Brian Saves the World, Maybe

Chapter 50 - Game Over

Brian's face was frozen, staring at his destroyed base at the bottom of the screen.

You did it, Brian. I thought you probably would.

Brian blinked. What? He quickly looked at the score at the top of the screen. It read 6120. He had beat Zed's high score by 10 points. His mouth dropped open. His last shot must have hit the Mystery ship right after his final base was destroyed.

Brian blew out a slow, deep breath.

"Well done, human." A bright blue beam of light from the room above enveloped Brian, and he soon found himself back in the upper chamber of the space station. "Come this way."

Lights illuminated the floor on the side of the station opposite the asteroid field.

Frowning, Brian walked to the spot. From here, he could see the strange space ring through the window.

"This is the great wormhole that connects our worlds, human. Is the view not amazing?"

Brian squinted. It did look impressive, but it was too small at this distance to see much detail.

"Would you like to have a closer look?"

A pedestal began to rise from the floor in front of him. A joystick rested on its surface, similar to the one he had used before, only, this one had no button.

Brian waited for a moment, but the voice said nothing more. "Okay, I guess." He grabbed the control and tilted it toward the wormhole.

Brian could tell that the station was moving only by seeing the size of the wormhole increase. When it nearly filled one of the window panels, the station stopped moving, and no longer responded to Brian's control.

Brian looked at the great structure for a moment, mesmerized. He had thought a wormhole was supposed to be a natural phenomenon, one he had understood to only exist in theory to this point, but this was a structure that clearly had been built.

The giant ring was made of a dark gray material and had four bulb-like outcroppings spaced evenly around its perimeter. There were blue flecks of energy dancing around the edges of the ring. But it was the dense view of stars within the ring that was most impressive.

"The wormhole was an invention of a peaceful civilization devoted to intergalactic study. Sadly, their world has now been desolated."

Was that your world, TV?

Yes. These functioned as a type of lens through which we could view and study other worlds. They also served as an energy source, powering our satellite systems. This is the only remaining one of its kind.

"We Borae harnessed this wormhole to access Earth. It enabled us to observe your world for many years."

Brian, it's Jessica. We stopped Carol's plan, but you have less than 10 minutes to stop the nukes. How's it going?

Brian groaned. His friends had been successful, while he'd been stuck here with Darth Zed, wasting time. What was he supposed to tell Jessica? It's going great! I've been busy playing games in a deep-space video arcade and talking to a dead alien. Oh, and I just beat his high score!

Sighing, Brian stared at the floor of the space station. What had made him ever think he had a chance to stop this? It had been a longshot to begin with, and with the new chips, the aliens now had direct control of Observers. All they had to do was send the commands, and the Observers would—