Why didn't I think of that

Barry Mortimer is an adverage, run of the mill 40 year old. He lives in a small, quiet town in California. He is employed as a computer programmer at a shabby computer store called the Distant Future. Mortimer lives in a small but cozy house on the outskirts of town. He is an quiet, intelligent, ordinary guy, who everyone loves. He enjoys his private, conservative home. The community is friendly and place where everyone knows everyone. Nothing ever extraordinary happens in Kumquat, California or to Mortimer. Until a icy, November morning in 1991, when everything in Mortimer's life was turned upside down and inside out.



Mortimer walked to work that morning because his car was trying to revolt against him by refusing to start. While following his version of the yellow brick road to work, he noticed a blue pickup truck speeding up the road toward him. As the truck rushed forwarded, in a second the driver hit the brakes. The truck came to a screeching hault and skidded to the side because of the ice patched road. A man covered from head to toe in black leaped from the truck and grabbed Mortimer. Mortimer was old but still quick and tried to fight the assailant. The attacker underestimated his combat skills and took him longer to subdue the old man. After a brief brawl, Mortimer was hit with chloriform and blacked out, but while fighting the effects of the drug, he was able to deliver a hard punch at attacker's nose. Both fell back onto the pavement. The driver jumped out of the car to helped his partner up and struggled to carry Mortimer's dead weight into the back of the truck. They bound him with tie wraps and covered them with blankets and a tarp. "Lets go", the attacker demanded, while wiping blood from his nose.



When Mortimer woke up, he noticed he was in an cold, abandoned warehouse. He figured the warehouse probably once housed airplanes because of the oil stains on the conrete floor. It was cold enough to see his breath and feel the sharp chill sting his body. The room was bare and had a feeling of despair and hopelessness. He was tied tightly to a chair in the middle of the massive room. A single lamp hung above him and was the only light throughout the entire warehouse, which created a creepy shadow beyond the rest the small beam of light form the lamp. However, he did small a tiny glow at the other side of the room, which he debated whether if it was an actual light or his mind playing tricks on him. His eyes adjusted to the darkness and saw the attacker and driver playing a game of monopoly. It looked to him like the driver had a hand over his brutal friend. Moments later, they noticed he was awake and to join him, making his initially plan of playing dead difficult.



"Morning sunshine", sneered the attacker. He voice was cold and harsh. He was surrounded by a stench of cheap colonge and after shave, which made Mortimer's eyes water. Mortimer noticed his meticulous bindings and relied, " Who was in Boy Scouts?" He knew he was risking it by being cocky, but these two dimwits were really starting to agitate him, especially his attacker. When the driver heard the question he looked up, " Me, you noticed? I was the best in my troop." Mortimer could already tell he wasn't the brightest of crayon in the box. He thought the driver was probably a good hearted guy who went down the wrong path and ended up working with this deadbeat. He couldn't help but feel a little sympathy for the guy. "Yes, its a really nice job. What kind of knots are these?", Mortimer continued as if this was a normal conversation at a coffee shop. "Shut up!", the attacker interupted, " Enough with the small talk ladies, its time to get down to business."



The attacker began the interrogation. He shone the light into Mortimer's eye, which he probably learned from some bad movie. "Where is it?", he demanded. He tried to intimidate and scare Mortimer, but it wasn't working. " Where's what?", asked Mortimer. He was puzzled and wondered what they wanted and why they kidnapped him. This just made the attacker more furious. " Don't act stupid, you know what I want !", fumed the assaulter. Growing impatient, he signalled the driver to search Mortimer. The driver came over and grabbed his bag and reached inside and pulled out an overdue libaray book, The Picture of Dorian Grey. " It's a classic", Mortimer responded. This engaged the attacker and threw the book at the driver's head. It hit him square in the face and he screamed out in agony. When the drive looked up he had a balck eye and a busted lip that would swell to the size of a baseball. The attacker screamed at Mortimer and his partner some more for a couple hours hoping he would break. He used torture techiques, that if used by an authentic agent of the FBI, CIA, or other government agency, would have broken him into tears. However, the attacker was badly trained and have poor knownledge of these techniques and failed at securing the information he wanted. Finally, he grew suspicious and asked the driver, " Are you sure this is the right guy?". " I swear", the driver pleaded, while covering his face just in case he threw something eles, " He's Morton, the he works for bank". " He embezzed over a million dollars with dumby cooperations". This made Mortimer laugh, " Moton died two weeks ago while jumping into an active volcano".



The attacker was irate now. He pulled out a gun, a musket. Mortimer was unsure whether he was going to stab or shoot him. He pointed the musket at the driver and said " I should shoot you too", with a horrible grin on his face. The he turned to Mortimer, as if in slow motion, and aimed to shoot. However, he was interupted by a loud rumble from above. " What the...", the attacker started. The sound vibrated the whole warehouse and made him feel like he was convulsing in the chair. Then the center of the roof, directly above them, started to pull away. They just stared up in shock and were atonished. The driver fled the room for safety and the attack stood still and watched phenomenon hover over them in anticipation and fear. The warehouse was suddenly filled with artificial light of a UFO. Within the light, a green beam of light materialized over him. He was sudden filled with a feeling similar to being in an elevator while it's moving. Then bang, he was out in a blight of a second.



When Mortimer woke up he was in a chamber-like prison cell. The room was bare and odd looking. The were all white and clean. The bed was apart of the wall and the door was made of a vaporizing laser shield. He looked out towards the hall and saw the same kind of architecture, clean, white walls and straight lines. He also observed small devices, blinking green lights, line up on the wall . This brought back memories of watching reruns of Star Trek.



After sitting in the cell for what seemed like hours, the lights finally started blinking yellow and two creatures with guns that looked like props from Men in Black, appeared at the door. The shield disappeared and the chupacabras signalled him to follow. The chupacabras looked like reptiles, their skin was leathery and greenish gray. They had short, sharp spines run down their back and hops instead of walking. They were only about 3 or 4 feet high. They lead him to the bridge, control center, of the space ship. He looked out of the window in the front of the UFO and saw nothing but space. The ship closely resembled the Enterprise from Star Trek, but it was more modern and had more strange objects. The crew were all strange looking aliens. They were a lime green with scaley skin. Their head were a upside down pear shape and had big black eyes. They moved with a gracefullness to them. As he entered they all turned to see him. Instead of fear, mortimer was over come with a feeling of calmness and curiousity.



The captain alien, who was in charge of the ship, came towards him and nodded to the chupacabras to return to their posts." Welcome Mortimer, we have been waiting for you", the alien said. He spoke without moving his lips, which were almost non existent. They talked using telepathy. The captain continued," Do not fear us, as humans say, we come in peace". "What do you want?", Mortimer asked out loud, which felt strange since the whole space ship was silent. The captain lead him to the center controls, where there was an old Apple computer from 1984. "This is our primary system controller", he said, "during our last battle with the Nelspars, it was damaged and much of our fleet has been destroyed. Without our primary system working, we are unable to make the entire voyage back to our home world or communicate. We cannot operate the hyperdrive and open a wormwhole ". Mortimer smiled, " So basically E.T can't phone home?". The captain looked to his crew then turned back to Mortimer and replied, " We do not comprehend". "Nevermind", shrugged Mortimer, " How do you expect me to fix this, I don't know anything about alien technolongy?".The captain simply replied, "We know you can or eles we could not have abducted you, are you not a computer programmer?".



Mortimer work for hours repairing the computer. However, aboard the ship, all sense of time was lost. He was able to figure out most of the coding and whatever he stuggled with one of the alien crew members came to help him. Finally, he finished and the system was succefully repaired. The captain returned and thanked Mortimer for his work. " I am glad I do not have to kill you now", the captain said. " Thats reassuring, at least I know I wont be fed to the chupacabras", Mortimer replied. " No, the chupacabras only suck goat's blood", comforted the captain. "When can I go home?", he asked. " Your service is done here, so you may return now", the captain answered. He nodded to one of his crew members to bring him the earth transporter, the comrade left the deck. He returned and handed the captain a cell phone, it was an old Motorola DynaTAC from 1983. " This will return you home with the right sequence code".



Bang! The ship took was hit. The warning alarms went off and one of the alien members informed the captain the enemy was back. The ship recieved more hits and shook the deck. Mortimer dropped the phone and fell to the floor. " Prepare to fire!", the captain demanded." The enemy is approaching", yelled an alien. They begun to fight back.However, Nelspar was advancing on them and causing the ship serious damage. Another member stated that the ship could not take many hits before all systems would be shut down. " We must leave now, prepare transport", the captain declared. " Wait ! What about me?", Mortimer asked. Mortimer quickly grabbed the phone and ran to the captain. " The correct sequence is 88881", the captain responed. Mortimer couldn't help himself and asked one more question before dialing the last digit. " What's your name, if you have one?". The alien captain only said one word," Elvis", then pressed the last digit in the sequence. Mortimer was in a wurl of time and space. He felt nauseated and queasy.



Mortimer landed hard on the icy pavement. He was where it all started, where the morons kidnapped him. He looked up to the sky in search of the UFO. He was no evidence of the space craft. " Live long and prosper", he said to himself. He continued on his way to work, contemplating the day's events. As he opened the door of the Distant Future, his boss, Larry, stood waiting there to scold him. " Your late", Larry sneered. Larry was the kind of guy who held grudge and didn't like people. He was a bald, short, greedy person and had a short temper. " If you knew the day I had, you would understand", MMortimer explained. His boss looked at him as if he was stupid, "Day?", you're only an hour late. Mortimer just laughed, of course he was. " It you're going to like an imbecile, you should have stayed home", Larry yelled and marched out of the room. Mortimer sat at his desk to start the day's work. He had to finish repairing a broken monitor for Mrs. Robinson. " Why didn't I think of that", Mortimer thought to himself.