Neighbors

by Brian Whiting

  his hands over his ears as he stumbled to his closet to put on the coat of

  his uniform.

  Cindy disappeared in a flash from the cabin, as did Gloria.

  Alex quickly put his jacket on and looked at a mirror. He wet his hands

  and ran them quickly through his hair, then jogged towards the bridge.

  “Battle stations! No drill, battle stations!” a voice from the comm

  system blared out after the fifteen-second alarm ceased.

  As Alex approached the bridge, he could see a flurry of activity as people

  rushed to stations and command chairs. He almost made it to the bridge

  before he felt his body go weightless for about ten yards as he reached the

  bulkhead. His body gently collided with the right side of the corridor as he

  struggled to push against the wall and continue to the bridge.

  Moments later, gravity returned the ship to normal, and he entered

  the bridge.

  Everyone on the bridge looked at Alex briefly before returning to their

  work, hands frantically typing commands into their stations.

  “Sir, unknown ship detected!”

  “Where?”

  “Somewhere near the orbit of Pluto, it will take time to figure—”

  A telescope, not quite as good as the one on the Abraham, found the

  ship and transmitted the image to the viewscreen. The ship filled the screen,

  but there was a severe lack of detail.

  “How big is it?” Alex asked as Cindy entered the bridge, fully dressed.

  “Not sure yet, we need more—”

  The viewscreen instantly turned a blurry gold.

  “What happened?” Alex asked.

  “New contact! Two kilometers directly ahead.”

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  The viewscreen quickly shifted colors and rotated rapidly as the telescope zoomed out in a dramatic fashion.

  “Bring in the new ship into view.”

  The ship covered the entire screen, with no indication of what they

  were looking at.

  “What the hell?”

  Alex looked at the communications officer as he strapped into a chair.

  The officer barely glanced at Alex, an expression of bewilderment on his

  face, before he reached over to push a button on his display screen.

  A symphony of confusing sounds blared across the bridge speakers.

  Static, screeches, pops, warbles, shrill whistles, deep moans, and other such

  sounds came across the speakers at the same time.

  “What the hell is that?” almost everyone on the bridge asked, looking

  around confusedly.

  The speakers cut out and the viewscreen shifted. It appeared to be

  static, but more controlled, a pattern of dark and white. The static moved

  with large bursts of brighter white.

  “Sensors are jammed.”

  “So are Comms.”

  “Should I fire?” the tactical officer asked immediately.

  “Don’t be stupid!” Alex cried out as Cindy responded, “Heavens, no!”

  “Ship functions have been locked, I have no control of anything,” the

  pilot said.

  “Detecting a thermal buildup!”

  Alex looked at the sensor operator. “I thought the sensors were jammed?”

  Suddenly the ship in front of them disappeared. All ship functions

  immediately returned to normal.

  “What the hell just happened?” Alex said as he looked over the

  ship systems.

  “Part of our system has been corrupted.”

  “What, like a cyber attack?” Cindy asked.

  Silence grew quickly across the bridge, drowning out question and

  comment alike. Everyone turned quickly to face their stations, trying to

  decode the damage that the ship did to their systems.

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  “Can we make contact with our people on the surface yet?” Alex asked calmly.

  The communications officer shook his head. Moments passed; seconds

  turned to minutes, but no information was forthcoming. No one was able

  to offer up an explanation as to what happened.

  Finally, they had to reboot the computer systems on the ship.

  “Systems check out, except for our hard drives. It appears twenty-two

  percent of it is now corrupt,” Cindy said not looking at anyone.

  “Like, information corruption, or access corruption?” Alex asked.

  “More like a hole in the hard drive. I just can’t access any of it.”

  “Sir, it appears the ship arrived in our system near the periphery, then

  it jumped to two kilometers off the bow.“

  “What do you mean, ‘jumped’?”

  “That’s an optical illusion. It’s the same thing that happens with FTL

  travel. The light reflected off their hull after jumping reaches us before the light during their journey does, making it look like the ship just… jumped

  across the distance. Kalibri explained this to us in his symposium.”

  “That thing is bigger than Manhattan. That’s one hell of a trick.”

  The movement on the bridge cooled down as everyone tried to gather

  more information. Minutes turned into an hour, with no noticeable luck.

  “Have the salvage teams finished with the wreckage?”

  “Yes, sir, even before that thing arrived.”

  “Captain, any reason we should stay here? Or can we return to the sur-

  face and eliminate the remaining Zorn threat?”

  Cindy looked at Alex with a warm smile. “Let’s go home.”

  “Good. Cindy, I want you to drop me off at the Complex, then coor-

  dinate with ground efforts where you can be best utilized. We know com-

  munication is terrible right now, so check in with the Complex every eight

  hours and send us your intended flight plans.” Alex unbuckled his belt and

  walked towards the bulkhead separating bridge from hall.

  “Where are you going?”

  “The server room. I’ve picked up a few things hanging around Zeek for

  so many years.”

  * * *

  193

  It had been a long time since Alex moved about within the bunker system, having only toured it when they first began excavating tunnels. He was

  amazed at how quickly those boring machines worked and pleased with the

  outcome. He just wished they furnished the rooms better.

  Alex sat on a rock ledge cut out around the perimeter of the room.

  They left a stone surface for a box spring and mattress, while the other

  furniture included a dresser, a wooden rod for hanging clothes, a display

  screen and one outlet box that lay loosely on the ground. He stared at

  the small, enclosed outlet box and wondered how they managed to get by

  code enforcement on this construction. It took him some time to figure it

  out, then remembered it was sovereign territory. His people were clever, he

  thought to himself and laughed at the thought of code enforcement.

  Zeek attempted to glean information from the hard drive Alex brought

  to his assigned underground cabin. It was small, but it was a tricky little

  thing. He could already see some damages that the alien ship inflicted on it,

  and he wasn’t a hundred percent sure that he could fix it.

  “Hey, Zeek, why are you still living underground? Most people are

  moving back to their more modern and furnished places in the Complex,”

  Alex said, noticing the extreme discomfort of the room itself.

  “Uhhh—”

  Alex started when another person opened the door and entered with-

&nb
sp; out knocking.

  A young woman wearing a UEF technician uniform walked past Alex,

  oblivious as to who he was, and bee-lined right for Zeek, holding him in an

  embrace from behind while he sat in his chair.

  Zeek turned in his seat, and the woman sidestepped to follow suit.

  “Alex, this is Tiffany. Tiffany, this is Alex, leader of the world.” Zeek rolled his eyes and twirled a finger up in the air.

  Tiffany turned, her eyes wide, the color draining from her face. She

  let go of Zeek and stood up, clearly unsure of what to do. Zeek’s computer

  chimed, attracting their attention, and he turned to look at it.

  “What happened?” Alex asked, throwing a questionable look at Tiffany.

  “I used that special program… that… that was given to us before, on

  the corrupted data section.”

  “Smart. I didn’t think about that.”

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  The program categorized information in some manner that Alex

  couldn’t quite understand, and separated the corruption into various seg-

  ments and sizes. Each time Zeek clicked on a file or grouping, it would

  error out with various messages. He clicked on every file, and only the last

  one did something other than give him an error message. It opened into an

  image of some kind.

  The image was very granular and blocky.

  “Wow…what is it?”

  “Looks like Minecraft,” Tiffany said, tilting her head as she examined

  the picture.

  Alex eyed her briefly. “Can you zoom out?”

  Zeek rolled the mouse wheel, and the image zoom out. The further

  he zoomed out, the clearer the image became. When the program couldn’t

  let him continue zooming out, it stopped. Three stars were visible on the

  image, but nothing much else. The stars still appeared vaguely blocky.

  “What happened?”

  “What, did you just expect alien technology would simply be compat-

  ible with ours? I am convinced we received a bunch of data and we have

  no means to access it. I’m sure I can get a look at the rest of this image,

  though.”

  “How do you know the image gets bigger?”

  “I don’t, but as it is right now, this image has zero value. It’s three non-

  descript stars. The program is blocking me from zooming out any further.

  I’m going to try some other programs and see if they work any better.”

  “How long?”

  “Minutes. You should wait.”

  Alex pulled out a bottle of water and drank. Tiffany eyed him keenly.

  “What have you been doing for the UEF?” he asked her casually, closing

  the bottle.

  “Well, first I helped install IT protocols for the TIC network. Then I

  did some coding to get computer drivers to work more efficiently with each

  other. Then I was asked to unload equipment in freight for several days.

  Today I was assigned to a mobile salvage team.”

  “Mobile salvage team?” Alex asked, surprised. “Who’s running

  that operation?”

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  “Major Grissom. He’s the one that found an easy way to kill drones.

  People call him Drone Killer.”

  Alex cringed and deep furrows appeared on his forehead.

  “YES!”

  Alex looked at Zeek’s display screen as he zoomed the image out fur-

  ther than before. Three stars turned into hundreds, and then thousands.

  Millions.

  “Crap!”

  “What?”

  “The image stuck again. See?” Zeek pointed to the display screen. “I’d

  say we only see about half of it.”

  The image was clearly a galaxy. A large golden dot appeared near the

  end of one of the visible arms, while a green circle at the farthest end of the same arm that circled several stars together in a group. On the other side of

  the arm, closer to the center of the galaxy, a line of purple was barely vis-

  ible. The line was not smooth and included only certain stars. Everything

  on the other side of the line was purple, all the way towards the center of

  the galaxy.

  “That doesn’t look good. What do you think it means?” Tiffany asked.

  All Alex had to do was think of all the strategy-based video games he’d

  ever played, where a player conquers territory, changing the color of the

  map area depending on the team the player chose. He sighed in resigna-

  tion, an all too familiar feeling. He looked at Zeek, who returned a simi-

  lar expression.

  “We’re going to need friends.”

  “That’s a little bit like a tribe in the Amazon asking the government of

  Brazil to defend them against the Nazis.”

  Alex looked oddly at his friend. “You come up with weird metaphors,

  and I’m not sure that even closely resembles this situation.”

  “I am hungry,” Zeek responded. “Let’s go get some food.”

  He stood and grabbed Tiffany’s hand as he motioned for Alex to follow

  him. Alex hesitated, still looking at the image on Zeek’s computer screen. It

  stirred Alex in ways that were both intense and confusing. He couldn’t help

  but feel so small, so insignificant.

  “It was a warning,” Alex whispered.

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  Zeek turned back at the door. “What do you mean?”

  “They came, delivered a warning and moved on. Like warning pedes-

  trians on a highway.”

  “You don’t know it was a warning. For all you know, it just marks

  their territory.”

  “Humanity right now is broken, yes, but for the big picture, we are

  like a turtle hiding in our shell while the whole world continues to evolve

  around us. If we are not careful, a tank is going to come and drive over our

  shell in a conflict we know nothing about.”

  Zeek remained motionless at the door. Tiffany, patiently waiting for

  him, whispered. “I think you lose the metaphor game.”

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  Chapter 18

  Rebirth

  IT WAS ANOTHER couple of months before the situation on Earth

  changed. The Zorn grew slower, and they would be seen alone more often,

  until over the course of a week or so they all began to stop moving, most

  remaining frozen in place.

  In the end, it didn’t matter much that the Zorn threat had taken care of

  itself; the population of Earth was decimated, both by the initial attacks and the bands of drones that the UEF worked to round up in the weeks after.

  There were very few wounded; victims were either killed, or they survived.

  Survivors faced starvation as the industries of the world came to a

  grinding halt, the manpower to run factories and farms or distribute food

  or supplies as decimated as the general population. Nearly every inter-

  state across America was packed with stalled, emptied and sometimes-

  destroyed vehicles.

  The UEF used their anti-gravity vehicles to solve the smaller problem

  of blocked roadways. The survivors of Earth were scattered across America,

  so the UEF built a very popular work stability program, attempting to turn

  the survivors, many of whom were starving or depressed, feeling that the

  end of the world was nigh, into a farming force, distracted from their prob-

  lems and properly fed, clothed and sheltered.

  The surviving government was out in force, but their number was severely hampered,
with most of the ground forces tasked to defend certain

  areas or special locations. There were far too few soldiers in the country to

  patrol everywhere successfully, and looting was becoming a problem. The

  recall notice was placed to American forces across the globe, but with trans-

  port hubs crippled or destroyed, it would take months, if not years for the

  soldiers to return.

  Cindy convinced Alex to give a public speech on the first of every

  month, highlighting last month’s failures, successes and providing new rel-

  evant information to the masses. Today was the first day of the month, and

  he was set to give his next speech to the listening world.

  Alex walked towards the podium, dressed in a heavily-worn UEF uni-

  form, as were many of those in the audience. He unfolded his speech, writ-

  ten in bullet points that he would use to keep on track, and looked over

  the audience and the countless others who would watch from their screens.

  “As you all know, last month, the remaining Zorn began to seize up.

  I am happy to report there have been no live Zorn sightings for just over

  a week.”

  The crowd erupted in cheers, screams and applause, which continued

  for a couple minutes. Alex stood with a warm smile but patiently waited for

  them to calm down before continuing.

  “I am also pleased to report the work for stability program continues.

  Food shipments from various farms across the country are now on a sched-

  ule, and we are looking into housing options for those who have relocated.

  Keep an eye on the boards for more information on that. If you choose to

  remain in your home or current location, that’s fine, but we don’t have the

  ability to distribute food to areas other than the safe zones at the moment.

  “There are reports of raiders and thugs in various locations. Many

  people, including UEF personnel, have become victims of their brutality.

  This behavior cannot be tolerated, and deadly force has been authorized to

  eliminate this problem. There will be no warning and no quarter. If you

  wish to live, you won’t take from other people.

  “In addition to the pockets of military cooperation we have utilized in

  various locations across the country, we have made contact with the surviv-

  ing members of the Government elect.”

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  The crowd interrupted him with boos.

  “They are beginning the slow process of stabilizing. Right now, their