The aliens invade, and pull people to the skies, and what will we do? HELP! And of course, does anyone ever listen to the university professor, hm?
Dads Bob, Bob, Jim, and John stood poolside at the graduation party clinging to drinks.
“Hey, how about that meteor that NASA just blew up,” said Jim. “Cool or what?”
“Yeah!” agreed Bob. “Holy shit!”
“Yeah, wow,” said John.
“What was that?” asked Bob.
“You didn’t see it?”
Bob shook his head.
“NASA shot a rocket into a big meteor that was flying by…”
“It wasn’t going to hit us…”
“They just wanted to see if they could do it…”
“Man, they did!”
“Blew it right up!”
Bob said, “Cool!” He felt a mosquito at his neck and slapped it. But his hand remained fastened to his neck, and he rose from the patio and up into the brilliant blue sky.
Bob, Jim, and John were immediately distracted from shared astonishment by their own mosquitos. They each rose from the party with a hand attached to the part of themselves that felt the bite; Bob with a hand to his forearm, Jim with a hand to his knee and John with a hand to his temple. Still holding drinks.
The rest of the party stopped, silent and flabbergasted, to watch, but everyone soon had a slap at themselves and then a perfectly vertical lift off from the yard. Even the swimmers, after they stood and watched the soles of their fellow partyers grow small, rose effortlessly from the pool, water pouring off their bodies in torrents diminishing to trickles.
Within a minute, the yard was vacant, the only sound the pool skimmer.
***
The news was all the swarm. Or swarms. Scientists believed there were many. In countless places of the world, entire streets, markets, bazaars were emptied of people. Their frozen bodies could be tracked well into dark outer space.
It was found to be futile to stay indoors. The mosquitos got in, their victims squashed through any available opening as they rose.
Wary news reporters on the now perpetually crowded streets interviewed alarmed citizens, eyes scanning for bugs. Videos were left on dropped cellphones showing panicked victims trying to flee and fight off a sudden attack, only to go stiff and lift away.
A breakthrough came when magnified views of the mosquitos were obtained. They were no known insect. They were not insects at all. They were alien. Passengers, it was conjectured, of the destroyed meteor.
***
Professor Polaron wore a smug expression along with his CO2 Conversion Hat. The smugness was more the result of eccentric brilliance than of a superiority complex. The hat was the result of decades determining a realistic method of removing excess CO2 from the atmosphere. This latest version was no longer the cat-in-the-hat size of the previous model, but it was still large. A flat top with a solar panel, it was shiny with hoses and poly collection bags springing from it. A jangly metallic Medusa’s head on top of his own.
He was delivering his spiel to a handful of students in the Altstadt of Graz, Austria. The nearest swarm had been recorded in Finland. Austria felt safe at the time, although everyone was edgy, eyes darting for changes. In town for the International Conference on Environmental Chemistry and Engineering, he was happy to take his show outdoors to tourists and these half-serious, mirthful students.
“The electrical charge diffuses the cerium into the alloy of liquid gallium, etc. The cerium interacts with oxygen, CO2, and water, ultimately releasing solid carbon and pure oxygen as byproducts.”
He reached for a collection bag dangling over his right ear.
“The oxygen is off-gassed and the solid carbon, as flakes, is collected here.”
The students marveled. Took turns peering into the bag.
“Solid carbon and oxygen only?” asked the most serious student.
“Also a minimal amount of cerium oxide. Common and harmless.”
“So,” said the most mirthful student. “We should all be wearing these?”
“Yes!”
They all laughed, the mirth frozen on their faces as they began to rise.
All of them but Professor Polaron. He watched them go with the utmost interest. All he could think was ‘There goes all my work’. Then he waited for his turn to rise, for a new, final experience. But it never came. He stood and watched the hundreds of thousands in Graz ascend into the heavens until he was alone.
***
The terrified populace tried saving themselves with countless measures. Many hung weights about themselves or tied themselves to anything heavy they could roll along. But it was as futile as trying to hide indoors. The aliens were stupendously strong, each as strong as Superman, and the added weight only pulled the victim apart during ascension.
Masses of people asphyxiated in sealed vaults. Others armed themselves with shotguns and more, blasting themselves and their surroundings when their time came. Those with means travelled to regions already emptied out by aliens, counting on them not to return. It worked, until it didn’t.
***
As he tried to get back to America from Europe, Professor Polaron promoted his CO2 Conversion Hat as the answer to the invasion. It had saved him from the one swarm he had encountered; it must be the reason he was left behind.
“A single result is not proof,” was his colleagues’ unanimous conclusion.
***
As the situation grew more dire, millions more gone every day, people reached out, far out, for solutions. Super magnets, super vacuums, super poisons, super strong nets were deployed and found useless. The idea was accepted, mostly, that the aliens were now stuck on earth after their ship, the meteor, was destroyed. The idea was rejected, mostly, to build them a replacement. Meanwhile, around the world, top to bottom, side to side, people kept rising from the earth as if in invisible elevators. They rose until they were weightless, left far out in the dark and frozen as popsicles.
***
Professor Polaron arrived home exhausted. Too tired to work, he climbed to the cupola of his old house with a glass of milk and sat looking out over the campus lights. He would begin the push tomorrow to have the university accept his hat as the alien antidote, and then use its power to promote it. Then, he flipped through his phone and read the text announcing the school’s closing. He sighed and sipped.
He was beat. He had no energy for analytical thought right now, but perhaps enough left for self-pity. He was tilting at windmills and they were taking his lance…
Loneliness caught him. A rarity for the professor. A lover of solitude and nearly a virgin, his relationship to other people was mostly confined to teaching. To women, it was his only access. He was not always happy with this narrow status. For the far greatest part of his waking hours, he lost himself in Science while living, sometimes frustratingly, as an island surrounded by a young student body, 56% female.
***
Cheerleaders Brie, Bing, Alia, Mo, Darla, and Michaela group-hugged on the lawn outside Taylor House. They had just closed up their suite and were about to scatter off in every direction. They could be apart temporarily or forever.
“This won’t last,” Brie declared. “There’ll be another semester.”
“We’ll never see each other again,” sighed Michaela.
“Don’t say that!” hissed Alia.
“We’re splitting up,” Bing said sadly. “What if one of us gets…”
“Don’t say that!” shouted Alia.
“The Creep is watching us,” said Michaela. “He’s wearing his Crazy Hat.”
“Ignore him,” said Darla. She took a deep breath. “Everything will be fine.”
“They’ll figure it out,” agreed Mo.
“We might all DIE!” wailed Michaela.
The hug tightened. Sobbing commenced.
***
Professor Polaron was watching. He found it a perk that his ground floor office was directly across the Quad from the cheerleaders’ dorm. In warm weather, when clothing was scant…
He sighed and looked away. The women were stricken. It was not the time to ogle. He sat then, and became lost in thought, taking in his lineup of CO2 Conversion Hats on the near bench. He was closing up, too.
He roused himself to begin packing when outdoor movement caught his eye. The cheerleaders were breaking huddle. They formed a staggered line formation, smiled and clapped hands. Polaron smiled, too. A goodbye cheer? It was heartening, in these times. Then a girl in back, out of sync, reached for her thigh and rose from the ground and the group.
The first scream reached him as he swept the extra CO2 Conversion Hats from the bench and ran for the door.
***
Brie was at rooftop level and climbing when a male voice shouted “NO!” at the five girls racing for the building entrance. “You CAN’T go INSIDE! It will be WORSE!”
Even in their hysteria, they knew this. They stopped short and went into a wide-eyed, collective crouch on the walk, eyeing Brie, fearfully, far above. And they resumed screaming.
The Creep and his Crazy Hat was running toward them, arms loaded with Crazy Hats.
Then Darla stretched up from her crouch and began to rise. Screaming intensified as the others got hold of her. They clung to her until all started to rise and then – “NO!” – they released her one by one and dropped back to the ground. They watched her in horror and then, eyes darting, searched for aliens around themselves.
“PUT THIS ON! PUT THIS ON! PUT THIS ON!” the Creep handed out hats. “PUT THIS ON!”
Hats were quickly pulled over heads and held firmly down by shaking hands. The cheerleaders waited, terrified, for what would come…
But within moments, the screaming stopped. Sobbing took over. Blubbering, weeping under the hats, the girls hugged, a smaller group now. And they remained earthbound.
***
Polaron stood wary, watching the women for any sign of hat failure. But his inventions held up. Meanwhile, the college and town were emptying into the sky. It was apparent without looking up. Human forms were leaving the earth all around them, like a backward rain. He worked at catching his breath and tried to clear his head enough to think of the next logical move.
“We need more hats!” cried Mo, still clinging to the others but watching the rain. “We have to DO something!”
Professor Polaron shook his head. “These are all I’ve got.”
“You have to make more!” This was Michaela. The hug broke apart. Hats were held onto tightly.
“If only I could. Everything is breaking down. Supply chains. I can’t get material.”
The crying intensified.
“This is AWFUL!”
“Everybody is just… going AWAY!”
“I have to get HOME! My MOTHER! Can my hat help her, too?”
“This is AWFUL!”
Polaron stood silent, letting them vent. But they surrounded him, insisting he do something. Something more…
He held up his hands. “The best thing we can do – RIGHT NOW – is to wait for the swarm to move on. Then we can collect ourselves and figure out what to do.”
This did not appease them. But they had no counter.
***
The group stayed close together. They were looking for evidence that the aliens had moved on, Professor Polaron told them, and for any survivors.
When Alia headed for the entrance to a dorm, Polaron stopped her.
“The remains you may find in there will be something you shouldn’t see.”
Alia froze and then turned, hands covering her mouth.
“We could just yell up at the buildings. Listen for anything, or one.”
So they hollered at buildings as they passed. Throughout the college, throughout the town they never heard anyone holler back.
***
Professor Polaron was at the wheel of the cheerleader van. The college streets had been difficult to navigate with empty cars, still running, left where they stopped, their occupants removed violently through whatever opening available. And the town boulevards themselves were nearly impassable, with so many more empty vehicles blocking the way. But he managed to get them to the market, sometimes by driving over empty sidewalks. Now they were on the highway and stocked with provisions. The road was not much faster than the other streets, but they were able to move.
Ostensibly, they were going to see if Mo’s family could be helped, hers being the nearest of the four women to the college, less than forty miles. Though he kept it to himself, Polaron did not believe they could help anyone. He agreed to go because he was running out of cerium. There was sure to be a supply in a metal shop or some such in the city just beyond Mo’s small town.
The cerium shortage was a small problem that could be fixed. The larger, frustrating problem was the inability to mass produce the hat. He couldn’t do it alone. While there were still others to save, he needed to partner with a manufacturer. But everything was shutting down. Cell phone service was sporadic. The electrical grid was faulty. People were no longer going to work. They were trying to find ways to save themselves.
‘Here it is’, he thought, touching his hat. But soon, it would be too late. He couldn’t see it going any further than the hats in this van.
***
“On the corner,” Mo pointed ahead. “White with blue shutters.”
But the others had already seen that the town was empty, with a hodgepodge of empty cars on the street. They rested hands on Mo, preparing for the breakdown. She was out the door while the van was still pulling up.
As they gathered on the walk, they could hear her inside calling for her family. The other girls looked to the Professor. He acknowledged them with a tight-lipped shake of his head. And they broke down.
***
They traveled in an RV now, trading up at a rest area on US-50. After Mo’s town, they had traveled to Michaela’s, then Bing’s, and finally Alia’s. All barren, all relatives gone. Mourning continued but the weeping diminished, concentrated at night when they rested. They mostly rode in silence.
With power plants no longer manned, the grid was down. They found gasoline in garages of homes and tankers on highways, all the traffic in suspended animation. The RV had a generator. Polaron even used it to electrify a dark gas station and reenergize the pumps. They had no shortage of fuel.
The professor had convinced them that a good place to settle and work out what to do next was California’s central valley. It was fertile, had water, the weather was better than reasonable and there were ranches already off the grid, power supplied by solar panels and windmills.
When he laid the plan out to his glum audience, he could only add, “We have to move forward.”
***
They found what they were looking for outside Visalia. Horses whinnied from a paddock as they pulled in.
“Oh!”
The girls ran to them directly from the RV. Six horses crowded the fence for attention. But they were unsteady, and had trouble holding their heads up.
When Professor Polaron reached the others, he studied the horses and looked around the paddock. A stock tank was full of water, but there wasn’t a blade of grass left for them to eat in the enclosure.
“They’re starving,” he said. “We should turn them out.”
Bing was over the paddock rail in an instant. “Let’s see if there’s food in here”. She trotted to the adjoining stable and pushed through the door.
“She rides,” said Alia.
“Yeah, she’s good!” said Michaela.
The horses moved to the ground below the hayloft doors just as they burst outward. Bing appeared with an armload of hay and tossed it out, and followed it with five more.
“Start with that!” she called down.
The ranch house was huge and modern and meticulously kept. Its roof and those of the outbuildings were solid solar. Even the pump supplying water to the horses was solar-powered. There was a big diesel pickup truck in one of the outbuildings and a nearly full thousand-gallon diesel tank behind the stable.
***
Professor Polaron explored the ranch in the truck. One of the rough tracks over the hills looped past an abandoned mine. A little beyond the shored-up entrance, the mine expanded to the size of a large ballroom. Playing a flashlight beam over the scoured walls, he tried but failed to identify the mineral. The room, including the floor and ceilings, appeared to be one massive rock. On the way out, he studied the entrance. If it came to it, the mine could be used as a shelter.
In town and then farther afield, he found needed materials in labs and shops. He kept the hats fueled, and gathered enough surplus to fill a garage bay. Back at the ranch, he fiddled with computers, cell phones, TVs, and radios. Wi-Fi picked up nothing. It was blue screen or snow and static. And as he drove and as he fiddled, he thought of Bing, Alia, Mo, and Michaela. Young. Nubile. Within his reach and no one else’s. Within this bizarre and grim situation, he could foresee a little paradise. A harem!
***
“Oh, my god!” cried Mo. “He’s the last man on earth!”
She was at the wheel of the RV. The women had taken to traveling the valley releasing livestock and collecting food and clothing.
“And now, maybe not so creepy, but…,” said Alia, searching for the word. “Undesirable.”
“Still creepy,” said Michaela.
“Can you imagine…” said Bing. “Uh!”
“He can,” said Mo. “The way he stares.”
“You can see what he’s thinking.”
“He’s going to expect it…”
“He can take care of himself himself!”
“Ha! He’s going to be expecting for a loooong time!”
They laughed until they cried.
“There has to be someone else in the world!”
***
Polaron looked pleasantly from face to face. He had asked them to meet at midday in the dining room where he could lay out his ideas for the future. His self-possession was such that he didn’t pick up on Mo’s defiant vibe, Alia’s guardedness, Bing’s boredom or Michaela’s fear.
“I don’t know the status of the alien swarms, obviously. Or the status of humanity. My assumption is that we are all that’s left. The aliens may have died out, too. Or they just haven’t been able to find us. But we should proceed under the assumption that we are the last living people and the aliens may attack at any moment.”
He looked around the table. He had their attention.
“Our hats will continue to protect us as we go about making a new life for ourselves. I have an idea to protect the entire ranch with the material I have collected and mixed. I think it is possible. But soon we will need to produce our own food. This fertile valley will support that. And as for energy, I don’t see us running out.”
He cleared his throat. He wasn’t sure what reaction his next statement would get. But he took a deep breath…
“Now, as a species on the cusp of extinction, there is no question but that it is our duty to repop…”
“Why is it so dark out?”
The bright light they had been sitting in grew flat and then to twilight.
“Eclipse?”
“Maybe a storm.”
Three of the women went to the windows. Polaron and Michaela remained sitting.
“They’re here,” said the Professor.
Michaela shrieked and dashed out, her chair overturning and hat crashing down the staircase as she fled to her room.
“The hat!” cried Polaron.
He swept it up and climbed the stairs two at a time. “The HAT!”
But he was too late. There was a crash of bloody glass. When he reached the broken opening he could only watch as her crumpled body disappeared into…
“Oh.”
The swarm was so thick it had mass, a swirling, concentrated metallic mass. Lifeless Michaela was swallowed into it on her way to space.
Polaron ran down to the others.
***
The four stood at the dining room windows, the girls weeping, as the air around them became thick with aliens. In the growing darkness – it would be total but for the glow from the electrical processes of their hats – they stared, petrified, into each other’s eyes.
With panic rising in his women, Polaron needed to think, but also to keep them lucid. So, he thought out loud.
“The swarm is so massive now. I believe this proves that we are the last humans on earth. They’re concentrating on us.”
It was a thought best kept to himself.
“OH!”
Alia collapsed but was caught by Mo and Bing, Bing nearly losing her hat…
“The HAT!”
… but with one hand snugging it back down quickly.
“Sit! Sit!” cried the Professor.
He eased out chairs for the three and helped them sit down.
“We are still protected.”
He held Michaela’s still working hat. He raised it to the swarm. A pocket opened where a wall of aliens had been.
“But this is not sustainable. We need a buffer between us and them. And what exactly are they?”
He tried to focus on a single alien in the swarm, but all were moving too much. But so silent! There was not a buzz or a click from them running into each other, despite their closeness.
“Perhaps they are like bees. Not intelligent individually, but coordinated as a swarm. And the meteor was a flying hive that man broke open. Is this anger we’re experiencing? Is the destruction of our species shared revenge on their part?”
He stood before the seated Mo, Alia and Bing, wearing his hats, engulfed by the swarm.
“We need to get them away from us.”
“Please!” pleaded Mo.
“I’m going to faint…”
Mo and Bing held Alia.
Polaron watched his girls. “The mine,” he said, finally. “We have to go outside…”
“NO!”
“…to the truck. “We’ll lead them to the mine.”
“NO!”
“WE CAN’T!”
“OH!”
“OK. OK,” he said. “I’ll go out and get the truck loaded while you…”
“NO!”
“THIS IS NOT SUSTAINABLE!” But then he got control of himself again. “We cannot sit here forever. We have to DO something.”
He eased himself away from them slowly and stepped into the swarm. “Stay together. I’ll return shortly.”
Despite the cries of his women, Polaron left them, the swarm filling the space he had occupied.
***
The slow walk to the truck took over ten minutes when it normally took one. He had taken a quick step off the back porch only to feel resistance from the wall of aliens slow to move out of his hat’s way.
‘Whoa! Don’t want to lose the hat,’ he told himself. ‘All would be over.’
But he made it to the garage, sweeping the ground of aliens with the extra hat so he could find his way, and loaded the truck carefully, saying to himself over and over again, ‘This had better work. This had better work.’
The truck ready, he began to ease himself behind the wheel, but realized that he would not be able to drive. With the swarm’s wall inches from his face, he may as well have been blind. He left the truck and garage and began the journey back to collect his women.
***
It took nearly twenty minutes for the four of them to reach the truck. Alia practically had to be carried. Just getting them on their feet in the dining room took much cajoling. He had to lay out his plan for the mine, and then convince them that it was their only chance. But here they were, Mo in the driver’s seat, Alia between her and Bing.
Mo’s hands shook as she grasped the wheel. Professor Polaron reached in and covered them with his hands.
“We are going to do this and everything will be all right.”
He felt her grip tighten. She nodded.
“Good. Start it… OK. Now back it out slowly…”
He moved to the front bumper and watched the ground. “GOOD! BACK IT LEFT! OK! PUT IT IN NEUTRAL!”
He worked his way through the swarm to the driver’s window.
“This is going to be a slow process. No faster than walking. But we’ll get there. Put it in DRIVE. OK. I’m going to keep a hand on your door while watching the ground. Just steer as I say.”
Mo nodded. The truck moved forward.
Polaron meant to keep a running dialogue with the three in the truck as they crawled along. Something to sooth them, as much as possible, during this excruciating trip. They would all need their wits controlled for his plan to work. But watching the ground inch by and directing Mo took all of his concentration.
***
Several times over the next hours, the Professor had Mo stop while he walked the road ahead. Finally, he found the mine entrance. He came back to the truck one last time.
“OK. It’s directly ahead. We’ll move forward fifty feet or so and park.”
***
He could see that the others were in no shape to help, so he led them into the first few yards of the mine, the swarm filling the empty space around them.
“Just wait here. It’s almost over. I’ll set things up.”
He expected an outcry as he left them and received it but kept going.
***
The setup was a matter of placing a trough of the cerium and liquid gallium across the floor of the mine entrance and running an electrical cable from the generator in the truck bed to the trough. The generator would be started remotely while he was in the mine with the others and the swarm.
Before attaching the cable, he tested the remote and generator. The button pushed, the engine roared to life.
Satisfied, he looked around at the swarm. “The mine was to be our shelter, now it will be your prison.”
He shut the generator down and made the connection. Satisfied with the setup, he went back into the mine. The part of the swarm still outside followed him in.
***
The way was harder to follow this time, with the swarm blocking all views. Polaron banged into the rock wall several times and called ahead, “It’s just me coming back. It’s just me coming back,” until he emerged within the hat-protected space of the girls, their eyes shiny with terror by the dim light.
“The trap is set. Now we need to move a bit farther into the cavern – all of the aliens must be in here with us for it to work.”
He moved them forward, making space with the extra hat, until he was satisfied.
“OK.” He took a deep breath and then turned until he was facing, as best he could determine, the mine entrance. He brought the remote up within the glow of their hats and pressed the button. He thought he heard, through the thick mass of aliens, the generator’s motor erupt into service. He looked to the remote, but it told him nothing.
After a long moment, Mo asked, “Is it working?”
The Professor was silent. He hadn’t had the time to think this through, to figure each step and factor in its repercussions.
Finally, he said, “I’ll have to go see.”
“Can’t we all go?”
“Please!”
“I can’t stand much more!”
“It will only be a minute. I’ll verify the result and get you out.”
He left them protesting, and worked his way to the entrance.
***
And then there was light. It worked!
The swarm’s edge roiled near the entrance, but the off-gassing trough kept them inside the mine. Polaron shouted with joy and stepped over the trough and into the bright daylight. He turned and studied the swarm, looked about for a straggler or two that may have made it out. He saw none. He was alone and safe.
He was about to step over the trough again and back into the mine and the swarm, but took a quick glance at the generator in the truck bed several paces away. Gas was sloshing out of the tank, its cap gone somehow, vibration throwing droplets into the air and onto the warming motor.
“OH!”
He pulled the remote from his pocket and aimed, but stopped himself. If he shut it down the swarm would come out. He had to get the cap on, clean up the…
***
Polaron opened his eyes. He was looking straight up at the sun.
“UH!”
Countless burning embers pierced his face, chest, abdomen, and legs. He slapped at them, spun over and rubbed them out on the ground. He gasped against the dirt. He worked himself back over and slowly sat up…
A harsh ringing in his ears overwhelmed all other sounds.
The mine! The swarm! His girls!
The ground lurched beneath him and shook and shook. Then he was sinking…
No! The hill covering the mine was rising! He fell onto his back again and tried to steady himself against the shivering ground. He had to throw an arm over his eyes from the descending dirt as the great rock of the mine rose, tearing itself from the earth. He peered through his fingers at the immense jagged rock rising as if in its own elevator. As it grew smaller, the dirt and pebbles raining down on him diminished. He watched it for several minutes as it became a speck and then disappeared.
***
Professor Polaron visited the crater every morning for several days at first light. He walked it as much as possible, but never found anything connected to the three young women. He maintained his two hats, always wearing one, not sure if any of the swarm remained.
He walked the land surrounding the crater, but found nothing there either. While he searched, he thought of his mistakes. He should have brought Mo, Alia, and Bing with him when he checked the setup. They may have survived. They didn’t have a chance inside.
And the gas cap. He left the cap loose or overfilled the tank, or both. A fatal mistake. The heated gas, the electrical charge in the over-oxygenated air – a bomb. Why hadn’t he been smarter?
On the seventh day, he went to the crater again, but only rested on a rock ledge. After a while, he removed his CO2 Conversion Hat and dropped it in.
***
END
