The First Moment
Copyright© 2026 by TMax
Chapter 11: Team
“You can stay with me. I can protect you,” the soldier said as he pointed his bent finger at Alice, then Shivam, Nate, someone I didn’t know who stood just behind Alice, and me. His short, beaten-up body didn’t inspire confidence.
The soldier continued, “We have orders to protect the civilians.”
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” a stranger asked, her face flushed, her eyes narrow, and her hands balled into fists. She leaned forward as if ready to fight. Her oversized shoulders and arms looked like they could break me in two. The soldier laughed at her as he stared up at her. Not a funny laugh, but a serious laugh of someone who had to practice their laugh because they read in a manual that laughter helps defuse situations.
“Sasha,” Sasha said, “Alexander, if my mother wanted to scold me.” He offered his hand for the stranger to shake. Again, textbook how to make friends. His gaze didn’t leave her eyes, while mine couldn’t help glancing up and down her body. Too wide of hips but strong legs, and a belly with stretch marks and heavy breasts, like she just had a baby. At some point she had broken her nose.
“Harriet, relax, we’ll figure this out,” Alice said and put her hand on Harriet’s shoulder. Harriet moved to swat her hand away, but then paused and placed her hand on top of Alice’s. Her nail polish had chipped, and it looked like she chewed her nails.
Shivam said to Sasha, “Good to have you on our team.”
“Are you guys a team? Can we join?” a man asked as he wandered up with two women behind him. He squinted at us, as if he needed glasses. He had Asian features, but brown hair and blue eyes.
Except for a few individuals and couples, everyone had grouped, most with a single soldier in the middle, but the odd group had more than one. Easy to tell the soldiers by their tattoos, scars, and athletic bodies. A few others had tattoos, or scars, or athletic bodies, but not all three together.
“More the merrier,” Alice said and introduced Hank, Lanka, the tall blonde, and Morgan, a short, dark-skinned girl with dreads. Alice knew everyone, or so it seemed.
“What do you think, Morgan? How are we going to survive?” Shivam asked as he stared at the young girl, a twenty-something who had a small pot belly and smooth, beautiful skin. Nate pulled Shivam closer as he glared at Morgan. With a slight frown, Morgan didn’t even glance at Nate as she stared at Shivam.
“Teamwork. Because teams work better,” Morgan said as she touched Shivam’s shoulder.
Lanka stepped around Harriet as she said, “You sound like a corporate consultant. Do we have enough synergy? How about optimization of the paradigm shift?” The classic Scandinavian build: tall, long blonde hair, with crystal blue eyes, thin athletic arms, long athletic legs, pale pubic hair, and small firm breasts. A model, or at least she could have modeled.
Alice squeezed my shoulder as she said, “Fuck you, Lanka, you’re such a shit head.” She didn’t sound angry. Rather, she sounded almost playful.
And Lanka responded with a flip of her hand and a roll of her eyes, “Whatever. Jealous much?”
Hank, Shivam, Harriet, and Nate buddied up and started to talk about the stars. Lanka, Morgan, and Alice grouped up. Alice pulled me into the group. They make porno movies about these situations, yet, in that moment, nothing below stirred. I tried not to look at the women’s bodies.
“So, what next?” Lanka asked as she glanced at me. She still wore eye shadow, which meant that the aliens transported our bodies and non-body stuff on our bodies, but not my ring. And they must have transported the bacteria that live on and in our bodies, because otherwise, no one would survive long. So what determined what got transported?
While the women talked and I kept my gaze away from their bodies, I thought about the rules of the place. Alien dome, but human-made in appearance. Sand, but not Earth sand, but similar enough. Rock or metal walls, maybe a mix of both. But nothing else. And I could see and examine everything around us, unlike the alien spaceship. Except for the extreme realism, they could have put us in a simulation.
And what did the aliens mean by survive? Do we just stand within the dome and wait? Would we eventually run out of food and have to eat each other? Would oxygen in the dome slowly disappear, and we would have to determine who among us kept living, while he had to kill off others?
And how did we manage to breathe? They must have put Earth’s atmosphere in the dome, but why didn’t they transport Earth sand or our clothes?
Sasha gave us the one-second finger and jogged over to a fully tattooed lady soldier.
“Hey, Shithead, what do you think?” Alice said as she elbowed me. The women stared at me. Hank had wandered over to our group and stared at Lanka’s body, although she didn’t appear to care. She may have even enjoyed the attention.
Confused, I said, “What? And I’m not a shithead. That’s Lanka, isn’t it?” Not the smoothest line, but Alice smiled as I said Lanka. My eyes kept darting towards her.
“No, you’re a dickhead. What do you think about all of us, as a group?” Alice said as her eyes darted between Lanka and me, as if to make sure I had a good look at the stunning blonde. She put her arm around my shoulder and squeezed. Canadians have a strange way of showing affection.
“Sure, why not?” Nate answered for me, which caused Shivam to hit Nate’s shoulder and Alice to scowl at him.
Sasha returned to the group and said, “I don’t care about the numbers. Doesn’t matter anyway, because we have no idea what they want us to do to survive.”
“Some test,” Morgan said at the same time as Shivam said, “A death match.”
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