Pahnyakin Rising

P
ahnyakin

      Rising

Elisha Forrester

Copyright © 2014 

Elisha Forrester

All Rights Reserved

All character representations, names, and events are fictitious.  Any resemblance to real persons or situations is coincidental.

Pahnyakin:

puh-nigh-uh-kyn

-1-

In 2017, Russia and Ukraine engaged in combat against one another, breaking a peace treaty signed by world leaders only one year prior.  As expected, the United States leaders sent troops to the Ukrainian-Russian border. What was not expected was that under strict orders from the president elected out of left field, soldiers were directed to offer assistance to neither country.  Born and raised Ohioan and first female president, Melissa Cartwright—sworn in two months before the conflict escalated into full-blown war— firmly assured the U.S. that it was the right thing to do.  This policy, after all, was the reason she was elected.  The American people were grossly dissatisfied with providing financial and military aid to foreign lands, citing an abundance of social issues requiring political intervention on U.S. soil. 

Cartwright’s plan backfired within three months.  The two nations at war banded together to drive U.S. forces out of the lands, an unprecedented move.

For Russia and Ukraine, there was no real physical threat posed by the U.S. military guarding the border, assuming either side refrained from attempting to use force against one another.  Instead, the threat was unspoken and was on the plane of mentality.  The dueling nations found themselves communicating and came to a unanimous decision: the United States was using military units as a threat that it would take control of the situation at hand.  Under no circumstance would either country relinquish control.  If they worked together to rid the border of the perceived threat, Ukrainian and Russian leaders would have the ability to govern their own lands, free of outside ruling.  Nobody would invade their countries and take away the leaders’ abilities to choose what was right for the two countries, even their decisions for what was right was actually wrong.  

President Cartwright’s plan did not founder at any fault of her own.  Indeed, her reform policies were sound and well-welcomed by the men and women whom had voted her in office.  Nobody could blame her decisions. Humanity, when faced with a threat within its own structure, will destroy itself at any cost.  But when faced with a threat from an outside source, humanity will create a bond and rise above any inner conflict in effort to sustain.

Cartwright gracefully bowed out from the Ukrainian-Russian conflict, citing each country had a right to decline military assistance.  In a jab heard around the world, the U.S. leader addressed congress and it was voted to retract financial assistance from the United States to either warring nation.  This brought a slew of politically-based threats from Cartwright’s fellow politicians, but the American people were largely accepting of the decision made and Melissa’s Cartwright’s numbers in the satisfaction polls soared.  Not once did she go back on her word to help the United States before she helped another nation. 

Following her agenda for the country, Cartwright cut funding to more than 140 nations around the globe.  This bold move left sores in the mouths of those with the silver spoons torn from them, but Cartwright attempted to keep peace by bartering import and export costs.  By cutting financial assistance to foreign countries, Cartwright was able to reduce the federal deficit and offered assistance instead to her fellow Americans by putting money back into U.S. homes and businesses.  Detroit was rebuilt to the beautiful city it was before it was left to crumble and overgrow with criminal activity, and thanks in part to Cartwright’s actions, world-renowned corporations opened new branches within the city, offering more than 300,000 new job openings.   Undoubtedly, Cartwright was despised by some; but she was hailed as true leader by most.  Her second-year satisfaction polls ranked even higher than the numbers from her first year.

American voters elected Cartwright for a second term of presidency.  Upon reelection, she immediately released a plan to reform education.  By 2022, with the flourishing technological advances and poverty-lines reduced by 75%, a child had the opportunity to advance from elementary school to middle school with a greater understanding of any subject he or she chose as a focus.  Cartwright offered tax incentives and lucrative government contracts to universities willing to work with high schools and middle schools in the country, something community colleges had been doing for years.  Though not fully taken advantage of, it was not uncommon to hear of a student possessing an Associate’s Degree by the time he or she entered ninth grade.  Under the reform, if a student chose to take on the daunting task of extra studies, he or she could graduate with a Bachelor’s Degree or higher.  Cartwright then offered tax incentives to businesses to hire these new graduates.  Many believed the reform would drive out seasoned workers with less educational experience, but the results were far from what were expected.  Instead, businesses grew and unemployment rates were at an all-time low.

When Melissa Cartwright announced running for presidency in 2016, few voters imagined the crooked-nose, rose-skinned redhead with a bobbed cut to her shoulders and her bangs carelessly tossed above her right ocean eye would amount to much.  She was mocked on late night talk shows and ridiculed in newspapers for the extra weight she carried on her waist and hips.  Her thick neck was drawn with droops and rolls in caricatures and clever political rivals pasted her face on election posters, using thick black lines to connect the orange freckles on her face into words.  The most memorable poster, Cartwright’s photo with a black marker used to connect the dots on her face to read ‘inexperienced’ above a tagline that read, “The truth is written all over her face.  Vote for McGee,” was plastered on telephone poles and on wooden signs that were hammered in the soil alongside roads.  When the political-nobody emerged from the shadows, nobody really believed she had a shot at winning.

Electoral policies were revised in 2024 and Cartwright joyously accepted a third term as president.

The mood changed in 2026. 

There are many quotes that can sum up the fact that life can change in the blink of an eye, but when these moments occur words are meaningless because those to bear witness rarely know what to say.

 
On the third Tuesday in March, Cartwright was pulled from a press conference with such urgency her audience could not overlook.  The world speculated on what would cause a slew of Secret Service agents and advisors to storm the black metal platform on which she was standing and tear her away from the crowd.  Some chalked up the scenario to a rumored assassination attempt.  Others created conspiracy theories that President Cartwright was behind an upcoming terrorist attack or the people of Earth were facing extinction from an approaching meteor.  In actuality, the truth was much odder and created mass panic. 

NASA released details of contact initiated by an unknown species.  The word ‘alien’ was thrown around and decided upon by the masses, but world officials chose to refer to the species as ‘visitors,’ despite the simple fact that the species had not entered Earth’s orbit—at least not to NASA’s knowledge. Not much was known about the visitors in the first week of contact.  Government officials confirmed the species communicated with humans only through numerical and binary codes.  The species identified themselves as Pahnyakin.  World officials and top NASA operators met at an undisclosed location to discuss the options on handling contact with the species and announced in a press conference broadcast around the world that it had been decided that any country the Pahnyakins chose to visit would welcome the species.

And around the world, people reacted to the final word of the government officials.  Frightened by what they did not know, people panicked and turned to hoarding emergency supplies.  News stations aired live feed of bare shelves at local grocery stores.  Looters took to smashing storefront windows with bricks and baseball bats.  A photo of a Wall Street businessman walking out of a burning electronics store with a stolen laptop in his outstretched arms became iconic and was plastered on the front of every major newspaper.  Fear managed to overtake the majority of the world’s population.  It was not only the fear of what was known, but also the fear of what was unknown.  Though NASA revealed translated transcripts of the conversations with the Pahnyakins, it was human nature to distrust.  A week earlier, humans had no viable proof of life on other planets.  And suddenly, a species had stepped forward and alleged they traveled from 11,000 light years away, something scientists could not wrap their heads around. 

When NASA asked the Pahnyakins to declare reasoning behind contacting Earth, the species simply replied in zeros and ones, “To teach.  To learn.  To coexist.” 

World leaders cautiously extended an invitation to the species, to which the Pahnyakins accepted.  The alien species requested to land three ships near Washington, D.C.  Every military branch in the United States was involved in evacuating the surrounding areas and strongly advised President Cartwright to also evacuate to an undisclosed safe zone, to which she adamantly declined.  Select news outlets and reporters were granted passage to the event that was broadcast on nearly every television station.  Crowds of the curious flocked as nearby as possible, some fifty miles, determined to be one of the first to come in range of the visitors, to have a firsthand account to tell friends and family members.  What troops were not in inner-city D.C. were stationed at the perimeters of the quarantined area or in every major city within the United States.  Around the globe, other world leaders ordered troops to do the same. 

At 11:39 a.m., Eastern Time, clouds above Robyn Dean’s 110-acre vacated cattle ranch dissipated and a deafening set of jet-like hums filled the air.  Soldiers in full combat gear stood with raised automatic weapons, prepared to fire upon even the slightest display of aggression from the Pahnyakins.   In a triangular formation, three stingray-shaped silver-hued ships dipped lower until they landed in the empty field.  Grass beneath the ships ignited and turned charcoal black.  Despite the tremors below their boots and their sweating palms, the soldiers remained poised and alert.  As soon as the humming had appeared, it ceased, leaving a ringing in the ears of those surrounding the seamless ships.

-2-

An army stood before her but her focus was on the Pahnyakin stationed across the room. 

He was called Bre’ek.  She stared into the black visor masking a face she had never seen and would never know, certain in her gut that he was staring at her, too.  But with the Pahnyakins it was impossible to determine just who or what they were studying.  The seven-foot-tall slender being stood with his bluish slinky metal arms to his sides and slowly wriggled his limp spaghetti digits.  He was an Absorber, sent to study human interaction.  Every classroom had one.

  “Tolson,” Ms. Bell shouted over the sound of squeaky sneakers on the gym floor and red foam balls slapping against teenage skin.  “Get your head in the game before someone knocks it off your shoulders.”

It was amazing, thought the girl, how society had become so evolved, yet there she was, expected to participate in an archaic battle of dodge ball.  She looked away from Bre’ek but could feel his gaze upon her as she backed up against the cold red brick wall and inched to her left. 

One by one, her teammates were picked off after being pummeled with balls and the mix of high school juniors and seniors all seemed to be pouting on their walks to the red boundary lines painted on the sides of the pine basketball court.  They sat in cliques along the grooves and benches on the retracting wooden bleachers in their thin white tee shirts and mesh black shorts. 

And before she realized it, she was one of two students left on the court.  As Nick Shepherd stood on the other side of the center court line with his fingers gripped in the yellow innards of the torn foam ball, the girl braced herself for the pain to come.  Nick, starter for the football team, top-scorer for the basketball team, and all-around the most popular kid in the school of 900 students, would throw the ball with his cannon of an arm as hard as he could manage, just to add insult to injury.  She was nothing to him but a glob of dirty chewing gum upon the bottom of his four-hundred-dollar designer high-tops. 

Bre’ek shifted his weight from one long limb to the other as she did and the girl knew undeniably that the Absorber was watching her reaction to the situation unfolding in the center of the gymnasium.  She blocked out the chatter and taunts from her classmates—all of which were right up Nick’s alley.  As she did on the first day of school, she again asked in her mind how she ended up to be the only normal kid in a class filled with teenagers treating P.E. like it was the Olympics.

She cocked her head to the side and Bre’ek mimicked the girl’s actions.  He did so slowly, as if he was learning the movements for the first time.  With a steady pulse and her mind on nothing else but the Absorber, she stepped forward.  She did not have a plan; she wanted to stand with him towering a foot and a half over her and she wanted to stare straight against his thick visor until he became so unnerved with the constant watching he did to others that he turned his elongated steel egg-shaped head away in shame.  It would never work; the Pahnyakins could not register emotion.