Chapter Text
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
See that guy right there? The one running for his life from the United States military? Looks like he's hit rock bottom. Well, that guy's actually me, believe it or not. I bet you're wondering how I ended up in this wacky situation.
Well, it all started back in the summer of 2019...
...actually, when it really started was 2016, when they killed that poor gorilla. But that will all make sense later.
Gerald worked part-time at the local ice cream shoppe. It was called Scoops Away! and the front had a big cartoon picture of a fighter jet dropping ice cream cone bombs onto unsuspecting customers. It was one of those places that played songs like Jimmy Eat World’s “The Middle” all day.
The employees of Scoops Away! were forced to commit to this theme heart, mind, and soul, especially when it came to uniforms. The uniform was an itchy polyester aviator’s jacket, with plastic gold wings on the chest to display the employee’s name. Worst of all was the cheap leather aviator’s cap, complete with oversized goggles and a non-adjustable chin strap that was always just shy of choking Gerald. Perhaps this would have been okay if choking was Gerald’s kink, but it wasn’t.
Rounding out the shoppe’s theme was the manager, who barked orders like a drill instructor. Gerald supposed everyone’s first job felt a little like being in the military, but this one really did. Of course, he would never join the military in a thousand years.
“Next customer,” he called.
A pretty young woman approached the counter. With her was a small boy, maybe first or second grade. They stopped by Scoops Away! almost every weekend.
“Hi, what can I get for you?”
She studied the flavors. “What do you want?” she asked her little brother.
“Chocolate,” said the boy. He always wanted chocolate.
“Just two scoops for him.”
“Yes ma’am.” Gerald twirled his ice cream scooper and produced a waffle cone. He made the two scoops as generous as possible and handed the cone over the counter to the boy’s waiting hands.
As the cone went from Gerald to the boy, Gerald said, “Scoops awaaay!” The boy laughed. His sister smiled. Gerald smiled too, feeling pretty good about himself.
“And three scoops of strawberry for me,” said the woman.
Gerald nodded. Once again, he made the scoops as generous as possible. As he handed the cone over the counter, he said, “Scoops awaaay!”
The boy laughed again. His sister frowned, weirded out.
Gerald grimaced. “I…I have to say it, sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s just habit, at this point.”
“I understand.”
“I’m quitting next week.”
Gerald was not, in fact, quitting next week.
Gerald looked upward, where he imagined the narrator to be, and silently ordered him to shut the hell up. The narrator did not comply, or the story would have ended here.
The young woman paid for the ice cream and left. Maybe it was Gerald’s imagination, but he thought he heard her say to her little brother, “Strange guy, huh?” as they walked out.
“Shit,” he muttered.
As Gerald contemplated stuffing himself with cookie dough ice cream until he died, someone asked, “Hey, could you turn that up?”
Gerald looked across the room, where another employee obliged the customer by turning up the volume on the cheap TV set mounted in one corner of the shop. Normally, this TV played Cartoon Network. Gerald knew the theme songs to an inordinate number of kids’ programs thanks to his position here.
Today, though, the TV was tuned to a news station. Gerald hated the news—both the local and national—and never watched it. He saw no point in learning about bad situations he could do nothing to fix. Ignorance was bliss, and all that. But he found himself drawn in by what the news anchor was talking about.
“...has gained over five thousand signatures so far,” she said. “Once again, if you’re just joining us, a Facebook post calling for American citizens to storm the military base known as Area 51 has gone viral. The post was written by…”
“Excuse me. I’d like a chocolate malt, please?”
“Huh?” Gerald’s eyes left the TV screen and saw a small line of customers had formed. “Oh! Right, of course.”
By the time he handled the ice cream scooping and the transactions, the TV had been switched to a cartoon again.
“You forgot to say ‘scoops away!’” said his last customer.
Gerald ignored her. His mind was preoccupied with the bizarre news story.
Upon returning home, Gerald found his parents in the living room watching the news. The anchors were still talking about the viral Area 51 Facebook post.
Gerald had always wanted to believe in UFOs and extraterrestrial life and everything typically reduced to the term “science fiction.” He supposed a lot of people wanted to believe. What could be cooler than real-life flying saucers and little green men with ray guns kidnapping cows and swapping brains with them?
His fascination with the idea of aliens led Gerald to be just as fascinated with Area 51. It was of course too good to be true: a single facility harboring all of the greatest scientific secrets the government feared its civilians discovering and using for their own personal gain. Including, of course, aliens. Perhaps captured and imprisoned, or accidentally discovered and subsequently dissected.
There was one person Gerald could always turn to when it came time to geek out about aliens and conspiracy theories; someone who shared his fascination tenfold. That was his friend Ethan.
“WAZZUUUUP?!”
Ethan always answered the phone this way.
“WAZZUUUUP?!”
A series of chuckles came through the phone. When they subsided, Ethan asked, “Whatcha doin?”
“Gonna stream in a few, you down?”
“Sure. I’ll tell the boys.”
“Did you hear about this Area 51 thing going around?”
“Of course,” Ethan said, and the excitement in his voice was so clear Gerald could practically hear it. “I signed it.”
“You signed it?!”
“I created a Facebook account for the explicit purpose of signing it.”
Gerald gasped. “But your online footprint!” Ethan had never used social media, for fear of the government watching his every move.
“The hell with my online footprint. Once the base gets raided, that sort of stuff won’t matter anymore. We’ll have the power. Civilians, I mean.”
He sounds like he actually wants to go through with it, Gerald thought. He smirked and shook his head, unable to imagine a world where that happened.
“I’m gonna hang up now,” he said. “I’ll be on Discord in a few.”
“Ten-four.”
“Ten-four?”
“Yeah, ten-four.”
“It’s like eight o’clock.”
“No, ten-four. Cops say that. It means the same thing as ‘copy’ or ‘roger-roger.’”
“So just say that, then.”
Ethan sighed. “Whatever.”
Gerald exchanged his pants for sweats, took a brief bathroom break, and fired up his PC. The name of tonight’s game was Minecraft, and the goal was to familiarize himself with the layout of Area 51, which had been recreated in-game by Ethan.
“How do you know this is what Area 51 looks like?” asked Arthur, the wisest and therefore most challenging of Gerald’s friends.
“Google Maps,” Ethan said simply. “I was just talking to a buddy of mine—”
Gerald smirked. “Okay, Joe Rogan. It’s too bad we can’t go into creative mode when raiding the base.”
Paul, the quiet alpha of the crew, said, “As long as we place beds down so we respawn right outside the gate, we’ll be fine.”
“But how do we know this looks anything like the real base?” Arthur asked again.
Ethan clapped his hands. “Boys, focus. Assuming EA has no controlling interest in Area 51, there should be no secret locked passageways other than the ones we see here.”
Ethan’s avatar waved its hand at a wall. Arthur’s avatar regarded the wall with suspicion. “Ethan. Where’s the door hole?”
“Guys,” said Gerald. “My mom says she can either drop us off at Area 51 or pick us up, but she’s not doing both.”
Paul chuckled. “I think your mom may have misunderstood the situation.”
A faint voice said, “Hey, you’re not talking that Area 51 thing, are you?”
Gerald removed his headphones. His sister Kate stood in the doorway of his bedroom.
“Of course,” he said.
“In this economy? Ger, your odds of coming back alive are slim to none.”
“I know, but hey!"
Kate shrugged. “I guess I just don’t understand why you’d fall for this. It’s a stupid internet trend, it’ll be over in a week.”
“Why? I’ll tell you why. See that blank spot on my shelf?” Gerald pointed to his bookshelf, where sat remarkably few books.
“Yeah.”
“That’s where I’d keep my real-life diamond sword…if I had one! And I can have one, if I go to Area 51 and get it.”
Kate rolled her eyes. “My brother in Christ—”
“You know I’m your actual brother, right?”
“You’d better hope you don’t find the pause button to multiplayer games in that base, and hope further that mom doesn’t get ahold of it.”
“Very funny.”
Kate grinned. “Maybe you’ll find that girlfriend of yours who goes to a different school.”
“The point is made.”
“Or that friend of yours who’s been offline for the last fifteen hundred days.”
“Now you’re just being hurtful.”
“Or our dad who went for cigarettes eight years ago and still hasn’t come back.”
“Our dad is downstairs right this instant.”
“Or that one sock—”
“That tears it!" Gerald grabbed a pencil off his desk and threw it over his shoulder. It missed Kate and hit the wall.
As she left the room, Kate said, “Ger, have a Snickers. You’re not you when you’re hungry.”
****
The next morning, Gerald put on his Scoops Away! uniform, even though he was not scheduled to work. The innocence he feigned at breakfast amounted to one of the worst performances of his career, yet his parents never doubted him for a second.
Gerald had just finished eating when his phone buzzed with a text from Ethan reading: your uber driver is here.
“Aight.” Gerald looked around at his family. “I’mma head out.”
“Have a good day,” his mom said.
Gerald walked outside to find Ethan leaning against his car. Ethan was the oldest of the crew and had gotten his driver’s license first, and thus been ordained as the group’s taxi service now and forevermore.
Ethan spread his arms wide. “Here in front of Ger’s house, in my new Toyota Camry. But you know what I like more than my new Camry?”
“Knowledge.”
“Speaking of knowledge, I was musing earlier on the difference between saying ‘Kobe’ and saying ‘Yeet.’”
“Really?”
“I’ve figured it out. ‘Kobe’ gives you greater accuracy, given that it’s the namesake of a great ball player.”
“That tracks. But then what does ‘yeet’ do?”
“‘Yeet’ is for greater distance.”
“Ah.”
Ethan and Gerald drove to Arthur’s house next. They found him standing in his front yard, waving a plastic lightsaber about with surprising discipline.
“I’m practicing sword fighting now,” he explained as his friends approached.
“Oh yeah?” said Ethan. “What kind?”
“All kinds. Bonetti’s Defense, Capa Theroo, Thibault, Agrippa. It’s a surprise skill that will help us later.”
Arthur's right, it is.
Gerald saw Arthur had packed a large duffel bag. “Got your Nerf gun, fully loaded?”
“Check.”
“Heelies, for speed?”
“Check.”
“T-shirt that says ‘if you shoot me, you’re gay’?”
“Check.”
“This can’t go wrong.”
“We’re just waiting on Mark now.” Arthur glanced at his house. On cue, his brother Mark walked outside. He seemed considerably less prepared than Arthur, lacking both a bag of supplies and a Hasbro-produced weapon.
“Where’s your stuff?” Gerald asked.
Mark gazed dramatically off into the middle distance. “I’m staying here.”
Gerald frowned, looking to Arthur for clarification. Arthur had none to give and shrugged.
“How come?” asked Ethan.
Mark gestured at his house. “If I don’t, the sanctum remains unguarded.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Never mind. Don’t let my decision dissuade you from your course.”
“Okay, I won’t.” Ethan motioned to Arthur, who nodded and went to put his things in the car.
Mark suddenly ran forward and clasped Gerald’s hand, then Ethan’s. “Goodbye, old friends. May the Force be with you.”
“And with you.” Ethan turned and walked over to the driver’s side of the car. “You moron.”
The boys left Mark standing in the front yard, a teardrop in his eye. They had one last stop to make before the journey began.
“Better call Paul,” Ethan said.
Gerald nodded and dialed, leaving his phone on speaker so everyone in the car could hear both sides of the conversation.
“Hello?” a sleepy voice answered.
“Paulie, baby! We’re almost outside your house.”
“I still haven’t showered.”
“For fuck’s sake, Paul.”
An excruciating seventeen minutes later, the final member of the ensemble cast emerged from his house. He frowned upon seeing the Camry.
“We’re going in Ethan’s car? My head goes through the roof every time we hit a speed bump.”
Ethan lovingly slapped the roof of his car. “For your information, this bad boy can fit up to five passengers. If one of them gets in the trunk.”
Gerald said, “It occurs to me that Raytheon is five minutes away from our high school. Wouldn’t it be easier to raid that instead?”
“If I had a week, I couldn’t list all the reasons that won’t work,” said Arthur.
Ethan gripped his steering wheel as if he were Vin Diesel. “Alright, let’s take this car to the old town raid and drive ‘til we can’t no more.”
Paul rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Hm. Do I really wanna raid Area 51, or do I wanna get a cheeseburger?”
“We can get cheeseburgers on the way.”
“Sold.”
“You guys ready to let the dogs out?” Gerald asked.
The car fell dead silent.
“It’s just—it’s a reference.” Gerald looked to Ethan for support.
Ethan nodded. “I know, bud. It was good.”
“Let’s go over the plan,” Paul suggested.
Gerald clapped his hands together. “Right!”
- “We take Ethan’s car,
- “drive over to Area 51,
- “steal goodies,
- “retreat back to Arthur’s house,
- “have a nice cup of joe,
- “and wait for everything to blow over.
“Can you dig it?”
Paul raised his hand. “Who’s Joe and why do I want a cup of him?”
“Sounds kinda gay,” Ethan agreed. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But I don’t even drink coffee.”
Arthur shook his head. “Me neither. I vote we amend the plan.”
Paul sighed. “I can’t believe nobody said ‘Joe Mama.’ I set it up so well, so carefully.”
“Alright.” Gerald cleared his throat and started again:
- “We take Ethan’s car,
- “go to Area 51,
- “steal goodies,
- “go to Arthur’s house,
- “have homemade waffle floats,
- “and wait for everything to blow over.
“Can you dig it now?”
Arthur held up a finger. “Second amendment to the plan. We can’t go to my house.”
Gerald groaned. “Why not? We always go to your house.”
“Yeah, but what if the mission really is impossible? I don’t want a bunch of government agents following us to my parents’ house. They will not be okay with that.”
“But your house is safe and familiar,” said Ethan.
“I like it better than my own house,” said Paul.
“Look, it’s not a big deal. We just need a different place that’s safe and familiar. Okay?” Arthur nudged each of his friends in turn. “So c’mon, where else is safe?”
Ethan nodded. “And where’s familiar?”
It hit them all at once:
- “Take car,
- “go to Area 51,
- “steal goodies,
- “go to Scoops Away!,
- “have a nice cold sundae,
- “and wait for everything to blow over.
“Caaan youuu dig it?!”
They could, in fact, dig it.