by Jesse Wilson
“Better not mess with the queen’s system; she sounds like she might bite harder than I do,” Heather said as she kicked off her shoes to the floor.
“Yeah, but I don’t mind it when you do it,” Bob replied with a smile.
“None of that while we are up here; thin walls and stuff. Wouldn’t want the whole base to listen in,” she said and threw her pants to the floor.
“Do you want to take one of my sleeping pills?” Bob asked as he opened his bag, pulled out a small green bottle.
“No, I’ll try without it,” she replied and pulled the covers over herself.
“Great, I’m taking one and I’ll see you later, I’m off to the dreamlands,” Bob said as he undressed, laid down in a very uncomfortable bunk, and covered up.
“Good night,” he said to her quietly, turned to his side, and stared at a metal wall, waiting for the pill to take effect.
“See you on the flipside,” she said to him, the same thing she said every night. It was oddly comforting to him to hear it.
Chapter Ten
Xule’s computer on his right arm began to beep softly. Four hours had gone by, and the nano machines had done their work.
“Hey, buddy, wake up,” the electronic voice said to him. Xule was still sleeping, dreaming of monsters.
“Xule, wake up now,” it said again, but he just groaned, trying to ignore it. Then the computer sent an electric shock into his arm. Xule jumped so hard that he fell right onto the cold floor.
“What in the world was that?” he groaned and immediately realized that he wasn’t in the stasis unit anymore. “Sippy, what is the status of the stasis unit?” he asked then as he struggled to stand up.
“Connection to stasis unit complete; someone is attempting to open it as we speak,” Sippy replied to him.
“Alright, so where am I? Give me the details,” he asked as he stood up and pulled the tarp off of him.
“You are on Earth. Your time stasis unit is still active. Six years have passed on Nurid; however, over thirty million has passed on Earth. The current population of Earth is eight point three billion humans and a vast amount of lower life forms. We need to stop the humans from freeing the beast, clearly,” Sippy said to him.
“Yeah, you think so? Any other obvious thing you’d like to add? Bring up a map and let’s go already,” Xule demanded to his computer.
“You got it, boss, but if you bring up that attitude again, I’m zapping you,” she said to him in an angry voice.
“Sorry, but we need to hurry so please, map already,” he pleaded with her. He always figured Sippy was a her.
A blue holographic line appeared in front of him. “This will lead you to it, let’s go,” she said to him. Xule slowly stood up and walked to the door and nothing happened.
“Not an automatic door, genius,” Sippy said to him.
“I totally knew that,” Xule lied and kicked the door open. He figured it would have been locked anyway. The door was hit with so much force it was broken off of its hinges and hit the wall.
“Stealth, man, must you break everything you touch?” she asked him as he walked through the doorway and ignored her. The line led him to the left, and he started to run down the hallway to get to the stasis chamber.
“It’s opening, we need to hurry,” Sippy insisted.
“I can only run so fast, I’m doing the best I can here,” he replied to her between breaths.
“Oh, and Sippy, thanks for the nano work. I like breathing whatever they consider air on this planet,” Xule said to her between breaths.
“Without me, you’d be dead, but let’s do our best to stop this,” Sippy replied to him, keeping the line intact.
Heather felt her wall shake and opened her eyes. It had been the longest four hours of her life as she tossed and turned. Something had happened, and she wasn’t tired enough to ignore it. She quietly snuck her way down the ladder and got her clothes back on in a hurry. Bob was passed out cold from the pill.
“Be right back,” she whispered and carefully opened the door, stepped out, and closed it again. She began to walk in the direction she thought the source came from. It was surreal, being one in the morning, yet it was still daylight outside. It was really throwing her off.
There was supposed to be a night shift crew, but so far, she didn’t see anyone. Turning a corner, she saw a metal door lying on the floor. It looked like it was kicked in by something. Then she realized where she was: Storage Locker B.
“Not possible, is it?” she said to herself in shock and walked over the door, straight ahead. She looked into the room and saw that the alien was gone. Heather started to run down the hallway in the opposite direction.
This place was like a maze. She was going to warn everyone when she turned a corner and collided into Xule. She towered over him, but the impact caused them both to fall to the ground. The two of them locked eyes, and Heather could feel the fear starting to well up inside.
“Listen, someone is opening the capsule and I need to stop it,” Xule said, but to Heather, all it sounded like was aggressive growling, and it caused her to inch down the wall even further.
“Sippy, use the translate beam if you will,” he said to her and held out his right arm in Heather’s direction.
Heather had never been more scared of anything in her life right now, but when the thing on his arm fired out a red beam in her direction, she raised her hands in defense, uselessly.
“I don’t want to be vaporized,” she half-screamed, but soon realized that the light wasn’t harmful at all. Or at least wasn’t yet. She lowered her hands to watch as the beam stopped, and fired a red beam into the alien’s eyes. Now she was confused. The red beam died out and Xule tried again.
“I am Xule, and I hate to be a rush, but someone is opening the stasis unit again and we have to stop them. Something about the magnetic fields of this place is messing with Sippy’s map. I was trying to fix it when you ran into me just now. Can you help me?” he asked her, and this time, she understood him perfectly, as if he was speaking English his whole life.
He could see in her eyes she had a million questions and was about to explode with asking them. “Please, can you show me the way or not? This is really important,” he cut her off and stood up. She quickly stood up after he did
“Yes, I know the way, so follow me,” she replied to him, feeling less afraid that the language barrier had been broken. Questions could wait.
Mahar had waited until he figured everyone would be sleeping. He wanted to get a head start on the second phase of the operation and opened the capsule. He had come prepared with a power drill, long metal probe, and a microscope; this was all he would need to get started. He didn’t feel the need to make extensive precautions because nothing could possibly be alive in the ice after this long.
He drilled into the strange, dark shape in the ice carefully. It was loud, but no one was close enough to hear him do it. He pulled the drill bit out and looked into the hole. There he saw a patch of black, what appeared to be oil. He stuck the long metal probe into the hole and cut off a small piece of the black substance, pulling it back out carefully.
He put the strange black flesh on a viewing slide and closed the capsule again just like they did before. He put the slide under the microscope and looked into the lens.
“Oh my, aren’t you an interesting piece of something. I can’t wait to get you back to the lab,” Mahar said to himself.
Then, the black oil shifted to the left on the slide. It reacted to his voice then and he jumped back.
“What is this thing?” he asked just as Xule and Heather came into the room. Mahar turned to look and saw Xule standing there.
“The movies were right: they do come back to life,” he said the only thing he could think of to say in his sudden shock at seeing the alien at her side. Heather saw the tools and her eyes widened.
“What did you do? Tell me!” she demanded in a frightened voice.
“I just took a small piece,
you know; it’s harmless,” Mahar replied to them.
“Oh no,” was all Xule could say as the viewing lens of the microscope exploded. The piece of black flesh hit him in the neck, and Xule took a step forward, putting his hand on the blaster that was holstered at his side. Heather started to run to him, but a scaly hand on her shoulder stopped her.
“We need to help him. It attacked him,” she cried out.
“Lady, this guy doesn’t have a future,” he replied to her. Mahar instantly grabbed his neck and started to scream, and fell to the floor writhing in pain as Heather watched in horror.
The whole process took about ten seconds before Mahar stopped moving. Xule took out his weapon and activated it. “What’s going on?” she asked him and Xule narrowed his red eyes.
“He’s been infected by the beast and has to be destroyed. But you can’t do it until it takes over. If you do it too soon, it just tries to find another host; if he was your friend, I’m sorry for what comes next,” Xule said to her quietly as he never took his eyes off of the body on the ground.
“Infected by what, none of this is making—” She was cut off as Mahar began to stand up slowly.
“You should run,” Xule said to her as Mahar looked at them. He had thick, black veins running down his neck. His eyes were solid, dark yellow, and wide. He opened his mouth in a toothy grin. His mouth was full of long, black fangs. Heather only needed to see this, and she turned to the door and ran for it.
Mahar grabbed the table the microscope was on and threw it at them both with one arm. Xule blasted the table. Heather heard the noise and ducked seconds before half of the table smashed into the wall just above her head. The deep red beam carved the table in half as it flew.
“Watch out,” Sippy said to him seconds before Mahar landed in front of him; he’d cleared the distance in a single leap.
“Snoz,” Xule said as the infected one lunged at him and tried to bite him. Xule grabbed his wrists as they both fell to the ground. He’d stopped the infected but lost his blaster at the same time; it hit the ground and slid in Heather’s direction.
“Shoot him,” Xule screamed out as Mahar screamed and tried to bite him again. Heather picked up the gun in a hurry and had no idea how to use it.
“Tell me how to do it,” she screamed back.
“Blue button, aim and press it, easy as snork,” he said again as those long black teeth came closer to his face.
“Forgive me,” Heather said, aimed at Mahar, and pulled the trigger. The red beam came out and slammed into Mahar’s head, and it knocked him back.
“I did it,” she said and was surprised that worked. Xule quickly scrambled to his feet.
“It’s not dead,” Xule said, took the blaster, and held the button down. That beam was concentrated on the body and set it on fire. Mahar screamed in agony, as if he had regained control just before he died. The screaming died out seconds later as the fire consumed his body.
“We just killed a good friend of mine…what…what in the hell just happened?” Heather was shaking now that the situation had seemed to be over and the shock was kicking in.
“Narbosaurus happened; he must have wanted to examine it and the thing took its chance,” Xule said calmly as he watched the burning body carefully.
“What is…why?” She was at a loss for words.
“Listen to me. Thank you for helping to take care of that nightmare, but we need to put this thing back where you found it right now. You have to trust me,” Xule pleaded with her as he carefully put his blaster back.
“Not a problem. Just let me get my gear on and we can go right now. I’m sure driving that thing can’t be too hard to figure out,” she replied to him, which was when the smoke from Mahar’s burning body set off the fire alarm.
Xule winced in pain, located the source of the alarm in this room, pulled out his blaster again, and shot it. The sound in the room died with a shower of sparks.
“So much for being a secret,” Heather said sadly and waited for the inevitable to happen.
“Why do you not have an automatic fire suppression system? Isn’t that a normal thing to have in a place like this?” Xule asked her, annoyed that all of this got much more complicated and began to get nervous. Now he was going to be outnumbered, and in his personal experience, species didn’t get along so well on first contacts. Maybe this one would go better due to the situation. Heather’s mind was racing so fast that she didn’t have time to feel anything yet.
“Fire in Loading Dock A,” a computer’s voice said in between the blaring periods of alarm in the other places of the base.
Chapter Eleven
Bob was jolted awake by the alarm and rolled right into the ladder from a dead sleep. He slammed into it and it knocked the wind out of him. He had forgotten where he was for a minute and that cost him. As soon as he had his senses back, he got out of bed.
“Heather we need to—” But she wasn’t there.
“Damn it, what did she get into now?” Bob said to himself and got dressed as fast as he could to get to the loading dock fearing the worst
Alex didn’t sleep but more than two hours when the alarm began to blare.
“I knew, goddamn knew something was going to happen. We should have listened to the movies,” he said and quickly got up on wobbly legs that were not quite as awake as he was yet. He grabbed his clothes and got dressed in his dark room as fast as he could.
Bob had just passed his door in the direction to the loading dock.
“What the hell is going on?” Alex asked him, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
“I know as much as you do, but Heather wasn’t in her room. I have a feeling she’s involved with this,” Bob replied to him. Alex shook his head and chased after him.
“Hey, do you smell something funny?” Alex said back to him. There the smell of something that was cooking, almost like a barbecue in the air.
“Yeah, it’s the fire, now come on,” Bob replied to him.
Sheila, on the other hand, woke up angry. In the six weeks, she’d been assigned as Base Operations Manager, there hadn’t been a single disaster besides the iced-up generator. It was quite the achievement. Not bad for a black woman from Detroit, but she had to be tough with everyone or it’d all fall apart. And now when new people showed up, it all went straight to hell.
“Newbies are trying to burn the place down,” she said to herself as she got up, dressed, and began to powerwalk down to the source of the alarm.
“I swear to God if Harry left one of his machines on and it overheated, I’m going to make him sleep outside,” she said to herself. The blaring alarm could only be shut off at the source. It was done as a safety protocol, so it would force someone to investigate, as if whoever designed it figured no one would.
Alex and Bob made it to the loading dock, bursting through the door only to see the previously frozen alien standing there next to Heather.
“Holy,” Bob said with shock and instantly backed off. Alex was at a loss for words.
“Heather, get away from it!” Bob screamed to her. Heather shook her head and was about ready to explain, or try to, when Sheila barged in and pushed the two men out of the way.
“What in God’s name is that thing?” she said as her instincts kicked in. They told her this was a threat and it had to die. She grabbed a metal pipe that was lying on the table next to her, picked it up, and charged at Xule, running as fast as she could. Heather reacted and stood between them, but she was too scared to stop now.
Xule realized this. Sheila swung the pipe and didn’t care who was in the way. He grabbed the end of the pipe and stopped her cold in mid-swing.
“Lady, you need to calm down so we can talk,” he said to her in as calm a voice as he could. Sheila’s eyes went wide; she was in a panic. She pulled the pipe back, raised it over her head, and began to swing it at Xule as if it were a sword. Heather dived out of the way.
“Die!” she screamed at him over and over again with each swing. Xule easi
ly dodged each attack, and on the fourth one, he grabbed the pipe again, pulled it, and she closer to him. With his right hand, he slapped her across the face so hard it knocked her to the ground, towards the still-burning body.
“I said calm down,” he said, restraining his anger and threw the pipe to the floor.
Bob and Alex only saw all of the alien’s movements so far were hostile. It had already hurt one person and killed another, so they prepared to attack it.
“Stop it, all of you,” Heather screamed then, diffusing the situation that was quickly growing out of control. It was about now Harry and about seven other people came rushing into the room with two fire extinguishers at the ready. Xule just sighed when he saw them come in.
“See, I told you it’d come back to life. He seems friendly. I’m going to put the fire out though if no one minds,” Harry said to no one in particular, not shocked by Xule in the slightest.
“No, let the body burn until it burns out. We need to be sure,” Xule replied to him.
“Body? Wait, what’s going on here?” Sheila asked as she stood up, calmer this time.
“That used to be Mahar. He got infected by something that’s in that capsule and we had no choice. I saw the whole thing and it was ugly,” Heather replied, trying to forget what it looked like, but it was burned into her mind and likely would be forever.
“My God, Mahar, what did you do?” Alex asked quietly.
“He opened this stasis unit and tried to examine what was in it. He managed to break a tiny piece off and this is what happened. We need to get this thing back into the ice as soon as possible,” Xule explained to everyone as clearly as he could.
“I agree with him. You didn’t see it. We need to make this thing history as soon as we can and forget we ever found it. Please, Bob, you have to believe me,” Heather pleaded with him.
“Yeah, we can have it out of here in fifteen minutes, right back where we found it in no time,” Harry said to them, in total agreement with the plan.
