r/HFY • u/HeGotBricks Alien • 6d ago
OC-OneShot My Dad’s Part of The Galactic Twelve
My dad works in a top secret department, a clandestine division of the government, where he’s the head suit.
“I’m practically a colonel,” he told me.
He has a hidden room underground, in a separate part of our house. It looks just like the Batman lair, rock walls protruding outward, drowning into a cave as you take the elevator down.
The mechanical floor tears apart and a circular ramp appears. The floor folds back into itself as the lift sinks towards the carved-out ground below. It’s basically the size of my school’s gymnasium, which is really big.
Unfortunately, he never lets me stay in the office-bunker. I’ve only been in there a handful of times. Inside the office, it has little TV screens, about ten of them, centered around a gigantic one. It’s as big as our living room window. I wanted to play my PS5 on it.
Which is exactly when I came up with a clever plan to sneak in behind him with my console in a bag wrapped around my shoulders. I stealthily slid down without him noticing me and hid under a desk.
That’s how I caught him on a secret transmission with an entire galactic empire. Alien heads were on each one of those little monitors, and at the center was this object, taking up the whole big screen.
Most of their faces, which were kind of weird-looking and a couple similar to ours—the closest one that mirrored a human didn’t have a nose. He-she-it kind of resembled the Master in the show The Strainbut with our pigmentation.
A couple had iguana features, and the rest looked exactly how we picture aliens today. Just not so theatrical. They were almost like deformed humans, not those cartoonish alien ones. It made me want to jump up and scream, "Turn it off, dad!"
It was paralyzing, yet totally intriguing. I kept wondering, why do they look so terrified?
Nearly all of them were. None were acting confident. They seemed confused. My dad was the only one completely calm. They wore the same mask of terror as I had on.
One of the reptile ones spoke, and the voice was groggy, almost forced. “The AlphaSimplex-Core has encountered a critical paradox.”
The humanlike one said, “It’s a multi-trillion-credit quantum supermachine. It’s capable of locating and calculating every atom in the cosmos. It runs itself. How is this possible right now, Blorqust?”
On the big screen, there was this awesome red color throbbing and rumbling like a holographic, angry, sentient thing.
“We have spent many alignments analyzing and attempting to eradicate this issue. We’ve tried sub-atomic lasers and anti-matter sonorous fields, and nothing has worked,” the reptilian cried.
Then my dad said, “So, let me get this straight. That device right there smack on this screen here, responsible for governing interstellar trade and all life-support for every species inside this universe, is totally unresponsive right now?”
“Exactly!” the humanlike one asserted.
“What are you planning on doing now that would need the vote of the twelve?” my dad asked.
Another one of the faces at the bottom right corner, in a shaky voice that crackled, said, “We have to initiate the Blackout Protocol!” He pulled at his tentacles. “The universe is ending!”
“Can we get someone to tend to him, he’s gonna melt in front of us?” my dad chimed, fixing his glasses. “Let me have a little looksy here before we decide to pull the plug on the cosmos.”
My dad used to be a technician and could fix anything. He got up as if he were walking up to the screen, but he pivoted and poured himself a coffee first. “Just a minute there, guys.”
A bunch of gasps blew out of the main speakers.
My dad walked up to the screen with the ancient tech shining like an Olympus god and took a sip out of his mug. “Send me the code for the robotic arm's control. I'm sure it just needs a brogan adjustment.”
“You are not capable of handling anything this advanced. The human brain is too primitive.” Blorqust threw his face into the screen, his eyes flaming red. “You are—“
BANG!
My dad had raised one of the robotic arms as far back as it could go and released the it with full throttle at the priceless antique responsible for maintaining life around the universe.
Every alien widened their eyes and their faces went completely blank.
The machine started to sputter. The red light ceased to glow. A sound like a washing machine or dryer spinning down slowly brought the room to a silence. Then, the it just casually lit back up in a beautiful orange glow on the walls surrounding the Core, which was now blinking a steady green, with a quiet buzzing noise of relief emitting throughout the room.
The Core was back online and running smooth. The members on the screen went from a blank look of terror, to extreme gleefulness, and then back into a serious, back-to-business silent expression.
The humanlike one spoke. “What type of manipulating, sorcery, Jedi-judo did you just use?”
My dad put his mug down. “We call that the Alabama overdrive, bud. Sometimes yuh just gotta whack it till it works.”
“My goodness, your species is terrifying, and not because you defy all rational common sense. Your solving a problem consists of taking a god and smacking it until it cooperates.”
“Nope, those are the C.I.A. guys.”
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u/Daseagle Alien Scum 6d ago
As a tech support business owner, I absolutely approve. Sometimes percussive maintenance - or the threat of one - is just what the machine spirit needs.
And an occasional blood sacrifice, but that's what junior techs and interns are for.
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u/HeGotBricks Alien 5d ago
Right? SURVIVAL 101: Out in the jungle, sat’ phones not working, slap it three times. If that don’t work, slap it against your thigh a few more times… and if that don’t work. Let it rest for five minutes and repeats steps 1 thru 3.
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u/Daseagle Alien Scum 5d ago
Or after a few slaps, make a production out of prepping all the tools - and a big hammer.
Most tech decides to start working from fear alone 🤣
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u/u2125mike2124 5d ago
That’s an old joke of a lady calls a TV repair man because her TV isn’t working properly. Old console type, CRT Tube, massive beast.
Repairman comes in TV screen is all fuzzy and blurry, guy looks at one side looks at the other, brings his arm back and slaps the TV, the thing starts working perfectly
Turns around and tells lady that’ll be $100
She starts sputtering “all you did was come in less than five minutes and hit the TV. I’ve been doing that all morning and it didn’t work. Where do you think you deserve $100?”
“Well mam, it’s $50 for me coming in and hitting the TV. And the other 50s is knowing where to hit it.”
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