By R. R. Stark and L. J. Stroud

In a world gone hysterically mad, when evil aliens came to invade our world, who was there to save the day? None other than the dynamic dimwits, of course.

Chapter One

Aliens vs. Earth: Just A Silly Game

The plan was for J. P. Murdock and Zackary Drake to meet at a remote mountain cabin somewhere in Big Bear, California, that Murdock had rented for the weekend. The quaint little log cabin was nestled within the cozy mountains somewhere above the town of Big Bear itself, which had sleepily nudged up against Big Bear Lake.

It was late mid-morning; the sun was glancing over at the sprawling mountains from the east as Drake drove his forest green ‘97 Chevy Blazer through the wild hairpin curves that ascended up the steep mountainside, while drinking out of an aluminum can of Goosehead Root Beer and listening to one of his favorite progressive country bands on the CD player, Major Malcolm's Lone Star Cavalry, and also while eating a homemade sausage-and-egg sandwich. Juggling these while steering the car became quite a multitasking feat, because he also juggled a haphazardly unfolded map of the region, which covered the whole steering wheel that made it a tad difficult for him to steer through these ludicrous hairpin curves. In fact, he almost hit the car ahead of him, a little Volkswagen Beetle that he almost didn't see, which almost caused a cement truck to hit him from behind. Fortunately, he was clever enough -- with shades of stupidity -- to sharply veer his SUV into the ditch to left, avoiding a sudden multi-car pileup, although it would only have been three vehicles, and maybe even five, since two more cars were swiftly zooming up the narrow road. It almost became seven, since two more cars came zipping along up the road too, but minus Drake’s quickly exiting car, so it swiftly turned into a six-car pileup. While he heard a cacophony of slam, crash, and bang, as Drake’s Blazer sat quietly in the ditch, he contemplated his intelligence and quick reflexes that got him safely out of the way, although it vaguely occurred to him that he caused the whole damn mess, which he hastily denied so guilt wouldn’t set in. So he shrugged it off, pulled back onto the street, and cautiously drove around the six crashed cars, but he stopped and rolled down his window just long enough to say, "Need help?"

One gentleman shook his head and replied, "No, that's okay, I just have a steering wheel shoved through my rib cage. I'll just wait for the paramedics."

A middle-aged lady replied, "And I'll be fine too. I just have windshield glass shards all over my face, no big deal."

A tough hombre in the cement truck chuckled, “I’m doing great. Although my legs have probably been amputated since my engine is sitting on my lap.”

But a punk-rocking teenager wearing a Mohawk haircut in his smashed Volkswagen Beetle held out his thumb with a tiny cut on it and screamed, "I'm gonna die! I'm gonna die!"

Drake frowned and said, "I think an ambulance will be up here shortly. Somebody must have called it in by now."

            Drake drove on – quickly, getting the smuckies out of there. As an afterthought, he thought he should do one last good deed; so he grabbed his cell phone and called 911. After all, he didn't want anyone to think he was a liar.

After he made the call, feeling that he had done a good thing, he resumed listening to his high-strung music, drinking his Root Beer, munching on his sausage-and-egg sandwich, and studying the map plastered all over his steering wheel, not noticing that he was sandwiched between two huge lumber trucks ready to crush him. When he did notice, he pulled himself into the ditch again. Long story short, he stealthily snuck away up the road, leaving the two collided trucks behind him. Not to mention he got irreparably lost, thinking he was just driving up the same old hairpin curves, curves after curve after curve, but he unknowingly turned up some other road that led him off onto some wild goose chase, still trying to find that mountain cabin. Finally, after he finished his breakfast sandwich and his Root Beer, plus pulling over to the side of a very bumpy dirt road to park, he was able to focus attentively on the map, more fully realizing he was totally lost. By now it was late afternoon, but it took another hour for him to figure out where he probably was adjacent to where the mountain cabin was. He was able to muster up some smarts and actually accomplish the feat of finding his way back onto those crazy hairpin curves that would lead him up the mountain and to his destination. He decided not to tell his old pal anything about this crazy embarrassing ordeal.

Drake eventually arrived at the remote mountain cabin, where Murdock impatiently waited on the porch, rocking in a creaky rocking chair, drinking a bottle of Captain Blackbeard’s Caribbean Beer.

"You're late," Murdock snapped. "What happened?"

"Oh nothing," Drake stretched the truth. "Just a boring uneventful trip."

"You were supposed to be here this morning."

"Well, uh, I guess it took me a lot longer to eat my sausage-and-egg sandwich than I thought."

"Grab a beer and let’s get in gear." He pointed to the ice chest between two rocking chairs. "We'll take a break before starting on our grand entrepreneurial project."

"A break? How can we take a break when we didn't even do any work yet?"

"Because I did several hours of work while you were taking your sweet time getting your lazy butt up here."

"Oh." Drake sat down, grabbed a beer, and popped the easy flip-top cap. He took a long swig of cold tasty beer, sighed heavily, and then said, "Aaaaah. The good stuff. Not like that wretched piss-water we had last time."

"Last time you brought that really cheap crap, Private Smith’s Private Reserve."

"Whatever."

The project that Murdock was referring to was a new science fiction game that they had been working on, which would eventually be in mass production all across the world: Aliens vs. Earth. After that they would create the riveting sequel, Aliens vs. Earth II: Alien Armageddon. Which was Drake’s demented idea.

As they sat there watching the sun continue its descent toward the tops of the mountains, they babbled some mindless blather about something or other.

"I've been thinking about our game lately," Drake said.

"In your case, thinking is overrated. It's something you should avoid doing at all costs. Let me apply my massive brain-power to this project while you sit back and observe.”

"No problem. But I've been thinking. What if actual aliens did come to invade Earth? Just like in our game. Wouldn't that be too cool?"

"Ahem… No it wouldn't, Zack. In the game world, these kinds of things are exciting and fun. But in the real world, it's just a big headache. We would have to deal with whether or not the aliens are going to enslave us, or eat us, or do disgusting torturous experiments on us for their demented gratification."

"Or maybe they'll be really nice and take us to their fantastic world to see how aliens live."

"Yes, of course. The old seduction scenario. They'll take us to their fake beautiful world, dazzle us with their bullcrap, then eat us for dinner."

"I think that's a tad on the gray side of optimism."

"Then let me be even more optimistic. For several months they'll let us feast on the most fabulous foodstuffs we’ve ever tasted, whereby we'll become obscenely obese -- then they'll eat us."

"Hey! We just discussed some pretty good ideas for the game."

"Too late. I already programmed those scenarios into the game. However, it took a couple thousand lines of code, along with five 16 oz bag of Cheetos and two pots of hot coffee. So when you check out the database, you'll find these options in the sequences where the Earthlings lose to the Aliens and what happens to them afterwards."

"What happens if the Earthlings win?"

"I haven't set up that program yet."

"Too bad."

"That’s what we'll work on today. We shall flesh out such programs and subroutines until we have them down pat."

"Good. We should have options where we either enslave the aliens, or eat them, or do disgusting experiments on them."

"Then we'll be no better than the creepy aliens."

Drake shrugged. "Oh well. Humans aren't perfect, you know."

Murdock said, "First we have to come up with scenarios regarding exactly how we defeat the aliens."

"Good point. I know! We should have an alcoholic pilot sneak his aircraft up inside the alien ship and blast it with a nuclear bomb."

"Been done already. Independence Day."

"Oh yeah. Then how about the scenario where viruses in the air kill the aliens eventually?"

"Already used too. War of the Worlds."

"How about the Earthlings get fire extinguishers and freeze them?"

Murdock sighed, "And yet another unoriginal idea from the Drake factory. The Blob."

"Then what's left?"

Murdock shrugged, "At the moment I can't say. All the good ideas have been taken, and a lot of bad ones too. However, after several beers, and a couple of ketchup- smothered meatloaf sandwiches on pumpernickel bread that I fixed us for lunch, we can apply our highly stimulated brain-power to the task and flesh out our fabulous game."

"Alright, sounds like a plan."

Suddenly! Something weird happened! Some cumulus clouds hanging haphazardly up in the sky were eerily disrupted. They were literally shredded by strange silver dots that cut through them, and these strange silver dots grew larger and larger and larger, which meant they actually came closer and closer and closer, along with an audibly growing humming sound.

Drake looked at his bottle of beer and said, "What's in this beer anyway? It’s probably loaded with something and I think it's affecting my brain."

"Your brain has been long since affected. I'm witnessing the same phenomenon, so you're not alone."

"Wow! A shared hallucination! Can't beat that!"

"Although you normally drag me into your insane delusions, this time I think it is really happening."

It turned out that there were several large silver humming flying saucers zooming across the darkening evening sky, mainly to the south. Then they stopped. From central hubs, greenish beams shot down onto the surface, particularly upon the town of Big Bear below, just three miles from their mountain abode. They witnessed wriggling, screaming people being drawn up through the green shafts. Drake was suddenly glad that they hadn't settled for meeting in some dusky motel room in town, which they had done once before and regretted it because of the cockroach population -- and the lousy TV reception.

Drake ventured to ask, "I hope we're just dreaming this, because it doesn't look good. I mean, this stuff only happens in alien invasion movies and games, kind of like ours."

Murdock replied, "Which is a scary thought. So you'd better stop thinking."

Drake look at his beer again, "If this beer is contaminated, I hope to think what might be wrong with those ketchup-smothered meatloaf sandwiches on pumpernickel bread of yours."

"Nothing is wrong with the beverages or food I brought. So don't bother insulting me. Like I said, I believe this is really happening."

"Maybe what's happening is, we started testing the game, unbeknownst to us, then got sucked into it, and we’re stuck in the sequence where Earthlings lose and Aliens win, because we neglected to program the Earthlings’ win scenario."

"First of all, that's a really dumb notion. And besides, what we’re reluctantly witnessing has just begun. It's too early to tell whether Earthlings will win or lose."

"I sure hope we do, before those nasty aliens get a chance to suck us up through a beam of green light, plop us onto an operating table and do hideous experiments on us -- or at least put us out of our misery and eating us fast."

"Before anything happens, we should quickly get inside and hide in the secluded basement."

"Good idea. Then we can work on our Aliens vs. Earth game undisturbed."

Murdock just sighed, shaking his head.

As a big silver saucer swooped rather close to their general vicinity, they quickly jumped out of their chairs and through the front door, and Murdock threw the deadbolt to lock it. In a few seconds he unbolted it, dashed out the door, grabbed the ice chest of beer, and ran back inside, relocking the door again. Drake opened the basement door, they entered, Murdock locked it behind him, and they dashed down the cement steps into the small cinderblock bombshell type basement. Murdock set the ice chest down.

Outside overhead, they heard the humming draw closer. Drake feared the aliens would get them after all.

"Drat!" Murdock shot.

"I know. They’re gonna get us, aren't they?"

"No, but I forgot our ketchup-smothered meatloaf sandwiches on pumpernickel bread."

Chapter Two

The Real Alien Invasion Begins

Through the two-foot thick cement ceiling of the basement, Drake and Murdock could still hear the loud, ominous humming emanating from the flying saucers overhead. Drake was mindlessly staring at that ceiling, as if he had some kind of psychic sight to see those huge silver saucers, but alas, it was merely his wild imagination as he dementedly imagined such a horrifying image.

Drake turned and noticed a laptop on a folding table with two folding chairs at it. “Cool! We can work on the game down here.”

“That’s the general idea,” Murdock nodded. “I brought my trusty old laptop, since all our gaming programs are crammed conveniently into it. So we’re in business.”

“Double-cool!”

The two mega-game creators plopped down in the chairs and went to work.

Murdock turned on the computer and waited for a few second for it to boot up. Then Murdock clicked onto the game program, and the game’s big fancy logo appeared:

ALIENS vs EARTH

Surrounding this were fancy silver flying saucers blasting red fiery beams at running screaming humans, which made it look rather scary.

Drake vigorously rubbed his hands together like a mad gaming scientist. "This game will be so life-like, naïve gamers will imagine the Earth is actually being invaded!"

Murdock cleared his throat, "Ahem! Let’s not forget, old demented pal, aside from your deranged imagination, the Earth IS actually being invaded."

"Yeah, that’s right. A scary thought, huh?"

"Although I wish it were our vivid imaginations simply working overtime due to too much gaming stress."

"Maybe it is."

"All too possible. But that’s why we came here to this remote cabin away from our dismal desert home, to relax and destress."

"Out of the frying pan and into the microwave, I’d say."

"Yes, indeed. Or, out of the microwave and headlong into the nuclear reactor."

"Yikes! Even more scary! Anyway, so while the real alien invasion takes place, let’s work on our game involving an imaginary alien invasion to relax and distress."

"That sounds risky . . . but doable."

"Although in some convoluted alternate reality we’ve probably unknowingly been sucked into, the two may have merged."

"Oh no. Your demented mind is at work again."

"It has to so it can keep up with me and my wild imagination."

"I believe it."

Murdock reached over to where he set the ice chest next to him, opened it, grabbed two beers, and handed one to Drake. They unscrewed the screw-top lids.

"Related to further relax and distress."

"I'll drink to that."

They clinked their beers together, and glugged down.

Then Drake got to thinking something. “Hey, I've been thinking--"

"Stop right there. You’ve been doing too much thinking lately. It just gets us in trouble."

"Really? And how's that?"

"Actual aliens started coming down and invading Earth, right after you stupidly thought about it and voiced your demented thoughts aloud."

"What are you talking about?"

"Earlier you said, what if actual aliens did invade Earth?"

"I did?"

"Yes, and then it actually happened," Murdock snickered.

"Wow! I didn't know my thinking was that powerful, Drake exclaimed naively.

"If we’re lucky, it's probably not, so it was most likely just an unfortunate coincidence."

"Drat. And I was gonna use my newly-found powerful thinking to kill off the evil aliens I brought down here in the first place."

"Save that kind of insane thinking for our Aliens vs. Earth game. That's the only place you’re going to be allowed that kind of imaginary power."

"Then since we have nothing better to do, let's work on our game."

"Jeez Louise! While an actual alien invasion is taking place, all you can think of is for us to monkey around with a stupid silly game, as if to mock the real thing?"

"Yeah. Since the real thing is going on outside, we can work on the game to figure out that scenario we talked about, you know, how Earth defeats the aliens, and then we can apply it to real life."

Murdock sighed profusely. "You have a weird way of looking at things."

"Got any better ideas?"

"Yes. The way I see it, there's only one thing we can do now."

"What? Bend over and kiss Uranus goodbye?"

"No. Eat."

"Ah. Good idea."

"I'm craving our ketchup-smothered meatloaf sandwiches on pumpernickel bread. They’re in the fridge. I would hate to waste them while we're inconveniently stuck down here. Besides, it’s close enough to dinner time."

"If they’re in the fridge, they won’t spoil that fast. I bet this crazy alien invasion will only take a week and then it'll be over. Then we can go upstairs."

"Sheesh! Can you be any more naïve?"

"Uh, probably not."

"Alien invasions usually take many weeks, if not months, and sometimes probably years, until all of humanity is either enslaved or gobbled up unto extinction."

"Yikes!"

"In meantime, one of us – ahem! -- needs to go up there and bravely fetch those scrumptious sandwiches."

"And I bet you're hoping I'll volunteer."

"Of course. After all I did grab the beer off the porch."

That's when Drake realized the ice chest was sitting on the floor beside the table.

Drake sighed, "Alright, I'll volunteer."

"Good man, old buddy," Murdock grinned slyly.

Drake cautiously and gingerly climbed up the cement stairs, approached the door, unlocked it, and slowly reaching for the knob, hesitating for several moments –

"Stop dillydallying about and get those frigging sandwiches!"

Drake quickly grabbed the knob, turned it and opened the door, and jumped into the kitchen, which happened to be the room that the basement door opened to, fortunately. Drake stealthily snuck over to the fridge, opened the door, rummage around looking for anything that looked like two ketchup-smothered meatloaf sandwiches on pumpernickel bread. Not sure, he grabbed several items, shoved them in a large paper grocery bag, but before he headed back down, he snuck a peek out the front window of the cabin, and saw a huge silver flying saucer approaching their general direction.

"Holy moly!" Drake yelped.

He jumped down the basement stairs, actually remembering to close and lock the door, and stumbled, tripped and fell into the basement, the contents of the bag of groceries spilling everywhere.

"Smooth move, Ex-Lax," Murdock snorted a chuckle.

Drake tossed miscellaneous food items back in the bag and placed it on the table, as he said weakly, "Uh, I think the sandwiches are in here somewhere, uh, I think."

"They’re wrapped in white wax paper." Murdock looked through the groceries in the bag. "Low and behold! I don't see them. What did you do, eat them on the way down here?"

"No, I was busy being scared out of my frigging wits when I saw a UFO heading for the cabin."

"So what? They are probably everywhere out there. I’m more concerned about my scrumptious meatloaf sandwiches. If you are a good man still, you’ll try again. And while you're at it, grab some of those little boxes of Big Bobby’s snack cakes in the cabinet."

Drake sighed heavily in despair. Making a very long segment of the story a tad shorter, Drake returned to the kitchen, went to the fridge, found the sandwiches wrapped in white wax paper, grabbed a bunch of Big Bobby’s snack cake boxes out of the cabinet, then returned to the basement, unharmed -- at least physically, but emotionally and psychologically he was irreparably traumatized, because he saw that huge silver disc hovering right above the cabin. He couldn't tell if it was a hundred feet or a thousand feet up, the alien vehicle was too big for him to correctly calculate something like that. He would have to access Murdock's highbrowed sophisticated brain for that.

"Y-y-you’d better go up and see what I just s-s-s-saw. Th-th-th-there’s a really big flying saucer right on top of the cabin!" Drake stammered and sputtered in fright.

"Jeez Louise! Is that all you’re worried about?" Murdock scorned. "My concern is you could have brought down a jar of mustard to go with our sandwiches."

"Well, sorry for being too psychologically paralyzed to read your mind at the moment. But I was hoping you could estimate how close that frigging flying saucer is. And whether or not they’re gonna suck us up in their green beam so the aliens can do awful experiments on us."

"Don't let your imagination run amok too soon. However, if it makes you feel any better, I'll check it out to satisfy your twisted curiosity. Besides, we need mustard."

To make another long segment really short, Murdock casually went to the kitchen, grabbed that jar of mustard, but also grabbed a case of some off-brand Root Beer, then as an afterthought, he glanced out the front window, saw absolutely nothing, then he returned to the imagined safety of the basement.

Murdock reported, "I retrieved the mustard, and grabbed some soda pop too."

Drake snarled, "Didn't you see that mammoth mega ultra-huge UFO right outside the cabin?"

Murdock shrugged, "Either it left, getting bored with us, or you imagined the whole thing. Considering your propensity to have weird delusions, I'll wager that is the actual case."

"But it was out there! I saw it with my own frigging eyes!"

"Well, I personally wouldn't trust your frigging eyes, and since they are not jammed into my sockets so that I can see what you saw, I'll just assume you simply imagined something."

Drake sighed and shook his head. "It was out there, I tell you, but it probably just left and saw bigger game. The aliens probably realized the little town of Big Bear has a measly population, and it probably found Los Angeles just around the corner, which would be quite a tasty smorgasbord for them. I bet they’re sucking up millions of tasty human morsels right now into their awaiting saucer crafts, preparing for supper even as we speak."

Murdock snickered, "Considering you're actually a lousy writer when it comes to randomly sticking words together, you make up for it with quite a vivid outlandish imagination."

"Thanks a lot. I could use a complement about now."

"On the other hand, your demented thinking just might cause that very scenario you just described."

"I thought you were joking about that."

"In this crazy world where the laws of physics are merely highly questionable theories at best, anything is actually possible."

"That’s another one of those scary thoughts."

"But then again, if your insane thinking is just as feeble as your lowbrow mental state, hence having no real power whatsoever, then we may be fortunate enough to survive this alien invasion."

"Does that mean my lame-ass thinking disability may save us in the end?"

"Don’t think too much about it, you might rack your brain and discombobulate it."

"Whatever," Drake shrugged it off.

So they sat down at the folding table and prepared to chow down on their supper, not worrying about what or who the aliens were going to eat. So they quietly sat there eating their scrumptious ketchup-smothered meatloaf sandwiches on pumpernickel bread, washing it down with off-brand Root Beer -- except that Drake wasn’t very quiet -- he was making loud crunching and smacking and grunting sounds.

Murdock griped, "Man, you're a noisy eater. You’re so loud you might as well be talking."

Drake, while he munched and smacked, replied, "Alright, then I'll talk instead. So what's with this stupid off-brand Root Beer? Safeway brand, eh? That's a mediocre store brand! Sheesh! It taste like carbonated barf water. I should've brought a case of my favorite Goosehead Root Beer."

"On second thought, don't talk and just go back to munching and smacking and grunting and slobbering away at your food. And washing it down with my tasty Safeway Brand Root Beer."

So Drake did, still annoying the smuckies out of Murdock as he tried to eat his own sandwich in something slightly resembling peace, but not quite.

Chapter Three

Blogging the World About

Its Impending Doom

After gorging out on those scrumptious meatloaf sandwiches, and some Big Bobby’s chocolate snack cakes, washing it all down with the cheapo store-brand Root Beer, they sat back in their folding chairs at the folding table, patting their stuffed stomachs while they belched uproariously and farted grandly.

Then they proceeded to drink more beer from the ice chest. To help them relax and destress.

Then Drake remembered something. "Hey, I've got to warn my blog readers about our impending doom from outer space."

"Which blog? The one detailing your boring life story, or the one that's supposedly your monotonous autobiography, both of which are pretty much the same thing?

"No, I’m talking about my Drake's Wild World."

"Exactly what I was talking about. And you actually have a fan base for that silly blog?"

"Of course! This month I got over five-thousand hits."

"Those were probably all the times that you were just double-checking on your own blog, reading your own crap for your own vain satisfaction. Plus several times I looked in on it to see what pathetic mindless drivel you were cranking out again."

Drake snarled, "Well, a lot of those hits are actual people that enjoy what I have to say."

"I bet. If they enjoy verbal torture," Murdock snickered, then took a swig of beer. "Okay, I'll leave you with your pathetic delusion, so man the computer and have at it. I'll just sit in the old easy chair in the corner and read one of my enthralling science-fiction novels."

"I noticed you brought an old copy of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. Ironic choice."

"It was purposeful. I grabbed it off the shelf upstairs, since I was in the mood for alien invasion literature. Hence, something by which to escape the real world."

"Which is currently being invaded by real aliens. Excellent choice, old pal."

So Murdock turned on the standing lamp and plopped into the easy chair and opened his exhilarating old-fashioned alien invasion tale, the old sci-fi classic that started the whole frigging craze -- and probably gave actual aliens the bright idea in the first place.

So Drake manned the computer, brought up his fancy-dancy Drake’s Wild World blog, and started typing:

Warning! The world is currently facing its impending doom! We're being invaded by aliens from beyond our world! Mars probably! Or even Uranus! If you don't believe me, look up in the sky and see for yourselves! See those huge silver flying saucers? Yeah! You’re being undeniably invaded! What can you do? I’ll tell you what to do. Panic! If you don't want to do that, then just hide. Hide in your basements and lock the doors behind you! Cower in fear and trembling for your lives! Because if the evil aliens find you, they might have you for dinner-- yeah, as the meal itself! Or worse -- make you slaves! For the rest of your live-long lives! At least death by dinner would be swift and painless -- I think. Or they may even do freaky experiments on you -- like put your brain inside the skull of a Heinz 57 mutt and see what happens! Or worse, put that mutt’s filthy brain inside your skull! Either way, it ain’t good! In fact it's bad! I mean, really bad!

Actually folks, your best bet is to hide in the sewers beneath your cities. They stink so bad, I doubt if any aliens in their right minds would go down there. Not that aliens have right minds in the first place. In fact I'm pretty sure they have really bad rotten minds!

So, run and hide! But hang on to your laptops or smartphones so I can keep you posted, folks! Matters can only get hairier and hairier!

Then he clicked Submit -- and so the whole world was at his demented disposal, at least the select few that actually reads his deranged blog.

Murdock had been quietly standing there reading over his shoulder, Drake discovered, as he began smelling meatloaf breath.

"How long have you been standing there?" Drake queried.

"Just a few seconds. Long enough to witness this insane mindless drivel you’re spewing out," Murdock snickered. "You're probably scaring the holy crap out of people, as if anybody actually read your silly blog."

Drake grinned, "I just checked, and I got exactly 10,042 hits so far."

"Nevertheless, that’s a puny number in contrast to the seven-billion victims that populate this wretched planet, now quickly becoming tasty snack food for ravenous aliens."

"My loyal fans are momentarily gawking at my current post. So I hope they take my advice and hide from those pesky aliens before they get sucked up in those sinister saucers."

"I hope nobody reads your silly blog so they figure out how to deal with their own problems and not let someone else do the thinking for them. Besides, when you think too much, then it starts to stink too much," Murdock snickered.

"Yeah right, har har har."

There was a bleep from the computer. Drake beamed, "Hey look! I've already got a comment!"

"Whoop-dee-doo!”

Rubbing his hands together, Drake snickered, "People are actually reading this even as we speak."

"Then we are living in a sad world if everybody reads what you speak."

Drake read the comment allowed:

I bet those aliens come from Uranus!

Murdock laughed boisterously.

Drake tried to defend the comment, "Maybe he means that seriously, uh, because I suggested the aliens might come from Mars or even Uranus."

"Believe what you want."

Another bleep sounded off, and Drake read the next comment:

Thanks for informing me, Mr. Drake, because when I looked out the window I saw one of those silvery alien ships -- no wait, it was just the Goodyear blimp!

Murdock laughed again. "People don't believe you, they think you're joking."

Drake closed the blog and huffed, "They’re just being stupid. People won't actually see something if they don't believe it exists -- even if it's staring them in the face."

"That's irreparably sad but horrendously true. After all, just a while ago you thought you were hallucinating because of the beer."

"Uh, I was probably just joking. I can tell when there's a real threat going on."

"The fact is that alcohol numbs your senses, therefore, we have both gotten a tad numb-brained."

"Whatever. All I know is we'll have to try to save the world through my blog alone."

"You sure put a lot of stock in your goofy blog. I'm sure the military is going to take care of this whole devastating matter. So we should just sit tight and relax for now."

Drake check a site called International World News and read the top story aloud:

Huge round disks are blocking the sky in several major cities of the US. It is believed we are being invaded by extraterrestrials. The military is nowhere in sight. Due to severe budget cuts, this huge militant institution has been rendered useless. However, reports of farmers using farm implements are preparing to do battle with the invaders. Unfortunately, as they run out into their fields to fight, they are being sucked up by green energy beams into the hovering alien spacecrafts.

Without any explanation, the White House has taken the week off, and the government in general is closing its doors until further notice. A particular Washington DC congressman, who chooses to remain anonymous, said, "The US government strongly denies the existence of UFOs, so there is no genuine threat to our great country."

Drake complained, "Can you believe that? What a joke!"

Murdock replied, "I agree, old buddy. We can’t take what they say too seriously. Mainly because the International World News is one of those highly questionable tabloids."

"No it's not! The world is acting like an ostrich sticking its head in the sand and you're just too anally retentive to admit that."

"Is that one of your vain attempts at another Uranus joke?"

"Nope, I’m serious. I’m basically observing you’re being tight-assed about it."

"The correct word you’re looking for is skeptical. I'm highly skeptical about

tabloid e-zines and magazines that foist themselves off as legitimate newsworthy rags."

Drake found something in US Online News and World Wide Web Report as he said, "Oh yeah? Listen to this."

And so he read the front page story:

Large flying saucers were discovered this morning hovering over major cities, especially, New York, Los Angeles, Washington DC, and certain foreign cities we don’t care about. Beams of green light shot down to the surface and kidnapped countless people. The military, due to drastic budget cuts, is unable to assist in the matter. General Frederick Hollinstatter, representing the U.S. Army, stated that, "The President told us to stand down, mainly because the government denies the existence of extraterrestrials and alien spacecraft. Besides, due to the budget cuts, most of our soldiers have been sent home, so there's nothing we can do anyway."

When asked, the US government made no comment about the whole matter, except that they were closed until further notice. Governments from other nations being invaded likewise denied the possibility of any kind of extraterrestrial threat.

Drake snickered, "So what do you think about that?"

Murdock grumbled, "Sheesh! Another legitimate news service has gone tabloid."

Drake said, "I think you just can't handle the truth. The world has gone stark raving mad and refuses to deal with the situation."

"It's quite possible that Hollywood is secretly producing another one of those mass invasion movies and people are getting all bent out of shape about it."

"So you're sticking your head in the sand, too, along with the rest of the world?"

"No, I'm just suggesting a logical possibility. However, you and I both saw actual flying saucers while sitting on the porch; therefore, there is a possibility that we did witness the real thing."

"Just a possibility? You're not at all certain then."

"Realized that we were drinking beer, hence, our senses were impaired."

"Yeah, but we weren't drunk out of our gourds. I didn't even feel a buzz yet."

"Hey, we were drinking Captain Blackbeard’s Caribbean Beer! Very potent stuff! How dare you not feel a buzz."

Drake shrug, "I reckon I didn't drink enough."

"Nevertheless, in spite of the beer, most likely we were eyewitnesses to actual alien spacecrafts. So all we can do is absolutely nothing."

"You gotta be kidding! We've gotta do something! Like work on our Aliens vs. Earth game."

"There you go again. Apparently you are the one sticking your head in the sand, not I. While there is a serious threat of actual alien invasion, all you can do is think about our silly game."

"Why not? We can take the real invasion going on and use ideas from it to develop our game further."

"Or we can work on the game to inspire us to discover how to resolve the actual alien invasion."

"I think it's better to see how the actual events unfold, which will be fuel for developmental ideas for the game."

"If we survive the real invasion."

"We have to! Our game depends on it!"

"That's demented logic."

"Then we can really enhance the game by announcing that it's based on true events that actually took place. That would draw quite a crowd!"

"Unless we first get sucked inside one of those alien ships and become tasty snack treats."

"We can’t afford that to happen. The game comes first."

"You're really obsessed with that idiotic game."

"Yeah! You'll have to pry this game from my cold dead hands!"

"It may come to that."

"Actually, I think it's more like therapy. Working on a game about alien invasion distracts me from the actual alien invasion taking place."

Murdock sighed heavily and shook his head. Then he said, "If you really want to be distracted, make a game about how the Earth ISN’T being invaded by aliens."

"That would be totally boring."

"You're right. Then let's distract ourselves with more off-brand Root Beer and Big Bobby's snack cakes."

"Good idea. I'm still hungry."

"Look, here's a Boston Cream cake -- I'll take that, and you can have the Raspberry Swirl cake."

"Yum. But I still wish we had something better than your goofy off-brand Root Beer."

"Jeez Louise! Gripe. Gripe, gripe!"

"I'd drink a beer with our snacks, but I think that would ruin their yummy sugary taste."

"We had better cease and desist with our drinking for now. We need to be able to think clearly for a change if we are going to get through this major crises."

"And here I thought we were supposed to drink beer too relax and destress."

"Negatory. There is no time for that now. We have to be wide awake and alert during our present danger. But first we must take a well-deserved break, Zack."

"Right-on, Jake."

So while the dithering dimwits continued feasting on tasty poisonous chemical-filled junk food and equally non-nutritious beverages, over their heads an actual global threat of extraterrestrials taking over the world ensued.

Chapter Four

Drake’s Madcap Misadventure in a Flying Saucer

While the deranged dingbats sat their working on Aliens vs. Earth, Drake suddenly had a somewhat pained expression on his face.

Murdock queried, "Now what’s wrong? Got a brain-cramp?"

Drake replied, "Nope, that only happens when I'm babbling incessantly and then I suddenly forget what I was talking about."

"Or perhaps you were eating incessantly and forgot what you were eating."

"Actually, I have to run upstairs to the bathroom."

Murdock pointed into some dark corner, "You'll have to use that plastic bucket over there for now, until the alien invasion threat has died down."

"Fine, but it’ll stink to high heaven. I had some wretched off-brand chili beans yesterday."

Murdock sighed in irritation. "Okay, use the facilities upstairs, but be careful of those pesky aliens. They might suck you up into their ship." He snickered at that.

Drake ran up the stairs and onto the main floor of the cabin, but he never made it to the bathroom. Not yet. He got distracted when he saw out the window one of those huge silvery saucer ships. He figured he was safe, concealed by the walls of the cabin, and the locked front door as well. But since he didn't understand alien technology, he didn't realize that aliens strangely perceived walls and locked doors as no problem whatsoever. Maybe it was because they were in denial that walls and locked doors kept burglars out, or other unwanted guests -- like in-laws, landlords, door-to-door salesmen, or even aliens. Obviously they had some kind of demented mental illness, because they even acted on their delusional denial, by shooting a beam of green light down to the cabin, through the front window, which locked onto Drake, and miraculously dragged him up along the greenish energy shaft, then sucking him up into the bowels of the ship. Obviously they were in denial that glass shouldn’t be penetrated either. Obviously they had severe mental problems. Someone commit these guys to the local shrink!

Drake found himself in a large silvery metal round room, with many oval-shaped viewing windows along the walls, behind which creepy bug-eyed, big-headed puke-green aliens were staring at him, as if he was some brainless zoological specimen, which he was -- to them, at any rate.

He tried to speak forth his usual tried-and-true exclamatory words, "Holy moly!" but they got stuck in his brain and he couldn't blather them from his lips, since he was paralyzed with fear and panic and other horrific emotions that he didn’t know existed until now, nor knew the names of, mainly because they normally don’t exist, until the individual experiences an alien abduction for the very first time. That tends to bring out the hideously worst panicky emotional state out of a feeble-minded human – such as Drake.

So, these ugly aliens pointed extremely long skinny fingers at him and when there strange little mouths opened, it seemed like they were laughing at him, an eerie sound cross between hyenas barking and cars honking. So that made him really mad. He would show them that he wasn’t some brainless harmless Homo sapien for them to gawk at in amusement. He would have to break something to get back at them. He fished around in his pocket, pulled out his cell phone, and instead of the idea occurring to him to call Murdock to let him know what happened so he could rescue him, he did one of those fancy pitcher windups and then hurled the hunk of primitive human hardware at one of the big windows, smacked it, then it bounced off, but it flew back and hit him square on the noggin.

"Ouch!" he yelped.

The ugly aliens laughed even harder and pointed with vigorous exuberance at the goofy little human in the big round room. That just made him angry enough to stomp on his cell phone repeatedly, smashing it to pieces, since he couldn't break their windows with it. That's when it occurred to him that he could have called Murdock. That made him really pissed, and he wished he had a big heavy rock to hoist at those stupid windows. That would surely break through.

Angered, he ran to what appeared to be an oval door in the wall. He kicked and pounded on it, and the green aliens laughed even more uproariously. Panting, he leaned up against the wall in despair, accidentally triggering some kind of door-opening trigger mechanism, invisible to the sight naturally. So he quickly jumped through the door and dashed down a curving oval-shaped silvery corridor, suddenly remembering he had to go to the bathroom. That made him run faster. He started wondering if alien spaceships even had bathrooms. He came to one door, smacked the place several times where there was supposed to be that invisible trigger mechanism, found it, the door opened, finding something truly weird and unexplainable, where four or five or maybe even six aliens were rolled up together in some kind of vibrating ball-shaped configuration as hideous undulating chanting sounds emanated from their flapping lips. Although it may have been just an alien bar brawl, it occurred to him what they might really be doing, but he didn't want his mind to go there, so he ran down the hall further.

He popped open another door and observed what looked like several ugly puke-green aliens doing sadistic experiments on some helpless human strapped down on an operating table, poking him with long needles while they laughed. That made him angry, and he wanted to save the poor guy, but he felt like his bladder was ready to burst, so he decided to look for that bathroom first. He scurried down the curving corridor further, popping open a few more doors, witnessing other strange unexplainable things that scarred him for life.

He finally found one room that looked very much like it might be a bathroom, but he wasn't sure. They had strange fixtures and doohickies that made no sense to him, but along one wall was a series of vertical six-foot long half-tube mechanisms with a one-inch in diameter hole at the bottoms of each, so he guesstimated these were probably urinals. He quickly unzipped and let fly, sighing in total relief. Then he started smelling something funny. He looked down and saw an eerie greenish steam rising from the little hole, and strangely the same green steam rose from the other holes in the half-tube contraptions too. Wherever those holes in the tubes lead to, they ended up in the same place, most likely. Drake thought, he must've really screwed up now. He didn’t want to piss-off these aliens too much, because they might do freaky experiments on him to see what made him tick, until he stopped ticking all together -- since he turned out to be an intelligent species after all that should be tested and dissected. Because, totally unbeknownst to him, he had stumbled into the engine room, which had highly sensitive apparatus that could easily be sabotaged. And who knew – not even the aliens – even guessed in a gazillion years that human urine could short-circuit the delicate instruments of this huge craft.

While he was at it, he decided he'd better grab a weapon to defend himself. So he found a three-foot long silver pipe to whack ugly aliens upside the head with, in case they tried to chase him.

Leaving the room, he felt massive turbulence, as the ship shuttered back-and-forth while he heard mechanical grinding and whining sounds from below. His face muscles frowned, which then turned into a grin, or a weird kind of contorted cross-emotional grimace, because at the same time that he feared that the hideous aliens might be really mad at him for screwing their ship up, he was glad that he actually accomplished something to ingeniously thwart their evil ways – even if by sheer accident. The only way Drake could have effectively accomplished such a fabulous feat, by the way.

He ran back down the hallway, not sure where he was going, but most likely to find a hiding place, since he knew they would be after him sooner or later. He popped open one of the doors, which happened to be that scary operating room. Drake threatened the ugly aliens with the pipe, swinging it back and forth. Their eyes grew wide and they screamed, long arms flailing in the air. Suddenly, one end of the tube shot out a green beam, accidentally cutting three of the creatures in half. The remaining screaming aliens ran off and disappeared -- somewhere. Drake hadn’t actually intended to save the guy, but he figured since he was there, why not? He unstrapped the guy, who thanked him profusely, then Drake ran out of there and back down the corridor, grinning madly since he now knew he wielded a very dangerous weapon. He figured the fellow could make his own way out, since he was unfettered now.

The only thing left for Drake to do was to get the smuckies out of there before the aliens found him. Riddled with total panic and fear along with feelings of victory and triumph, he sprinted down the oval silvery tunnel that curved round and round, looking for anything that looked like a way off of this freaky alien ship.

But then it was too late. A door propped open and a band of ugly green aliens began chasing him. He ran further down the corridor, but realizing he had a weapon, stopped and turned, aiming it at them. It didn't magically fire like the last time, and the aliens just laugh at him. He looked at it, figured it must be backwards. So he turned it around and aimed the other end at them. That's when they stopped running toward him as they screamed, flailing their arms about. They turned and ran the other way, Drake chasing them now. Somehow he must have accidentally flicked the trigger, because a green beam shot out of the end, amputating a few legs and arms and heads from the fleeing creatures. That made Drake laugh maniacally.

He continued running back down the corridor, searching for a way out. He spied a little round panel in the wall near the floor -- that might be an exit panel, he presumed hopefully. He smacked the wall several times, finding the invisible trigger, and the panel opened. He jumped into a very small chute that went down and down and down, until he found himself in the most horrible, putrid, smelliest of places imaginable! The ship's sewage facility! What a fate! To be tortured by and finally die from being submerged in horribly disgusting wreaking crap! Literally! Not to mention it was all a sickly green color. Drake wondered what the deal with green was with these aliens anyway.

They also noticed that he must've lost a weapon away as he slid down that long hole. He shrugged, figuring the aliens wouldn’t want to chase him around down here in this putrid dump.

The ship continued to rock back and forth, out of control, which caused this horribly disgusting crud to slosh all around him and splash up against his face as he bobbed about in this wretchedly mucky muck. He felt severely nauseated now. Then he violently upchucked, contributing his own little mess to the bigger mess around him. He hollered unprintable profane words very loudly. Loud enough to draw undue attention.

Suddenly a long mechanical arm came out of the wall from above and snaked its way down to Drake as its mechanical hand grabbed him by the back shirt collar, lifted him out of the wretched slimy gunk, then shot him out another hatchway, down through a long chute, then out into the open air. Obviously the aliens had to get rid of this dangerous pest that had been slicing and dicing their crewmembers.

While Drake fell through the air as the saucer zoomed off and away, he screamed with panic, because his life began passing before his eyes, or maybe it was a flock of geese, he wasn't sure. Falling was probably one of the worst fear-fraught sensations imaginable. Because nobody wanted to die that way, not really.

Fortunately Big Bear Lake was right below him, which he immediately splashed into. Landing on the ground would have killed him, but he didn’t even think of that; he just thought of how frigging cold the water was. He didn't even think of the fact that this was washing off the horrible slimy smelly alien sewage refuse, but that he might freeze to death if he didn't swim to shore and climb out of the lake. He swam toward the welcoming shoreline, and got to where he could stand up and walk the rest of the way. Hearing an eerie groaning sound from somewhere up in the sky, he gawked up and saw the large silver craft wavering back and forth, its motors whining and groaning horribly. Then it crashed into a mountainside and blew up, orange flames and gray smoke flying everywhere.

Jerking his balled fist in the air, he laughed profusely, "I showed them a thing or two! Yeah! Ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaa!"

Drake climbed out of the water and onto the bepebbled shore, ran into the woods, trying to dry off on shrubbery, which didn't work too good. It just scratched him up. He finally rolled around in some dry leaves, and that helped some. But it just left him looking really dirty and grubby. As they ambled along some residential street on the outskirts of Big Bear City, people from their front lawns or windows gawked at him, wondering if this was an escapee from an insane asylum, a Bigfoot creature, or the legendary Gnarly Creature from Big Bear Lake. Some screamed, some threw rocks at him, and somebody fired a rifle at him, which made him start running, and quickly he duck into the thick of the forest.

After that he climbed through the foothills of the mountainous area to the north, and then through some deep ravines, then got lost, until he found the road with the hairpin turns that looped up and around toward the cabin. Other then that whole grueling ordeal, it only took him three hours to find his way back to the cabin. By then it was nighttime, and very dark out, except for a full moon and gazillions of twinkling stars.

The front door was still locked, so he pounded and pounded and pounded on it, trying to get Murdock’s attention. But it didn't work. He went around to the side, grabbed a large rock, and threw it through a window, which he wanted to do back in the ship, so he had to get his frustrations out here. He carefully climbed through the window, although jagged glass ripped his clothes here and there, scratching him also to where he drew some blood. He came to the basement door, which he had unlocked when he ran up to go to the bathroom, thankfully, and he stumbled down the stairs, finding Murdock snoring loudly, sleeping in his easy chair, with his copy of H.G. Well’s War of the Worlds flopped open on his chest. It was then that he realized the plaid shirt Murdock wore was green. Drake hated green!

Drake hollered, "Hey! Wake up, you slumbering bum!"

Murdock vaguely woke up, "Huh? What?" Noticing Drake was all wet, dirty and bloody, and reeked something fierce, he queried, "Jeez Louise! What did you do? Fall into the toilet and get flushed down?"

"Actually, that's not far from the truth. But it happened in an alien ship."

"Ah, you had one of those crazy alien dreams, eh?"

"I wish. But you're the one that dozed off, not me."

"And I dreamed that we finished working on the game, and got it ready for mass production. So we don't have to worry about that anymore."

"If you just dreamed it, then it really didn’t happen."

"Good point, old buddy." Then he looked at his watch and frowned. "So what's the deal? You were gone practically three hours? It’s 9:35 at night!"

"Oh, nothing inconsequential really happened. Except that I think I really pissed off those ugly green aliens."

Chapter Five

The Game Vs. the Reality

Drake explained in vivid detail what happened, the whole bizarre misadventure aboard the large alien ship, while Murdock just nodded, rubbing his bearded chin in thought. Drake explained that he wasn't able to actually "go to the bathroom" until he found one in the craft, or what he thought was a bathroom. But that for some strange reason, whatever he did, caused the ship to go whacko, which caused the aliens to eject him from their ship, which shortly crashed thereafter. He even told Murdock about the green beam-shooting weapon he found that scared the green crap out of the aliens.

Murdock replied, "I think your problem is, old chum, that you’ve been playing our Aliens vs. Earth game -- while I was asleep naturally -- getting too absorbed into it to where you imagined that it was really happening. Hence, as usual, you experienced one of your insane delusions. You must have inadvertently gone into the database and written a subroutine where your character gets sucked up into the ship and sabotages it before bailing out, then witnesses a crash into the mountainside. Incidentally, that’s not a bad plot scenario. Ten points for the Earthlings."

Drake angrily protested, "I wasn't playing the frigging game! Besides, I don't know how to even get into the game’s database or write programs are subprograms or mega-subprograms or any other kind of stupid programmable programs!"

"But you managed to do it inadvertently, as I said. Almost miraculously. I have held off from saying this, old pal, but I think you have hidden intelligence that springs up intermittently. In other words, I surmise that you’re a high-functioning idiot savant."

Not exactly sure if that was an insult or complement, Drake blurted, "Uh, I don’t think I'm that smart."

"I stand corrected. You are back to being a total moron. One who experienced a humdinger of a delusion."

“How do you explain my grubby smelly clothes? Huh?”

“With you, anything can unexplainably occur. But I surmise that you were sleepwalking outside and got dirty and smelly, then stumbled unconsciously back inside.”

“I don’t sleepwalk – uh, not that I know of.”

“See? You can’t be sure, can you?”

"Hey! It really happened! I was there to witness it! If you go upstairs and look out the window, you'll see fire and smoke all over the mountainside on the other side of the lake! And since it’s nighttime, the fire will seem really bright, I’m sure."

Murdock nodded. "Sure, of course. But realize it's not safe up there with all those alien ships flying round."

"That's my point exactly! It's not safe out there! Hey, they sucked me right through the glass with their green energy beam!"

"Of course they did. They naively defied the laws of physics. Why not? Ahem… Nevertheless, you should take a shower – you smell like a repulsive sewer."

Drake sniffed himself. “Hmm. I hadn’t noticed. I was getting used to it – in a weird kind of way.”

Encouraged by Murdock’s emphatic urging, Drake finally went upstairs and took a quick shower, and returned in fresh clean clothes. Which eased Murdock’s mind . . . and nostrils. Fortunately, no flying saucers were buzzing about outside at the moment.

Drake grabbed two beers off out of the ice chest and handed one to Murdock, still sitting in the easy chair with his ever-so relaxing alien invasion sci-fi thriller, War of the Worlds.

“If you drink that, you’ll be encouraged to go off on another alien ship crashing mission,” Murdock snickered.

“Shut up,” Drake grumbled.

Murdock closed his mildly stimulating book and grunted as he climbed out of his easy chair, and walked over to the laptop and sat down, opening it up and turning it on, while sipping his beer. He remarked, "Although I should scrap this technologically-seductive mind-warping game we're creating that has totally brainwashed you into believing your delusions, all your wild ravings are giving me great ideas."

Drake sighed as his eyes rolled up. "Fine, don't believe me." Then he sat down in the chair next to his pal.

Murdock entered the game database where game designing took place and began diddling around, searching for something. "Hmmm. I was wrong."

"About what? That I'm not delusional after all?"

"No. I'm sure you're still delusional. But I'm wrong in thinking you accidentally created some kind of subroutine detailing the scenario of the ingenious alien ship sabotage. Evidently, it all took place in your wildly deranged noggin." At that he lifted his fist and lightly knocked on Drake’s noggin.

Drake pulled away and snarled, "I don't care if you don’t believe me. I know it really happened."

"Nevertheless, the more I think about it, the manner in which you claimed to theoretically sabotage the alien ship, according to your demented delusion, may be in poor taste for a sophisticated game such as this, suggesting uncouth bathroom humor. Perhaps we'll have our hero from earth poor battery acid or some other toxic compound into highly sensitive equipment, which I surmise could only be found in the alien ship’s engine room. That’s most likely where you stumbled into – or imagined you did."

Drake commented, "When you say ‘hero from Earth,’ is that with a lower case ‘e’ or an uppercase ‘E’?"

"What difference does it make?"

"It makes a lot of difference. When it's referred to as the planet Earth, it should be capitalized, not humiliated with lowercase "e," which only makes earth simply dirt."

Murdock countered, in defense of his lowercase position on life, "But it's ultimately true that we live on a scrap of dirt that hurls through space."

"I suppose so. But then what about Pluto? It's been demoted to being just a plain old rock in space, so we shouldn't capitalize it either. Hmmm. Just calling it ‘pluto’ without the capital kinda sucks."

" I believe astronomers still capitalize it, although it's been relegated to a mere reprobate rock."

"That's my point! Earth is still a planet, so we should capitalize it! It bothers me when ignorant people refer to this magnificent planet with billions of people living on it as a lowercase inanimate lifeless rock. At least capitalizing it gives it dignity."

"Okay, but when you take a shovel and start digging up earth, are you going to capitalize on it? Are you going to exploit it, take advantage of it, profit from it?"

"What are you yammering about?"

"The economy, big business, buying and selling, the stock market, entrepreneurship."

Drake shook his head and sighed. "I suspect we're talking about two separate issues."

"If we are going to take advantage of the earth, whether it's lowercase or uppercase, whether its dirt or the planet, we should make money off it, capitalize on it. Hence, once we market our fabulous game, Aliens vs. Earth, we will profit from it big-time."

Drake shook his head and grumbled, "Never mind."

Suddenly, they were saved by the bleep.

Drake bent over and moved the mouse, clicking on his blog. "We're getting responses from Drake’s Wild World."

Murdock snorted, "I was afraid of that." So Murdock clicked the minimized blog to maximum, then turned the laptop to face Drake. "I should have asked you to bring your own laptop to satisfy your wild tangents, while I remain focused on our game."

Drake beamed exuberantly, "Hey, it's my old e-pal, Jeff! He sends comments every once in a while to my blog, and sometimes we just e-mail back-and-forth about mindless prattle."

"Naturally. Two brainless minds victimizing each other with mindless prattle."

"Hey, Jake, listen to what he has to say."

And so Drake read the comment aloud:

Yo, Drakemeister! Here in LA things are really popping! Those large disks in the sky are definitely extraterrestrial. People are being sucked up right and left by those freaky green energy beams from the flying saucers. And I’ve taken your advice. Me, my girlfriend and a few friends have gone to the sewers. Hell, it really stinks big time down here! And the hideously squeaking rats are big! And there’s a lot of them! I brought my special laptop with high-tech satellite connection so I can report to you anywhere I go. So catch you sooner if not later.

Jeff

Drake chuckled, "Cool! Good old Jeff is one smart dude! People should be safe from the invading aliens down in the city sewer system. I hope others do the same."

Murdock snorted, "Great. If they do, the world's population is doomed to live the rest of its days in putrid tunnels of liquid crap, hiding from alien invaders."

"Better than being sucked up into their ships."

"What's wrong with that? According to your demented logic, you can send saboteurs up and they can all urinate in the engine rooms, and crash all those damn alien ships. Except that something like that can only work in our game environment, not real life."

"Actually, that's not a bad idea!"

Murdock slapped his hand on his forehead and sighed, "Sheesh! I should know when to keep my mouth shut."

"Alright. Time for my next blog entry."

And so Drake started typing his next blog post:

Alright folks, this is the game plan. And I say it that way, because sooner than you think, stores everywhere will have on their shelves our new game, Aliens vs. Earth! Which will be based on actual true events that really took place, based on what’s taking place right now! That is, as soon as this actual alien invasion taking place has long since taken place and is all over.

Alright, here's the game plan. Half of you run to the sewers and hide like I said before. The other half will go on a top-secret mission. Being abducted by aliens myself recently, I discovered the secret to their demise. So just let yourselves be abducted, by letting those green energy beams suck you up into the bowels of their ships. Next to the door of the big round room you’ll be in, and all the doors of the ship, is an invisible trigger mechanism, so just smack the wall for a while until you find it, and the door will eventually open. Then you're free to venture around the ship. While you're at it, look for something that looks like three-foot long silver pipes. They’re some kind of laser weapons. The aliens are really scared of them, because it cuts into pieces.

Then run down the corridor and look through all the doors until you find something that looks like a bathroom, but it probably isn’t. Murdock thinks it's actually an engine room. But find what looks like urinals, and just simply pee into them. Believe me, you’ll short circuit the ship’s internal mechanism and they will all eventually crash. So get out of their ships before they do crash! Oh, and then find a panel that’s really a hatch to the ship’s sewage system – that’s where you escape. Also drink a lot of water before boarding the ships. That's your mission, should you decide to accept it, unless you decide to reject it.

Good luck, Agents of Earth!

Drake clicked Submit, exposing the whole online world with his idiotic dementia.

Having read the post as Drake wrote it, Murdock laughed, "You’re seriously insane!"

Drake grinned, "Well, maybe it takes insanity to save the world."

"On the contrary, Zack, the world needs to be saved from you."

"Anyway, we'll see how my plan develops as I get comments."

"Most folks in their right minds will just totally ignore your demented blog."

"So you're saying it takes a wrong-minded person to save Earth from evil aliens?"

"Don't put idiotic words in my mouth that weren’t there in the first place."

The computer bleeped again.

"Ah. Another comment," Drake commented.

And so he read it:

The Los Angeles National Guard has received your mission, Mr. Drake. We are 450 strong and comprise of seven squads of courageous soldiers. We live for danger, and saving this planet is worth the risk. We hope other heroic-minded men and women heed your game plan and comply. We may not be able to report back, but you will know if we have accomplished this impossible mission when the alien ships begin crashing.

Captain William Flackshafter

"Holy moly!" Drake exclaimed. "They’re actually listening to me!"

"Jeez Louise!" Murdock shot. "People are actually going insane! Either that, or they're just humoring you like before."

Drake shrugged, "We'll see."

The laptop bleeped again, and Drake read the next comment:

I've got a full bladder and there's no bathrooms in sight! What will I do? I know! I'll beam up into an alien ship and pee all over it!

Pissbag3000

Drake chuckled, "Well, at least they’re responding."

Murdock shot, "Yes, by making fun of you."

After another bleat, Drake read the next comment:

I think you're doing a piss-poor job. And your blog really stinks.

Murdock chuckled. "I told you. People are just pulling your leg."

Drake muttered, "I'm sure there's a few serious people out there."

A few more times it bleeped, to which Murdock sighed and shook his head, grumbling, "At this rate, we’ll never get our game finished."

Drake read the latest comment:

How do you piss-off invading aliens? Easy, you pee in their ships!

Drake grumbled, "Alright, this’s getting old."

"Give it up, old chum. The world is being invaded, and there is not a lot we can do about it."

"Except work on our alien invasion game. That might keep us sane if we're lucky."

"Or propel us into further insanity."

"Anyway, old buddy, we should come up with options how we Earthlings can save the planet from the invading aliens."

"Are you referring to the game or real life?"

"Uh, the game, of course, but we could also think of world-saving options for the real invasion going on."

"If you are going to confuse the game with real life, you're definitely going insane."

"Too late. I've probably already gotten there. That abduction experience was pretty traumatic for me, you know."

"I bet. In your little universe, fantasy and reality conveniently merges," Murdock snickered.

"Whatever."

So Drake and Murdock tirelessly worked on their fascinating Aliens vs. Earth game, confusing fantasy with reality along the way, at least Drake was. He began questioning his own sanity when he started doubting that his alien abduction experience actually took place. Or was it that he should question his insanity when he started wondering if his delusional fantasy was actually a real experience? Either way, he was getting tired, tuckered out, and confused.

As he stood up to stretch and yawn, he said, "Too much beer –uuurp! -- now I gotta go pee again."

Murdock commented snidely, "Oh, just hop onboard the next alien ship passing by. You know they have bathrooms."

"Whatever," Drake grumbled as he decided to use the plastic bucket in the corner.

"Don't forget to flush," Murdock chortled.

"Har har."

Chapter Six

Activating a Plan of Action

After a few hours of sitting in front of the glaring screen as they blindly worked on their game with bloodshot eyes, and after a few more beers and bags of pretzels they scarfed down to kill time --and aliens-- while growing horrendously bored with it, they heard the next bleep.

"Finally!" Drake beamed.

"Great," Murdock groaned. "If it’s not the usual sarcastic joker, it could be another gullible fan that’s been helplessly sucked into your pathetic delusion."

"Actually, it’s my old e-pal, Jeff; probably reporting on his fantastic sewer adventures."

"Wonderful. Fuel for further ideas for your next groundbreaking sewage-enhanced adventure novel."

"Whatever."

And so Drake read Jeff’s comment:

I don't know what's going on above ground, Drakemeister, but I hope those National Guard guys are up to the task. Down below here in the wreaking paradise of sewage city, we’re making headway. But first let me report that I discovered the sewage system is more like a homeless shelter. I found countless unkempt shoddy characters that live down here, feasting on rats, crudely cooked in coffee cans over sizzling campfires. What a treat! And these folks don't need a bathroom, because they live in one. I'm not sure what they drink, I'm not going to ask, I'm afraid they'll tell me what I already suspect. Suffice it to say, I'm tired of sloshing around in here in this stinking brown slimy sludge. And I’m starting to regret bringing flashlights, because we have to see what it's actually like down here -- absolutely repulsive! Me and my small party brought with us canteens of water. And a backpack full of energy bars, cookies, beef jerky, and Big Bobby’s snack cakes. Not sure how long all that will last.

Oh, we've met others that have recently come down here from above, seeking refuge down in the refuse. They tell us flying saucers are sucking up more and more people. One fellow mentioned that he was pretty sure some of them had camouflage uniforms on -- must be those National Guard guys that commented here earlier.

Oh, and one more thing. We saw one of those ugly green aliens try to get down through one of the manholes. I saw it climb down the metal ladder, and it stopped, and its face all scrunched up real strange like, then it swiftly jumped up and out the orifice, making sure to put the metal plate back over it! I couldn't figure out what the hell that was all about at first. But then it occurred to me, since we were more or less getting used to the horrid stink down here, if that's possible, I bet that freaky alien was completely repulsed by the smell down here, and that's what made him climb back out in a hurry. So, Drakemeister, you’re right! The sewers are safe! But they still reek to high heaven!

Until next time….

Jeff

Drake beamed, "Cool!"

Murdock presumed, "Let me guess. You're excited that everything is going according to your demented plan."

"Nope. They brought Big Bobby’s snack cakes with them!"

"Whoop-dee-doo!"

"And yeah, it's good to hear people are seeking refuge down in the sewers, and if those camouflaged soldiers are indeed National Guardsmen going on my top-secret mission, then everything is going according to plan – my ingenious plan. This is really cool! Here we sit, quietly and safely, and yet we are orchestrating the salvation of the world and the demise of the invading aliens! How cool is that?"

Murdock sighed, shaking his head, eyes rolling upward. "I fear that I've been sucked into your freaky demented delusion. This all appears to be actually taking place, but I likewise suspect, or hope nevertheless, that we are just hallucinating this whole alien invasion phenomenon."

"Or maybe we've been sucked into the game, and we can't differentiate fantasy from reality."

"That is what I have been trying to tell you all along. But I believe it began as your personal delusion -- that has now expanded and caused collateral damage. Especially through your idiotic blog, since the people that read it stupidly believe your delusion is real."

"So you don’t believe it's really happening?"

"Obviously it is now. Nevertheless, this reminds me of a similar delusional phenomenon that took place in 1938 when Orson Welles scared the crap out of the nation with his spectacular War of the Worlds radio presentation. As everyone listened intensely, the broadcast caused panic, rioting, suicides, and mass-hysteria. This is exactly what is happening now."

"Well, anyway, with all this crap going on outside, we’re safe and sound in the basement of this rented cabin, impenetrable from invading aliens."

"Be careful what you say, because--"

Suddenly, overhead, they heard the loud humming sound of a close-by flying saucer, right on top of them in fact. Then they heard a loud zapping sound as the earth shook, then they heard an explosion that shook the cinderblocks of their fragile yet impenetrable basement.

"Holy moly!" Drake hollered.

"Gadzooks!" Murdock cried.

"What was that?!"

"Something that is bursting your bubble."

"Huh?"

"We are not as safe as you dementedly imagined."

So Drake and Murdock got up and ran up the stairs, Murdock first, who came up through an opening where the basement door had once been, now revealing a blue afternoon sky above, and a flying disk zinging off into the distance. Wood and stone and glass and other debris had been shattered to pieces everywhere around them – that used to be the cabin. Fortunately the explosion didn't go beyond the cement floor, or ceiling, depending on which side of it you were on. Drake figured that aliens had no concept of basements, or that would have been blasted away too. They spied the flying saucer zipping off further west, blasting other cabins in the area, where the little cowering humans obviously hid.

"Holy mackerel!" Drake cried.

"Perhaps it was just a warning shot. Next time they might blast our secret basement hideaway."

"Warning for what?"

Murdock shrugged. "Maybe they're on to us, and figured out your idiotic plan."

"Tough. The plan is in action, so they can’t stop us now."

"Next time they might blast us out of the ground we're hiding in."

"They'll never pry my plan from my cold dead hands."

Murdock sighed and shook his head. "You're being insane again."

"Whatever." Then Drake looked over to where there vehicles had been parked under a tree, which had been knocked over by the blast and covered them completely, plus miscellaneous debris lay on top of the branches. "The good news is our SUVs are being protected by that fallen tree and other debris."

Murdock sighed. "I’m not sure if you’re optimism is healthy or perverted. Either way, I’ll let you dig those cars out when it comes time for us to leave."

Drake shrugged, "Whatever."

Murdock looked around at the local devastation. "This is not good."

"Yeah, and I really liked this quaint little cabin too."

"Who cares about that? My concern is that we have no basement door now."

"Oh, good point."

They returned downstairs to very questionable safety -- when the computer bleeped again.

Returning to his chair, Drake beamed gleefully, "Ah. Let’s see what we've got now."

I'm here to report the success of Operation: Urination. I stayed behind to observe and report. Captain Flackshafter and seven squads of brave commandos have been transported via energy beams into several extraterrestrial vessels. It's been a few hours, but only one alien ship has crashed into the ocean. The Captain's plan was to divert the crafts away from the cities or any populated areas. Evidently they are succeeding. Will report more later.

Sergeant Gerald Fitzgunther

"Yikes! The plan is working!" Drake exclaimed.

Sitting down in his chair, Murdock griped, "Quite sad but irreparably true. All this alien invasion shenanigans is quickly unfolding, and I still haven't got any great ideas for the game."

Drake raised his eyebrows. "What do you mean? This uber-cool plan can be used for our game."

"Seriously? Wonderful. In the game we’ll call it Operation: Urination. That will go over real well in the game-world. The public will drink it up. How does Earth defeat the aliens? It’s death by urination, folks!"

Drake shrugged, "I've got no problem with that."

Murdock snickered, "Of course not. You're the one that devised that deviously uncouth notion in your delusions of idiocy."

"My rule of thumb is, if it works, use the frigging smuckies out of it!"

"What you fail to understand is, something that works in the real world, might not work in the game world. Except what you perceive as the real world is highly questionable."

"At this point, I don't care where the ideas come from. I think we should try anything and everything for the game, whether it started out as a real idea in the real world or just a delusion in the delusional world."

"Only because you can't tell the difference," Murdock snickered.

Drake shrugged, "Whatever. All I know is, as this real live alien invasion unfolds, and as my uber-cool plan develops and succeeds, then we'll use that information from all that to finish our game. Aliens vs. Earth will become a mega-colossal success and we'll become stinking filthy rich authors, then we can retire finally! We can even take a long vacation in Tahiti, lay in the sun on the beach, drink piña colodas, let nearly-naked walnut-skinned native buxom babes fan us with giant palm fronds and feed us purple grapes, and then when we get Aliens vs. Earth II: Alien Armageddon circulated out into the world, we can build exotic mansions down there, or even a massive resort for all our visiting fans and groupies."

Murdock sighed, then inquired, "Is this another one of your sick perverted delusions that I have to put up with and get sucked into?"

"You mean you don't wanna join me in all the fun and excitement once we start rolling in uber-mega-dough?"

"Not if it's due to your twisted delusion."

"The way I see it is, if whatever is going on at any given moment involves having fun, even though it turns out to be a delusion, who wants the reality? Reality can suck sometimes."

"But that's how we learn and grow, old chum -- from good old-fashioned sucky reality."

"Whatever. What I'm really trying to say is, when people start having fun playing our game, Aliens vs. Earth, or its sequel to come, that's all that counts, even though it's fantasy, and not reality."

"I'm simply amazed," Murdock smirked snidely.

"Why? because I actually make sense?"

"Not at all. You don't make one bit of sense. However, you are apparently creating some kind of weird perverted game philosophy that involves the ontological question of reality vs. illusion."

"You're right! I’ve got an epiphany! I’m concocting a brand-new idea! I should write a new book, a companion piece to our spectacular game, and I'll call it, The Sublime Metaphysics of Game Philosophy. Wow! My brain is exploding with tons of fabulous ideas! I'm really cooking now!"

Murdock slapped his forehead again. "Sheesh! I should never say casual sarcastic comments to you that you take and then mutate into insane ideas for your own convoluted perverted pleasure."

"Really? Then you just admitted that it's a 50-50 proposition, so we can collaborate in this new volume we're gonna flesh out, knowing we both will contribute."

Murdock groaned, shook his head, as his eyes rolled up inside his head, while both hands combed through his shaggy hair, pulling out several clumps in frustration.

"You’ll go bald if you keep that up, old pal," Drake snickered.

Murdock snarled, "Hey, why don't you go outside and get sucked up by one of those flying saucers again? I'm sure you'll come up with a lot more gaming ideas while you're up there consorting with your evil alien buddies."

"Great idea! Maybe they'll give me some cool tips on how to thwart their evil ways of planetary invasion."

"Yes, of course they will, right after they use you as one of the ingredients in their Baked Human Surprise Casserole."

"Hmmmm. I bet that's a tasty alien treat."

Murdock sighed heavily, shaking his head, but he stopped when he began running fingers through his hair. He really didn't want to go bald.

The computer bleeped, just in the nick of time before Murdock pulled all the hair out of his scalp as he began going mad.

"Ah. Another report from our loyal followers," Drake wrung his hands vigorously together as he opened up the comment. "Good, it’s from Jeff again." So he read it aloud:

Hey, Drakemeister! I'm getting really sick and tired of scurrying down these filthy putrid wreaking tunnels! I think you gave us a really bad idea! For one thing, more of those ugly aliens have been trying to get down here. Fortunately, some guy brought one of those toy water guns with the one-gallon refill container that he filled with raw sewage and sprayed the aliens with it! That was fun to watch! The aliens hated it and they scurried back up to the surface. Me and my party are thinking of sneaking to the surface and finding a toy store and getting our own water guns.

But for the record, your plan stinks, and you stink!

Jeff

Murdock laughed, "Your e-pal is catching on! Once they all realize they’ve been hornswoggled into your twisted delusion, they will return to the surface and face the aliens like adults."

"Really? And do what? Go kicking and screaming while being sucked up into the alien ships?"

"I meant the people should not cower in fright, but fight like civilized human beings defending the earth, or should I say, their scrap of dirt that’s haphazardly flying around the solar system."

"You mean defending our great planet called Earth, the uppercase ‘E’ mind you."

"Picky-picky."

"Besides, Captain Flackshafter and his brave National Guardsmen are doing a fine job of defending our planet."

The computer bleeped again.

Drake beamed, "I bet that’s them now reporting that they’ve saved the planet and we can all return to our normal day-to-day life as we once knew it."

So he read the comment:

The Captain has reported to me via walkie-talkie, and says there are too many enemy ships, and many of the men have been caught red-handed by the aliens. The slimy green creeps have locked the doors of the engine rooms in the ships too, and all the men have full bladders! The Captain and his immediate squad on their designates ship were captured and placed in some kind of holding cell. So Operation: Urination is not working so far. It sounded like a really stupid plan in the first place. Also, the Captain said they couldn't find any of those laser beam weapons you spoke of. He thinks the aliens wised up and hid them all.

But the Captain is leaving it to me to contact other National Guard units across the nation. And maybe somebody out there will think of a much better plan. Yours stinks, Mr. Drake!

Sergeant Gerald Fitzgunther

Murdock laughed again, "I knew it all along! Everybody’s getting sick of your deranged ideas!"

" Whatever," Drake grumbled. "That just means we’re back to square one as far as figuring out how the Earthlings are gonna beat the aliens in our game. It’s not working in the real world, so it probably won’t work in the game world either."

"Perhaps it’s time to scrap this game and come up with something else. Zombies vs. Vampires."

"I know. Humans vs. Apes."

"You would be ripping off Planet of the Apes. We can’t do that."

"Oh, that’s right. Then I’ve got it. Zombies, Vampires, and Werewolves vs. Humans, Aliens, and uh, uh, Lawyers."

"That’s really stupid. Besides, that title is too complicated, awkward, and unworkable."

Drake sighed. "Then I say let’s get back get to it, and make Aliens vs. Earth work. I mean, this freaky war between two worlds is not over yet. There still might be hope for us."

"You may be right." Murdock got up and fetched his book out of the easy chair." "After all, according to H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds, the invading aliens die from evil germs and bacteria that normally float around haphazardly in our atmosphere, which our earthbound homo sapien immune systems have withstood for countless thousands of years, something these aliens are not equipped with, unless they planned to stick around a few thousand years in order to get used to our dirty environment."

"Holy moly! I bet that’s their sinister plan! To come here and stay, letting their diabolical alien immune systems get used to our germs, so they can more easily invade and conquer us, rendering us useless and lifeless, or maybe even preparing us for dinner."

"Sheesh! You’re taking my optimistic idea and looking at it from a whole new pessimist angle."

"You’re the one who said they’ll stick around a few thousand years and make friends with our germs to use them against us, or some crap like that."

Murdock sighed and shook his head. He almost yanked out more hair from his scalp, then decided he liked his full head of tawny hair. "Let’s face it. We have got gamer’s block."

"Yikes! Is there such a thing?"

"There is now."

Then Drake exclaimed, "Hey, I’ve got the best idea yet!"

Murdock looked around desperately for a couple of carrots to plug his ears with, but found nothing. "I’m sure I’m not going like this."

"Oh, you will. I brought a 2 lb. can of rich Colombian coffee that we can brew, plus a box of one dozen donuts from Darrel’s Donut Shack."

"It’s about time you came up with something intelligent, old chum," Murdock smiled in relief. Then he frowned. "Hold on. The cabin has been blasted away. You didn’t put the donuts and coffee upstairs, did you?"

"Nope. They’re safely in my Chevy Blazer."

"Sheesh! Buried beneath the fallen tree and rubble?"

"Uh, yeah, and that’s the bad part of the news."

Murdock groaned in despair, madly raking his fingers through his thinning hair.

Chapter Seven

The End of the War Between Two Worlds

The demented duo decided they had no choice but to be bold and daring, to leave the safe and sound confines of their basement hideaway, where they were left wide open to sucking green energy beams from roaming flying saucers.

As they carefully climbed the stairs, up through the gaping hole where the door used to be, and finally to where the cabin used to be, they looked up at the star-splattered sky, seeing no spaceship lights anywhere. For some reason the alien saucers were gone, for the moment at any rate. Perhaps they had drained the place dry of hiding humans –except for Murdock and Drake, who had been smart enough to not come out of their underground shelter of safety – until now. At any moment an alien ship could whiz by and suck them up.

They brought with them an old Coleman 8D camp lantern that they set down next to the fallen tree. So they proceeded to dig their vehicles out, using axes to chop at the branches, and shovels to dig away a lot of the rubble. After an hour of getting filthy dirty, they at least exposed the front door of Drake’s Chevy Blazer.

Drake panted, "That’s good enough. I can get to the donuts and coffee now."

Murdock also panted, "We’re not done yet. We have to dig out both vehicles completely."

"I think they’re safer under this protective layer of crap. We don’t wanna expose them yet until we’re sure the alien invasion is over, do we?"

"We can’t wimp out like a couple of fear-fraught wimps. But since I’m dog-tired, I say let’s continue this mindless work later."

"Alright."

Then Drake fetched his car key out of his pants pocket, unlocked his driver side door, opened it, reached in, and grabbed the grocery bag of donuts and coffee off the passenger seat. It was at that moment that they saw rising over the dark eastern horizon a large object with a band of bright lights encircling it. Obviously it was an approaching flying saucer.

"Holy moly!" Drake exclaimed.

"Gadzooks!" Murdock cried.

They hurriedly ran back to the cabin that wasn’t there, and ran down the little opening were a door had once been, climbed down the steps and into the basement.

At that very moment, Murdock had one of his brilliant ideas. This happened when he desperately looked around the parameters of the basement and saw an old wooden door lying around in the corner. With a couple of hinges and a handful of screws they found, also a screwdriver, they managed to fashion a new basement door for the downstairs side, since the upstairs basement door and doorframe had been completely blasted away.

Back downstairs, they brewed the coffee in one of those old newfangled, twelve-cup coffeemakers that came with the place. Once done, they sat at the laptop sipping hot rich Colombian coffee, Murdock’s black as sin and Drake’s anemically pale with tons of instant creamer, while stuffing their faces with tasty yet stale donuts, as they watched intently one of the scenes of the game playing out. The animated image they created displayed a fleet of silvery flying saucers hovering over the sky while tiny Earthlings with bazookas and flame-throwers and other weapons of destructive massiveness fired skyward to no avail because the ships were too high up.

"That sucks," Drake observed, with a mouthful of raspberry jelly donut. "I think we have to reprogram this so the alien ships come closer to the surface so the Earthlings’ weapons can fire up and reach them."

After swallowing his Bavarian Cream-filled donut and washing it down with a sip of hot coffee, Murdock countered, "That’s stupid. We’ll just program the Earthlings weapons so the firepower can extend higher into the atmosphere; that’s all."

"Then let’s do both. Bring the ships down and bring the firepower up higher."

"That’s redundantly idiotic."

"Actually, I think it makes sense. Look how tiny everything looks in the screen. We can make the saucers and the Earthlings look bigger to bring them closer together."

"Good point. Except if we bring them all too close together, they will be forced to make peace, and that would be boring in the game-world."

"Not necessarily. We bring the aliens and Earthlings together, and they can have bloody hand-to-hand combat."

"Okay, then when the ships come down closer, the aliens will have to jump out so that they can actually fight the Earthlings."

"Will the aliens have laser guns, or what? Earthlings would be no match for a more advanced form of massively destructive weapon-power."

"Good point, old chum," Murdock nodded.

"Plus, we still have to figure out a program scenario for various options for the Earthlings to be able to defeat the aliens," Drake pointed out.

"True, true. That has been the biggest problem with this game so far."

Suddenly their fun and games were interrupted with the usual bleeping from Drake’s blog, which they left open, yet kept minimized while they worked on their game.

Drake griped, "I'm starting to get really annoyed by all these idiotic comments. It's a distraction to our important gaming work here."

Murdock suggested, "Just turn off your stupid blog! It's been open all damn day."

"After this last one, I will."

Drake maximized his blog window and saw that there were two comments pending. First he read one from Jeff:

The aliens have given up coming into the sewers, probably because many of us now have those toy water guns to defend ourselves with, filled with raw sewage of course, which seems to really scare off the aliens! It’s hilarious! We zap yucky brown sludge at them, they scream hideously and flail their skinny arms all about, then scamper up the ladders and out the manholes!

But I also heard a rumor that the alien ships are leaving for some unknown reason. I think it’s safe for us to return to the surface now. Besides, the sun will come up soon, and we’ll be able to see what's going on outside.

Jeff

Drake yawned, "Jeff’s crap is getting pretty boring. But it's about time they get out of those damn stinking sewers."

Murdock nodded, "Yes indeed. And how the time has flown, since morning is nigh. And we accomplished very little with our game."

"Oh well. We never did set a deadline."

"The deadline may be set when the aliens slaughter us all."

"Whatever."

"Ah. Here's one from the sergeant. I had better read it too."

Sighing, Drake read it:

We have good news! Captain Flackshafter has contacted me, reporting that Operation: Urination has turned out to be a great success after all! He and his men escaped their holding cell, fled down the corridor, and luckily discovered a small room, apparently an armory filled with an arsenal of those weird laser weapons that look like three-foot long pipes. They're using them to slaughter the aliens as they approach us. Also they zapped the locked door to the engine room, got inside, and released their full bladders in the designated tube-like fixtures -- whatever the hell they are.

After hearing this, via my walkie-talkie I reported to other officers on board alien ships, telling them to look for similar arsenals hidden away in small rooms. They can fight the aliens with these and zap down the engine room doors to get inside in order to initiate Operation: Urination.

So the word is spreading, and all across the nation other National Guard units have been contacted, and they have instigated the plans of our ingenious operation that you, Mr. Drake, have set into motion. I am standing at the shores of Malibu Beach right now, observing countless alien ships wavering crazily across the sky and then crashing into the ocean. It's a wonderful sight!

Additionally, I must report that our men are bailing out of the sabotaged crafts and parachuting to safety below, where the Coast Guard is fetching them. I’m also observing that many other alien ships are leaving the Earth’s atmosphere. Perhaps they realize we have outsmarted them. We have effectively pissed them off, which has caused them to flee with their tails between their legs.

Via my portable radio, I am hearing other positive reports of militant units around the world. Certain European countries have devised biochemical devices disguised as humans standing out in the open (but actually they are just corpses) that the energy beams are sucking up into the ships, and upon impact, the devices disperse inside the ships, violently infecting and killing the alien inhabitants. Theoretically, Earth viruses kill aliens, at least according to H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds.

Likewise, various Middle Eastern nations sacrificed brainwashed volunteers to be sucked up inside the flying saucers as well, who were actually ruthless suicide bombers, so they blow themselves up along with the ships. At last, a worthy reason for the existence of these crazy fanatical martyrs! But I don't know if what they do takes guts or sheer stupidity. Either, their plan is working! And whether or not these self- sacrificing idiots will be pleasured by seventy-two virgins when they go to heaven, I may never know -- although it's a great idea!

To sum it up, Earth has won the war between two worlds! It’s time for Earth to celebrate!

Sergeant Gerald Fitzgunther

Drake pointed at the screen, “See? He capitalized Earth.”

Murdock grumbled, "I think he’s just a starry-eyed salesman capitalizing on selling earth as a winning commodity. Dirt from this planet may become priceless to extraterrestrial tourists someday."

"Whatever." Drake turned off the blog and they switched back to game mode.

As if nothing had changed all over the globe, practically oblivious to the huge triumph mankind experienced over the fleeing aliens, Drake and Murdock continued diligently working on their Aliens vs. Earth game, trying to figure out options for how Earthlings could win, and coming up short. Gamer’s block thwarted their endeavors, sad to say. The idea was for the player to have various possibilities he could choose, that is, numerous strategies he could attempt to apply in order to defeat the aliens. But for the game designers this involved the tedious imputing of several thousands of lines of code, but Murdock and Drake first had to come up with enough ideas before they could initiate the arduous programming phase of the whole project.

Drake bitched and moaned, "This is frustrating. Of all the ideas that we’ve thought of, you’d think we could at least have one good idea for how Earthlings can defeat the aliens."

Murdock remarked, "Well, since the real threat is over, we have plenty of time to figure it out. Hey, you didn’t eat the last chocolate-covered raspberry-filled donut, did you? I really like those, you know."

"Uh, I think so. But there’s one more Bavarian cream-filled donut in there you can have."

"I got sick of those after the first one I just ate."

"Actually, the confetti-sprinkled cake donuts aren’t bad."

"In my opinion, they suck."

"Yeah, they sorta do, don’t they? But I think all these donuts got a little stale sitting in my car."

Murdock decided, "We have to go out and get a dozen more donuts -- if we're ever going to complete this idiotic game."

"I think there’s still more Big Bobby's snack cakes left."

"I’m sick of those too."

And so it goes, the dynamic dimwits continued creating their new alien invasion game that may or may not dazzle the population of the world, which just suffered the ravages of actual invading aliens, yet it walloped back in the end and won! Unfortunately, their ridiculous game would be based on actual events that really took place. Well, more or less, if they could just figure out how Earthlings could win.

Copyright 2009-2013 by R. R. Stark

* * *

For the further adventures of Murdock and Drake, stay tuned for the upcoming e-book of

TALES OF TWO ADVENTURERS

soon to be available from Zircon Publications