In Ur Tubez

by Ken Brady

The would-be invaders of Earth fell victim to gross miscalculation. Vast technological development for a full scale attack nullified by last minute language research.

Bad intelligence. Nothing more.

The fleet’s pilot ship punched through the atmosphere and zeroed in on Silicon Valley. They found empty parking spaces outside the Googleplex, and set down across two of them.

The ramp descended and Admiral Lulz, flanked by a dozen armed elite soldiers, stepped out onto the tarmac, next to an extremely large Honda Fit. Another miscalculation: Lulz had expected Earth vehicles to be smaller.

Humans, gargantuan in size, streamed out of Google, rushed to the ship. In moments, Twitter was abuzz with blurry iPhone photos of the craft and its diminutive crew.

“Look,” said one woman. “They’re so cute!”

Lulz couldn’t understand the words. “WTF?” he said.

“ZOMG! Big ppl iz big!” Commander 2ch said.

“Shud tlk 2 thm,” Lulz said.

“And they make cute little squeaking noises,” the woman said.

The soldiers set up a holoscreen so the humans could view their words.

“Oh hai,” typed Lulz. “I cn haz talk wif ur leedr?”

The people read the text, then began to giggle. Lulz realized he was being taunted.

There was a foolproof way to get them to give in. He cracked his knuckles then typed, “All your base are belong to us!” He grinned maniacally. The soldiers leveled their blasters at the crowd of people.

Another woman leaned down and hugged two of the soldiers. Stunned, they dropped their weapons and squirmed. “Aren’t you just precious,” she said.

2ch was furious. “Hw cn thy do tht? R troops r l33t!” he said.

“Attack!” Lulz said.

They fired their weapons, resulting in clicks and one embarrassing pop and fizzle. The soldiers stared in silence at the lack of death and carnage.

One Google guy leaned down and picked up a blaster. “Doesn’t work?” he said. “Need better QA, guys.” He turned to the woman who was now tickling the two small soldiers.

“What a wasted trip,” he said. “Maybe they should have just texted us.”

He turned around and walked back toward the building. The others followed.

“4 teh Lulz!” 2ch said, and rushed the retreating humans.

Google guy turned around and pointed the blaster at 2ch. “LOL Wut?” he said, and 2ch screeched and retreated in fear. The man, laughing, headed back to work.

Lulz facepalmed, then returned, dejected, to the ship. His soldiers, useless without functioning weapons, followed.

The ship rose above the Bay Area and rejoined the fleet. For several days they monitored the intarweb, trying to decipher societies more complex than anticipated.

Reports of the incident in Mountain View flooded in. Many were scared. Some were fascinated by the prospect of new technology and otherworldly life. Some religious fanatics claimed the beginning and/or end of the world.

Mostly, people just thought the cute little aliens were funny as hell.

People uploaded remixed videos and Flash animations to YouTube and NicoNico Douga, Weezer planned to include the footage in their latest music video, and a Korean schoolboy figured out how to make a functional alien blaster in his parents’ basement from the pics and specs Google guy uploaded.

Humiliated, Lulz pulled up the universal browser, located his destination, and clicked the “I’m feeling lucky” button to take them home.

Sonic

by Jason Fischer

‘Take this. You’ll hear God,’ she said, and without pause he licked the bitter tab from her salty palm, then took another against her protests. And another.

Now she was saying something to him, but all he could hear was a metallic crashing sound every time she opened her lips, every syllable discordant, alien. It was just like a set of house keys thrown against a counter-top, and as she got agitated and clutched at his shoulders, shaking him, her voice became a hundred keys, a thousand.

Sonic, chronic Sonic, he thought, and tried to tell her that he was still off-tap, that rather than fading away, the audible hallucinations were getting stronger.

But even as his mouth moved, even as he formed the words, she looked at him, puzzled. He tried again, but whatever was coming out of his mouth made as much sense as what was coming into his ears.

We have our new Babel, he thought, and tried to pass on this wisdom with his stupid useless tongue.

Her Labrador was barking at him, yipping with excitement, but all that came out was the rolling laughter of a man. He pushed her aside, and nearly tripping over the leaping dog he got through the door and out into the night.

The squeal of the hinges was a wet licking sound, the door’s slam a phlegmatic cough. As he ran wildly along the sidewalk, feet pounding and sliding beneath him, each footstep was the ringing of a bicycle bell.

He went slower, but the ringing became drawn out, emphasised. If he ran, the rings were brisk, shrill. The lesser of two evils.

The cars went by, the city echoing with the snarling of these great cats. A zippy little hatch shot past with the yowling of a feral tom, while a fish-tailing muscle-car throbbed with a lion’s menace, an angry don’t-you-touch-my-kill warning roar.

Shortly after was an ambulance, the cacophony of its sirens the shrill cries of a terrified baby, and then two babies, and then more. It was time to get away from the roads.

The Sonic was stronger now, getting stronger by the second when the drug should have worn off hours ago. Had he taken too much?

Would he ever hear normal sounds again?

He already knew the answer.

Crying, driven to tears and madness (his own wretched sobbing translating into the sounds of breaking glass), he ran his bicycle-bell steps, stopping up his ears for all the good that did. After hours of this permanent disconnect from the world of rational sound, he went to the infamous Leap. These never-ending alien tongues drove him to the cliff’s edge, alone and trapped. Standing there, toe-tips on the edge of a steep eternity, a strong wind swept up to buffet him from the cold black sea.

He stood there in rapture as the roaring wind became clarity and language, and for the rest of his short life he had a direct and profound conversation with God.

END