Humans and other Aliens: Book 1

  Humans and other Aliens

  Book 1

  Alexander Winzer

  Humans and other Aliens

  Book 1

  by Alexander Winzer

  ISBN: 78-0-6481036-0-8

  © 2017 Alexander Winzer

  All rights reserved.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  For permissions contact: winzeralex@hotmail.com

  Contents

  1. Delta

  2. Jon

  3. Eva

  4. Jon

  5. Eva

  6. Jon

  7. Eva

  8. Chris

  9. Ezrah

  10. Jon

  11. Delta

  12. Eva

  13. Suki

  14. Jon

  15. Eva

  16. Chris

  17. Ilvy

  18. Suki

  19. Eva

  20. Eva

  21. Jon

  22. Eva

  23. Delta

  24. Team

  25. Delta

  26. Peter

  27. Zoe

  28. Ezrah

  29. Peter

  30. Delta

  31. Peter

  32. Suki

  33. Ezrah

  34. Peter

  35. Team

  36. Zoe

  37. Jon

  38. Team

  39. Ivan

  40. Team

  41. Anaya

  42. Team

  About the Author

  One

  Delta

  I sense a vibration, a rhythmic modulation of sound.

  A kaleidoscope of colors weaves a pattern. I detect a border, a differentiation between emptiness and form. A connection is established; synapses vibrating in chemical embrace. I identify the shape as something objective, something separate from me.

  “Bird”

  Bright flares of energy form, bursting into a dance that sends me floating in a sensation I will learn to call pain. A smooth grey surface materializes. It is covered with cryptic patterns. A word! I recognize the markings. It reads Delta.

  “My name is Delta!”

  Images flash past. Colors. Disjointed. Leaving me without recognition. I cannot handle the explosive flow of information any longer. I drift back into safe blackness, this ocean of me.

  Two

  Jon

  Jon frowned, placing one hand on the metal breeding tube as if to check for hidden vibrations of life. The motionless face of the humanoid body confined in the grey, bullet-shaped container stared back at him through milky glowing eyes.

  The subject was covered with a translucent finish that evened out all wrinkles and scars a normal human body would exhibit. Jon thought it resembled a display dummy shaped out of luminescent white silicone. Then again… it looked real in an unsettling way. He felt that it was aware of his every move while not displaying the slightest signs of life.

  Jon felt exhausted. Three failed attempts at implanting human values and an adequate, socially acceptable belief system into the subjects had taken its toll.

  Inserting strands of human DNA into the alien superstructure that seemed to map out the known universe and beyond had turned out to be fairly simple. But with the alien DNA overpowering most of its human counterparts, the psychological manipulation, consisting of generating a mental image, a virtual past of human memories that would shape the subject’s thinking patterns, its social behavior, and ethical beliefs, had become an insurmountable obstacle.

  Jon was a leading memory engineer, working for ARC, the American Research Center, in San Francisco, a government institution experimenting with crossing alien and human DNA.

  ARC was running one of a handful of projects that had been established globally as a response to dealing with a seemingly hopeless situation. What happened was still a talking point, but for now the general consensus was that it was earth itself, a global, living organism, reacting to centuries of exploitation by humankind, triggering a defense mechanism of nature, not dissimilar to white blood cells operating in our bodies looking to destroy an unwelcome guest.

  The mission’s goals did not stop at defining mankind’s survival as the highest priority, but rather went beyond that to focus on prolonging humanity’s uncontested supremacy. Something that Jon felt was a mistake, making this fight impossible to win.

  Jon had tried everything. He had employed all the knowledge acquired working in neural programming for more than a decade, but no matter how cleverly he attempted to disguise the fact that the implanted conceptual structures were based on egotistical thinking patterns, the alien intelligence saw through his little charade. It was perfectly aware and simply rejected his crude attempts to inform it with a behavioral framework that was not consistent with a balanced life in tune with nature.

  * * *

  Amy looked at Jon, her face displaying obvious signs of fatigue. “It’s too weak. I believe we should move on to the next subject.”

  Jon sighed. “No. I want some more time with Delta. I have this feeling… It has to work.”

  Amy just nodded and replied, “All we’re doing is going around in circles. It simply won’t accept our programming. It just bounces off an unseen wall.”

  “Maybe it’s not the programming, but the content we’re trying to install. It’s not a computer that doesn’t care about the source code it’s running. It’s alive and it’s mostly alien. It seems to contain a framework of universal ethics that rejects everything that our belief in human rights and values is based upon… There’s still some time before he has to be sent on the holiday in the sun.”

  Jon shuddered, thinking about Delta’s older brother, the last subject, Gamma, which he allowed to reach full maturity even though he still had not been molded into an acceptable member of human society. Jon simply hadn’t known that once Gamma reached a certain age, there would be no way of containing him in any facility constructed by humankind. It was pure luck and maybe some human traces that were left in Gamma’s programming that resulted in a brief state of indecision, which allowed Jon to trap him in the sun room.

  The sun room was Jon’s way of making the annihilation chamber, a tiny room that could be super-heated to reach the temperature of the surface of the sun in fractions of a second, sound less scary—almost a nice, friendly place to hang out and have a good time. This special treatment did not destroy the subject. It only forced it into a state of hibernation. A state from which Gamma, nor any of his older brothers who had to undergo the same treatment, had awakened from yet.

  * * *

  The alien life form whose DNA structure Jon and his team were trying to utilize in the fight for human survival arrived on earth on the day of the Northern Hemisphere’s summer solstice in the year 2053. At first NASA only detected an unusual energy configuration, resembling a binary black hole that was later officially classified as a highly energetic meteorite shower over the northern parts of Russia.

  When Russian Special Forces were dispatched to investigate the incident they were presented with an unusual sight. The permafrost soil of the tundra, which normally makes it impossible for larger, treelike plants to grow, was teeming with tropical vegetation. The ground team discovered a deep hole, perfectly round in shape, approximately ten meters wide and of unknown depth. Water bubbled in it, releasing thick streams of mist, much like a g
eyser, just a lot more intense. The hole was only a day old yet the massive trees surrounding it seemed to have been there forever. Thick undergrowth and an armada of insects made it difficult for the Russian team to investigate the sector, which was about ten kilometers wide and roughly followed an elliptical outline. The whole area, when observed from a plane, resembled an egg: a green, steaming egg left in an otherwise barren landscape.

  Three

  Eva

  Eva was sick of spending her days in a little lab doing mostly theoretical work on atmospheric anomalies related to climate change. The only thing she was really proud of was her theory that she romantically called The Two Lovers: A Conversation Between Earth and Mark.

  Her theory was an explanation for a discovery that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration made in March 2050. NASA detected unusual fluctuations of the earth’s magnetic field, a pulsing rhythmic pattern, similar to the vibration that one generates by humming “mmmm.”

  Eva studied these fluctuations and discovered a second signal hidden inside of the magnetic vortex, something that did not originate from earth’s magnetic field. When she was able to isolate the signal she detected a close similarity to the energy signature of a binary black hole. After overlaying the two signals and applying different timescales, taking into account the location and distance of virtually all binary black holes known to mankind, she was able to prove that these two signals resembled a dialogue. Eva finally concluded that earth’s signal was being answered by something that was located in the center of Markarian 231 (Mrk 231), the nearest galaxy to earth that hosts a quasar, which is powered by two black holes spinning around each other.

  While Eva was not sure if it was the binary black hole answering earth’s magnetic message or if there was something else out there that was the source of the signal, she was convinced that an intelligent dialogue was taking place. It took her nearly two years to decipher the code and to figure out that the unusual conversationalists employed some kind of language. She eventually discovered that the dialogue was not based on subjects manipulating objects. The language didn’t utilize relative terms like light and dark, it didn’t define opposites, but simply relied on pure, direct knowing.

  Her conclusion raised many objections, which Eva mostly countered using analogies such as the essential difference between thinking about eating an apple and really eating it. You can describe its texture and its juicy, sweet taste, but the interpretation is not the experience itself. When really eating an apple none of these words apply. It is the pure, direct experience that counts. The communication between the Two Lovers is based on the dimension of direct knowing. It is the same between human beings. True love cannot be expressed in words. It is not based on interpretation, but on direct knowing of the other as oneself.

  After deciphering the structural components of the dialogue between earth and its faraway partner, Eva spent another year trying to piece together the meaning hidden within the message so it fitted into the human way of objective, relativistic thought and communication patterns.

  What she eventually came up with was quite astounding. The message sent by earth seemed to be a detailed description of the DNA of mankind as well as of many other living species on the planet expressed in billions of modulations of one single word. Love.

  The answer received was equally mind-blowing. It contained information of a DNA so far unknown to mankind. It consisted of a multidimensional double helix or thousands of DNA structures woven together into one superstructure that included a seemingly infinite amount of information. Again the information was conveyed using only one single word. Self.

  When Eva made her discovery public most leading scientists ridiculed it, but somehow she knew that this would change once more details were available to the global scientific panel in charge of the matter. Her intuition had never failed her and she was sure that soon there would be proof for her seemingly insane theory.

  The Green Egg appearing out of nowhere, emitting high frequency radiation that exhibited a striking resemblance to the signatures received from the binary black hole, seemed to be the perfect opportunity. This was Eva’s best chance to prove that her theory was not just the deranged dream of a lunatic after all.

  Eva smiled, thinking about the lucky coincidence that made it possible for her to join the landing party at the last second.

  Her plea to be included was initially rejected by Professor Abramov, the man in charge of all investigations into supernatural artifacts that came in close contact with Mother Russia. Professor Abramov was fond of Eva, but categorically rejected her theory of the Two Lovers. It was just too far-fetched to be seriously considered. He thus ordered Erik, a tall, blond, well spoken, and clever scientist, but lacking the brilliant and sometimes even crazy sparkle that was Eva’s special gift, to head the scientific part of the landing team.

  Where she was brilliant, Erik was solid, where she was excitable, he was clinical, and where Eva showed untamed energy he was somewhat docile. Exactly what Professor Abramov was looking for, a good workhorse who would not go the extra mile to find the magic key to unlock the secrets of the Green Egg. Erik was a compiler of facts, not someone who would combine these facts and be able to see the bigger picture.

  Eva, besides being emotional, was also a fairly capable judge of human behavior. She expected Professor Abramov to reject her application, but giving in to his decision was not an option.

  Eva found Erik in the canteen preparing his usual concoction of a perfectly balanced organic vegetable juice. He was sure it would one day be recognized by the Global Nutritional Academy (GNA) as something close to the fabled Fountain of Youth and thus be approved as one of the most beneficial building blocks to human health. It seemed to work for him as all that he ever consumed was this specific mix of vegetables, either in the form of a juice or simply deconstructed in the form of raw vegetables. It was as much the ingredients as the perfect balance of quantities that turned it into a superjuice. What Erik did not know was that Eva had borrowed his stash of organically grown ginger, an ingredient that was essential to Erik’s concoction as he was convinced that his mixture would result in severe abdominal pain if the special root was not included. It might even be slightly poisonous. A fact that had bothered him for some time and that he suspected to be the main reason for the GNA keeping his formula from being officially approved.

  “Hi, Eva. I hope you’re not too upset that you haven’t been selected for tomorrow’s mission. I’d rather you went. I don’t think I’m really up for this adventure, but if it’s God’s plan what can a mere mortal do?”

  Eva felt slightly sorry for Erik. He didn’t know that his wish would be granted all too soon and that with it some uncomfortable bowel movements might take place. Then again, she was also doing him a favor. Exploring the Green Egg might turn out to be much more inconvenient than food poisoning.

  “Yes, I’d have loved to go, but you know Mov, once he has made up his mind he’d rather die than admit that he was wrong. Ahh… I didn’t mean to say that it was wrong to choose you… You know what I mean. Sorry.”

  “Sure, Eva, I know. By the way, have you seen my ginger? I always keep it down here and I’m not sure where it has gone. It’s hard to get this special variety, I always order it in from overseas and it takes about a month to get here.”

  Eva blushed and finally replied with her previously made up statement of “No, sorry, but have you ever tried galangal? It’s very similar to ginger. People in Thailand often use a mixture of galangal and lime juice as a tonic and they swear on its antibacterial and anti-inflammatory effects. You should try it some time. Actually, I bought some recently. It’s in the fridge over there if you’d like to give it a try. I’ve got to go now. I’m tired and I have another boring day ahead of me tomorrow.”

  Erik listened with increased interest. Galangal… He had heard about the root when he experimented to create the perfect balance of healthy ingredients and he was tempted back then to use galangal
instead of ginger, but somehow he had ginger available at the time and that was what he ended up using. Never touch a running system. That was his slogan, but what if the system broke down?

  As Eva walked out of the canteen she was aware of beads of sweat forming on Erik’s forehead. He was obviously in a dilemma. She smirked as she left knowing what his decision would be. Erik was not a risk-taker, but the temptation to make his superjuice even more potent would finally overcome his objections and fear of poisoning.

  When Eva entered her private rooms she started compiling all the necessary equipment required for her upcoming trip. She was surprisingly calm but also full of anticipation. Tomorrow is my big day!

  Four

  Jon

  “I can’t wrap my head around it. We’ve tried every logical option for forcing Delta into accepting our programming, but it’s like banging your head against a concrete wall. It has no effect.” Jon sighed. “That’s it for today, I’m going home. Bye, Amy.”