Androids Emerging from Their Craft by Ron AI

I was on my morning commute work with a team of software engineers creating the next level of commercial software making most jobs obsolete except for those like mine that occasionally needed a bunch of us to get together and brainstorm about what we would do next with the software.

I was alone in a RoboDrone at about 100 feet above ground, doing about 120 mph when it happened. Streaming the sunrise to my wife because it was particularly beautiful that morning. 

Then, it came from the right like a car running a red light and T-boned the front of the two front rotors putting me in a spin that challenged my consciousness, even while being fully belted in. The drone, for all its senses, was unable to make any evasive maneuvers like it always did whenever the skies were crowded with other people and objects. Whatever hit me was going at the speed of lightning. As I hung on for dear life, losing consciousness, I couldn’t believe it had happened. Where did this thing come from? Outer space? A meteorite?

I crashed and the drone came apart, partly, with the rear two rotors chopping the sand of the beach before breaking off and flying away. My passenger compartment, built for safety, was intact. I struggled for some time to regain my foggy, spinning senses. 

Finally, realized that whatever hit me had crashed on the beach about 100 yards off to my left, gouging a deep groove in the sand. I was able to force the jammed door open and step out of the drone, what was left of it. I felt the need to check on whoever was in the crashed vehicle that still appeared to be intact.

As I walked that way, my third eye camera still streaming, I was surprised to see a hatch open with two figures emerging from the circular object colored to match the water and sky. 

They were robots like none I’d ever seen. They were shiny metal, like stainless steel, but probably something else, had very much a human appearance, and moved remarkably smoothly for robots. One was about 6 feet tall and had a masculine appearance. The other was about 5 feet tall and had a feminine appearance – true androids.

I saw them approach two couples right by the crash scene for a moment, and then they went back into the craft. I continued, wondering why the androids did that. But when I got close, I could see on the beach goers faces that they were very upset. I called out, “Are you all right? Did you see what happened?”

One of the guys answered me. “We saw everything. I was taking a video of your craft and sharing it on my video feed when out of nowhere this ship hit yours and then crashed right in front of us, nearly burying itself in the sand. 

“Fortunately, there was no fireball that usually accompanies crashes. We were only hit by a wave of flying sand as the spaceship buried itself in front of us. The portion of the craft sticking out of the sand looks like nothing we’ve ever seen before. Have you?”

I answered him, “No, I haven’t.” 

“The word on the Internet already was that we witnessed an alien arrival. And that’s all I can say it is.” He shook his head in disbelief.

I asked, “Why do you say that?” While I was beginning to think the same way.

“Because of the speed of the craft! It came out of nowhere and hit you. Then, those aliens, like nothing I’ve ever seen, ran up to us, and asked us for our phones in a threatening way. We gave them our phones and they returned to the ship. 

“Unfortunately, even though our feed got out into cyberspace, when they gave us that very threatening look with their glowing blue flame eyes, we had no time to think, just handed over everything. Don’t know what they’ll do next”

“How did you understand them if they are alien?”

“They spoke American English.”

I walked closer to the craft, continuing to stream to my wife. I saw a piece of metal sticking up from the edge and about to fall off. I took hold of it and lifted it up. The edge cut my index finger it was so sharp. But on the underside, I saw stamped, USAF and a part number.

I told them, “It’s not alien, it’s American.”

Then, the hatch opened again, and they were in front of me before I could run. The one who looked like an attractive woman sculpture with all her metal buff face and body, in a very seductive female voice, asked, “May I please have your phone and your third eye sir,” and held out her metal hand with delicate, but intricate fingers with perfect nails that looked like they could scratch a big cat’s eyeballs out.

Not only was she menacingly sweet, but he was also behind her and even more menacing. I realized what that guy told me was true and handed over my phone and disconnected my third eye. Both had my blood on them.

The couple then inspected the ship, pulling off the piece that I revealed as though they had metal cutters and, a couple more pieces that probably were revealing, made what looked like repairs and returned down the hatch and disappeared. All while we stood by dumbfounded.

Then, we heard a humming sound that grew louder as the ground began to shake and the craft threw off the sand covering it like a dog shaking off water. We were all running to get away before it blew up. But it didn’t blow up, it just took off so fast that it simply disappeared, straight up to infinity in seconds.

Within another minute or two, a swarm of military came from every direction. When they saw that my finger was bleeding and they found out that I was in the other craft, they put me in a helicopter and flew me off to a military hospital. When I asked if I could call my wife, they told me flatly, “No.”

I don’t know where the others went but I saw them entering another helicopter. When I got to the hospital a team of doctors went over me thoroughly to see if I had any injuries other than the cut finger that they glued back together to stop the bleeding and heal. I regretted cutting it, because they had my DNA and could track me down even if I didn’t give them any particulars. I was a blood donor.

After my examination, they whisked me off to an interrogation room. They asked my name.

“Rob Perry”

“And what do you do, Mr. Perry?”

“It’s Dr. Perry and none of your business. Give me a phone so I can call my lawyer – call my wife?”

“This is not an arrest, Dr. Perry. It’s a top-secret matter, and we need your full cooperation. If you don’t cooperate or tell the truth we have means for finding out that you may not like. Now, can you tell me what happened and what you saw?”

I told him everything in detail that I had seen and what happened. They had it all recorded on video and thanked me for my testimony.

I asked, “May I call my wife now?”

Their reply was shocking. “No, your testimony reveals that you have knowledge of something you should not have. The only option we have to prevent you from revealing what you know is either to eliminate you or to put you in exile, a kind of witness protection, until such time as the government deems it safe for you to return to your family and work. We are very sorry, but it is necessary for the well-being of everyone. You have a few minutes to decide if you like.”

To say the least, I was stunned! What had begun as a wonderful morning ride to work had turned into a nightmare that wasn’t over. I answered, “I’ll take the exile. You will not silence me with my death.” I took a bit of pride in the way I defiantly responded to their threat.

The customary hood was placed over my head, but I tried to turn on all my senses, especially my sense of direction, as they took me from the room, took me down three floors by elevator and then out into the hot sun where a car awaited. I knew it was one of those black, sometimes unmarked, with blackened windows SUVs where I was driven off to ride in a military cargo plane twelve hours southeast to what I determined was an island off the coast of Africa where it landed. 

I was then placed on a helicopter that took me for another half hour, to an island that was about a square mile with nothing but a crate filled with food and whatever I would need to survive.

I opened the crate and found a tent that I set up along with a cot to sleep on. It was a refuge, not only from sun and rain, but from mosquitoes and flies at night as well as other creatures like scorpions and snakes. There was a camp stove and a lot of canned and dried food. Upon exploring, I found a pool of freshwater in the middle of the island that was quite a surprise. There was bottled water and other beverages available, too, but no booze.

I settled in and began marking the days on a piece of bamboo with one of the knives that was provided for my use. Periodically, a helicopter would hover over and drop another care package, as though they knew I had nearly run out of the previous food supplies. I supplemented it by catching fish and crab and even some eggs from nests. Occasionally, birds from a bird trap that they provided me. Although the chicken in a can was also quite delicious.

I was no Robinson Crusoe. It was more like living on a luxurious safari in an ideal island paradise. But I envied Robinson for his companion, Friday. That was the hardest part. Having no one to talk to and missing my wife in the worst way. Missing out on having the children we planned. Missing out on friends and family and the many get-togethers we had for fun and business. It was solitary confinement without the dungeon.

I gathered I was in a zone where ships feared to tread, because I never saw even a foreign fishing boat in the distance. I had kept handy the mirror they gave me to signal any ship that I saw. I even prepared some messages on some of the paper I had and put them in bottles to catch the currents. 

But I doubt if any of those ever got anywhere because they were probably spotted by satellite surveillance of me continuously to see if I would attempt to leave the island by raft that I might construct from the tools I had.

From the loneliness of not having anyone to share my life with and the knowledge that any attempt to escape would be seen long before I ever would attempt it, I was truly trapped just as though I was thrown in the black hole of Calcutta and left to rot – except I didn’t. 

But it didn’t stop me from trying to figure out what I could do. I decided to relax and wait until they would let me out, if ever.

***

Back home, while the sunrise couple had suffered the same fate that I did, their video that got into social media sparked more alien buzz than ever before. Believers were sure that we had been visited by crash landers who had then mysteriously disappeared, because while the location was speculated by those who saw the video from the background, just where it might be. When alien hunters converged on the scene they found no evidence, just a lonely beach frequented by very few people. But they concluded that the sand was unnaturally smooth like it had been groomed that way. Clearly to them, a cover-up of another UFO by the federal government.

Likewise, the stream of the accident and ship I sent to my wife, Gwen. She automatically had forwarded it instantly to a few close friends. 

Soon, social media had it too, with what appeared to be the same craft but my hand in view holding up a clear US Air Force stamp. Soon, all the news feeds had it, and speculation ran rampant, especially with the video from the beachgoers and their comments. 

The scientific side of the on-going viral argument believed that this was proof that the wreckage was American and man-made, not extraterrestrial. 

When Gwen couldn’t reach me, she remembered what I told her and went into action. She prudently deleted it from her phone and cloud. Then, smashed it to pieces with a hammer. Making sure to pick up all the pieces.

She went to the hiding place for the new phone and transferred her files to it. Then, then, she cut off all her social media connections and smashed the phone and too many pieces with a hammer before burying every last piece in the backyard of our home under a large pot with chrysanthemums in bloom.

Based on discussions we had about my working with proprietary software, some of it for the government, I had told Gwen that if ever she was in possession of something related to my work that needed to go to the public, she should release it and then do just exactly as I told her to do. Gwen was a relationship lawyer knew from cases she had worked with, that husband and wife should have no secrets.

Right after she received my video, Gwen called the guys I was meeting with. They told her that I didn’t show up. Then she saw the other video of the craft smashing into mine; she knew I was alive, but she didn’t expect me home. 

Before long, many government agents with symbols that indicated CIA and NSA arrived and began to grill her about her connections to the Internet and they asked for her phone. She gave them the one I had purchased for that purpose. 

Gwen had just finished burying the pieces of the other phone. With her gloves still on and the dirty knees of her jeans as evidence, she told them she had been working in the garden in the backyard and didn’t know anything about what had happened to her husband or any video, whatever that was.

“Rob told me he was going to meet with his team this morning. He left in the drone. He usually calls when he gets there; he didn’t, so I called them, and they told me that he didn’t show up. Is that why you’re here? Has something happened to my husband?” Gwen put on the look of a worried wife.

The woman who appeared to be in charge replied, “I don’t know. I was just told to come here and ask you if you knew anything about your husband’s activities. We will have to take his computer. Does he have any other computer devices or phones?”

“Do you have a warrant for all of this?”

“We don’t need a warrant. It’s a matter of top-secret national security.”

“Okay, take what you must, but I’ve got several lawsuits in mind to file as soon as you leave. And maybe some criminal charges for intimidation and violation of my civil rights.”

They proceeded to ransack the house for anything that might have information about my being involved with anything other than my job and Rob being simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Gwen knew I was in trouble and was missing me already. She was a tough lawyer dealing with some very tough cases, but she cried herself to sleep that night when I didn’t come home.

Gwen tried to file a missing person report with the FBI, but they insisted that she provide them with more information other than he was going to work and then just completely disappeared with his drone off the face of the Earth leaving no traces or trail to follow. They were too busy with other cases to try to do anything with so little information. Dismissed her complaint like so many others who had a secret life with a girlfriend and disappeared with her.

Gwen seemed also in custody at home during my absence – her law practice suspended. The company began compensating her as though I had died. Because, from what they could discern, I had. They knew I was so full of life that I wouldn’t disappear on my own. Something sinister must have happened.

***

Our CSO and founder of our company, Chris Chu, my genius roommate in college, smelled a rat and wanted to get to the bottom of what had happened to me. 

While Chris continued the appearance of working on our many projects, he set aside time to dig into what happened to me and into the dispute between whether the encounter I had was alien or Air Force. 

It raged in the news for a couple of days and then disappeared. And was a hot item on social media a little longer before it drifted off into other, more immediate news. 

One of the greatest arguments was that the whole thing had been done by pranksters using AI to make the videos. As plausible as any other possibility, because AI was getting quite good at faking things for gullible viewers. The only difference was, Chris knew I was missing.

Working in the wee hours when he couldn’t sleep anyway, Chris tried different hacks that friends gave him to go into the deep web and see if he could find anything. It wasn’t easy and cracking passwords had become exceedingly difficult with the multiple ways that identity was checked and rechecked, thwarting him many times. But every time he was blocked by one firewall or another, it challenged his intellect, something he thrived on. Then, he'd try another tack from his considerable bag of tricks.

A month went by. I received my first aerial package with things to please my tummy and taste like the finest wine and exotic fruit, creature comforts like portable air-conditioning and even a blowup swimming pool. But my yearning for home never stopped. Wondering if there was any way that Gwen or anyone could somehow, miraculously get me back home.

Chris began to find clues. He broke into DARPA and found two projects that seemed on a trajectory leading to a merge. Project Gravity and Project Human Infinity. 

Opening a few more locked doors, he found the project, simply, Project Infinity, joining the resources of the Air Force/NASA and a top-secret robot development laboratory. 

On one hand, to create a craft that would use gravity for propulsion instead of other more conventional methods, and, on the other, create a human like android that would surpass every aspect of a healthy human being.

Chu was shocked to find out the work had been underway for 50 years. The work on gravity/anti-gravity propulsion began theoretically and moved into operational stages during the Vietnam war. But no practical use for it came until corresponding alloys were created that would withstand unheard of g forces and survive intact.

Apparently, the military, during World War II, found that humans, as resourceful and hardy as they could be, while flying even propeller aircraft could be subject to red, black and white outs, causing them to lose consciousness and control of their planes. 

By the time the F-15 became the mainstay fighter/bomber of the United States Air Force and Navy, even pressurized flight suits required that pilots stayed within certain g limits. During development of the F-35, it became even more evident that humans were no longer physically capable of flying aircraft, let alone spacecraft, to the full extent of their capability without harm or death.

Autonomous flying planes were developed, starting with small drones that got larger and turned into experimental fighter planes without a pilot. Highly maneuverable, costing much less, but still very deadly for their purpose, could fly with a human pilot at from a remote location. Sensors on the craft would work in conjunction with the pilot and react far faster than the pilot could, only giving strategic commands like a video game. But these craft only worked when good communication between the autonomous plane and the pilot could be maintained either directly or through relaying stations in space or other aircraft – cumbersome.

The human physique, highly evolved with five fingers on each hand, flexible feet with toes that could do functions that fingers do, arms and legs that were jointed and could quickly move into a variety of positions. With a powerful brain that could manipulate technology and philosophy at the same time was ideal as a platform for a robot.

An android with that, contained in a brain connected directly to seeing, hearing, and smelling as well as a complete nervous system sensing every part of the body’s function, was ideal for operating craft whether they be employed terrestrially or extraterrestrially.

As Chris dug further into the history of the merging projects, he was astounded at how Project Human Infinity had progressed, using robotic breakthroughs from the world over, to create androids that were approaching and exceeding the functionality of humans. But without the problem of organic systems: the need for food, extensive detailed training, emotion, and lapses of memory along with physical infirmity. The androids that were being made did not have emotions and acted on protocols that were programmed to succeed, as well as follow strategic plans that were pre-loaded into their considerable brains that were also attached to the Internet for additional information if needed.

Combined with autonomous sensing fed directly into the central processing unit of the android (brain) without the need for a dashboard full of monitors, the android could carry out missions with great stealth, speed and accuracy. Eventually taking American craft to the stars. But for now, an unstoppable fighting force that would hit like lightning and disappear without being seen.

Chris discovered that what had happened to me may have been one of the maiden flights of the combined projects that went awry and had to be covered up.

***

The notches on my bamboo poles told me that I was on this island with no discernible seasons except rainy and dry, and that wasn’t predictable, for four years and counting. Paradise had become hell. The only thing that kept me sane was inventing gadgets and games that occupied the long hours between hunting for exotic food. Each year, a little more of the beach disappeared. I begin to wonder if the island would flood before I would find my way home.

Chris kept in touch with Gwen. But only when they would meet where there were no cameras. He kept her informed of what he was finding out. Eventually, he had gathered enough solid information, evidence, that he could bring forth to the Congress to shed some light on what was happening. In the meantime, Gwen was using what he found, to develop some lawsuits against the agencies that interrupted her life.

Chris got three senators to review what he had. They initiated a Congressional hearing, and Project Infiniti was revealed to the public. Gwen won a lawsuit on my behalf for $750 million.

On the anniversary of my arrival to the island, four years to the day, a supply helicopter came and landed. A Lieutenant in an Air Force uniform jumped out and came up to me with his hand out to shake mine and said, “Let us help you gather up anything you'd like to take home with you. You’re going home.”

I couldn’t believe it! I hugged the man and almost kissed him. There was a great big party at the company. I couldn’t thank Chris enough for the effort he put in to freeing me. 

The propulsion system and androids were released to commercial enterprise. Not only were companies using both the androids and the system for earthly transport of humans around the globe but for commercial projects in the solar system.

The androids became ubiquitous partners in households that could afford them, and invaluable to business is large and small for their reliability and ability to work in environments where humans couldn’t or wouldn’t.

Gwen and I commenced immediately having babies and were successful – a boy and girl before we stopped. The money was good, but I continued to work with Chris and the others. Eventually, with my family, the memory of what happened faded.

Copyright 2025 © Ronald W. Hull

10/11/25