by Eric Johnson
Tom put his ear to the second door. After a brief hushed interval, he heard the distinct murmur again. “I hear something. Be quiet.”
He pulled the lever on the wall next to the door, but nothing happened.
“Don’t go in there,” Anidea ordered.
He tried the lever again and heard the voice cry out clearly. “It sounds human. What if it’s my dad?”
“I didn’t hear anything either,” Winston whined, “can we just go now?”
“I could just push these buttons over here on the wall,” Emmett said, and without waiting for an answer he did. The lights in the room went out. “Hey, the light switch.”
“Turn those back on, now!” Anidea snapped into the darkness.
“Wait,” Tom said, “On the wall, one of those glowing circles.”
He pushed the circle and the door clicked. He tried the lever again. It opened. Electric arcs like ribbons jumped and clustered upon multi-hued glass tubes bordering a small chamber in the back corner of the room.
They moved toward the chamber, and behind a partition they found a boy restrained on a table. Glowing tubes and blinking instruments attached to his body, illuminating him. His skin was crispy, like burnt cheese on a pizza with extra sauce; he was the source of the murmuring. His eyes turned to Tom and Anidea as they approached.
“What do we do?” Anidea asked.
Tom shrugged. “I don’t know where to begin.”
“How can he be alive?” Anidea reached out to touch the boy. “His skin is so crispy.”
Emmett and Winston stood watching at the foot of the table. Emmett said, “He’s trying to say something.”
The boy’s mouth moved, not quite forming words. Anidea leaned over, putting her ear to his mouth, he paled.
The boy blinked twice and closed his eyes. The hum and buzz pop of the machines in the room seemed to fade into the background as they listened to the boy’s last breaths. The boy twitched, then gasped for air. His chest heaved and his eyes widened. The lights on the devices attached to him changed color and his chest fell still, his final breath wheezed from his lungs.
Tom had watched his grandfather die in a hospice, but nothing could have prepared him for a moment like this. He and Anidea turned away.
Tom balled his fists and hit the wall. “Dammit. How can anyone do this? We could have saved him if we were faster.”
There’s nothing we could have done,” Anidea said.
Winston reached out and nudged the boy’s foot. “Is he dead?”
Tom nodded.
Emmett took the device from the boy’s chest and gave it a shake, then tossed it back onto him and walked away. “Hey, a window, there’s a little window on the side of that chamber.”
“Don’t you care?” Anidea stormed. “That boy is dead, experimented on, tortured. He’s dead and we’re on an alien ship. If they catch us this is what’s going to happen.”
Emmett yelled for her to stop, “There’s nothing we can do about it. What’s made you such a weakling?”
Tom grabbed Anidea’s arm, holding up his other hand to silence Emmett, “I think we all care, so let’s just keep our heads and work together to make sure that this doesn’t happen to us.”
Emmett waved them over to the view port. “There’s something in there.”
Anidea wasn’t going to let it go. “You’ve changed somehow.”
“Enough!” Tom said. “If we fight each other we’ll get caught for certain, so both of you shut up.”
He let her go, and turned towards the view port on the side of the chamber. It was filled with an orange gas. They pressed close to see through it, and a kid they didn’t recognize popped into view. Startled, they jumped back and watched him as he pounded on the glass. They could read his lips, “Let me out!”
“What are they doing to him?” Anidea asked. “We have to get him out.”
Memories of Tom’s classroom flooded his mind. “He’s pleading with us. We can’t leave him.”
“How do we get him out?” Winston asked.
“What about that orange gas?” Anidea asked. “Orange gas has to be bad.”
“We could pull this lever over here.” Emmett said. “It could be a release valve.”
“Wait.” Tom moved to stop him. “You can’t just keep pulling levers when you don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Ignoring Tom, Emmett pulled the lever. The chamber’s door hissed opened and an orange gas cloud spread across the room.
“Get me outta this place!” the boy cried. He took two steps out of the chamber and collapsed to the floor, clawing at his neck and choking. His eyes bulged and his tongue swelled up, sticking out of his mouth. He convulsed and then lay motionless.
Anidea’s mouth slackened. “We killed him.”
As the gas billowed out of the chamber, their lungs began to burn and they gasped for air. They rushed out of the room, passing through the first chamber and into the hallway. Tom sealed the door behind them. Coughing hard, he raged at Emmett. “You can’t just open doors and pull levers! Why are you so stupid?”
Emmett shrank away. For a moment he cowered under Tom’s anger, but then he stood up to him. He clenched his fists and held back a cough. “If it weren’t for my curiosity we wouldn’t be where we are,” Emmett said. “He was dead anyway. You couldn’t have known. You need to back off, Stinson.”
Tom stared at Emmett for a moment. “Just stop. I’m sorry about your dad, there was nothing else I could have done.”
The room next door was open and Tom ordered everyone in. It was almost identical to the last, but empty. Strange machines lined the walls, beeping and buzzing ready for the next round of experiments. “We should rest here,” Tom said as he took his pack off and handed out packs of trail mix from the pockets, “I think we will be safe for a bit. Eat these.”
“How can you think of food?” Anidea asked.
“We’re not hungry,” Emmett said.
“You will be,” Tom said, “and what if we don’t have time later. We need to keep our energy up.”
He walked over to the door in the far wall. It was locked. He was strangely relieved. They sat listening to the hum of the machinery for an hour or so. Barely rested, they continued their search for his dad.
Tom peered up and down a spiral ramp wrapped around a thick cylinder in what he thought was the center of the ship. Hallways radiated out from the chamber like spokes on a wheel; he couldn’t see where they ended. They followed the spiral downwards. At the bottom, the chamber was different than the others, with four equally spaced doors.
Next to each door, tall consoles with gauges and dials displayed various information. They approached one; it was covered in the alien markings.
Tom saw Emmett’s eyes open wide. “I know what you’re thinking Emmett, just don’t do it. I’m keeping my eyes on you.”
Picking the nearest door Tom pulled the lever on the wall as he had for the others, it slid open quietly. Thick blue mist rolled out across the floor and they stepped back smartly to avoid it.
“More mist,” Anidea gulped.
Tom inhaled deeply. “This is blue. Orange is bad.”
Through the door they found themselves on a walkway. Rows and rows of the pouches hung on poles for as far as he could see in the dim light. He found himself moving closer, compelled to investigate.
Gasping, he watched what was once a human sprout from the pouch and split open. Little balls like strawberries rose up and out of the skull to hang from its shoulders.
He gagged and turned away, but curiosity got the better of him. He was compelled to take a second look. His eyes darted to the other pouches. Many of the creatures had sprouted large multi-colored fruit the size of oranges and grapefruits, which hung from the pouches. “This is a greenhouse.”
The sound of scissors snipping came from above. A machine like a tiny spider-crab wound its way down the pole and hung by two legs just over a bag.
Anidea jumped back. “I hate spiders.”
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The spider-crab skewered the strange fruit with one appendage and clipped it free with its other. It moved swiftly back up the pole and placed the fruit on a ceiling conveyor belt.
“Automated,” Emmett said. “They use robots to cultivate their food.”
Tom’s skin crawled, as if the crabs were all over him. He understood what he was seeing now, the rows of sacks were teeming with the spider-crabs. His eyes widened and his head pulled back. “We are their food. They came here to change us, plant us and when we sprout these fruits,” he paused, swallowing hard to keep the contents of his stomach down, “and all those people are being used as grow-bags!”
Emmett uttered one word, “Pickles.”
Tom trembled as he realized that finding his dad wasn’t the only important thing. He had to stop the aliens. He had to save the world.
Destructively Yes
The steady drone of machinery wound down and stopped. The spider-crabs skittered away and the lights went out. They froze in the total darkness.
Winston cried out in a strained voice. “What’s happening?”
Suddenly, the floor began to vibrate and shake and they were pulled to the ground. First to their knees and then pinned flat to the floor. The pressure made it difficult to speak and they fought to breathe.
In the pitch black they had no concept of time, but after what felt like an eternity the pressure stopped and the lights came back on. They rose up and floated in the air. They tried to grab hold of anything they could to steady themselves, but with nothing to exert force on they were unable to move.
“There’s no gravity,” Emmett said.
The strange fruit floated with them. Anidea swung her arms to bat them away. She managed to hit one but the force she exerted hitting it was enough to spin her head over heels. “Stop me.”
A booming metal on metal sound echoed, like a door being slammed shut in an empty warehouse, and gravity returned. They fell to the floor with a thud and the strange fruit landed all around them.
“Ow, my head,” Winston groaned.
Anidea stood up. Spider-crabs emerged from slots in the ceiling. She danced around trying to dodge them as they scurried past her, picking up the loose fruit that had fallen from the conveyor belt. “What happened?”
“We took off,” Emmett said.
“Took off?”
“Into space. This is a spaceship, right? I feel lighter.”
“We can’t be in space?” Anidea pulled a pack of gum from her pocket. “Anyone want gum? That's what you do on flights to help your ears.”
“What do we do now?” Winston said. “There’s no way we can get off if we’re in space.”
Tom stood up, putting his hands on his hips. “Being in space changes nothing, we stick to the plan.”
Anidea kicked a spider-crab. It flew into the wall, snapping a leg off. “If we're in space, what plan do we have?”
Tom’s face soured. “Stop the aliens.”
“Wait,” Emmett cried, as Tom turned and took a step toward the door. He rose up and he hit his head on the bottom of the conveyor belt before coming back down. “We’re in space and gravity is different.”
“That almost looked like the video of the astronauts walking on the moon,” Emmett continued, “but the gravity isn’t as light. My guess is that it is around three quarters of earth normal gravity. The diminished gravity makes us 25% lighter.”
“How would you know that?” Anidea asked.
“Duh, seriously,” Emmett replied, rolling his eyes at her.
“He went to space science camp last summer,” Winston spoke up, “I did little league.”
“Space camp?” Tom gaped, “If you’re smart enough for space camp what were you doing in summer school?”
Sullenly Emmett replied, “I missed school. So, I signed up and went.”
Tom found moving with les effort exhilarating. “You’re one messed up kid,” he said, and bounded out the door.
“Maybe the lizardmen need lighter gravity,” Emmett said. “and that was why we didn’t see them moving around the halls when we were on Earth. Earth gravity is too strong for them. I bet the door crew had to do short shifts and then go and lie down to recover. We can use that to our advantage. We’ll have to be really careful because the lizardmen are going to be around now that we’ve taken off.”
At the bottom of the ramp Tom checked up the spiral for any signs of the lizardmen. “We have to blow up this ship, we can’t just let them eat the people they took. We have to help them.”
“Maybe they have an antidote, something that will change the people back?” Winston asked.
“You just don’t unmake a sandwich and put everything back in the fridge, do you? You eat it. I don’t think they have an antidote.”
“So, then let’s go find the self-destruct button.” Anidea said.
“That would blow us up too,” Emmett said. “Bad idea.”
“What if we find their weapons room,” Winston said. “They could have a moon base, and we could capture it or take one of their ships to escape. Then we would get to blow up their moon base.”
“Why would there be a moon base? They are aliens and there is no other life in our solar system. NASA would tell us if there was,” Tom stated.
“Would they have a big red self-destruct button there?” Anidea asked. “Right in the middle of the super-secret base with big blinking lights, that says PUSH ME?”
“Were you born a pain in the butt, Anidea?” Tom asked.
“So where do we go next?” asked Winston. “Up again, or should we try another one of these doors?”
“This one,” Emmett said, pointing to a door on the tube that supported the ramp. “It’s a fifth door. It has buttons on it.”
Tom motioned Emmett like a crossing guard guiding a child across the street. “After you.”
The door slid open and they stepped into a small chamber. The walls were smooth and it was brightly lit. Next to the door were six buttons, four vertical and two side by side.
“It looks like an elevator,” Emmett said as he touched the walls.
“What clue gave that away, rocket scientist?” Anidea said. “It says Otis on the panel.”
“Anidea, stop,” Tom said “Will you just shut up for once? My guess is that there are four floors on this ship. Let’s hope up is up and down is down. Do it Emmett!”
“Didn’t you hear me?” Anidea asked.
Tom braced himself for whatever was on the other side of the door when it opened. “Not now,” Tom said.
“Pay attention,” Anidea said. “Otis! It’s literally written on the wall. In English too. I guess it’s unimportant since we are in space.”
Emmett’s finger found its mark and he pushed the bottom button. “Going down.”
Less than a second later the door opened and their ears were blasted by the deafening screech of metal grinding on metal. They were forced to cover their ears and shrink back into the elevator. The high-pitched squeals sounded like a beginner’s violin lesson gone wrong. Tom fought to stand up straight. “Close the door.”
They were pinned by the sound.
Tom couldn’t take his hands away from his ears and had to push the door close button with his elbow. The doors closed and the sound stopped. Tension uncoiled from their bodies as they stood there trying to catch their breath.
Tom shook his head as if the ringing in his ears would stop. “What was that?”
Emmett rubbed his ears and yelled. “A very loud noise.”
“We should try another floor,” Winston said. “My ears are hurting a lot. I don’t want to go back in there.”
Anidea pulled a wad of gum from her mouth and broke off a piece. “Put this in your ears.”
“That’s your gum. No way,” Winston said disgusted.
“You ate worms when you were four.” Emmett made fun of him. “It’s not the grossest thing you've ever done. Do it, it’ll help drown out the noise.”
Anidea reached into her pocke
t and handed out sticks of gum. “Does this make it better?”
They chewed and put the gum into their ears.
“You ready?” Tom said as he pushed the door open button. It worked, the noise was muffled enough not to be painful, but they still couldn’t hear each other over it.
“What is that?” Winston mouthed, his eyes filled with amazement.
They stood on a platform in a large chamber looking down on a giant gyroscope. The rings spun around a glowing ball and green electrical arcs rose and fell across its surface. Metal pistons with large plates attached to their ends pulsed in and out from all points of the sphere in rhythm, pushing the electric arcs back into a smooth form around the gyroscope. They could feel the electricity crawling across their skin. The hair on their heads stuck out in static halos. A walkway jutted out from the platform, crossing the chamber through the electrical field. It led to another platform and door. The arcs held their gaze.
Tom gestured with his hands. “We’ll never cross that.”
Emmett patted Tom on his shoulder and directed his eyes to the left where a rectangular booth stood. Upon entering they found consoles and screens lined the walls. They were covered with charts, graphs and readouts. Winston shut the door and the sound was deadened by the room’s insulation. They sighed in relief at the silence.
“Not even a lizardman could stay sane with that noise,” Anidea said. “This must be the control room,” Emmett smiled as he inspected the equipment. “Let’s see what the controls do.”
“Hey, this says Tandy,” Anidea pointed out.
“Interesting,” Emmett said. “Two circles, one larger than the other, with an arrow in between pointing at them both.”
“Aren’t you going to look?” Anidea tried to pull Tom around.
“Obviously it’s the earth and the moon,” Emmett said, “and this box is a base, just like I thought. We can take the ship, Tom. We can take the ship and we should. Kill the aliens, turn the ship around and go home.”
“Anidea what do you think?” Tom asked.
“You’re asking me? Actually, asking my opinion?” Anidea was astonished. “It’s clearly madness, but he might have a good idea. Did you see this over here?”