Being Evolved

I moved to the country seven months ago to get away from the never-ending barrage of a noise and pollution that constantly assaults the senses. I had always wanted to move to the country, and after some years of saving, I did just that. I bought myself a small acreage with a log house, a barn and a chicken coop. I got myself some fine looking goats and chickens, and two large livestock guardian dogs.

The move I made includes a twenty minute ferry ride across one of the largest lakes in rural British Columbia. Once on the southern shore, life really feels like it slows down, allowing the sounds of woodpeckers tapping, coyotes yipping and, on clear nights, when the winds are low, wolves howling in the distance, to mingle with the sounds of the gentle wind whispering through the trees.

I crouched in front of my wood stove stoking the fire, after an incredibly stormy night—we had had four days of windstorms—and I heard my two dogs, Lucan and Molly, bark in such a way to make me think that a predator was on the prowl. Closing the door to my wood stove, I went to my coat rack and slipped on my jacket, touque and pocketed my gloves. I then went to my utility room where I kept my firearms.

Just two days earlier, my friend, a local trapper in the area, had seen cougar tracks on his property just down the hill from me. I grabbed my Remington 760 Game Master, an older pump action rifle that had proven itself earlier in the fall when my trapper friend and I harvested a five-hundred-plus pound boar—the largest male black bear I had ever seen. Taking the magazine, I loaded five rounds, and then pocketed the magazine.

I strode to my door, with full length window, and peered out into the dark of a northern winter morning. The stars was still shining in the sky, but I could just make out the first signs of light as a dull, pinkish hue appeared in the heavens. I could still hear my dogs out in the forest, their constant barks echoing in the still of the dark morn. I leaned my rifle against the solid log wall, and then bent to put on my boots. Then, after putting my gloves on, I grabbed my flashlight, wrapped a scarf around my nose, slung my rifle over my shoulder, and then I opened the door to the freezing temperatures outside.

I still was not accustomed to the freezing temperatures, and that first breath I took outside chilled me right away. There is a smell in the air—when it gets that cold outside—and that is when one knows it is really cold. The smell is similar to that of a chest freezer—that smell of things just being frozen. That is what it smells like when temperatures are cold. Even with the scarf wrapped around my nose, I could feel the hairs in my nose immediately stick together, frozen. It had to be at least minus twenty-five degrees Celsius.

It had snowed last night, and the quiet crunching under my boots was the only sound I heard in the moment as I walked out towards my chicken coop and barn, shining my light around the edges of the fencing looking for tracks. The chickens were still tightly secured in their coop, and the goats were just stepping outside to get to their big round bale of hay, and they greeted me with a chorus of bleats. Of course I did my best impression of a goat bleat in response. All of them looked happy, and nothing seemed to indicate that they had been spooked by a predator. My dogs had quieted, and I could no longer hear them barking in the forest.

I started to trudge back towards my home when I heard whining from behind me. Turning to look, I saw my dogs, Lucan and Molly, slinking out of the forest, tails between their legs, and casting nervous glances behind them from the direction that had come. Feeling slightly nervous myself now, as my two dogs never ran away from a fight, I peered into the forest, trying to see into the shadows. With my senses on high alert, and unconsciously patting my dogs as they came to sit right up against my legs, I heard a whisper of a whirring sound in the forest. Taking a step towards the tree line, I called my dogs to follow and, rather reluctantly, the did, as I took my first step into the darkness of the forest.

I had explored my property a few times, and the small trail I used looked like it had been freshly travelled by both of my dogs, a rabbit, and maybe a coyote, though it could have been one of my neighbour’s dogs. I knew this trail led to a small clearing up the hill, a clearing where the previous owner had set up some beehives. Unfortunately, those beehives had fallen into some disarray after being ripped apart, most probably by a black bear or grizzly bear. I took some comfort knowing that, with winter set upon us like this, bears would be hibernating right now. I certainly did not want to meet a grizzly in the forest.

The whirring sound became louder, sounding like a giant swarm of bees, which I knew would not be the case as the beehives were completely destroyed. As I stepped into the clearing, taking a look around, I heard the whirring from above me. My dogs refused to join me in the clearing, electing to stay in the trees, watching with wide eyes. Peering through the dim light, I saw a large drone just on the other side of the small clearing, tangled in the trees branches above. Strange, I thought to myself, taking a step closer towards the drone. It let out a series of beeps, and the whirring became faster, as though the drone were trying to escape. A small dome flashed on the bottom, and I knew in that moment that someone was operating this drone and had taken a picture of me.

I felt in that moment that the peace and calm of my rural sanctuary had been violated. I had moved away from the city to escape things like this. I unslung my rifle, loaded the magazine and I looked through the scope, lining up that camera on the drone right in the crosshairs. I was about to click the safety off when the whirring stopped, and I heard a faint voice.

“Hello. Please, don’t shoot my drone. I promise, I mean you no harm.”

Surprised, I lowered my rifle a bit to study the drone again. Someone could see me through that thing, and they were talking to me. The voice sounded strange, almost like Siri’s voice on the smartphones, but a little more melodic.

“I can see that you’re not convinced,” the voice from the drone continued. “Here, if you help me free this drone, I’ll just be on my way, and there will be no need to…” the voice paused, and it sounded like there were some voices whispering in another language, one with which I was unfamiliar. “As I was saying a short moment ago,” the voice continued, “if you help us, we’ll help you.”

Curious, I responded. “How would you help me?”

“We are carrying several small packages,” the voice from the drone replied, “and we would leave one with you if you but help us free this drone so we can have it travel to its assigned destination.”

“What’s in the package?” I asked, feeling off with this entire encounter.

“Oh, nothing much. It would just be a token of our gratitude,” replied the melodic voice.

“That doesn’t really answer the question,” I replied.

“It would change your life,” the voice said enticingly. “Here, we’ll drop it now.” A small, cardboard box was released from a compartment in the drone, and fell into the shallow snow at the base of the tree.

“What is it?” I called to the drone.

“You’ll have to find out yourself,” the voice replied. “Now please, help free our drone from the tree.”

“I don’t think so,” I replied, raising my rifle and taking aim.

“Please don’t! This will ruin…”

I shot.

The impact of the bullet slamming into the drone caused much of the machine to shatter and break, pieces of it falling to the snow-covered forest floor below. The propellers still hung in the branches, as well as part of the housing for the electrical components. I turned to walk away, I would come back another day to clean up the mess—maybe wait till spring when the snow had melted away so I could find all of the pieces that, now, were hidden by the snow.

Before leaving the clearing, I turned to survey the mess, all of the pieces of the drone scattered there, and I saw the little, cardboard box sitting at the base of the tree from which it had fallen. Curiosity got the better of me, and I walked over to pick it up. It was about the size of a deck of cards, and so I pocketed the item, and then noticed several more of the boxes laying in the snow. Not wanting to leave something that could be potentially dangerous for my dogs, I picked the remaining small packages—there were seven more—and crammed them into the oversized pockets of my jacket.

The sky was now a beautiful pink as I stepped out from the trail, my rifle securely strapped across my back, into the main section of my property. I meandered over to the barn, and went inside. I took out the eight small packages and stacked them on the shelf where I kept my miscellaneous items. I then went and scooped a few cups of grain into the goats’ feed trough and then took the pitchfork off from the wall and used the tines to break up the ice in their bucket of water. With that done, I stepped out the door, almost closing it behind me, but then I went back to take one of the small packages and put it in my pocket. I flicked the light switch, turning off the heat lamp, and then left the barn.

On my way back to the house, I stopped to open the door to the chicken coop so that they could get out to wander a bit. I would have to go back to the house to get a jug of warm water to fill their pan, and their feed hopper looked low as well. Fortunately I had a bag of feed stored in the crawlspace. I walked back to my house, stamped my feet at the door and went inside.

Stepping inside my house, I set my rifle beside the door and I absentmindedly reached into the pocket of my jacket and took the small package out, tossing it onto my small table. Taking a jug off of my table, I walked over to the sink and set it under the tap. As I turned the tap on, testing the water with my fingers so I could feel it warm up, I heard a small buzz from the dining room table, like that of an incoming text on a cellphone. Only, I no longer had a cell phone. I turned off the water and listened again for the noise. I heard it again and so I went to check what could have made that sound.

The package vibrated ever so slightly, and the buzzing sound came from it. Picking up the small cardboard box, I flipped it around a few times in my hand to get a closer look at it. I noticed, for the first time, that it seemed disproportionately heavy for its size. There were no markings on the cardboard, no address, nothing to indicate who this was for or where it should be going. I also noticed that there were no seams or joints in the cardboard. No packing tape keeping it closed either. It all seemed to be made of one, unbroken piece. That’s odd. I lifted it to my ear and listened for whatever it was inside the box that made the noise. I couldn’t hear anything. As I was about to rest it on the table again, it buzzed, causing me to fumble and drop the package back onto the table with a solid thud.

Thinking to myself that whatever technological device was inside was now just wrecked, I decided to open the box. Reaching into my right pocket, I grabbed my small knife that I always kept in there and carefully made a cut along the edge of the box. The cardboard easily divided, like it knew the knife was cutting, and so it parted for the blade. A few more cuts, and the cardboard, which I was sure now was not cardboard, fell off.

A silvery prism was revealed. It had glowing blue lines that formed some sort of ancient looking glyphs, though the whole thing itself looked like something I had read about in science fiction novels. My eyes roamed over the device, studying the strange object as I turned it in my hands. I traced my fingers over some of the glyphs, trying to figure out what exactly I was holding. As I finished tracing over a glyph that looked like a squiggly river with dots along the side, the glowing lines on the object flashed orange, and I dropped the thing, letting out a muttered curse, as it fell to the floor putting a bit of a dent in the old hardwood.

Feeling a little silly, I bent to run my hand over the new dent in the floor, picked up the object, and then it flashed a brilliant white light, which momentarily blinded me. I shouted, confused and dazed, and then I felt an incredible wind as the roof of my house was torn off of the log walls. A light, brilliant purple, filled the room, and the sound of giant engines deafened me as they roared above. I felt my feet lift off of the ground as I floated up. I could not see what was happening to me—my eyes were watering badly from the brilliance of the light—and I am sure I was screaming, but my voice was drowned out by the sound of the…whatever it was.

I was sucked up into the belly of a space craft—exactly like the things you read about in science fiction novels. My eyes, overwhelmed by the intensely dazzling light, were all of a sudden blinded by darkness as a door beneath me closed, and I felt my feet land on something solid.

“Hello, Mr. Fletcher,” a voice said. It was the voice from the drone.

“Who are you? What are you doing with me?” I demanded, feeling a sense of dread at the answer I would receive.

“Oh. We’re here to collect you,” the voice responded. In the dim lighting of the room, I could barely make out a form of something walking towards me.

“Stay away from me!” I yelled, reaching into my pocket for my knife…which I had left on the table.

“Don’t worry,” the being said. “This will be over and done with before you even know.”

A vapour filled the room, and I felt a suffocating sensation come over me as I gasped for air. I fell to my knees, clutching my throat, trying to breathe. Darkness overcame me.

Flash! I threw up.

Flash! A surgical masked face peered down at me. “They’ve evolved slower than we thought they would. We’ll give this one a boost.”

Flash! Machines beeped. “The surgery looks like it was a success.”

Flash! Freezing cold. “We’ll keep him for monitoring for a while.”

Darkness.

~:~

I awoke in my own bed to the sound of radio alarm clock playing classic rock. Confusion filled my mind as I sat up, stretched my arms into the air as I let out a long sigh, and then rubbed the palms of my hands to my eyes. “What a deep sleep,” I mumbled as I got up and stepped into my slippers. Walking down the stairs, I noticed my rifle sitting beside the door. Odd, I thought. I don’t remember leaving that out like that.

I walked over to my rifle and removed the magazine, checked to ensure there was not a round chambered, and then walked over to my utility room where I hung my rifle back up in its spot, and unloaded the rounds from the magazine. There were only four rounds. Strange, I don’t remember shooting this recently. I put the rounds back into my ammunition box, and made my way to the bathroom.

Turning on the light to the bathroom, I went to the sink, and started filling it with warm water, and then I looked in the mirror. What I saw there startled me. Yesterday I had maybe three weeks of growth. Now I had what looked to be nearly half a year’s worth. My muscles looked bulkier, my eyes shown a different way, and my pupils looked like ovals, not circles. My chest had a thin scar running down the middle, so faint I would not have noticed except for the fact that my chest hair grew a little awkwardly beside the scar.

“What happened to me?”

I raced out of the bathroom for the front door. I was not sure exactly what I was doing, but before I got there, a small, silvery prism on my kitchen counter caught my attention. Memories came flooding back to me. I went over to the object and picked it up. The glyphs, a totally different language, were now decipherable. They read: Welcome, human, to the Intergalactic Community for Lower Species Evolutionary Enhancements.