Its been about eighteen months since my encounter. Though I was calling it my nightmare back when things started. I had wanted to take a weekend break from the small computer shop I ran. So I packed up a tent some cooking gear and such, the best money can buy, and headed up to New Hampshire’s mountain region. I should have turned back when a car got into an accident right in front of me. I stopped and helped out until the police and emergency vehicles had arrived. They thanked me and I continued my trip. I should have turned back when I got the flat tire just as I crossed the border of Massachusetts to New Hampshire. But I wanted my vacation so I changed the tire and a state trooper showed up and asked if everything was ok. He stayed with me while I changed the tire. I then continued my trip. I of course am very stubborn and continued until I got to the place I had looked up for a good camping spot. Unfortunately, I didn’t find out till I arrived that the actual spot was up a hiking trail and on the other side of the mountain. Me being a bit over weight and not used to the exercise, I finally made my way up to the top, I was exhausted, and sweating like a pig. To say I was out of shape is an understatement, it took me almost an hour to setup camp. I must have been extremely tired from the hike, I woke up sometime around 3am I know because I looked at my watch. There was a rumbling, as a lightning storm had moved into the area. I remember thinking to myself, wonderful, can this trip get any worse? then the rain started falling. I recall wondering if it was a good time to pack up and go home, in fact I started packing, swearing under my breath. I think it was at that moment that I was knocked off my feet. Something had fallen into the valley below where I was camped. There was a cloud of steam, hot air and grit that washed over me. I looked down into the valley after a bit I could see what looked like a plane, wondering if there had been an accident, throwing caution to the wind I rushed down to see if I could help. The rain was still falling and the lightning flashed a few times. with the smoke and small fires it was hard to make out what kind of plane it was. It took me about twenty minutes to get down to where I could see, it appears that whatever it was had hit fairly hard and ripped up a large chuck of the valley and was partially buried under rubble. I did find an opening in the craft that was big enough to walk into. The inside was illuminated in a dull blue glow, and the floor was at a slight uphill angle maybe four or five degrees. I took a few steps and stopped. What could I do, I wasn't a medic, I thought. The fact that someone may need me spurred me forward into a larger open area. I knew at once that this wasn't an airplane. I was standing in the wreckage of an alien craft. What gave it away was the unusual markings, and the large bug creature lying face down on the floor with a gray green ichors pooling around it. My first and second reactions were getting the hell out. I however didn't follow my reactions. I do recall checking to see if the first insect creature was alive. Granted I had no way of knowing, but it wasn't breathing or moving and there was a large pool of its blood, led me to believe that it was dead or dying. One other thing I happened to recall is a buzzing noise, not totally unpleasant, but a constant buzzing. I used my flashlight and the flickering lights inside to search further. I continued to look around, and noticed several devices were scattered around. I pocketed one and grabbed a larger one that looked like a PDA on steroids. There were several bulkhead doors that appeared to be jarred open during the crash. Inside one of them was what looked like something from the movies? Tubes and lights, the buzzing sound appeared to be strongest here. There were also sparks that were coming from what appeared to be consoles. There was a console that was glowing , a dull red color, and also appeared to be where the buzzing was coming from. There was a graphic on a screen that showed a round circle with several circles surrounding the outer ones seem to be fading in an out in a red color. I have played a number of computer games in my shop, so this looked like something was being contained. I noticed there were several lines that connected to the circles, some were glowing red some were black lines. The lines each went to a white panel with symbols. That was right about the time; I felt something grab my leg. It was one of the creatures, that I had seen earlier, and this one was alive. My first instinct was to kick it, but I think I was to freaked out to move, so that passed onto curiosity. "Hi, what happened here" I asked holding my hands out in front of me. The creature looked like it was in bad shape, and in a great deal of pain, but there was no hostility directed at me. It pulled itself up to view the console. I happened to get a look at the rest of its body. There were lacerations and several open wounds. It also appeared to have trouble breathing. I think we stared at each other for a good thirty seconds before it turned its attention to the console. It seemed to be more interested in what was going with it than me. It then started pressing the console and buttons below it. The buzzing noises got a bit louder. It looked at me then the console and then gave me a slight push away. It made several clicking noises, and then hissed at me. There was a crackling sound and bright flash. I know I blacked out. Though am not sure how long I was out, but I was a good ten feet from the creature. I felt my whole body tingling as if I had been hit with a large jolt of electricity, my hands and feet were numb, I watched as the bug dragged itself over to me, it took a while but it managed to get over it had a small device that emitted a purple colored energy over me. It kept looking at the device and then at me as if it couldn't understand what the device was displaying. Then it really hit me, I could see the flashlight in the darkness it looked like it had been melted, and the other odd thing was I could see everything in the large room, there were shadows, but they were from the consoles. I finally was able to move and started to get up, the bug backed away from me, as if I was dangerous. "Ow, what did you do!?" I asked, not really expecting an answer. The console we had been looking at earlier was dark. The bug pointed at me, then to a panel. It then started to half limp and half drag itself that direction. I got a good look at its legs; two of its four legs were oozing a gray green fluid. I noticed that the panel itself had some kind of manual mechanism I gave it a pull and it broke off in my hand. I dropped the piece to the floor. The panel opened, inside were several cases arranged in neat rows. They also had weird writing on them, The bug pulled one of them out and opened it, inside were was what appeared to be a medical kit. The bug opened two more and began stuffing items from them into the first case. I watched it in fascination, as it also injected itself with several vials of some blue liquid. It then closed the first case and opened the last three and consolidated the gear into a second case. It then pulled a drawer open and pulled out a device of some kind, and put it in the case. There were several more and it handed me one and I put it on my belt. There were four more and these it put into a third empty case there was also a much larger device the bug dismantled it and put it in the third case along with the other devices. It then offered me the case and then picked up the other two. It gestured to the open door I had come in earlier and made several clicking and chirping noises. We began to head out of the damaged ship, and we passed the body of one of the creatures crew, it ran the same device with the purple beam over it and made a number of clicks and chirps. She also removed several devices from a belt I hadn't seen in the darkness. We exited the gaping hole I had entered, I checked my watch it was four twelve in the morning, so I had been in the ship for about an hour or so. The bug seemed to look at me, the rain continued to come down but even with the rain I could see really well. I pointed in the direction of my campsite and began walking in that direction. I lost my footing and stumbled on some debris. Somehow when I had fallen I had put my hand through a piece of half inch metal plating and left a good size hole in it. I had managed to somehow twist my left ankle as well. There was a metal rod about three feet long maybe two inches wide, that I picked up and started using as a cane. It took the better part of the hour to get back to the campsite. My ankle seems to be throbbing and I knew that couldn't be good. The sky was starting to get brighter, and the rain kept falling. I packed up my camping gear all the while the bug watched me. Needless to say the hike back to the car, was painful and nerve wracking, the bug following me the entire time. It was about six that we got back to the car, luckly no one was in the parking lot, I managed to get my gear and the bug settled into the back seat of my station wagon, after some coaxing. The rain had let up by this time and the sky was a still bit cloudy. The dampness of the air lingered. I pulled out of the lot and started home, I happened to notice on the way, about two dozen military vehicles, going the other direction. Twenty minutes later I was behind a line of cars in a road block of the main highway. There were a number of state and local police. It took about ten minutes to get up to the head of the line. Rolling down my window I asked the officer. "What’s going on?" The female State trooper replied, "The military had a downed satellite, we are making sure no one was contaminated." A Man in military fatigues walked along the car with a Geiger counter. The trooper asked me, "Where are you heading she asked? You see anything last night?" I smiled, "Yeah cutting my camping trip short. This outdoor stuff is to much for me, I just want to get home and soak my feet." I ignored the second question. She seemed to analyze what I was saying she looked in the back of my wagon, not seeing anything she looked at the guy in fatigues. "All clear," He said. She then waved me through the roadblock. I pulled into his garage, The sweat still beading down on my head. I expected to be pulled over and locked up the whole trip home. Once the garage door closed, I opened the back door and checked on the alien. It appeared to be asleep as its respiration was very slow and its compound eyes had a membrane of green over them. I knew that I was breaking any number of laws and risking contamination from some alien microbe. I didn't care, something my farther had said to me when I was younger always stuck with me. He had told me "Son if you can help someone and you don't that’s a worse thing to do that trying and failing to help." I of course had taken that to heart, after all it was my dad who was killed in a car accident and no one helped. I carried the bug up to the third floor apartment, it was mostly unfurnished as I had moved into the second floor apartment when my mom had moved out of state to the house she had from her parents in Maine. After Dad died she didn't want to be in the house anymore. I had turned the first floor into a show room and repair shop of sorts. The bug didn't stir the whole time I carried it up the steps. It weighed a fair amount, about seventy or eight pounds. I still had a few hours before one of the college kids that worked in the shop would come in. I knew they were going to host a lan party today expecting me to not be back till tomorrow. I didn't mind as they had asked me last week if they could. It would be dam inconvenient if they were to use the upstairs bathroom. I put the bug down on the bed in the back bedroom on the bed. I noticed that its wounds seemed to be a deep purple in color. They did not look very good, I went down to my apartment and grabbed a towel and filled a pot with water from the tap. I also grabbed my medical kit. The bug hadn't moved but it was still breathing, I looked it over its green skin was more gray than green. I cleaned up the wounds and covered them with antibiotic ointment, just in case. The bug never stirred the entire time, and it still looked more grey than green. I wondered if it was going into shock. I looked through the supplied it had grabbed and found there were six more vials of the blue liquid, they all looked identical, with the same writing on them. I took the small gun like device and loaded the vial into it and injected it into the bug. I was really out of my league and I knew it. I went downstairs and started looking through my phone book. From my college days I knew there were some people I could call, who might be able to help. Dr. Marshall was an old friend of the family and even though she wasn't a licensed Medical practitioner anymore, and the circumstances as to why were not known, it did have something to do with his fathers death. She wore a dark green shirt with a long skirt, she looked much younger than she was. "You said it was important, and considering you haven't called me in over a year, I figured it must be." I let her in the back door, stepping out to hold the door for her. "Yeah ran into a bit of a problem in the woods" I started to say. "You know I’m not allowed to practice medicine, " she said. "Its not me, you will have to see for yourself, You and my dad always talked about something like this. Top floor back bed room." "Like what?" She asked as she started up the stairs. "Your not going to tell me what this is about? You better not be throwing some kind of surprise party." she said giving me a look. "It will be a surprise, but not what you think," I said closing the door and locking it. I followed her up the stairs and heard the front door of the shop open. "Oh, just go look Emily you'll see. I need to make sure no one goes up to the apartment. Be right back" Emily Continued up the stairs and I opened the side door to the main showroom. "Wonderful" I said under my breath. My two college employees were opening up the shop, and bringing in there own PC's, both to work on and to setup the lan party for later that evening. "Hey, Annie, Brian" I said. They both looked up from the equipment they were lugging into the shop, "Oh your back early." Brain said as turned a look outside. "Yeah the weather went bad. I’m showing the upstairs appartment with a friend of mine, so I know you can get loud when your killing each other." There was a sound of footsteps on the steps, Emily came down. "Rusty" She said looking at the college kids lugging in the computer gear. I turned and closed the door, "You saw, I didn't know what else to do." Emily stared at me for a good thirty seconds, "I think im still in shock, lets go back upstairs and you can explain how you found, it" "So I brought it home, and called you. I think its sick or injured or both. I was hoping you might have some ideas." Emily looked from Rusty to the creature lying on the bed. "If the military finds out, they could have us locked up for a very, very long time." "I am well aware of what the military can and might do. My father worked on plans for the government. " "How do you know about that?" She asked. "Because my dad never locked anything up when he was working and having the government officials stopping by every so often used to upset my mom. Its not hard to figure things out." "Rusty why on earth did you have to bring me in on this?" she asked, "How do you know I won't call Garner and let him know?" "You won't, not after what they did to you and your career. I know it was them who set you up. My dad knew it and they killed him for it. I never liked most of my dad's friends, the one exception is you. He told me about Vietnam, and how you and he got along." "Ok, I see. That still leaves a very big problem." she said gesturing to the bedroom. "Emily I know you used to be a field surgeon and a dam good doctor. I’m not asking you to do something I know you cant do, I’m just out of my league here, at least your familiar with.." "Rusty that’s an alien in there; I used to be a doctor, I’m not anymore. What your asking me to do is.." "Please. There so much we could learn from it, it’s not hostile." She stared at him, "Ok but we do this my way and if we get caught you forced me to help you." "I wouldn't have it any other way. So what are your thoughts?" "I have a couple of ideas, can you bring it to the Hospital in about six hours once is gets dark?" "Are you nuts?" "Rusty, that’s the best place for us to work, I can pull some favors and get us a full MRI and do some tests on the drugs it has in its kit, maybe find something we have here that’s close or the same. You want my help you do what I ask." "Ok, ok. I'll call you before I leave." ------------------------ Sitting in the station wagon, beads of sweat rolled down my face, not from the heat, but from nerves. My heart was beating a mile a minute. "Its great to be alive." I said hoping my passenger didn’t mind the banter. Not that it had complained. I pulled up to the back of the hospital, and made the call. "Im here”, and listened to Emily then hung up. Emily came out of the building with a young man wearing a doctors coat and glasses. "Rusty this is David, he’s an intern and I trust him, he also took some courses in entomology." "Huh? oh bugs, so he knows?" "This better not be some kind of prank." He said. "No prank, its the real deal" I replied as they moved the alien from the car to stretcher. "We have to carry it inside, make sure it stays covered, until we get to the MRI room." David said is a soft tone. We carried the covered alien through the hospital to the MRI room, and placed it into the machine. It wasn't until we the transferred the alien to the MRI that David got a good look at it. "Dam! Emily you were not kidding, a real live alien from another planet!" "A dying alien who needs our help", I said. "We have to do everything we can." "Ok let me get the MRI started, I hope its not claustrophobic." "It hasn't been conscience since I brought it to my place. It took some drugs and hasn't been awake or active since." Rusty said. "Well if it has any metal we should to do X-rays first, but I can't get near the X-ray room since its being used for patients. We have to wing it." Emily said heading into the MRI control room. The machine started to hum and a chugging sound could be heard. I felt the room start to sway. The sensation got worse and a wave of nausea washed over me so powerful it brought me to my knees where I threw up. I tried to stand and fell to the floor. I didn't know what was going on, and the last thing I could remember ----------- "Rusty....Rusty...." a Emily said waving a small flashlight in my face. "Radiation poisoning perhaps?" David asked. "No, the Geiger counter isn’t reading anything other than background radiation." " A biological contaminant perhaps?" "Its possible, but why haven’t we passed out?" "Maybe its a longer exposure time, we are dealing with a lot of unknowns here" "He’s coming around" Emily said helping him up. "What happened?" Rusty asked "We were just going to ask you the same thing." Emily said. "It felt like someone was putting a knife through my skull" "Well we are all done here, are you feeling up to standing?" David asked. "Yea, my whole body is tingling. How is our friend?" Rusty asked. "I looked at the MRI's it looks like it has internal injuries; there is also a small metal mass in its body. It threw off the MRI and until it’s removed we really can't scan it very well." David said. "My professional opinion is we operate, the creature is obviously dying because of the trauma, maybe we can stabilize it, if it was human and had those kinds of injuries; I know we could definitely get it stabilized. In this case though, I am not sure we should try." Emily said. "Why not?" Rusty asked. "Rusty there are a lot of unknowns here, what do you think David, I know that look." "I'm trying to decide, this is a very tough call. My gut says operate, even if it dies we can at least learn about it." Emily sighed, "We need a good cover story, and you know how anal the bean counters are." "Bill it to me," Rusty said, "If it gets paid they won't bitch about it." "That just might work", David said grinning, "Ok let’s get to work" The operation took about three hours and I had to leave several times, to get some medical supplies. After all they did they didn't kill the bug, in fact they stitched it up pretty good and even removed some fragments of dull gray metal. David managed to borrow an ambulance and we moved the alien back to my house. “Can I keep these?” he asked holding out the metal. “Sure, but you didn’t get them from a body of an alien”, I dead panned. "Im going to drive around for a while in case any one wants to see how far I drove," David said grinning. David and Emily left and it was almost Monday morning. The Alien was in my bed, so I took the couch, and expected a military commando team to break through every door and window at any minute. I must have dozed off because the sun was shining through the shades and I looked at the time at it was almost noon. I got up and went down to open the shop. I had a customer come in not ten minutes after with a sick computer. I spent the next hour working on it. the rest of the day went by fairly quick, and I ended up being busier than I though I would be. It wasn't until I closed up shop that I remembered that I had a new obligation. I went upstairs to look in on the bug. what I found when I got upstairs was that the bug was missing, and most of the tech, the bug had brought missing as well. I felt a cold chill and a fear in the pit of my stomach. I know I must have panicked for a good ten minutes looking through the upstairs apartment. I didn't find the bug anywhere, and that had me worried. I checked the back door and it was still locked. I checked the shop since it was where I had been most of the day. I even checked the basement, thinking it might have tried to find a cooler spot. I then went to my small apartment on the second floor, where I started to make a call to Emily. I think I was almost done dialing when I noticed my computer on. It was scrolling a large amount of alien writing. Not to mention a number of devices connected to it. That’s right about the time I heard the water turn on in the bathroom. I had a flash from a horror movie where the main character goes into the bathroom to investigate and gets eaten. I opened the bathroom door a bit and looked inside. The bug had figured out how to use the shower and was in my shower. The steam from the shower was still billowing around the shower curtain. I closed the door and went to the kitchen; it looked like it had been investigated as well, as there were a number of boxes of cereal opened. I must have missed the water turning off, as I turned to put a cereal box back in the cabinet, the bug was standing at the doorway with a device in its hand pointed at me. It clicked and chirped a few times, almost expecting me to understand what it was saying. "Hi, I see your feeling better." I said trying not to freak out and panic. I picked up a box of cereal to put it away. I must have startled it, I am not sure what happened, because there was a burst of red light that stopped about an inch from my chest and exploded it a burst of sparks. The bug turned and ran for the door. I knew that it would more than likely run outside, and cause a commotion and eventually get caught, and possibly killed. I had to stop it before it left the apartment. I started to run after it and there was a flash and I was standing at the door, and the alien ran right into me, or more precisely ran into some kind of barrier an inch from my body and bounced off. The impact was enough to make it drop the device ir had. before it could recover I grabbed it and put it in my pocket. Speaking in a calm tone, "Its all right, your safe." I had little impact as the alien leaped back and ran into the bathroom and slammed the door. "Hey come out of there!" I said. Not only did it open the door a moment later it had what looked like a rifle. It made some angry clicking noises at me. I held up both hands to show they were empty. "Can we talk about this?" I asked, not expecting the alien to understand. It pointed at me then another part of the room. I shrugged no sense in antagonizing it. "Listen if you leave you might be seen and then the military will come." It was at about that moment that my computer made a weird chirping and clicking noise. The bug looked over at my PC and then back at me. It kept the rifle pointed at me while it moved over to the computer. It removed a device that was wired to the rest of its tech and made some chirping noises into it. "No need to harm, move, I will go" was a synthetic and very computerized voice. "Oh a translator, I see this makes it easier. If you go out you might be seen, its safer here." I said again. The device clicked and made other odd noises, presumably translating. The alien turned its head slightly blinked and backed up two steps. "Put the weapon down, so we can talk." I said slowly, like they do in the movies, not expecting it to help. The translator clicked and made more noises a few times, the alien lowered its weapon and spoke into its translator. "Strange alien, you capture, release now", was the translation. "Not capture, guest, friend hiding you from," I tried to think of a simple word that might translate," government, military" The alien listened to the reply, and turned its head more. It spouted a long series of clicks and whistles into the device, then shook it like it was broken then made a few more clicks and whistles into the device "Broken, not understand." was the reply. "can you fix it?" I asked. Not really expecting a translation to work. It tossed the device to me, or more precisely it tossed it and it bounce off the bubble around me and landed on the floor. I picked up the device and looked at it it looked like a computer cell phone or a weird looking MP3 player. Most people would have been weirded out or freaking out by now, but this was something new to me and reading all the science fiction as a kid probably insulated me from all the weirdness going on. I took it to my other bedroom where I kept my personal workbench, ignoring the alien for the moment. It seemed to have seams like a cell phone or other manufactured device. Looking closer at it I noticed it had what looked like plastic covers, like what you would cover screws with. I pried one up and it came off fairly easy. Underneath were rounded metal bubbles. It’s possible that it was manufacture very differently than here on earth. From the location of the covers it looked like they were holding the entire device together. I looked at it closely and tried to pry apart the device, but it was made of a very strong material, I couldn’t scratch it or put a screw driver between the seams. I looked over the device, it had a small screen that was displaying a white script on a black background. there were a number of buttons with different script below the screen itself. it also seems to be heaver than it should be. It was then that I notice the alien staring at me from the door, the rifle was still in its hands. "how do you open it?" I asked, the device of course clicked and chirped. I spent most of the night getting the alien settled and trying to get the device opened. I left it on the workbench and found something for the bug and myself to eat. It didn't like some of the stuff in my fridge, It did like the vegetables and it seemed to like the honey, as it ate it all and wanted more. After it got really late, I showed it around the house, and the third floor and first floor and the basement. I even showed it the garage. I didn't know what it needed to sleep, so I offered it several pillows and blankets. I didn't expect it to be there when I woke up. However it had covered itself with a blanked and curled up in the corner of the room. The next week or so were interesting as we both tried various ways of communicating. I even went so far as to order several speech programs from kindergarten on up to college courses. Emily had contacted me just to see how things were, I didn't mention the energy bubble that seems to be around me. The fact that I seemed to be able to be able to teleport. I also found that if I concentrated I could create a beam of some kind of energy, like a laser, but it was all white. It took three weeks but there was finally a break through with the alien and communication, it turned out that the translator had tried to analyze the language by using my computer hard drive, it being primarily a game system didn't help one bit. I finally got her side of the story, and yes it was a her. Her ship and crew had been scanning earth when they were attacked by another alien race, both ships had been heavily damaged in the fight and her ship had crashed after being ripped apart by gravitational forces, she didn’t know what happened to the other ship as she was just and engineer. As for my new abilities from what she could explain with the limited communications was that I had somehow absorbed the ships power core. What it was I still haven’t figured out as the math she gave me is really complex. As for her name, I haven’t yet given her an earth name, I can't pronounce her name or her planets name. Since finding out about my powers I decided that I was going to have to put my powers to good use. I put on a costume, its all white, with a belt, no cape as I found that I can will the energy shield to appear and stay on, it shredded the cape. I managed to stop a few small crimes at night, the media of coarse mentions me once, about some ghost in a metal mask. I also figured out why I got sick near the MRI. When I fell and hit the ship, I must have picked up a bunch of the metal the ship is made out of. For some reason in my hands its like putty, by itself its a very hard alloy. I decided to use it as a mask, as I can hide it within my own body. How I found this out was I accidentally cut myself and this metal dripped out instead of blood, and since there was no blood for a while a lot of this metal was inside me. A lot more happened after this but this was how I got started, eventually Zix as I started calling her, and Emily met for the first time with a good translator, and found they had a lot in common. Zix also helped me pick a number of stocks, since we needed funds to be able to build a device capable of transmitting interstellar distances. That however is another story. |