Wooden Ships (10 page)

Adam stopped the device from working and the dome that surrounded them vanished. He put the device in his pocket and then proceeded to rip all the sensors from his body, next he pulled the skullcap off his head and threw it. A very nervous Jen watched Adam quickly walk over to where Reynolds was standing behind the protective wall.

Adam wanted to leave Reynolds with a little memory of his visit. He looked around for something he could use when he noticed a black hood and a syringe labeled M-19a lying on a table next to him. Adam could only surmise that Reynolds was going to use it on him after he finished, so he took the syringe and ruthlessly stabbed Reynolds in the neck then injected the solution until it was empty. Without pulling it out, he grabbed the black hood and slipped it over Reynolds head, “See how you like it, asshole!” Then as one last parting gift, he unbuckled Reynolds pants and pulled them down around his ankles, he heard Jen say, “What are you doing?” Adam quickly ran back to Jen and with a smile on his face said, “Let’s get out of here before they all wake up!”

Jen always knew Adam had a twisted wit, and said, “Ok, let’s go!”

Adam took the device from his pocket and placed it in his left hand; an energy dome instantly grew and surrounded them.

Both Jen and Adam walked to the steel door, that’s when Jen noticed the cipher lock; “We don’t know the combination, how are we going to open it?”

“Listen to me carefully, I don’t have time to explain now, but this device will make us invisible and when we are, we will be able to walk through solid matter!”

“What?” Not totally believing what she heard, she said, “ah... yeah okay!”

“I want you to follow me closely!”

“Where do you think I am going to go?” she quickly grabbed the back of his shirt.

Adam focused his mind on one thought -
we are invisible.
Something different happened to the dome that surrounded them, exactly what that was could not be explained, except it was like looking through a slightly distorted window that slowly swirled around them.

“Let’s go!” Not really sure this was going to work Adam first pushed his hand through the steel door as a test, there was a slight resistance as his hand slid through, but he was shocked to see it actually penetrated the door. He cautiously proceeded by pushing more of his arm through, however, as their bodies started to go through they experienced an odd sensation. Since every one of their atoms was slipping through the empty space of the solid structure, the electron’s and neutron’s that orbited each atom in their bodies became
perturbed
, this made them feel as if they were actually part of the solid structure; one can only describe it as similar to being suspended in jell-o. Next as their brain passed through the solid structure, they become slightly light-headed and they heard a
whooshing
sound.

“Holy shit! This is actually working.” Adam heard Jen gasp as they both walked right through the steel door. It took some getting used to the sensation, but as soon as they passed through, the odd sensation faded away.

Finally, through the door they both stopped for a moment to catch their breath but were immediately alarmed because standing right next to them on both sides were two armed guards. These guards were not aware of their invisible guests coming through the closed door. Moreover, they were not even aware the blinding purple flash paralyzed all the scientists in the observation room.

Quietly Adam and Jen walked past the guards and toward the elevator. Adam worried they would be detected as they walked by, so every couple of steps he looked over his shoulder to make sure the guards were still oblivious to their presence.

Then Adam heard one of the guards say to the other guard, “Did you feel something? The other guard said, “Feel what?” Thinking nothing of it, they both went back to standing guard.

At the elevator door still hidden within the invisible dome, Adam and Jen slowly walked through the closed doors of the empty elevator. Now they were standing in the elevator and so far, no one has detected their escape. To rest his mind, Adam stopped thinking that they were
invisible,
rendering them visible again. Still wrapped in the energy dome from the device, an excited Jen whispered, “Did we just walk through closed doors? The sensation felt so weird.”

Not having a moment to marvel over the incredible device Adam excitedly said, “We need to be perfectly silent... I am not sure if we can be heard when we’re invisible.”

Their next challenge was to make their way to the ground level, since this facility was under ground the floor numbers displayed in reverse order, Level-G was located at the top of the button selection and Level-4, where the observation room was located, was at the bottom. Adam reached and pressed the button labeled Level-G, hoping this meant ground level. The elevator sprang into action and started to go up.

Watching the floor indicator move up, Adam waited until the elevator reached Level-G then resumed thinking,
“I am invisible.”

Again, the dome that surrounded them reacted to his thoughts and rendered them invisible. When the elevator door opened, Adam could see it led into a lobby. Slowly they walked out, Adam was petrified when he noticed a stern-looking guard sitting at his desk looking in their direction and he seemed puzzled when he saw no one come off the elevator. Being concerned the elevator came up with no one on it he decided to contact the guards on the lower level.

“This is the desk guard at ground level, is everything alright down their? The elevator doors opened and no one came off.” Guards on Level-4 said, “Everything is fine here, but we’ll check with the guards in the observation room, please stand-by.”

“This is staff sergeant Murphy outside the observation room, everything okay in there?”

Meanwhile, Adam and Jen were still nervously standing in the lobby at the same time the guards entered the observation room when no one responded to their inquiries. Looking around Adam saw daylight; they walked toward it going right through a huge window. They ended up outside standing in the parking lot. Still invisible, they quickly walked through obstacles that stood in their way and swiftly got several blocks from the facility.

Meanwhile, the guards entered the observation room and were mystified at what they saw. Everyone was standing frozen and the subject that was demonstrating the secret device was nowhere around.

The oddest thing was a man standing behind a metal observation wall with a black hood over his head. They quickly ran up to him, that’s when they noticed his pants were pulled down around his ankles. “What’s going on sir?” asked one of the guards. Recognizing who it was, the other guard said, “Is that you Agent Reynolds?” They pulled the black hood off his head and realized it was. “Is everything okay?” Reynolds just stood there like a zombie not blinking or saying anything. They saw that a syringe was sticking out of his neck. He just kept looking through the window with a stupid grin on his face, drooling with his pants down around his ankles. The guard asked again, “Sir, are you alright?” They were perplexed and at a loss as to what to do next.

Chapter – Thirteen

A
dam and Jen had gotten several blocks away from the underground facility while still hidden in the invisible dome, when they stopped to rest. “We did it, we got away,” Jen said in celebration. Adam took a deep breath and said, “Yes we did, for now.” They embraced each other for a couple of minutes and were completely relieved they were finally free. As Jen giggled, she said, “I saw you pulled Reynolds pants down, what else did you do to him?”

“I gave him a little something to relax him and then I put the black hood over his head.” Adam had a satisfied look on his face.

Not knowing where to go, they decided to head into the city and hide. There they would decide what to do next. Adam assumed that Reynolds probably found him by detecting the energy surges from the device, so afraid he would find them again he decided to turn the device off.

After the bright purple flash, Reynolds had the oddest feeling in his body. He tried to move but wasn’t able to, all he could do was just stand there and stare at Adam and Jen.

He tried desperately to yell out for the guards to stop them when Adam walked up and injected M-19a in his neck. He instantly blacked-out and had no recollection of Adam pulling down his pants.

After Adam and Jen disappeared, it took an additional 20 minutes for everyone in the observation room to snap out of the trance they were in, except Reynolds; he collapsed to the ground unconscious. Being embarrassed for him, a guard covered him with an extra lab coat that was lying around.

After agent Sullivan snapped out of his trance he rushed up to Reynolds, having watched Adam give him the injection, he knew Reynolds needed the antidote injection to wake up. Looking through the box on a table next to him that contained the syringes, he located one labeled M-19b and quickly injected him in his arm. Reynolds immediately woke up, groggy. “Are you okay sir?” asked Sullivan. Reynolds shook his head yes. Sullivan said with alarm, “Did you see that purple flash? It put us all into some sort of a trance; I couldn’t move a muscle or say a word. Then, I saw Adam and Jen just disappear right before my eyes. Where did they go?”

Reynolds was infuriated that Adam had tricked him, he screamed at the top of his lungs, “FIND THEM NOW! I want both of them back here with that DAMN device. I don’t care if they are dead or alive – do you understand?” All available agents sprang into action and took off in search of Adam and his device.

About the same time that Adam turned the device off, two blocks away he noticed several SUVs racing in all directions from the underground government facility, Adam was sure they were now all awake and looking for them, so they quickly walked into the city and got lost in the crowd.

Tired and hungry from their two-day ordeal, Adam and Jen wandered around the city trying to figure out what to do. They couldn’t go home; Reynolds would have agents staked out waiting for them there, and all their friends and family were probably being watched too. Without any money to pay for a motel or buy food, they were at a loss as to what they should do.

After about an hour of wandering around, they ended up on the Southside of the city. They came upon a small run-down park where they sat down and rested.

The area called skid row has a population of homeless people who roam the streets. Adam thought this would be the perfect place for them to hide for a while. Across the street from the small park was Father John’s homeless shelter, and not having any other safe place to go they decided to try their luck at the shelter. They hadn’t showered in days, Adam had a two days growth of beard, and their clothes were rumpled from sleeping in them. They probably looked homeless anyway. The shelter was gracious enough to provide them a hot meal, a place to shower and sleep. The food was simple, chicken soup and a ham sandwich, but they were hungry and the food tasted delicious. After they ate, both he and Jen were able to clean-up and then they took a long needed rest. While lying down on the small cot next to Jen, Adam tried to calculate how much time had passed since his dream conversation with the Entities, specifically when the aliens were going to show-up and when the sunspot would appear. The Entities said they were three days out and that was about two days ago, so within the next day things were going to start happening.

Adam laid there thinking about the new Earth when he realized he might have already seen it in his dreams when he met the Entities. He remembered it was a beautiful place all clean and new. Being all worn out from his nightmare, and not able to think anymore, Adam fell into a deep sleep.

A disturbance woke Adam up and when he rolled over to look at Jen, she was already awake. She was sitting there with a concerned look on her face. “What’s going on?” asked Adam, “Did something already happen?” There were a few people sitting around a community television near their cots talking excitingly about something they were watching. Adam overheard someone say a star in a constellation had just exploded. Adam and Jen quickly joined the crowd gathered around the television and intently watched.

The Broadcaster said, “Scientists discovered that a star in the constellation Orion named Betelgeuse, a red supergiant, exploded or what scientists refer to as supernova. Scientists claimed the star was very unstable and they predicted the star would supernova someday but no one knew exactly when. Scientists said the star is over 600 light years away and the explosion occurred over 600 years ago. The light from this explosion is just now reaching earth.”

The star that exploded happened to be head of the constellation Orion’s belt. They were showing pictures of the constellation with the exploded star; the pictures were spectacular.

Adam grabbed Jen’s hand and walked away. The homeless shelter served a modest breakfast. When they finished eating Adam and Jen grab cups of coffee and wandered back across the street to the little park, and sat at a bench drinking their coffee. While sitting there they noticed that the sunlight began to diminish, it was as if a thick cloud passed in front of the Sun. They knew the sunspot was now beginning to cover the surface of the Sun.

Adam looked at Jen, held her hand and said, “You know, when I first met you in college I didn’t think you liked me, but I was so excited when you wanted to hang out with me and not just to study.”

With a smile on her face and a sad look in her eyes, Jen replied, “Funny, I felt the same way about you.”

Meanwhile, at the same time Adam and Jen were peacefully waiting for the sunspot to cover the surface of the Sun, there were about 2,000 sinister looking spaceships, each the size of a small city towed by huge solar sails. This spectacle resembled a giant flotilla of Wooden Ships sailing on the high seas. This armada of spaceships was now drifting into orbit near Pluto, which was just on the outskirts of our solar system.

Inside each spaceship were millions of some of the most grotesque and hideous-looking creatures’ one could ever imagine. They resembled praying mantises with dark green coloration and light brown irregular oval spots. They towered about ten feet tall, and had four legs with suction type membranes that allowed them to cling and skitter across walls and ceilings with great speed. They had two very long arms each with eight fingers, each finger had a sharp claw that could deploy or retract at will. They used the sharp claw to disembowel their victims for a quick meal. They did not have individual names but are collectively called “Jatoo.”

The Jatoos are not very intelligent; they owe that distinction to their leader – Gorb, a huge undulating membrane without a face or limbs. It is Gorb, who makes all the decisions for the Jatoos. Gorb operates all their spacecraft’s from a control room, where it is bound and unable to move about. Gorb also controls all the Jatoos like a puppeteer with telepathy and the Jatoos worship Gorb as their God.

The Jatoos were just waking up from a long hibernation, and crawling out of their slimy cocoons, ravenous. They were very excited at the prospect of ransacking Earth’s resources and consuming fresh humans. They were crawling around inside their spaceships in a chaotic frenzy getting ready to launch millions of scout ships to begin their destruction of Earth.

Having already consumed all the living beings from their last invasion, they would focus first on human flesh. When their scout ships entered Earth’s orbit they would set in motion an apparatus that would levitate living beings up from the surface where they could be collected and deposited into empty holding tank. Humans will undoubtedly think this was a biblical event – the great rapture. However, what they would soon discover is a horrific scene of millions upon millions of human beings stuffed into holding tanks screaming while lying one on top of another, waiting to be processed.

The next process would be to combine all these captured human beings into several giant vessels, these large vessels have special openings near the top where giant Boba insects straddle and squirt an enzyme excreted from a gland near their tails. The giant Boba creature looks like a fat worm and is close to twenty feet in length; the Jatoos harvested Boba eggs eons ago from one of their invasions. The Bobas live long enough to excrete enough enzymes for this process then they lay more eggs and then die. The Jatoos collect these eggs and store them for the next invasion. The Gorb, Jatoos and the giant Boba creatures have established a special bond, benefitting from each other – the Bobas provide the enzyme for the process to dissolve human flesh and the Jatoos allow the Bobas to consume and gorge on as many live human beings as they can.

This enzyme creates a sticky slime that encases and paralyzes all the beings. As they lay paralyzed in this mucous substance, they quickly begin to dissolve into a putrid sludge – it’s this sludge that Gorb and the Jatoos consume for nourishment, it will last them for hundreds of years or until they reach their next destination.

Next, all water from Earth would be siphoned for creating a fuel source to power their spaceships and control systems. The Jatoos are grouped together to perform specific tasks; some scour the Earth for precious metals to extract. The atmosphere would be sucked-up and the ice caps removed. They have machinery to drill to the Earth’s core, to drain the molten magma. All byproducts not suitable for use would be left to decompose. All that would remain of Earth would be a piece of dirt unsuitable for life. What’s left is incinerated when they explode Earth’s Sun. The enormous shockwave generated from the supernova will fill their giant solar sails as they set a course for their next destination to invade.

Meanwhile, as the sunspot grew and the sunlight began to turn into twilight, Adam told Jen that he loved her very much and gave her a kiss. With his arm around her holding each other they watched everything unfold before them, people ran around helpless and scared not fully understanding what was taking place. With tears in their eyes and softly sobbing, both Adam and Jen were scared of what was going the happen next but they stayed strong.

Adam said, “I’m looking forward to the new Earth and being with you.”

“So am I.”

Adam laughed and told Jen, “I can’t help but think how funny Reynolds looked with his pants around his ankles, in his trance. What a fool he is. I bet he was pissed-off when I injected him with M-19a, I’m sure he would have put a bullet in my head over that stunt.”

Jen laughed, “Yeah, it did look pretty funny.”

Adam took a deep breath. The Sun was almost blocked out by the sunspot. The air got cold and there was an eerie silence. Adam knew the end was moments away; he turned to Jen and hugged her tight as she rested her head on his shoulder.

Holding each other bracing for the end, Jen whispered something into Adams ear; Adam pulled away, looked at her in shock and said, “You’re pregnant?” Jen was crying.

The Sun exploded with a blinding flash so bright that the light penetrated everything like x-rays. Covering his eyes with his hands for protection Adam was able to see the bones in his hand. Then there was a deafening explosion so loud that the sound killed the majority of life on Earth and everything known to man was instantly incinerated along with all the evil aliens.

B
eyond the infinity of space is a day without a tomorrow, dark and empty, with no light, no air.

Sitting all alone, listening to the rhythm of heartbeats as they grow frail and in the reflection, a glimpse of a soul, once filled with a vibrant life, slowly fades away.

This was our world, now drained and as the shadows cover those dreams that once lit up our lives, I cried out, but no one heard me.

So weep not children for your mother, for she has now departed, to a new home.