Day1

It’s like they have done this many times before. My “room” or cell is like a presidential suite in a fancy hotel. I woke up in a King size bed more comfortable than my bed at home. I’ve been wandering around the room looking for a way out, but nothing. They haven’t said anything to me, I do feel like I’m being watched though. There’s an intercom on the wall that I’m trying to communicate with, but no response. The fridge is stocked with every food you could imagine, so naturally I started cooking. Got my three meals, watched a couple football games and took a few naps. Today seemed way too good to be true, things were going to good it can’t stay like this.

Day2

I was abruptly woken up, no knowledge of what time it was, just a bright light shoved in my face. I was on a cold table and I couldn’t fully open my eyes because of the lights. It must be “them”, I started screaming at them asking “what do you want?!” I couldn’t make out any features. Some gas filled the room and I passed out. I woke up back in the presidental suite on the couch in front of the TV. Someone was there when I got back, not an alien, another person. Laying in the bed just as I did when I first arrived, a woman.

Day3

We spent all night (or what we think is night) thinking of how we got here and what these aliens want with us. We have narrowed it down that they may to just observe us interacting. Because we don’t live in the same area back on earth. I’m from NC and she’s from a small town in Utah. We both have regular jobs, nothing life changing. In the back of my mind though I feel like they just wanted to give me a friend. Because even though I shouldn’t trust these things, I get a feeling that they are harmless. I hope I’m right about that.

Maria pulls Frank by his hand into the swinging saloon doors, as a man rolls down the stairs and lays on his back at their feet. The man on the piano acts as if there is no one in the bar but him and that piano, playing a generic ragtime tune. Stepping over the passed out gentleman, Frank turns around and puts the drunken man’s hat back on his head. He had no signs of getting up any time soon. Walking closer to the bar, there are multiple fist fights happening at once. All seemingly for different reasons. Four men to the left of the bar fight around a poker table. A woman to the right laying over top a table that seats two, grabbing a man by the collar with her arm cocked back ready to fire. Two men on the floor, in Frank and Maria’s path, rolling around fighting over a bottle of whiskey.

The catwalk above the bar, where the man that greeted their feet was thrown from, was just as chaotic. Men having their backs pushed against the banister as if they are being given a ultimatum. The doors of the rooms upstairs being either slammed shut or flung open. A woman with a gun is chasing a man down the stairs and out the door.

Once they make it to the bar the bar tender rises up from being crouched down, taking cover from all the madness that surrounds him. Covering his head with a serving tray he says “What will y’all be having today?” Frank looks at Maria with the widest eyes, because she is leaning over the bar grinning from ear to ear as she says, “Two bourbons please!” Frank looks around for a stool and doesn’t want to touch anything just in case it starts a fight. There is two drunken men sitting next to him sleep on the bar. The one closest to Frank is in a coma like sleep, the man beside him wakes up abruptly and looks very confused. He finds an empty beer bottle and breaks it over the man’s head that is sitting next to Frank. The drunken man that showed no signs of waking up jerks up and throws a left hook to his attacker. They join the other groups in the middle of the floor trading blows. Well now they have two free stools. He sets one under Maria and slides his right next to hers. Maria sits back on the stool and says “I love it here!”

It has been fifteen years since the sun had last risen, I rub my eyes because the light is just too bright. I look around and see my legs strapped down in a clear jelly-like liquid . Strapped down in a preservation pod that was set to open 20 years from 3030. We are five years early, what is going on? Looking up again as my eyes come into focus, this isn’t the sun. It’s the artificial sunlight helps the incubation process during these long sleep sessions. I immediately reach up and turn the dimmer knob to give my eyes a break.

    My mind is now racing with questions, but first things first. Let’s get something to eat. I release my legs from the restraints, rubbing my thighs and calfs to wake them from a fifteen year slumber. I do a quick scan around the room to make sure everything is the way I left it. To my right is my cherry oak desk that I received from my father. He was a lawyer and spent a lot of time sitting at that desk. I tend to sit back and say to myself “if you could see me now old man”. Behind the desk is a thirty foot in diameter round window, that was strategically positioned to be at the front of my spaceship. Giving me a perfect view of space and where we are headed.

      Pressing a button titled ‘drain’ the gelatin is flushed out. There is a touch screen on the ledge next to the pod. I begin to type in my captains code, which allows me to manually control the pod. Typing in another sequence, the pod raises me to a stand up position. To stop from collapsing I hang on to the side of the pod. Thinking to myself, “I’ve got to get these wet clothes off.” 

     Stumbling to the robe that hangs to the right of my pod I quickly grab it and throw it over me. I hear over the rooms inter-com, “Captain Russel! May I come in?” That was none other than my right hand, a traveling cyber partner that was assigned to me when I was a cadet, H.O.P.E. This stands for, Humanoid Operative Projected for Exploration. “Come in Hope!” I respond. He walks in and we do our secret handshake that we made in our spare time as cadets. “Sir, we are coming up on the Vector solar system. We are about 5 years early” he says. Walking to the bathroom and jumping in the shower I say, “yeah when I saw the year on the outside of my pod I knew something was up, how’s the ship?” “Great!” He says while pulling out my spandex suit from the garment closet next to my door. 

     “We have been getting pulled into the solar system quicker than expected” he said “ and we’ll be reaching planet E513 in about 2 months.” He walks over next to the bed where a chair was placed just for him. “Sounds good” I blurted, “was anyone else discharged early as well?” A I snatch the robe off the railing of the shower and step out. Hope reads from his electronic tablet that he carries with him everywhere, and says “No I made the decision to wake you early so we can strategize in peace.” 

      He was right, we have a very important mission a 10,000 citizens and 300 crew members who are relying on us. There is a civilization at E-513, so diplomacy tactics and society protocols must be strategically implemented. This planet that we are approaching will be our new home.