Lives Of The Unknown Book 1: The Legend of Andrew Lockeford

Book 1:

The Legend of Andrew
Lockeford

Written By:

G. L. Argain

A shooting star soars through space at twenty
kilometers per second, set towards a specific planet in a spiral
galaxy. Many life forms watch this meteor as it passes by—some
making a wish upon it, even though there is nothing a mere meteor
can do to magically grant their wishes. Although there is a
negligible chance that someone (let’s call him Jimmy) wishes for
the meteor to strike somebody’s head—anybody’s head—and as such the
meteor falls towards the planet and crushes some unlucky guy’s head
into the ground. That unlucky bastard was probably outside just so
he could take a deep breath and enjoy the sunshine—nothing at all
harmful. Did you ever think of that, Jimmy?

The meteor indeed infiltrates the
planet’s atmosphere, increasing its temperature by thousands of
degrees from colliding with so many air molecules. The meteor,
however, is as durable as a spacecraft and does not deteriorate.
The ground gives way to form a crater as the meteorite lands into a
wildlife area outside of civilization. No one was outside to look
at the wildlife for the time being, so….sorry Jimmy, no crushed
head for you.

No, this is not Earth, but rather a
planet millions of light years away from Earth, capable of not only
life, but also an intelligent alien society. No, Jimmy is not a
human, but rather an alien from another planet. And finally, no,
the meteorite is not just a hunk of rock that made it through the
atmosphere. This meteorite is a spacecraft—an escape pod, to be
precise—that appears to have an alien life form inside of it. This
life form is not native to the current planet, and it looks very
primitive—although not primitive enough to certainly be labeled an
unintelligent species. The crater that the escape pod created is
several meters in diameter, making its mark on the surface of a
large shield volcano. All of this information is gathered from
within a nearby laboratory, where two scientists of a specific
alien species—different from the one inside the escape pod—have
tracked the meteor’s progress and used various technologies to
determine what may be inside.

The two alien scientists are both
fifty-two inches tall (or 130 centimeters—whichever unit you would
prefer), having short legs and long, double-jointed arms that reach
down just below the knees. Think of them as arms with two elbows on
each. They stand upright, like many intelligent species do, and
each has an I.Q. above two hundred. They have small noses and ears,
along with three eyes to see. The center eye looks straight ahead,
while the other two look to the sides like the eyes of a bird.
Finally, they have hairless, dark-gray skin. They are really
speaking in an alien language, but for the sake of those reading
this, it is translated into a human language.

“Activate the teleporter, Shul. We’re
bringing it in for analysis. Make sure to get all of your tools
ready,” said Anzem, the first scientist.

The other scientist named Shul
hesitates at this comment and looks back, saying, “But what if this
alien life form is just part of some sort of trap? What if it has
come here to kill us?”

“Did I stutter? I
said get
all
of
your tools.”

Shul pauses for a moment, appearing
deeply offended, and says, “You didn’t have to say it like that,
Anzem. I was just clarifying whether you were aware of our
safety—”

“I’ve been working here for many more
years than you have! I know exactly what I’m doing! Unlike you,
perhaps.”

Although Anzem is a rather critical
and harsh person, Shul knows for a fact that he had endured worse
words. Shul is just a bit on the sensitive side, that’s
all.

After equipping his vaporizer, Shul
sets the coordinates for the teleporter onto the spacecraft’s
position as it gathers energy. He pushes the button and, as a
result, a flashing beam of light envelops the escape pod,
teleporting it to the lab within two seconds. Both the scientists
wear suits that conduct very little heat and electricity, so that
when they pry open the hot door of the escape pod, no one gets
burned or electrocuted by some chance. As they look into the pod,
they see that the life form is also wearing a suit, although a
different one from the scientists’ suits, considering it is
specifically made for the occupant to survive the impact of crash
landing. The pod’s mechanisms make various hissing and beeping
sounds from feeding water, oxygen and other nutrients into the
occupant’s body. A lab computer ran a diagnostic on the creature
within the pod, saying that there was insufficient data on
it.

“This looks like a Selentor escape
pod,” said Anzem, “and yet it doesn’t look like there’s a Selentor
inside. It’s something else….”

“What is it, then?” asked
Shul.

“The computer doesn’t say….let’s open
up the pod and remove the life support tubes from the body. Then
we’ll take this guy out of the suit and place him onto the
platform.”

“Wait, what?”

“It’s the best way to analyze this
thing at this point.”

“Alright, but I’m not taking any chances.”

Ready to fire, Shul aimed his
vaporizer directly at the creature while Anzem opened up the pod.
The life form inside was unconscious, according to the computer,
but Shul did not lower his guard.

“You’ll have to put down the vaporizer
for a second, Shul. I’ll need help—”

“I already know what to
do.”

“Oh, do you?”

Shul pressed a virtual button on an
electronic screen, affixed to the wall towards his left. A smaller
vaporizer popped out of the ceiling, with its aim locked onto the
creature. The computer system would fire the vaporizer if it
detected any sudden movements from the life form.

“How could I be here if I wasn’t
prepared for anything?” said Shul.

Anzem developed a slightly annoyed yet
impressed expression upon his face.

As the scientists try to lift the suit
out of the pod, both of them think about how remarkably heavy the
creature must be, especially since each scientist is about
two-thirds the size of the life form. They don’t have a harness or
leverage system in the lab at the moment, so if they absolutely had
to take the creature out, it would be easier to just gather some
more people to come and help out.

“Screw this, we
can’t even lift this thing out of the pod. It’s more than just the
suit—
that
seems
fairly light.”

“So should we just open up the suit
where it lays as is?”

After a big sigh, Anzem says, “I guess
so.”

Shul takes the head protection off of
the creature’s suit and, although seeing plenty of other alien
species before, felt his heart pulse harder after viewing the life
form that lay before him.

“Oh my Yhn, what
is
that
? I don’t
know whether I should be fascinated or frightened by
this….this….whatever it is, it’s definitely not a
Selentor!”

“Ok, you need to
shut the fuck up about this ‘Yhn’ nonsense, because there’s no
scientific proof that such a thing exi—oh,
wow
, that really does look,
um….fascinating, I guess.”

As far as curse words and expletives
go, the meaning behind them has been extinct for millions of years
for aliens such as these, since they are often related to religious
references, sexual activity, or perhaps anything crude—much of
which is not a part of these aliens’ modern culture. However, the
expletives stuck as they provided the alien people a way to express
their thoughts with emphasis.

Both the scientists had the same
expression on their faces at this point. They had seen beige skin
before, as well as hair, ears, lips, and noses, but never all at
once on the same head, and they were especially amazed with the
structure of the creature’s head—it looked strange yet familiar at
the same time.

“Big head,” said Shul, “It must
certainly have an effective brain.”

As Shul said this, Anzem took out a
device that shone a ray upon the creature’s head and listed data
about the brain onto a floating screen of light. The ray did not
work through some materials, hence why the head protection was
taken off. “Hmmm….doesn’t look like it. See how the cortex doesn’t
have that many folds and wrinkles? Says here that it has two-thirds
the capacity of most intel-beings.”

“Two-thirds? So is it just an animal?”

“Doubt it—you can see here,” pointing
to various parts of the creature’s body, “that it walks upright,
has an oral cavity fit for language, and its hands could easily use
tools such as ours. Plus, you should remember that this is a
primitive life form whose body has almost no genetic modifications
whatsoever.”

“So is it capable of intelligent
life?”

“I would believe so. Although I don’t
know if I would necessarily call it an intel-being.” At that very
moment, Anzem had an epiphany and ran to look at a list of known
species with a shocked expression on his face.

“What? What is it?”

“Oh shit, it better not be what I
think it is,” said Anzem, searching deliberately. He looked through
both physical storage cabinets and electronic files, only to find
no data on the creature. He stopped for a couple of seconds, then
he went back to the body with a conclusion: “This creature’s not
anywhere on the list. That means he—or she—is either part of a
species that we haven’t discovered yet, or a species that we are
forbidden to contact. Yeah, he’s got to be one of the forbidden
species, considering how primitive he is.”

“Out of the tens of
thousands of intelligent species we’ve discovered so far, there’s
only….let’s see….fifteen species that we can’t contact. And you’re
telling me
this guy’s one of
them
?!?”

“Apparently so,
although we can’t really say
we
contacted the species, since this guy has
technically contacted
us
.”

“Still, this is bad news.” Shul was
shaking at this point. “We’re done for, aren’t we?”

“Oh, calm down, Shul, I’m worried too,
but you don’t see me whining.”

“But what if the AOIB finds out
and—”

“Enough already! I’m
sure even
they
will be lenient, given the situation. In fact, call in Juvir
right now.”

Utterly shocked,
Shul elevated his expression and shook his head while saying,
“WHAAAT?!? No way! If you’re thinking that we should even let him
about this, then forget about it! I don’t want
him
of all people to find out we
brought in a forbidden species!”

Anzem begun to laugh at this—he
thought Shul looked hilarious whenever on the rare chance he got
angry. “Ha ha ha….I know you’re scared shitless about all of this,
but come on! Don’t you want some change in your life? Some
excitement?” Shul thought he had enough excitement for one day, but
he had also spent most of his adrenalin at this point, so anything
on par with this would not surprise him as much. Anzem added, “I’d
rather see what happens next than spend another boring day in this
lab anyway.”

Eventually, Shul took a deep breath
and said, “Fine, let’s get Juvir in here. Whatever may be in this
pod is most likely going to end up in the hands of the AOIB
anyway.”

Chapter 2

The creature woke up, appearing unaware of its
current surroundings and somewhat amnestic, as though it had been
in a coma for weeks. Its eyes were white, with a small hole in the
center of each eye and a brown, circular area surrounding each
hole. It had thick black hair on top of its head, and its nose was
extruded in a way unlike any of the other aliens.

“Place the translator into here,” said an alien
standing near the creature, pointing to its ear. Once the
translator was placed, everyone formed a wide circle around the
being—out of its pod and suit now, placed onto a circular
platform.