Chapter 11

"Once again we urge you to remain calm. If you wish to exit the city, which is now strongly advised, do so in an orderly fashion."

Wilbert looked back at the tiny television in his newly discovered apartment, and then back out the window at the bizarre storm. In the pit of his brain, he felt a slight tinge of a feeling he could not describe. It was like remorse, only he felt bad about nothing, so that couldn't be it. He pondered the feeling, and wondered why it was overpowering the fear of the current situation he was in.

The mind-wiped man turned his gaze over to the screen, with an anchorman summarizing the event, and then to the real thing outside. He heard the swirling of wind high above, combined with the chaos on the streets below.

What am I going to do?

Wilbert paced back into the kitchen area where he had left the cell phone. He snatched it from the table, and slid the device into his pocket so he couldn't forget it.

Could this all be a coincidence, he pondered, or am I connected to all this?

He decided to find out once and for all, and pulled his cell phone out again. He redialed the number that he shouldn't have gotten, and waited for someone to pick up. As soon as the rings stopped, he angrily shouted, "I KNOW this isn't a coincidence. Now you tell me what the devil is going on or I'll give this number out to every face I can't remember!"

He was sure the receiver heard him, though he got no response. He finally decided to give up, and snapped the phone closed.

All of a sudden, the ground seemed to leap out from under his feet, sending his body crashing onto the table. A series of bangs followed, finishing with a low pitched rumble.

Wilbert jerked himself up onto his feet again, and decided to exit the apartment. He stuffed his cell phone, the ring, and the note into his pocket with hope that they could come of use to him. With a little difficulty, he folded up the package of information, and stuffed that in his pocket as well. Just before reaching the door, he stopped and pulled out the ring he had found. Taking a deep breath, he slipped it over his ring finger, and whispered, "I never abandoned you." With that, he bolted out of his room and out the front doors, hoping it would be safer outside.

To his dismay, being inside the apartment was far safer than the outside. Above his head loomed a large metal object, slicing through tall buildings like a razor through an over ripe tomato. Debris rained down, not improving the situation very much.

What kind of brain surgery did I have?

*****

Sanchali knew how to conquer anxiety from an intense basketball game, but this was nothing she could have ever imagined.

First my cat ran away, and then I met up with two very strange strangers, and now a frickin' alien invasion.

"Take these," Rick said, offering her and his crazed partner powerful flashlights. She took hers, amazed by its weight, and clicked the large button on the handle. A bright beam of light shot out of it, illuminating the sidewalk in front of them. Scott turned his on too, holding it in one hand, while the other firmly held his golf club.

Sanchali and Scott were following Rick, and although it was very dark, they knew they weren't traveling in any logical direction. Scott didn't care, he simply swung his golf club from side to side, waiting and wanting to beat something or someone with it. On the other hand, Sanchali was confused and overwhelmed by the situation, reluctant to lead or be lead anywhere.

"Mr. Burcin, where are we going?" She asked, confused.

He started to reply when Scott blurted out, "Hey, what's that white thing?"

Sanchali shined her flashlight into the street, and for a brief instant, saw a white object dart by. It turned the corner up ahead, and traveled right. She picked up her pace, following it. "Ms. Palkia, where are you going?" Rick tried to keep up, but the basketball player was much faster.

She turned the corner and swept her flashlight's beam across the street, searching for what she saw. It was then she spotted a small, white cat, trotting in circles on the right side of the road. Although it had no signs of recognition on it, she knew it was her cat. She knew who it was.

Snowflake!

She nearly ran into the street to retrieve her pet, when suddenly she saw a pair of lights speed down the road. From what she could make out in a split second was a dirty pickup truck, with a driver and a passenger flopping around in his seat. Then, even though the truck was illegally in the left lane and well out of the way of her cat, it swerved right, and drove straight across Snowflake, killing it instantly.

It took only a moment for her to respond. She screamed at the truck, "YOU BASTARDS! I'LL KILL YOU!" With all her might, she threw her heavy flashlight at it. Amazingly, it hit something on the back, but only bounced off and went out upon hitting the street. The screeches from the tires slowly faded away as the truck got further and further away. Her two companions finally caught up with her.

"Are you insane, woman?" Rick shook her violently. "Do you have any idea how expensive those flashlights are?"

Scott said nothing, and looked completely unaffected by the sudden incident. Sanchali's mouth hung open, from the abrupt death of her cat combined with the two men's responses. "Come on," Rick grunted, pulling her with him to their destination, wherever that was. Sanchali stumbled behind, unable to think about anything, but revenge.

I swear I will hunt you two down, whoever you are.

*****

Josh was driving over the speed limit now, but still cautious. The rain of fire from the unknown machines in the sky had finally halted. The city was quiet except for the occasional gunfire, explosion, or other random noise. Kurtiss still held the powerful pistol tightly, ready and willing to use it.

"You sure you know the way?" Kurtiss broke the silence.

Josh shrugged. "I was going to see if he's still at the hospital, or if there is any way to get information on him."

Kurtiss accepted the idea, as it was probably the best. He looked forward, through the remains of the front window. The two yellowish headlights gave out plenty of light to see straight forward a few meters, but that was about it. The road was littered with usual city garbage, but now only more of it.

To the right, the construction worker spotted what looked like a mother and her child, holding hands while walking down the sidewalk. However, the mother had on the outfit of a pediatrician, signifying she was from the hospital. "Hey, slow down, I want to ask if she knows anything." He pointed, even though Josh couldn't take his eyes off the road.

Josh slowed the vehicle down to almost a complete halt, but argued, "I doubt they will know anything, Kurt."

He persisted on asking, leaning out the window, "HEY! Are you from the hospital?"

The woman looked up at Kurtiss. "Yes. Why do you ask?"

No, did Kurtiss just find someone who knew about Wilbert out of luck? Josh thought.

"I was wondering if you knew anything about our friend, Wilbert. He has no memory and—"

"YES!" The woman exclaimed. "I'm Dr. Sarris, I met with him! What do you need to know?"

Kurtiss asked the pediatrician where Wilbert was. She told him the address of his apartment from what she could remember, and then the two went on their way.

"Now that," Kurtiss turned to Josh, "was skill."

Josh rolled his eyes, and adjusted their course to the apartment in which Wilbert should be located.

*****

A garbled voice spoke. "We are assigning you a new objective. We want you to make contact with the aliens, and establish an alliance."

"Why, if I may ask, do you wish to be on good terms with our enemy, and what if they decline?" Another man answered.

Replying in the same tone, he responded, "Such an enemy will surely destroy every military in every country it encounters. The best bet is to ally, then destroy them once we have gained their trust."

"And how long will that take?"

"Preferably after all other countries have fallen."

Knowing that he meant to use the aliens as a path to world domination, he responded, "I'll do my best."

*****

The alien commander opened communications with one of the pilots. "Establish an alliance with some of the humans," it ordered with a language of clicks and pops. "We can get some of them to fight themselves."

The pilot responded in the same tongue, "Yes commander."

Then, it altered the course of its small vessel downward towards street level in the city.

*****

The English teacher and construction worker drove smoothly along in the pickup truck. On the now cooled bumpy pavement, the truck's suspensions had to absorb more shaking from the uneven ground. They approached the final turn to the apartment, when both Josh and Kurtiss saw something blocking their path; large sections of a building had fallen, leaving the area untraversable. "Not to worry," Josh turned the truck the opposite direction, "we can take another path."

Kurtiss nodded his head, when suddenly they felt a thud on the back of the truck. He instantly spun around in case he could see something, but it was simply too dark. "J-Josh, I think there is something on the back," he stuttered.

"Well, what is it?" He asked, curious.

"I don't know," Kurtiss whispered. Then, he heard a small hiss, and a few clucking noises. "There is definitely something back there."

Josh had no idea what to do, so he just kept driving the car. Kurtiss, on the other hand, flung open the glove compartment, and began furiously digging through its contents. In his rush, a few objects fell to the floor of the truck.

More noises were heard from behind. Kurtiss bent down, still frantically searching. "C'mon, where is it?"

Then, part of the truck started to groan. A shrill sound of metal tearing forced the two to look up as the top of the truck was torn away. "FOUND IT!" Kurtiss exclaimed, grasping a small flashlight. He shined the light at whatever was behind him, and found himself face to face with a green, humanoid creature, staring at him with two pupil-less eyes. "AHH!"

Josh, hearing the noise, turned around and saw the creature too. Kurtiss immediately picked up the Desert Eagle, aimed at the creature's face, and fired. Josh was unprepared for the loud noise, and abruptly took his hands off the wheel to cover his ears. Realizing the mistake, he quickly regained control of the truck to avoid crashing into the smoldering remains of another car. Kurtiss was prepared for the noise and recoil, but not this.

The creature was knocked back a little, but it was still alive. "DUDE!"

"What?" Josh anxiously snapped.

"I shot it in the face, AND IT DIDN'T DIE!"

Josh slurred out, "Well shoot it again!"

The creature took a swing at Kurtiss, but he ducked out of the way, and shot again. This shot impacted the creature directly on the eye, however the bullet merely ricocheted off, leaving a modest sized crack.

"Josh, try to shake it off! This…thing won't die," Kurtiss shouted.

The creature's damaged eye rolled halfway back into its head, showing a clean, undamaged surface. Josh, after hearing the two shots, decided that shooting at the creature wasn't the best idea. Josh violently swerved into the left lane. The creature was shaken, but still held to the truck tightly. Kurtiss flopped around in his seat, trying to get a better grip for next time the truck was jostled by a violent force.

Josh, not paying attention to the road, swerved right again, into the adjacent lane. He felt a small bump, but it did nothing to dislodge the creature.

The creature snarled again, showing the two humans that it was very angry. Kurtiss aimed his weapon directly at its eye, and fired another four times. The each shot bounced off, but the fourth shattered the eye completely. He aimed and fired a final directly into its head.

Let's hope they are designed like us….

The bullet impacted whatever was inside the creature's head with a squish. It made a single cluck, and began to raise its arm. Then, Kurtiss heard a crack from behind it, as if it was struck by something. The creature finally stopped moving, and fell off the back of the truck.

"Jeeze Kurt, how many bullets did you use?"

He unloaded the current clip, and replaced it. "Only one clip," he replied, proud for killing the entity.

"Those things are expensive," Josh mumbled under his breath.

Kurtiss heard, and replied, "Then let's hope we only need to fight two more of those things."

This made Josh smile, and chuckle a little. Then he returned to his serious self, asking, "You know where we are? That bloody alien or whatever got me distracted enough not to pay attention to where we were going."

"I'll keep my eyes open," Kurtiss reassured. "I'm sure we can figure this out."

*****

Mr. Burcin's eyes darted about, looking for something. He continued leading the two others with him, now obviously to no certain destination. Scott Votow had the only flashlight, (and golf club,) in the group, so he kept it pointing straight ahead for the others. Sanchali spoke not a word, and followed her two acquaintances in a daze.

Rick finally noticed something was wrong, and turned over to her. "Are you alright?"

She said nothing for a moment, and then lightly nodded her head. "Y-yeah, I'm fine."

He knew she was far from 'fine', but that wasn't his main concern at the moment. He looked up and behind him, still searching. The suited man squinted, and saw a tiny light off in the distance. The light slowly got bigger, as the object got closer. "There!"

A small alien vessel swooped down from the sky, and reduced its velocity almost instantly to zero. It hovered for a moment, and then made a soft landing on the ground. Scott raised his club.

"Easy now," Rick put his hand on the weapon, "we don't want to aggravate them if they aren't hostile."

"Aren't hostile!?" Sanchali blurted out. "Are you blind? They—"

She abruptly stopped talking upon seeing movement on one side of the vessel facing the metal surface seemed to become a still liquid, and something began to emerge from it. Slowly, a humanoid creature came forth from the vessel. Its skin looked hard, yet flexible, somewhat like an exoskeleton. It had fingers that looked solid as stone, but they moved as well. It had two pure orange eyes, and stood to an impressive height; equal to that of the basket ball player.

She noticed that it had some sort of blue substance on its 'hands'. It raised the viscous liquid to its mouth, and spread some across where its lips would be. Then, it put the remainder of the substance on each side of its head, presumably where its ears were. It opened its mouth, showing that the substance could stretch, and had formed a thin membrane.

"Greetings," the alien said, in English.

The three were shocked at its ability to speak their language. It sensed that, and explained, "I have on me a translator fluid. It changes vibrations of sound, so my language is turned in to yours as you hear it."

"Can you understand us?" Rick was the first to speak.

"Yes."

"Why have you done this?" Sanchali stepped forward. "Why are you destroying our city; our world!?"

"We are not destroying," it replied, "but rather…renovating. This world is unstable, and we have come to heal it, and to heal a wound you must first cleanse it of…infections."

"By killing us all?" Scott angrily questioned.

"No, why would we do that? It would be a waste to try and help you if it included killing your...humble species off. That is why some of you will be chosen to…help us."

Sanchali was about to protest, when Rick spoke first. "Are we worthy of joining you in your quest for world domi—I mean, world revolution?"

If aliens could smile, that's what it did. "Yes, but I hope it isn't just you three."

"No," Rick, too, smiled, "there are many more of us. I am merely the representative of…us."

"Then it is settled," the alien concluded. "May the Humans and the Luumaothican Empire flourish together!"

The alien wiped the fluid off, and then returned to his ship. Scott and Sanchali watched it take off, while Rick slipped away into the shadows. He flipped open a small black cell phone.

"Is the alliance made?"

"It is done," he replied, putting the phone away.

The alien, as it was maneuvering its ship off the ground, opened communications with the commander. "I have established an alliance with a group of humans."

"Good. May the Luumaothican Empire use them to our advantage," it replied. "I will commence surface delivery immediately; escort them out of the city safely. May the Luumaothican Empire flourish."

"May the Luumaothican Empire flourish," the pilot replied.

*****

Josh and Kurtiss, finally knowing where they were, adjusted their route to Wilbert's apartment. "Hey, Josh?"

"Yeah?"

"You ever wonder," Kurtiss asked, "where these aliens came from? You know, like from another planet in this system?"

"They could have come from anywhere," Josh answered. "Looks like they just appeared, so it's impossible to see where they came from."

"True," Kurtiss said. He had finished cleaning up the contents from the glove compartment, however the previous alien encounter had left his truck roofless. It looked even worse than it did before, but at least it could still get them around.

Josh turned the truck left, careful to avoid any debris hidden by the darkness up ahead. "So you really think that Wilbert is somehow connected to these aliens?"

Kurtiss nodded. "Today is a weird day. When two very weird things happen on the same day, chances are they're connected."

Josh shrugged. "I guess I can agree with that. Once nobody showed up for class a few months ago; the room was practically empty! As it turns out, they had planted a cherry bomb with a slow burning fuse in my file cabinets. I knew something was up, so that's the first place I looked."

"Those file cabinets that important?"

"Oh yeah," Josh said. "They are VERY important. In there are sample essays, rubrics, records, you name it! If that bomb had gone off, it would have been a nightmare trying to put everything back in its place."

Kurtiss looked up. The gargantuan alien ship was still blocking out the sun, and the city was still as dark as a deep cave.

This is just plain freaky.

"Alright, we're almost there," Josh mumbled, turning the truck onto the final street. Behind them lay the wreckage that had blocked them from taking the previous route. He realized that with the only light directly in front of them, they wouldn't know where the apartment was. "Kurt, may I have the flashlight?"

"It's can I have the flashlight," Kurtiss joked, handing it over to him. With his right hand, Josh shined the flashlight at the buildings to the left of them, sweeping for the apartment. He spotted the correct address on one of them and stopped the car.

"Hey, who's that?" Kurtiss noticed someone sitting on the curb in front of the apartment. The man straightened his back, and looked up.

"I think that's Wilbert," Josh mumbled. He honked the horn and shouted, "HEY! Is that you Wilbert?"

He stood, and trotted over to the pickup truck. "Josh? Kurtiss? Oh, thank goodness you came back for me!"

"Hop in the back," Kurtiss said. Wilbert did so, maneuvering his body around the many tools in the trunk. Because the top of the cabin was missing, he put his arms over the seats to get a good grip. Then, Kurtiss noticed something.

"Is that a ring?"

Wilbert looked at his finger. "Oh, yes. Apparently I am married."

Kurtiss turned to Josh. "You think we should pick up his wife while we're at it? There's enough room—"

"NO!" Josh and Wilbert cut him off at the same time. Wilbert continued, "I called her, and she said she got a divorce for something I did before the surgery. I don't believe her though, but nevertheless she is very far away."

"What surgery?" Josh asked. He put the car back into gear, and started down the route to exit the city.

"I received a package of information at the hospital," Wilbert explained, pulling it out of his pocket. "It says I had a brain surgery that accidentally wiped my memory, but if what you two say is true, then I shouldn't have just been dropped off at a café."

Kurtiss shrugged. "That's a mystery we'll solve later, but for now—"

He was unexpectedly cut off by a loud bang. Another followed, and then another. They repeated in a steady pattern throughout the city. Josh drove faster.

The quicker we get out of here, the better, the three thought simultaneously.

*****

"Alright, thanks!" The man in the truck said, just before driving away. Dr. Sarris smiled, as she did every time she helped someone. The small girl she was accompanying sneezed, and wiped her nose with her hand.

"Come on Rachael," she gently tugged on her hand, urging them to keep moving. They quickened their pace, wanting to exit this nightmare as soon as possible.

After about fifteen minutes of walking, they came across a small strip of stores, near the edge of the city. Rachael turned her head, observing the contents inside.

"Come on," Dr. Sarris urged, pulling the small girl away from the windows. Suddenly, they heard a loud bang, followed by a series of bangs. Rachael screamed, and clutched onto the pediatrician. She patted her head in a futile attempt to calm her, while looking around for cover.

Immediately, she spied a jewelry shop with the door busted in a few stores away. Althea rushed herself and the child towards it, as the bangs got louder. "Inside!" She commanded, forcing Rachael in. The jewelry shop was a mess from the inside. Display racks were knocked aside, broken glass littered the floor, and beautiful jewelry hung from the wreckage.

Rachael, forgetting her fear, moved over some of it. She admired the jewels and amulets, reflecting the small amount of light from a fire across the street. "B-be careful," Dr. Sarris moved Rachael away from the broken glass, remembering the amount of patients she had with glass-related injuries.

The doctor cautiously moved over to it, and inspected the source of the movement. She then heard breathing, concluding there was someone underneath the debris. Dr. Sarris grabbed a hold of the display case, and heaved it upright, off the man. Then, she bent down to inspect him.

There was a Asian man, covered in broken glass and jewelry. He was unconscious, but still breathing. His hand was swollen and red, but other than that, he had no other obvious injuries. Althea picked him up, and slid him to a more comfortable area.

The man was heavy; not because of fat, but because of his developed muscles. She shivered to think of what must have brought him down, as it had to have been considerably stronger than him.

"Hey! Look what I found!"

Rachael, holding a necklace with a blue jewel, showed it to Dr. Sarris. "That's beautiful!" She said to the child. Rachael placed it on the ground, and went back over to the pile of wreckage. Althea turned her attention back to the man.

Now I have two patients to look after. She smiled.