Chaotic Slideshow - Chapter 02 (Patreon)

They all stood there, staring at each other.

The Secret Service members were pointing their guns at me, while their eyes occasionally wandered toward Nimziki, who was grimacing awkwardly and trying to avoid eye contact with the President, who looked like someone had pulled the rug out from under him.

David and Julius were staring as well. The older man looked vindicated, while David’s eyes ping-ponged between me, the President, and Nimziki. General Grey stood there like a mighty oak, his face inscrutable, but I had a feeling that behind those steely eyes, the man’s brain was working overtime.

“Excuse me?” President Whitmore whispered. “Are you saying that Area 51 is real?”

Nimziki looked back, and I knew it pained him to speak. Nevertheless, he answered the President. “Yes… sir.”

Everyone blinked at his admission while I hummed thoughtfully and audibly so that everybody could hear me. When they looked at me, I just winked and smiled like someone who knew something everyone else didn’t.

It helped sell the act that I did, in fact, know a lot of things that they didn’t.

President Whitmore shook his head, then refocused on Nimziki as the crowd watched with rapt attention.

“Why wasn’t I told about this?” he asked, his voice still low but with a threatening edge. “Didn’t you think that the President of the United States should know about something like this?”

Nimziki grimaced again. “Plausible deniability, Mr. President. You don’t have to lie about something that you don’t know about.”

I nodded. “Statistically, a good choice. Most leaders are not trustworthy enough to be trusted with a puppy, not to mention the secret that life exists outside the planet.”

Despite his opinion of me, Nimziki nodded. “As he said. The fewer people who knew about it, the better. Telling a new team of people every four years would have increased the likelihood of leaks.” There, he cast his gaze at Julius. “Even then, full secrecy wasn’t achieved.”

Julius just chortled, clearly smug that he had actually been right and a high-level government official was currently admitting that they had lied to everyone. David was visibly trying to update his mental model of the situation, his brain furiously working through theories.

I didn’t have mind-reading powers, but the man was very expressive.

Whitmore closed his eyes and took a deep breath, clearly trying to process the revelations. Then he opened his eyes, and I saw why he was so respected. Both here by his people, and back in the Before when he was just a character on the screen.

That speech was epic for a reason…

Charisma practically rolled off the man.

The breath ended, and he jumped into action. Orders were given, and the small room was emptied of the gawkers and miscellaneous personnel.

A few aides remained, along with a Secret Service member standing next to the door, glaring at me. General Grey was sitting next to the President across from Nimziki, while Julius, David, and Constance for some reason, had joined the group, sitting in various chairs. I just leaned against the wall, the Barrier of the Wind King hugging me and keeping me comfortable.

Sadly, no new ticket was given for revealing the existence of Area 51 earlier.

I looked out the windows and saw the very first rays of the sun cresting the horizon. Soon, it would be time for them to counterattack.

Maybe I can stop it, but I doubt it.

Everyone stared silently at each other, as nobody was willing to start the conversation. I let out a sigh and clapped my hands together. The sound broke everyone out of their fugue, and I smiled.

“Well, then… Now that we have established that I was telling the truth, how about we do something about these gosh darn aliens?”

Whitmore looked back at me. “And I presume you know how to defeat these… Harvesters, you said?”

I wiggled one of my hands. “More or less. I know of a way.”

Then I turned to look at Nimziki. “Which, incidentally, is not nukes. Well, technically.”

The CIA spook looked back at me with a neutral expression. “We will never know unless we try it.”

I shrugged. “They have energy shields. You will never get through them with current weaponry.”

“There were no shields on the ships!” he snapped forcefully.

“You mean those crashed small ships didn’t have their full functionality? Wow, what a surprise.” I looked down at him, and he visibly averted his eyes. Larger than Life coming in clutch.

“Gentlemen,” the President intervened, holding his hands out in a placating manner. “Let’s not quarrel among ourselves. The fate of the world is at stake.” He sent Nimziki a look, then exchanged a meaningful glance with the good General before turning toward me.

“Young man…” he began before stopping and asking another question. “What was your name again?”

I smiled. I missed my old name, but the new one wasn’t exactly bad. Clearly, either my late mother or whoever at the hospital named abandoned babies had not been very creative. Though I liked to think I had been named after a particular wizard with a penchant for grudges against rabbits.

“Timothy, but you can call me Tim,” I introduced myself.

He nodded. “Tim, then. You clearly know about these aliens. You know about their technology. How do we defeat them?”

I grinned. “By the most traditional method.”

The President raised an eyebrow. “Which is?”

“Well, if it worked for the Greeks, then I’m sure it will work for us…”

It took him a moment to understand while I watched the others listen to our conversation. David was the first to get the reference. His eyes widened, and he practically wrenched the laptop he had been clutching from his hands before beginning to type furiously.

Nimziki, however, frowned. “That ship hasn’t worked in decades.”

“Don’t worry,” I told him. “With the mothership returning, its dormant systems should be able to power back on.”

He opened his mouth, probably to argue, but the President beat him to it. “So your grand plan is to use a crashed ship as a Trojan horse, and then what?”

“Well, I’m sure the grand army of the good ol’ US of A has a few explosives here and there…” I said leadingly.

He looked at me and nodded, already considering the logistics.

However, I didn’t give him time to fully consider it before bringing up the next issue on my list. “But before that, we need to talk about the counterattack.”

General Grey, proving he didn’t win his position from a cereal box, immediately understood what I meant.

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible, son,” he stated in his gravelly voice. “With our spotty communication, by the time the order reached all the teams, the counterattack would already be underway.”

“Then at least save those who can be reached!” I exclaimed, feeling frustrated.

The older soldier shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that, son.”

“Even if I tell you that it will have exactly zero effect other than wasting a bunch of resources, including the lives of your soldiers?”

The general’s face hardened. “We have to try.”

I eyed them, both Grey and Whitmore, but I could see that while they appreciated my information and didn’t distrust me, there was still a general mistrust of a random civilian who had shown up out of nowhere, spouting weird conspiracy theories as if they were real.

They wouldn’t alter the military plans of an entire country just because some random guy told them it was a bad idea. As far as they knew, I could be some kind of agent of the enemy…

Could I be more forceful? Probably…

Would it be worth it? Not really…

I just let out a sigh, feeling the sting of defeat, and shook my head. “Very well, I see I won’t be able to convince you otherwise.”

The President nodded at me and turned back to General Grey as they began to discuss something in hushed voices. A second later, Nimziki stood up and joined them. There were a few distrustful glances, but nobody said anything.

I walked over to a chair and dropped into it.

Right next to Julius, who immediately leaned over and, with a grin in his voice, started talking.

“Well now, Tim, was it? Excellent show! Excellent show.” He prattled on as I looked up from my melancholy. Constance was watching whatever David was doing with a bewildered expression, while Julius looked at me with fascination. “You said you were a traveler, right? Is that some kind of government codename? Are you part of some kind of secret agency whose job is to protect the world from aliens?”

I looked around the rest of the room, but nobody seemed ready to jump in and protect me from the older man. I plastered a polite smile on my face and tried to answer his questions.

I was just happy that nobody was questioning me about the whole appearing-out-of-thin-air thing. No doubt they were all curious, but they were professional enough to realize this was neither the time nor the place. I had no doubt that when we landed at Area 51, I would be interrogated more thoroughly.

For some time, he sat there, very aware of the Secret Service members watching his every move, and entertained Julius by avoiding his questions to the best of his abilities.

Around him, people moved as the counterattack got underway, unaware of the fate awaiting the operation.

The General left soon after their discussion was finished, as did Nimziki, who looked to be in a particular rush. The President also walked around, probably to check on his daughter and talk with people. David was fully absorbed in his work, refusing to talk to anyone. Constance stayed near him, only standing up to bring them drinks and snacks.

Despite their absence, the news soon began to arrive. A whisper here, a stone-faced aide rushing down the corridor there…

Until Whitmore returned with the General and sat down in the chairs they had vacated. He briefly put his face into his hands, letting out deep breaths, before looking up with a serious expression. The General next to him still looked stone-faced, but I could see the pain in his eyes.

I wished it hadn’t come to this, but with my limited skills, abilities, and, frankly, personal experience, I couldn’t see a way to stop the foolish plan.

I felt like a coward.

I met the President’s eyes, but neither of us said anything.

The tense silence was broken by Nimziki entering through the door.

“I just spoke with the Joint Chiefs at NORAD,” he began without preamble. “They agree we must launch a counteroffensive with a full nuclear strike.”

“Over American soil?” Whitmore asked.

“Didn’t I tell you that it would be useless?” I added, causing everyone in the room to look at me. “You’re not the first race they’ve met with nuclear capabilities. They have defenses against it.”

Nimziki scoffed. “And you keep saying that. Without any proof.” He turned to the President. “Sir, I say we have to strike as soon as possible. We don’t know when they will decide to strike next.”

Whitmore sent him a withering glare. “Over American soil? You want to sacrifice more innocent American civilians just to see if it will work?”

“We don’t know if he is telling the truth!” Nimziki whisper-shouted while motioning toward me.

“You looked me up, huh?” I asked. Mostly because a paranoid man like Nimziki would do everything to gain even a sliver of advantage over an adversary. I smiled. “Let me guess: small town, orphan, kept to himself, no criminal record worth mentioning…”

He was right chuffed that while the story was exactly true, the paranoid CIA head would take it as if it was a cover story, because it sounded like the perfect cover story.

General Grey snorted. “Spooks and their games. Forget the boy, Nimziki.”

The older man opened his mouth, but before he could continue, a younger radio technician walked into the room, devastation mixed with panic written across his face.

“Sir! They’ve taken out NORAD.”

The General’s head snapped toward the officer, everyone else following him. “What?”

“I-it’s gone, sir.”

“My God. The Vice President. Joint Chiefs…” General Grey muttered as the reality of the situation sank in for everybody.

Naturally, Nimziki chose exactly this moment to continue his crusade for nuking the aliens.

“Mr. President, we must launch. A delay now would be more costly than when you waited to evacuate the cities.”

Based on the side-eye Whitmore gave the man, I suspected Nimziki had just shot his own argument in the foot.

David also looked up and opened his mouth, righteous indignation on his face at the thought of detonating nuclear weapons. However, before he could voice his outrage, President Whitmore spoke.

“Enough.”

He didn’t yell, but I felt that even the constant buzzing of the turbines of Air Force One quieted at that declaration. I couldn’t help but grin.

“We’re not nuking anyone. Not today and not tomorrow. There have been enough lives lost.”

The General looked at the President, clearly waiting for his orders.

Whitmore didn’t disappoint. “General Grey, direct Air Force One toward Area 51.”

“Yes, sir.” The General executed a crisp salute and walked out of the room, already barking quiet orders the moment he stepped through the door. Nimziki followed with a face that told me this wasn’t the last we had heard about nukes. Within seconds, I could feel the plane tilt slightly.

Whitmore looked around, taking in Constance’s anxious expression, Julius’ awed look, David staring at him gobsmacked, and my own grinning visage.

“For now, let us rest, and we can reconvene when we arrive,” he stated. “Unless you have something else to tell us?”

I looked him in the eye. Here came a chance for another change. Let’s see if he will listen to me this time.

“Yes. Send a medivac helicopter to El Toro. Stealth run for VIP pickup.”

He raised an eyebrow. “VIP?”

“Your wife,” I said.

His eyes widened, and he looked toward the Secret Service member in panic. The agent nodded and rushed out of the room. Whitmore staggered toward a chair, with Constance jumping up and helping him sit.

“I-I hoped, but…” he muttered before looking up at me, hope shining in his eyes. “She survived?” he whispered.

I nodded. “As far as I know, she is currently alive. But the sooner she gets medical help, the higher her chance of survival.”

Whitmore nodded in understanding, the relief practically radiating from him, just as a Secret Service member returned to the room. “It’s done, sir.”

He practically collapsed into himself, while I turned to the guy in the snazzy black suit. “Make sure they know they may have to wait a little. And bring whoever is with her.”

The Secret Service guy eyed him for a moment, casting a glance at the President, before he nodded and left the room again.

As Constance was quietly talking with Whitmore and David returned to his programming now that there was less chance of nuclear winter, Julius meanwhile just sat there, looking like he was thoroughly enjoying himself.

I was about to lean back when an announcement echoed through my mind.

[Prevented a nuclear strike! 1 x Random Silver Ticket]

I smothered my satisfied smile, stood up, and stretched before heading to the toilet. The moment I left the room, one of the other Secret Service members began to follow me, but I paid the man no mind.

Closing the small airplane toilet door behind me, I sat down and reached into my pocket for the ticket.

I tore the silver ticket and could immediately feel the wheel with innumerable segments begin to roll.

[Large Pockets (Uncommon Trait): Your pockets are deceptively large; any pocket you own that you slip your hand into is 10x larger on the inside. This applies to backpacks and such, but does not affect the object itself.]

Not the worst.

I reached into my pocket, and my hand began to vanish, first the wrist, then the lower part of the forearm, before I had to stop.

I flushed and left the toilet. As I stepped out, I made eye contact with my minder and used the Barrier of the Wind King to turn invisible before walking toward my hidden bag.

“What the–?” the man yelped. “Where did he go?”

That was fun.

We touched down at Area 51 and disembarked from Air Force One with the President at the helm of our tour group. I had three different Service Members surrounding me, glaring every time I took a step. Apparently, they didn’t appreciate me playing hide and seek on the plane.

Who knew?

Right now, Jasmine was taking care of the President’s wife, Hiller was dragging the body of the alien through the desert, and things were converging on Area 51. I looked up at the sky and let out a sigh when I didn’t see the giant floating disk of doom.

Hopefully, this time we wouldn’t have to race against time.

At the giant doors of the hangar, we were met by the charming Major Mitchell and led into the depths of the complex.

Mitchell and several soldiers surrounding him glanced at me, confused, seeing my stone-faced escorts, but their attention was mainly on the President, who was walking forward, gently gripping Patricia’s hand as she looked around in fascination.

Twenty-four floors down, they soon stood before the see-through doors that led to the main research facility, filled with scientists covered in hazmat suits. It was, in what I suspected to be, the most inefficient and dangerous laboratory imaginable.

Why the hell were they examining things so close to each other?

“Open it,” Whitmore commanded.

“I’m sorry, sir. It’s a clean room. We have to keep it static-free. If we all go to decontamination…”

“Open the door.”

There was a brief staring match between the Major and the President, but in the end, the Major gave in.

“Yes, sir.”

He inserted his card into the slot, input the code, and the door opened wide with a quiet hiss of escaping air.

As I sniffed, I could smell the highly treated, contaminant-free, sterile air.

As we walked down the ramp and the second set of doors slid open, we were met with the quiet murmur of a lot of people working in the same room. That noise died almost instantly as the first person noticed us. They poked the person next to them, who turned around and then warned the next one. Like a wave, our presence swept over the crowd of scientists.

By the time we stepped fully into the giant hall, every person there was staring at us.

Whitmore looked around with slight anger. “We’re going to have a talk about this,” he muttered to Nimziki, who was standing next to him.

I curiously looked around. I wanted to know if they were only working on material from one alien race or if they had contact with others. My hope was that I would spot some kind of alien superweapon from the multiverse that these eggheads had misidentified as a door stopper or paperweight.

Alas, my luck, as always, didn’t pan out.

It was mostly pieces of metal and other detritus that probably came from the original ship.

Major Mitchell stepped forward as a man with long, dirty silver hair in a lab coat, followed by a much neater-looking man, approached them from the other end of the hall.

“Mr. President, this is Dr. Okun. He’s been heading up the research department on this project for the last 15 years,” Major Mitchell introduced the visibly beaming man.

Doctor Okun reached out, grabbed Whitmore’s hand, and shook it with vigor.

“How do you do?” Whitmore said.

“Mr. President. Wow. Ah, this… what a pleasure,” he nervously returned the greeting. “As you can imagine, they… they don’t let us out much.”

“That is a surprise…” Whitmore commented as he took in the excited scientist before letting go of his hand and taking a step back.

Okun just grinned, all social niceties forgotten.

“Well, guess you’d like to see the big tamale, huh? Follow me.”

Whitmore looked back at me, and I nodded.

It was awesome to see an alien spaceship up close.

Pity it was in such circumstances.

Our group fanned out as everyone stared at the machine.

As I took it in from ground level, I had to agree with the good doctor. It did slightly look like an opened tamale.

“She’s a beaut, ain’t she? As you can see from the repairs, we’ve been trying to put her back together since the late 1960s,” Doctor Okun bragged as he watched our reactions.

“Don’t tell me you’ve had this for 40 years and you don’t know anything about ’em?” Whitmore asked as he walked closer to the spaceship.

“Oh, hell, no. No, no, no, no, no, no,” Okun gasped. “We know tons about ’em. But, but the neatest stuff? The neatest stuff has only happened in the last few days. See, we can’t duplicate their type of power, so we’ve never been able to experiment. But since these guys started showing up, all the little gizmos inside turned on. The last 24 hours have been really exciting.”

I winced, and I saw several other people who clearly worked with the doctor do the same.

Whitmore pounced. “Exciting? People are dying out there! I don’t think ‘exciting’ is a word I’d choose to describe it.”

Okun averted his gaze.

Whitmore continued as he examined the underside of the machine. “You said you can repair their technology. What can you tell me about the Harvesters?”

Okun replied almost instantly. “Well, uh, I mean, they’re not all that dissimilar from us. They breathe oxygen, have comparable tolerances to heat and cold. Probably why they’re interested in our planet.” Then he paused and stared at Whitmore with wide eyes. “Wait! Harvesters?”

It was Whitmore’s turn to blink in surprise. “Yes, that’s their name.”

“They have a name?” Okun yelped.

“You mean to tell me that after almost fifty years of work, you don’t even know what they are called?” the President asked.

I withheld a snort.

Okun seemed slightly taken aback. “I mean, it’s not like it came with a Rosetta stone. So yeah… but never mind that!” He shook his head and pointed at the President. “How did you know their name, Mr. President?”

Whitmore smirked and motioned toward me, causing the entire hall to turn as well. Everybody who saw me for the first time flinched and took a hesitant step back.

Okun, bless his excitable heart, simply stared at me in confusion, as if immune to the power of Menacing. Or he simply didn’t have survival instincts.

“Um, okay… what?”

I ignored my minders and walked over to him.

“Hi! Name’s Tim. I’m a traveler. I know a thing or two about aliens,” I declared with a bright smile. Then, just to confuse people even more, I reached into my pocket, deep enough that people visibly saw most of my arm vanish into it, rooted around for a moment, and took out a candy. “Sweets?”

Okun’s eyes rapidly scanned me, mostly staring at where my pockets were, clearly knowing that my jacket didn’t – couldn’t – have pockets that deep.

I popped the candy I had stolen from the plane’s snack drawer into my mouth and watched as people tried to figure out how I had done that.

From the corner of my eye, I could see Whitmore rolling his eyes, while David was already deep into a technical discussion with a technician.

After my brief magic trick, we were walked over to the vault and shown the deceased members of the Harvester race.

I vaguely remembered that in the original movie, Okun took this moment to do a little exposition, conveniently mentioning the possibility that the alien race communicated through telepathy. But this time, he simply opened the metal curtains with nary a sound, still staring at my pockets.

So I took over.

“Organic life forms with exoskeletons. Part organic technology,” I began, mostly pulling together half-remembered information from a movie I had only seen a few times. “You probably found they have no vocal cords, right?”

The guy who seemed to follow Okun everywhere nodded. “Uh, yes.”

“Because they’re a hive mind. Telepathy, all that jazz. Upside: kill the queen, and you cripple their entire forces. Downside: what one of them knows, every one of them knows.”

“Really?” the scientist muttered disbelievingly, while the others from the plane stared at the aliens with frowns.

“Yep. So don’t let any of them enter alive inside the base. The moment they see us, the mothership will know our location.”

Whitmore walked closer to one of the tanks housing the dead bodies of the aliens who had crash-landed and turned back toward the group.

“David, you found the code. You cracked the signal.”

“Um, I mean… all I did was stumble onto it… I don’t know how that…” David trailed off.

“Well, you found something that they haven’t, so why don’t you sit down with them and work on that little gift,” Whitmore suggested, though it was clearly an order.

David nervously nodded, hugging his laptop close to himself.

That was enough to snap Okun out of his fugue.

“What code?”

We had maybe a quarter of an hour of calm time as the people were separated. Most of the people who followed the President were escorted to rooms on other floors, while General Grey and the other soldiers went to set up a command center with the President. David was shuffled into one of the laboratories with a gaggle of excited scientists following him like puppies, all of them clamoring for his attention and knowledge.

Julius followed his son bemusedly, excitedly chattering with Constance, who simply listened with a small smile on her face.

I was left there awkwardly, surrounded by burly Secret Service members, with a few scientists staring at me and occasionally noting something down on a notepad.

Then the calm was broken by a yell.

“They got one! They got one, alive!”

The scientist yelling ran through the room and continued shouting as he departed, sending the entire facility into an uproar.

I sighed. “Why don’t they listen…”

The Barrier of the Wind King came up, enveloping me in an invisible cocoon, then almost instantly turned me invisible.

My minders lunged forward, but their hands slid off my protection as I sprinted toward where I remembered the door to the stairwell was.

“Not again!” one of the guys complained behind me.

I couldn’t help but giggle a little.

Despite the tension of the entire situation, I was somewhat enjoying myself.

It was this or face the terrifying truth that, through my inaction or powerlessness, I had let millions, maybe billions, die. If I survived, I would probably have time to break down, but for now, all those dark thoughts were shoved into the recesses of my mind.

By the time I arrived at the stairwell, next to the lift, the doors opened, and a gaggle of people emerged, escorting the unconscious alien on a gurney. They were yelling all sorts of medical terms I had no interest in.

Instead, I sprinted over, pulled one of the medical staff away, raised my hand, let my invisibility fade, and surrounded my fist with the power of the Wind King.

Taking a life is never easy, even if it is a murderous alien.

It was not something I had ever contemplated doing, but here and now, I knew that if I didn’t do it, the moment the alien regained consciousness, we would all be in danger. Including the hundreds of refugees outside the facility.

Through the wind, I could feel its support, as if telling me that my decision was just.

After all, that was what a king did. Made the hard decision to protect their people.

Several people noticed me and yelled out in surprise and panic, but it was too late.

My fist descended.

SPLAT

The head of the alien vanished, sending ugly, blue blood everywhere as the wind-enhanced fist tore through the exoskeleton and organic matter.

Everyone was covered in pieces and blood, except for me, as the surrounding wind stopped it from reaching me.

For a long moment, everyone stared uncomprehendingly at the scene.

“What part of ‘don’t bring live aliens here’ did you not understand?” I asked as my minders arrived. I stared down at everybody, letting the metaphysical weight of both Menacing and Larger than Life manifest.

Most people shivered or took a step back, but my minders were made of sterner stuff.

“Hands in the air!” one of them yelled, pointing their gun at me.

Others did the same, with several soldiers who had been escorting the alien body following suit.

Knowing that the barrier made out of wind would protect me, I simply threw my hands into the air.

“I come in peace!”

Five minutes later, I was sitting in a chair with several soldiers pointing their guns at me. They had tried to cuff me, but nobody could get through the Barrier of the Wind King.

The room was small, with a few old cleaning supplies left behind to tell me what it had been used for before I was incarcerated in it.

Despite the situation, I couldn’t feel satisfied.

Yes, I had taken a life, but in turn I had saved countless others.

Plus, there were the tickets.

[Your first kill! 1 x Random Silver Ticket]

[Killed an alien soldier! 1 x Bronze Abilities Ticket]

Two tickets for the price of one…

I reached into my pocket and instinctively grasped the bronze one. The soldiers in the room shifted and raised their weapons but otherwise stayed silent.

With one hand, I tore it into pieces.

The cosmic wheel spun, and I gained a new power.

[Pocket Sand (Trash Ability): Conjure and launch a handful of sand from your hands. Shouting “Pocket sand!” as you do so might make it stronger.]

Well, they can’t all be winners…

I grasped the silver ticket and tore it as well.

Another spin, another eternity crammed into a microsecond.

[Calligraphy (Trash Skill): You have excellent handwriting, allowing you to write extremely fast while maintaining appealing writing.]

I pulled my hand out of my pocket and popped another sweet into my mouth.

That was somewhat disappointing.

Though, at least I was only one more ability away from my second slot.

Letting out a sigh, I leaned back in my uncomfortable, government-issued chair and waited.

Not even half an hour later, the door opened, and General Grey entered, his eyes taking in the small space until they landed on me.

“Come on, son. The President wants to see you,” he said.

I naturally stood and followed him while the soldiers in the room followed us. Outside, it was clear the general didn’t come alone. A small contingent of soldiers, wearing full-blown tactical suits, was waiting for us.

General Grey simply started walking, with me following along, and they surrounded us with enough weaponry that even with the Barrier of the Wind King, it made me nervous.

A bit of walking later, we entered the situation room, where I laid my eyes on the famous Captain Hiller. He cut a striking figure, standing to the side, looking a bit confused about me and my escort.

President Whitmore stood from his seat and took in the soldiers.

“Dismissed,” he said, waving his hand.

The lead soldier disagreed. “But, sir, the anomaly is dangerous and could be…”

“Yes, yes. Dangerous. Not to us. Now, please leave,” Whitmore said a bit more forcefully.

The soldier turned toward Grey pleadingly, but the general just grunted. “You heard the President, lieutenant.”

The soldier looked like he wanted to argue, and I feared he would, but in the end, he let out a quiet scoff, walked over to his men, had an intense conversation, and most of them left, with him and another standing next to the door, guns pointed at the ground, but ready to be unleashed if I even sneezed suspiciously.

I nodded in thanks at the General, but he ignored me.

Walking closer to the table, I pulled out a seat and sat down.

Whitmore looked me over and had a silent conversation with General Grey, while I took in the peak of ‘90s technology surrounding us. To my eyes, it all looked old-fashioned and obsolete. Here and there, I saw functionalities peeking through that would survive the cavalcade of the 2000s, but otherwise, it was just lots of CRTs with bright green screens and heavy-duty machines that had maybe one or two gigabytes of RAM between all of them. Granted, they did their job, but it was still a strange feeling watching all this high-end equipment and knowing what the future held.

Shaking my head a little, I refocused on the President, who had just finished his silent discussion with the good general.

He eyed me as if trying to divine my purpose.

Which was weird, because I had already told him what my purpose was: defeat the aliens and save Earth.

Simple.

I was about to say something when the door slammed open, causing everyone to react. The soldiers jumped into ready stances, while several other people reached for their service pistols. I admit I also jumped a bit too.

“Mr. President! Mr. President! They found her!” the man in military fatigues yelled, looking directly at Whitmore.

The president’s eyes widened, and he stood up fast enough to send his chair tumbling away.

“What did you say, soldier?”

The soldier took a brief moment to regain his breath before standing at something resembling attention and saluting.

“Sir, we just received a report from Hawk One. They found Mrs. Whitmore with a group of survivors in El Toro. They are en route here, sir.”

Once again, I was forgotten in the chaos as the President rushed to the landing pad and the situation room emptied of the important people.

I looked at the lieutenant who had escorted me here. “So, any chance for a toilet break?”

I don’t think it’s very polite to growl at people.

Still, they did escort me to one.

The moment the door to the toilet cubicle closed behind me, the smile I’d been trying to keep up slid off my face.

I sat down on the toilet and let out a deep sigh.

Keeping up the cheerful façade against those experienced soldiers and politicians was hard. I may be more mature than my age thanks to those memories from the Before, but even those memories were useless against the pressure in that situation room. I don’t think I have memories of being surrounded by soldiers.

Shaking my head, I tried to regulate my breathing and calm down.

Thankfully, distraction arrived from the chaotic aether.

[Completely altered the narrative! 1 x Random Advantage Silver Ticket]

Taking the ticket out of my enlarged pocket, I saw it had a nicely emblazoned silver star on the surface, denoting its nature. I tore it and saw an illusion of another ticket being torn.

In my mind, the incomprehensible wheel spun, stopped, then spun again.

Two packets of information were downloaded into my mind, their existence lightly tethered to my soul. Contingent on which one I would choose, one of the tethers would snap, and the other would solidify.

[Allowance (Uncommon Trait): Whichever city you are currently living in, you get the equivalent of 2x the daily minimum wage for that city/country either deposited into your account or transported into your wallet every single day.]

[Bamboo Sprout (Uncommon Ability): Allows you to sprout culms from anywhere in your line of vision. These Bamboo are supernaturally durable due to being imbued with your energy, and you can choose to sprout with sharpened ends. Using them to create walls, erect bamboo spikes, or making them impale your enemies. Created bamboo is permanent but loses its supernatural durability over time, returning to normal bamboo.]

I wondered what to choose.

On one hand, the first one would be good long-term, as it would eliminate the need for basic work, but on the other hand, if I chose the second, then that would make it my fifth ability. Which, in turn, would allow me to equip two abilities at the same time.

Hard decision, but in the end, it needed to be made.

One tether snapped, and the Bamboo Sprout ability was completely grafted to my soul as it expanded slightly, and I knew without a doubt that I had another slot.

I wiped off the sweat from my forehead and slotted Light Grenade into it.

I opened my palm, and a small ball of light appeared. I closed it, and it vanished.

Now I had both offense and defense.

Instead of being escorted to my small closet, the soldiers took me toward the medical wing. Medical personnel rushed around, and a bunch of Secret Service guys stood around, watching everyone. At least, until I showed up. Then their eyes were glued to me as if waiting for me to go berserk.

Whitmore stepped out of a room, clad in his shirt, his tie askew, but a small smile on his face.

The moment he saw me, he stepped forward and grabbed my hand.

“Thank you… I… Thank you,” he began as he shook my hand. He was clearly at a loss for words.

I was just happy he wouldn’t get a depressed mess and press the ‘detonate nuclear’ button.

“No worries, Mr. President,” I told him, a bit louder than necessary. “Happy to help.”

He said nothing, but clapped my shoulder once more and returned to his wife’s side. At that moment, another door slid open, and two people stepped out, quietly talking. It took me a moment to realize there was a third, smaller person behind them.

Captain Hiller saw him and froze, then snapped into a salute.

“Heard what you’ve done, sir. Appreciate it!”

I nodded and smiled at them. Jasmine’s son, Dylan, chose exactly this moment to burst out and look up at him with an awed expression.

“Are you really a wizard?” he asked in a squeaky voice.

I couldn’t help but laugh.

Not much later, we reconvened at the foot of the spaceship.

David was standing next to a desk with his laptop connected to a bunch of devices I had no idea about.

With everyone gathered and staring at David, he looked around awkwardly before clearing his throat.

“Right… welcome, everyone.”

Silence greeted him. He coughed twice into his fist before continuing.

“Right, so based on my own findings and the comments of our resident wizard,” I waved at everyone, “we managed to develop a virus – a computer virus – that can, if deployed correctly, disable their shields.”

The mood in the room quickly turned into baffled amusement.

“Are you telling us that you can send out a signal that can do that?” General Grey asked in a disbelieving tone.

David nodded. “Just as they used our satellites against us, we can use their own signal against them.” He paused and looked at all the people with a questioning look in their eyes. “But how about a demonstration? Major, do you have a gun?”

I watched as the soda can test was performed, first with the shield up, then as David hit a button on his laptop and dropped the shield, to the amazement of everybody.

“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the virus,” David continued his presentation with an easy grin. “A Trojan, if you will.”

Then he turned around and pointed toward the ship idling in the hangar.

“And that is our horse.”

He turned back and clapped his hands together. “Any questions?”

I just stood back as people argued, Nimziki made an ass out of himself, got himself fired, and the group started debating how to deliver the payload to the mothership.

David explained how they had to fly there directly, upload the virus, then detonate a bomb to disable the mothership, which in turn would give them a window of opportunity to deal with the ships hanging above Earth’s cities.

There were voices that doubted the spaceship’s ability, so there was another demonstration of its ability to hover. Then came the question of who would fly the machine.

As expected, Captain Hiller stepped forward, his eyes attached to the spaceship, drinking in every detail. There was no Nimziki in the room to question his qualifications, so he just received a manly nod from Whitmore and Grey.

The conversation and planning continued, and once again, the entire base turned into a busy ant nest.

Technicians were crawling all around the spaceship, prepping it for flight, attaching transmitters and the payload, making sure the seats were properly mounted, and so on. I watched as the chaplain officiated Jasmine’s and Captain Hiller’s wedding, then observed the communication hub set up decades-old equipment to use Morse code to coordinate with other locations.

Here, I changed another thing. In the movie, it was only thanks to the heroic sacrifice of that alcoholic deadbeat who claimed to have been abducted by aliens that they figured out the weak points. And if I remember correctly, in the deleted scenes, it was done with a biplane he managed to find somewhere, not a modern fighter jet.

I didn’t see the point of wasting so much manpower, so I simply told the general about it.

He nodded, and within five minutes, the entire planet knew it.

The wedding was a quiet and personal affair, with only Dylan, David, Constance, and me being present. Apparently, Hiller wanted the guy who saved his wife-to-be to be present. I appreciated it.

Still, it galled me a little that this was the extent of what I could do.

Even with my abilities, I couldn’t really take on the aliens. I may have been able to take down one of the smaller ships, but even that was questionable. For now, I had to suffer behind the front lines and watch as humanity came together against a common enemy.

The soldiers in Area 51 began prepping to take off for the nearest ship hovering above Los Angeles as soon as the radars noticed their movement. The president naturally did his famous speech, and I got goosebumps listening to it. Thankfully, I swiped a small recorder earlier, so the entire thing was saved for posterity.

I had a feeling it would be worth a king’s ransom if this entire thing was over.

Not that I would ever sell it.

Pulling on the flight suit, I can honestly admit I was very excited. I had flown in smaller planes before – never as a pilot – but this was something else.

Originally, people resisted the idea of me joining the team on the spaceship, but the president overruled them with a quiet command.

I settled into the third seat they affixed behind the two in the front, while also turning the note with the directions for the joystick upside down. I watched through the window as Hiller said goodbye to his new family while David had an awkward conversation with his father and Constance.

Soon, I heard the two of them climbing in and the door closing behind them with a quiet hiss.

David and Hiller took their seats, and I leaned forward. “Excited for the road trip?”

Hiller just grinned. “Are you kidding? I have been waiting for this my entire life!”

David just gripped his barf bag in his lap. “Fellas, I have a confession to make. I’m not real big on flying…”

I reached over and patted him sympathetically on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. Focus on the laptop, not the outside. That should help.”

They went through the last checks, communicating with the tower, saying their last goodbyes, and Hiller, well, Steve, held up two cigars awkwardly.

“I couldn’t really find more…”

I waved it away. “Don’t worry, I detest those things…”

He let out a relieved sigh and held one of them out to David, who took it and pocketed the cigar. “For our victory dance,” he declared happily, also pocketing it.

“Last one pays for the drinks at the bar,” I added.

I hoped that they didn’t notice the quiver. As we sat there, strapped to an alien spaceship, I suddenly had to second-guess my decision to sit there. But with all my meddling, I couldn’t afford the mission to go pear-shaped.

Steve flicked a switch. “Control, this is Captain Hiller. Operation Golden Apple is ready to launch.”

The radio crackled to life, and Whitmore’s voice greeted them. “Good luck, everyone.”

The three of them exchanged a glance as the hangar door to the outside world was revealed, with the sun shining through it. Steve gripped the throttle and joystick while David and I gripped the metal holds on our chairs.

“Let’s ride,” he said and pulled the throttle backward.

The spaceship accelerated on a dime, shooting them into the sky without any resistance. I felt myself being pushed into my chair before the spaceship equalized it, and I felt my body relax a little.

David groaned and grasped for his barf bag.

Steve just laughed. It was a delighted laugh that conveyed his full joy at the fact that he could personally fly a spaceship into actual space.

Soon, they approached the line separating the atmosphere and cold, dead space. The light vanished around them, and the screen before them filled with empty darkness.

While my two compatriots were busy marveling at the final frontier, my attention was on something else.

[Traveled to space for the first time! 1 x Silver Trait Ticket]

Reaching inside my very deep pocket, I grasped the new ticket and tore it with gusto as we left Mother Earth behind.

A wheel of cosmic proportions spun somewhere beyond my perception, and soon I was richer with a new power.

[Scavenger (Uncommon Trait): Whenever you go scavenging, whether it is for treasure, lost parts, artefacts, etc. You have a better chance of finding something useful.]

I let out a sigh…

I hoped for at least something that could have helped us survive in the cold, unforgiving darkness of space, but I suppose I shouldn’t have expected much from my own luck.

Filing away the new trait, I refocused on the flight as the gigantic mothership began to become visible against the backdrop of infinite black.

Soon, the spaceship shook a little, and the joystick practically wrenched itself out of Steve’s hand.

“What the hell? Something is happening. It’s not responding,” he said as he tried to grab the joystick.

David reached over and held Steve’s hand down while watching his laptop. From behind him, I could see the code shift as if the device was picking up new signals. “I was counting on this. They’re bringing us in.”

I reached over and put my hands on their shoulders and willed the Barrier of the Wind King to cover them too. It was much weaker when it was only covering the two of them, but thankfully it worked.

“What the–?” David jumped. “What did you do?”

“Whoa…” Steve exclaimed softly as he tried to see if he could see the effects.

“I made you invisible,” I told them. “The window is open, and I’m pretty sure they are not blind.”

I felt David freeze under my hand, shortly followed by Steve as they realized what that meant.

“We could close the blinds?” David offered.

“They can control the ship from afar. Do you think they don’t have a way to open them?” Steve snarked.

“Just keep calm and do what we have planned to do,” I told them. “Steve, be ready to drive, and David, start hacking or whatever you do.”

“The disrespect…” David muttered, but he started working on his laptop, while Steve relaxed, leaving his hands near the joystick as he looked out the window, observing the humongous ship they were approaching.

A/N: Next chapter. In the end Independence Day is a pretty simple movie, if you know the "secret" and the weakpoints on the spaeships. Still one of my favorite movies. One more chapter to see the end of the attack and then the aftereffects. Hope someone liked it! :)