Zeke looked out the porthole at the alien landscape whizzing by beneath them. It seemed to consist largely of splotches of red and purple, with just a little bit of snot-green mixed in.
Sadie was looking out the porthole next to him. "Cool," she said with her mouth hanging slightly ajar. "I always wanted to cruise around in a flying saucer."
"I can't say I sat around dreaming of this or anything, but it's kind of neat," Zeke acknowledged.
Nulfar turned and smiled at them. "This vessel is the very unit in which we abducted you, Earthman."
"Uh, I'm not sure what to think about that," Zeke said. "Cool, I guess."
Nulfar frowned. "But where is your spouse? Did you not wish to share this spectacular experience with your soul mate?"
"Milosh and I are pursuing different interests at the moment," Zeke said. He had barely managed to sneak away on this expedition without the overbearing alien discovering his whereabouts. He planned on fully enjoying his "me" time.
"How fast can this baby go?" Sadie asked.
"Theoretically it can go very fast," Nulfar said. "Much faster than the fastest Earth aircraft ever devised. Of course that goes without saying since your technology is so laughably primitive. We prefer to keep the speed on the medium setting when cruising around for safety reasons."
"Can I try flying it?" Sadie asked.
"That would be a violation of code number XJ6666666666666666666666664."
"Aw, come on," Sadie pouted.
"Well I suppose you could take the controls for a little bit," Nulfar shrugged.
"Awesome!" Sadie said as she jumped into the pilot's seat and grabbed the steering handles. "This is the sweetest thing ever."
"You seem to have a knack for piloting the saucer," Nulfar said.
"I've played many hours of video games in my day," Sadie said. "This is a piece of cake. Say, do you think we could abduct some of the native life forms?"
"Indeed we can," Nulfar said. "Our sensors indicate there is an individual nearby. You'll need to slow down so we do not go whizzing past him."
She pressed on a large red button labeled "brakes" and the saucer slowed down noticeably. Looking through the viewport she spotted a tall purple humanoid figure running frantically away from the spacecraft that had appeared suddenly overhead. She pushed the tractor beam button and the fleeing alien was bathed in a bright light and then sucked up into the hold. "Got him!" Sadie smiled. "That was oddly satisfying. Can I capture another one?"
"It appears there are some other life forms not too far from here," Nulfar said while consulting a screen. "Let us go investigate."
"Hey Zeke, you want to try steering this thing?" Sadie asked. "It's fun."
"It looks kind of complicated," Zeke said.
"What's the matter, are you afraid?"
"No, of course not," Zeke said. "Get out of the driver's seat, woman." No sooner had he sat down than his head began to feel a little funny. "Hey how come everything's spinning around?"
"I don't know," Sadie said as she clutched at her forehead. "I suddenly feel really weird."
Nulfar looked up with interest. "Perhaps you are exhibiting a delayed reaction to the Arcturan snake milk I gave you. I shall have to make a note of this."
"This thing isn't as easy to steer as you made it look," Zeke mumbled as he began turning the steering mechanism rapidly one direction than the other. Without warning he felt as if his stomach had climbed up into his throat. "I think we might be falling out of the sky."
The thunderous crash that followed a moment later proved that Zeke's theory was indeed correct.
*
Dr. Wentworth paced back and forth and repeatedly looked at his wristwatch. "Where is that boy? I have finally completed my greatest invention, the device that will allow me to utterly destroy that despicable Octavius once and for all, and I am unable to test it out to see if it even works. If only I weren't surrounded by incompetence! I'm afraid young Eustace will never make a proper mad scientist at this rate. I'll have to phone up the community college and see if they can send me someone else."
The door flung open and Eustace walked in with a big shit-eating grin on his face. "You'll be happy to learn that I've located a test subject, sir."
"Excellent!" Dr. Wentworth thrust both his fists in the air in triumph and laughed maniacally. "Where is this person?"
"He's following me in his car," Eustace said. "He should be here shortly. He was very eager to come meet you after I explained everything to him."
Dr. Wentworth's smile fell sharply. "What do you mean you explained everything to him?"
"He asked me what I was doing so I went into thorough detail about you and your mind control device and how you wanted me to kidnap somebody so you could test it out on them."
"What? You idiot! This is top secret work we're doing here. You're not supposed to explain what we're doing to people. You're supposed to bop them over the head and drag their unconscious body here. Either that or lure them to come under false pretenses. You may have attracted the wrong sort of attention."
"Oh good, he's here," Eustace said.
A uniformed police officer entered the room with his gun drawn. "Dr. Jonas Wentworth? You're under arrest for kidnapping and attempting to conquer the world."
*
Zeke slowly regained consciousness and couldn't help but notice a large lizard-like creature with big round bulbous eyes sniffing at his feet. "Hey what do you think you're doing?"
The creature's eyes extended upwards on two antenna-like stalks and peered at Zeke. It opened its mouth and an array of blue, orange, and red lights shot out. The colors lingered in the air for a few seconds and then slowly dissipated. The creature retracted its eyes and resumed sniffing Zeke's feet.
Zeke attempted to sit up and then laid back down with a groan. He ached all over his body. Looking around, he realized he was resting in the wrecked remains of the flying saucer. He was on top of a chunk of control panel with twisted bits of metal and broken gears scattered all around him. The crash seemed to have blown the saucer wide open as he could see the reddish tinted sky overhead and could also see a large grove of trees out of his peripheral vision. He had no idea where Sadie or Nulfar were.
The creature opened its mouth again and this time a bright yellow light shot out. Two small appendages extended out of its chest and it used them to yank Zeke's tennis shoes off. It flung them over its shoulder off into the trees somewhere.
"Hey, those were my best pair of shoes," Zeke said. "Also my only pair of shoes."
The creature proceeded to yank off Zeke's socks. It took a big whiff of them and its eyes rolled backwards with a glazed look while a smile formed on its face. Alternating red and green lights leaked out of its mouth.
"You're not taking my socks, too," Zeke said as he attempted to reach for them.
The creature bared its teeth at him and shot out black and gray colored lights at him. Then it scampered off into the trees, taking Zeke's socks with it.
"Damn it," Zeke said. "Now I'm going to have to come after you." He lifted himself up again, ignoring the protesting aches and pains of his body and dropped barefoot to the ground. He was dismayed to discover that this planet's surface seemed to be covered with sharp pointy pebbles and copious amounts of little thorny weeds. On top of that, there were broken shards of glass and jagged pieces of metal strewn about from the crash. "You couldn't just leave my shoes with me? You had to throw them off into the woods? Not cool, man."
He looked over into the trees and saw the creature was now hanging out with three more creatures of its species. They appeared to be taking turns passing his socks around and sniffing them deeply.
"What happened?" he heard Sadie's voice coming from behind him.
"Um, I think I crashed the flying saucer. Also I think those aliens over there are getting high off of my socks."
"Seriously? You crashed the flying saucer? How bad of a driver are you?"
"That's not fair. I was feeling weird from the alien milk. You felt it too. I just had the misfortune of being the one flying the saucer when it kicked in."
"Lesson learned," Sadie said. "Don't drink Arcturan snake milk and pilot flying saucers. If we ever get back to Earth we should get some D-list celebrity to make a public service announcement about that."
"The good news is we seem to be unharmed. I'm just lacking footwear at the moment because of those weirdos over there."
One of the lizard creatures took a big huff of Zeke's sock and then shot light out of its mouth in brilliant shades of pink, orange, and turquoise.
"Hey can my friend have his socks back?" Sadie asked.
The creature bared its teeth and sent out black and gray light again.
"I'll take that as a no," Sadie said. "What did they do with your shoes?"
"They threw them off into the trees somewhere," Zeke said. "I'd go look for them, but this isn't exactly the most barefoot friendly terrain. Would you mind taking a quick look?"
"I'll do it, but only because I like the cut of your jib, kid," Sadie said as she playfully tapped Zeke on the chin.
"I don't really know what that means, but thanks."
Sadie made sure to give the lizard creatures a wide berth as she walked around them and into the grove of trees.
"Uh oh," Zeke heard Nulfar's voice from behind him. "This is not good. I will probably be demoted to dish washing duty for this debacle."
"I'm terribly sorry about this," Zeke said. "But to be fair you did give us poison before encouraging us to take the controls."
"You seem to have recovered from the effects nicely," Nulfar said. "Perhaps poison is too strong of a description. I would barely call that an intoxicant."
"Well whatever it was, you shouldn't drink it before piloting a flying saucer. Maybe Sadie's right. Maybe we do need some sort of public service announcement about this."
"I do not know what you speak of, Earthling. I drink Arcturan snake milk and fly all the time. I find it good for the constitution."
"Yeah, whatever. In the meantime, I suppose we should just wait for your friends to find us again with those trackers they put in our heads?"
"Certainly," Nulfar agreed. "They will locate us shortly. While we wait perhaps we should attempt to communicate with the native life forms over there."
"Good luck with that," Zeke said. "All they do is shoot out different colored lights and sniff my socks."
Nulfar cleared his throat and immediately shot an array of blue and white light out of his mouth.
"How did you do that?" Zeke asked.
"I told you all primitive languages are simple for us. Now hush they are speaking back."
"What are they saying?" Zeke asked.
"They say... Look out behind you."
Zeke turned around to see a ten-foot tall angry purple man swinging a large tree branch towards his face.