Alien Versus Nerd Read online

  “Something’s wrong.” She looked around as if searching for an answer in some hidden place.

  Taken by the same disturbing sensation, I began to experience an uneasy deja vu sensation. Little by little, Camila was building her theory.

  “What if this is an illusion, just like a virtual reality? She articulated intelligently.

  “You mean like...Matrix?” stammered Kevin, still skeptical.

  Camila looked at us again, breathtakingly. “They forged everything from the start.” The gleam in her gaze faded into a terrifying expression.

  Amanda came closer. “I saw on a website that they can implant false memories in our minds.”

  Then everything I’ve lived in those last few minutes might not even have happened, I thought. Nothing could be more frightening.

  “They could recreate a three-dimensional, interactive movie for us without us being able to tell the difference,” I said disturbingly as I stared at Amanda’s distressed, distant figure who seemed to have taken refuge in her thoughts.

  The reality we were seeing there might just be a holographic projection. According to Quantum Physics, the universe would be like a ghost, a kind of gigantic hologram, and our brains would function as frequency transceivers interpreting reality in the form of wave patterns as a hologram. Imagine now an extraterrestrial supercomputer capable of projecting images almost as if they were real enough to recreate reality itself.

  The aliens had developed a technology that allowed them to jump from one aspect of the same reality to another, using electromagnetic frequencies.

  “This can’t be happening,” Amanda replied, now with a distant look.

  “And maybe not.” Camila tried to explain while she walked thoughtfully across the room. She paused and hastened to add. “We’re in a typical abduction scenario.”

  “Oh, come on. This is not possible, after all, we’re here, aren’t we?” asked Amanda, now aloud.

  The roles had now been swapped.

  Kevin was categorical. “In a holographic reality, concepts like time and space are not fundamental, we may not be where we think we are,” he argued, trying to put together a new logical line of reasoning that somehow did not seem to be working there.

  “If this has already happened, I mean...We’ve already been abducted.” Amanda suggested. “Somehow, they manipulated our minds so that we couldn’t remember.”

  We were dealing with an enemy who was capable of acting on more than one frequency of the electromagnetic spectrum and who most likely took over our minds.

  Camila remembered her abduction episode in the woods.

  “We’re reliving the same scene,” she said, terrified.

  Amanda panicked. “We got to get out of here now,” she said, gasping for breath.

  Soon the veil of darkness was completely undone. We invariably returned to the starting point.

  Camila turned to the window.

  “Soon we will know.”

  Suddenly a flash of bright white light came through the window, obfuscating my vision. Amanda’s hand clasped mine, and the last thing I remember was seeing her face be eclipsed like a distant image fading into a string of dark thoughts.

  There’s only me left.

  I felt an indescribable fear as if something frightening would emerge from the darkness and engulf me until I choked. Then I closed my eyes and opened it again, hoping that everything would return to normal. But that wasn’t what happened. I was in exactly the same place, surrounded by that unreal and bleak scene. It was then I felt a cold and terrifying feeling just thinking about what would come next.

  At the exact moment I saw that bluish light glow through the window, I knew deep down that I have only a few seconds left until it all ended in a very fast clash. Then A column of light struck the ground and a faint figure came out of a dazzling light.

  “Piper?”

  She stared at me.

  “You can still save your friends. Come with me if you want to live.” She reached down and hauled me out of the wreckage.

  Right behind me, the whole reality was collapsing. Luckily, I made it out of there in time.

  Holding out for a Hero

  Piper took me to a safe location and projected a hologram. “The Spektrons as they call themselves, live somewhere in the phantom universe, one millimeter away from your world. Also, they joined forces with the Krill Empire.”

  Many believed we lived just a frequency away from an alternate reality where other beings could pop in and out of our world at will. Piper now had quoted a conceivable phantom universe.

  “Great, if one wasn’t enough, now we have two of them. Been wondering if we could lay low for a while and off to Hawaii, huh?” I said eagerly.

  Piper tilted her head in disappointment. “You still didn’t understand anything, did you?”

  “Of course, I did. The planet’s gone. What I want to do now is chill out and enjoy these last few seconds.”

  “I would expect anything from you except selfishness.”

  “Now it’s you who don’t really understand. I call it self-preservation.”

  She snarled at me.

  “Supposedly you’re afraid to go over there and face them, right?”

  “Fear can be pretty convincing, doesn’t it?” I flinched.

  “You should know the fear is the favored food of your opponent. Selfishness, hopelessness and despair is what makes them stronger and invincible.” She uttered emphatic.

  Piper stayed tight-lipped on when and how my role would fit into all this.

  “There are only two ways. The first is the path of love that leads to enlightenment and the second is the path of fear that unavoidably will lead your world to them. They’ve failed to assimilate you.”

  “What I do need now is to go somewhere far away from here.”

  “You can’t back away now. What’s wrong with you, anyway?” Piper gave me a good chewing out. “I thought you wanted to be a hero, to prove something?”

  I turned to her and tried to convince her that it was all a mistake and I wasn’t the right guy for this mission. However, she refused to listen to each one of my arguments.

  “Maybe it will help you change your mind.” She projected a new hologram and backed a few hours ago. “Now you will see exactly how it happened.”

  The hologram focused on the figure of a tall, slender girl otherworldly, eyes set well apart and slightly slanted who wore a tight-fitting body-hugging cloth. She was where she always has been from the beginning, orchestrating our destruction.

  In cyberspace.

  Facing the monitors, she observed our world for a moment, knowing the countdown to destroy it had just begun.

  “She’s your target.”

  Determined, she continued with the plan and launched a dreadful cyber-attack, paralyzing our entire defense network. The ETI (Extraterrestrial Intelligence) acted at a fast clip and dropped off weapons all over the planet.

  “Did you understand what you just saw?”

  “You mean the Alien’s Next Top Model, so what? I don’t need to prove anything to anyone, right? Besides, those alien girls are not my idea of fun.

  Piper scowled. “I see. So basically, your idea of fun is to hole up here, eating cookies and scratching your balls all along while the entire planet goes off.”

  “Better a live coward than a dead hero.”

  “I’m glad the Superman doesn’t think so,” she drawled.

  She was irreducible and seemed determined to make me change my mind at any costs.

  “This isn’t right, you can’t just move out and leave all behind like nothing’s happening. You need to confront your fears.”

  “Now you’re looking like Master Yoda. What do you want me to do anyway? That... I go up there and play Luke Skywalker? Come on, I’m just a regular guy.”

  “So, you want to play the coward your whole life? And what happened to all that talk of changing things, moving forward?”

  At that point, my eagerness to iso
late myself on a deserted island, listening to my iPod seemed greater than ever.

  “What do you think will happen if you’re not there to take them down?” Piper’s voice brought me back from my daydream. “Do you really think they won’t go after you? Besides, what would Amanda Henderson think knowing that the only guy who could save her chose to run away with his tail between his legs?”

  It snapped to my senses that I couldn’t leave the others hung out to dry. Besides, who am I supposed to fool? Piper was right, I needed to go back and join battle. Without Amanda by my side, nothing would make any sense.

  “You’re right. I need to go back there and even it out.”

  She sat me on a chair and attached wires to my brain, plugging me into a computer. What an average person would learn over a lifetime, I took only a few seconds. I went through a process akin to a REM sleep where each piece of information got implanted in a specific area of the brain. Within seconds, I learned how to fly a combat jet and handle hi-tech weapons.

  I left the seat a bit confusing with my brain all hiked up. Piper gazed at me, surprised.

  “You’re a soldier now.”

  Reluctantly, I agreed to the battle plan elaborated by Piper. Time was running short and I had to be very fast if I wanted to fend off the invasion.

  “Wait. I guess you’re gonna need this.” She added, handing over an Android phone-like device to me.

  “I made it a few upgrades. It functions as a soldier’s assistant to remotely control drones and robotic weapons. But remember, your ammo isn’t infinite, so use every weapon you get wisely. Believe me, you’re not going to run out of ammo during a decisive battle, will you?”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “One more thing, seek to divert her as much as you can.”

  “You want me to lure her into a trap. And how am I supposed to do that?”

  “Use your wits.”

  “Outsmart an alien?”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that if I were you.”

  “And where will you be at, exactly?”

  “Cyberspace. You won’t go it alone. I’ll be overseeing you all the time. If I get the global military network back on-line, we might still have a chance to beat them out.”

  “This is the future warfighter system, it consists of an exoskeleton built-up in the main suit with an infrared display and thermal sight to visualize hidden targets. Congrats, you have your own C4ISR now.”

  “Smart glasses,” I said, testing out the eyewear. “Cool, it comes with VR.”

  “These are your weapons. A kinetic rifle and an air-blast weapon.”

  I connected the red dot and lifted up an arm, testing the exoskeleton built-up in the main suit.

  “If you’re outgunned, you might want to use this, it works like a plasma shield. I’d almost forgot, here’s your manual. The instructions are on the front-page.”

  “Wow, now I’m looking like a tough guy.”

  “Good, I’m glad it met your approval. Well, we’re on the brink of destruction and you’re the only one who can stop them.”

  She enabled the gravity distortion unit, ripping a hole in the space-time continuum. “This is very dangerous.” She reminded. “You can go back in time for one hour only. If something goes wrong, we can seriously compromise this timeline.”

  She showed me the time displacement unit. “It started out with a game and it’s gonna end with a battle, a final one.” Piper grinned at me. “Now go get your gear on and kick some ass.”

  Piper turned to me, with a certain fear in her eyes, and smiled shyly. Slowly I made my way to the beam. “I’m a go.”

  A bluish-white light reflected on my face. As soon as I bowed my head and went into the opening. A beam swept my body as if I were an object being scanned by a laser barcode scanner.

  Battleground: Bayville

  A sparkling rip opened and I returned to the past almost instantly. I was too late. It was already beginning. Seeing all the movement, I realized I was facing a countdown.

  They hit us pretty hard in the beginning.

  Communications were disrupted and ground bases had been destroyed by unseen craft and beam weapons.

  As our world in its darkest hour was holding out for a hero, airlifted troops waged a fierce battle in target towns.

  The alien spacecraft still remained stationary at two thousand feet, leaving behind a visible trail of burning shards, indicating the battle was far from over.

  Somehow the military had gotten to wall them in.

  But it didn’t last too long. The Air Force picked up a signal over Bayville, was calling down the aliens to attack.

  It meant only one thing, the ETI was near.

  Later, small teams of Navy Seals reported close encounters with an extraterrestrial in Myrtle Beach, Clover and Hilton Head Island.

  Most accounts were quite disturbing, suggesting the alien was able to change shape and teleport from one spot to another.

  Airborne and black ops teams were dispatched to the area, outfighting small crews of alien weapons and extraterrestrial soldiers, which had migrated to the neighboring areas.

  Meanwhile, army infantry units struggled to hold off a new breed of warfighter concealed in the area swooping down upon the troops, some type of hybrid robotic machine, stealthy and low-maintenance, hurling and lunging across the buildings.

  As small airborne units set to join the remaining forces on the ground, occupying key positions on the east side, I dashed into a building. A flight of stairs led up to a shattered room.

  “I hope I do not screw this up,” I said, wearing my body armor and helmet.

  Ducked on the left corner of the room, I peered through the window and saw a scattered troop scurry to the other side, pointing their guns up and down.

  The air raid had leveled north half of the town, and debris fell from the skies. I glanced back and squinted two tall, dark aliens appear on the corner.

  One of them glanced throughout while other broke into a shopping mall. Three hooded figures far short than the others rounded up the corner.

  I crouched down, panic-stricken, and spotted through a broken-out window a thin silhouette of a creepy figure on the rooftop of a building, scrutinizing the area as if it were a sentinel or a mechanical thing wearing some sort of cloak device.

  A beam of light made its way into the building, I leaped out to my feet short and blasted the door open. As the light glared down on the second floor, I headed down the stairs out into the street and went stealthily. I could only use the stealth mode for a limited amount of time. Otherwise, it would fritter away all of my battery power.

  Next, I spotted what appeared to be a huge UFO above Hampton Mall. A second later, a cluster of small bright lights appeared, floating in the sky. I stood rooted to the spot while the object rotated on its axis, hovering randomly.

  Now it was in front of me, gliding silently along the buildings that overlooked the main street. Viewed from below, it had no vertical stabilizer and had a row of pulsating lights along its trailing edge. Its size was about thirty meters in diameter.

  The craft was of a flat triangular shape, with lights underneath, it was completely silent as it moved across the town. Then one of the lights detached itself and joined another lights as it descended to ground level.

  Shortly after, two tall dark suited figures emerged from a dim light, escorting a small group of hooded entities. These hooded cloaked figures marched along, accompanied successively by a being slightly smaller than the others.

  I noticed by its gait it was a female entity.

  At this moment, a human-like figure slowly turned toward me while other sinister figures stood still and lined up next to each other.

  One of the beings wore some sort of helmet with visors pulled sideways attached to it and I couldn’t tell if it was a mask or its face.

  He seemed to have a military trait.

  Many of them wore black coats and capes and had weapons that resembled long sharp spears wi
th light features. She approached me and began to speak.

  “I have to admit, you’ve got a lot of guts to show up here.”

  The eerie figure lifted the hood from her head, revealing long strands of blond hair and a blue-eyed face. It gave her a sultry look.

  The female Nordic alien introduced herself as the latest and most sophisticated version of a very powerful alien mainframe.

  “I call 9.0,” said the metallic and menacing voice that came from her tiny lips. “So, You are Lucas, you go by the gamer alias cybermajor7. We’ve been tracking you all this time. This time, looks like you went off the deep end, huh?”

  She emerged out of a new setting.

  Then I realized it was all just a holographic projection. I was in a virtual scenario of some sort, was known beforehand the incredible ability that aliens had to design places and events with just the power of their minds.

  “You know why I’m here,” she said. “In case you haven’t figured this out, let me lay it out for you.”

  A new hologram jutted out of her cybernetic mind, showing an alien fleet pounding heavily each one of our military facilities.

  She knew how to piss me off.

  “You should ask your leaders. They broke the agreement we had since the 50s and now we’re at war. For a moment, her eyes flashed ominously. “This time, we’re here to phase out humanity.”

  “Let me guess, the alien master plan.”

  A twinkling glow radiated off her strange face. “Like any other human, you are so predictable and a fool if you think you can stop us.”

  She made a wry face.

  “You know, even you can be improved. You just need to join us.” She spoke persuasively, trying to seduce me.

  “Hey, you can stop right there,” I said aggressively. “I’ve heard this crap before, when this is all over, I’ll turn into a vegetable just like the movies and walk a like a zombie without a soul.”

  “Wow, what such imagination you have. Alright, you had your chance.” She walked behind me. “Your sci-fi movies have always been right about us, and you should know better than anyone else that any attempt of resistance is futile.”