Act 1. Sierra Nevada
Sierra Nevada
The stars glimmered in a clear, flickering sky over a striking, deserted landscape. The remoteness of the mountains was breathtaking. All-terrain vehicles were parked along the roadside atop a mountain peak, where pickup trucks and recreational vehicles lined up to witness the phenomenon.
It was icy cold outdoors, crisp to the touch. The light hovered, menacing the crowd like a snake ready to strike from the sky. The formation was taking shape in a haze and materialized. The flying machine mechanism triggered. It became apparent that the artillery had emerged.
A single muzzle popped up. It loaded up a weapon and prepared to fire.
A morbid period of silence held the witnesses in a stupor. In the blink of an eye, it was light as day in the perimeter. The UFO enthusiasts were mortified at the view. The underdogs were taken aback. It opened fire on the onlookers and streaked across the desert land. They were vaporized and rose into the atmosphere.
As if scrutinizing the Sierra Nevada, the static sphere positioned itself at the hill’s peak, rotating and morbidly observing the deserted land. Utterly motionless, it turned blue, red, and green.
The modulator picked up.
The metric sensor monitored the manifold, calculated its trajectory using the curve coordinates, and flowed into the matrix.
In a flash, the sphere was propelled in multiple directions in a UFO-like manner under the fly command. It avoided the mountain range.
Inwardly, the object watched like a hawk, shifting through the seasons. It lingered in the sky briefly and soundly transformed into stealth, streaking into the valley fluidly as a landing field. Above the twilight, multiple UAPs reached the speed of sound across the landscape.
Now, our timeframe.
It was a Friday night. A WCTK-TV broadcast vehicle drove by the Las Vegas Strip speedily.
An unidentified flying object connected to the fabric of spacetime became inert and shone like any other star in the sky and accelerated downward. The cloaked entity descended to the main strip, searching for an individual.
The CME was in full blast—another wave of coronal ejection came straight to Earth.
The casino world was within reach, and the skyline of Las Vegas was grim in the twilight. The streets were busy. The orb embodied none of the inhabitants. The full Moon shone and sparked over the city, unfathomable. The invisible probe was seeking out digital information and coordinating the hunt. Inadvertently, busy pedestrians walked on the pavement and avoided its course.
The radio was playing loudly. Until this very moment, the circular orbs were swiftly pulled towards the moving broadcast vehicle. It had momentum and crossed the threshold of our antagonists.
It plunged into the side of the van as it was in motion. It was invisible to the naked eye as it probed the loading bay and dashed against Baxter and Blake. The mood shifted quickly in the truck.
Baxter was a live crime reporter on the night shift and was paying attention to the CME on the screen.
His suitable Anglo-Saxon allure for action looked brilliant. He was hefty and handsome. He sat in his rolling chair in the back of the minivan, filled with the latest studio equipment and technology, which told him stories. It was the best broadcasting van for the job. Baxter was embodied in the blink of an eye. The entity took over his body with a crackling mist and seeded in his psyche.
“You’ve got to do everything for yourself.”
Baxter tuned in with the scanner as if it were new technology. The probes sent were the first of many. The first wave had begun. A black male driver in the prime of his life honked and tapped on the steering wheel, listening to the music on the radio. Blake caught on to something flying off the road and reached the end of the unknown in his peripheral vision. His heart overflowed with endless wonder, only to snap back to reality. The sparkling tail quickly moved through the air and soon disintegrated into the darkness.
Blake, the cameraman, was upbeat as he held the wheel. The transformed being looked back at Baxter with an evocative smile that melted away.
“This is what you get with WCKT-TV channel news. We are a small team tonight,” he said mindlessly.
Spacetime fractured, and he was unaware.
Blake frowned. His forehead wrinkled, unaware of the dire situation that had faded from his recollection. Amused and on the verge of a smile, he twinkled back in good spirits. Blake zoomed in on the front windshield and surveyed the back.
On the desktop, the cell phone beside Baxter vibrated, and he attempted to reach it with his hand. It musically rang once more. Baxter looked at the widget and conceptualized it. The thumb pressed the talk dial. Baxter’s cognitive abilities regained strength. A conversation followed.
The passenger’s side mirror reflected Blake’s image on the outside. The front right tire ventured out on the dirt. Baxter was on the call to discuss the forthcoming interview.
“Watch the road. Blake.”
Baxter shouted out, unbalanced on his rolling chair. The broadcasting van was losing the wheel power of both tires. Blake jerked his head dubiously to the left, and the steering wheel did the same. The speed limit sign was illuminated in the dark, its beam cast by the headlight.
“We need to hit it back to the city. Blake, now,” said Baxter.
At the end of the strip, a hot spot for street racing, the van drove off and made an abrupt U-turn. The tires screeched on the pavement, leaving skid marks behind, amongst many others. They sped off into the straight lanes. Blake planted his foot on the accelerator and shifted the gear.
“Do you have your GPS?”
Baxter pushed forward with his rolling chair, moving closer to Blake and scrutinizing the road ahead.
“Yes,” said Blake.
Baxter handed it to him. Blake was confident and fussed about what was ahead—into the night. The moonlight shone over the exterior of their vehicle. Blake was traveling slightly below the speed limit permitted for this roadway. They were going fast and joined the city at godspeed.
Intrepid as ever, Baxter reported details on the unfolding story as if he were live on TV. The traffic could have been more present this evening. The next phone call was likely more revealing than the first one. The voice on the other end was distorted. Blake answered his cellular phone.
“Have you ever seen an overkill?” asked the female voice on the other line.
Blake hung up and looked ahead.
