SUNGLASESS AND ROCKETS Part 2: The Machine

WE COME IN PEACE

The motorcyclist had disappeared from the scene; chances are that he chose to ignore the stop signal...

"Are you okay?" my friend continued.

The seatbelts had worked wonderfully. They had adhered to our suits. Luckily, they didn't go through.

"Except for a chest pain," I moaned, "I think I'm fine."

We couldn't exchange anymore words. We simply couldn't talk anymore.

I was going to take a minute break, but changed my mind. My reckless gaze found a large group of curious people. They were pointing at our Pterodactyl from 30 or 40 feet away.

They were starting to surround us ...

"I think we should get out of here as soon as possible," Darwin whispered. "Or there'll be trouble..."

Suddenly, I remembered how serious the situation was.

"The SVM!" I jumped. "We must make contact with someone at Mama Bat!"

I cast myself to the monitor of the mechanical arm. I observed relieved that we hadn't lost it. The large device was still held by the pliers at the end of the arm.

"It's not shining anymore," Darwin commented. "It seems deactivated..."

I half closed my eyes: there was no radiance on the screen. The SVM was still deactivated...

We couldn't trust it.

"We'd better make sure."

Darwin nodded and fixing his glasses, pressed a button on the panel.

"Let's examine it once and for all."

The doors on both sides were starting to rise. The audience backed off alarmed.

And now that the hatches were totally up, we heard distant cries of fright...

Darwin and I looked at each other.

"Come on," he said and got rid of the seatbelts. "Every second counts."

Still worried about the air force threat, I took a last glance at the radar. The screen was only registering moving objects on civilian trajectories.

"Let's go."

I noticed immediately how hard it was taking off the seatbelts, we had already gotten used to lightness.

Standing up was a titanic task.

All shaky and swaying, we managed going to the edge.

"Hey!" it was heard.

We turned around. Lucas was lying on the floor of the back row.

"Lucas!" Darwin exclaimed. "He's alive!"

Lucas outlined a smile.

"I just remembered," he whispered. "The Pterodactyl is insured. Don't worry."

"Let's call an ambulance!" we said in unison. "Hold on!"

We set the first foot out of the ship and collapsed, falling like concrete sacks onto the pavement. The crowd backed off making a wave in the middle of an Ohhh!

Suddenly, I realized that I was wearing that strange space suit, walking out of an even stranger spaceship...

"Do they think that we are extraterrestrials?" I asked.

"That's what we look like," my friend replied from the other end. "Can you get up?"

I pivoted on my back and ended up resting my elbows on the floor.

"Not yet..."

"Let's crawl," my friend suggested.

We started to drag ourselves to the back end, circling the ship. That action unchained a series of hysterical outcries...

I thought I'd heard a scandalous noise, like colliding vehicles. Even so, I didn't get distracted. I was getting near the arm. Darwin appeared from the other side. He had gotten up already. He went by under the arm, came close and gave me a hand. I got up.

In the middle of the chaos that had been unleashed in the proximity, we drew near to the pliers.

The SVM wasn't there anymore.

A huge satellite expelling smoke was there in its place...

"What the...?" that was all I could say.

Stunned, I drew myself a little bit closer. The satellite had an inscription that read Worldstar TV.

"It can't be," Darwin whispered. "It's a TV satellite!"

"But, how? I witnessed when we took the SVM from the Vampire."

I examined the device carefully. Yes, it was a satellite.

I couldn't believe it.

"It's not possible!"

Darwin didn't say anything. All of a sudden, I realized that the murmur from the surroundings had ceased. Absolute silence prevailed. You could hardly hear the wind blow.

"Darwin?" I said, without daring to look up.

"Yes," my friend replied. "Something is very wrong..."

I raised my eyes slowly. All the people surrounding us became static. They weren't looking at us. They were looking up.

The ambiance was slightly darker...

Darwin looked at me with an expression of bewilderment. We both looked up at once.

Oh my God! An immense circular structure was floating at only 60 feet over our heads! Its diameter was at least 150 feet!

My heart beat hard.

The shocking spaceship remained perfectly motionless. Lights of strange colors encompassed the unusual disc, turning off successively in circular files, producing an effect of movement.

Suddenly, the ship came so close that you were able to see the amazing details of that extraterrestrial technology.

I was petrified, staring at the flying saucer. All its lights went off, except for the refulgent green glare, in the middle.

In spite of the intensity, you could clearly distinguish that it had a spherical shape!

"It's the big SVM," Darwin said, with an automaton voice. "The big SVM."

I couldn't think or say anything. However, somehow I understood that it was the same ship that had guided us into the atmosphere...

Then, the ship shone in a bizarre yellow shade, which suddenly turned blue and shot up at a fantastic speed, provoking an enormous gale downward. It traveled in a curve that oriented it vertically until it became a dot in the sky.

Then, it vanished.