by G. L. Argain
And so that was the end of the two-week-long relationship period, and the beginning of the decline.
Andrew drove north along Highway 395 until he reached the town of Bishop. He had driven parallel to the snowcapped Sierras, which gave a spectacular contrast to the blue, cloud-free sky and the green fields on the valley floor. Although it didn’t quite satisfy his expectations. He expected to be blown away by all the sights he saw, to feel piercing joy throughout his body, but unfortunately expectations always differ from reality. Andrew had originally planned to find a fancy restaurant to eat out at in Bishop, but his time was cut short and he ended up eating a hamburger and fries at a Jack in the Box restaurant. The place was busy and, as a consequence, it took a while before he got his order. There were lots of tourists around anyway, and he realized that it would be busy and crowded with people no matter where he went in town.
Onwards towards Tonopah—the weather started to cool as the elevation increased with each passing mile. Looking at people driving on the open road, as well as in towns, Andrew noticed that there were plenty of people who were rushing to their destination. When he parked on the street curb in Tonopah itself, he saw plenty of people with their attention towards their phones and themselves. Not most, but there were enough. Andrew hoped that this trip was the opposite—just meeting people that were content with what they had and their simple lives.
Fifty miles east of Tonopah on Highway 6, Andrew stopped to stretch his legs—he stretched them not too long ago back in town, but here there were no people for miles. True, he was focusing on his own destination because he was in a hurry, but at least he was driving within the speed limit. Often he would have some tailgaters who passed the moment a dotted line on the road appeared. Sometimes they did not pass at all, spooking him out until they parked or turned down a different road. Walking on the shoulder he parked his car along, he noticed that he was near the intersection of another highway nicknamed the “Extraterrestrial Highway”; there was a sign nearby the intersection that had a silhouette of a bull with a UFO over it. Andrew chuckled a bit as he walked back to his car, thinking that maybe he would see some alien activity during the trip. He didn’t go down the Extraterrestrial Highway, though; he had to continue along Highway 6.
Another fifty miles farther, the human began to feel nervous without knowing why. He found a dirt turnover on the side of the road and stopped his car. The stars were all out at this time, and there were no humans in sight. He got out of his car and looked up at the stars in fifty-five degree weather. He wasn’t wearing a sweatshirt, but he didn’t mind the cold. As the wind whistled through the bushes in the background, he thought, It’s a peaceful night, so why am I so worried all of a sudden? Could it just be that I’m out here alone in the middle of nowhere? Just then he got his answer. One of the stars in the sky had shifted to the left and began to glow brighter. As Andrew could see that it was not a star and that sound was coming from it, he said out loud, “Yup, it’s aliens.”
It was a flying saucer, just like many people would expect to see, although it was much bigger than one would think. The diameter of it was roughly as long as a football field, its height three to four stories tall. There was a surprisingly quiet and fluent sound coming from it that sounded like something from a synthesizer. To think that would be real. It was entirely gray, and there were no lights being emitted from the craft. There were several circular doors that appeared to be for smaller ships or escape pods. It hovered two hundred feet above Andrew, who spread his arms out in an accepting manner that conveyed, “Bring it on, show me what you’ve got.”
However, there was no tractor beam like Andrew had anticipated, nothing to slowly pull him up in a colored ray of light. Instead, he found his entire sight flashing rapidly with light for two seconds, finding himself afterward in a small cylindrical space. There was sleeping gas in the space that knocked Andrew down unconscious in less than a second.
Chapter 8
After the spaceship left Earth and soon the solar system, the side of the cylindrical tube—a teleportation cache—that Andrew was held in had opened up on the side. A creature appeared before him while he was still asleep. It looked anorexic, it had no hair at all on its body, it had holes where ears and a nose should be, and its skin was gray. However, it had eyes similar to a human’s, with white eyeballs, colored irises, and black holes for pupils—not like the black marbles for eyes most commonly imagined. Unlike a human’s, on the other hand, its eyes were farther apart from each other and the major axis of each eye was forty degrees above the horizontal axis. The alien stood upright with a total height of five feet, had two arms and two legs, and spoke with the vocal cords inside its mouth.
The alien looked down at Andrew and sighed, seeing that he alone with his physical body could not carry the unconscious human. The teleporter to the analysis room was malfunctioning for the time being, so this alien would have to find another way to transport the subject. He called in another alien, different by its “black marbles” for eyes, and its muscles appeared dark enough to show through its skin. However, it wasn’t any taller than the first, and its muscles weren’t any larger. And yet it lifted up the human with ease, carrying him in one arm like a log.
Andrew had been set down onto a table in a spherical room, the two mentioned aliens along with three more surrounding him. Three of the aliens in the room at this time had regular eyes while the other two had black-marble eyes. All of the aliens were wearing the black suits typically found on Ku-an Doel. The original one that found Andrew in the cache shone a light upon the human’s body that made his clothes, skin, and some of the muscles underneath look invisible down to a specific distance—they intended to view the organs within. Another alien tapped and slid its fingers on a floating screen in order to record what it saw.
However, while this process allowed the aliens to see Andrew’s insides without surgery, they still needed to take out some blood, spinal fluid, stomach acid, and samples of various tissues to determine physical properties. These aliens may have visited Earth a few times and abducted humans before, but anyone should use several samples or subjects in a scientific experiment in order to account for error; in other words, Andrew was one of many subjects. His clothes were removed for the extraction process—compared to the sanitary black suits, human shirts and pants were rather dirty, to say the least. The alien placed rubbing alcohol onto the underside of Andrew’s elbow, soon to stick a syringe through the spot to draw out a trace of blood. This method is used for diabetics to track their blood sugar, but aliens used this trace of blood to determine his overall health, blood content, genes from the DNA, and even some personality traits. The wound was small enough to clot within seconds.
Afterward, the alien doctor took a small tube and inserted it through the human’s esophagus, reaching down to the stomach to retrieve some fluids. This wasn’t so much to determine what humans in general ate as it was to know how healthy of a diet this particular human had.
They decided not to draw out some fluids such as synovial (joint) fluid or urine because the only major purpose in doing so was to find out what they were made of and their function in the body. These aliens have had enough test humans to know these facts. As for sperm…well, these aliens didn’t want humans of their own. That would lead to political issues…more so that what they already had.
The last fluid to be obtained would be spinal fluid—doing this the old-fashioned way would most often cause the unconscious patient to wake up in excruciating pain and move about violently. Rather than let that happen, the operating alien told a bystander to grab the sixth bottle to the right on a nearby desk—a bottle containing a powerful anesthetic. However, the upcoming series of events didn’t go according to plan. Out of the dozens of unmarked bottles lined up on the desk, only one was anesthetic, and the alien grabbed the one next to it by mistake. The bottle that was taken contained a dilute solution of sodium hydroxide. The bottle was passed to the operator, the sodium hydroxide was injec
ted, and Andrew woke up in as much pain as he would from the unhindered spinal tap.
Andrew’s eyes opened wide, followed by a loud scream and some surprised aliens. All of them proceeded to hold him down, and they did it effectively, considering all five did the job. Since the lye was injected into his spine, his back felt like it was literally on fire. One of the aliens took some diluted acid and poured it onto the punctured area, neutralizing the reaction. Finally, Andrew was doused with water to take care of any remaining lye and acid; the alien that picked the wrong bottle was sent out of the room, never to be seen again. The human was fully aware now, trying to see everything that surrounded him. Lying down with his back toward the ceiling, he could only see the table he was on and the desk of bottles to the side. His heart was racing, and if the aliens were not still holding him down, he would not have stayed on the table. His back would forever have a scar from this incident.
Moments later, a tall alien with black eyes and dark muscles appeared before the table, and everyone stopped what they were doing to give this visitor a salute. Andrew took this chance to turn himself onto his back to see what they were suddenly focused on. The Earthling couldn’t hear what any of these aliens were saying—it was an alien language and Andrew didn’t have a translator—but he could tell that this tall guy was an important figure, perhaps the captain of the ship. The black suit that said captain was wearing had a large, golden, intricate design right in the center, and its hands were placed behind its back. This alien looked even more intelligent and official from the way it was standing. Unfortunately, at the same time, it didn’t look like it was here to welcome Andrew as one of them, but more like how a master would look at a slave.
Andrew heard the leader saying something to one of the aliens, and the subordinate uttered, “English.” After that, the leader faced Andrew.
“Hello, Earthling. I am Commander Fall, and you are our subject. We are part of a race known as the Selentors, and—to save you the effort of raising the most frequently asked question—we have indeed been to your planet many times. Some of your species captured a few of us, but we have captured more of you.”
“Why? What’s with all of this? Why are you telling me this?” Andrew inquired.
“I don’t need to tell you anything. It’s just a matter of courtesy. And also, simply because I can. You are needed as anatomical research for humans. If anything, we’ll keep you if you’re healthy.”
“And then?”
“I have no need to tell you.”
Sounds pretty ominous, the human thought. He looked again at the aliens beside him and noticed that two of them were lime green rather than gray. “I have a lot of questions for you people. Could you at least tell me why some of you guys are green while the rest are gray?”
“Why are some of you humans white while the others are brown?”
Andrew said nothing else while Fall walked to the side of him and looked closely.
“For such a close resemblance to savage animals, you do appear somewhat civil.” Andrew took offense to that statement, and the emotion did not bother to hide in his expression. “Even so, it bothers me how primitive you are—your species divided into pieces, each piece developing a society to manage a specific part of your world. You have the technology to do great things together, and yet you cannot manage to unite your world as a whole, let alone figure out that you are not alone in the universe.”
“So you think it’s a bad thing that we can’t contact aliens yet?”
“Precisely. Even when you do, you don’t have the technology to contact us clearly enough. All we can receive and return are signals and waves of vague messages. The best form of contact,” said Fall, as he grasped Andrew’s chin and pushed it up slightly, “is physical, face-to-face.”
At least Andrew didn’t have to worry about these aliens texting rather than talking. Although that pet peeve was a lot more faint now that he had more important things to worry about. Fall let go of Andrew’s chin before continuing with his statement.
“We would love to do that, to just drop by your planet and show your planet our ways, but doing so would break a treaty we made, and thus a war would start. We already have enough conflict over religion.”
“Huh? But you guys are super-advanced aliens—are you telling me that even with all your science and technology, a God still exists?”
“If by ‘God,’ you mean Yhn, then yes. At least our enemies still believe so. We, however, believe that science can prove everything in this universe, and we highly doubt that our lives are monitored by some omnipotent force.”
“Some people from my planet believe that a man named Jesus was the Son of God—or Yhn, in this case—and that he came from the afterli—”
“Now that’s just plain idiotic. Why would humans, out of all of the species in the whole universe, be so special, that one of your kind came from some magical place as the lord of the universe? That, right there, proves how primitive you humans are.”
“I never said I believed that—”
“THAT’S NOT THE POINT.”
Suddenly Andrew became very frightened, knowing he was in the face of a killer, knowing that he could die so quickly if he wasn’t careful. The Earthling kept his mouth shut until he was needed to.
Fall decided to cool his head as well. “Well then, back to business. My subordinates here will inspect your brain, take care of those useless organs of yours, and then you will be done.”
Useless organs? It took Andrew a brief moment to realize Fall was referring to his genitals. He wasn’t fond of that idea at all—he hadn’t had kids yet, and he didn’t want to lose them before then. Only after that, it would probably be okay.
Andrew wanted to ask what would happen once he was “done,” but he knew he wouldn’t get the answer he wanted. Chances are, he would either die or be put to work as a slave. At the very best, he would live with some other aliens; regardless of the case, however, he knew he would never see his fellow species again.
“Voriaku, I leave the rest to you.” Commander Fall and four of the aliens left the room, leaving only Andrew and this normal-eyed alien named Voriaku to inspect his brain.
As Andrew laid upon the table while the alien placed a helmet-like object onto his head, he thought about his life. It may have been rather uneventful up until today, but at least he didn’t suffer much. He had a great family, a nice childhood, and he knew it could have been far worse. Like working in a sweatshop, living without a home, or having to be executed for no good reason. Andrew performed an awkward attempt to chat with the guy working on him in order to ease his tension.
“So, how’s it going, Voriaku? How’s your life?”
Voriaku looked at him for a moment, but said nothing and directed his focus back to the screen. He could probably speak English, but he just decided not to—or he was ordered not to. There were no locks, straps or arms that were keeping Andrew down this time. He could easily escape from the room and take on the alien, but that would just as easily be part of a trap.
When Voriaku took off the helmet from the human’s head, he said, “Your intelligence capacity is quite exceptional, not like the other subjects we’ve had so far.” So he could speak English, thought Andrew. Having an IQ of 135, he did not have the tenacity to act rashly without thinking some things through. “It would be a shame if this mind of yours would just go to waste. Of course, it’s not up to me to decide that.”
But fear is a powerful variable. A reaction triggered in Andrew’s brain to take a risk unlike any other. He sprang up and off of the table, punched Voriaku’s head rapidly like a fast bag, and slammed his head onto the table in what seemed to be too fast of a period of time to follow…if one was off-guard right beside the human. Voriaku was definitely in such circumstances, but he wasn’t going to die that easily. He quickly pressed a button on a device attached to his wrist, supposedly to alert the other aliens to come for help. However, nothing happened in response. Andrew threw Voriaku onto his back to the g
round, drove his fingers into his eyes, and stood on his neck with all body weight on one foot. Voriaku was still as a corpse at this point, but Andrew couldn’t tell for sure. A few bottles and some equipment had been broken from the struggle. He took a bunch of untouched bottles and randomly poured them onto the alien. He heard a lot of hissing noises, so Andrew immediately ran out of the room in case the chemical reaction created something poisonous—or worse, an explosion. He did not want to find out; all he wanted was to get off this God-forsaken ship.
He sprinted down a curved hall, searching for any sign of escape pods while watching out for potential aliens. Much to his surprise, no aliens were nearby, and no alarms were going off. Either this was an elaborate trap or Andrew was really damn lucky. After taking some turns and running down some more halls, he found himself in front of a storage room with the door opened. It was an armory, by the looks of it.
“Ooooooooohhhh, nice,” said the human, looking at all the weaponry before his eyes. One item, however, caught his eye. It was within a glass casing—unlocked—with some poor-looking metal connecting the case to the wall. There was writing on a plaque below it, but he couldn’t read Alien. Or Selentor—whatever the aliens called their language. The item was a sword that looked like the blade had been cut clean, down to a sixth of the size. As he looked closer, however, he could tell that it was instead a series of segments collapsed into one another, like an antenna on the remote of an RC car. He took the sword out of the case and held it in his hands. There was a button on the handle, and he was almost curious enough to press it.
Suddenly he heard footsteps in the armory; he took cover in one of the aisles. He saw two green-skinned, white eyed aliens walking down the main aisle, searching for the noise Andrew made earlier. One was five feet tall and the other was half the height. The half-height one seemed vaguely different with its figure besides height, but Andrew couldn’t tell why. However, when the human and the aliens came into range with each other, he pressed the button. The sword expanded into full length so that it looked like a blade now; furthermore, the blade heated up quickly to an orange glow, and as he rushed forward and swung it, an intense heat rushed toward the aliens. This heat was strong enough to set the aliens on fire without the blade itself touching them. Andrew himself could feel the heat up ahead, but it wasn’t burning hot to his sense of touch. Both aliens had fallen down ablaze, hollering; the human felt remorse, knowing they weren’t technically doing anything wrong. He had to guess out of self-defense that they were going to take him back to Commander Fall.