Chapter IV

I closed my eyes, laying with my face against the surface, waiting for any sort of unknown noise to break the silence, as an emerging waving sound, a scaling buzzing or a gradual roar, but the only ones that I heard were the ones emerging from an aggravated and severe dispute. My eyelids allowed my sight to go through lazily, and I started to realize that my immediate surrounding wasn’t so round after all. No, no, it was actually kind of shaped like… a smooth-edged, long cube. Wait, no; it was definitely a sharp, long cube. Oooh… I shook my head and sighed to myself, turning around to gaze up at the open sky. It was painfully obvious now that I had been placed in the back part of a pick-up truck. Not so amazing anymore. ‘Kidnappers nowadays…’ I shook my head and made it a point to regain a grasp over myself. I was still too weak. The dispute kept on going back and forth between the women I identified as Lualeen and Riole, with eventual, probably trivial, comments from that third woman whom I had seldom heard before as well.

Suddenly, the Captain’s voice sprang to live “What are you doing! Earthlings are going to start picking up the trail we left through the magnetic disruptions when entering the Earth! Distractions don’t work that long ladies! Move, move, move!”

Riole protested “But Captain, we don’t know how to start this vehicle!”

“Then ask the Earthling, for goodness sake!” she fired back, already losing her patience.

Riole muttered something and dashed back where I was laying. “Are you going to help us move this thing or are you ready to die!?” she yelled, drawing some sort of futuristic-looking gauntlet and aiming it towards me.

Lualeen came around and frowned upon both of us. She directed herself towards me, acknowledging that she would gain more by trying to convince me rather than by assailing me with threats. Clever to some degree, I suppose. She requested my assistance. “We need your help now. Do as we say and we will cause you no more harm than the absolutely necessary.” It sounded to my ears as creepy Sci-Fi experiments. “We will do whatever is necessary to facilitate this vehicle’s use for our purpose, but we need you to tell us how it works. There’s not enough time for us to learn all about it.” At this point I felt insecure of the veracity of my point of view. We were about to pick a car’s lock, and that wasn’t something an Earthling did easily. If they were some sort of aliens, they would be able to do it without much problem.

“Ok, then,” I faked weakness yet again and another woman helped me out of the back of the truck. I noticed that there were more individuals around than the ones I became aware of initially by counting voices. As I spoke, I started counting the faint shapes that my eyes could barely recognize. “The first thing we will need is to open the truck without activating the burglar alarm. We need a key or a device that… uh… can emit a certain frequency to unlock it, and I don’t think you would have one of those around, would you?” I smirked, testing them. I glanced faintly at the black, double-cabin, pickup truck for a moment, attempting to gather my thoughts.

Riole approached furious. I was starting to get the hang of her temper. “You are messing with us, right?! I can beat your face right…” Lualeen placed her hand over Riole’s shoulder, requesting her to hold on. “Cool it down. He’s saying the truth.” She glared into my eyes and asked “Where do we get the key?”

I was actually disappointed. Up to this point I have counted about twelve or so figures, including the two ladies I was talking to, so I continued to follow their game just because their numbers were slightly overwhelming against my bare self. “Only the driver has it. And I have no idea who does this truck belong to,” I looked around, clueless of why was this truck even here in the first place.

A voice spoke up from what looked like a tiny, circular plasma television set. “I know what to use to find the frequency!” The voice was high-pitched and euphoric. “I will start now, so set the transmitter close to the locks! It has just enough ranges to transfer a weak signal and…” Click. I couldn’t believe it. The locks had been released and I stood flabbergasted.

Almost immediately after that I thought ‘Hey, someone probably had the keys from the car and unlocked it while I wasn’t looking, how clever!’ However, there was a question that suddenly arose: why would someone would go through so much work to play a joke on me? Hmm. Maybe it WAS a kidnapping after all. With a lot of acting… and an expensive truck involved… It was definitely starting to turn extremely bizarre… more than it already was, of course.

Riole jumped at once in the driver’s seat and Lualeen indicated me to go in. I did as she asked on the back seat, with a big phony effort, and she got on the passenger’s seat. I waited for them to continue their joke, so I would get a laugh. And I actually did.

“How do I start this thing?! This artifact is totally obsolete and ridiculous! It doesn’t even work!” She gripped the wheel and shook it with violence, making the whole car rock over the dampers. “Start! Move! Run! Go! Hay! How the hell does this thing work!!! Gah!” She hit the wheel and the horn rattled, which startled her and made her jump and hit her head with the ceiling of the car. I cannot deny I was cracking up on the inside; this was too good of a joke, and these people seemed like expert performers. I was really enjoying it now.

Lualeen yelled. “Enough! Don’t expect to get something you don’t know! Get off the pilot’s seat and let him do this!” She pulled my arm and made me take the front seat. She had an incredible strength.

“I need a key to start the car,” I said as I pointed to the ignition lock. Then the car jumped to life with a sudden roar.

The weird TV set, I mean, the transmitter, sparkled with the same high-pitched, sweet voice. “I got it! You see? They have emergency systems just as we do, but theirs are much simpler! I cracked the code for it to ignite remotely the vehicle’s engine! Now go!” she finished, excited.

I was utterly speechless now. I didn’t know how they pulled that one off, but it sure wasn’t an easy one. I rubbed my fingers over the ignition keyhole and found that it was indeed empty. I was tempted to consider that they were real aliens, but I denied it still; it was absolutely absurd and unbelievable. I stepped on the gas a few times, hearing the familiar rumble under my seat. “Buckle up ladies,” I instructed while doing so myself, “this may be a bumpy ride.” I checked the mirrors and saw that another couple of females took their place in the back part of the truck. I switched out from neutral while pressing the clutch, struck first and accelerated. My lips pleasurably mumbled “Mm-hmm… manual transmission.” I loved two facts about my life right now: I was driving an amazing car, and was trying to be fooled by four girls, which I counted in the truck, plus two more individuals that weren’t exactly present, and the other eight, or so, shades – that made around fourteen individuals who appeared to be fantastic actors. I sighed but then a frown pervaded my expression when I took in count, yet again, the other possibility for a second: I was the prisoner of alien women, who were making me part of two other abductions, a car robbery, and hell knows what else was to come. I must admit that both sounded pretty exciting, in a way.