The Lake Erie Lights 25

Chapter 25: A Telepathic Hug

Roy Ingersol's etheric energy passed through the textured ceiling, through the maze of ducts and pipes, through the wooden joists, and out through the asphalt roof. He ascended into a torrent of snowflakes -- each one a tiny world of crystallized geometry careening to its own destiny down below. Roy moved steadily higher, and then he saw it. The etheric energy of newborn Roy Junior was circling around a glowing orange U.F.O. above Lake Erie. He moved closer, and the child's energy radiated outward and rippled through him. Little Roy's mind state was one of complete innocence and profound curiosity.

Big Roy became enraged at the alien presence. It was the same craft that had spirited him away to the Asteroid Colony all those eons ago. It was sickening to think how the aliens had used him as a pawn -- how they hid up there in their moon base, keeping tabs on him, manipulating him, guiding him ever closer to ruin.

As he watched baby Roy interact with the glowing craft, Big Roy could telepathically sense the quantum computers and scanners whirring and buzzing inside the vessel as the Grays took readings on the infant's psychic energy levels. He could feel how Little Roy became agitated at the intrusion, and a violent burst of energy pulsed from the core of the baby's being, rocking the vessel back a nautical mile.

The turbulence was almost too much to overcome, and the aircraft skimmed the waves of Lake Erie before it was able to stabilize and regain altitude. Telepathic swells of laughter rose from Little Roy and undulated out into space. The kid thought it was funny -- he thought it was a game.

Big Roy probably would have found it funny too, except he was awestruck by Little Roy's display of raw power. He knew from firsthand experience that specific craft was capable of intergalactic travel -- humans wouldn't be able to engineer technology like that for another two thousand years, give or take a few centuries. Yet, he had just witnessed a baby damn near knock it out of the sky.

Suddenly, Big Roy became aware that the vessel had detected his presence. It proceeded cautiously toward him -- its scanners sweeping over him, frantically sending data back to the ship's quantum mainframe for analysis. A telepathic hailing signal originating from the alien craft instructed Big Roy to identify himself and state his business.

"I'm your worst fuckin' nightmare, and my business is kickin' ass," he hailed back.

The vessel immediately charged up its weapons system and launched an ion wave at the aggressive being. Big Roy's orb of etheric energy was dashed apart like a swarm of gnats suddenly scattered by a gale force wind. His consciousness became increasingly scrambled as his quantum resonance began to rapidly decohere. Through sheer will alone, he managed to coalesce back into a nebulous cloud, but the glowing white light that usually radiated from his core grew dim.

Big Roy's thoughts short-circuited, and he felt out of sync as if he were a 45 RPM vinyl record being played on a turntable that switched intermittently between 33 and 78 RPMs. He was aware that the alien craft would only need a few more seconds to recharge its weapons system before it could administer the coup de grâce, but he no longer had command of motion. Big Roy was adrift and helpless like a ship whose hull had been torn open, and its engine room flooded.

Little Roy, sensing the dimming soul's anguish, expanded his orb of energy so that it enveloped the injured being. Big Roy immediately recognized the gesture for what it was -- a telepathic hug.

The alien vessel disarmed its weapons system but maintained its position in a steady hover as it observed the developing situation. When the combined energy forms separated back into their two individual constituents, the crew visually assessed that the injured subject had undergone some kind of regenerative process. Its luminosity was restored to its original intensity, and it exhibited a full range of motion once again. The crew maintained a holding pattern and diverted most of the vessel's power to the shields system. It was apparent that the two energy forms were allies, and the Grays proceeded with caution.

"Thank you, little man," Big Roy spoke to Little Roy telepathically. "I needed that." The child resonated warmly, but soon his attention was stolen away by the song of some distant comet. Little Roy's spherical form compressed into a pinpoint of intense white light, then stretched into a beam as it rocketed out of Earth's atmosphere and into the heavens like an electric javelin.

"Be careful up there, little guy," Big Roy called out. "Be careful chasing comets." He felt like a father watching his son play his first snap on the varsity football team. It was a moment mixed with anxiety, exhilaration, and tremendous pride. Then, he turned his attention to the menacing alien craft that was already redirecting power from its shields back to its weapons system.

"I'm about to bust you up," Big Roy spouted off as he bobbed and weaved liked a boxer. "That's right, you sons of bitches ... I'm coming for you." Every trace of fear left him, and he understood then that the awesome power displayed by Little Roy still seethed somewhere within his own being. After all, at one point in space and time, he was Little Roy. He had simply forgotten what he was capable of.

Big Roy arced across the sky like a lightning bolt, leaving behind a wake of burnt ozone before piercing the outer shell of the alien craft. He penetrated all the way into the ship's command bridge, and the aliens swatted at the orb of psychic energy as if it were an angry hornet.

As much as Big Roy enjoyed taunting those bug-eyed sons-of-bitches, he had to get on with more pressing issues. He jumped headlong into the ship's mainframe that housed the quantum processors that controlled everything from navigation and propulsion to the vending machines that dispensed snacks and soft drinks.

He telepathically interfaced with the quantum processors and pulled up the ship's communications log. He found that the Asteroid Colony had hailed the vessel about five minutes earlier.

After a quick reference of the navigation system, Big Roy pinpointed the Asteroid Colony's precise speed and position. The bastard was hanging out in the Oort Cloud at the edge of the solar system like a dirty old man in a trench coat walking the perimeter of a schoolyard. It was about 50,000 Astronomical Units away from Earth, or about a sixty-second ride if you really opened up the throttle on the vessel's distortion drive.

Big Roy synced the Navi-Computer with the propulsion system and locked the vessel onto a collision course with the Asteroid Colony while the Grays desperately tried to override the quantum processors.

Big Roy had the pedal floored when he hailed the Asteroid Colony. "I'm comin' for you, bitch."

"I advise you to stand down," The Council responded officiously as it tracked the rogue ship. "Our mission is of a peaceful, scientific nature. This act of piracy will not be tolerated. Stand down, or be destroyed."

"Sure. Whatever, dude," Big Roy responded.

The Council was mildly amused by this brazen character. Whoever it was had been clever enough to commandeer one of its Class 5 intergalactic vessels, but when you're dealing with the preeminent mind in the known universe, clever doesn't cut it.

The Council could have dispatched a squadron of killer drones that were stationed nearby on Jupiter's moon, Ganymede. They were in perfect position to intercept the threat, but the Council elected to keep them grounded because it wanted to personally engage this arrogant sortie. It powered up the plasma field, encompassing itself in a prophylactic bubble that was impervious to the weapons system on board the Class 5 vessel.

"I'll be waiting."

Big Roy was smart enough to know he couldn't outsmart The Council. That big hunk of space shit did, however, have an astronomically-sized ego, and that's precisely what he intended to exploit. Every brilliant megalomaniac usually ends up making some ridiculously obvious mistake -- like when Napoleon marched his army into Russia and most everyone ended up either freezing to death during the Mother Land's savage winter, or dying of starvation because of over-extended supply lines and an effective scorched Earth policy implemented by the Russians. Or like when Hitler marched his troops into Russia and most everyone ended up either freezing to death during the Mother Land's savage winter or dying of starvation because of over-extended supply lines and an effective scorched Earth policy implemented by the Russians.

The Council tracked the sortie coming in hot on what could only have been a suicide mission. Whatever misguided pirate was piloting the vessel was about to vaporize himself against a 250-terawatt plasma barrier. It would be like watching a bug splat against a windshield.

"All too easy," The Council said menacingly as it waited for that juicy impact.

"You're right, asshole," Big Roy said in an offhand kind of way. "It is all too easy. To think the smartest entity in the entire goddamn universe couldn't come up with a better password than isosceles triangle, dot, squiggly line, dot, isosceles triangle."

The hum of the protective barrier around the Asteroid Colony fizzled and faded, and The Council realized its defensive system had been compromised by a remote source. It muttered something that roughly translated into English as "Oh shit," as the Class 5 intergalactic vessel impacted, converting matter into a wave of unbridled energy that cut a vast swath of emptiness into the Oort Cloud.

The commotion captured Little Roy's attention for a moment, and from his perspective, the negative space that had been carved out of the dense asteroid field kind of looked like a butterfly. It made him smile, and then he went on his way. There was a pretty blinking star in the Sagittarius Constellation he wanted to check out.