Chapter Nine

General Fraser didn't understand extraterrestrial life quite as well as he thought he did. 

He stood on the top floor of the Blue Sun, watching as the divine sky began dimming, wafting its pockets of thick, murky vapour over the outer walls, so fantastical and abnormal to the routine of everyday life, which was old and boring in its essence, if not terribly remarkable. 

Alarms burred up and down the building with red flashes of light.

By the time the humming stopped, Fraser let go of his ears and looked down from the spiral. He saw a crowd of military personnel, each draped in lab coats – with the exception of the few men in hazmat suits – panicking and shoving each other around. Fraser could barely hear their muffled cries; he was mostly becoming accustomed to an awful buzzing sound in his right ear. 

"Gen—"

"General—"

"General Fraser!"

Fraser snapped his head back to the sound of the voice. From amongst the horde, he saw Lieutenant Heart standing alongside two men in black, the hem of his lab coat blowing in what felt like slow motion. His thickly gloved hands, his greying hair – certainly didn't look like a lieutenant that Fraser had ever seen. 

A mad scientist, he once suggested. He's nothing but a mad scientist. 

Fraser did not utter a word. He just let the men grab him by the shoulders and guide him into the building, pushing people out of the way with their large, bulky arms. Lieutenant had been waiting at the upper-level doorway. He looked serious, as if he'd been expecting this for a long, long time. 

When they got inside, they didn't speak a word to each other; Fraser was too focused on what he'd seen in the sky, and Heart was too focused on figuring out what was happening. There was also the noise issue; the din of people was far too loud. So they quickened their pace to the glass-walled cubicle on the west wing of the upper floor. The men in black led the way. 

When they arrived, it was quiet (it had been constructed using soundproof glass).

A table stood in the centre of the cubicle, bolted to the floor. Both General Fraser and Lieutenant Heart sat down. The men in black guarded the door on the opposite side, shutting it so their superiors could talk undisturbed. 

However, Fraser had still been lost in his thoughts – well, not as much as he had been. 

He regained his focus after a while, when the sound of the alarms began to fade and fade until they were nothing more than hazy drums. 

"Sir, are you with me?" Heart said, snapping his fingers soundlessly through his black latex gloves. 

"Uh-huh," Fraser murmured through his yellowing teeth. Everything was a little clearer to him now. "I couldn't hear you over the noise," he asserted. "I need to know what the fuck is going on and I need to know. Right now!"

"Apologies, General"—Heart brought his hand back down to the table— "but we appear to have an existential crisis on our hands."

"Uh, I noticed!" Fraser stuttered. "Just tell me what the fuck is goin' on! I'm losin' my shit here, Lieutenant! A big gape in the fuckin' sky? Loud screams, too? This isn't the fucking retrozone!"

"Well, yes . . . it is something never quite seen before. The lab workers have no idea what is happening or what that noise is. We haven't conducted much research and as you could tell . . . everyone is panicking."

"Just—" Fraser raised his voice, then sighed. His face sharpened. "Just tell me what we do know, Lieutenant. I almost lost my damn hearing for Christ's sake!"

"We cannot be sure . . . but it is not from our world. It's something far more intricate and unfathomable to be a natural disaster. Our hope, I'd say, is within the coming week we will have an answer. But this is very, very recent. Whether this is a threat to humanity or not has yet to be determined, sir. But it is, I admit . . . rather shocking."

Fraser went silent for a few moments, then shook his head. He stood up from his chair and muttered, "Shit!"

He took some time to think. His memories were blurry, and he couldn't explain why. They just . . . were. 

Something came to mind: the recollection of an alien dissection. Were the creatures out for blood?

He remembered finding the crashed UFO in Nevada – well, the men in black did. They had brought it to The Spire along with the UFO, kept them in a containment unit at the bottom of the base, and were used for experimenting. But Fraser, in his silence, chose not to bring it up – just as he preferred to keep to himself his opinion of Lieutenant Heart about his annoying posh accent. He hated pompousness –couldn't stand it. And Heart was a pompous man, he decided once during a talk about experimenting on the creature. 

Eventually Fraser spoke to him: "We might be fucked. But we're getting to the bottom of this shit! Round up the best and smartest men we have; we'll figure out what caused this, and when we do we'll blow it the fuck away! Like dust. We'll call in people from across the world if we have to. There's no knowing if this is a threat to human life as we know it. So, better safe than sorry."

With his pep-talk over, Fraser headed for the door. 

Heart's voice stopped him. "How do you expect to get rid of this? This is beyond anything we've ever seen, sir!"

Fraser stood still for a moment, then smirked. 

He left the room, leaving Heart to ponder all the more.

Yes, he had an idea. And he was damn sure it was going to work.