Third Person Thursday: A Familiar Threat

“Please, tell Agent Hooper what you told me.”

He nervously glanced from the uniformed police officer to the man in the dark suit with the tightly combed hair.  There was an obvious connection between the two, but the new man seemed much more serious and less likely to believe his startling account.

“It’s alright,” encouraged the officer.  “I already told him a little.  I want him to hear it coming from you.”

The man in the dark suit nodded silently and so he began speaking.

“I’m not sure exactly when it will take place, but the assault will be quite orderly.  They will use a method they have employed on countless other worlds.  There will be five waves.”

Agent Hooper leaned forward on table at which he sat, produced a pen from his suit coat and began taking notes on a pad of paper.

“The first two waves will be the lowest ranking, the grunt of their forces if you will.  They move slower, but are meant to draw your attention and eat up fire.  They are considered the disposable of their species and resemble great crabs.”

He looked briefly at the pad of paper and read upside down, “Large crabs,” in the agent’s handwriting.  He was comforted somewhat by the fact that nothing was written as far as he could see describing him as insane, so he continued.

“These first two waves will seem easy enough to dispose of, but that is exactly their ploy.  They will maneuver in such a way that when you dispatch the first two waves, the entire army will have gained a significant amount of ground on you.  By freeing them of the slower soldiers in front of them, you have unwittingly made way for the more specialized, faster troops.  There will be two waves of them now bearing down on your defenses.”

“But they won’t look like the others, will they?” said the officer he had originally spoken with as a means to be sure the agent heard the same details he did.

“No.  These aliens will look more insect like.  And as well as their side to side movement, which is part of their attack strategy, they will also move like…like…” he moved his arms up and down in unison at his sides as he searched for the words.

“Like they are flying?” offered the agent.

“No,” he shook his head.  “Like…like exercise.”

“Jumping jacks,” the officer said.

He pointed to the officer.  “Yes.”

He watched as Agent Hooper scrambled to write down all the details.  When he saw a break in his writing, he went on.

“Should your aim be true and steady enough and you have the luck to get past these two waves, the most elite alien soldiers of them all await you.  There are fewer of them.  They will attack in only one wave, but it is this wave you must fear the most.”

He paused to let the seriousness of his words sink in.  The officer tugged at his collar and Agent Hooper noticeably swallowed.

“This final wave will move with great speed and should you let them get too close, it will spell certain doom.”

“Dare I ask what they look like?” asked Agent Hooper.

He looked from Hooper to the officer and back to Hooper again.  “Giant squids,” he answered.  “And they will cut through space as a squid glides through the water, closing in upon us all and reaching with their massive tentacles to devour us.”

All three men sat in silence then.  Agent Hooper glanced back over his notes to be sure he hadn’t missed anything.  His superiors would want to hear about this.  The other two men looked at the floor, the weight of the information pushing down upon them.

“I’ll be honest,” Agent Hooper finally spoke, “this is not the type of information we normally receive.  But something about your tale, Mr. Nishikado seems eerily familiar to me.”

“I said the same thing,” the officer excitedly added.  “Whole thing gave me the willies.  Real déjà vu.”

Agent Hooper stood and offered his hand to Mr. Nishikado, who graciously accept and shook it.  “I will be in touch, sir.  In the meantime, I ask you not to speak of this with anyone else.”  He then turned to the uniformed officer and said, “That goes for you too, Jim.”

“Yes sir,” both replied simultaneously.

Once the other two men had left the room, Agent Hooper sat heavily back down in his chair and sighed.  He then took out a cell phone and dialed a number.  “Yes sir, this is Hooper,” he spoke into it.  “It would appear we have a credible threat of invasion, sir.  Invasion…from space.”