It should not be ignored. You can sit down and do nothing, wait for your demise, or you can stand up and follow your calling. The path that you choose will be the right one for you. I will not stand in your way.”

  Indrani nodded. She didn’t look convinced, but she had made this journey knowingly and dropping out now was something that didn’t fit her persistent nature.

  Delta took a few steps back and stretched out his hands. “Please, everyone that has arrived today, form a circle and hold hands. I would like to talk to you, not with words, but in silence.”

  Jon and Eva moved to the side as Delta and the fourteen newcomers arranged themselves in a circle linked by thirty hands.

  “Close your eyes.” Delta stood next to Ciaran and Indrani, who immediately dropped off into a waking trance. A signal traveled from body to body affecting every single person in the chain until finally also Anaya, who was standing exactly opposite of Delta, went into a state of deep relaxation. Jon was feeling like dozing off himself when Eva suddenly poked him in his side. She pointed at Delta whose body started giving off a pulsing white light. The glow now spread to the next person in the circle until all of them were bathed in a glowing cone of light that fluctuated in a continuous frequency. The lights in the ceiling started flickering and went out while the screens of the holo displays showed distorted patterns. Anaya’s body started twitching as if hooked up to an electric power source. An arc of light suddenly connected her and Ciaran’s body, which was now shaking in a very similar fashion. The same thing happened to Indrani and Kal and eventually every other person in this mystical formation.

  Eva whispered, “I think Delta’s already matching them up.” She held on to Jon’s hand.

  “Looks like it. We’ll still have to do our DNA tests, just to be sure, but I’d be surprised if Delta’s selection is incorrect,” he replied.

  The glow that had been enveloping the circle now slowly faded and the
room’s lights came back on as if controlled by an unseen force. Slowly everyone came back from the altered state of consciousness, returning to their human form that had been dissolved into pure light and that was now coming back into focus.

  Anaya was the first one to speak. “That was… unbelievable… I suddenly was Ciaran. It felt good to inhabit that strong body, but it’s not as delicate and sensitive as this one.” She put her hand on her chest as Ciaran smiled.

  “Yes… it was amazing. I’d never have guessed that it feels so good to have a female body…”

  Anaya looked at him for a brief moment before stating, “I guess it’s what you’re used to … when you experience something all the time your sensitivities become blunted, a bit like a knife that is being used without regular sharpening… I thought your body felt pretty marvelous too.”

  Jon was amazed at the outcome and maybe even more at these people’s ability to receive such profound realizations with a sense of humor that took the edge off the gravity that the situation seemed to demand.

  “I’m glad that you all found what you were looking for. Why don’t you familiarize yourself with your other side? I’m sure you’ll find it very interesting.” Jon opened the door that led out of Delta’s room onto the corridor. “Let’s enjoy dinner in our restaurant and get to know each other better.”

  Jon, Eva, and Zoe joined Peter and Ivan at their table close to the food synthesizer while the shields, including Chris and Suki, all sat at the large table that had been prepared in the center of the room. Chris felt that it was his turn to properly welcome his peers and introduce Suki to the group of newcomers. He quickly overcame the initial reluctance that he felt towards opening up to the new arrivals and started recounting his experiences of meeting the alien attackers.

  He was curious to know more about these strangers who listened attentively to his account of how he and Suki had succeeded in protecting their friends from the alien woman who had killed more than three hundred people in ARC’s entertainment court.

  “Have any of you encountered an alien being yet?”

  Jai smiled and slowly cleared his throat. “I met a tall woman, half human, half snake and hornet. She recognized me as her brother. She suddenly materialized when I was meditating. She looked at me and smiled and when I asked her who she was, she said she was my sister.”

  Suki looked excited. “Did she say anything else to you?”

  Jai nodded. “She asked me to help her. She wanted to leave the planet. Your portal guns might be able to take them away, back to where they came from.”

  Chris nodded. “That’s exactly what they’re meant to do… anybody else met a tall alien woman?”

  Anaya smiled. “I think most of us have, in our dreams and some even in the waking state. My experiences are very similar. My alien sisters have been appointed with a task, an assignment that consists of removing an infection. They’re very capable at distinguishing the healthy seeds from the spoilt. They’re carrying out the task assigned to them, but they’ll happily accept the opportunity to abandon this place that they consider a prison of the mind. Your plan might work… the portal guns look like a promising tool.”

  Thirty-Nine

  Ivan

  Jon sat next to Eva, studying the results of the DNA tests they had just finalized. They revealed a very similar outcome to Chris and Suki’s test; all of the subjects carried strands of DNA that were much more closely related to the alien DNA than in most other human beings. When paired up as suggested by Delta’s mystical experiment the combined strength of the couples increased substantially. None of the new pairs topped Chris and Suki’s numbers, but one, Anaya and Ciaran’s combined rate of convergence to the alien DNA, reached nearly ninety percent.

  “I wonder what these two will be able to achieve… their reading is off the charts.”

  Eva stared at the couple’s score while Jon checked the accuracy of the results. “It seems they’re correct. I hope this is a good sign and it’ll help us in one way or another.”

  Jon nodded. “Let’s meet up with Ivan and Peter to check on their progress with the portal device.”

  Eva agreed. “I’m pretty sure they’re ready to go. I spoke to Ivan briefly and he was very excited.”

  Ivan stood at a long table that held three fully installed portal guns, working on assembling a fourth while Peter was busy checking his algorithms, which were used to power an application in a little touchpad that had been added to the gun, allowing for a manual configuration of the coordinates that the portal would be pointing to.

  Eva walked over to Ivan’s workbench and picked up one of the guns. “They’re heavy…”

  Ivan smiled. “Not when you compare them to Professor Dimitrios’s machine… Anyway, this is the best we can do for now. We’ve also tested them. They work.”

  Jon was startled. “You’ve already tested them? Without letting us know?”

  Ivan didn’t seem to notice Jon’s disappointment. “Yes, isn’t that great! We haven’t tested another time portal just yet. I thought it might be better to have Delta around for that one, but we opened multiple portals to distant locations on the planet and things are looking good.”

  Jon felt relieved. He remembered the last experiment only too well. If Delta hadn’t been there, who knows what would have happened.

  Peter walked over to Ivan. “We tested the guns by opening a portal to St. Petersburg, Russia. Ivan arranged this with Professor Abramov who kindly agreed to have a team of scientists ready on the other side to check how things were shaping up at their end.”

  Ivan was keen to take over. “Eva, you’ll be pleased to hear that it’s Erik who’s leading this team. He has fully recovered from his veggie juice poisoning and is back at work.”

  Jon smiled at Eva. She had told him how she had tricked Erik into poisoning himself so she could gain permission to join the team that was dispatched to explore the Green Egg. Jon knew Eva still felt guilty. She would have to tell Erik the truth about what had happened when she was back in Russia.

  It’s strange how humans feel they have to disclose their deepest secrets to someone, no matter who. After such a confession one feels better, somehow lighter… at least until the fear arises that the person that now knows might spread the news. It seems no matter what we do, we’re caught in our fears and anxieties, mused Jon while Eva inspected the guns.

  Ivan picked up one of the guns and entered a few coordinates via the touchpad that was mounted next to the glass sphere. “We’ve established a landing zone in one of the labs in St. Petersburg, just to be sure we don’t open a portal and accidentally slice someone in half.”

  He pointed the gun at the middle of the room and pulled the trigger. A tiny rock, not much larger than a grain of sand, started rotating in the glass sphere and collapsed into the artificial black hole in its center only a few seconds later. A black ray shot out of the gun’s barrel tearing a hole in the fabric of space.

  Jon walked closer and inspected the opening. “Is this the lab in Russia?”

  Ivan smiled. “It certainly is.” He handed Jon an apple. “Here, throw it in.”

  Jon took the apple and hesitantly threw it into the hole. It bounced off the floor on the other side where a tall blond man picked it up, took a healthy bite, and waved at him.

  Jon was amazed. “You really did it! How cool is that?”

  Ivan looked at the timer on the gun’s display. “Please take a few steps back. It’s going to fold into itself in a few more seconds. We’ve been following Delta’s advice and are now closing the portal before it can become unstable. It will only stay open for 1:30 minutes. It’s better not to be too close just in case…”

  Jon nodded. “Have you already sent a human through the portal?”

  Ivan shook his head. “No! We wouldn’t do that without letting you know first. We’ve sent a mouse and a cat through. They’re fine and are now Erik’s pets … at least the cat is as it killed the mouse.”

  Eva burst out in lau
ghter. “You could have predicted that much, no?”

  Ivan looked irritated. “I’ve never owned a cat or any other pet…”

  Jon butted in. “OK, OK… we have to perform a final test on a human. Any volunteers?”

  Ivan looked at Eva, then at Peter. Jon’s question pointed to the obvious, but no one was jumping at the opportunity to be the first human traveling through a portal.

  “I guess it’ll be me… Anyone keen to join me?” Ivan picked up a portal gun. “At least it will be a Russian who is the first man to travel through a portal … or wormhole. I think this will make me more famous than your sad Neil Armstrong that I still doubt has ever set a foot on the moon.”

  Jon laughed. “You and your moon landing paranoia. I’ll join you. I’d like to see Professor Abramov and ask him a few things about this woman here.”

  Jon pointed at Eva who looked dumbfounded. “What? Why? There’s nothing to discuss. Why would you?”

  Jon gently grabbed her shoulder. “Just kidding. I’m sure he’ll only have good things to say about you.”

  Ivan sent a quick message to Erik, letting him know that they were about to perform the final test, sending two human beings through the portal and back through another one.

  He instinctively held his breath as he jumped through carrying his beloved gun. Jon could see Ivan standing on the other side of the portal, where he was animatedly talking to Erik. He was happily waving his arms signaling for Jon to follow before the portal closed.

  Eva looked worried as Jon entered the portal, but all went well and he waved at her from the other side until the portal collapsed just a few seconds later.

  “How do you feel?” Erik was performing a bioscan on Ivan who looked exhilarated.

  “I feel great! Hello, Mov! I think this will be an amazing story for your next press conference: First human being, a Russian man named Ivan Kuznetsov, successfully traveled from San Francisco to St. Petersburg through a portal in space.”