Here's chapter 22 everybody.
Chapter 22: Area 95 and Freak Show.
All the Osean pilots, foreign pilots, the Osean and foreign transports and Air Force One have arrived at the highly classified Osean Air Force base that is known as Area 95 in Califia. The base is very secretive that the details of its operations are not made public but it is commonly thought to support the development and testing of experimental aircraft and weapons systems, similar to the South Belkan Munitions Factory in Sudentor and its intense secrecy surrounding the base has made it the frequent subject of conspiracy theories. At first, the area surrounding the base is permanently off-limits to both civilian and normal military air traffic, but due to the situation, all surviving Osean planes and Air Force One are allowed to land at the base and even the foreign pilots are even allowed to land there as well. Anyway, Air Force One, the transports and the escorts have landed at base. Once everyone is out of their planes, Wilford and his surviving staff, Jakob, Henry, Trigger and the LRSSG, Garuda Team and their fellow Emmerian pilots, and Mobius Squadron were greeted by an OADF major.
"Mr. President. General. I'm Major Lincoln. Welcome to Area 95. Please follow me." Major Lincoln said.
After a few minutes, everyone is now at an underground facility at the base.
"We're now 24 floors beneath the surface, and here's our main research facility." Lincoln said.
"Let's see it." Wilford said.
"I'm sorry, sir. It's a clean room. We have to keep it static-free. If we'll all go to decontamination-" Lincoln tried to explain.
"Open the door." Wilford ordered.
"Yes, sir." Lincoln said.
After turning a special key and entering the passcode, the two glass doors open allowing everyone to pass through, before another set of glass doors open, letting them inside the research facility. Inside the facility are researchers in white clean suits with masks on. They were all looking at the leaders, generals, staff members and ace pilots walking through the corridor.
"Wow, I never thought I would be in this base." Trigger said.
"I always thought about the secrets of this base." Count said.
"Can you believe it, Talisman? We're actually walking at Area 95." Shamrock said.
"I know. I always thought it was just a myth." Talisman said.
"So this is why the Osean Air Force kept this secret from their citizens." Mobius 1 said.
"I understand why now. Was for the best until the aliens showed up." Viper 2 said.
"My God. Why the hell wasn't I told about this place?" Wilford asked.
"Two words, Mr. President: plausible deniability" Hurley replied.
"All of this can match the South Belkan Munitions Factory." Jaeger said.
"I don't understand. Where does all this come from? How do you get funding for something like this?" Wilford asked.
"You don't actually think they spend twenty thousand zollars on a hammer. Thirty thousand zollars on a toilet seat, do you?" Jakob said as everyone looked at him like he's crazy.
Suddenly a doctor and his female partner approached the group.
"Mr. President, this is Doctor Weber. He's been heading up the research department on this project for the last 15 years." Lincoln said.
"How do you do." Wilford said as he shook Weber's hand.
"Mr. President." Weber said excitedly. "Wow. This-What a pleasure. As you can imagine, they don't let us out much."
"I can understand that." Wilford said.
"Well, I guess you'd like to see the big tamale, huh? Follow me." Weber said.
Everyone started following Doctor Weber until they reached the end of the corridor. Once the doctor's assistant enters a code, a huge door opens, revealing a huge room, where workers are working on a big alien spacecraft. The spacecraft appears to be 20 meters in length, bigger than an average fighter jet. It also matches the description from a pilot that took part in the battle against the aliens before he lost his life. The Ace pilots couldn't believe what they were seeing. It's like watching a sci-fi movie.
"Whoa." Talisman said in awe.
"Wow, look at that." Mobius 1 said.
"It's like I'm in a sci-fi movie." Húxiān said.
"She's a beaut, ain't she?" Wilford said.
"Can you tell us anything about it?" Trigger asked.
"As you can see from the repairs, we've been trying to put her back together since the late 1990s." Weber said.
"Don't tell me you've had this for 40 years and you don't know anything about them?" Wilford said as he and Henry approached the craft.
"Oh, hell, no. No, no. We know tons about them. But the neatest stuff has only happened in the last few days. See, we can't duplicate their type of power, so we've never been able to experiment. But since these guys started showing up, all the little gizmos inside turned on. The last 24 hours have been really exciting." Weber said.
"Exciting? People are dying out there. I don't think 'exciting' is the word I'd choose to describe it." Wilford said, upset over the doctor's choice of words.
There was an eerie silence due to the president's attitude.
"You guys are hoping to fly this thing, huh?" Henry asked.
"You said you can repair their technology. Can you tell us anything useful about them?" Wilford asked.
"Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, they're not all that dissimilar from us. Breathes oxygen. Comparable tolerances to heat and cold. It's probably why they're interested in our planet." Weber said before an idea came to his mind. "Hey. Hey. You guys want to see them?"
Everyone then looked at Weber with a 'what?' expression on their faces.
"I'm sorry. Did you just say 'see them'?" Trigger asked, not believing what he heard.
A few minutes later, Doctor Weber led everyone to a room in another part of the underground facility.
"This is- This is the vault, or as some of us have come to call it, 'The Freak Show'." Weber joked.
After Weber enters a code, part of the wall lifts up, revealing three large tubes with liquid fluid, and inside those tubes are corpses of the alien invaders. Some are a little decomposed after being in these tubes for over 40 years, but everyone can see how they look. The aliens have a slender, quasi-humanoid body with two long arms and feet each with two digits. The rear section of their head is enlarged, and their face sported two large pupil-less reflective skin seems slimy and bony. They also have no mouths. Their skin color appears dark brown due to the lights.
"When we found them, they were wearing some sort of biomechanical suits, but once we got them off, we learned a great deal about their anatomy. Eyes, ears, no vocal chords. We're assuming they communicate with each other through some other means." Weber said.
"You're obviously not thinking about hand signals and body language." Henry said.
"It's some kind of extrasensory perception. Telepathy." Weber said.
"So...It's an organic life form. Can they be killed?" Wilford asked.
"Their bodies are just as frail as ours. These two died in the crash. This one, a few weeks later. You just- You have to get through their technology, which is, I'm sorry to say, far more advanced." Weber said.
"Henry, you unlocked part of that technology. You cracked the code." Wilford said.
"Oh, no, no. All I did was stumble onto their signal. I don't know how helpful I can be." Henry said.
"Why don't you show them what you've discovered so far, figure out what they haven't thought of yet, and we'll see if you're as smart as we all hope you are." Wilford said.
With that, everyone starts to leave, but not before Weber asks...
"What code?"
And that's the end of the chapter. Well, what will happen when the captured alien arrived? Find out next time in the next chapter. Please review. :)