Lost in Magadan: Extraterrestrials on Earth

Granite Peak Installation

Once again, Snap was back in the training room on Level 15. Slowly, the room stopped spinning, and Snap forced himself to stand up. All his men were alive and shaking off minor aches and pains. Anderson, who a few minutes earlier had been impaled by a sword, was checking out his stomach and chest with both hands. In a couple of minutes, they were all standing in the training room.

“Told you it was a hologram,” said Tim Moore.

“Bullshit. No way it was a hologram,” Brown argued. “You can’t feel a hologram. I felt that shit. I felt it for real.”

“Quiet,” Snap ordered. The men stopped talking and looked toward Snap and then at the eight-foot-tall beast they had just been fighting.

“I am Ater Velens. This is my base. You will follow my orders while you are here. Do you understand?” Ater towered over them. He was no longer wearing his battle armor, but he appeared to be wearing form-fitting, translucent suit.

“How should we address you?” Snap asked.

“I do not stand on ceremony or titles. You may call me Ater.” As Ater moved, the colorless suit reacted to the movement by changing to different hues of a translucent blur.

“Ater, could you explain what just happened to us?”

“Half of your squad was killed by one Ondagra,” he hissed with a hint of disgust.

“Ondagra?” Jackson asked.

“Ondagra is the name for my people; like you refer to yourselves as humans, we refer to ourselves as Ondagra. My kind, the Ondagra, come from Botacoure, a planet that is located thousands of light years from Earth.”

“How did you transport us to a jungle?” asked Snap.

“Major Slade, I did not transport you anywhere. You never left this room. This room is one big holographic projector. The tiles on the walls, floor, and ceiling are each able to project millions of holographic images at once. Combined with that black dome above us, they create an alternate reality that will trick the eye and mind.” Ater pointed at the hexagon-shaped tiles on the walls and floor.

“Not possible,” Snap said. “We felt the rain on our faces, the trees, the ground and the impacts of your weapons. You can’t feel a hologram.”

“Almost true, Major. You don’t feel the holographic projection. In this room, you are surrounded by billions of flying nanobots. These nanobots interact with the hologram, and when they detect that you are about to come in contact with an object in the holographic world, millions of them contact your skin in the appropriate location with the appropriate pressure so that you think you are touching an object, a tree, rain, or a weapon.”

“I picked up a weapon and fired it. I felt the pistol grip in my hand; I felt the recoil.”

“You saw a holographic image of a weapon. When you went to grab the handle, you really grabbed a hand full of nanobots that applied the correct amount of pressure to the palm of your hand to make you believe you were lifting a weapon. The nanobots are too small for the human eye to see; each one is controlled by microchip that is 1,000 times smaller than a white blood cell. This is a training room. Everything that happens here is recorded for later review,” Ater said, as he waived his hand toward the wall.

Instantly, an image appeared on the plain white wall. “Replay last twenty minutes,” Ater commanded, speaking to the projection on the wall.

“That’s us in the jungle,” Ryan Taylor said in surprise. The wall-sized video display showed a perfect image of the squad sorting through the crate, examining the weapons in the jungle.

“This is a video replay of the simulated attack on your squad. We use the replay as a training exercise, to help you learn what you did wrong. I like running this simulation on new recruits before they are aware of the holographic technology. It gives me a true understanding of each of your strengths and weaknesses. I find soldiers become braver after they realize they are in a simulated hologram,” Ater said, as he crossed his huge arms over his muscular chest.

“When you attacked us, you were wearing advanced body armor, but now you are wearing some type of invisibility suit. How did you change so quickly?” Snap asked.

“I did not change. When you killed me with the 50 BMG, the training exercise immediately ended, and seconds later you were able to see me in this suit. I was wearing this reflective suit during the entire training exercise, it projects the appearance that I am wearing armor. All of you will receive suits like this for training, and when you put them on, they will look and feel exactly like you are wearing the FALOS armor that you wear into combat.”

“You were able to kill half of our squad before being neutralized, and we are one of America’s most elite fighting forces. Those don’t seem like very good odds for the battlefield,” Sergeant Martin said.