I’ve been flicking through the vast amounts of info on my tablet this whole week, usually projecting any videos I was interested in onto the TV in the living room. These aliens were known colloquially as Xenos as a derogatory term, but officially called themselves Klexon. Their civil tech was actually a bit behind that of mankind, most of the reason they won seems to have been numbers, if we had been operating anything better than 200 year old tech with remotely simir numbers they likely would have lost. Unfortunately the era of peace truly did soften humanity up for exactly this sort of nightmare scenario to py out.

  The Xenos look simir to the reptilian aliens from the movie Zathura, except with a purple hue instead of green. They are a very hierarchical species, though they do share many emotional characteristics with humans, namely the ability to empathize with their own kind, and a fear of death. It’s unlikely that any non-social species would ever make it to the space age regardless of their level of intelligence. Their hierarchy is rather convoluted, with cns at each step of the hierarchy, the cn at the top being akin to royalty for their species, while the cns at the bottom are generally nothing more than serfs. Cn leaders also have certain privileges standing atop and commanding their respective groups. The cn leaders had a physical differentiation too, they had an extra pair of arms.

  From the info I’ve gathered, the Klexon armies are formed of the bottom two cn rungs of their society, with bottom rung cn leaders acting as NCOs and the second to the bottom acting as their field officers. Not as much is known about the upper levels of their military hierarchy. They generally use wave tactics, charging everything they have at any significant resistance, which for the time being has been a success for them. Unfortunately for them, they ck subtlety, and advanced detection systems. Alfred estimated 1.2 billion humans remain living hidden in settlements spread across Earth and potentially some in the old colonies too. They’ve mostly succeeding due to the Klexon’s reliance on visual targeting systems and surveilnce over radar. Klexon weaponry is majorly energy based, and their armor isn’t designed to counter physical projectiles.

  Given everything we knew about the Klexon, Alfred had updated his military schematics to accommodate visual camoufges, particurly on the rooftops of any armor he would produce; this would disguise us from optical satellites that might be peaking in on our activity. It was a stop gap measure that would only dey their arm at our presence, but a necessary one nonetheless. It would be impossible to fully conceal ourselves once we had enough presence on the surface anyway.

  Alfred and I have had some conversations regarding other adjustments he could make to his designs in favor of strategic soundness. What I had discovered was that a lot of his designs were inspired by anime and gundam, which made me shudder wondering if any of this would actually work in reality. Alfred reassured me though, with the physical projectile weapons he redesigned specifically for the mechs, they’d be a force to be reckoned with. One of the main technologies researched by D.A.I. before the company went bankrupt was called a ‘diffusion shield’ which diffused light rays, shockwaves, and heat, making it particurly effective against ser weapons and explosive bsts, the easiest way to think of it was as a soft force field; Alfred of course with all the time in the world completed development of this new tech.

  “Julia, Sarah just hailed us on the coms, she wants to meet you face to face. I’ve done a check on her history of past dealings with other settlements and have been scouting the meeting location for Klexon presence, you should be safe, and seeing you just ate the st of our reserves you can’t risk this deal falling through.” Alfred made his presence known.

  We made a deal he could no longer listen in or watch me when I was in the jimmy suite without my expressed permission or in the event of an emergency. In this case I had told him to let me know when Sarah reached out seeing as our exchange date was today. I was dressed in the same getup as when we met over coms, I got a chance to look in the mirror this time, and damn did I look good. At least in the mirror I had a mature yet haughty look to me. Smiling at my reflection, I put on my boots and made my way to the elevator. I could activate it on my own now using a set of digital dogtags Alfred made for me that also acted as a key.

  I punched my ID in and set the elevator’s course for the compound’s warehouse. Rows upon rows of recently fabricated weapons sat on shelves, crates stacked on crates of ammunition, and behind them, enough armor for a mechanized division. Twenty fresh off production tracked APCs y in two columns.

  I was regretting my short stature now that I actually had to use it. Climbing into the APC was hell, and I barely had the strength to open the hatch after inputting the door release code, but I managed in the end. I dropped into the commander seat, which could access both gunner and driver optics and controls depending on how many people you wanted to have crew it. I couldn’t help myself and tried messing with the 30 mil auto railgun cannon mounted at the midpoint of the APC’s roof. It was a surprisingly intuitive gunner system, all you had to do was look at the monitor in front of you and it would track your eye movements to aim at the target for small adjustments, with optional optical and radar tracking avaible. I closed the hatch above.

  Ahead of me, I could see through the driver screen, the FTL portal thing device started to whir and spin, it looked like two juxtaposed hexagonal shapes, the corners of each seemingly missing, they both began to spin to an unbelievable speed, before moving towards the center and converging on one another. When the two hexagons met, what looked like a reverse bck hole appeared, it glowed bright purple and in it I could see the distorted image of the warehouse we were set to meet at within the next 2 hours.

  “So, am I just supposed to drive through that eerie looking thing? I’m not gonna suddenly compress into the size of a pea the moment I enter that thing right, Alfred?”

  Alfred answered in a distorted voice as if he was talking to me over an old radio (likely another dumb joke of his). “Yes, clear to go, ma’am. I tested it with a few androids, and after the first one crumpled to the void, I ironed the kinks.” I gulped, that was not reassuring to hear in the least, what kinks?!

  “I really don’t have a choice in the matter do I?” I was pale in fear.

  “Not if you don’t want to starve to death.” His sarcasm was less and less appreciated by the minute.

  Slowly, I began to drive the armored transport towards and then through the portal, and my whole world warped around me. It felt like I was bzed off my mind in some kind of hypnotic fever dream, as each part of the vehicle passed through it all warped into a spiral of colors in sequence until reaching me, not sure why I felt the need to but I held my breath for the whole ordeal. As quickly as it started, it ended and the world warped back to normal. I quickly patted myself down, searching for anything that might have gone missing in the ‘void’, feeling nothing wrong I let out a sigh of relief.

  I waited a few minutes in the cockpit of the vehicle, but was getting restless, this is the first time I’ve interacted with another real person in 500 years technically. Opening the top hatch, sun rays peaked through the roof and met my eyes. The rays were brighter than what I was used to after this st week underground, the fake scene of old Ottawa in my penthouse had a far from a perfect simution of sunlight.

  Looking around, this old shack appeared to be an abandoned amazon warehouse, I could see the sorting machines all around, only one remained operational which I assumed was the work of Alfred, the rest were rusted out and overgrown with vegetation. We didn’t want to reveal all our cards to the world just yet, even the APC we constructed was just a model produced by the G.E.F. (Global Earth Federation, the government that brought about world peace) essentially making it a replica of a 250 year old design. The small arms were the only new development they would be seeing, each cartridge had it’s own stored magnetic charge, that when released would fire an explosive round with a depleted uranium shell at an otherwise impossible velocity. For G.E.F. designed small arms; the only guns comparable would have been vehicle mounted rail cannons like the one on the APC.

  Drawing me out of my thoughts, the warehouse doors creaked open, and I could now see a futuristic hovercraft that looked eerily like an old pickup truck backing through the rge doors, it was covered in makeshift bushcraft netting, likely to disguise it to anyone looking from above since the rest of it was crudely spray painted bck.

  I climbed down from the APC, and hopped onto the ground. Sarah and a few of her... henchmen, for ck of a better term began to make their way over to me. Sarah was the best looking of the three, but she had some obvious battle scars on her face and healed burns across her left arm, her henchmen on the other hand look like they haven’t showered in a week, both looked like burly homeless men, unkempt beard and all.

  Sarah gave an admiring whistle gncing at the vehicle. “She’s fresh alright; I just wonder how you hauled it over here with no ghillie netting.” She gave me an inquisitive stare.

  “Accessories sold separately.” I scoffed. I wonder if everyone these days is as rude as her. Thankfully, she didn’t seem to care that I bantered back with her. “Don’t ask how, but we are supplying you a new type of portable railgun, you’ll find them more useful than your conventional weapons considering they can puncture up to 3 meters of concrete and rounds detonate on contact with soft targets. If you prove trustworthy, you can expect more deals in the -*cough cough* future.” I finished with a cough from all the kicked dust in this old building.

  She looked skeptical, but agreed. “Aye, missy. We’ve the supplies you asked for on the hover truck, I’ll get my guys to unload it for you.”

  The two men began to make their way to their hover truck but I interjected. “No need actually!” With two cps (Alfred’s favorite method of giving orders apparently) and a point towards the supplies, the restored amazon bot began unloading the pallets. I promptly walked over to Sarah and handed her the encrypted activation key and ID code for the APC doors.

  “Thanks, little miss.” She gave me her first genuine smile since meeting her and patted my head, scuffing up my hair. I gave her my angriest scowl.

  “Woah there, no need to pout!” Pouting? Surely not me! She chucked, pinching my cheek before walking over to the APC. “I’ll see you in two months’ time, don’t be a stranger.”

  I tried to regain my composure. “Thanks, I guess. The instructions on how to use the rail guns are in the vehicle’s logs, they’re not that hard to figure out. If anything major comes up with the Klexon, let us know and we will try to help; I can’t be losing my food supply after all.” I shrugged.

  I’m not sure why she was treating me like a kid, but I think she still considers me a softy… Oh well. I went and sat on one of the pallets of food. they took their damn time grabbing tree branches outside and stacking them along the roof rack before finally, one of her henchmen got into the hover truck while Sarah and the other took off in the APC. I had to sit and wait the whole time they worked. I couldn’t reveal our portal thing tech since it would be essential to keep it secret in the coming war.

  Going back through the portal thing with nothing but the clothes on my back was an even worse experience than going through with the APC, I am not sure why, but I guessed traveling in a vehicle helped you orient yourself to the space traveling around you. Sort of like how going highway speeds in a car would feel less dangerous than hovering alone at the same speed. The metal box offers a sense of false security since it doesn’t actually make a difference in this case.

  Entering the command room again, we were getting to work. And by work I mean making something salvageable from all the dumb shit Alfred designed; this guy is a total otaku, ripping half his design concepts from old mecha anime. He even made an over engineered ‘flying fortress’ that couldn’t even fly with how much it weighed. Alfred was shockingly human for an A.I., I guess that’s what happens when they gain sentience.

  “… so you see here, I think we could install the thirty mil on the upper left shoulder… Julia are you listening?” I snapped to attention.

  “Hmm? Ah…. Yeah that sounds good.” He rolled his eyes at my response.

  “Julia, you may as well retire for the day if you’re not going to pay attention, you’re wasting my time expining, if not for you I would be deep and dirty in R&D.” Ew, Alfred, you really didn’t need to say it like that.

  “Yeah, you’re probably right… By the way, can the biofabricators make cannabis for me? I also need a bong.” Alfred looked at me like a dead fish.

  “Julia… were you a stoner?”

  “Maybe. Everyone needs a bit of recreation here and then though, so can it be done or not.” I looked at him expectantly.

  “Do you take me for a primitive virtual intelligence? Of course I can, hmph.” Is Alfred a Tsundere?

  Two hours ter in my room, 420 bzing while watching War of the Worlds, it occurred to me, apart from Alfred, it’s so lonely around here. Meeting with Sarah and her thugs made me realize how much I missed physical interaction with others. I reminisced about my times together with my te wife for the first time in a while.

  Tapping my portable tablet, I summoned Alfred. “Evening, Julia.” He paused. “Damn you look stoned as fuck.”

  I giggled, yes ‘giggled’, I guess I do that now. “Don’t be such a buzzkill. I was just calling to ask if we might be able to popute our compound a bit more? I know we’ve got about a year before we actually make ourselves truly known to the rger settlements, but do you think we could go rescue some desperate scavengers and make some friends? I’m like a lonely gremlin in a gilded cage.”

  “Are you actually this na?ve or is it just the marijuana talking?” He grimaced.

  I mimed a bance in my hand as if I couldn’t decide which reason it was with an exaggerated frown. “For real though, there’s gotta be some nice people out there, we could monitor them for a while before we decide to bring them in I’m sure.” I sighed.

  “This is a really stupid idea, ask me again when you’re sober.” With that he ended the call.

  I huffed. Alfred is such a dick sometimes. He’s probably right about inviting strangers to our home though. That being said I feel like I’m going to go nuts if the only one I’m able to talk to is a big computer, he can’t exactly chill with me the way real people can. I fell asleep binge eating barbeque chips while trying to finish all 10 movies of the terminator series ter that night.

  After finishing my morning routines and sitting down in the command room Alfred greeted me. “Good morning, sunshine.”

  “So about making friends…” Alfred’s face crinkled and he let out a deep frustrated sigh.

  “You really want to do this don’t you?”

  “Unfortunately, I do, I’m going insane down here with no human contact, and the st thing I need is to lose my bearings again after all that time I spent as a comatose brain.” I shrugged.

  Alfred slowly nodded before pulling up a couple feeds, likely from stealth UAVs flying around the area. One of the cameras zoomed in on a young man and woman both with simir eye and hair colors. “I assume these two are siblings. I’ve been monitoring them since st night. They’ve been struggling to gather food, and they flew too close to the sun almost getting burned by a Klexon patrol. They almost died, but I intervened, crashing one of my smaller RCV surveilnce drones into the Xenos, distracting them long enough for the two to escape.” I watched as the two huddled together around a barrel fire, roasting a rat on a stick, ew.

  “Yeah, rat on a stick sounds like great depression food. Do you have a way I can talk to them, Alfred?”

  “Sadly, I do. I’ll send in an RCV, they have a speaker so you can talk to them when it gets there.” An RCV as Alfred had expined to me, was a cute shin-high remote control car basically, though it had a few tricks up its sleeve to stay hidden and traverse difficult terrain, including an adaptive optical camoufge simir to a chameleon or squid. I watched through the RCV’s camera as it approached the siblings. They jumped once it got close enough and dropped the camo.

  “The hell is that?!” Excimed the brother.

  “Hello? Testing, testing, one, two, three.” I said through the speaker, causing the two to jump yet again.

  “The hell are you?!” Excimed the brother again.

  The sister pced her hand on her brother’s shoulder. “Calm down, Ethan. Let’s hear them out, we’ve got nothing to lose and they haven’t killed us yet.” She crouched down by the RCV.

  “General Julia Beliveau, at your service, but you can call me Julia. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking to?” I inquired.

  “I’m Paige, and this is my brother Ethan.” She gestured to herself then her brother behind her using her thumb. “What was it that you needed from a couple humble scavvers? If you have fancy toys like that, I doubt you’ve much use for folks like us.”

  I let out a nasal exhale. “You’re probably not going to believe me if I told you, but… I wanted to make friends. Teehee.” Maybe the ‘teehee’ would sell it.

  “Paige, it’s obviously a trap! They’re trying to lure us out and mug us.” He was exasperated, the dark circles beneath his eyes betrayed his exhaustion, and we watched him pop some Pervitin slightly before we ‘ambushed’ them with the RCV, it’s a given he’s a little paranoid.

  “Would you believe it if I told you I’m lonely living in a long lost but highly advanced secret military research base deep underground?” The two exchanged gnces, before replying in unison.

  “No.”

  AnnouncementI've been writing like crazy this st day or so, don't expect updates to always be this frequent, but I do pn on pumping out chapters as fast as I can write them. Hope you all enjoy, might see you all again tomorrow :3