-Now, see the other side of the spectrum.

-Woo Baby! Here come the humans. Time to see how they fit in.

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Chapter 3

Enter the Humans

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At the building known as the Pentagon, things were always known to be crazy. There was never a time when someone, somewhere in in the building, didn't have something to do in a hurry. However, in one tiny part of the vast office building, one person could relax. Dr. Joshua Bartley calmly sat in his small office alone while others hustled and bustled outside of his door. He watched them thinking to himself, look at them go. They are like ants in a hill. Scrambling over each other to do work that they don't even know the significance of. Indeed, Bartley had a PHD in biology and was always able to compare people with certain animals by their behavior. In a way though, he also envied them. They at least had something exciting to do. Ever since he had taken this job it had been one bore fest after another. This was not what I had in mind when I signed up to be head of the Undiscovered Biological Organism Research Division (or UBORD ). I probably did more work in one day at MIT than I've done in the two years I have been here, he thought.

Ever since he had left high school, Bartley had possessed a keen interest in the science of the undiscovered. He had always researched UFOs, aliens, monsters and everything else in between. At college, whenever there was a possible sighting of an alien or a plaster cast of a foot-print of Bigfoot, he was the first one on the trail. Now the most exciting thing that happened to him was a long session of pencil pushing. Still, it puts food on the table, he thought.

Suddenly, his thoughts were interrupted by a sharp knocking on the office door. "Come in!" he shouted. The door opened to reveal the lovely face of Diane, the receptionist of this part in the building. She was an attractive woman with black hair and a round face. Her cheery smile was almost always accompanied by an excessive gum-chewing habit. In between chews she said, "Morning Josh, nice day were having isn't it?"

"Yes it is." Bartley agreed.

"I just heard something you might be interested in," she said in her normal chipper way.

"Oh really?" Bartley remarked, "well hit me. I'm all ears."

"Well," she began, "I overheard Susan in accounting mention to her new boyfriend (her fifth one in three months by the way, I give him four weeks at most) that last week she saw a possible UFO when she came home from her appointment at the salon. I know your interested in that sort of thing so I thought I might let you know." Bartley inwardly smiled to himself. Diane's ability to gather and spread gossip was legendary among co-workers. "Thanks for that little piece of information Diane," he replied, "perhaps I will schedule a meeting with her to try to see if what she saw was real or fake. However," he remarked, I don't think that you came all the way here to just tell me the news of the underground grapevine."

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot," she said. Diane then handed Bartley a large manila folder that was marked with a bright red stamp reading, CLASSIFIED. "That's for you," she said, "apparently you're to take it, and yourself, to the briefing office at the west side of the building. There is also a key card in there. You'll need it to open the door." Bartley was a little taken back at this interesting development. He had never investigated a case with this level of security. He looked up at Diane and said, "thanks for the folder, but why didn't you just call me by the phone. I do know how to use it after all."

She smiled slyly and said, "well for one, I needed to give you the folder and two, I didn't want you to think it was another prank. Or have you already forgotten what happened on April Fools?"

"Oh no," he said, "I won't forget that for a long time."

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As Bartley walked to his meeting he found himself remembering the day he thought he had gotten his first big case (also the day Diane had referred to). He had been dozing in his office when the intercom on his desk buzzed. When he answered a frazzled voice spoke to him. "Josh get down here! The field boys just rolled something in here that you will want to see right now!" Without even thinking he had bolted out of his office to the loading dock. A large crowd was gathered around something. When he finally pushed his way through he found himself looking at two men wheeling in a stretcher holding a figure covered by a white sheet. When he asked about it to one of the men moving the stretcher all he replied was, "there was a crash in the dessert." Bartley thought for a moment and put two and two together to realize that he was looking at the body of an extraterrestrial. Before anyone could stop him he rushed forward and ripped the sheet off the body. What he found was the last thing he expected. Laying on the stretcher was not a bizarre form of an interplanetary life form but the face of one of his coworkers with an enormous grin in his face. Soon the area was filled with laughter and chants of, "April Fools!" Even though at first Bartley had been quite annoyed he soon joined in with the laughing. They had been given a stern talking to by one of the higher-ups for using equipment without permission. However the speech had been half-hearted. Bartley suspected the official had been in on the trick.

Diving through all the nostalgia Bartley hadn't noticed that he was already at the briefing room. Indeed, the door was security locked and could only be opened by a card key. Pulling out the key, he slid it through the sensor and heard a quiet click as the door unlocked. He slowly pushed the door open and found himself in a conference room with only two people in it. One man he knew. His name was Jim Baltmen. He was head of the department of financial cataloging at the Pentagon. It he's here, thought Bartley, this must be important. It requires money. The other man Bartley had never met before but other workers had described him and he was unmistakable. The man was tall, beefy and gave off an air of unmistakable authority. His arms were folded but at a slightly lopsided angle. He had been told this was because one of his arms was just slightly longer than the other. His hair was dusty brown but a small spot was pure white thanks to a blow to the head in that spot. One of his eyes were blue while the other was green. All of these odd features gave him the appearance of a patchwork quilt. He wore a military uniform covered with metals and badges. As Bartley walked in he couldn't help but feel he was walking up to a gallows.

"Welcome Professor Bartley," said the second man, "I am Colonel James Fillmore. I'm glad you could make it at such short notice."

Bartley simply answered, "it was no trouble at all," in a light voice. He had almost added that he had nothing to do in the first place but he suspected that it would be wise to say as little as possible when around Colonel Fillmore. "Have a seat," the Colonel said. Bartley obediently sat down in one of the semi-comfortable leather chairs. Colonel Fillmore sat in the chair directly opposite to his with Baltmen sitting next to him. Colonel Fillmore then folded his hands and began to speak in his deep but somewhat quiet voice. "I suppose you want to know why you're here," he said.

Yeah, that is kind of high on my list of unanswered questions, thought Bartley, right next to the existence/nonexistence of aliens.

"Well," ColonelFillmore said, "we want you, or more to the point, we want your enthusiasm. We could of chose any biologist to do this job but we wanted one who had a genuine interest in this kind of subject.

"Thank you sir," Bartley answered in a weak voice. I think, he added to himself. "However," Bartley added, "I suspect you wanted to bring me here to tell me more than that I had enthusiasm." The Colonel smirked in response. Bartley suspected he was trying to smile but that was as far as he could get. He then said with a touch of good-humor, "Ah-ha! It looks like we chose the best man for the job after all. Quick to the point and direct. I like that kind of work ethic. To answer your question though, yes, what I brought you here to tell you about is of the utmost importance. Baltmen, if you would please?"

"Yes sir," Baltmen answered. Pulling a small remote out of his pocket, Baltmen pushed several buttons on it. Soon a projector screen had lowered at the front of the room, a projector on the ceiling had lit up and the lights dimmed. Soon they were all looking at an image of the ocean floor. "This," the Colonel said, "is a series of images of a portion of the Atlantic ocean from a marine wildlife observatory in Main. We received them only yesterday. The camera that took these is automatic and designed to take a picture every minute." Baltmen handed the remote to Colonel Fillmore and soon the screen was showing a different picture. It was the same landscape however, this time Bartley noticed that a small object was floating downward towards the ocean floor. It looked like some kind of rock but he couldn't be sure. The next photo showed the rock-thing settle on the ocean floor. The next few pictures after that showed mostly nothing. Bartley was almost worried this was another prank. After the fifth picture of nothing the Colonel paused for a moment. "The next photo is where you might find something interesting," he said. Bartley, who was half asleep before, was wide awake when he saw the next photo.

The photo showed the rock-thing floating slightly in the water. This could be easily explained simply as an underwater current lifting it up. What couldn't be easily explained was the swirling particles of matter beginning to gather under the rock-thing. The next photo showed a similar image but the rock-thing had floated higher and there was more swirling matter. The matter also seemed to be condensing into something however, Bartley wasn't sure what the shape was supposed to be. The next photo seemed to show nothing but a white flash. Bartley asked, "what am I looking at? Was the device damaged?" The Colonel answered, "that's what we first thought but the device continues to take pictures after this one. All we can guess is what we are seeing is a burst of light. Bartley was really confused now. What could possibly cause that much light underwater of all places? The only thing I can think of is… But Bartley's thought was cut off as he saw the next picture.

He was never able to tell afterward, but he could have sworn that his jaw had hit the floor. The image showed a humanoid figure standing off in the distance where there was once nothing but an inanimate object. The figure was tall and strong looking. That was about all that could be found out from the picture since the figure was so far away that it was mostly shadowed. The next few pictures showed the figure standing in the same spot, and then it swam away out of the view of the camera.

As the lights came back on Bartley had the sense that he was waking up from a dream. Te Colonel looked at him expectantly. "These were sent to us just yesterday. As you just saw, we are about to discover something that could change the whole world. You're the expert, what do we do now?" he said. Bartley took a few minutes before he answered. He half stuttered, "well, I suppose the first thing to do is hand out the cigars. Not only do we have a new species on our hands, but we also seem to have the first genuine proof that extraterrestrials are real.

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-YAY!!!!!!!! I finally finished this chapter! Sorry about the delay. School has been hammering me. Hopefully I will be able to send out new chapters once every one or two weeks when summer starts.

-Spreading the truth,

Anonymous