Nov

12

Kidnapped by Aliens, Chapter 3. The Kidnapper

Filed Under Creative Writing, Science Fiction | Leave a Comment

A Book by EZPowell

Chapter 3. The Kidnapper

I was wondering what to do next. This was a very strange place and I wondered if I had been kidnapped by aliens. So I went to work on doing something, anything, to make the picture clearer. I swung my legs off the cocoon thing and planted them on the floor. I then realized that I was completely naked.

“Hmmm”, I thought. First step, clothes. “Yoiks!” The floor was cold too. “A pair of shoes might help”, I remarked to myself. I looked down and to my delight there appeared to be a locker on the side of the cocoon thingy. Just my luck, it opened all by itself and out popped something that might pass for clothing. It appeared to be some kind of a jumpsuit but perhaps more like a deep-sea diving suit, minus the helmet, heavy boots and weights of course. There is no way a large metal helmet and heavy boots would have fit into that little locker. Something else popped out of the locker; in fact a few things more. My cold feet and naked countenance took precedence. The urge to protect and cover my nakedness took control of my needs. I will deal with the other contents of the locker shortly. Dressing in the jump suit took a brief pause to understand. There were legs, arms and an opening at the top.

“No zipper?” I thought. “Nothing. Odd.” I placed my feet in the top opening and it seemed to glide up over my body all by itself, fitting itself seamlessly around my torso, limbs, and neck. The way it dressed me was a little disconcerting at first but I felt comfortable, quite comfortable indeed.

I reached down to pick up the other pieces from the locker and arranged them on the mattress to look at them. Some were odd shapes, some were square and some were round. One looked like some kind of weapon. It was short and stubby with a protruding point at one end. I touched it gingerly wondering if one end might explode and take off my hand or leg, or worse.

There was something very strange going on here, I surmised to myself once again. Best to adapt. I picked up the weapon-looking thing and placed it into what looked like a neatly placed rear holster, placed right between the buttock cheeks. The holster felt like it form-fitted around the weapon nicely, without inhibiting sitting or prodding into anywhere intimate or delicate. So many men have a habit of placing large automatics in front of their trousers. So few realize that if something should happen by accident, a most unfortunate incident could quite easily occur. The obvious problem with a rear-end stored weapon is that sitting on it could be equally bad for your health if someone was pointing a different weapon at you and you happened to be sitting on yours, no matter how form-fitting, weird-looking deep submersible style, auto-dressing, totally bizarre suit one is dressed in.

It was then that fate decided to send me my next group of surprises. The number and frequency of surprises that kept surprising me were now just about as much as my now somewhat disturbed mind could cope with. The first thing was a clunking noise from down the hallway beyond the doorway, sounding very much like a woman clunking along a metal passageway in very high heels.

Something else surprised me at that point. I had not noticed before but, yes, the floors were indescribably metallic. My thoughts were, “Where am I?” And, “Something tells me I am in a bit of a pickle here.” Or perhaps just, “Hmmm.” Thoughts tainted with a little voice in the base of my skull saying, “Oh s*&#! What the f@! # is going on here?” As narrator the need I be more blunt?

And there she was, a woman, standing not more than ten paces in front of me. The high-heeled clunking noise had turned into the most voluptuous and desirable woman I had ever laid eyes on in my life. She was equally dressed in a form fitting jumpsuit but looking much more delightful in it than I was. She had a face that looked like a cross between an angel and a sexy-sleaze —the harlot from heaven.

The harlot from heaven is the dream of many a man. Perhaps this is why men find women so confusing sometimes. How do so many women manage to fill such contrary shoes at once?

Everything else about her almost made me stumble. I blurted out what I thought might have sounded like confidence.

“Hello there. Where did you come from?” I happily blurted.

Perhaps I should have saved that particular masterpiece of conversation for another time and place. Of course, I almost said something even more ridiculous. “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” I managed to avoid spitting out that one of course, but only just. And yes, I have tried the latter mentioned line before and no, it has never worked. One line that does work sometimes is, “I am never going to get out of here alive!” Women seem to like that one. Once or twice in my younger days, blurted out into a nightclub crowd had resulted in the grab of a buttock cheek and once even one of the most tender cupping and grasping of the testes that most men have only ever dreamed of. That particular beauty then ran off and hid somewhere. Perhaps she didn’t like what she had felt?

This is all, of course, beside the point. And don’t take my advice because every situation and every person is different. The point is if you find something that works it makes no sense to try it again repeatedly until it works again. That is the stupidity of male logic and the futility of many fruitless adventures, losses and shattered dreams of romance. Once again, this is all beside the point. Back to the woman in front of me who looked delightful, delicious, scary and nice all in the same picture of languid one-liners, lurid Freudian mental images and sleaze!

“Have courage!” I thought. No, you really won’t survive this one. However, perhaps there is no happiness without this either. Then again, many a man knows that there can be bitter frustration and sheer madness when one rubs someone’s hackles the wrong way. Some women seem to take joy indulging in that particular practice. Once again, I digress. My lustful soul relinquished control of my psyche just in time for her answer to my blurted question: it was a polite smile and a diatribe of complete gibberish. I was both surprised and delighted. The language was unintelligible, and I mean completely unintelligible. The sounds seemed as if they were made by a human voice with equally human vocal chords but nothing else was familiar. I must have looked at her with a surprised face and with a gurgling shake of the head that said, “Huh?” She smiled her polite smile again and pointed to the bed. Well, that didn’t confuse me for a moment as the sight of her had me thinking of many things. I was however, quite terrified of her and perhaps more of my physical needs. But she smiled once again and walked to the bed, picked up one of the weird-looking gadgets I had failed to find important, clunked over to me and pinned it to an odd kind of hook on the chest of my suit. She then smiled again.

“Good morning, sir”, she said in perfect English. “That is your intelligent translator, your communicator. Currently, it understands me. It may have trouble understanding you at first but it will learn.”

“Oh”, I said.

I wondered how women manage to walk in those dreadfully uncomfortable shoes. She continued to smile politely.

“And how do men always miss the communicator?” she said.

“Huh?” I thought. And then I thought some more about the communicator. I thought about this. Men often forget to communicate in moments of heightened sensitivity, particularly in the presence of something so delightfully disturbing. However, it could also be said that women who smile and speak in the right manner can send signals not only of invitation but also abatement of any fears a man might have. Women who snarl simply do not communicate. Many men are crass and unfeeling, so perhaps that is why so many women snarl. It is a wonder why we are not yet extinct, is it not? Perhaps if it wasn’t for the dirt-bag males of the world, we would have been extinct eons ago.

I was still stunned by my surroundings. Wouldn’t you be? My stunned and stupefied look must have prompted her next comment.

“You have been kidnapped“, she said.

“Oh”, I said.

“Well, you have not actually been kidnapped in a criminal sense but let’s just say you are being borrowed to be educated and enlightened”, she said.

“Oh”, I said again. “So where do you fit into all of this then?”

She replied after a brief pause. “I am your guide, confidante, assistant and representative.”

“Well this can’t be too bad”, I thought. Had I finally knocked on heaven’s door without paying what some call the ultimate price? Then the other obvious thought occurred to me, “Had I died and gone to heaven? Oh s%$@!”

She turned away, asked me to follow, and oh yes, I followed but not like a dog on a leash. My cynical instincts began to surface while I felt circumspect, suspicious and altogether somewhat wary. “This is all wrong”, I thought. “If something sounds too good to be true it probably is”, my inner cynic recited.

She said to me over her shoulder, “You are quite safe, there is nothing to be concerned about.”

I watched her posterior slowly float in waves under the silky fabric of her jumpsuit.

“Gosh”, I thought. I thought I even felt her smile a little again, but this time perhaps with a slight bristling of annoyance, or was it just impatience. “What are these odd feelings?” I thought. “Something is so incredibly odd here.”

Ensuing events were followed by further ensuing events, some more weird and wonderful than other previously ensued events, She descended down a ladder. I followed, not enthusiastically, but I followed. I felt that I must trust my immediate future to her. After all, there was no one else around and she was nice to look at. This is unusual for me because I have difficulty trusting on the first meeting of someone, even under normal circumstances. We descended into a room with shaded windows on one wall and two seats that looked like an amusement park ride of the far future. And I had never seen such a proliferation of odd buttons, levers and lights as at those two seats. She sat in the left hand seat and gestured for me to sit in the right seat. It looked like a very advanced version of a bucket seat in a racing car. I sat down in it. It was such incredible comfort as to be a delight. A webbing slowly wrapped itself around me like protective cocoon, with a blinking light and a beeping noise in the center.

She said, “Press the red button.”

I hesitated and then pressed the red button dutifully. There really was no other option anyway. I already was strapped in without an exit, even if I felt the urge for one. What was the point in attempting anything adventurous? A click and a snap and I felt pinned to the seat, my arms partially restrained from moving anywhere but forward or upwards towards all the controls and buttons. It felt safe and secure, if a little constricting.

She looked over at me and said, “The next few minutes will be unexpected, try not to be afraid. You are encased in an acceleration couch. It cancels out the effects of acceleration. You may feel a little lightheaded as you adjust to the seat, but it is there to protect you. We will be leaving shortly. I must concentrate on the controls for a few moments.”

I decided it prudent to be silent and to continue to act dumb. A good dog knows when not to wag his tail and wait patiently. I have remained in one piece so far.

She flicked various levers and hit a few buttons and flipped switches on various consoles within her reach.

“There’s a red button on the console in front of you with a blue flashing light under it”, she said.

“I see it”, I said.

“Push the button in firmly”, she said.

I did. There was a rush of compressed air at the rear.

“That’s a fail safe. It closes and opens the rear hatch. Both a pilot and copilot are required to fly this ship”, she said.

“Ship”, I thought. “OK”.

“This is a Class-C Scout ship. It has been modified extensively. It can reach speeds close to the speed of light and has extended range. This ship is very fast and is only limited by the occupants of the acceleration couch.”

“Oh. In what respect?” I questioned, breaking my previous vow of silence.

“How much they can handle”, she said quite bluntly and without the slightest hint of challenge, malice, coyness or whatever else a woman might sometimes want to challenge a man with.

“Well, that is a relief”, I thought. I was completely stunned to say the least. None of this could be real so my skeptical, scientifically-trained intellect told me that I was dreaming and that what she had just told me about traveling close to one hundred and eight six thousand miles per second was interesting and fascinating but probably a complete fairy tale. A fairy tale that I would soon, perhaps quite sadly, wake from.

“How much would I weigh at that speed? Probably quite a lot”, I pondered mentally to myself once again. I didn’t wake up of course and I was beginning to wonder about that one. I tried pinching myself, softly and then much harder. That didn’t work either it just hurt, a lot! Especially because all I could reach with my hands was the tops of my legs near the knees. The skin is somewhat tighter there than what does abound only the buttocks. “Hmmm”, I thought and then thought some more in a stream of mental expletives, “Ouch! f^$%#^@, f^$%#^, f%#$.“

She talked into her mouthpiece. Something unintelligible came out. I guess that translator gadget thing wasn’t that smart.

“I requested clearance to depart. The translator interprets to the recipient of a conversation only. It can do otherwise but does not function as well and the controller speaks $&$)@q&$# anyway”, she said.

“$&$)@Q&$# —what?” I thought. I about-faced my thoughts and answered politely with a nod and a whatever-you-say kind of grin. Just then there was a barely discernible but quite noticeable bump.

“We are free to proceed”, she said.

She flipped a switch and the windows went from translucent to transparent in a flash. What was around us was a sight of absolute wonder and awe.

“Welcome to my world”, she said slowly and with purpose.

“WOW!” I thought.

“Yes. Wow!” she repeated.

I wondered if she was reading my mind. I thought I could test this theory and think of something crude but disciplined and distanced myself from sordid thoughts, at least for the moment. I had made plenty of mental Freudian slips already.

What I saw through the now transparent, of what appeared to be cockpit windows, completely astounded me. I was completely dumb struck. “Now this is a seriously cool dream”, I thought.

It was like something out of Star Wars or Star Trek. I almost expected Scotty to pop out of the ether and say something about warp speed or cores or weird exotic metals and such things. There were numerous metallic-looking hulks of all shapes and sizes. The sky was black but twinkled faintly with odd pinpricks of what looked liked stars. Off to the right in the distance was a huge spinning disk, with multiple colors and shapes around it, all circling slowly. Out of a small viewing port on starboard, I could make out the same metallic shapes and pipes of a monstrous structure, slowly fading into the dimness. I assumed that must be where or what we just came from and were silently moving away from. Directly in front of us was an enormous bulk of what at first looked like a sleek cruise liner. As we moved closer, details became more distinct, details that looked a little ominous. The sleek ship was a little too sleek; it appeared to be bristling with darkened slits with sharp pointy-things sticking out of them. They looked like the barrels of weapons, some short, some longer. There were other points of color with even sharper needle-like colored shapes pointing out of tubes. Could they be missiles of some kind? Whatever they were, they looked nasty and dangerous.

She spoke into her headset again, “^^$Q#@)@#Q”. Something completely unintelligible to my mind. “Be prepared for some acceleration“, she said.

She flipped a switch. There was a humming noise, then a slight vibration and finally a soft, but quite distinct whooshing sound.

“I am using a small ion drive to maneuver. We don’t want to get too close to that destroyer.”

I wandered why but let the thought slip. She didn’t respond. I wandered why, if she was reading my mind. The panorama out of the front window started to change. We appeared to be turning to port, away from the monstrous structure we had recently left. She flipped another switch and the rotation slowed to a stop. I hadn’t felt anything except a slight tightening around my thighs from this weird bucket seat I was in.

“In ten seconds you will experience the effects of intense acceleration. Be prepared”, she said.

While stationary I wondered and said, “Oh”, yet again. I was full of stunned, “Oh’s”, today.

She flipped a switch, took what looked like a steering wheel full of buttons in her hand, leaned back and took a deep breath.

“I never get used to this part”, she said.

“Uh-oh”, I thought. There was a deep grumbling and a very high-pitched whine from somewhere behind us. Then there was a whirring noise like the sound of a large jet engine throttling up to speed. This was something unusual and it didn’t quite sound like a 747 but perhaps a combination of a spinning turbine and a rocket engine far off in the distance.

“The main drive is powering up. Five seconds to the first acceleration run“, she said. “Four. Three. Two. One, …”

All hell broke loose from its moorings. The whole world went completely mad. Reality became a twisted mesh of vague possibilities and obscure probabilities. My mind screamed and so did the rest of me. I felt like I was clamped into a vice-like grip in the acceleration couch and then realized why she had taken a nice deep breath. Being a bit green at this kind of space-faring thing, I had of course forgotten to take another deep breath after letting the first one whoosh out in relief. I felt like I was being squeezed to the size of a golf ball and then being hammered on all sides. Then it all stopped. Reality turned the right way up again, at least my perception of it did. The couch ceased its maniacal squeezing and I could breathe again. I looked over at her. I was in a cold sweat and breathing heavily, partly in excitement but mostly from unbridled fear.

“It will get easier with time”, she said. “The hardest part is not knowing what to expect. Remember to take a deep breath next time and hold it. It’s over so quickly that it won’t kill you but it can get a little uncomfortable sometimes. We are now traveling at about one third the speed of light.”

“Oh”, I said. “Are we going ahead in time?”

“No”, she said. “That particular problem was solved a long time in the past by a race that is now extinct. They left much for all, and more still to ponder over. They were great engineers but forgot to preserve their worlds. They polluted their home worlds. They misunderstood that self-preservation was dependant on preservation of their surroundings. They had little foresight in that respect but were visionary engineers and builders.”

“Is that why I am here?” I said.

“Partly”, she said.

Breaking off, she said, “Five seconds to acceleration. This one will be longer and fiercer —take a deep breath now!”

I breathed in furiously and held it.

“Two. One”, she said.

And all hell broke loose again. My lips felt like they were wrapping around my ears and my eyeballs sunk into their sockets. My legs were pinned to the bottom half of my seat, constricted almost to the point of agony. I felt like there was an enormous weight on my chest. The pressure from the seat webbing on my shoulders and neck stopped me from breathing out so I just felt like I was imploding. And reality was spinning wildly again. This time it all went on far too long for comfort. After what seemed like an eternity it all stopped again, time started again and everything else with it.

“We are now at maximum speed in normal space. We will reach the event horizon of our first way point in about five minutes so we have some time to relax before crossing into the first worm-hole.”

“An Einstein-Rosen bridge“, I said – trying to sound intelligent.

“A bridge?” she said.

“A theory postulated by one of our scientists”, I said. “Space is curved by large masses to form gravitational wells that mass can pass through, if one can stand being seriously squashed. How are the infinite gravitational forces dealt with?”

“I don’t know. I am a teacher, a diplomat and a pilot, not an engineer.”

I was fascinated but more apprehensive than I had ever been in my life before. When passing the event horizon, as she called it, would I be stretched so thinly that my feet and arms and legs and even my conscious thoughts could separate into their individual atoms, only to be joined together at the other end, if there was another end. How the hell would I feel being put back together after being stretched out like a long piece of atomically thin spaghetti? After the last thing she did with the switch and the little bits of acceleration here and there I hated to imagine it. So I didn’t. I ignored it as all brave men do. When cowardly men duck and run for cover brave men simply shut their eyes and hope for the best. Is it coincidence that the brave among us simply have a better propensity for ignoring trouble?

Am I brave? Who knows? At this point I was so well strapped in that the only way out was through it. Now was a time I wished I had two heads and a pair of really dark glasses and some things in my ears so that I couldn’t see or hear when things were about to get seriously scary —and of course the appropriate temperament. Once again I return to the subject of bravery and courage. Some say that the brave are just foolhardy, some say they are fearless and are not concerned with fear. Is being brave all about being able to ignore obvious dangers? Can one focus on the task of staying alive, ignoring all the obvious pitfalls? Perhaps one can desist from dwelling on potential nasty stuff long enough to keep one’s concentration on the immediate task at hand. As I already said, if it gets nasty, shrug it off. If it gets really scary, just pretend it isn’t. Further than that and you just have to ignore it. There is no other way.

“I thought you said I had been kidnapped?” I said.

“We have in fact kidnapped you, yes. But we are going to help you. We are going to help you so that you can help us and ultimately help yourself and all of your people, perhaps your whole planet someday. We are going to teach you and enhance you. We are going to train you and modify you and make you much more than what you are now”, she said, pausing to take a breath.

She looked at me carefully from the corner of her eye with a slight smile and a hopefully raised eyebrow, jutting chin and the faintest of grins.

“Oh”, I said again.

My mind screamed, “Oh *#$!”, but I kept that one to myself. I was stunned. My scientific mind still considered this a dream but the fun part of me wanted to play along as long as possible. Like an endless, scary-as-hell, puke inducing roller coaster, right now I couldn’t get off this thing. I might as well smile and make the best of it. There was much that was odd. Some things were intriguing and some fascinating. One thing was particularly and most noticeably sleazy, and as a result, most temptingly desirable. Overall, being scared silly wasn’t going to help me at this juncture.