The Quantum Connection: Chapter Eleven

    I came to on a stretcher in what seemed to be some sort of post or pre-operative room. My guess was that I passed out or had a heart attack or stroke, and then ran off the road and had a wreck. Somebody must’ve found me and got me to a hospital. The thing that bothered me most was the fact that I couldn’t move. That would put the icing on the cake wouldn’t it? Not only did everyone I know get erased from existence, but also now I’m paralyzed with nobody to take care of me.

    Although my body wouldn’t move my mind seemed to be working and there was no physical pain anywhere. Was that a good sign? I could roll my eyes up, down, left, and right. In my peripheral vision to my right was a young lady on a stretcher. She was obviously unconscious. To my left was a man in the same situation. What had happened to me? And where was I? It was obvious that I was in some kind of hospital room. The bright light on the ceiling shining in my eyes was proof enough of that.

    I lay there staring at the white light only occasionally blinking my eyes for what seemed to be nearly an hour and nobody checked on us. Good thing we weren’t dying, or we would have been in trouble. I tried to scream for a nurse, but couldn’t muster the strength to make my voice work. I only managed an inaudible whisper of, “Nurse…help, please … somebody.” That exhausted me and was all I could manage. However, I was beginning to feel that my feet were cold and my back was cold. I also felt my hands tingling as if they had fallen asleep.

    Then suddenly there was a wiggle in the room’s lighting. I heard movement and rustling of people behind me, but I couldn’t see them. I tried to speak again but nothing would come out. The table to my left with the man on it was moved backward just a bit and then I could only see him from the waist down. For the first time I realized that he was naked. Then I rolled my eyes back downward toward my body and realized that, as far as I could tell, I was naked, too. I rolled my eyes to the right and, yes, the girl was nude from head to toe. I heard motion again to my left so I rolled my eyes back over.

    Then a stream of bright red blood shot upward and appeared to have come from somewhere in the man’s torso. But I couldn’t see his body, something was in the way, I could only see the stream of blood since it shot upward a good meter or so and then the strangest thing happened. The stream of blood stopped in mid air and held there for a couple of seconds. Then it disappeared.

    Then I realized that the man’s right foot was missing. It had been there just a minute before hadn’t it? Oh God, what was happening to us? I heard more rustling noises and a faint gurgling and clicking sound and could see two shadows flickering on the walls occasionally. The clicking, I could now see, was coming from a bizarre looking instrument that floated in mid air above the man’s body. Segmented tubular appendages uncoiled and snaked and whipped around it and darted in and out and to and from the poor man’s body. Each time the metal snakelike appendages would dart inward, a new stream of blood would appear, solidify, and then disappear. Each time I could hear a thump followed by a squish. Then a bluish gray three-fingered hand reached up to the instrument and touched a panel on its side. The metal snakelike appendages zipped back up inside the thing with a metallic clang. Then the bluish gray three-fingered hand gave the instrument a light push and it vanished through the nearby wall of the room. The wall rippled like water for a split second as the instrument pushed through and then solidified back to a normal solid-looking surface.

    The gray thing turned something over in its other hand and peered at the thing closely with its huge oval shaped deep blacker-than-black eyes. It held it up with its right hand and the thing floated in mid air. The thing was a human heart -- and it was still beating! The gray whatever-it-was made a hand waving motion, and the heart floated through the same wall the other gray thing had vanished through. Aliens. No human, or human machine, could pull off something like that wall trick!

    I looked down at the man’s lower body and noticed that both of his legs were gone from the knees down, but there was no blood. There was more gurgling and clicking and motion as the moments passed. The gurgling increased, and the alien held up a human head in his right hand. The eyes in the head were still open and staring at me. The alien stabbed the head with a sharp needle-like instrument and then retracted it. Blood oozed from the poor man’s nose, but then froze solidified and vanished, the eyes on the floating head still staring at me. Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!

    My finger twitched and I could feel it. I looked down at my feet and saw my toes wiggle. I was regaining control of my body. The gurgling and clicking picked up slightly, and I froze and stared up at the ceiling. I could tell the motion was moving over to the girl on the gurney or floating table or whatever it was to my right. Oh no! They were going to kill her, too!

    I had seen enough killing today…I had seen enough loss of life in my life… I had simply had enough! NO, NO, NO, NO, NOOO! Then I could feel my body as if a switch had turned on the feeling to it and my voice worked. The screaming inside my head now had a voice, NOOO…

    “…NOOOO!” I forced myself up in pure rage, pure anger and rolled to my right, off the table, and to my feet. The little creatures, there were two of them, were startled and I believe surprised to see me awake. Although I still felt a little sedated and queasy, the pure rage energized my body and I grabbed the one Gray alien closest to me, snapped the little bastard’s neck like a twig, then picked him up and threw him into the second alien. The ugly little monsters didn’t weigh more than fifty pounds and couldn’t have been taller than three or four feet. I grabbed the dead alien by the feet and bludgeoned the other alien with him repeatedly. I finally threw the little blue-green bloodied dead alien down and reared up my right arm and drove my fist right into the remaining gray thing’s left eye, which was, conveniently, bigger than my hand. I pushed harder and harder with my clenched fist until its eye bulged out of the socket and popped with a “SHLURRP!” A blue-green syrupy thick blood oozed from its face.

    It clawed at me, gurgled a high-pitched squeak, and tried to get away, but I snapped its neck and it was dead. I collapsed to the floor Indian-style, covered in the alien blue-green blood and a little red blood of my own. I sat and stared at the alien bodies. I was catatonic for many minutes, maybe tens of minutes.

    After a while, I stood up and looked at the girl; she was still as out of it as I had been, as the other poor fellow had been. I felt her neck and could tell that her heart was still beating. At least she was alive. I surveyed the room to see where the door was and there was no door. We were in a completely enclosed cube of white walls and I could see no way out. I sat there a while longer. I tried to wake the girl but couldn’t, she must’ve been heavily sedated. My guess was that we all had been.

    I sat back down, still woozy. I’m not sure how long I stayed there before the rage and horror in my mind cleared and I began to feel a little like I do when the happy pills kick in after a bout of crying and depression. Maybe that was it! I remember now, I had overdosed on the happy pills and was hopped up and wired wide-awake. The pills must have counteracted the alien’s sedative.

    The buzz from the pills was making me less and less suicidal feeling, and I guess that the alien sedative had counteracted enough of them that I wasn’t going to pop an aorta or my medulla oblongata or something. Since it looked like I was going to survive, at least for the next minute or two, I decided to find ways to increase my longevity. Perhaps the catatonic naked girl on the table would benefit from whatever I decided to do as well.

    I decided to examine the room more closely and, basically, I found nothing but smooth walls with no seams, cracks, doors, or windows. I wasn’t even sure how the light was getting through the ceiling. The only thing left to examine were the little alien corpses on the floor. The blue-green syrup that had oozed from the one creatures oversized oval-shaped eye socket was beginning to harden and I was curious what type of physiology these things must have in order to have blue-green blood and still breathe oxygen. I’m not a biologist, so I had no idea. I examined its other eye more closely and noticed a clear nictitating membrane over it. The membrane had two halves, an upper and lower that met slightly below the middle point of the oval eyeball. The thing had no hair as far as I could tell, but it was wearing a garment. Further inspection revealed something akin to light blueish-gray tights that covered it from neck to toe -- with its head, hands, and feet uncovered. The material matched the characteristic blue-gray of the alien skin so closely that it was hard to determine where one stopped and the other started.

    I ran my fingers across the junction of garment and skin and could barely detect the seam with my sense of touch. Then I heard a scream!

    The naked girl was snapping out of her trance. I rushed to her side and attempted to calm her, but she screamed at me and hit me and then cowered naked in the corner of the seamless, doorless room.

    I quickly realized that the girl wasn’t speaking English; my guess was Russian, by the sound of it. Frankly, it could have been pure mindless gibberish and I wouldn’t have known the difference.

    Not being able to help her by speaking to her, I turned back to my survey of the alien bodies. I placed my finger around the collar seam of ol’ one eye and ran my finger up its neck, in front of its lobeless ear, and then over where its temple would be. Then, unexpectedly, a rainbow of light appeared in a half-inch band around the alien’s head. That startled me and I jumped back as though a bee had stung me, although there had been no pain. I repeated the process and again the rainbow band of light.

    “It’s a headband of some kind,” I realized.

    I worked with it for a second until I could slip it over the alien’s bulbous head and then held it in my hand in front of me inspecting it. “Well, I’ll be damned. Wonder what this thing is?”

    I rolled the other alien over to check him for a similar gadget. When he rolled over his head dangled loosely. Obviously, in my rage, I had snapped his neck completely into two pieces. This alien had a similar headband as well. “This means something. Why would both of them be wearing them?” I sat back down rolling the headbands over in my hands and tried to think. “What the hell are these things?”

    I noticed on opposite sides of the headbands circumference there were slightly thicker spots, so I pulled one of them closer to my eyes to see if I could resolve any details. When the headband reached a point about six inches in front of my face I felt funny and then multiple colored flashes of light sparkled in my eyes accompanied by a low pitched rushing noise. I dropped the headband almost immediately following the noise. “What the hell was that?”

    The girl in the corner was watching me closely while still cowering in there. I don’t think she trusted me; hey, why should she? She tried to cover herself, which made me more aware of my awkward and ugly nakedness.

    I picked the headband up again and slowly brought it close to my head. Again, I was bombarded with flashes of light and noise. I persisted through my fear this time and forced myself to press the headband closer and closer to my head. The light grew brighter and faster, and the noise grew louder and higher pitched. The weirdest part is that a strange feeling possessed me, as if I was being spoken to and I couldn’t quite make out what I was being asked. The noise grew too odd for me to continue and I pulled the headband away.

    I rested for a second, thinking about the headband’s purpose while I scanned the room one last time for some other way out. I could see no real hope. The walls appeared solid, much more so than even my heft and the moveable gurney’s mass could force through. There were no other instruments in the room, or any other devices that could be used as tools. The headbands were the only unknowns. There were two confused and completely naked and scared out of their mind humans, two mangled alien corpses, and two alien gurneys. The third gurney had vanished when the aliens completed their , experiments on the poor human the gray bastards had dismembered. His remains had vanished also. “What the hell,” I said aloud. The girl now alert and frightened realized what I was going to do and stared at me with a hopeful and fearful look. She cowered naked in the corner but didn’t take her eyes off me. “We’re dead anyway, right? Might as well try it.” I put the band around my head. For a second there was an earsplitting screech and I was completely flash blinded. Then… …nothing. But there was something at the same time; I felt as though I had been asked a question. It was weird. I was still me. I was aware of everything around me and I could move and think normally. But. It felt like a question is the best I can do as far as describing it. But it was more than that. A moment or two passed and then a visual image flashed in my mind. ?

    A blinking question mark is what I thought of. I could see the damned thing on television screens, billboards, signs, and computer monitors… When I thought that, computer monitors, the question mark image blinked away and there was a new image.

    C:>

    C:>

    It was a computer screen with a C:> blinking on and off. It was a DOS prompt! Why the hell was I seeing a DOS prompt? “I’m sure the aliens must’ve long since upgraded to some better operating system, ha ha,” I joked with myself. Then the reality of my wisecrack caught up with me.

    That was it! The question was not a question. It was the operating system of a computer. It was a prompt of some type waiting for a user input or command. The alien computer must be using my memories to explain itself to me. Why not?

    So, I tried it.

    Where am I? I thought.

    You are here. Popped into my head in a generic and asexual tone of voice.

    “Whoa! That was weird,” I mumbled.

    I thought about it a little more analytically and from the approach a programmer would take in designing an operating system. After all, I had designed an operating system before, so I should be able to understand this one, right?

    “Okay, this is tricky. Garbage in, garbage out,” I said out loud. With relation to where I was abducted, where am I now?

    Here. An image of the solar system popped in my head and a red blinking dot appeared near one of Saturn’s moons.

    Am I in a spaceship?

    Yes.

    “Well, I guess that was obvious, huh?” I said this out loud and got no response from the alien computer. That gave me an idea as to the protocols for the system.

    Will you respond to verbal commands?

    Only if programmed to do so.

    “I thought so.”

    How big is the ship? I thought and immediately an image of the ship zipped into my mind’s eye and for scale relation a man was standing beside it and a large passenger jet was above it; a 747. The 747 was smaller by four of five times.

    How many more Grays are aboard this vessel?

    Eleven.

    Are they aware I am speaking to you?

    No.

    Why?

    They have not asked about you.

    What are you?

    I am an information control and distribution intelligence.

    “An Agent, he’s a damned Agent,” I said and then I realized that he wasn’t just an Agent. “Holy shit! It’s a SuperAgent! An Alien SuperAgent program.”

    This led me to believe that there was a computer core here somewhere. And all at once like a baptism and a Tourrette’s spasm I could see and understand what I had been working on for the Air Force. They had an alien computer and were reverse engineering it! They had an alien computer! Holy shit, the Air Force, the CIA, and this Group W-squared has an alien computer!

    Are you a SuperAgent the way I understand them? There was a brief pause.

    Yes.

    Are you the only one like you on this spaceship?

    Yes.

    Are there other lesser Agents then?

    Yes.

    Where are you?

    Here. A map of the ship appeared in my head and a picture of the green and orange cube I had seen at CIA Headquarters flashed in my mind. I knew just how to find it. I found it odd that the computer would be giving me such detailed information.

    Can anybody speak to you?

    Anybody equipped properly. Yes.

    And do you give anybody equipped to speak to you any information they ask for?

    Yes.

    Can you be kept from others?

    If programmed thus.

    Okay. For now on, only let me talk to you.

    Okay.

    What stupid aliens! Don’t they have hackers on their world? I thought this without realizing it and forgetting I was still talking to the machine.

    No, they do not.

    The answer shocked me a bit. After a few more minutes of this discourse, or whatever you would call it, I began to understand that the entire species of these Gray’s must be communal and work toward one common goal with no straying from each Gray individual’s purpose. A hive. Or at least this was the feeling that I got from the SuperAgent’s explanation of things.

    I had been quiet for so long that I had forgotten about the naked Russian girl in the corner. She said something unintelligible to me, which brought my attention to her nudity and mine.

    I wish I had my clothes, I thought. A small spot on the wall nearest me began to ripple like dropping a pebble in a pond and then a small table floated through it. On the table were my clothes in the exact same state of which they were in when I drove away from Lazarus’s gravesite. The clothes were soiled with the sand and dust from the rubble-strewn valley that I had buried my buddy in. There were a few stains of blood on my shirt. This made me sad, very sad, to remember poor Lazarus, my only remaining family. Everybody I had ever really known was dead. Oh God, poor Laz. I missed him so much already.

    If my clothes had not been dirty I wouldn’t have thought of Lazarus, I began to cry. Why couldn’t they have been clean? I wish they were clean. I was starting on the downward manic spiral again and the tears began to flow. Now I was deeply deeply depressed. I was out of happy pills so I would be in trouble if my depression started running away unchecked by the medication.

    The little tray got fuzzy and my clothes looked as though I was looking at them through a zoom lens out of focus and then they were normal again. Now they were clean and even the blood stains were gone. I stopped thinking of Lazarus for a microsecond to notice that somehow the clothes became clean and then I realized I had wished that they be cleaned. Then it dawned on me that I should have been surprised by my clothes suddenly appearing, dirty or not.

    But that fleeting instant of rationality didn’t last long, because the avalanche of depression had started. “Oh God, Lazarus!” I bawled. If only I wouldn’t have seen my dirty clothes, if only I wouldn’t have thought of Lazarus, why do I have to cry and be so depressed?

    The SuperAgent responded in my mind. The tracking device implanted in the limbic system region of your brain is interacting improperly with your hormone production and is causing you to have rapid emotional swings with great amplitude. Your hippocampus cannot compensate swiftly enough for the chemical differentials.

    As I cried I mouthed the thought out and repeated it three times. “The tracking device implanted in the limbic system region of your brain is interacting improperly with your hormone production and is causing you to have rapid emotional swings with great amplitude. Your hippocampus cannot compensate swiftly enough for the chemical differentials…

    …The tracking device implanted in the limbic system region of your brain is interacting improperly with your hormone production and is causing you to have rapid emotional swings with great amplitude. Your hippocampus cannot compensate swiftly enough for the chemical differentials…”

    The third time it pierced the manic haze, “The tracking device IMPLANTED in the limbic system region of MY brain is interacting improperly with MY hormone production and is causing ME to have rapid emotional swings with great amplitude. MY hippocampus cannot compensate swiftly enough for the chemical differentials!” I paused long enough to wipe the tears from my face and start crying again. Now however, the manic state swung violently to rage as it had when I had killed the two aliens.

    “I HAVE AN ALIEN IMPLANT IN MY BRAIN! MY GOD I’M NOT CRAZY!! I HAVE AN ALIEN IMPLANT IN MY BRAIN! YOU BASTARDS! GET IT THE FUCK OUT OF ME RIGHT NOW! GET IT OUT, GET IT OUT, GET IT OUT!” I beat the floor with my fists and pitched a tantrum to beat all tantrums. I knew what needed to be done and that flying off in a tantrum wouldn’t help, but I couldn’t stop myself.

    “Can it be taken out now!?” I asked and the SuperAgent didn’t respond.

    “Can it be taken out now I asked!?” still no response.

    “CAN IT BE TAKEN OUT NOW?!” Then I felt a slap across my face and the naked Russian girl shook me and screamed at me.

    This was enough to snap me closer to sanity and I realized I was speaking out loud and not thinking to the computer.

    Can my implant be removed now without harming me?

    Yes.

    Do it now!

    I waited for some sign, a pain in my head, a bloody nose, anything like I had seen in bad UFO science fiction movies, but nothing happened. I was beginning to get disappointed.

    I said remove the implant now.

    It was removed when you asked the first time. Is there a problem?

    You mean, it’s gone now?

    Yes.

    I thrust the naked girl away from me and stood up in front of her, all six-one, two hundred and forty pounds of my hairy self. I reached for my clothes; Give me the girl’s clothes, cleaned. They appeared in the same fashion that mine had. Her clothes, if you want to call them that, were merely an oversized cotton tank top. My guess was that the Grays had grabbed her out of bed. I pulled my underwear up and nodded to the girl and at her clothes. She grabbed the top and frantically pulled it over her and then she squatted and began hugging herself and crying.

    I realized then that she must have one of those damned tracking device things in her as well.

    Is there an implant in the girl?

    Yes.

    Is it affecting her emotions?

    All implants do. Yes.

    REMOVE IT NOW!

    Okay.

    I was beginning to notice that the mood swinging had stopped. My rage and depression were slowly subsiding; if the implant is gone why do I still feel…bad?

    It will take a few moments for your body to compensate for the extreme chemical differentials. You will soon return to normal.

    I slipped my shirt on, How long has that implant been in my brain?

    Three years seven months two weeks four days thirteen hours and twenty seven seconds from insertion to removal.

    I thought about that for a second. That was just after The Rain! I had never been able to recover from the emotional losses I suffered from The Rain because of that damned alien implant!

    The girl jabbered at me again. I held up my hands and then put my finger to my lip as if to shoosh her. Then I pointed to myself and said, “I’m Steven. Steven.”

    “Steevyen?” she repeated.

    “Yeah, Steven.” I smiled at her and don’t think her nakedness now that it had been slightly clothed didn’t still flash in my mind. Is the urge to procreation a sign of regaining sanity? I thought to myself that I had not really had a thought like that in years… Three years seven months two weeks four days thirteen hours and twenty seven seconds…

    “Tatiana,” she smiled and pointed to herself.

    “Tatiana,” I repeated and nodded. Then I thought to myself, damn I wish I could speak Russian.

    Okay.

    And then all at once I understood every word the girl jabbered, so I spoke to her and explained as much as I understood. This took a few seconds and then I thought, if you can make me speak Russian could you make her speak English?

    Yes.

    Do it.

    Okay.

    “Listen to me Tatiana. Can you understand what I am saying to you?” I said slowly to her.

    “Of course I can, what is wrong with…Holy shit, I am speaking perfect English.”

    “Ha ha, I would say so, expletives and all. This is amazing isn’t it?” I asked her and chuckled a bit more. I chuckled…I chuckled!

    “But how?” Tatiana asked.

    “I don’t know. Hold on a second.” I told her and then thought to the SuperAgent, How did you make us speak the different languages so quickly?

    I redesigned your neural pathways and imprinted the memories of the language.

    Yes, but how did you do that? I asked.

    Please refine your question.

    How did you physically alter our brains so quickly? I was getting a little annoyed.

    The nanomachines were instructed to reconstruct portions of your brains in order to display the proper memories of the languages.

    What nanomachines? I looked around the room as if I might see them.

    The swarm of nanomachines in this room.

    I understood it all now. This room must have been the experimentation or operating room and these Gray aliens used nanomachines in here to conduct these operations. I explained it to Tatiana.

    “All of this is neat, Steven, but won’t they be coming for us soon? Shouldn’t we try to escape?” She pulled her flimsy oversized shirt tighter around her and reacted as though she were still cold. Of course she was, she was basically naked and the perky attributes of her breasts suggested she was either very excited or freezing to death. She was also covered in chill bumps from head to toe..

    Tatiana was absolutely right; they would be coming for us.

    “I don’t know, I’ll check,” I told her.

    Are the other aliens aware of our coup yet? I asked the SuperAgent.

    Yes. He replied.

    Why haven’t they come for us?

    They are trying.

    Why haven’t they succeeded?

    I will not talk to them and only I can open the door to this room, for now.

    How long until they get in here?

    Five minutes and seven seconds.

    How many of them?

    Eleven.

    “Listen Tatiana, there are eleven more of these alien things outside the room trying to get to us. Since I am controlling the computer they can’t get in. But the computer says they will get in in less than five minutes from now.”

    “Can’t the computer help us, Steven?”

    “It doesn’t work that way. The damned thing will only do what you tell it to. It doesn’t offer advice.”

    “Then tell it to stop the aliens, please.” Tatiana looked at me and then around the room watching for an invasion.

    “I didn’t think of that. Hold on.”

    Is there a way that you could kill the aliens without harming us?

    I am not programmed thus.

    How about just sucking them out into space?

    That is one way perhaps, but a hole must be made in the spacecraft which could not be repaired easily.

    Even with the nanomachines?

    The hull is made of a special material built from condensed matter that takes time for the nanomachines to construct. It would take time.

    How much time?

    Two months, three weeks, four days…

    Okay I get the idea. We would be stuck in here for that time right?

    Yes.

    I don’t like that, but keep it in mind as a last resort.

    Okay.

    How about just killing them with the nanomachines.

    They can neutralize the nanomachines.

    Damn, if I only had a gun!

    Please refine that statement.

    Could you make a gun for me that has more than eleven shots?

    Yes.

    How long would it take?

    It depends on what type of gun you desire.

    Give me the information of all handheld manmade guns you know how to make. A few seconds later, I had a catalog of firearms that would make the NRA jealous in my head, and, in addition, I knew everything about them.

    Make me two MP5s, fully-loaded, with two extra magazines each. And teach Tatiana how to use one.

    Okay.

    The small machine guns appeared on the floor between us. I grabbed one and set it on three round burst mode and handed it to Tatiana. “I take it you know how to use this?”

    “Odd, yes I do,” she said.

    “Tatiana, listen, we can fight them now, or let the computer kill them. But, if the computer kills them we are stuck in this room for nearly four months. We can wait it out or shoot it out. It’s up to you. Which one?”

    Tatiana placed the strap of the MP5 over her shoulder causing the tank top strap to fall over her left shoulder revealing one of her boobs, “Screw waiting, Steven. Bring’em on.” She pulled the strap back up.

    Okay, we will fight them.

    Okay.

    “They’re coming. When they do, we kill every goddamned one of them. Okay?” I looked her sternly in the eyes to see if she would falter any. I wasn’t sure about her. Her implant had not been out as long as mine had.

    I picked up my MP5 and put it on rock’n’roll and looked around the room understanding that I had no idea which way they would come from.

    Where will they come from?

    Everywhere.

    What do you mean everywhere?

    They will enter doors in each wall.

    Can you time it and let them through given walls at given times.

    Maybe.

    Can you warn Tatiana, and me where they are coming from, before they do?

    Yes, but she must put on the other headband interface.

    Okay, I’ll have her put it on.

    Okay.

    “Tatiana, they are coming now. Be ready. The computer will try to warn us but you must put this on. Just listen in your head for the computer’s voice.” I handed her the other headband and we stood back to back in the middle of the room waiting. I felt like praying or something.

    Give us strength. Let them in!

    Okay.

    The wall to my left opened up and two Grays rushed inward moving rapidly across the small room, Tatiana fired first. Several three round bursts and the first blue-green blood was spilled on the floor. I started Rock’n almost as quickly, and the SuperAgent told us to move from the center of the floor.

    The floor rippled. Two more aliens burst through it and then the wall to our right opened almost as quickly as the computer told us to watch out. We fired and fired. My mag ran dry quickly. Seven aliens lay bloody on the floor around us but more were coming.

    “I’m changing cover me.” I popped the mag on the floor and had the new one in before it fell to a thud on the dead pile of aliens at our feet.

    “I’m out.” Tatiana warned me.

    The ceiling opened up and four aliens dropped on us. I managed to kill two of them before we were overpowered, but then I was out of ammo and Tatiana’s gun had been knocked away from her - it was hand-to-hand.

    The first two aliens that I had killed by hand earlier were not expecting my attack and were easy to kill. These last two were expecting us, and didn’t seem too happy that we had killed eleven of their chums today.

    Tatiana was rolling and screaming, “Get off me you shit,” and then she was screaming in Russian.

    I was rolling and trying to find purchase on the little things body somewhere to get him off me, but the damned thing moved fast. I felt claws dig into my flesh, and I could hear Tatiana screaming in pain and terror. Then it dawned on me that I hadn’t used the computer for much help.

    Help!

    Please refine the question.

    Kill these aliens without harming us.

    I cannot affect them in this room.

    I rolled and tried to bear crawl with the thing on my back. It continued to claw and cut at my flesh with its three-fingered hands. I couldn’t get out from under it so I forced myself up to my feet. The alien wrapped his arms around my neck and started choking me and his left hand forefinger jabbed into my face. I caught it just short of my right eye and tried to hold him off. He was amazingly strong for such a small creature. I couldn’t hold him off much longer. The thing was on my back and was not going to let loose until I was a goner.

    Make a sharp pointed stick protruding one foot out from the wall directly behind me.

    Okay.

    I just assumed it was there and forced myself backwards thrusting the alien, with all my weight, into the wall and onto the newly-formed stick. The creature screeched in my ear and let go. I immediately rushed the creature that was slashing away at Tatiana. I grabbed the creature by the top of the head and pushed my left knee through its neck. It went limp as I pulled it from Tatiana. She screamed and grabbed the MP5 lying next to her with her left hand and fired it just over my right shoulder.

    I shuddered and moved out of the way as Tatiana emptied the machine gun into the alien I had stuck to the wall. It was a tough one. It had pulled itself free and was coming for us.

    The machine gun clicked empty and there were now thirteen aliens oozing blueish-green syrup on the floor. Tatiana and myself were bleeding profusely from many wounds, our clothes tattered and sloppy red with blood. I was afraid that we wouldn’t make it without medical attention. Tatiana’s right arm was broken and her earlobe on her left side was gone. She was also bleeding very badly from her thigh.

    My right wrist was cut and I was bleeding out and there were slashes on both our necks close to our jugulars. The little bastards knew just how to kill us.

    “I think I am a goner, Steven.” A tear rolled down her face and she started tunneling out on me.

    “NO WAY!” I told her. I had lost everything and everybody I had ever known. Even though I had only known Tatiana for a few hours, she was not going to die. Neither was I.

    Are you there?

    Yes.

    Heal us.

    Okay.