Ancient Allens

“Look, man, I think I know where it is. It’s gotta be down here somewhere.” Nick told his friend Johnny on the way down the creaky basement stairs. The mission: find Nick’s spare controller to his Xbox—so Nick, as he thought, could kick Johnny’s ass in a few rounds of Mortal Kombat. The basement lit up at the bottom once Nick hit the light switch. Old and new junk lined the white walls and made piles on the floor where boxes and totes stacked around the space.

Nick led Johnny over to the pile he called ‘new junk’. His new junk. Being an only child meant he got to be spoiled over the years, and his parents spoiled him plenty. Nothing in the pile was truly junk, just items that Nick didn’t find the use for in his room anymore. And when he was ordered by his mother to clean his room, he found the basement much bigger than his closet, which he used to stuff everything in. “Whoa, check this out. I used to have one of these!” Johnny held up a black sphere with colorful circles stuck all around it. “It’s a disco ball, right?”

“Yeah. Mom got me that for a birthday one year. My…twelfth, I think?” Nick replied as Johnny placed the disco ball on the counter next to his ‘new junk’. 

Johnny became more interested in his friend’s stuff. He knew Nick had money—his father owned a construction company and his mother was a therapist—and with money came all the best toys and other forms of entertainment. “Check out this huge ass bear!” Johnny went for the huge blue teddy bear sitting against the wall with a tub of lego pieces in its lap.

“Oh yeah, that’s Mr. Berry. Had to evict him from my room.” Nick said, clawing through an old birthday bag full of his old toys. When Johnny pointed out some other cool thing he owned, Nick sighed and looked over at him. “Come on, man. We’re supposed to be looking for the controller. You know, so I can kick your ass.”

“Not happening. And don’t blame me. You’ve never taken me down here.” Johnny put down a small drone he was holding. “All the cool stuff is down here.”

Nick shrugged, “It’s cool, but was cooler years ago. I’m seventeen now, almost eighteen. Gotta let some stuff go, you know? You too, with that big ol’ Bowser stuffed animal on your bed.”

Johnny frowned, “Hey, he’s not a stuffed animal, he’s a collectible.”

“Oh, sure.”

While Nick kept his search going, Johnny kept his searching going elsewhere. He’d wandered away from Nick’s things and got into Mr. and Mrs. Allen’s things. He thought Nick’s things were cool. His parents’ things were straight-up interesting. Boxes of theirs held fuzzy photographs in glass frames. One looked like a bride and groom, perhaps Nick’s parents—Nick’s mother was Caucasian and his father was Black, just like the biracial newlyweds in the photo. But it was hard to be exactly sure when it was so blurry.  There were clearer pictures of Nick from when he was a baby and throughout the years until he was maybe thirteen. His hair had gotten much curlier over the years. Books lined up neatly inside another box. They ranged from books about the world to translations to animals.

Johnny roamed through the basement further, investigating the left-side wall. Even more junk, even more boxes. But something stuck out to him in the corner. Johnny had to maneuver carefully through the piles to get to it. Once he reached the box he was looking for, he dragged it out from beneath some old curtains. “Hello, Flintstones.” He murmured, blowing dust off of the computer monitor that poked from the opened lid of the box. The computer in question was pretty old. Johnny guessed it to be a model from the 70's if not the 50's. Were there computers in the 50's, he wondered. “Hey, Nick, you ever used this old thing before?”

Nick’s voice sounded a mile away when he called back, “What the hell did you get yourself into now?” He’d finally found the controller—it was in Mr. Berry’s tub of Legos. “Come on, Johnny, I’ve got the controller.”  Nick made his way to his friend. His eyes landed on the computer in the box. Johnny was taking it out, shaking it free from the box’s hold. “Hey, careful with that! It may be ancient, but it’ll probably be worth something in a few years.”

“It’s over here with all the other junk.” Johnny looked at the monitor in his hands. The keyboard dangled from it. “Don’t see a mouse for it.”

Nick’s eyebrows furrowed. Something about the older piece of tech intrigued him. He wondered what might’ve been on it—what were his parents, at the age of them owning the computer, doing on it? “Let’s bring it to my room.”

After Johnny stuffed it back in the box, the two headed up the basement stairs and down the long hallway towards the set of stairs leading to the second floor. “Hey, have any of your parents traveled? I saw some books about continents and languages.” Johnny asked Nick on the way up.

Nick shrugged, “Dad’s been on a few business trips for some projects. Those weren’t out of the country, though. Any time we’ve vacationed, it’s still been in the States. Maybe those are my mom’s. She likes to learn a new thing every now and then, even if she’s basically Einstein reincarnated.” A true fact, as Nick liked to think. Not only was his mother notably intelligent, his father was the same way. Why their ‘smart genes’ never quite passed onto him was a question he often asked himself—especially during school tests. 

In his bedroom, he told Johnny to set up the computer on his empty desk by the closet while he went to boot up the Xbox. It was his place to do his homework and do some sketching from time to time. Nick didn’t consider himself an artist, but when he had nothing better to do, some time with paper, a pencil, and some tunes did him some good. And sketch time was rare. He had a massive bed to lay in and watch videos or scroll through social media all day. He also had his gaming space by the flat screen TV over his dresser. 

“All set up.” Johnny announced after plugging the computer into the wall. “But, like I said, no mouse.”

“Maybe we don’t need it.” Nick suggested. “Maybe computers like this back then let you use the arrows or whatever to move the cursor-thing.” 

“Okay, even I know that’s not possible. Would be cool—and painfully slow—but no way.” Johnny remarked. 

Nick sat in his rolling chair while Johnny leaned over his shoulder. He hit the power button and waited for the monitor to boot up. “Any day now.”  And when that day came a few seconds later, the screen flashed white and then blue, fading to a hazy blue-green. A circle spun in the center. It stopped spinning and extended into a long white line in the middle of the screen. Symbols blinked consecutively on the top and bottom of the line. Neither boy knew what they were. They looked like made-up shapes. 

“Uh…I think it’s asking us for something.” Johnny pointed at the blinking text cursor that replaced the symbols above the white line when they faded away.

“Like a password, genius?” asked Nick.

“Yes, smartass.” Johnny rolled his eyes. “But do you speak…weird-lish?” He pointed at the other symbols beneath the line.

“Nope.” Nick’s eyes navigated across the screen. There was a small circle within another circle at the top right of the screen. Then he found a globe icon made of curved white lines in the right corner. He was about to grab the nonexistent mouse, thought better of it, and pressed a key on the keyboard. “I wonder what that is, but we can’t click it.” Nick pressed his fingertip against the icon on the screen. Neither of them were expecting the icon to actually open up and offer them a list of languages.

“Whoa…” they said in unison. “Did that actually work?” Johnny asked, baffled. “This thing’s so old! I didn’t think touchscreen was even invented at the time.”

“Neither did I.” Nick replied. He eyed the list of languages. At the top were strange symbols. Beneath it, he could see English, Spanish, French, Russian, Chinese, and a plenty more. He poked the English slot. The symbols beneath the line in the middle of the screen faded into English text.

It read: PLEASE ENTER PASSWORD.

“So cool.” Johnny beamed like it was another one of Nick’s awesome toys down in the basement.

“Bro, I don’t even know how long they’ve had this computer. You know parents usually put their kids’ name as their password. Was I even thought of by then?” Nick questioned. Johnny reached over him and poked the circles at the top right.

“What’s this do?” 

A square box showed up in the center of the screen. The two were staring back at themselves—it was a camera. Before either of them could say anything, a grid on-screen covered their faces, doing some odd calculations. Johnny’s grid turned red, but Nick’s turned green. The computer chirped and the camera box closed. The spinning circle that started on the screen reappeared and expanded until it disappeared around the edges of the screen. They were in.

Both boys slowly turned their heads to look at each other. And slowly, they grew big grins. “How cool was that?” Nick exclaimed.

“You’re like a freaking spy, dude.” Johnny laughed.

“Wait, wait, wait.” Nick gestured to the screen. “What is all this?” The screen looked like a home screen, covered in folders and icons. Some text was in English, but a lot of other text was in those strange symbols. It had to be a language, but which one? Or was it all code? Nick didn’t have the answers. Scanning the screen with his eyes, Nick wasn’t sure what to look for. Folders were named various things including; HUMAN STUDIES, ANIMAL STUDIES, EARTH 01, EARTH 02, and plenty more strange and intriguing categories. After a moment of confusion, Nick’s interest intensified when he noticed a folder named: NICK B-01. 

Johnny spewed question after question. “What’s that? Are those pictures? Dude, how has this thing not blown up yet with all these folders? How much storage is on this thing? How—”

“Hey, Johnny, man. Shut up.” Nick nudged him. He poked the folder with his name on it. It opened instantly, offering them plenty of text and images. There were pictures of Nick from all sorts of ages. In a rectangle there was a photo of him identical to his school ID card photo. He got that ID at the start of his senior year—it was recent in years. But the computer hadn’t been operated since…who knows? Under the photo was his basic information: full name, age, height, weight, hair color, eye color, and more. “This is weird…it’s like a case file on me or something. Look,” he pointed at some text. “It’s got information on my childhood. My doctor visits, my trips to the dentist, even my injuries? Foods I’ve eaten– what?”

“Dude, and check this out.” Johnny poked the screen at another section of text. “Why is ‘UNKNOWN’ written under the section about your parents?”

That stumped him. Surely his parents knew they were his parents, right? Goosebumps chilled Nick’s arms. He could feel his hair rising on the back of his neck. He wasn’t sure if he was scared or nervous—nervous about what else he might find. Nothing was too alarming to him, other than his parents being apparently unknown.

“Maybe we can find something else.” Johnny suggested.

Nick nodded silently. He clicked off his folder and looked around the many others. Johnny found one named: ACC PROJECT A-1. Nick clicked it, wondering if that was for his father’s construction work (Allen Construction Corporation). What showed up on the screen was not the type of construction he was expecting. There were blocks of text on either side of a square showing photos that they could rotate through. Each photo showed some type of aircraft. Nothing like a plane, a jet, or even a helicopter. It was metallic silver, like chrome almost, and shaped like a diamond with wings. 

“What in the Terminator?” Johnny said. “Your dad built robot-planes?”

“No…he builds buildings and houses and stuff like that.” Nick mumbled. “I don’t get what any of this is.” He clicked through the photos on the screen, each a new angle of the strange aircraft in the sky or on the ground—the ground that was full of dirt and springing with wild, odd-looking purple flowers. “I don’t understand any of this.” Nick was getting anxious, nearly panicked. He truly didn’t understand this computer or its contents. Were his parents keeping something from him? How could he know it was even their computer? Maybe it belonged to the previous owner? Nope. It couldn’t have—his father built their house.

“Just calm down, Nicky. Calm down.” Johnny rubbed his friend’s shoulder. “Should we pack it up?”

Nick paused. He then clicked off the folder and went searching specifically for something. He found an icon at the bottom left corner that looked like a person. He clicked it and the word ‘USER’ appeared. A black box popped up on the screen. His father’s face showed in one rectangle on the left, his mother on the right. Their information was displayed beneath them. Richard Allen and Susie Allen. Everything looked in order. It confirmed to Nick that his parents did own the computer. 

Johnny was quiet for a moment before clearing throat and saying, “Some computer, huh? Your parents might’ve spent thousands on this thing back then.”

Nick ignored him. There was an arrow pointed right next to both of their photos. He clicked the one next to his father’s photo. Nick felt his fast-beating heart skip a few beats. He heard Johnny gasp behind him.

Richard Allen’s photo and information changed. Instead of the clean-cut, suited dark-skinned man, there was a being with blue skin speckled with purple dots. The being had large, beady black eyes and two slits at the center of its face where a nose would have been. Its lips were thick, a darker shade of blue. The being in the photo had no hair and no ears. It was uniformed in a bulky, silver suit. What was this?

Nick checked the changed information at the bottom of the photo. Richard Allen’s name was replaced with CaZurr - AE20L, and was translated in parentheses to the weird symbols from before. Suddenly Nick had a guess at what those symbols were.

“Dude.” Johnny swallowed. 

Nick’s eyes couldn’t have been any wider. Everything from the books in the basement to the odd information on the computer was starting to click—and Nick wasn’t sure he liked it.

“My parents are aliens?”