by Nate Castle
“I see them, I’m going to find a spot to land,” Christina said.
“Gosh I hope they’re still alive, it looks like all hell broke loose here,” Garrett said.
“You don't want to throw down one of those glass boxes first?” Noel said.
“What do you guys think? I’m worried that we might trap some of our own people in there if we throw it down now. I think we should wait until everyone is accounted for,” Christina said.
“That’s a valid point. We don’t know the whereabouts of our teams and also how far the box will stretch,” Garrett said.
Christina slowly brought the craft to a halt on an empty spot in the street.
“Quick someone needs to get out, before they think we’re aliens and start firing whatever weapons they have at us,” Christina said.
Garrett wasted no time going through the exit chute. When he was outside the craft, he began waving his hands in the air, to attract the attention of the other teams. In a matter of minutes, Logan, Thomas, Shelby, Sierra, Hank, and a few members from the other teams were gathered around him in a semi-circle.
“So what has to happen here is everyone needs to board the craft and when we are airborne, we will release a glass box onto the surrounding area that seems to trap everything inside of it indefinitely,” Garrett said, “With that being said, you need to grab the others.”
“The rest of the team is dead, the bots got them,” Sierra said.
“That’s very unfortunate,” Thomas said.
“Maybe we shouldn’t set the box. What if some of our guys are actually alive? And also we should make sure the bots are in the drop zone if we do set the box, right?” Hank said. This was the first questionable statement that he made since the alien had taken over control of his brain.
“No, we don't have time for this, we need to act now, “Garrett said, “All in favor?”
The majority raised their hand. The group followed Garrett onto the craft. The craft took off from the ground with everyone on board. Christina was in the pilot’s chair with Garrett sitting to her left.
“Remember that flash freeze substance I used on the rooftop to stop the UDO bot from disabling our craft? I think we should flash freeze one or two more bots before we throw down the glass box. That way we can have a bot to study and reverse engineer it someday, “Noel said.
“That’s a good idea. Switch spots with me, you’re the only one that knows how to eject that baby blue substance,” Garrett said.
Christina flew the craft around the perimeter until she spotted two bots on the radar. She flew directly overhead and put the craft in idle mode. Noel hit a sequence of buttons and the craft omitted the baby blue substance. The bots must have sensed it coming because they veered right to avoid the substance landing on them and then darted out of sight.
“So much for that plan, I guess it’s time for the glass box now,” Noel said.
Christina set the range she wanted the glass box to extend and was about to press the launch button when Hank tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Are you sure you want to do this? Maybe we should wait until our heads clear a bit and re-evaluate before we make irrational decisions.”
Christina found Hank’s comments very odd because there was nothing irrational about putting the glass box over the aliens and crafts. She quickly hit the button before he could say or do anything else to change her mind.
“Done. All in favor of heading home?” Christina asked the group.
It was unanimous, even Hank’s hand shot up.
Garrett started to chat with others on the craft to pass the time, “You see the problem with the box is it only seems like a temporary solution. Surely it will go away or be breached eventually right? The only way I can relax is when I actually witness the aliens die.”
The flight from NYC to the White House took about nine minutes. Christina landed the craft in an open space outside of the machine shop. The glass box, that had been created earlier that day was still there thankfully so there was no imminent alien or bot threat at the moment.
Garrett left the rest of the group once they were exited the craft. He wanted to clear his head for a minute so he walked into the White House tunnel entrance. He passed down the hall and entered the room that Hank had used as his workspace for creating the anti-alien guns and explosives. Inside the room was a drafting table, where the White House rebuild drawings were spread out. Garrett took a minute to look at the drawings. He wondered out of curiosity what the finished product of the White House was going to look like. Hank’s drawings were very detailed with a bunch a footnotes at the bottom of each page. Most of the footnotes he read were related to armor-like siding on the building that the would deter the aliens because of the super chips built in. Another example was an advanced ventilation system that would filter the outside air and detect unwanted substances, not allowing them inside. This would be useful if the aliens tried to gas them again. Hank’s ideas were all very well thought out and made sense.
Garrett left the drafting table and opened a large floor to ceiling cabinet where Hank stored the custom weapons. A few new items he had never seen before were on a shelf, one looked like a bulletproof vest and the other appeared to be a personal use missile. Garrett wondered why Hank hadn’t mentioned any of these things before. He spent a few more minutes looking around the room before he returned to the lawn where many others were gathered including President Kaplan.
“Who told you to stop working?” President Kaplan said to the foreman of the construction crew responsible for rebuilding the White House.
“Hank did,” the guy replied.
“What was his explanation?” President Kaplan said.
“He didn’t give one,” the guy replied.
“Ok, someone needs to find Hank and figure out what’s going on,” President Kaplan said.
“Logan and I will go,” Garrett said.
They peeled off from the group and headed back to where Garrett had just come from.
“Something’s up with Hank, we need to figure out what it is fast,” Garrett said, “The money’s on him being in his workroom right now.”
Garrett led Logan to the underground tunnel, down the hall and opened a door. They saw Hank standing in the corner of the room near the large cabinet. He was removing contents from the cabinet and disassembling them. He must have entered just moments ago after Garrett had left the room.
“What have you got there Hank?” Logan said.
“I’m just making a few more guns with the leftover materials I have,” Hank said.
“From a bystander’s perspective, it looks like you are taking apart finished products, not creating new ones,” Garrett said. “What is that one there, some sort of missile?”
He was referring to a missile on the shelf inside the cabinet.
“No, it can be described as a drill bit that can penetrate hard objects. I was thinking about making one we could attach to a machine that could drill through the outer wall of an alien craft, but it didn’t seem doable,” Hank said.
“What’s going on outside, there’re all confused because you told the construction crew to stop rebuilding the White House?” Logan said.
“Yeah, the materials I was having them use, I just found out are harmful to our health. So we have to find new safer materials before we continue with the build,” Hank said.
“Oh I see. I’ll tell them so that they’re not out there wondering,” Logan said.
“We’ll see you shortly?” Garrett said.
“Yes, see you boys,” Hank said.
“He’s lying, did you see the blueprint drawing of the missile on the table next to him?” Garrett said.
They had left the tunnel and were walking back towards the group that was congregated around the construction site.
“Yes. There was clearly something that he didn’t want us to know. We need to have one of the ladies verify Hank’s claim about the building materials. Either Sierra or Christina, they’re the science exper
ts,” Logan said.
Garrett pointed to where each of the girls were standing. Logan waved his hands in the air to get their attention and then motioned for them to come over to him.
“Ladies, we have a mission for you two. We need you to take the blueprint drawings of the White House construction and crosscheck the materials against materials that are harmful to humans. We are trying to figure out if any of the materials being used in the construction will be hazardous to us. I know it doesn’t sound like an exciting mission, but I can assure you that it’s paramount to our success. We’ll explain in more detail later. Oh, and one more thing: if you see Hank when you’re in the tunnel heading to the lab, do not show him that you have the construction blueprint for any reason. Again, I’ll explain later, “Logan said.
“That sounds pretty straight forward. After this exciting mission, do you think we’ll have time for a mission of our own, just the two of us?” Christina said.
“Sure thing,” Garrett said. He didn’t want to delay the girls from getting to work, so he simply agreed and would have to figure out how to deflect later.
“Thank you, you’re help will be invaluable,” Logan said.
The girls left to start their research.
“Damn, Christina is persistent huh?” Logan said.
“Yeah, she witnessed Noel and I having some fun in the craft, so I think she’s a bit jealous now,” Garrett said.
“I heard through the grapevine that we’re going to have a legitimate dinner tonight. They got a bunch of barbecues up and running and will be making guacamole bacon cheeseburgers for everyone. I guess you could call it a welcome home celebration,” Logan said.
“No shit, that’s some of the best news I’ve heard in the past six months. My mom used to make a mean guac bacon burgie. She was actually a contestant on a cooking show back home and made it to the semifinal round. Anyway, it will be nice for a change to not have to eat food from a can.
Twenty minutes passed before Logan got a tap on the shoulder from Sierra.
“Hey, we ran everything through our database and at first glance, nothing on the building materials list is known in the State of California to cause cancer,” Sierra said.
“Well what about in the District of Columbia?” Logan said.
“Yeah, we’re safe. That was my attempt at a bad joke. The materials aren’t harmful. Have you ever been to California? There are signs all over the place stating that the area contains chemicals known to cause cancer,” Sierra said.
“Ok and how certain are you?” Logan said.
“90 + or - 5 percentage points,” Sierra said.
“Well done Sierra, you’ve been a great help. What are you going to name it?” Logan said.
“What?”
“The baby?”
“Oh! I think we’re going to name it Saluki, Sal for short, in remembrance of your friend that was lost in Fort Collins during the first alien encounter,” Sierra said.
“Great choice. I’m gonna be honest, Saluki is a terrible name, but as long as you call him Sal except behind closed doors, he’ll grow up to be a stud,” Logan said, ‘I’ll see you in a bit I have to find your boyfriend.”
“Hey, we’ve got a problem, I’m not sure of what magnitude, but we need to solve it now,” Logan said to Thomas. President Kaplan was standing next to him. Logan quickly described the Hank situation to them.
“So we have to pin him down and find out why he was lying. Simple as that,” President Kaplan said.
“We’re going to have to be prepared for the worst. If Hank is lying, there is probably a reason behind it that he doesn’t want us to know,” Thomas said.
“And by worst, do you mean military tactics?’ President Kaplan said.
“Exactly. We need to take him to an isolated area, so that no one will hear the commotion if things turn sour. I’m going to get some supplies. You find Garrett and then as a group go to get Hank. Bring him to the building across the street, you know the warehouse that I’m talking about?” Thomas said.
“Roger,” President Kaplan said.
Hank followed them into the warehouse without confrontation. He took a seat on a chair in the middle of the room, the others formed a semicircle around him.
“Alright Hank, let’s make this short and sweet. Why did you lie about the materials in the new construction being harmful and also lie to Logan and Garrett when they came into your lab?” President Kaplan said.
“I ain’t been telling no lies,” Hank said.
“That answer is not gonna cut it. Do you want to try again?”
“C’mon guys we’re all buddies here.”
“Yes, but not when you aren’t forthcoming, especially when its related to our safety from the aliens.”
“The truth is there was a flaw in my building design, it wasn’t structurally safe so I wanted them to stop building so I could do a redesign,” Hank said.
“And why didn’t you just tell them that?”
“I didn’t want to embarrass myself.”
“I find that hard to believe, you’re the type that could care less what others think about you. The Hank I know would have told us straight up.”
“Yeah well I’m sorry guys.”
“How’s the progress on the new batch of alien landmines?” Logan jumped into the interrogation.
“I had some electrical issues with them and so I have to start again from square 1,” Hank said.
“And the alien guns?”
“Had to start over on those too,”
“And the heat seeking missiles?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“That’s unlike you to make technical errors on things, and yet you’ve made errors on the last three projects that I’ve asked you about. That’s interesting, especially since I saw a drawing of the missiles you were disassembling on your workbench. Would you care to change your answer?”
Hank was silent. Logan put up his left hand palm down on top of his right fingers, making a ’T’, the universal sign for timeout. The others in the semicircle gathered that Logan wanted to chat away from Hank. President Kaplan and Thomas left the semicircle and went to a corner of the warehouse so they were out of earshot. Garrett stayed behind to keep an eye on Hank and make sure he didn’t try anything irrational.
“This is not working we have to up the ante,” Kaplan said.
“Agreed, what do you have in mind,” Thomas said.
“For starters we can take that storage cabinet and put Hank inside of it and lock the door. Have it lay on the ground like a coffin. That might get him talking,” Kaplan said.
“That could work. It will be like sensory deprivation. I’ve read up on that a bit and it’s said to be a more humane form of torture, where the subject is deprived of everything they are used to having in their daily lives, such as sights, tastes, and smells, so it makes them go crazy,” Logan said.
17
Popsicle Stick
The Zyrgians’ mission on Earth started out as a simple one; return to their home planet of Zyrgianica with enough oil to refuel their sun. No, it wasn’t the oil itself they needed, but rather some component of it, that when broken down could act as a catalyst to reignite the sun. These plans had changed, however when Sumesh, the human doctor had poisoned the oil supply by contaminating it with a boron and silicon cocktail. The Zyrgians had to go to Plan B which was to find a new planet to inhabit. Earth was one of many options on their radar; they had sent teams similar to the ones on Earth now to more than one hundred planets spread across many galaxies.
Initially, the Zyrgians saw a worst case scenario that was possible if the humans flew one of the Zyrgian crafts to Zyrgianica and planted super chips on the planet, in turn killing all inhabitants. Now, with the news that the Zyrgians would need to relocate to a new planet, that scenario was no longer a concern. However it still made them uncomfortable that the humans had an alien craft in their possession and also had developed at least one of their own. With
one year and counting remaining before their sun died out, the Zyrgians had to act fast.
Most of their tactics thus far, hadn’t worked as well as expected. The Nortypoxal gas had worked once on a select group, but the humans now had masks in their possession. The bots didn’t have enough fire power to instantly kill large groups of people. The humans had developed some pretty high tech weapons that could exterminate the Zyrgians if not careful. After thinking things over at their headquarters in Yosemite, their leader Lax, which was short for Laxafarianoskinism, announced their next course of action. He spoke in English to his comrades.
“Using the San Quentin prison as our holding center, we will round up humans and place them in captivity there. Anyone and everyone, no picking and choosing who goes in. You may wonder how we are going to do this? Simple, we descend on our targets and once close enough, melt down to slug size. From there we crawl into their brains, like some of us have already demonstrated. We board the craft and fly back to San Quentin. Once in lockup, we exit the host human’s brain, return to our normal physical state and fly to the next town, repeating this process hundreds, possibly even thousands of times. Each Snatch ’N’ Grab should take maybe five minutes from the time we snatch the humans to the time they are back at San Quentin. With just over 50 of us, it should be easy. You may also wonder what we are going to do with the humans that are locked up? Easy, we cross that bridge when we have to. At the very least though, we will have a huge bargaining chip with those humans in DC who are currently in charge. The humans will have to give in to our demands when we show them that we have thousands of their people locked up.”
“He’s been in the box for about four hours now, should we pay him a visit?” Logan said.
Most of the people at the White House were enjoying the BBQ event on the main lawn. There was a surplus of burgers and beers which was a factor that drew many there in the first place.
Garrett said, “Yes, let’s see if he’s ready to talk. But we need military boy with us. He knows a great deal more about interrogation tactics than we do,” Garrett said.