20 years.
That's how long Dr. Brackish Okun had been placed in a coma.
Ever since the War of 96, his lifelong friend and partner, Dr. Milton Isaacs, visited him almost everyday, adorning his hospital room with all assortments of flowers, especially orchids, Brackish's favorite flower. On July 3, 2016, Dr. Issacs entered the room, greeting his lover as if he were wake. Only he wasn't. Dr. Isaacs spoke to his partner, as he set a crystal vase filled with a spotted orchid near the window along the display of exotic plants and sprayed the delicate lavender petals with water. Milton then walked over to Brackish's bedside and wrapped a knitted scarf around his neck, securing it with a small bronze button.
All of a sudden, Brackish woke up screaming. Milton was taken back in surprise and screamed in return. He held his partner's arm and helped him to calm down.
"It's all right, baby", said Milton. "Eric, get the medical team in here! He's awake!"
"Did we win?" Was all Brackish could say. He then realized his vision was nothing but a blur of distorted images and asked nervously where his glasses were. Dr. Isaacs reached for Dr. Okun's glasses on the nightstand and handed them to Brackish, who's vision improved once he put them one.
"How long was I out?" Asked Brackish.
"A long time, baby", said Milton. "A long time."
Brackish looked up and down at his partner, and said to him, "I'll say. Babe, you got a bit fat. And really bald."
Nervously, Brackish placed a trembling hand upon his head, fearing what had become of his own hair. He felt nothing but the soft touch of silvery locks, long and wavy as they still were 20 years ago. Brackish laughed in such sweet relief, as Dr. Isaacs helped him to lie back down.
"But you still look great", said Brackish to Milton.
Brackish briefly rekindled with old friends, David Levinson and Thomas Whitmore, and was quite surprised to learn that there was now a woman serving as president. When he learned from David about a spaceship that had been shot down and that he had retrieved a strange metal box from the moon, Dr. Okun wasted no time in getting started on finding out what the strange object contained inside was. Milton urged him to put on a pair of pants before jumping back into work, to which Brackish replied with, "Why didn't you tell me my butt was hanging out?", as he grabbed the opened back of his hospital gown, trying to cover up his exposed buttocks.
After being given a pair of pants by Dr. Isaacs, Brackish rushed over to a chamber, which revealed a huge laser device he had named the Okun Laser. He had a couple of young men help him carry it over to the alien-like structure, as Milton replied with concern, "What is that thing doing here?"
"Be a good boy and go stand over there", Brackish replied, as he ushered his fellow scientist out of the way. The bright-eyed scientist strapped on a pair of googles and activated the Okun Laser, shooting a laser beam at the glass covering on the front of the extraterrestrial structure.
After about ten minutes or so, a young accountant by the name of Floyd Rosenberg warned the scientist that the Okun Laser was smoking. Brackish shut the darn thing off and said, "Tell the boys to rip this thing apart!"
The box was split in half by a crane, as a giant spherical object crashed through the glass and rolled out, stopping just a few inches away from Brackish, who stared up in awe at the beautiful Sphere. It was pearly-white with a black horizontal line around its middle. Little did Brackish know was that the giant Sphere was looking at him, scanning him using scientific graphics to detect his every move.
"Hello, gorgeous", said Brackish.
The Sphere zoomed in on Brackish's face with its scanners, taking in every detailed feature of his face. He looked nothing like any of the other alien beings from its travels across the universe, for the Sphere had never seen a human before, and though it would had loved to interact with this one specimen of the primitive race, the Sphere knew it had to complete its mission first.
Brackish ordered to bring everybody to the lab, as he sat himself down at a computer to see if he could detect anything on this spherical objects existence. Nothing came up. By the time David and the others had arrived, Brackish was baffled.
Meanwhile, Floyd walked up to the Sphere and placed his hands on the smooth surface of the giant white ball.
"Hey, get your hands off of that!" Brackish barked at him.
David told him to remove his hands, but when Floyd tried removing them, he couldn't. To make matters worse, his hands started sinking into the Sphere's wall, as if it were made out of a glue-like paste.
"All right, just don't panic", said David.
"I'm being eaten alive and your reaction is not to panic?!" Floyd shouted. Suddenly, two bright orange graphics appeared on the Sphere where Floyd's hands were trapped and the young accountant felt his hands become free. Everyone gasped as they watched the Sphere float a few feet above the ground and release a wave of bright blue light around itself, looking like a plasma globe. The black line around it also glowed a bright white.
"He turned it on just by touching it", said Brackish with disbelief.
"I activated myself when I detected your biological signature to be different from theirs", the Sphere spoke in a female robotic voice.
"It speaks!" Brackish laughed with enthusiasm. "In English, too."
"I deconstructed your primitive language", said the Sphere.
Brackish felt shock by this and asked it, "We're primitive?"
"Correct", the Sphere answered, as it explained how its species shed their existence thousands of years ago. It also explained that when it became aware of the distress call from the aliens, the Sphere took it as a mission upon itself to evacuate as many humans as it could, but then the humans took down the Sphere's spaceship with the same weapons the aliens used on the Sphere's home planet. The Sphere also explained how the aliens had been extracting molten cores from other planets and that its kind had fought them for thousands of years, but then the aliens destroyed all of their ships, leaving the Sphere the sole survivor.
"Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that", said Brackish with sympathy. The silver-haired scientist asked the Sphere if it had a plan, to which it told of a hidden planet where the Sphere taught beings from other worlds how to build weapons with new-found technology that would eradicate the aliens for good.
"But now that I am activated, the Queen will detect my signature and hunt me down", said the Sphere. "You must terminate me or she will get the coordinates to the refugee planet."
Brackish didn't know what to do. He did not want the Sphere to be destroyed. This thing held so much helpful information to the human race, he could not just let the Sphere be wiped from existence.
Luckily, David asked if the Queen could be killed, to which the Sphere replied with, "No one has ever killed a Harvester Queen before."
"That's encouraging", Brackish said under his breath.
All of a sudden, David had an idea: if they could replicate the Sphere's signature, they could lure the Queen into a trap and kill her. Therefore, the Sphere wouldn't have to be destroyed. With that said and done, the newly-elected President, General Adams, gave the approval for David and the rest of the team to prepare themselves and make ready for the final showdown.
While the humans combated outside of Area 51 to take down the Queen, the Sphere was safely secured inside the isolation chamber, along with Dr. Okun and Dr. Isaacs. Curious to see what else this thing knew, Brackish gently placed his hands on the Sphere, who floated a few inches above the ground. He asked it questions about physics and wormholes, to which the Sphere answered him by displaying holographic images of stunning visuals. Dr. Okun's eyes gazed upon the advance science the Sphere's "hard-drive" had to offer, making him crazy with excitement. Milton ushered for the overly-excited Brackish to calm down, but the bright-eyed scientist only wanted to learn more.
Unfortunately, this remarkable discovery was cut short, as the isolation chamber shook violently, forcing the Sphere to deactivate itself. Two guards protecting the chamber moved outside, before the doors to the room concealed itself. Little did Brackish and Milton know was that there had been a breach in cell block five, in which two dozen alien had escaped their prison cells. It wasn't long before the doors to the isolation chamber were reopened, in which two aliens entered the room. They both saw the Sphere standing still and motionless behind their next two targets: Dr. Okun and Dr. Isaacs.
All hope seemed lost, as Brackish clutched a shaking hand onto Dr. Isaacs, his lips trembling in fright and his eyes filled with terror. But just as the aliens started firing at the two lovers behind the glass doors, Floyd Rosenberg and the mighty warlord Dikembe Umbutu burst into the room and began firing at the two extraterrestrials.
Brackish felt no trace of pain in his body and looked up at the two men who had just saved him and Milton. He stood up and chuckled with glee.
"Baby, we're safe!" Brackish cried triumphantly. Sadly, it was too good to be true. As he looked over at his lover lying on the floor, Brackish saw that Milton was bleeding from his chest.
"They...got me", said Dr. Isaacs, weakly.
"Oh, no", said Brackish with concern, as he walked over to Milton and dropped to his knees, placing one hand under his head and the other on his lover's injury. "Don't worry", Brackish whispered. "I'm gonna get you to the sickbay."
"Don't worry", Milton choked. "I'm not gonna make it."
"Wait a minute. Wait, wait", Brackish begged him, trying to hold back tears. "You can't go. Who's gonna water the orchids?"
"Who's gonna make sure you put your pants on in the morning?" Milton joked, as he and Brackish shared one last laugh together, before the poor man succumbed to his injury.
"Oh, no, no", Brackish cried, tears welding up inside his bright blue eyes. "Oh, no. No. God, no." Brackish buried his face into Milton's neck, hot tears running down his face and trickling down his nose, as he wept over the death of his one and only lover. The Sphere, though it seemed deactivated, still detected this new range of emotion the long-haired scientist was displaying. Hearing the soft gasping noises that came from Brackish's throat made the Sphere wished it was human in order to understand the pain that Brackish was going through, as he held onto the mortal husk of what was once Dr. Milton Isaacs, his best friend and lover.
Brackish had not too long to grieve, as the isolation chamber shook again. The heart-broken scientist looked up and realized the Queen was here, trying to break through the roof.
"More are coming", he heard Dikembe say, as more aliens with gun were about to enter the room.
Enraged over the death of his lover, Brackish grabbed the alien gun from Floyd and began firing at the oncoming squad of aliens, yelling as a new-found rage filled his veins with fury. It only took two minutes for Brackish to take them all down, but the agitated scientist didn't stop and kept firing at the alien corpses. It took a pat on the shoulder from Floyd to make him stop and bring him back to reality.
"It's over", said Floyd. "You got 'em all."
Suddenly, and without warning, the Queen broke through the roof of the isolation chamber and grasped a slimy hand around the Sphere, taking it up and out of the chamber, while the three men stared up in horror.
"Except that one", said Floyd.
Fearing of loosing the Sphere next, Dr. Okun rushed out of the room as fast as he could, unaware that the Queen was being taken down by a couple of alien fighters that were hijacked by Captain Dylan Hiller and his friends. When he stepped outside for the first time in 20 years, Dr. Okun saw the Queen's body lying not too far from the base, her biosuit was split open, revealing to him her incredulous ugly face with dead eyes. The Sphere laid next to her hand.
Brackish ran over to the Sphere, who sensed the Queen's death and reactivated itself, floating a few inches above the ground. As Floyd and Dikembe walked over to the dead Queen, Brackish stood in front of the Sphere, who sensed his presence and locked its faceless gaze onto him, the black line around it glowing bright as if it were smiling.
"Are you okay?" Brackish asked with concern.
"I am. Thanks to you", said the Sphere, gratefully.
Brackish bowed his head and sighed with relief.
"You humans are a remarkable species", said the Sphere.
"Not so primitive after all, huh?" Said Brackish.
Afterwards, Brackish went back to the isolation chamber, or at least what was left of it, and dropped to his knees, as he held the dead body of his beloved Milton in his arms. The eccentric, silver-haired scientist had been awake for no more than two days and had already began to make plans for him and Dr. Isaacs to start a future together, but now it was never to be. Brackish had lost his one true lover forever. Nevermore to spend the rest of his life with him. Nevermore to hold his hand. Nevermore to hear his voice ever again. Brackish let silent tears run down his face, as he lowered himself to place a kiss on Milton's forehead.
The Sphere floated silently over to the heart-broken Brackish, who knew it was there, but paid no attention to it.
"I am sorry for the death of your friend", said the Sphere. "If there were some kind of technology that could bring him back, I could help you."
Brackish slowly looked up from his dead lover and said to the Sphere, "You mean there isn't any?"
"Correct", said the Sphere. "Once a living specimen has died, the body can no longer be resurrected."
Brackish's glasses seemed to fog up, as he let more tears run down his face and lowered his head. He carefully set Milton's body back down on the floor and stood up on uneasy legs. The Sphere floated over to him, as Brackish leaned his head against its faceless front and cried softly, his body shaking like a leaf.
"I've got nobody in this world anymore", Brackish whispered to himself.
The Sphere sensed his feelings of grief and loss, and displayed for Brackish a sea of holographic, bright blue stars around the room, hoping the regal splendor would bring him some comfort.
"Incorrect", said the Sphere.
Brackish looked up at the Sphere with watery eyes, staring up at the giant orb with a kind of sense and beauty like he had never seen before. Was he feeling something for the Sphere that he never felt with Dr. Isaacs? No! It can never be! Brackish thought to himself.
"W-what?" Brackish asked it.
"You were the first human I ever saw", said the Sphere. "Therefore, I have imprinted myself onto you. I am fully aware that I am not human, but I have detected that your species has feelings and emotions, something that is new to me. I have agreed to help give your people new weapons and technology to fight their enemies, but if you will allow me to bring peace to your organ called a heart, I can help you fight your enemy known as grief."
Brackish could hardly believe what he had just heard. Was this the Sphere's way of saying it loved him? Yes, he was curious to learn more from and about the Sphere, but could it give him the same special love Milton gave him? Brackish knew he could never replace him, but the bright-eyed scientist figured that at this point, he had nothing left to loose.
"You are not alone, Brackish Okun", said the Sphere. "For I shall be your friend and more."
Brackish managed a little smile and released a half-sob/half-laugh sound from his lips, as he slowly placed an arm around the smooth, round surface of the spherical artificial intelligence who would never leave his side. The Sphere felt the heat of his body, as Brackish held onto his new best friend, partner, and companion. If the Sphere had arms, it would hug him back in return.