Adam Oliver was greatly excited to board the empty alien spacecraft. He had been prepared for this moment from the day that the ‘Refined’ sent out the same telepathic message to all of humanity simultaneously. He looked at the sleek obsidian craft as it shined in the sunlight. This was far from the first ship that had arrived on the planet, they were Crew #1019 to be exact. Each one had left Earth with a random group of three people that had been drawn in a lottery.
“Adam?” he heard from the young lady standing right next to him as he felt a tap on his shoulder.
“Oh, yeah? Sorry I spaced out there” he responded looking down at Matilda Jones, the girl he had just met alongside their third crew member, Brian Ramos, just a handful of hours ago.
“Well I figured that much, you haven’t been focused this whole time. Are you scared? I am, I think everyone is.” She had been fairly talkative the whole time, Adam thought.
“More like too focused on my own thoughts. I’m more excited than scared, well, yeah I am scared of course.” He stumbled over his own sentence as he already began to lose focus and kept thinking back to his months of theories, forum posting, discussions and note taking. Yeah, definitely more excited than scared, but he did have to admit, the fear was rising as he waited to board.
“Of course we are scared, we are just food for the machine. Bait. Sheeple. Whatever, we are as good as dead. Why shouldn’t we be terrified?” remarked Brian, speaking from a few paces away.
Adam was struggling with one of the very first steps of his plan, taking control of his three-person crew to have an effective shot at humanities test. He couldn’t be frustrated at who he got, they had demanded random groups that were drawn in a lottery. Adam knew he just had to adapt and use his actions and words to make his group the best he possibly could. He reflected on the messages that the Refined had sent to all of humanity, before any ships had even arrived on the surface.Adam thought about that popular quote on how technology at an advanced enough level is indistinguishable from magic. Either way, they had telepathically communicated to all of humanity, in their respective native languages, the same message at the same time. The Refined let them know that they were to face a test to see if they were ready to join their council. Adam thought humanity would be able to cope with this okay until they mentioned that failure of the test would mean complete annihilation of their planet. That’s when he knew the suicide cults and insanity would begin.
“We face that when it comes Brian, this is our chance to shape our future, to shape all of humanities future, we can’t throw away this opportunity. Obviously we don’t know anything really. I don’t know, I guess I just want to achieve something great, don’t you?” he said, noting their reactions from their facial expressions, they seemed surprised at his sudden passion.
While people naturally had a good level of interest in aliens arriving to Earth. Most went on with their lives to some degree of normalcy after a couple of weeks, some a couple of months. Not Adam though, he was a super fan, obsessing over it from day one and committing every waking hour to research and following every live news source. He was there when government officials leaked classified information and made hard copies before the original was taken down. Of course even the government couldn’t shut down all of the mirrors that popped up on the web in this case. They probably had more important things happening anyway.
“Well, Adam, not all of us want to be dragged into some epic quest for all human kind, not all of us think the people are even being taken anywhere besides to be enslaved or experimented on. The whole ‘test’ thing is probably just a trap so we go with them.” Brian retorted.
“That’s already mostly debunked if you listen to the experts. They specified it’s a test, they haven’t used any force, but they have pushed us pretty hard to send people when we tried just not sending anyone onto their ships at all. They obviously have the technology to just take people if that is all they wanted, they need people to willingly board with some sort of teamwork, which is why they asked specifically for us to lottery groups of three random people.” Adam passionately explained this, he had given the same talk many times before.
“Plus don’t forget that they somehow knew when the UK tried rigging their lottery to send three highly experienced and skilled military members together and denied that crew entry.” Adam knew that people misunderstood and took the aliens as nothing but a huge threat, of course they were forcing people to leave their home planet, but he knew it really was a test, no other idea really made sense, unless it was some alternative option that humans couldn’t even possibly conceive of.
“Whatever, I still just feel off about it okay?” Brian answered looking down at the ground. Adam sighed, that was the response he usually got from people once he went into nerd mode and fought the fear-mongering arguments the media were spreading.
“There’s no use bickering that much, we have to go either way. I’m kind of with Adam in that we should want to help and may as well try to work together and have a good attitude as crew mates.” Matilda explained calmly, Adam saw her looking up at the craft in awe.
Adam looked around the location where this empty ship had landed. Off to the sides were the United Nations officials awaiting the take off, to observe and study. In front of them was their escort onto the ship, they really left out a lot of details and they weren’t presenting badges as Adam had studied for to know their rank, but he knew they were U.S Military of some kind. He held a clipboard as he rattled off the same tasks that had been read to them at least twenty times by now.
“Vaccines are done, sterilisation done, clothing supplied and approved. Luggage supplied” He continued as Adam zoned back out to his own obsessive thoughts. Adam already knew the full routine anyway, the first fifty or so crews had a lot of experimentation in process, but now they had processes in place so that every crew were prepared and left the same way. The ship in front of them was larger than he had imagined from seeing the pictures and videos, even though he knew the exact dimensions as the aliens were sending the exact same ships every time, possibly even the same one ship, they couldn’t tell. Thirty feet wide, one hundred feet long. It was massive for just three people is all anyone figured, people speculated if the aliens were giants, but that really made no sense.
The man dropped his official tone of voice as he continued to speak to them. “We don’t have much to say but I’ll tell you what we tell every crew that leaves, do humanity proud, if there truly is a test, I’m sure we want a pass and not a fail. Be good.”
“May God have mercy on your souls” he said while staring off in the distance over the top of their heads. He stepped off to the side as right on cue, the ship began to make some mechanical whirrs and a bridge of steps opened up and landed down on the ground in front of them on the open field.
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Adam climbed the steps first, holding onto the railings on the side, he noticed that it seemed designed for humans, or at least something with the same gait. His stride didn’t require an awkward movement of his feet or legs, he was able to hold onto the railing and feel the smooth black surface as he climbed without stretching.
He arrived to the top step and looked inside, comfortable looking seats, numerous screens, little obelisks in the middle of the room. It looked exactly the same as all of the videos he had seen, but he wasn’t expecting the feeling of awe to hit him so hard now that he was really here. He glanced back at his home planet and let out an excited yell, it came out as more of an awkward grunt with a voice crack. He saw Matilda chuckle at him from a few steps down. He walked into the interior of the ship. This was where it become new and exciting for Adam, the only peek that most of humanity had really got at the ships was a shot of the interior from outside, as no one besides the crew members had actually set foot inside the crafts.
He knelt down just to feel the flooring, the smooth black surface was cool to the touch, they only had speculation on the composition of the crafts in terms of material or the breakdown of elements at this stage as humanity acted very cautiously in experimenting on the crafts that were being sent down. The large room at the entrance of the craft had plenty of space, with seats and screens lining the edges. There were a few small pillars placed around the room, Adam hadn’t seen these before and their purpose was not apparent.
As his two new found crew mates boarded the ship in amazement he tried to get to work to figure out everything that he had been planning to check, he tried to touch all of the screens, he tried to look for any hidden switches or buttons on any panel or little obelisk in the room.
The set of stairs had now come back up into the ship and they were now sealed away from the rest of the world, after just a few moments they heard a humming noise as lights around the three most central chairs lit up. He walked over and took his seat in the middle, he had planned for this as well, he wanted to be the leader of the group and was very relieved when the other two seemed less knowledgeable than him and were relying on him throughout the process.
They felt a tiny bit of motion after they had all sat down and then it felt still again, he couldn’t determine if they had actually moved yet, there were no windows to look out after all. Suddenly, Adam heard the same voice as the day that The Refined had arrived. It filled his mind, the same voice, with so much clarity, the speech sounded beautiful really, it had neither male nor female bias to it, it soothed and calmed him instantly. Most of humanity had agreed that the voice and message was pleasant and this was actually a factor in the worlds’ most powerful governments not responding with violence immediately.
“Welcome to your test, we are The Refined, we are determining if your race, if humanity is worthy of joining the council. We are sending you to another universe, one in need of help, if you succeed in helping them, you will proceed to the next stage of your trial. Universe 12.27.887B has been assigned for this crew. First destination Planet Trystoff.”
“What if we don’t want to join you? Brian shouted, his eyes wide. Adam thought he looked terrified or full of adrenaline at the very least. He felt angry that Brian would say something like that to possibly aggravate them.
“How do we help? What do they need? What are your tips? How much danger are we in?” Matilda shouted desperately while Adam was still trying to formulate his own questions.
“I doubt we have a choice, but if you need to hear it, we accept. Guys, they are going to tell us what they want to tell us, I doubt they will answer any specific questions.” Adam was bursting with questions, but he knew from his research and obsession, that it was a key characteristic that they would not properly have a discussion with them, at least at this point.
“Subject A: Adam Oliver, assigning class… Psion. Level 1. Essence Slots, 0.”
Adams’ mind raced, a class? Level 1?
“Subject B: Matilda Jones, assigning class, Cleric. Level 1. Essence Slots, 0.”
“You’re next Brian” is all she said, with a pensive expression.
“Subject C: Brian Ramos, assigning class, Barbarian. Level 1. Essence Slots, 0.”
Adam looked over and saw Brian laughing hysterically. He wondered why the other two didn’t have a pause before the voice read out their class.
“A barbarian? Is this going to be a video game or something? I just hope we don’t really die if we die in the game or something”. Brian shouted.
“Initialising transportation to Planet Trystoff, area designation, Oak Kingdom.”
Adam saw swirls of colourful lights filling more and more of his vision over a space of about ten seconds, vibrant and bright they made loop de loop patterns and took up his entire vision as it eventually become bright enough that he could see all white.
He sat up noting that Matilda and Brian were also sitting up at the same time, it didn’t feel like any time had passed or that they had fell asleep. Adam looked around, it looked like Earth, they were in some type of forest, with a cleared path through it. Tall trees surrounded them on both sides of the path. The dirt path they got up from felt like any old dirt, with some grass growing in spots. Adam took in a deep breath, it all felt familiar to him but his own body felt a little different, but he wasn’t sure in exactly which way.
“I think we should all look at this” come from Matilda pointing ahead further down the path. Adam turned around with Brian. Adam’s jaw dropped, a gargantuan tree filled the sky, it covered up his entire view on that side of the land. It had crystalline purple branches and leaves, with clear light purple and pink colours shimmering down towards the trunk of the tree. It was bigger than mountains he had seen before, it was hundreds of times larger than the other trees around them. He had never seen anything so massive. He noticed that there were also some large walls in the distance and that the tree was actually inside the walls, though he was having trouble telling the size or scale of them because of the immense size of the tree. He also noticed some darker streakers of red and black throughout the tree, it looked out of place, unnatural even but it was already so out there he figured it must be a normal part of it.
“It’s definitely not Earth” Brian was the first to speak out loud in reaction to the tree.
“I guess we are now on Trystoff” Adam paced quickly in the direction of the tree.