by Jim Reilly
As he awoke, he slowly gained awareness that he was still alive and opened his eyes. At first, he could only see blurs. He tried to get up and couldn’t because he was dizzy. Soon, someone was kneeling over him asking, “Are you OK? You’re Steven, right?”
Steven looked at him and recognized him as one of the first Americans he had met in the strange room. “I remember you. You’re Tim. Where are we?”
Tim replied, “It looks like we are back in the room with the guards still looking over us. You are not going to believe this, but by my digital watch, they had us in that goop for six weeks.”
Then Steven heard a huffing D’Shawn say, “Oh, good. They didn’t eat me.”
Then Steven noticed who was not there. “Where is Mark? Mark, where are you?” he yelled out. When there was no answer he got up to look for him, and when he couldn’t find him, Steven went to Matt. “Mark Roth is not here,” he said.
Matt looked at him with worried eyes. “Yeah, I have not seen Gabriel Peters either. From what I’m hearing, many of our people are still missing. Not only us, but also the other groups as well. Some of them were injured while frantically avoiding that tractor beam or whatever it was. So maybe they are being cared for and are receiving medical help. Well, that’s what we hope.”
Disappointed and worried about Mark, Steven started walking back when one of the walls started to glow dark green. In the center of the wall, an opening appeared where there had been no door or even a seam in the wall. Out walked one of the Ancient Visitors with two guards behind it. The Ancient Visitor walked through the crowd of people, who were still dizzy and weak from their ordeal in the tubs, then over to one of the troughs in the corner of the room.
The alien was an imposing creature standing about six foot five. Close up, the clothes he was wearing were not too different from what a man would wear. He had on a collarless long-sleeved shirt with a pair of slacks. What was different was the large wristband containing a screen and buttons that he wore on his wrist.
The alien then pushed one of the buttons, and a paste came out of a large faucet that fell into the trough. The alien then spoke, but Steven could not understand what it said. All he noticed was that the alien spoke in a high rate of speed, and Steven thought that even if he could understand its language that he could not keep up with its quick pace. The Ancient Visitor then picked up some of the paste in his long fingers and put it in its mouth as if to show that it was all right to eat. When he was finished, he waved his hand as if to say, “Eat up.” Then he walked out the way he had come in, guards following.
Nobody even thought of eating the paste at first, but when a couple of days had gone by, hunger led people from every group to eventually venture over to the trough. In the one near Steven, Janet Livingston could not stand the hunger any longer and picked up the paste-like substance. She smelled it, but it had no good or bad smell to it. Then as if she were downing a harsh shot of whiskey, she swallowed a small piece.
A very hungry D’Shawn quizzed her, “What’s it taste like?”
She replied, “For the most part, tasteless.” When after a few hours they did not see any adverse reaction Janet might have had to eating this food-like substance, they all grabbed a handful for themselves.
“Even though it doesn’t taste like Mom’s cooking, it feels good to finally get something in my stomach,” said Steven.
“Hopefully it doesn’t kill us,” said Tim apprehensively.
“Oh, this tastes like shit. I was in Chicago last week for a game, and some of us went out to Morton’s Steak House for some fine pieces of beef. This shit is on the opposite side of the universe,” said D’Shawn.
Days passed, then weeks, and many of the people were just sitting around bored but happy still to be alive. Today, however, there were more guards than normal on the walkway. Soon, they started manning the large floodlight-like devices that lifted the people out of the room as before. One by one, they were lifting people in the air, then handing them off to be brought to the tubs. Though many were still resistant, the melee that occurred the first time did not happen again. Many were tired and weak or had lost hope of going home.
Steven was brought up to the same cylinder he had been placed in the last time. The last thing he thought was that the Ancient Visitor had smirked at him as he was submerged in the blue gel. It was something he had not noticed before, and he had no idea why he took notice now. It was the last thing he remembered.
Again, Steven felt himself coming to, and he felt the warmth on one side of his face. He then felt a slight breeze move his short hair, and he could smell vegetation and soil. When his eyes began to clear up, he realized he was outside, lying on dirt in a large field. He thought that finally they had been let out, but where? Are we on Earth or some other place?
As others woke up, many started to yell out in joy.
Confused, D’Shawn asked Steven, “Where are we now?”
“I’m not sure, but at least we are outside and not confined in that room,” said Steven, elated. The place where they woke up was a somewhat barren, dusty place with scattered vegetation and rocky mountain terrain in the distance. They had to shield their eyes each time the wind kicked up the dust. Then word came through one of the other groups that they were in Africa.
Realizing they couldn’t stay there because they did not have food or water, they all got up, all four hundred and six of them, and started heading east, led by Matt. Soon they came across a small village to ask for help. The first person they met was a local villager who looked at them strangely and directed them to a Red Cross jeep where some medical personnel were doing checkups on the locals.
Matt ran up to the two individuals to ask, “Do any of you understand me?”
“I do,” said one of them, a woman with an English accent.
Matt said, “Good. That’s great. We all were kidnapped, then tested on, and then left here. Can you help us?”
The woman pulled out a device the size of a cell phone and placed it on the hood of the all-terrain vehicle. Up came a projected screen above the phone where the woman moved objects on her virtual desktop and clicked an icon that brought up a visual of an operator.
While she was contacting the authorities to get them help, Steven said to Tim, “That’s weird. I don’t remember technology like that on a phone.”
Tim was just standing there looking shocked.
Steven said, “I know; it’s amazing.”
Tim was just shaking his head. “I don’t care about the phone. I just looked at my digital watch, and I thought we were imprisoned almost eight weeks, but my watch says it is almost two years later. I can’t believe it. How long did they keep us in those tubs?”
As the two locals went to get help, Tim and Steven were confused about how long they had been gone. Later, they would learn that it had been even longer than Tim’s watch said. The two years’ time frame was relevant to them, but not to the people they had left back on Earth.
Steven said, “That can’t be. It felt like we were gone for just a few weeks.”
Steven and the four hundred and four other people who had been with him on the ship would have to get accustomed to the fact that they had not been gone six weeks or two years, but seven years. They were subject to relativity, whereby objects traveling near light speed in low gravity move slower in time. While they had been traveling, they had aged at a slower pace than the people on Earth.
Three weeks after his return from Africa, Steven was being driven home. He could see the long driveway to his parents’ dairy farm. He still couldn’t believe he had been gone so long. He kept saying to himself, “Gone seven years, but it felt like weeks.”
The government had kept him in a hospital for three weeks testing him, though for what, he didn’t know. He had spoken briefly to his dad two days before to let him know that he was fine and that it was really he. Driving up to the house, Steven could only think how happy he was to be home with his family and friends because he had thought he would n
ever see them again. He was especially interested in seeing Brenda, but when he mentioned it, Dad kind of changed the subject.
When the government car reached the house, he saw all his family and friends rush out from the house, which had banners hanging to welcome him home. Even though psychiatrists at the hospital had explained that the people he knew would be older, it didn’t really hit him until he saw them in person. He did recognize his mother as she pushed her way through the crowd of people to get to him, but when he looked, he didn’t see Brenda anywhere.
Eva saw the government vehicle drive up to the house, and she could not control herself and rushed the car to open the door. Steven was barely able to stand when she hugged him and sobbed uncontrollably. She bawled, “I‘ve got my boy back. I really got him back.”
His father then grabbed him. “Welcome home, Steven.” His father then turned to show Steven two young men who had been fifteen and ten when he was taken, but were now twenty-two and seventeen. “Do you remember these guys?” he asked.
“Tommy? And is that you, Johnny?” Steven asked, as he couldn’t believe his eyes. In his mind, he had only left them weeks ago, and now it turned out to be seven years, a fact that he couldn’t seem to comprehend. In any event, standing in front of him were his brothers. He was very happy to see them, and he couldn’t believe that he had missed so much of their growing up.
Throughout the rest of the day, people who from his point of view he had just seen looked older and spoke to him as if they had not seen him in a long time.
He also noticed that they and his family were looking at him a little strangely. He thought that it was because he had been gone for so long from their point of view. In fact, everyone there was looking at him differently because he was different from how they remembered, and they thought it was odd.
Through all the commotion, there was still one person he wanted to see the most, and when everyone who had come to see him went home, Steven asked his mother, “Mom, when can I see Brenda? How come she is not here?”
With tears in her eyes she said, “I just spoke to her, and she will be here in a few minutes. Um, I want to say that she -- we all thought you were gone.” Tears rolled down her face when she said, “Some moved on,” because she knew the pain her son was about to have. When the car arrived, she did not have the strength to witness Steven’s seeing Brenda, and she scuttled into her house.
As he waited the few minutes, he wondered what she meant by “moved on.”
Steven saw the car pull up, and in his excitement to see Brenda at last, he ran down the driveway to meet the car halfway. His heart was pounding as he recognized her parents, who got out to open a back passenger door. The whole time they did not pick their heads up to have eye contact with him. They helped a woman out of the car and brought her over to him.
Steven was expecting to see the girl he remembered growing up through high school and college. He remembered she had long blond hair and hazel eyes that he could gaze into all day. All the time they were dating, she was very skinny, and her parents were worried she was too thin. The last time he saw her, they were heading to class on campus and planning to go to a dorm party over the weekend.
But to Steven’s surprise, Brenda’s parents were holding a woman who was about eight months pregnant with short hair and wearing engagement and wedding rings on her left hand. Inside the car were two small children and a silhouette of a man. Even though her face was different, he knew it was she because as he looked at her eyes he just knew.
“Oh, Steven,” she said as she put her arms around him. “I am so, so sorry. I thought you were dead. I thought I was never going to see you again,” she said as tears streamed down her face. “I didn’t want to give up, but years passed by, and I thought waiting any longer would be fruitless. So, I moved on.”
“Oh, Brenda,” said a bewildered Steven. “I feel this is a nightmare I can’t get out of. One moment I thought my life was set and I knew what my future held, and now I don’t know. I’m so confused.”
“I know you are,” she said, trying to console Steven. She had always been there for him, and he for her, but these were extraordinary circumstances. She knew he was hurting, and she felt powerless to help. All she could do was to say, “Steven, I am so sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
Sensing that Brenda’s legs were weakening, her father worried for the baby, grabbed her, and took her back to the car as she started to cry hysterically.
Her mother said, “We are so sorry. You take care.”
Steven just stood there as they helped Brenda into the backseat, and then seated themselves and drove away.
Her father backed the car out of the driveway with Brenda’s husband and children in the back of the car, consoling her. Her mother looked intently at Steven as he put his hand over his face to hide his sadness.
She wondered, “What the hell did they do to that poor boy? I feel so heartbroken and --”
Her father cut in, “I don’t know why the government let these people out so soon to see their families. How can they be really sure it is really them or copies of them or an alien in a Steven costume?”
With Brenda crying uncontrollably in the back seat, he asked, “Did you see him? He was different. He was taller than I remember, and did you see his head? It was definitely much bigger than I remember. And did you hear how fast he was speaking? This is wrong, honey. I say we keep Brenda away, far away.”
What Brenda’s parents noticed was what Steven’s family and friends would notice as well. Steven had changed physically. But what he changed into and why still remained a mystery.
Chapter 4
“Hey dear, it’s time to get up. You don’t want to be late, do you?” his wife of nineteen years said. “Why do we have to do this every Sunday morning? You know there’ll be no service if you’re not there!”
He reluctantly picked his head off his pillow. “I’m getting up, dear. Just give me a few minutes,” he said, putting his head back on the pillow. After being nudged by her again, he slowly raised his stiff body out of bed and headed for the shower. As he entered the bathroom, the light automatically came on as it should, but this morning an electronic voice said, “Lighting fixture down to 5%.”
He thought, Oh, great. I have to change the bulb or whatever they call that now. Once in the bathroom, he said, “Shower on to 95 degrees,” and the water came on. He added, “Sink on to 105 degrees.” As he began shaving, the five-inch television screen in the right hand corner of the mirror turned on. “CNN,” he directed it.
The CNN anchor said, “Our top story, as it has been for the last few weeks, is the Ancient Visitors’ return of the abducted. Dr. Beth Summers is here today to discuss what many are saying is proof of alien intervention in our evolutionary development. Good morning, Dr. Summers.”
“Good morning to you too,” she said. “ James Connor’s discovery over ten years ago and now the releasing of these altered captives give credence to what some in the scientific community have said since the alien craft discovery: that there may have been an extraterrestrial hand in our evolution. The Ancient Visitors have clearly done what we thought God had done to us. There was no Adam, nor was there an Eve. There were just Ancient Visitors, tinkering with our development.”
“MSNBC,” he said.
“Today the Ethiopian government has announced that bidding on more of the alien technology will start, beginning at one hundred billion dollars for each item. Some of the technology being licensed includes the anti-gravity landing system and the video system that can view items millions of miles away. So far, only one-third of the ship has been procured by some of the richest corporations and countries. Much of the craft is still being studied by teams of scientists to find out exactly what some of the functions are. Rumor has it that when it is all said and done, the total net worth of the craft will be ten trillion dollars. This has been a revenue gold mine for the Ethiopian government, at one time one of the poorest nations on the planet, now amon
g the richest.”
“Let’s try Fox News,” he said, starting to get irritated.
“We’ve just gotten word that the Syrian-Iranian Alliance has now deemed the returned captives an abomination of God’s work, and any former alien captives in their territory will be arrested and put on trial. Their borders have been sealed, and anyone with features like the returned captives will be held. They plan to --”
“Ah, TV off,” he said.
When his shower was done, he got dressed and came down the stairs of his modest home to the breakfast his wife had made for him. He sat down to eat it while his kids were in the living room playing their virtual reality games.
Before he got to take his first bite, he heard his neighbor’s child knock on the door and ask, “Reverend Robinson, can I come in and play with Susie?”
He turned and said nonchalantly, “Sure, but only for a little while, because we have services today.” He let the child in and thought how strange it was being called a reverend now. Things had changed for him and his congregation. Because donations were so low at his church, he had stopped taking a salary. So for the past five years, he worked at a local print shop. There at the shop he was just known as Charles, and he was just one of the guys. At church, though, he liked to be called Pastor Charles.
He went about his business like any other person in the neighborhood who needed to provide for his family. At one time he was a pillar of the community, and the community appreciated what he did for it. He remembered coming to his church for the first time as a young minister looking to do his part to help grow the congregation. They loved his fire and brimstone approach to preaching so much that when the pastor retired he was quickly promoted to the position.
But times had changed, and he didn’t fill the church as much as he had before the discovery of alien intervention to the dominant life on this world.
“Will you stop feeling sorry for yourself and finish eating? I know that look on your face,” said his wife, who had noticed over time that he was disappointed in how things turned out. She remembered how passionate he used to be when he gave his sermons. The first time she saw him up at the podium, she fell in love with him because his sermons inspired her to be passionate as well. She had felt as if he had lit a fire in her soul that ignited a passion for God’s love. Now she saw the pain he was feeling in his heart, and it was crushing her. She tried to be strong and encouraged him to get to up to lead the service as he had for so many years before, though she did this in her own way.
