Apex

by Moon, Adam

  APEX

  (Super Earthlings vs. Alien Invaders, Book #1)

  ADAM MOON

  Apex Copyright © Adam Moon 2013

  All rights reserved

  The Good Aliens

  Admiral Liktar yelled, “Get the cloud-burst ready. We’re nearly there.”

  His first mate respectfully said, “We haven’t had the time to properly calibrate this one. Are you sure we should even drop it?”

  “This is the last planet the Greys will attack before they get to ours. This is our last hope. We need to give these Earthlings a chance to fight back.”

  His first mate shrugged. “It didn’t work with the last planet, or the one before that one. It doesn’t matter how much we alter the inhabitants’ DNA, the Greys always find a way to persevere and eradicate the species.”

  The Admiral said sarcastically, “You’re right. We should just give in to our fate.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that maybe we should modify our approach.”

  “It’s too late to experiment. We have little time to get away before the Greys realize we’ve been beating them to their destinations and assisting their prey.”

  The first mate shook his head sadly. “Ensign, get me a status report on the cloud-burst.” Then he said, “You know what: Belay that order. I’ll go and check it out for myself.” With that, he left the command hub and walked below deck to the launch bay.

  Modification

  The chief engineer jogged over to the first mate and said, “It’s almost ready sir. It’s programmed to target all the key areas of their DNA. Just give me a little more time to make sure it disburses properly upon deployment.”

  The first mate smiled and said, “Don’t worry about that. I want to concentrate the burst this time.”

  “But why?”

  “I think they’ll have a better chance with a few very powerful individuals instead of an entire population of semi-powerful folks.”

  “But those concentrations could be deadly.”

  “Just do it. Those poor suckers are all about to die anyway so it hardly matters.”

  “Does the admiral know about this?”

  “Just do it, damn it.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Deployment

  Admiral Liktar ordered, “Deploy the cloud-burst contaminant.”

  With that done, he turned to his first mate and said, “I know you’re up to something. I knew it when you went below deck.”

  The first mate confessed. “I had the chief engineer alter the disbursement method of the cloud-burst.”

  “How dare you act on your own like that? I could throw you off of my ship for insubordination.”

  “It’s easier to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission. I accept whatever punishment you deem fit.”

  “Oh, shut up. Get us out of here. We have to get ready to defend our planet.”

  “Yes sir.”

  As an aside, the admiral asked, “Do you think it’ll work?”

  “What?”

  “Whatever it was that you did to the cloud-burst.”

  “Probably not, but we know that what we’ve been doing has only served to slow the Greys down. I had to try something new.”

  “I suppose I can understand that.” He pointed his thin finger at the blue planet on the holographic monitor and said sadly, “Those poor, pathetic creatures have no idea what’s coming for them.”

  “That’s probably for the best, you know? They won’t see their own doom until it’s too late.”

  “I just wish we had that luxury. Now hurry up and get us home.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Highland High School,

  Ault, Colorado

  Mr. Mayweather looked his biology class over. Most of them were permanently disinterested in any kind of education, but a few bright sparks were paying attention.

  He said, “The problem with evolution is that it gets far too much credit. It’s given as proof that there’s no need for a God in order to create intelligent life. It has been proposed that the evolutionary process is such an obvious byproduct of nature that it’s bound to be at work throughout the universe, on alien planets and moons. We look back over the course of millions of years and we have to marvel at how far evolution has taken us. It’s a truly magical and mysterious process.

  “But there’s a caveat that no one considers: Evolution fails more often than it succeeds. You don’t think about its disastrous shortcomings because evolution has the perfect way to destroy almost all evidence of its failings. Where evolution fails, the species dies off. And since we know that ninety nine percent of all creatures that ever called the Earth home are extinct, evolution doesn’t have a very good track record. You wouldn’t bet on evolution in Vegas.

  “But evolution’s blind experimentation gives scientists hope today. If evolution alone was able to blindly stumble its way to creating human beings, imagine what it could do if it was guided properly. By pure genetic chance, we’ve become the apex species on the planet, but genetic modification might be able to create apex humans who could rise head and shoulders above the rest of us in ways we can’t even fathom yet.”

  Mr. Mayweather took in a deep breath and gathered his thoughts before continuing, “We’re manipulating the human genome every day; unlocking its secrets and uncovering all the ways evolution has led us astray. Sure, it’s responsible for our very existence, but it’s also responsible for holding us back. Did you know that the last thing evolution did for us happened ten thousand years ago? And all we got out of it were blue eyes. Evolution is lazy and apparently it thinks its work is now done. But scientists think differently. We think we can achieve a new age of enlightenment through our studies. Where evolution has failed us, we shall prosper. Just imagine the possibilities.”

  Jim Calder, sitting in the back said, “You mean like creating a girl with three tits?”

  Mr. Mayweather sighed and said, “Class dismissed.”

  Ault, Colorado

  Jack Peterson laughed heartily. He was hanging out in an empty beetroot silo with his friends Scott and Melanie. They were smoking a joint and sharing a bottle.

  Ault was a town so small that anyone who wanted their habits to remain private had to go the extra mile to keep them hidden. Jack had no intention of letting the town gossips find out that he enjoyed the occasional joint with his friends, and that was why they had to find creative places to hide. He’d mistakenly let his defenses down in the past and he’d been burned for it. The people of Ault could not be trusted to keep secrets.

  The silos were perfect because no one would ever expect they were hanging out inside of them…because hanging out in a silo was stupid.

  Melanie passed Scott the bottle of tequila and sat between both young men.

  They were all in their last year of high school which meant that Ault could not contain them any longer. They’d make their separate ways out into the world.

  Jack’s mom hated that he was going off to college but she was smart enough and selfless enough to keep her opinions to herself. But he knew. She was protective and he was her only child so it was no big surprise that his leaving home would break her heart.

  But Ault broke Jack’s spirit. It was a dead town in the middle of dust country. There was little available for a restless soul in this neck of the woods.

  Scott said, “Hey Jack, would you mind giving us a minute?”

  That was Jack’s cue to go outside and stare up at the stars for awhile.

  He kept his jealousy stuffed down. He wasn’t exactly jealous that Scott was with Melanie, what he was jealous about was that Scott had someone and he didn’t. In fact, he’d never been with anyone.

  He wasn’t ugly or nerdy or stupid but when he liked a girl, he got so nervous that he appeared demented
. He’d shake and stammer worse than Jerry Lewis. He’d sweat and get so uncomfortable that he’d have to remove himself from the situation just to save face.

  He closed the little silo door and found a clear patch of ground to plunk his butt on. He leaned his back against the silo and stared into the starry night sky.

  Impact

  Jack saw the streak of light overhead before the deafening roar reached his ears. Whatever it was, had come from behind him. He jumped to his feet in time to see it contact the ground about a mile ahead.

  He was about to get his friends but they came out before he had a chance.

  Scott said, “What the hell was that noise?”

  “I think it was a meteorite.”

  Melanie fiddled with the cap of the bottle and inhaled a deep lungful of cool night air to try and clear her head.

  Scott gave Jack a steely look. “Do you know how much you can get for meteorite fragments? They’re worth their weight in gold. Did you see which way it went?”

  Jack pointed across the field and said, “It’s about a mile that way.”

  “That’s close. Let’s go see if we can find any of it.”

  Jack was just glad to be with his friends again rather than skulking awkwardly out of sight while they had private fun so he said, “Sounds like a plan.”

  Jack led the way since he was the only one of the group to see it touch down.

  Melanie was staggering, precariously tipping back the now half empty bottle of tequila. She was going to be no help at all when they found the impact site.

  They passed an abandoned railway car that had been dumped in the middle of a field long before any of them were born. They’d gone inside once last year but nature had reclaimed it so they were not welcome there. The place was disgusting anyway, with girlie mags and ancient empty beer cans littering the floor. It had obviously been bought as a hideout for a man, probably a married man, a very long time ago. He’d probably died and the wife had no desire to investigate what he had done inside the railcar. Or else she had, and abandoned it in disgust.

  His private behavior was being wiped clean as each year passed, inch by inch, with the encroaching weeds and bugs, water damage and bat guano. Soon his misdeeds would be nothing but indistinguishable sludge, with perhaps a single rusty beer can as the last remnant of his secret life inside the railcar.

  It was that way in Ault. Jack had often wondered if the creepy little town had molded a serial killer or two. It was the perfect environment for secrets and deception to take root. A person that was different had to learn to sneak around. You had to be an urban ninja just to smoke a joint.

  He imagined real serial killers in other parts of the country had more freedom to be themselves than a regular teenager did in Ault, Colorado.

  Jack realized he was neck deep in his daydreams when Scott yelled, “You passed it, dumbass. It’s back here.”

  Jack wheeled about and returned to his friends but he wasn’t prepared for what they’d found. It wasn’t just a smoldering crater like he’d expected. The crater was there, but it was bigger than he thought it would be and inside it was a metallic sphere, three feet around.

  Scott was already touching it. Melanie had plopped down on her butt a few feet behind him, content with drowning her boredom, oblivious to the importance of their find.

  She usually wasn’t so detached. Normally, she’d be the one in the lead but she was too drunk to care tonight. She must’ve slammed a lot of the bottle after Jack had left her alone with Scott. He wondered why that was. She didn’t usually drink much, if ever.

  He shook it from his thoughts. There were important things happening now; too important to waste brainpower pondering trivialities.

  Scott looked into Jack’s eyes and said, “This is not from here.”

  “Yeah, no shit. It came shooting out of the sky.”

  “No, I mean it’s not manmade.”

  Jack knelt down and took a closer look. It was metallic with little holes here and there and it had indecipherable etchings all over, like hieroglyphics but different. But that didn’t mean it was alien in origin.

  They heard crunching footsteps approach so they stood up defensively.

  Melanie capped the tequila and tossed it behind her. She stood up, wobbled uncontrollably, and decided to sit back down.

  A middle aged couple with a flashlight walked right up to Jack and the man said menacingly, “What the hell are you punks doing in my fields?”

  Scott stepped forward. “We didn’t mean to trespass, sir. We’re sorry for that. We saw a falling star and followed it here.” Then he pointed behind him at the sphere.

  The woman said, “We saw it too. That’s why we came out here. But we thought it was a damn meteorite, not a piece of a satellite. Holy crap, Dan! Would you look at that thing?”

  Dan said, “That’s a piece of a space station, woman. Satellites are too feeble to withstand reentry into the atmosphere. What the heck is it doing here?”

  For a big dumb farmer, he sure knew a thing or two about space debris.

  “Should I call the newspaper?”

  “Not yet. If it’s real space junk it might be worth something to the government.”

  Scott said, “It is real space junk but it doesn’t belong to any government. Just take a look at it.”

  Dan squatted at the edge of the five foot crater and said, “Molly, come and look at this damn thing.”

  Molly knelt by his side and said, “I don’t get it. What is it?”

  Dan replied excitedly, “It’s our ticket out of farming, is what it is. This thing’s an alien artifact. It’s got to be worth a fortune. This is huge Molly. This is a world changing event.”

  Scott said, “Whoa, wait a minute. We found it first.”

  Dan stood tall and faced him. “This is my land, kid. Any court in the world will tell you that because it’s here, it’s mine. You’re lucky I didn’t bring my shotgun.”

  Jack stepped in before the argument could escalate into violence. “Take it easy, Scott. Just because we got here first doesn’t mean it belongs to us.”

  Molly added, “You kids have no right to be here anyway.”

  Melanie stood up now, scaring the middle aged couple with her presence. They hadn’t noticed her until that moment.

  She stumbled over and hooked an arm over the shoulder of each boy. “Let’s get out of here. I feel sick.”

  Just then, there was a loud pop. The sphere bulged outwards and then fell back to its normal size. It bulged outwards again and returned to normal once more, before their eyes. It was behaving abnormally for something that looked to be made of metal.

  Dan yelled, “Hey, don’t touch it,” just as Jack reached down and put a hand on it. It was warm to the touch and it was vibrating.

  He opened his mouth to tell the others about it when it cracked open like a budding flower, but in fast forward.

  Before any of them could react, it blasted a blue mist at them, hissing as it did so.

  Dan stumbled backwards and his wife Molly screamed out in horror.

  Melanie fell forward but Scott caught her before she fell into the broken alien artifact. He had her clutched in one hand as he swiped at his mouth with the other.

  When he fell over backwards, unconscious, Melanie fell with him.

  Jack’s throat seized up tight. The mist stunk of stale smoke and it tasted like gasoline mixed with chlorine, but only vaguely. It burned his nose and stung his bronchial tubes. It was like his system was under attack.

  He watched in terror as his friends all keeled over. He heard Dan hit the ground, face first. Molly’s screams became strangled right before she fell beside her husband.

  Jack was the last to pass out.

  Awake

  Jack’s eyes shot open. He closed them up tight against the light. He opened them again, but more slowly. The sun was directly overhead. Was he alive?

  He felt around him and his hand bumped into something. It was a large muddy boot. He turned
his head and saw a man he didn’t recognize beside him. The man was dead. The woman beside him was dead too.

  He got to his knees as the memory came rushing back to him. They’d found an alien artifact and it had attacked them with a strange suffocating mist.

  Scott was already awake, jostling Melanie into consciousness. He whispered to Jack, “Help me. She’s not waking up.”

  Before he could get to his feet, Melanie started to twitch. Her arms became more animated by the second. By the time Jack got to her, her arms were being flung around wildly. Her legs were twitching of their own accord too. The growing dark patch on her pants meant she was wetting herself.

  Jack asked, “What’s happening to her?”

  “I don’t know but it happened to you just a few minutes ago.”

  Then she sat up like she was possessed by the devil, and took in a deep, painful gulp of air. She looked around with wild eyes as she started to hyperventilate.

  Behind him, Jack heard a muted shuffling sound. He turned in time to witness the middle aged couple doing an unconscious prone dance together, like they were making snow angels, except there was no snow and the angels would have looked more like demons based on the spastic jerking of their limbs. Then they shot up into a sitting position and drew in huge lungfuls of air too.

  It scared the hell out of Jack.

  He was sweating profusely, shivering even though it was easily ninety degrees. He looked up into the clear blue sky and saw the sun directly overhead. Only then did he realize they’d been passed out for at least twelve hours.

  He staggered over to the crater as Melanie and the couple started to come to their senses.

  He wasn’t prepared for what he found though.

  The crater was empty.

  Schemes

  As they walked back into town Jack said, “We should get checked out by a doctor or something. Whatever knocked us out can’t be good for us.”