Alien Versus Nerd Read online

  “Hey guys, I think I had a vision of the future.”

  “Don’t be such a paranoid, it won’t happen anything. It’s just a movie.”

  The steel structure was a frightening sight and it ran a shiver down my spine.

  “Chill out, man.”

  “I’m chill. But you’re way off beam on this one. Just saying.”

  “It’s anybody’s guess.”

  A few moments later.

  “Should I puke now or later?”

  “Come on, it wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  “You know me, I’m not exactly a wing coaster fan.”

  The worst part was the half-inline twist, I think my stomach is still upside down. You want to know the slightest details about it. Fair enough.

  At least, no one died. The roller coaster didn’t fail, and it was no disaster.

  It was just a ride at the end. I was so impressed by Amanda, I forgot the fear I had of roller coasters. She held my hand, and we embarked on the train, cracking ourselves up.

  Shortly after, we went to a karaoke bar and rounded off the night doing Bryan Adams and OMD numbers. Amanda gave me the balance I needed in my chaotic and meaningless life and I now spent more time with her than playing Halo Wars 2 because staying with her was a fresh thrill at each level.

  Counter-Strike, Fight the Aliens and Mean Girls

  Camila started her first year at Smallwood College in a disastrous manner. Inside the limestone walls, something odd was taking place. She seemed a bit off, yet wondering whether or not, she was in a tangible world. She was all alone in the cross hairs of Veronica and her friends.

  As Amanda still sought to fit in, I tried to figure out what’s going on. Then we decided to act. While Camila rocketed up the remaining steps to join us, I started to devise what appeared to be a plan.

  Camila seemed still out of sorts as her story did the rounds on campus.

  “Hey guys,” she said in a hushed voice.

  Amanda walked up to her. “Hi. I’m Amanda and you can count me in,” she said, looking friendly, with a charismatic smile.

  Camila appreciated the gesture and extended her hand in a cordial manner.

  “Well, guys, if we have to do something, the time is now,” Camila said impatiently.

  “I agree.” Amanda reiterated. “We have to face it.”

  Camila glanced over at me. “What’s the plan?”

  “I’m working on it. Right now, all we have to do is fight the aliens, right? If we want to defeat them, we’ve gotta be in it to win it.”

  “Fight the aliens, is that your go-to world-shattering plan? We’re screwed up.” Camila snarled. “Now you want to square up.”

  “If anyone has a better plan, I’m listening.”

  “What if it doesn’t work out?”

  “We go to plan b.”

  “Now you have a plan b. Let me guess, are you out to blast the town or what?”

  “Good idea. We call in the military and send off the drones.”

  The day we entered the campus, all gazes fell on Camila. Somehow, Amanda smelled out danger.

  “Everybody’s looking at us.”

  “I think it caught on pretty quick.”

  “Heads up, the Borg Queen has already warned the hive mind by now.” Kevin hinted.

  “In that case, I hope we may be able to jam the signal network.”

  We had to plan our next step very carefully. Besides, we’re outnumbered. Determined, we met on north campus to hash it out. Camila told Amanda her story. Shortly after, the truce broke out. This act triggered the outbreak of a war. We went through undergoing systematic persecution.

  The masks would soon fall off and the enemy would reveal itself.

  Until then, we had to stay indifferent and ignore such threats, but deep down I knew we couldn’t do it, not for too long. The real reason behind all this web of intrigue was only one; our connection with Camila Evans. She was the primary target and the enemy was just testing our defenses.

  If we showed any sign of weakness, they would come out and destroy us. The Internet was the most wanted weapon of the adversary. The messages we got that day were becoming explicit and menacing more and more.

  “Think of it as our Independence Day,” I said a bit edgy, alluding to ID4 Roland Emmerich movie. “I’ll tell you what, we’re gonna say no to the aliens.”

  Although Camila wasn’t sufficiently convinced of any alien involvement in the issue, she backed us up. Then we began to frequent the same places almost daily; the library, the snack bar, and the football field.

  During classes, the friendship was our shield. Every time someone harassed one of us, the other defended him or her and so on.

  The first attack was directed against Amanda. They tried to tear us apart, but it didn’t hold us down.

  Upon returning home, Camila found a warning written in blood on the wall, ‘You Are Next’. The same night, Amanda began to get threatening phone calls and being chased by mysterious hooded figures. The next day, we’re on the verge of a confrontation and we simply held off.

  “I think this girl appears to have many skeletons in the closet,” Kevin said.

  The blonde bombshell and her thugs crossed the hallway leading to the lunchroom. As we sat at separate tables, Camila decided to change the plan in the very nick of time.

  “I have to face her alone.”

  Veronica Sanders was the first to enter the refectory and headed straight toward Camila. At the same moment, a group of aspiring mean girls invaded the room.

  “I didn’t expect to see you here, at least not so soon. Are you still seeing ghosts?” she said with a slight dash of irony.

  As her gaze met Camila’s, we overheard a conversation at the next table. Veronica’s flock was quickly filling all the voids and putting themselves around us.

  Camila wasn’t intimidated and gazed hard into Veronica’s eyes.

  “Eventually, I guess.” Camila replied self-assuredly as she chewed her snack food. “Things have never been the same since that night.”

  The stupid giggles progressively were ceased to a silence. Veronica placed her elbows on the table and turned her inquisitive gaze to Camila.

  “And what exactly do you think you saw that night?”

  “You know, that thing chasing us down in the woods.”

  Veronica snorted at the hint. “Let me clarify for you if you didn’t realize it yet, I call the shots now. If I were you, I’d leave before anyone else gets hurt,” she said with an annoying chuckle.

  Camila’s eyes were directly fixed on Veronica as she grinned. “So, you run the campus now.”

  “You should know that when I want something, I go straight to it.”

  Emma, one of the attendants, mumbled behind the counter. “Is it me or are we really back to high school?”

  “Hey, speak when spoken to,” Kelly bawled furiously.

  “You shouldn’t be here and you know it,” Amy muttered menacingly.

  “We trusted you and you betrayed us,” Kelly protested, giving the last finding of fact.

  “If there’s a betrayer here, this betrayer is you,” she darted back. “You set this up from the very beginning and put everyone against me, but it won’t work for me, not now. In the end, they will know who you really are.”

  “Look at her. She looks a total hot mess.” Amy grinned nervously.

  Kelly frowned at Camila.

  “Your time will come and I hope not to be here when it does.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “Consider this a warning.”

  “You know very well what happened that night and I’m here to expose it.” Camila bawled.

  Kelly’s face quivered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. To begin with, we’ve never been there.”

  “I’m not really so sure about this,” Amanda growled. She hopped out behind a table and moved across the room. “I think you’ve gone too far.”

  “Who are you anyway, her bodyguard?” Kel
ly O’Brien sneered.

  Veronica stared at Amanda. “You have no idea where you’re getting into.”

  “We’re all a little on edge here,” Amanda protested. “But there must be way to solve this here now.”

  Kelly rolled her eyes and scowled at Amanda.

  “Noobie.” She looked down on Amanda’s clothes. “I think you’re in the wrong century, sweetheart.”

  “You mean wrong decade. Just getting this fixed.” Amanda replied, making Kelly look like an idiot.

  Amy tilted her head to one side and flashed a half-smile.

  “Finch’s new girlfriend. I’m impressed. What did he do to convince you?”

  That awkward moment when you wake up, go to a party and think that somebody put something in your drink. Well, I think it’s one of those days, I thought.

  “And you must be the ex. Now I know why he dumped you.”

  When Amy threatened to totally destroy Amanda, Veronica interposed between them. “Calm down, girls. Let’s not do anything we may regret later.”

  Tired of going defensive just as mere spectators, Kevin and I decided to do something and joined the girl’s fray. Camila was right when she talked about her. Veronica was a bit of a snob and turned her nose up at everyone who crossed her way. “If I give an ultimatum to the leader, perhaps the others might understand the message, I thought.”

  “Hey.”

  Veronica giggled when she saw me.

  “Finch and Humphrey. Always in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “You know me. I love to get into trouble.”

  Kevin took his gaze off Veronica and sighed. “Think it’s a-should’ve-stayed-at-home-day gaming and case-modding.”

  “Get lost, airhead,” she said, putting him out of action. Veronica turned to the audience, confident.

  Veronica leaned forward. “Just you and I like the old times,” she said, reminding me of high school days.

  The Smallwood College was now a battlefield and the atmosphere became suffocating. Kelly knew it was just a matter of time.

  “So, what’ll it be, Lucas? We can finish what we started or maybe we should put it off to another time, what do you say?”

  I set off the counter-strike. “This looks like an alien version of Mean Girls.” When I said it, the others jerked back.

  Those cold, intimidating gazes we’ve been staring at quickly shifted into a look of fear. Veronica Sanders seemed far more frightened than the others. Amy threatened to intervene, but Kelly grabbed her arm to hold her in place. Veronica squeezed her eyes shut.

  “You’re such a nerd.”

  “As far as I can tell, you’re a doppelgänger.”

  “One what?”

  “An identical imposter.”

  “You and your theory. I know where you’re going with this, but if you keep talking about alien invaders and body snatchers, people will laugh at you.”

  “Someone needs to tell the world.”

  “And you are this guy. Come on, Finch. You’re so far from being a Fox Mulder.”

  “And you’re not who you say you are.”

  “You have nothing,” she said dryly. “Not even a single piece of hard evidence to corroborate your stupid theory. Who do you think they will believe in? The girl who was the prom queen last year or a guy who seems to live in a parallel world?”

  Suddenly the room darkened. There was a moment of awkward silence.

  Veronica’s soulless eyes were fixed on me. “You know better than anyone what’s at stake here. If I were you I wouldn’t take any unnecessary risks.”

  “If you have nothing to lose, why don’t you start telling us about what really happened that night?” I asked.

  So, for some reason she felt threatened and stepped back .

  Veronica stood facing me. “I’m not exactly planning to go war-nerd right now.” She gestured toward her group. “Let’s get the hell out of here and leave this bunch of losers.”

  All of them turned at the same time, and one by one was leaving the room in a single row. Kelly turned to look at us.

  “You’ve been warned.”

  “We’ll be waiting,” Amanda asserted.

  Amy closed up on me. “You won the first round but it’s not over yet.” Her words were a clear and grim warning to all of us

  “She’s right, it was just a tie for now,” Amanda said.

  “They can’t do you no harm.” Kevin guaranteed.

  Camila turned to me eagerly. “Alien version of Mean Girls, where did you get that?”

  “Well, she took me by surprise, I had to improvise.”

  Camila threw us a look of gratitude. “Thanks for helping me. You guys are awesome.”

  “If you need, we’ll always be around,” Amanda said, with a smile.

  Kevin shook his head. “Well, I’m not sure what exactly happened in that room, but you can count me in as well.”

  “Anytime,” I said, congratulating Camila.

  That was just the beginning, I thought. We were just average people, but when we gathered, our strength made a difference. And that’s what I expected to count in the future.

  Close Encounters, Spooky Places and Stranger Things

  We were told some residents reported to the authorities an attack from mysterious lights in the sky, in a rural area north of the city. Sometime afterwards, the same phenomenon appeared about two miles away form Pink Hill.

  The first case came from a reputable witness who reported the sighting of a yellow brightness, which later turned into a UFO, going to emit an intense red light under its surface.

  Another witness in Snowfield reported a sighting of a round object about thirty meters in diameter the same night. Thus, we began our own investigation, carrying out an extensive fieldwork, reading measurements and gathering samples of soil.

  Kevin heard several eyewitnesses and wound up coming across an array of inexplicable and strange events that defied logic and seemed to belong to the realm of the weird.

  Later one of the residents of Trent Woods approached.

  “I do not know what I saw, but it seemed to be from another planet,” he said.

  He revealed that after his sighting, his home, which was about five miles south of Dark Ridge, was reportedly overrun by mysterious black helicopters.The second witness seemed even much more frightened. She gazed into the camera and then spoke.

  “That thing was spherical and very frightening. I’ve never actually seen anything like that before. It was certainly not earthly.”

  The following event was yet more revealing and held a series of mind-blowing accounts. When people left their homes in Haywood Creek, they encountered a strange light in the sky, the whole street was lit up like it was broad daylight. Every time we reached a certain location, the phenomenon moved on and manifested itself in another location, and so on, as if it were anticipating our presence.

  We were in a dreadful cat-and-mouse game.

  Some farmers north of the city reported alleged sightings of ghostly beings as well as what appeared to be shadowy translucent figures. In some cases, many of these accounts fit the description of the famous Falkville tin foil alien encounter.

  By that time, a series of unexplained phenomena was haunting a small community in Craven county.

  Many occupants of neighboring areas reported sightings of unusual lights and strange objects. What we were doing at that point had more in common with the investigation team of “ghost hunters” than actually with the fieldwork conducted by most UFO researchers.

  I felt like we had literally stepped further into the territory of bizarre and if we continued on, maybe we didn’t go out there to give our testimony, it became even more evident when we examined the site that Camila described in her account.

  It really was a frightening place.

  During our trip to that location, we felt a strange invisible presence around us as if we’re facing a malevolent force or something. Even though Kevin looked a bit stunned, he never showed it while mainta
ining the scientific rigor of the investigations. But the truth is that we were not alone.

  There was something out there, just lurking in the dark.

  The intriguing orbs of light could be some kind of machine as well as supernatural phenomena. Other cases investigated could well be explained as part of the awareness of some symbiotic alien ship exploring the surrounding area.

  Although Kevin dismissed this possibility, he seemed to have arrived at the same conclusion, only in different ways for him, all the events seemed to be mysteriously intertwined as products of the same phenomenon. The ghostly entities observed by numerous witnesses followed a pattern and were nothing more than reactions to our presence.

  “I think that some secret intelligence is playing tricks on us,” he said, probing many reports on the table.

  He thought for a moment, and then presented his conclusion.

  “This seems to predict things before they happen.”

  Kevin suggested we might be dealing with an interactive component that reacted to people, events and disturbances. The events of the telekinetic type and ghostly apparitions were demonstrations at holographic level.

  According to him, all the phenomena observed were just holographic projections of that component, and these events were conceivably from a parallel universe.

  Something that modern physicists denominated as “wormholes”. He mentioned Camila’s case. For him, this served to confirm his thesis. Camila had a run-in with a mysterious invisible intelligence. Excited, he turned to me and quoted a bizarre case investigated by the NIDS staff (National Institute for Discovery Science) on a ranch of 400 acres, north of Utah in 1996.

  “We are dealing with some kind of pre-cognitive intelligence conscious. It’s a highly developed quantum technology based on the principle of non-locality and perhaps even vacuum fluctuations.”

  I threw him a look of uncertainty. George Knapp widely investigated the case and claimed that the area northeast of Utah was supposedly an interdimensional portal through which non-terrestrial creatures were able to reach out out to our reality.

  “English, please.”

  “It’s thousands of years far ahead of our time.”

  I thought for a moment. “If that’s how you say it, imagine what this thing is capable of.”