by Unknown
“There must be something on the inside keeping it from opening,” the Warrior pronounced.
That sounded like a logical explanation.
“Everyone stand back,” he said, as he removed his laser pistol from its holster.
The controlled beam cut a six-inch circular hole beside the handle. With a stiff kick, the cut piece of metal dropped out of sight, leaving an opening large enough to reach a hand inside. The Warrior reached in and pulled out a foot long, three-inch thick iron rod that had been placed inside the hatch to keep it from turning.
“Ah ha. Someone didn’t want anyone opening the hatch. We should be able to turn the handle now,” I remarked. In my enthusiasm I reached down to give it shot. A Warrior grabbed my arm.
“Not so fast,” he warned. “It could be booby trapped. Everyone move back.”
Wow! Dumb me. Hadn’t thought of that. Shuck’s, that’s not going to look good on my Marvel Hero resume.
The rest of us retreated to a safe distance. The Warrior had some sort of a camera he stuck through the open hole, and surveyed the area inside the hatch. He must have seen something because he then reached inside and looked to be disconnecting something. He removed his hand and was holding a small clear tube of what looked like liquid metal.
“This is enough explosive material to destroy everything around it and close the entrance forever,” he said holding the vial out to me. “Watch what happens.” With that, he tossed it aside and KA-BOOM. It exploded far enough away to cause us no harm, but a plume of dust and rubble sprinkled over us.
But the explosion stirred up another one of those bear-like creatures…Just kidding.
“Thanks,” I said to the Warrior. “You saved my hide.”
He looked at me like he could not have cared one way or the other. Whatever.
He then opened the hatch. I walked over and looked down into a deep dark hole that looked like the inside of a missile silo. There was an old, rusty metal ladder attached to the side wall that disappeared down into the darkness. The Warrior dropped something equivalent to a flare, and it disappeared deep into the darkness.
“It is estimated to be 150 feet to the bottom,” he analyzed.
We will acquire camping and survival gear from the vehicles, Monroe said.
With survival gear packed into small backpacks, we started our decent into the darkness, one by one. Talk about creepy. Reminded me of a few zombie movies I had once watched. Were there horrific humanoid creatures that wanted to eat my flesh waiting in the darkness below? One would think so after the previous horrendous creatures we had encountered on the surface.
Caren and I looked at each other. We were probably thinking the same thing.
“Are you sure you are up for this?” I asked her.
“We’ve come this far. No sense in turning back now. Besides, there is no way I am staying up here alone.”
“Okay…Let’s rock and roll.”
Monroe got another puzzled look on his face. I think he was hoping we wouldn’t start singing again.
Two of the Warriors descended first, then Caren, me, Monroe, and the third Warrior descending last. The second Warrior carried a light that was bright enough to light the immediate area of our steep descent.
About halfway down I heard a loud snap below me. One of the rusty steps snapped and broke apart when the first Warrior put his weight on it. Fortunately, he was able to grab hold of another step, maintain his balance, and secure his footing after falling several feet.
“Watch for a missing step,” he warned the rest of us.
The Warrior had hit the nail on the head with the distance. I had counted my 150th step when I hit solid ground. We stood in a large cavern, much like the ones we had previously visited. It was dimly lit from an unknown light source, so we couldn’t see more than 30 yards around us.
I took a step forward and heard something crunch beneath my foot. I had stepped on the end of a bone that caused it to spring up out of the thin layer of dust that cover the floor.
“Wonder what that’s from?” I remarked, reaching down to pick up what I had stepped on.
At the same time, Caren and one of the Warriors stepped on something similar. The Warrior shifted his foot around in a sweeping motion, exposing numerous bones.
“Oh My God, you don’t think it’s—”
They are not human, Monroe interrupted Caren. He was looking at a small device he was holding in his hand.
That brought a sigh of relief.
Let us make a camp site, Monroe said.
“How about over there,” I pointed, not wanting to pitch camp over some unknown bones.
Can you or Caren sense anything here?
The words had no more gotten out of Monroe’s head when I sensed Tom’s presence.
Oh yeah, he was here alright! But before I could utter a word, I sensed his warning.
Tom-Tom…Hit the deck, NOW!
As I did, Caren fell on top of me. She must have received the same warning. It was a good thing we reacted quickly because laser beams suddenly lit up the cavern like a live rock and roll concert.
The beams bounced off the cavern walls and ricocheted in every direction. I heard Caren scream as one sliced one of the Warriors in half.
My fall to the ground landed me on a big chunk of rock that smacked me right above my right eye, sending a sharp pain shooting through my head. My world faded and turned black.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Assimilation
I awoke dizzy and with a splitting headache. Caren was holding my head in her lap.
“You have a nasty gash above your eye, but I have managed to stop the bleeding. Can you sit up?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Then take it easy for a moment,” Caren added.
“What happened?” I managed to whisper.
“You hit your head on a rock and passed out.”
I lay there waiting for the pain to ease and my head to clear when I surprisingly heard Tom’s voice.
“We have been taken back to the Dome.”
“Tom…we finally found you,” I said, sitting up.
“Yep, you sure did,” Tom said, but his tone of voice told me he wasn’t that happy to see me. “And you led them straight to us.” His disappointment clearly showed in his remark.
“I figured the aliens would eventually bring you into the hunt, so we were prepared. However, I was surprised to see Caren. But it shouldn’t have surprised me to see that the two of you hooked up in your timeline.”
I turned my head in the direction of his voice. My eyes focused on him sitting on a bench with Karen by his side. Standing behind him were some other humans that I didn’t recognize.
“Our situation is not good,” Tom added. “But it’s no fault of your own. You did what you thought you had to do, and we certainly aren’t going to throw in the towel. We ain’t going down without a fight.”
I had no idea what he was rambling about.
“What type situation are we in?” I asked. “And why did you fire on us?”
“The first thing you need to know is that dear ole’ grandson Monroe and his Warriors are not who you think they are. And worse than that, one of us is going to be assimilated,” Tom replied.
“What are you talking about? Monroe is not Monroe? Assimilated?” I’m wondering if maybe Tom had been hit on the head, ’cause none of what he said made sense.
You’re not going to believe what he told me.
“It’s like this, Tom-Tom. You remember back in the 20th Century when mankind sent probes into deep space, inviting any intelligent species to come visit us? Well, here in the future, someone finally accepted the offer.”
“About five years ago (here in the future) the sons-of- bitches arrived. At first, our astronomers thought their spacecraft was an asteroid, but as it got closer they realized it was a spacecraft and not one of our own. It took several attempts to learn how to communicate with them. They eventually learned how to communicate both
telepathic and verbally in our language.”
The Council of Seven went all out to give our guest a grand welcome. After all, it was a historic event. We got all the hype and the usual spin about how this was going to benefit mankind. How their species were pioneers searching for other life forms and were on a peaceful mission. We were gullible enough to believe them. The excitement of meeting an ET for the first time overwhelmed logic.”
“Their appearance didn’t freak us out. Sort of humanoid with noticeable eyes, ears, mouth, and a nose. They had two arms and walked on two legs, but were slightly taller than us. Their midsection made them look plump and slightly overweight. Aliens that could be straight out of a ‘Star Trek’ movie, but not the horrendous ones.”
“They were pretty much like us breathing the same air. Darned if they didn’t belch, pass gas, pick their nose, and snore like us. They called themselves a name that can’t be pronounced in our language. They seemed to be of one gender and of one race as they all appeared to be a carbon copy of one another. We couldn’t tell a difference. Bit like Monroe and his crew.”
“Well, the dumbass government let them set up shop here and mingle with us. But like all good fairy tales, the excitement of first alien contact soon turned into a dismal nightmare on Elm Street. Freddy Krueger didn’t hold a candle to these guys.
“It took us a while to sort out what was happening. People we knew were suddenly changing. That should have raised some red flags. They looked the same but behaved differently. It wasn’t that we were getting sliced and diced or anything. It turned out they just got consumed and disappeared inside the alien, only to reappear a few hours later. Following the consumption, the alien would take on the appearance of the human they had consumed.
Assimilated females became pregnant right off the bat. Their pregnancies lasted for only two months. The mothers would die shortly after giving birth. The off-springs appeared to be human and would grow and mature at accelerated rates. You following this?”
I raised a skeptical eyebrow. It was sounding like some sci-fi movie.
“I know it sounds corny, but it’s true. It was only when I witnessed a consumption firsthand that I figured out what was happening. I’d gone to visit Monroe one day. He didn’t answer when I knocked. The door was unlocked, so I entered his living quarters.”
“Hey, Monroe, you decent?” I called out.
“I heard a gurgling sucking resonance coming from around the corner of the room. I peeked around to witness an alien consuming Monroe. The alien’s body had split open in the middle front like a flower in bloom. It had wrapped its entire body around Monroe. The alien’s body proceeded to consume him. I watched in horror as the two became one.”
“I couldn’t contain my shock and howled, ‘Oh My God!’”
“Monroe or whatever it was, became aware of my presence and moved aggressively toward me. Like a scared jackrabbit, I managed to hightail it out of there.
“I hurriedly spread the word among the originals about what I had witnessed. Everyone gathered their family and made their way to the caverns in the wastelands.”
“For reasons unknown, the aliens never did pursue us. Not until now, that is. They must have had no means to locate us. They did, however, learn of the time travel exploits for swapping clones with human originals of the past. They discovered the ESP connection between the originals and their clones.”
“I suppose that was when the aliens thought to use the time travel craft to travel back to our past to convince you and Caren to assist in finding me and the other originals and our offspring. As you can see, Monroe and his Warriors are not now human. They have been consumed and are apparently a new breed of the alien race.”
“The alien Monroe lied and fooled you about why they wanted to find us. Rest assured, I don’t plan to be caviar for any alien race. Ain’t gonna happen as long as I’m breathing,” Tom said.
“Me either,” I added, somewhat astound at what I had just heard.
Tom’s story left Caren and I flabbergasted with a whole lot of guilt. Here we thought we were helping to save them, and it turns out we helped the aliens to find them.
“Oh, man. Caren and I are so sorry. Why do you say it will be just one of us consumed?” I asked.
“Because the aliens know that in order to maintain the future timeline, the past timeline cannot be broken. Therefore, one of us has to survive and be sent back.”
“Well, it was me who led them to you, so I will volunteer.”
“Me too.” Caren added, while raising her hand.
“No way,” Tom replied. “We are in this together.”
“So what are we goin’ do?” I asked Tom.
I figured he had a plan and, of course, he did and to say the least, it was another dilly. Or so we thought at the time.
What’ca goin’ do when they come for you? Bad boys, bad boys.
*****
Hey, we aren’t the bad boy’s here. Remember, the aliens are the bad boys or whatever gender they are.
When they came for us, Tom’s plan was put into play.
“Okay, guys. Start mingling.”
Here we go around the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush, everyone sang.
Everyone in the room; clones, originals, and offspring formed a circle and paced around like we were playing musical chairs. Soon we were all mixed.
Since the originals and clones look exactly the same, we thought to confuse the aliens as to who was who. We thought that they wouldn’t know which one of us to send back to the past and which one to consume.
There you go thinking again.
When the alien Monroe entered with a couple of other aliens, we figured they would have no idea who was who.
We thought we had them fooled. However, alien Monroe held a small electronic device and surveyed the room. He pointed it at each one of us.
“That one is a clone,” he said, with a wicked smile on his face.
“And that one,” as he pointed toward Caren.
So much for Tom’s ‘dilly’ plan.
Well, I’ll be darn. Did you pick up that Monroe spoke out loud? No doubt he’s an alien now.
“You have got it wrong, I am Tom, the original,” I told Monroe, hoping to confuse him.
“We are fully aware of the communication and tracking devices implanted in the clones,” he said. “My instrument indicates you two have the implanted devices,” he said, pointing to me and Caren.
“Plus, you have a knee and hip implant,” he added, pointing to me.
Shit! I had forgotten about them.
“It really makes no difference to us which we will consume,” alien Monroe said.
“If it’s a clone, we just have to remove the devices and implants before the assimilation. Manmade objects don’t digest so well.”
“Probably gives them gas,” I joked. But nobody was in the mood to laugh.
“You have 30 minutes to decide who shall be assimilated and who shall be sent back to the past,” the alien Monroe said.
They were forcing us to make the decision. Lord have mercy, what a dilemma...
I looked at Tom, and we both thought the same. We’re not going down without a fight.
We both pounced on the alien Monroe at the same time. He was about two-thirds our size, so we figured it would be a quick and easy match. We gridiron-tackled him to the ground. Then I tried to sit on him. But the fight didn’t go our way. That little alien sucker threw me off him as if I were a sack of potatoes he didn’t want to peel.
“You go low, and I’ll go high,” Tom said, as we tried to take him down again. We rushed him but neither of us had ever taken kung fu lessons. This time, he was prepared and deflected us with ease. We both ended up getting tossed on our butts with badly bruised egos.
He shook his finger at us and said, “Now that won’t get you anywhere.”
I was going to give him a nasty look, but he already had one.
He and his Warriors took the children and left us in total despair. W
e were left with but one choice, and that was to make a choice.
After a brief discussion between the originals and clones, it was decided. We used a simple method that humans have used throughout their history to resolve difficult decisions.
Since nobody had a coin and there were no sticks or straws to draw from, we settled on rock, scissors, or paper.
Wouldn’t you know it, not my lucky day. I was next in line to join Monroe as a frickin’ alien.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Conflict
“I think he is coming around.”
I heard Caren’s voice like an echo coming from within a deep tunnel.
“Tom-Tom, can you stand up?” I heard myself say.
I opened my eyes and to my amazement, saw Tom standing over me. He extended a hand to help me to my feet.
I grasped his hand, and he pulled me up. I stood, although a bit wobbly, and looked him in the eye.
“You’ve got a king size bump, but Monroe said you suffered no serious damage.”
“What the heck happened? Did I get assimilated by the aliens?” I asked, as I checked out my body parts.
“Assimilated? Aliens? What the heck are you talking about, Tom-Tom?” asked Tom as he furrowed his brow.
“You were knocked unconscious during the shoot-out with the Warriors,” he added.
I looked around and saw that we were still in the same cavern that I, Caren, Monroe, and the Warriors had descended into.
Wouldn’t you know it, it seems I’ve had another one of those hallucinations. Another exhilarating twist to the plot. Were you caught off guard?
Now that I had returned to reality, I looked around and observed something else that is going to knock your socks off. Are you ready for this?
I saw body parts of a Warrior scattered about. But they weren’t human skin and bones or blood and guts.
There were electrical sparks emitting spatially as red fluid flowed from his dismantled body parts. The Warrior looked to be a cyborg right out of a ‘Terminator’ movie. Turned out this cyborg wasn’t so invincible.
