The Dispersion Divide Chapters 1 & 2

Few notes: I've had some people asking for the full story, so i'll publish a chapter every few days to keep it going! Remember guys, this is a parallel world from the game, so some characters are the same but with variants. Though this gives you a good idea for what kind of story and writing style to expect from the game!

“The beginnings of all things are small.”

Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC)

-1- A Botched First Contact

“Mum, I’m heading into town,” I called out, grabbing my coat from the door as I passed by.

“Mum?” I called out as I walked into the kitchen. I found her gripping the phone tightly, her other hand shaking as she pointed at the TV.

“Yes, hold on a moment, Becky, I’ll call you back.” She turned around to face me, phone in one hand and cigarette in the other, “You are NOT going into town, are you crazy?” Mum jabbed her hand frantically towards the news broadcast airing on TV.

A female newscaster stood outside a busy football stadium, “So far, we haven’t seen any signs of activity from either of the objects near the Moon or Mars, but that hasn’t stopped alien enthusiasts and tech geeks from setting up a greeting party. The atmosphere is electric. People from all walks of life have come here to be a part of the spectacle.”

Frowning, I rushed over and took mum’s cigarette out her hand. “What’s this? I thought you quit?”

Her face twisted with frustration, “It’s not been easy Thomas, especially with all this going on.”

"Mum," I said firmly, "stop worrying. Everything will be fine. Remember, you're always the one saying the media is only good for stirring up panic."

As if I hadn’t spoken, and looking for something else to do now that the cigarette was gone, she began biting her nails and pacing back and forth.

"Things haven't been right for years," Mum muttered, her voice shaky. "I knew something like this would happen, I just knew it!"

My mum had been struggling with her mental health ever since the divorce, though it was no more than a formality given that I hadn’t even seen my dad since I was five.

 The process along with recent financial woes seemed to have flipped a switch, making her more paranoid and resentful. It’s one of the reasons I’m 22 and still living at home.

I walked up to mum, gently grabbed her shoulders, and pulled her in close for a comforting hug. Up close, I was reminded of her short 5ft 3 frame, even though I was only a few inches taller

 “Mum, why don’t you go out and catch up with Becky?” I suggested.

“I can’t, I’m broke,” she said, looking at me. Her eyes and hair were the exact mirror of mine - an unremarkable shade of brown.

Knowing this might be the case, I had a twenty in my back pocket ready to go. “There, go for coffee and cheer yourself up,” I placed the note into her hands before saying forcefully, “Please!”

Holding my stare for a moment, she sighed in agreement, “Ok, I’ll call her back,” she gave me a soft smile, “Thanks son.”

Returning a grin, I turned for the exit, before I could make it two steps my mum asked, “Are you going to the stadium? Can’t you stay home, it is safer here?”

“Mum, there are police and security detail there. It’s probably safer than anywhere in suburbia if people start freaking out and rioting over green men that probably don’t exist.”

She snapped her fingers at me a couple of times, “Wait, you don’t think they are aliens? What’s your teachers saying about it?”

I let out a sigh, “Mum it’s not like we are besties and keep in touch on social media after I graduated my masters... but I did ask my astrophysics lecturer.”

She looked at me with wide expectant eyes, she clicked her fingers again as she urged, “And, and!”

“And” I said, trying to sound reassuring, “She told me it’s far too early to tell. They could be huge drones built by some civilization that died out millions of years ago, or even just floating junk.”

“Hmmm,” she pondered, her eyes narrowing, “How can we find out?”

“That’s what I’m trying to do, mum,” I said gesturing to the images on TV, “Me and some friends are going to set up a local LAN and work the problem together. They are even supplying pizza there!”

“Sounds fun,” mum said, slowly deflating her balloon of anxiety.

“It is, some of the smartest people are going to be there and it’s well staffed, some big billionaire is funding the whole thing, security, facilities the lot will be there, so relax.

“Also, if it does turn out to be ET, why come all this way for resources he can get anywhere else in the galaxy? We literally don’t have anything to offer them technology wise.”

She wrinkled her forehead, which usually meant she wasn’t following. “Well anyway I’m proud of you son. If anyone can figure it out it’s you. Use your Bran thingy majiggy to work it out.”

“She isn’t a thing mum, bran is a digital person that I’ve built. I keep telling you she is part of the family, like Rosco, except she does your tax returns and manages all our digital stuff…like stopping you from buying cigarettes online!”

She frowned rolling her eyes. “Whatever goody-two-shoes, brick-and-mortar shops still exist. Anyway, just be safe.”

She pulled me in for a hug, turned to pick up the phone and dial Becky, and as she did, I pocketed the rest of her cigarettes before she noticed.

Subject: Urgent: Do NOT go to the stadium

Dear Thomas,

I hope this email finds you before you head out to the stadium. I've just received some alarming news that I need to share with you immediately. All telemetry with Mars rovers from every space agency has been lost, and I have reason to believe that this may be related to the objects near the Moon and Mars. Please share this news with your friends too.

I understand that you and your friends are eager to work together to figure out the nature of these objects, and under normal circumstances, I would encourage your curiosity and collaboration. However, given the sudden and unexplained loss of communication with the Mars rovers, I urge you to exercise caution.

With the current uncertainty and potential risks, I believe it would be best for you to avoid the stadium for the time being.

I know this may be disappointing, but I trust that you understand the importance of being cautious in this situation. If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact me. We can discuss alternative ways for you and your friends to collaborate on this issue without putting yourselves in potential danger.

Take care and stay safe.

Sincerely,

Dr. S Palmer

Astrophysics Department

    *

“Hey, dickwad! Over here!” I heard my friend shout as I scuffled past the crowd in the blue zone, finally spotting my group of friends over the shoulders of people in the queue.

“Hold up,” a security guard, standing at least a head taller than me grabbed my empty lanyard as he blocked my path.

“Oh, sorry sir,” I pulled the card from my back pocket and slid it in for him to scan.

Smirking he eyed me up and down, “Force of habit eh Thomas?”

“Yes sir,” I returned the smile, “Don’t ever identify yourself if you don’t have to.”

He patted me on the back and let me pass.

“Hey guys, what’s happening?” Stepping over cables, discarded food and rubbish I began unpacking my laptop and tech gear from my bag.

“Dude,” Miguel said, stretching out the sentence. “It’s been lit. Some bigwigs from major space divisions are doling out direct torrent links. This means we have all you can eat satellite telemetry footage.”

Miguel a short, stocky systems administrator (sysadmin) beard, and all tapped my phone with his. This allowed data to transfer through to all my connected devices.

Just then an arm fell on my shoulder. I turned around to see a tall skinny blonde guy with glasses. It was William, an intelligent front end app developer, who loved competitive programming. Our attitudes were polar opposite, which meant we often clashed heads, but it had also strengthened our respect for each other, and we worked well as a team.

William gestured to the centre stage that had someone giving a speech, “It was a total snooze fest though, the usual recruitment drive stuff you see at open days. God knows what this guy is talking about.”

“Snooze fest? Like banging your old lady,” Miguel quipped. Our small group, though capable, was still immature - me included.

We chuckled and got back to it. Setting up took me longer than expected.

“It’s hotter than an orgy in a sauna here,” I complained, as I cleared out more rubbish to make space for a fold out table to put my gear on.

William stretched his hands out gesturing all around us. “Pfft, thousands of people, makeshift generators and computing equipment in July. I give it two hours before people start fainting and servers start going kaboom boom.”

Miguel pointed his hand upwards towards the Moon which was now in clear view above the stadium. “So, on the subject of banging, who gets first dibs on ET?” he asked.

“Whoever first makes contact with them duh.” Rhianna a young data science grad came hobbling over, food and drink stacked in her hands. We all rushed over selfishly helping to alleviate her of her troubles.

“Well, only if they are like vampires, werewolves or rich billionaires” she said in jest.

“Werewolves are just old-fashioned furries,” Miguel quipped.

Rhianna lowered her ice cream and brushed her bleached blonde bangs out of the way. “Meh, who cares, as long as they are billionaires.”

I exchanged a high five with Rhianna, and we fist bumped 3 times in rapid succession. This had been our customary greeting ever since we met a few years back at my first hackathon. At the time we sucked pretty bad. We did work well as a team however and our chemistry and coordination meant at least we didn’t come last.

The whole event was a hoot. We enjoyed it so much that we kept returning, eventually pulling Miguel and William into our sphere of influence. As the four of us became addicted, we honed our skills to the point we could give the so-called ‘experts’ a run for their money.

 They didn’t take this well, however, and sometimes they tried to ban us from collaborating or disqualifying us on a technicality.

 Once, they accused us of cheating. They claimed that William had gotten the specs in advance of the meeting. They weren’t wrong—William was all about winning.

 We had to prove that we didn’t gain an advantage by knowing five hours early, but it put a dampener on things, and set back our attempts to stop their gatekeeping. “Live and learn” I muttered to myself under my breath.

“Attention everyone!” the PA system blared, accompanied by an alarm sound that was probably used for evacuation procedures. “Please stand by for an urgent update.”

“Look over there!” Miguel pointed us towards the main podium, where a man in a three-piece suit took to the stage. “That’s Arnold Hawke, the guy who is paying for all of this.”

The entire stadium went from an electric atmosphere to dead silence. Hawke picked up a mic and addressed us all.

“One of the large objects that we have been tracking has broken orbit from the Moon and by all reports appears to be heading for Earth.” It was at that point pandemonium broke out.

Hawke raised his hands for calm, to no avail. People began scrambling for the exits, shouts and screams ensued as equipment and people were knocked out the way.

Even though most of us were nerds, mob mentality still prevailed. Panic and terror set in, and the not so well-known loss of Mars telemetry was now being spread by hysterical people trying to ‘warn’ others.

 Sirens and system alarms blared in a deafening wail, drowning out the noise of the stadium.

Bang, bang, bang - some security guards panicked, firing their guns in the sky to control the crowd.

“Wait!” Hawke shouted over the PA as soon as the alarm stopped. “Hear out the facts before you trample each other to death.”

“Look, I set this up to give the smartest people a chance to solve this puzzle before world governments take it all away from us. What you are hearing on the news and what’s happening in reality are two different things.

We have no proof of hostile intent. Now the object will get here in about eight hours.”

There were murmurs as people shuffled about nervously. “I know I know,” Hawke said with one hand raised and the other pointing to a display on the big screen. “It isn’t following normal orbital trajectories, it’s heading for us in a straight line, just slightly ahead of our orbital path.”

“Holy shit dude!” Miguel exclaimed, “You know what that means right?”

I nodded in awe, “That thing must have insane power and thrust. It’s as if it simply ignored gravity and took the shortest path to get here.”

Before we could speculate further, Hawke continued, “There is more. There has been a big change. The object is now transmitting to us, through modulated laser pulses and radio waves.”

More commotion ensued and it took a further few minutes before the crowd could calm down to let Hawke continue.

“We don’t know if these are responses to our earlier attempts to communicate or something new.”

Hawke clicked his fingers and screens lit up from behind him, “I’m giving you direct access to everything being picked up by my astra constellation as we get it.”

This seemed to change the anxious atmosphere of the stadium on its head, now there was a new and tangible problem to work on.

This was it. Time to move. I snapped into character and began coordinating with my team, just like any other hackathon we have done before.

 “Miguel, get the stream link info and set up a sync on our server, route them to our usual pickups.”

“I’m already on it,” Miguel responded.

“William, spin up new workspaces on our cluster, auto snapshot everything as it happens.” Bashing out Linux commands he nodded giving the thumbs up.

“I’ve got the file format,” Rhianna said, “I’m already setting up notebooks for us all.”

“I’m sharing access tokens for Cyber-Shadow API usage, guys.” There were a few nods in acknowledgement. “Also, I’m opening up access to Bran.”

That got me a few glances, including from William. “No shit! Thomas finally decides to share his prized chicken, eh!”

Within the next few hours, there were no breakthroughs or discoveries made. The atmosphere had changed yet again. The low background noise of engrossed button bashing gave way to the rise of buzzing chatter. Even the most competitive and stubborn people had ran out of steam and thus resorted to talking out their ideas.

“Honestly, I’m not sure any of us are going to crack it this quickly,” Rhianna said, “The data is constantly changing. We have no base reference and if there are any repeating easy to spot patterns, I’m certainly not seeing them.”

“What about inverse exponentials in the information complexity?” William asked.

“You mean like shrinking cyphers and the like?” Rhianna clarified, “Yeah, we tried that, I’ve got Cyber-Shadow running all permutations from the net, including any that have been proposed on forums within the last few minutes.”

“What about Bran?” Miguel suggested.

William looked over his shoulder, thinking I hadn’t heard him, “Nah man, Thomas’s AI is overhyped trash. It’s no better than Cyber-Shadow, which is giving us results much more quickly.”

The conversation carried on like that, but for me things began to blur, I was too deep in thought,

Maybe we are missing more than just keys and Cyphers, is the data itself even relevant?

I turned to my phone. “Bran, could data-streams this large with non-repeating patterns be related to a natural phenomenon, say, like the Earth? Maybe it’s mapping every single detail out in real-time?”

Bran’s avatar popped up on my phone, my laptop and all the other electrical devices on my person. She looked about 18 or 19 years old, her appearance was a mash up of young trendy fashions from various generations. Gen-Z, hippy and chav elements were evident in her frayed hair, her big golden ear hoops, and her loose baggy clothing. She usually had big headphones around her neck and sports stripes down the side of her sweat pants.

Her avatar was mostly monochromatic, with various green hues that when taken together gave her a Cyberpunk Matrix like feel.

Bran squeezed Cyber-Shadow’s ninja avatar off my laptop screen and sighed with satisfaction. “I like where you are going with this Thomas. Yes, for example, if real-time data from the earth was being gathered and aggregated, it’s possible the stream representation of that would have the form of what we are seeing.”

Shit, then it could just be streaming granular Earth data back out to the universe, rather than trying to talk to us directly. Maybe it is updating its buddies on what it’s seeing close up, I considered.

Bran, as if interpreting my thoughts followed up on her explanation, “We have no indication as of yet, of any reaction, response or acknowledgement of anything we have sent to it.”

Just then, I had a thought: “Bran, scan all the networks you’ve got access to. Tell me what you see.”

Bran’s avatar began scratching her chin. “I’m not seeing anything special or different from the usual network traffic in this area other than some coverage issues, which is to be expected” she replied.

“Where? Show me,” I asked.

A map of all the MACs, IPs and other related networking info was projected onto a 3d traversable graph.

Hmmm, why drop bandwidth now all of a sudden?

“A larger than normal amount of people are gathered in one place, draining network resources,” Bran said, again pre-empting my question.

“No, I don’t think so. Those issues would have been present four hours ago too,” I replied. I had a hunch and I wanted to pull at this thread.

 “Bran, can you analyse packet drops in the area, run all pattern matchers that resolve in under five seconds, and show me any hits?” I asked.

“Running,” Bran replied. I grabbed my Styrofoam cup and sucked the remaining dregs of coffee from the bottom.

“Done, I think we’ve got something,” Bran said.

The graph of network traffic in the area looked normal, and the packet losses before a few hours ago were as expected, fluctuating unpredictably but matching a rough normal distribution when device ISP and other things were taken into account.

But switching over to a real-time view showed a different picture altogether. There were still fuzzy fluctuations, but it felt as if there were shapes and patterns embedded in the noise.

“Watch this!” Bran said confidently. She clicked her fingers; then red and yellow bands appeared around the fuzzy nodes. “My matching algorithms can’t keep up, but it’s definitely something.”

“What’s going on?” William exclaimed, standing over my shoulder. I realised how I must have looked crouching down, huddled over my device away from any table.

I raised my head and straightened my back to see I had quite an audience.

“What have you found, Thomas?” Rhianna asked.

“I think I’ve cracked it, just watch,” I said, as I changed some local settings on my laptop.

Even more people had gathered round. Given the lack of success elsewhere, I was quickly becoming the only game in town.

I flicked Bran on my phone. “Hey watch it!” she snapped playfully.

I smiled, proud of Bran’s quick thinking and the audience she had attracted. But then I decided to ask a fateful question.

“Bran, can you simulate packet loss on our network and set it up so that it spells out ‘I know your secret’ in binary morse?”

“Done bro,” Bran said with a smile.

People looked at me expectantly, some stared upwards into the sky, others checked the streams from Hawke and shook their heads - no joy.

“Bran, send it on repeat,” I asked.

After a few more minutes of nothing, I shrugged my shoulders, looked at everyone who had gathered round and with a nervous smile I said, “worth a try I guess.”

“Hah, that was anti-climactic” William chuckled. “What were you even trying to do?”

I decided this was a great time to refill my Styrofoam cup.

Rhianna patted me on the back, “Nice try buddy. Get a coffee for me too.”

I smiled and began making my way over to the nearest stand.

“Anything yet?” I asked Bran as I waited in line.

“Afraid not,” she replied. “Hawke’s feeds, the streams and the ETA of the object have all remained the same.”

That had to be it though. It’s clear they are making no effort to communicate with us.

“Oh, William is trying to break into your laptop and copy over my source code,” Bran said nonchalantly.

“What!? That prick!” I cursed.

Bran giggled, “Don’t worry, I’m keeping him busy – he’s currently downloading terabytes of furry porn.”

That got a laugh out of me. He wouldn’t have succeeded as no way I’d bring a local offline copy of her out with me, but it was hurtful to see William hadn’t changed his stripes.

“Hey, you know you’ve got to pay for that!” The cashier shouted at me.

 “Oh sorry! Just a moment,” I replied. I shuffled back to the stand, put the coffees on the ledge and fumbled for my wallet.

Looking down as I tried to wrestle the wallet out of my overly small jeans a huge thunderclap echoed over-head.

Screams and explosions filled the space all around me. What the hell?

A deafening cacophony erupted as crackling noises and hot static filled the air. Rapid, loud bangs resonated all around the stadium; glass shattered and alarms shrilled as they screeched incessantly.

 But then, within seconds the blaring beep, beep of the sirens suddenly dropped in pitch as if they were falling into a blackhole, eventually dying into nothingness.

The chaos was far from over. More loud bangs were followed by maelstroms of sparks and blue flashes all around. Smoke began to fill the stadium; I could smell ozone in the air. People screamed hysterically, some had glass shrapnel hanging off their face, others frantically raced to pull down their jeans as fast as they could. Why? Their phones were exploding!

Keeping crouched with my hands shielding my head, I surveyed the area around me. Every device, computer, server, and all things electric were melting down or blowing up.

Bang, bang, bang, lightbulbs began shattering, one at a time, it looked as if the stadium was slowly dying a violent death.

Panicking I scrambled to get the phone out my pocket. Shit, where is it? I turned behind me to see the cashier screaming in pain, his partner strained to pull shards of glass out his face. I had left my phone on the counter, and it had gone off.

I rushed back to help. “I…I’m sorry,” I stammered. “Can I help?” Before I could finish the sentence, two more phones went off.  The woman yelped, then wailed in agony, smoke poured out her clothing. I spotted two dark rectangular patches; she must have had two on her person.

She collapsed over the counter convulsing. I stood there, momentarily paralyzed by shock, before another explosion snapped me out of my revery. I climbed up into the stand, grabbed for her shirt pocket and yanked at the phone. Shaking my hand in pain I threw it to the floor, the thing was burning hot.

“Thomas! Help!” Startled, I turned to see Rhianna waving at me. Blood trickled from her head. I looked to her, then back to the woman I was helping torn by indecision.

“Go,” said her partner, clasping the side of his face. “Help her.”

“Thomas come on!” Before I could say anymore, I was yanked backwards. Rhianna urgently pulled on my right arm with both of hers.

“What’s going on!?” I exclaimed.

“I ... I don’t know, but William.” I looked into Rhianna’s eyes, they were red, her expression showed fear and worry.

“Ok, let’s go,” I told her. I tried to put a brave face on things.

We weaved in and out of a sea of people. The wounded writhed and squirmed on the ground in agony, others were passed out, and many were frozen in shock. All the exits were blocked by queues of people shoving each other as they scrambled to escape, making it harder for paramedics to get in. The few that were here were vastly outnumbered by the wounded.

My anxiety was on overdrive, my heart pounded, and adrenaline spiked as the unintelligible groans and screams grew louder. Pleas for help were drowned out by hysterical chanting of the mob. An older woman wandered in a state of bewildered shock, her hair jutting up from the charged static that filled the stadium. She let out a scream of “they are coming!” as though she were in the throes of possession.

I finally made it back to the blue zone. William lay sprawled on the ground next to my laptop on the makeshift table.

“Why hasn’t anyone helped him?” I demanded, but before I could say any more, I noticed half of his head was missing.

The logical part of my brain refused to cede to the emotional part, because I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

William’s leg twitched occasionally. There was no blood; the remaining part of his head was black and cauterised.  Time slowed down, I stood there frozen, trying to comprehend what I was looking at. Can an exploding phone really do that much damage?

Miguel sat not far away, quivering and whimpering, “Something got him, a light shone on his face, then …. he was gone.”

His voice shook me out of my revery. I did the first thing I could think of—I pulled my shirt off and put it over William’s head to cover him up. Clearly, we were all still in shock.

The act of doing something freed my mind from its deadlock. “Wait!” I exclaimed, “Was it a laser sight? Was he assassinated?”

Miguel shook his head. “Nah, something else, man.”

Rhianna shuffled in beside Miguel. They embraced each other, I leant in to do the same.

“That’s him!” I heard someone exclaim. I turned to see three of Hawke’s staff pointing in my direction. Hawke was still on stage behind them, looking right at me with a phone in his hand.

How hadn’t it exploded?

I raised my hands in a don’t-shoot gesture, before I could say anything the three men dropped to the ground.

The loud rumbling grew in intensity as people scrambled to run away. A white beam of light encompassed the three men. One of them clutched at his shoulder, gazing upwards in fear.

My head followed the direction of his gaze. I was dazzled from the light descending above me.  The high-pitched whine of rotor blades startling me to the realization a helicopter was coming down right on top of me.

Over the noise of the engine, I could just about hear muffled shouting, ‘Get down on the ground!’ I spotted one of the soldiers pointing their rifles in my direction. Not liking my chances, I did as they asked.

I shouted to Miguel and Rhianna, ‘Let my mum know I’m ok!’ But within seconds, the soldiers were rounding them up as well.

One man cuffed me then bundled me into the helicopter.

 As we began to ascend, I saw Hawke frantically waving to his staff, then gesturing back at me just before the device he was holding blew up right in his face.

-2- First Strike

Afghanistan: 12 hours after the stadium attack

“No messing about, I need to know everything you’ve got now,” SAS Sergeant Major John “Hack” Hayes demanded, his Yorkshire accent tense with urgency.

“What are we dealing with? If you don’t know, make some guesses,” he insisted.

"Honestly, not much," the US Air Force liaison, Lieutenant Davis, said over the comms channel, his tone hinting at unease.

“But here is what I do know. First, they can short out electrical equipment with fatal consequences, don’t ask me how, they just can.

Hayes scratched the blonde stubble on his chin, his brow furrowed in concern “Bloody hell. I’ll let the lads know. Anything else?”

The AW159 Wildcat, a British multi-role attack helicopter, sped towards its target outside of Kandahar, Afghanistan, flying low and fast. The rotor blades’ whir filled the cabin, causing the civilian support staff to tremble with anxiety.

“The object has already disabled dozens of satellites, sent multiple cities around the world into darkness and launched focused radiation attacks at three specific locations on Earth,” Davis explained solemnly.

“How bad is it?” Hayes asked hesitantly.

“Bad,” Davis paused, thinking how best to phrase it, “So far we’re talking hundreds of thousand’s dead, which will rise to millions even if there are no more attacks.”

Hayes shook his head in disbelief and responded, “This is sheer insanity.”

“It gets worse,” the liaison said with a stammer, “As you know we haven’t had a presence in Afghanistan for years, actually we still can’t believe your team managed to hide low this long.”

Hayes grunted, prompting the liaison to continue. “My apologies, the object has already been engaged by both the ANA and local militia, we’re observing everything from satellite and high-altitude telemetry.”

“And?” Hayes was getting irritated. He knew lieutenant Davis meant well, but he wasn’t fit for the field, or advising people on the field for that matter, but this was unusual times.

“And they got wiped out,” Davis replied, his voice strained. “Completely. We estimate tens of thousands dead so far.”

“What!?” Hayes gripped his earpiece, as if he had heard that figure wrong, “They can’t have mobilised that many so quickly.”

“Correct,” Davis replied, commotion and chatter audible in the background; clearly, things weren’t going well back at USAF headquarters.

 “The landing caused a seismic wave, levelling everything in a twenty-mile radius. Worse, a kind of fog is obscuring all of our footage, as if the object created low cloud cover to hide its activities.”

“Lovely,” Hayes replied sarcastically, his jaw clenched, “Anything else?”

“Uh…” Davis hesitated.

This made Hayes realise, he didn’t want to know about the hysterical end of days political shitshow that might be brewing from aliens that fired the first shots, “Other than need to know, on the ground tactical info,” he clarified.

“Ah,” Davis sounded relieved, the commotion in the background spelling out exactly how badly the external world was taking things, “You are on your own. As you know, there is no support, no known US, or allied assets in the area, but our cyber team are disrupting local comms enough to help you fly under cover.”

“Hold up, sir,” one of Hayes’s men, a Corporal Thompson, extended his hand out to Hayes, the other hand tapping his watch; Hayes knew what that meant.

“Right, I’ve got to switch channels for the final brief,” Hayes toggled the settings on his tactical operations phone tac.

“Understood,” Davis replied, “If we get anything else, I’ll feed directly to the bucket link you gave me. Godspeed Sergeant Major”

“Good lad,” Hayes replied before dropping the call and switching to command chat. “Yes sir, I’m here, go ahead.”

“I’ll keep this brief,” came a raspy voice from the other end, “We’re all sorry for pulling you out of cover that you’ve worked so hard on.”

“Understood sir, can’t be helped,” Hayes replied.

“Quite,” the voice refocused on the subject at hand, “Mission parameters have changed. It’s a smash and grab op, anything you can get your hands on do so and bring it back, how much you take and what you take I’m leaving to your best judgement; but we need something, anything.”

“Contact ROE, sir?” Hayes was pretty sure what the rules of engagement would be, but he needed to hear it from him to avoid any misunderstandings; it wasn’t a friendly first contact.

“We’ve talked it through here – John, we can’t game this out, so we are letting you call the shots on the ground. Just do what’s necessary.”

“Time to shut the fuck up now!” the pilots voice boomed over the PA, “ETA to their sphere of influence real bloody quick.”

“I’ll let you get to it then.” The line went dead before Hayes could reply.

After the three-minute warning Hayes realised something. 

“Masks on!” Hayes ordered everyone, remembering what Davis just told him, he stepped out in front of the techs and support staff, facing them he attached his mask slowly, giving them time to follow his lead.

Before the pilot could question his prophetic abilities, the cabin began to fill up with thick, grey smoke.

“Hope we haven’t been hit,” Thompson grimaced. He checked his rifle was in safe mode, before opening the breach of the under-barrel launcher attachment and loading in a 40mm grenade.

Ignoring the chatter Hayes pressed the mic contact on his throat, “How’s it looking? Do we need to touch down early?”

“Looks like it,” the pilot responded. Equipment scattered about as the helicopter shook violently.

After what seemed like a close call, they touched down in a wide-open sandy expanse. Dust from the arid landscape kicked up into the air forming an almost viscous-like gloop as it bonded to the grey smoke permeating the air. 

“Can’t see shit,” one of the civilian techies lamented, then coughed as the smoke filled his lungs.

“Get your fucking goggles on,” Thompson shouted, “And keep your mask on! Fuck’s sake man, you’ve been told.”

Hayes gave him a stern hand signal to cool it. “Stay frosty” he said over the comms for all to here, it was a cheesy term, but it was more for the benefit of the civvies tagging along.

They knew the drill, they were to advance to the object, civies doing what they could on foot, knowing full well they might be as useful as tits on a nun. Though there was always the outside chance they could make a difference when it counted.

The haze slowly gave way to a wide rural expanse, sparse vegetation dotted the landscape with occasional clusters of low mud-brick dwellings were nearby.

The muted earth tones seemed alien compared to the beautiful, rugged Afghan mountains he knew were obscured in the backdrop.

Dry heat quickly enveloped the team, no doubt made worse by the smoke screen trapping it all in. Hayes stopped to consult his tac and consider how long they might have before baking like gingerbread men and succumbing to the harsh environment. Not to mention when to ditch the electronic equipment, though he still hadn’t decided if he could trust Davis’s intel 100%.

“Why the hell are we bringing them along,” Thompson had shuffled up alongside him lamenting as he pointed to the civilians huddled together.

“Check your attitude corporal,” Hayes replied, “You know as well as I do, things change fast. We picked them up thinking we might simply be on escort duty, but it all went tits up. Still, they were chosen for a reason, they might come in handy with the alien tech.”

“They are a liability sir,” Thompson changing his tone but not backing down, “I say we leave them here and pick them up once we’re done.”

Hayes looked at him, this time considering his request seriously. But rather than play 20 questions, he gamed out the obvious scenarios, a hot exit being one of them. Though the exploding electronics trick might make the civilians useless anyway,

Thompson looked at him expectantly, no doubt guessing that command gave him full discretion.

Hayes clenched his fist then set his jaw straight, “Everyone gather round!” he gestured to his team to continue to hold down the box formation whilst he consults the scientists.

“As you have no doubt guessed, the aliens are not friendly. The situation has changed. You have been brought under mistaken pretences; we can’t guarantee your safety.

So, the decision is yours, come with us, but ditch all your electronics when I say, or head back to the helicopter and wait for us.”

As scientists, they were curious, but the prospects of dying had outweighed even their curiosity. These weren’t the friendly green men they had been hoping for. Except for one.

“I’m coming,” Charlotte Wilkinson a short black woman stepped forward, “I run the Ironman with the Israeli special forces IDF, and I don’t come last, I won’t slow you down.”

Thompson looked at Hayes who nodded his head ever so slightly, “You know how to use one of these?” he asked handing over a Beretta.

Charlotte approached Thompson; her slim but toned shape contrasted starkly with his stocky build. She took the gun, checked the safety, ejected the clip, and re-inserted it, all whilst maintaining safe holding posture.

With a smile he patted her on the back as she separated from her group to move out with Sabre team.

“They were dead weight anyway sir,” Thompson said trying to assure him.

“It’s the dead part that swayed me,” Hayes replied, “Ok let’s push on, no more chatter until we get a visual.”

Hand signals from all members confirmed the order.

After an hour on foot, the team started to worry.

“It should be right fucking here,” Lieutenant Perry complained, “It’s huge, we should have seen it miles away by now.”

“Calm down,” Hayes gestured Charlotte over, “Can you tell if we’re at the epicentre of this thing?”

“Definitely, even before my GPS started acting up, Perry and I worked out our steps on paper.”

“So, it’s moved?” Hayes asked.

Before anyone could reply, one of Hayes men came running over to their position “Tangos spotted,” the man huffed with exertion, “We are staying off coms as you asked.”

“Good lad, what have you got for us?” Hayes asked.

Pointing to an oddly shaped hill that obscured the horizon behind him, he clarified, “Half a click that way, beyond the hill is a cliff face and behind that are two of them.

We haven’t been spotted, Ferguson holding ground waiting for orders.”

Hayes considered that using an errand boy to decouple advance scouts with the main group though unconventional worked out.

“Tell him to keep his head down, we will approach his flank,” Hayes said.

“Yes sir,” he replied before sprinting back up the hill.

Ten minutes later everyone was in position, Hayes lay on his front, crawling and looking down on the two contacts from a higher vantage point.

“Freaky bastards” Thompson spat.

Two distinct-looking entities humped about the arid landscape, their form resembled hundreds of metal cables or strips woven into a bird’s nest. Though in the centre was what looked like a perfect metal sphere.

There were no eyes, no hands, no legs, or appendages of any sort but also no wheels, no wings, or visible engines, just two giant metal spheres surrounded in moving, liquid like metal vines.

“Charlotte, any thoughts?” Hayes whispered.

“They look like mechanical lifeforms, I can’t tell for sure,” looking at Hayes, the whites of her eyes told a hidden message, we should get the fuck out of here.

“What are they doing? Fucking?” Thompson’s hand pointed towards the two distinct metallic blobs that were now almost on top of each other.

“That’s a car!” Charlotte exclaimed, “I think they are ingesting the alloys.”

“Like eating it?” Hayes cocked his head brows furrowed in confusion.

“Thinking out loud here, but they could be here to take our processed metals. Either way, they are ignoring the tyres and the glass,” Charlotte clarified.

“I’m counting that as technological,” Hayes muttered to himself, confirming his mission parameters.

 He turned to address his team, voice low, but clear, “Here’s the plan, we are going to engage both of them. If we are lucky, we can take one back with us, or at least part of it.”

Nods all around, Thompson relayed preparation hand signals to men in the distance who returned affirmative gestures.

“Remember, no tech! Ditch any large electronic devices now. We’re dealing with the unknown so be prepared for anything.”

More affirmative head nods.

Hayes raised his hand with three fingers in the air and said, “On my mark… three, two, one… engage!”

The teams unleashed a barrage of bullets down onto the two aliens. Tat, tat, tat. Loud bangs reverberated as muzzles flashed from multiple points around the top of the basin, hot metal flew towards the two unsuspecting aliens.

They reacted immediately, their central sphere spinning rapidly before launching hundreds of pellet sized flecks of metal out in all directions. The web of metal vines around them moved erratically snaking out into the air, sometimes their movement was so fast, it looked as if they were glitching.

Soon the two aliens moved in the same fashion, as if they were teleporting around from point to point erratically.

“Shit! The bullets are having no effect”, Ferguson shouted.

Hits were less frequent now, and the ones that did, just ricocheted off their hardened exterior.

Screams of agony filled the air, two men had been hit bad.

“Heavies!” Hayes shouted, as he zeroed in on the nearest alien just as it had glitched into the spot he was aiming at.

Thwomp! A 40mm grenade left his launcher arcing towards the metal behemoth, exploding with a percussive bang.

The thing staggered, causing the central sphere to wobble slightly and even slow down, but within a second it was back up to full speed.

Hayes collapsed to the ground, blood seeping out of his mouth. He rolled on his back, using the cover of the ravine to keep him safe as he pawed at his wound.

Metal shrapnel had gone right through his cheek and out the other side, he’d live, for now.

Turning on his front and crawling to the edge, he looked over. It was chaos. The two metal abominations continued to dance back and forth, but there were less and less suppression fire from his team.

“Are you okay?” Charlotte ran towards Hayes, but before she could get close, a piercing white light shot by his periphery. Charlotte yelped in agony as her blood splattered Hayes’s face.

Something had passed right through Charlottes shoulder blade, knocking her forward onto him. Writhing in pain, Hayes wanted to attend to her, but he needed to get them both to safety first.

He pushed her off him, turning her on her side and checking her pulse quickly before readjusting to the new threat behind him. A swarm of what could best be described as drunken metallic spiders, if they had twenty legs instead of eight came scurrying up the hill towards them in erratic fashion.

Ferguson and Thompson were already laying fire into them, but to no avail. The force of the bullets pushed some of these dog sized things sideways, or sometimes even backwards, but they didn’t stop coming.

White balls of light, shot out from them taking more of our people down including Ferguson. Hayes saw him scream, a sight he would never forget. His jaw wide open, light actually shone out his mouth, as if from inside him, but within seconds his body erupted in flames.

Shell shocked and desperate, Hayes swiftly removed the pins from three grenades. With a flick of the wrist, he threw two of them down the hill towards the enemy, followed closely by the third.

The first two grenades hit the ground, sending up plumes of dust and debris as they skidded towards the alien force. A gut-wrenching moment of silence ensued before the grenades detonated, unleashing a cacophony of deafening explosions.

Concussive shockwaves rippled through the air as geysers of soil and rock were thrown up into the air, including bits and pieces of what looked like the aliens.

But even before the dust could settle, bright pulsating balls of white and blue sped outwards towards him. He hit the deck and watched on as the aliens, though reduced in number, continued their relentless assault, unphased.

Shooting pains rushed through Hayes. He winced looking downwards to see he was now bleeding from his torso and right leg.

“We’re done for,” Perry spat with desperation as he gestured up to the sky. Hayes stumbled and wobbled as he tried to keep upright and focus on what Perry was pointing at.

Dozens of flying sleek metallic discs bore down on their position. They looked not unlike the UFOs of 50s Sci-Fi, but again moving in a bizarre, glitchy like fashion.

 Light, fire and metal filled the space in and around them, collapsing on his right side, Hayes tried to sight in on Thompson, to tell him to fall back and get whoever he could to safety, only to see him lying down in the distance, headless and on fire.

Deep in despair at the deaths on his hand, he mourned the failure of his mission. Hayes knew he was the last. He struggled to move, his eyes growing heavy as his vision slowly darkened. No emotion, not despair, rage or fear could sustain him now, he was bleeding out, even his hearing seemed to have gone.

He just looked out, over the ravine at the still dancing alien blobs of metal. He blinked slowly, things slowed down, his vision continued to darken. This was it; it was over and he had failed.

Blinking again, one of the aliens seemed to transform, to morph shape and change colour. No, it was on fire and under attack. Hayes, strained with his last reserves of energy to turn his head and body to see more.

People were attacking the aliens; they were running faster than he had ever seen anyone run. They weaved, and darted about, easily keeping pace with the aliens rapid and sporadic glitchy movement.

Is… that even possible?

“What the…” he mumbled; they were using weapons unlike anything he had ever seen. Fireballs filled the sky as metallic tendrils snaked outwards lashing like a million whips.

These people moved with grace, unlike any military fighting force. Some were jumping into the air like acrobats, darting about like ancient Chinese sword fighters. He spotted one charge into the alien, head on like a sumo wrestler.

“Wait,” Hayes said to himself weakly as the last drops of life left his body. “They… they aren’t human.”