Chapter 3

"Our source in the military confirms that the army and navy are being mobilized to observe these spacecrafts. The same source also confirms that the air force has already launched over 20 fighters from nearby TUDM bases, and will be on standby following further orders. At the time of this broadcast, no order to attack has yet been given," announced the anchorwoman on the TV.

The camera shifted to her co-anchor as he interjected with, "Sources in the government are at this moment conflicted. We have confirmed that several armoured police helicopters have been going back and forth between the Parliamentary Complex and an unspecified location somewhere in Pahang. We go to Mr Hassan Al-Basra, our newsman on the scene, for further update."

The screen changed to show a drenched man in a raincoat holding a microphone to his mouth. "Thank you, Newsroom. As you see here," he gestured to a mass of people holding up banners and crowding behind him, "The situation here at Parliament has become increasingly chaotic. The main gate has been barred from the inside, and all media and press representatives were thrown out, following a massive exodus of non-essential employees just an hour ago. We were told that at this moment, Parliament is in session. We do not have any information on the agendas for now."

Hazri Amran took a sip of his ice blended mocha with cream as he looked at the faces on TV. He had thought of going public about the aliens a couple of years ago, but he was under the immediate attention of the Police Special Escort Division, and it took all his influence just to deliver that one crate to his best friend Azlan. He could explain wanting to give his best friend a fighting chance, but he wouldn't be able to explain going public before the Special Escort Division blew a bomb in his tablet.

He gestured to the waitress, a cute barely legal girl with a bright smile and friendly disposition. While waiting for her to arrive, he looked at his phone and was relieved that his parents messaged that they had arrived at the building he told them to go to just a couple of hours ago. He had not received any messages from either his brother or his sisters, but if they had moved quickly they should have already arrived at facilities nearest to their homes.

"Is there anything else that you need, sir?" the girl said with the sweetest smile he had seen for the past two years.

"Bill, please," he said, whipping out his wallet.

"Of course, sir," the girl skipped to the counter and came back with the bill holder, "Would you be paying by cash, credit card or another payment method, sir?"

Hazri was about to say 'card', when he pushed back his barely used credit card and took out three sheets of RM50 notes. He opened the bill holder and placed the three notes inside. "Keep the change," he said.

The girl's eyes went wide, and she was obviously reluctant to take the money. "But sir," she said, "Your bill only amounts to RM24.95."

"Take it," he pushed the bill holder towards the girl as he stood. "I suggest you go home. Find a place in the countryside and hide. Just promise me that you will never lose your smile," he said, as he stepped out the door into the open air car park.

Hazri stopped just outside the coffeehouse, looking to the sky in the distance, and barely able to see the differently shaped spaceships that the aliens use. He moved to his car, but instead of going to the driver's seat he opened his car's boot and opened a hidden compartment at the base. Inside were disassembled parts of a gun, not just any gun, but the very first working prototype of a gauss gun, the MR-1S. As he reassembled the barrel part, he noted that while this gun was outdated by the newer MR-5 Gauss Rifles, set to be mass-produced by the end of 2023, it had its own charms. First of which was while it doesn't have the automatic and semi-automatic fire capabilities of the MR-5, it is capable of firing 8mm metal balls up to a range of 3000 metres accurately. Second, is the easy availability of the ammunition. Generally, any ball bearing of the same size can be salvaged from vehicles for use in the MR-1S. But the most important of all, was that this was his child, it was his own hand that painstakingly built it from every screw and every mould.

Hazri closed the boot and placed the MR-1S on the passenger seat of his car, an electric-powered Proton Patriot with a fully computerized self-driving feature and impact-gel reinforced body. He placed his key on the engine crank and slowly pushed forward, eliciting a response from the car's electric engine. He turned on the power-feed from the nuclear battery into the engine and put on his seatbelt. He looked left and right and to the back, then slowly pulled the gear into reverse position and pushed forward a little on the engine crank, reversing the car. Then he pushed the gear into 'drive' and left the parking area into the main road going out of Bangsar.

It wasn't even two minutes into Jalan Kampung Pandan (Kampung Pandan Road) that he heard explosions all around him. One building crashed onto another as he looked out of his side window and saw beams of blue light lancing another building, causing it to explode, and throwing debris onto his car. Hazri touched a computer control on his dashboard to switch the car into 'hover mode' when he heard a shrill cry not far from his car.

"Mommy!" came the cry of a little girl near the ruins of the building that was just destroyed by the blue beams just now.

Hazri's finger hovered over the blinking 'hover mode' button, before he pulled it back, grabbed his MR-1S and got out of his car. "Just a little detour," he said to himself, as he navigated through the throng of panicked civilians to reach the girl.

"Mommy!" the girl cried again, and judging from the sound of her tears he could tell that he had almost reached her now.

He shouldered the MR-1S behind him. "Hey little girl, what's wrong? Where's your mommy?" he asked the crying girl.

She pointed to a section of the ruined building, as she sobbed, "Mommy..."

Hazri Amran looked into the ruined building, saw the rubble, and his gut instinct told him to run, to escape on his own. Instead, he grabbed a random man from the panicked crowd running for their lives and asked for his help. He was immediately annoyed by what he heard.

"No way, man," the man said, "Every man's for himself."

He let the man go. He tried asking others, but the answers were more or less the same. He was thinking that he should aim his gun at some people and force them to help, when two men stopped just beside him. They were panting, obviously having been running for a while. He turned to them and asked for their help.

"Would love to," the first man said. He was a tall but thin man. He wore glasses and looked like he just came back from a night of clubbing. "But you see," he continued, "We can't even save ourselves!"