by Calista Skye
Caveman Alien's Ransom
Calista Skye
Published by Calista Skye, 2017.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
CAVEMAN ALIEN'S RANSOM
First edition. April 16, 2017.
Copyright © 2017 Calista Skye.
Written by Calista Skye.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Caveman Alien's Ransom
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
More Books from Calista
Epilogue
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1
- Sophia -
“Okay, let's try one more. Emilia?” I try to rub the sleepiness out of my eyes and take a short step back from the test bench to let the Mexican girl come forward.
“Let's see now,” Emilia says and takes a second to come up with something. “Este es un buen día,” she says very clearly into the little microphone.
“These was a belt varnish curtain,” the translator machine says in its bright voice.
Groans of disappointment fill the room.
“I don't believe this.” I clench my eyes shut for a second. I want to bang my head on the lab table. It's been a long day, and progress has been slow. Now it feels like things are going backwards.
“Dammit! I really thought we had it this time,” Caroline says. “They're going to take away our grant, I just know it.” The blonde Norwegian girl started the day looking radiant, as usual, but now she looks just as exhausted as we all do.
“It's not totally wrong,” Heidi says, always the optimist. She pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “It does identify the verb correctly. Almost. Well, kind of. I'll try one.” She takes a step forwards. “Guten tag. Wie geht's?” she says in German.
“Your mothers be an slut,” the little machine responds happily.
Heidi flushes and for a moment I think she's going to punch the translator device. “Mist! That's not what I said! Yes, fine, it is kind of true. Hey, she's been lonely since the divorce. But that's none of this verdammte machine's business!” She kicks a chair and it falls over very noisily.
I totally sympathize.
“It struggles with tenses and plurals,” Delyah says. “The mistranslated words are less important. I'd recommend turning the secondary implicator to a margin of eleven percent.”
For a moment I just stare at her. I'm supposed to be the leader of this project, and even I'm not quite grasping what that means. But that girl from Atlanta is smarter than all of us combined, and speaks seven languages like a native, so she's probably right.
“Okay,” I say, not wanting anyone to know that I'm drawing a blank. “Umm ... could you do that, please, Delyah?”
“Sure thing.” She gets busy with the setup.
I stick my hands into the lab coat's deep pockets so the other girls can't see that I'm balling my hands into tight fists of frustration. We've been working on the experimental translation device for weeks, and at first things looked great. The little machine is tiny, just about the size of a cell phone battery, and it's capable of teaching itself all kinds of languages just by listening to them. But the past few days it seems like we've been going backwards, and the translator just sounds more stupid than ever.
“Let's try the other way around,” Caroline says and comes forward. “Set it for Norwegian, Sophia.”
I change the setting and she bends down over the microphone. “I really like these boots.”
“Du vil gjerne spise dette svømmebassenget,” the machine replies instantly.
We all look at Caroline.
She sighs deeply and looks at me apologetically. “You'd like to eat this swimming pool.”
More groans fill the room. This seems hopeless.
I glance up at the wall clock. One past midnight. I should just let the girls go home. All this was my idea, after all, and now it looks like it has all been a total waste of time. I look around the room and try to look upbeat, but I know my smile is tired.
The girls are, too. They're all bilingual and have been picked partly because of that, so that we can test the machine properly. They're patient, too. None of them have suggested we call it a day, despite the late hour.
“Okay. One more adjustment, and then we go home for the weekend.”
I can feel the atmosphere lighten when I say it. Yeah, we've all had enough of this. If this thing doesn't work on Monday, this project is officially a failure and Professor Wilkins will cancel it. The device contains a hyper-advanced computer chip that comes straight from a university lab, and they can't let me hang on to it forever. It's supposed to be a long step closer to true Artificial Intelligence, it's the only one that exists, and it's worth so much money that Professor Wilkins wouldn't even tell me how much. She was afraid I'd refuse to assist her with this project if I knew.
Well, I can only hope she'll be kind enough not to give me a failing grade. I'll work on the thing all weekend alone, but I just know it won't work. If it doesn't, I'm pretty sure I'll take a hammer and smash the damn device into a thousand pieces. Just to get closure. After I very carefully take the chip out.
I add a line of code on the computer the device is connected to. “How about Italian this time? Aurora, could you-”
The building suddenly starts shaking violently and I have to steady myself on the desk to not fall over. “What the heck is this?”
“Earthquake!” some of the girls yell and dive under the desk.
And that's what it feels like. Everything in the room is trembling hard, and the noise from all the lab equipment is terrible. But there's a rumbling, too, a deep noise that's making my teeth rattle as if someone is playing a very bass-heavy tune on speakers the size of a house. But this sound is sustained and even, not like a rhythmic bass line at all.
I frown. This is nothing like any earthquake I've ever felt. And I'm from California.
A light fixture falls from the ceiling and breaks into a million fragments in a terrible crash.
“Get down, Sophia!” someone is yelling from the floor.
Oops. I'm the only one still standing up. I grab the super-expensive translator and throw myself down.
Just as I dive for the floor, there's a deafening ripping noise and a screech of tortured metal. It rains dust and wood and insulation material and little fragments of concrete, and the room is suddenly much darker as the light goes out. I feel cold air on my hands and face. I just about dare to glance up from under the table I seem to have crawled under.
Ah. The whole roof is gone. But it didn't fall down. It was taken off the building like the lid off a styrofoam cup. This is one weird earthquake ...
The other girls in the room are screaming, and I'm pretty sure I'm doing the same, but I can't be sure because of the noise around me.
I squint. What's that outside in the darkness where the ceiling used to be? It's something big and bright, shining with a light so cold that it freezes my soul. It's round and ghostly and appears to hover in the air like a helicopter.
No, not a helicopter, I realize. More
like a ... a flying saucer?
Then I'm definitely screaming my lungs out as I'm suddenly hanging in mid-air, suspended in a beam of green light that somehow stings my exposed skin. Other girls are hanging over and under me in their white lab coats as we're slowly being pulled up towards that one saucer like fish on an invisible line.
And beyond – oh fuck. I can see at least fifty huge flying saucers spread out over the city, all with wide green beams coming out of their undersides and little strings of humans suspended in them.
I notice I'm clutching the translator device in my hand as if my life depends on it. But right now I'd hang on to a live tiger with all my strength if it would mean the slightest chance of all this to not be happening.
But it is absolutely happening. The cold night air in my lungs, the screams, the details I can make out on campus beneath me, including my rusty bike ... I feel the sting of panicked tears behind my eyelids. Whatever this is, it isn't good.
The university buildings are getting smaller under me and when I look up, I see a dark, round hole in the flying saucer. It glows with an unhealthy sheen that makes me think of radiation.
Something in the beam wants me to lose consciousness, but I'm stubborn and I struggle to keep my eyes open. Just before I have to give in and let the darkness fill my mind, I force two thoughts to pass through it.
This is definitely an alien invasion of Earth.
And I'm being kidnapped.
2
- Sophia -
I come to, and at first I feel pretty good. That was a good night's sleep I just had. I'm feeling totally rested. My pillow feels weird, though. Like, all hard and cold ... and what's that smell?
Then I open my eyes and sit bolt upright on a metal floor. Oh fuck. This isn't my dorm room. This isn't like anything I've ever seen.
It's in half-darkness, and the little light there is seems sickly and yellow to me. The floor is bare metal, but I have no idea which metal it is. It feels smoother than iron. And colder.
The walls are made from some different material that reminds me of plastic, but feels rough to the touch. It's probably white, but the light makes it look yellow and dirty. I peer closer and try with a finger. No, the wall I'm sitting beside is absolutely dirty and leaves a nasty brown stain on my finger.
“Yuck!” I try to wipe it on the floor, but it's not too successful and just makes dirty streaks on my finger. Yeah, I'm not going to smell that finger. Ever again, probably.
“Not the cleanest place, looks like,” says someone next to me.
I turn. The blonde hair is dishevelled, but apart from that she looks like herself. “Caroline! They got you, too?”
“I think they got all of us,” she says and points.
And sure enough, all the girls who worked on the translator project are lying or sitting on the floor of what I can now see is a pretty large room with a low ceiling. Beyond them are more people. Probably thirty of them, as far as I can tell. All women, for some reason.
Somehow, having the other girls there makes this a little less bad. Not by much. But still.
“Shit,” I say, because it seems the most appropriate thing right now. “What the hell is going on?”
Caroline sweeps her hair back from her face. She's very pale and looks drawn. “We got kidnapped.”
That matches my own conclusion, but I had to ask so make sure I'm not going crazy. “By aliens,” I add. “In flying saucers. And we're in one right now.”
“That's what I think, too. Sophia, if this is some kind of science experiment you're running and the translator was just a front, then it's not valid anymore. I just called you out on it. Can't experiment on people who know they're being experimented on.”
I shake my head. “If this is an experiment, it's not mine. You think it might be one?”
She sighs. “No. I really don't. That beam ... and the roof being taken off ... shit, Sophia, I think we're in serious trouble.” Her voice is trembling and she sniffles bravely.
I scoot over to her and hug her close. Touching something other than alien metal and plastic feels good. She's a warm, breathing human and I cling to her for a couple of heartbeats, fighting down scared tears of my own.
“We'll get out of this,” I say into her ear. “We'll do whatever it takes.”
I can feel her breath settling down, just a little. “You think?”
“Yeah. We're the smartest chicks on campus. Well, you guys are. I'm not quite there myself, maybe. But I'll do my best.”
I don't know where those words come from. I'm totally convinced we're all dead and that a terrible fate awaits us all. And still I say things that sound almost optimistic. Well, it's not like there's much left to lose. Might as well believe that it will all work out. And maybe I should add a belief in fairies and Santa Claus while we're waiting for the inevitable. I mean, at this point it can't hurt.
We both calm down. “Better let me go,” Caroline whispers. “People are looking at us funny. They'll think we're a couple. Hey, not that I would mind that much, but you know ... I don't want to seem this easy.”
We giggle and I feel a lot better. Hey, maybe our kidnappers are just kind fairies taking us on a cool vacation in their fancy saucer.
I glance around the room. Nope. This isn't a cruise ship. This feels more like a cattle car. For humans. And they did rip the roof off the lab instead of just sending us a nice invitation in the mail.
“Hey, Aurora! Heidi!” I call softly to the other girls and wave them over. I want us all to be together about this. There's strength in numbers, they say. I'm sure we'll include some of the other women in here, too, but right now I want faces I recognize.
The girls stand up and have to bend over to not hit their heads on the low ceiling as they make their way over to us. Then we're together, all seven of us. We hug and sniffle a little and then giggle and joke. It strikes me that these are some cool girls. No one is screaming hysterically or chanting we're gonna die we're gonna die. You could go to war with these chicks. But I hope we won't have to. Just having them close to me makes me feel much better. There's the level-headed Caroline, the social Aurora, the active Heidi, the soft-spoken Emilia, the reserved Alesya and the fiercely bright Delyah.
And me, the stressed-out Sophia who Professor Wilkins picked to assist her with the translator project.
I think back to some movies I've seen with people being stuck in a bad place together. They always have the same kinds of characters, seems like. First there's the leader who makes everything work out in the end and who survives just fine. Then there's the bitchy one who gets killed first, there's the coward who also gets killed, there's the stupid one that everyone likes but who screws up a lot, there's the traitor who betrays them all but is killed himself and then ... who else? I don't want to be any of those.
“We'll be just fine,” I state without believing it. It's more like an automatic reflex. Okay, fine. I decide that my role in this is to be the super cheerful one, the happy-go-lucky chick, the casual girl who believes that everything will work out fine and who sometimes survives the movie and sometimes doesn't. She's usually a little bit of an airhead, too. That suits me fine. Some of the other girls are so smart they sometimes intimidate me without knowing it.
I scratch my head. “So any idea what this is and how to get back?”
As soon as the words are out I clasp my hand to my mouth. Oh no. Big mistake! That's not what the cheerful one would say, that's what the leader would say!
And now all the girls are looking at me with some kind of expectation on their faces.
“Um,” I begin. “I should not have said that. I'm not the leader. I'm the happy-go-lucky one?”
“I think,” Caroline says slowly and looks around, “that we maybe don't need a formal leader, but that you're the closest thing we've got right now. You led the project, after all.”
Ah. She may be the bitch of the story. “I'm not sure I'm even the oldest one,” I try. “Who's that? Alesya?”
The
Russian girl shakes her head. “Nyet. In Russia, leader of rebellion usually die very badly. Or become evil dictator. I don't want to be any of them.”
We all look at each other and shrug. Hard to argue with that.
“Delyah?” I try. “You're the smartest one, too.”
Delyah just smiles with blindingly white teeth and shakes her head. “Don't even try, girl. You recruited us to that project. You're it.”
Huh. Two bitches in one movie? No, of course – Delyah is the unassuming genius who no one notices but who saves everyone close to the end.
“Well,” I say, “I absolutely agree with Caroline. We don't need a leader. And if we do, it isn't me. So. Where are we? And what happened, exactly?”
“They took the roof off the building and beamed us aboard,” Heidi says. “Along with a bunch of others. I saw more saucers, too, as far as the eye could see all the way to the horizon. I think they kidnapped hundreds of people. Or thousands. I think I saw them blow up some things too. There were definitely explosions. We might be the lucky ones.”
We're all silent for a moment. I hadn't thought of that. Maybe everyone else is dead and we're the only ones left.
Damn. My family might be dead! The shock hits me in the pit of my stomach and I gasp.
“Well, we don't know that,” Caroline says quickly. “We should probably base everything on the assumption that Earth still exists. If not, this could get pretty hopeless. Whatever this is. I suggest that our goal is to get home.”
We all nod in support. I'm relieved that she seems to be taking on the leadership role and not the bitch role.
I notice other women in the room gathering in little groups, too. I smile and wave at some of them. We're all in this together. And there's a lot of people here. Our kidnappers can't hope to subdue this many women at the same time.
I feel my spirits lift. “So how do we take control of this saucer?”
“Break out of here. Find the control room,” Emilia says. “Knock out the crew. Steer home.”
“Okay. How do we break out of here?” I ask, then realize I'm not being cheerful. “I mean, that's the easy part,” I add quickly. “No problem.”
