The Awakening (The Hyperscape Project Book 1) (5 page)

Her eyes had
Nick’s attention from the moment she stepped into the room. Her gaze was fixed
on him with wide-eyed wonder, like a kitten focusing on something just before
it pounces. One of her pointed ears occasionally twisted to the side as she
listened to noises undetectable to him. Her cute little nose twitched at the
smell of the new human species before her. Surprisingly Nick didn’t feel
scared. In her presence, he actually felt somewhat calm. Maybe because she
seemed less threatening than the other aliens, or perhaps because she was so
much like a human girl, he wasn’t sure. In her eyes he thought he saw a glint
of compassion, and for some reason he just felt that she wouldn’t harm him.

“Sharaku atpa
hurakti?” As soon as she spoke, Nick relaxed even more.  She had a much
more pleasing voice than the other aliens.

“I am Nick
Bannon. Can you understand me?”

The female
tilted her head slightly and blinked her big green eyes. She held up the two
devices she had carried in with her.

“Shaktu herak.”
She brought the devices closer to Nick’s face.

Nick
instinctively leaned away. “No, wait. What are you doing?”

The large alien
grunted and took an aggressive step toward Nick.

“Okay, okay.”
Nick agreeably leaned forward again.

The female took
one of the devices and held it about six inches away as she slowly moved it
around Nick’s head. Then she ran it down the front side of him and up the back.
From a glance at the other device in her hand he could see that it must be some
kind of scanner.

She turned to
the big alien still guarding the door.

“Skakturu
hepadite uruktu.”

“Hakrutu
arkinek,” it replied.

Mister Ugly Ogre
Face stepped over and grabbed Nick’s head with one hand, turning and leaning it
to the side. Nick struggled uselessly against its grip. He was like a ragdoll
in its powerful hands. Quickly, the female removed some kind of device from a
pouch on her hip and put it to Nick’s neck. He felt a sharp sting where she
pressed the device against his artery. He flinched, fear pouring into his veins
like hot lava. A warm tingly sensation swept through his body. Had he been
wrong to trust her? Was this alien female going to kill him right where he
stood? Nick fought to control his fear. Never in his life had he felt so
utterly helpless. He was completely powerless to do anything.

Then as suddenly
as it started, it was over. The two aliens let go of him and stepped back.

“What did you do
to me?” Nick touched his neck with his fingers, the sting now slowly fading.
Were they waiting for him to fall to the floor and die? Did they inject him
with something? They could easily kill him without doing that. Was he a guinea
pig for some hideous experiment? What the hell was going on? His mind raced,
but all he could do was sit there, his head reeling with fear. Everything
turned into a blur. His life and all the bizarre events of that day whirled
furiously around in his head. Nick’s eyes searched frantically around the room
for something, anything that would make a difference. But there was nothing
that could help him now. A tingle crept over his head unlike anything he had
ever experienced before. Resigned to his wretched fate, he finally collapsed to
the floor. So this is it? This is the end? He was so young, he had so many
plans. He wasn’t ready to die yet. He desperately wanted to see his friends and
family again. Overwhelmed by it all, and too helpless to do anything, he
waited.

He flinched when
a hand touched his shoulder.

“Jeez!” He spun
and looked up to realize it was the female. Her eyes had a look of sorrow, as
if she could feel the terror he was going through. Slowly, as if deliberately
trying not to alarm him further, she reached up and touched her head.

“Harak,” she
said.

Nick stared at
her. He couldn’t understand what she was trying to tell him. She touched her
ears and motioned to Nick as if to get him to do the same. Nick touched his
ears. The alien female smiled. She touched her ears again and said “Aeroks.”

Nick replied
“Aeroks?”

Her eyes
scrunched into an appealing squint as a look of frustration spread across her
face. She pointed at his mouth and then to her ears.

Realization
dawned on Nick slowly. “Ah! Ears,” he said, then touched his own ears again.

She smiled and
said “Aeroks.”

She continued
the same process with her arms and legs. Each time she would nod slightly when
he said the accompanying word in English. When she had finished she handed Nick
a device. He looked it over. It was small, compact, lightweight and displayed
an image of a planet on a holographic screen. The planet didn’t look familiar.
Why was she showing it to him?

She pointed to
the screen and then to Nick’s mouth.

“Planet?” He
shrugged, a little uncertain now.

She smiled and
pushed a button on the device. A new image appeared. Again she pointed.

Nick was starting
to understand. She was going through a language program. But it wasn’t for him
to learn
their
language. Funny thing was they didn’t seem to be trying
to learn
his
language either. The whole scene was puzzling, but at this
point Nick was just happy to still be alive. So far he hadn’t been harmed, just
scared out of his mind.

Nick continued
through the images, saying the identifying words as he went. When they came
upon an image that was unfamiliar to him, the female pressed a button to skip
them.

Just when he
thought the language lesson would never end, the female stood up and went to
the door. She turned and held up her hands. Nick assumed by her gesture that
she intended for him to stay put. As the large alien exited the room behind
her, the force field appeared across the doorway again.

Nick took a
moment to again assess his situation.  He was definitely a prisoner, but
at least he was alive. Despite his circumstances, the female made him fear his
situation a little less. Perhaps it was the compassionate way about her.
Her
…whether
she was female was still a guess at this point. She sure looked feminine,
but…could he really be certain of that?  Hell, he wasn’t certain of
anything anymore.

A short time
later she returned with some water and something that resembled a military food
ration bar. How he loathed meal bars. They always left a bad taste in his
mouth.

Nick was a beef
and potatoes kind of guy, always leery of things like Tai food. But alien food?
Now that was a downright scary thought. With as much diplomacy as he could
muster, Nick carefully took a nibble of the bar. He held the small piece in his
mouth and waited for the flavor to register on his tongue. Surprisingly, it
tasted better than it looked.

“Chicken. It
tastes like chicken.” He grinned. Of course, if it was going to taste like
anything, it would be chicken. Still, it wasn’t quite chicken, was it? 
No. It was alien food, made of whatever alien food was made out of.  He
didn’t even want to think about it.  He wondered if he would have any
trouble digesting it, but in the end the hunger won out. He hadn’t had much to
eat before going on the mission and quite a long time had passed since that
meager breakfast. Glad to have something in his stomach, he wolfed down the
rest of the bar.

“Eat.”

Nick stopped
chewing for a minute and stared at the female creature staring back at him.
“Holy…. Did you just say…eat?”

She smiled.
“Yeess, eat fraktu.”

His gaze was
glued to her lips. When she spoke, her mouth didn’t seem to move properly. He
was hearing English words, but there seemed to be muffled speech in the
background. Her mouth moved as if she were saying something completely
different than what he was hearing, like one of those old Japanese videos that
had been dubbed over in English. He couldn’t understand all the words she was
saying, but at least it was good to hear something he recognized.

“I can
understand you! How?”

“Whee fix you.”
She pointed to his neck where they had injected him.

“You put
something inside me?”

“Yes.”

Nick felt a lump
form in his throat again. Oh, God! What had they put in him?
Shit!
His
heart rate accelerated as fear rose into his chest.  “What did you do to
me?” he demanded.

“We put
transssakor smalaturak.”

“What?” 
Nick shook his head in confusion. “What are you saying?”

The female alien
took the image device and typed something into it. She held it up so that Nick
could see an image of what appeared to be microscopic robotic machines of some
sort.

He pointed
feebly at the screen. “You put these in me?”

“Yes. Seee.”

She pushed a
button and the image changed.

Nick watched as
the picture zoomed out and rotated around until he could get a better over-all
view. He was looking at an image of some alien brain loaded with thousands, if
not millions of miniature machines.

Nick sat back in
surprise. Shock and fear twisted his mind almost to the breaking point.

“My God, you put
machines in my head? I have alien machines in my head!”

The female
looked at him in concern, or what he thought was concern.  She seemed to
understand his fear. In an attempt to communicate, she quickly put her hands on
her head and then pointed to the image.

He looked at her
and then back to the image device. “You mean you have these in your head too?”

She looked
relieved that he understood. “Yes. All have these.”

Nick’s brain
ground around the puzzle slowly. His eyes widened as he began to understand.
“Oh! They’re translators, aren’t they? Those little gizmos in
my…our…heads…they’re translator devices?”

“Yes!” She
touched his forehead gently with one finger. “They learn brain. Get better more
later.”

“Nanites!”

The female
looked at him strangely. Apparently the word didn’t translate.

“Holy shit, I
have nanites in my head!” Nick was familiar with nanites. He remembered
studying them in school. Nano-technology had always fascinated him. Microscopic
robotic machines that could do amazing things. But they’d proven too dangerous
and had been banned on Earth decades earlier. Back home, nano-technology was
still in the early stages, and science had done more harm than good when it
came to implementing any new technologies in that field. Earth’s scientists
just didn’t know enough to use nanites safely. Once, some of those little
buggers had run out of control and killed a whole town full of people and animals
before they had been shut down using a massive EM pulse.

Nick felt like
he was going to wet his pants.  He could only hope these aliens knew more
about nanites than the people back on Earth, because now he had a head full of
language-bots roaming freely through his synapses.

“That’s why you
look like a dubbed Japanese film when you talk,” Nick muttered. “Because you
are
dubbed. By those things in my head. You’re not really speaking English at all.”

If he wasn’t so
damn afraid, he’d be amazed.

A gruff voice
coming over the intercom startled him. “Kurak he ready nouy?”

“Yes he kurak
ready,” the female replied.

Little by little
Nick could understand more words. But the knowledge did nothing to ease his
fear, or answer the myriad of questions he had. Where was he? Who were they?
What was going to happen to him? With the language technology implanted in his
head, maybe now he’d be able to ask.  But would they answer?

Zzzt.
With a sound like flies hitting an electric debugger, the force field dropped
again and that damn big, scary alien ducked into the room. Even worse, it
looked directly at him as it stepped closer. The creature reached out and
grabbed Nick’s arm. Nick instinctively jerked back, but was unable to break
free of the alien’s strong grip. The beast twisted Nick’s arm and pointed
toward Nick’s wrist.

“What is this ma
sheen?”

Nick looked in
the direction of the alien’s gaze. The damn thing was pointing at his watch.
His high-tech, fancy astronaut flight watch.

“It…it’s a
watch,” he stammered. “It shows what time it is.”

“How you destroy
hurcyrac sheip?” The huge alien said with a booming voice.

Nick frowned in
confusion. “I didn’t destroy the ship. It was an accident.”

“Akseedent? What
is akseedent?”

Nick’s brain
kicked into high gear as he pondered the situation. It seemed that there was
more here than met the eye. Whose ship was he on? And who were the guys on
those other ships, the ones he had accidentally destroyed?  At this point
he didn’t know if the other vessels were friend or foe to his captors. Were
they going to hold him responsible for destroying those ships? He could be in a
whole heaping pile of hell if one of those ships were from this
things
race.

He immediately
went into cover-his-own-ass mode. “I did not mean to destroy those ships. That
is what accident means. It was unintentional, a mistake. Do you understand?”

“You come
through great hole. Hole weapon. Destroy. You know about hole.” The alien
squeezed Nick’s arm harder. The firm grip made Nick nervous. It felt like the
beast could snap his bones with one hand if it decided to.

“Great hole?
What great h—” Nick’s eyes pulled into a squint. “Wait a minute. Are you
talking about the hyperspace window?” Shit, how was he going to explain this
one?

“Hole is window.
I open window, but ship damaged. Hole close. Accident.”
Oh great
, he
thought.
Now I’m talking like them.

The alien beast
let go of Nick’s arm, and it fell limply back to his side. Trying to ease the
uncomfortable buzz of pain in his arm, Nick rolled his wrist and repeatedly
balled his fist in an attempt to get the blood flowing again.