ATOMIC TALES – Strange Invaders #37: UFO Power Bugs

Agent Seven, “Ruthless” Ruth Donlevy

“There’s a glow up ahead,” Agent Five told me and Gigi. “Might be what we’re looking for.”

The three of us got a good jostling as our agency Studebaker bumped down the rutted track. Despite a new set of off-road tires, the hilly farmlands northeast of Dublin, Virginia, were giving our 4-door Champion a real workout. Thank heaven there hadn’t been much snow here this February, with the temperatures hovering near sixty at midday.

Gloria Gale “Gigi” Brock leaned over from the back seat, poking her head between Five—Nelson “Deadeye” Corrigan—and me. We’d arrived at dusk to begin our investigation, and our agent-in-training squinted into the gathering darkness. “I see some power lines, too. Just what we’re looking for!” I doubt General Brock’s daughter ever had an unenthusiastic day in her life.

“Or another UFO snipe hunt,” Deadeye grumbled.

“We may be in luck this time,” I replied. “The recent warm weather’s brought consistent sightings of strange lights in this area.”

“Plus strange losses of energy in the transmission grid—like someone, or something, is tapping these power lines.” Gigi beamed. Since her tip had helped us capture Dr. Mihm, she’d been super proud of her research. “I bet we’ll find a real flying saucer this time.”

Deadeye scowled, one of his most reliable expressions. “Assuming they’re real at all.”

I laughed. “You believe in giant mutant bugs but not flying saucers?”

“The bugs I’ve seen—and killed. But lights in the sky…? Could just be foo fighters, like in the war. And nobody ever figured out what those were.”

“Maybe we’re about to find out…” I said. “Because there are definitely weird lights over the treeline ahead.”

In the cloudless sky above the hilltops, a group of glowing objects darted around the transmission high lines. The UFOs were moving too quickly to get an accurate count, but I figured they numbered somewhere between six and ten.

Agent Five swore. “Foo fighters…!”

He pressed the accelerator to the floor, but moments later, with the power lines just around the edge of a wooded hill, our Studebaker stalled.

Our lead agent swore again. “What the…?!”

He tried the ignition repeatedly, but the eight-cylinder engine just wouldn’t catch. He picked up the two-way radio. “Agent Five to HQ… Come in, HQ…”

No response. The radio unit was just as dead as our usually reliable Champion.

“People have frequently reported electrical problems with both cars and airplanes around UFOs,” Gigi offered.

Deadeye merely growled at her.

He hopped out of the car. “Grab your gear, ladies… We’re going for a walk.”

I noticed that he clutched his side briefly as he walked around to the trunk. And apparently, he noticed me wincing as I stepped onto the uneven Virginia ground, too.

“Guess the agency figured the Walking Wounded Squad was a good fit for this job,” he observed.

“Agent Seven doesn’t really need my help,” Gigi put in. “Her ankle’s all healed up, now. I’m just here for training. But if you need my help, Agent Five…”

Deadeye shot her a look that could have killed even without his sniper rifle. He slung the big, specially equipped M-One-D on his back. “Let’s get moving.” He trudged around the hill, not checking whether or not we followed.

Gigi shot me a glance. “Is he always so grumpy?”

“This is one of his good days.” I grabbed my guns and gear while Gigi, having recently passed her marksmanship test, did the same.

Deadeye took cover behind a copse of denuded scrub about a hundred yards away, halfway between the lines and our car. He crouched low, observing the phenomena, as we caught up.

“What are they, Ruth?”

The speed with which they were darting around the power lines, and the ever-changing intensity of their glow, made it difficult to tell the size of the UFOs. They could have been as small as a bushel basket or as large as a double-wide fridge. They appeared oval in shape—like enormous flying footballs.

Occasionally, one of the larger lights swooped near the power lines, and electricity arced from the thick wire to the object. The tang of ozone filled the clear space between us and the big metal towers, smothering the scent of the damp winter earth.

I shrugged. “Darned if I know.”

Gigi had her field glasses glued to her eyes. “You know what…? I think they might be fireflies, like the ones Agent One discovered in Colorado three years ago.”

I checked through my binoculars while Deadeye trained his sniper scope on our targets.

I nodded. “I think Gigi’s right.”

Our agent-in-training scrunched up her nose. “But why are they tapping the power lines?”

“One way to find out.” Deadeye drew a bead on one of the darting lights, and…

BLAM!

Our mission leader lived up to his nickname, and—with a puff of glowing greenish goo— one of the bugs sputtered and spiraled down to the ground.

“If these don’t disintegrate, we’ve got the Teragons another specimen.” He grinned and hiked toward the fallen mutant, a flailing heap of glowing slime, barbed legs, and thorny carapace as large as a black Labrador.

“Here’s hoping,” I replied. Gigi and I followed cautiously.

As our mission leader drew near the twitching bug, two more fireflies veered from the power lines toward him.

“Watch out!” I cried.

Deadeye laughed and shouldered his rifle. “Stupid things. Do they wanna join their buddy?”

But as he drew a bead on the lead insect…

ZZZZZZAAAAP!

Twin bolts of electricity leapt from the glowing bugs, knocking Agent Five off his feet. He lay on the ground, moaning softly, his clothes smoking.

I fired at the two bugs as I rushed toward him. “Deadeye! Gigi, give us covering fire!”

“Right!”

My shots took down one of the enemy, and Gigi managed to nail the other, though she took four shots to do it.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

The remaining bugs circling the high lines began humming, like an angry swarm of bees. Electric sparks flew between their glowing bodies and the wires.

I pulled Deadeye back toward Gigi.

“What now?” she asked.

Another bug came at us, blasting the ground where Five and I had just been.

ZAP!

“Help me get him back to the car.”

“But what if the car doesn’t start?”

“The insulation from the tires will protect us,” I assured her. “We won’t be grounded, so their electric blasts can’t harm us. That’ll buy us time to figure out our next move.”

Gigi grabbed Deadeye under one shoulder, I took the other, and together we dragged him across the hundred yards to our Studebaker.

We paused only briefly as I warded off one bug pursuing us with a couple of well-placed rounds.

I didn’t kill it, though, and the rest of the swarm, including the biggest one of all, now joined the chase.

ZZZAP!

The ground burst into a shower of sparks behind us, and the air reeked of ozone as we shoved Deadeye into the car, leapt in, and slammed the door shut.

“Don’t touch anything metal,” I cautioned as the next bolt passed harmlessly through the car’s bodywork. I remembered the time I electrocuted a boatload of isopods; now I was on the other side of that strategy.

Gigi panted, catching her breath. “When Agent One fought these things, they were just harmless fireflies—but now they’re real lightning bugs!”

The car rattled with each enemy electrical blast. Even with us insulated, the vicious assault rattled our bones.

In a non-electrifying moment, I tried the Studebaker’s ignition. Nothing.

“What do we do?!” Gigi’s eyes brimmed with fear.

“They can be killed. And they’re going back to the power lines to recharge after each attack. We can use that lull to roll down the windows and pick them off from here in relative safety.”

“Are you sure?”

I smiled grimly. “As Deadeye said, ‘Only one way to find out.’”

During the next break in the siege, I rolled down the driver’s side window and took careful aim at the next bug coming in.

Bang!

Down it went.

Finding her courage, Gigi rolled down her window, too.

Bang!

Bang! Bang!

Bang! Bang! Bang!

A tense fifteen minutes later, all but one of the fireflies littered the rough Virginia soil. Our foes decayed into foul-smelling green goo, just like all the other mutant bugs we’d fought. Only the largest one remained.

That monstrous insect glowed brighter than the rest, so bright that we could hardly look at it.

It buzzed the car, blasting us so hard that my skin tingled, before retreating to the power lines, drawing energy from them, preparing for an even more deadly assault.

I grabbed Deadeye’s M-One-D, which fortunately had been strapped to his unconscious body, and opened the Studebaker’s door.

“W-what are you doing?” Gigi’s voice trembled as I got out.

“Giving that big one something to think about. If I don’t make it, get Deadeye to a hospital as fast as you can.”

Gigi nodded mutely.

I’ve never been a sniper like Agent Five, but put a good gun in my hands…!

A loud electric hum built in the air—possibly the big glow-bug noticing me as I took careful aim. Our mutant enemy seemed to grow even larger.

Blam! Blam! Blam!

I nailed it dead center with my first three shots…

I kept firing.

Blam! Blam! Blam! BOOOOOM..!

The thing whooshed away so quickly that the rush of air rumbled like a thunderclap.

And it was gone.

Gigi’s mouth hung open as she climbed out the passenger side door. “I-I’d swear you hit it but…”

“Yeah. I’m not Deadeye, but I could have brought down an elephant with that many slugs.”

“Maybe that big one wasn’t a lightning bug at all. Maybe it was a real flying saucer!”

I shook my head. “Who knows.”

“What do we do now?”

“Pray that the car will start. Deadeye’s still breathing, but we need to get him to a hospital—fast.”

THE END

About “UFO Power Bugs”

As usual, this tale originated with another image in my head of a bunch of glowing lights flitting around power lines, sucking electricity out of them. Draining power from our human service lines is a common feature in UFO reports.

I’m sure that one of my main inspirations for the idea came from the UFO/Flying Saucers magazine published by the late, great Gold Key comics. (The headquarters of Gold Key was only about a half hour from where I live now, but I only visited it once—for business/printing reasons—while the company was still in operation. An opportunity sadly missed. I’d have loved to talk to them about their Gold Key line, some of which were among the first comics I ever owned.)

While sometimes crudely drawn and clumsily written, those UFO/Flying Saucers comics continue to be a great source of inspiration, because the magazine’s editors and writers mined every source of flying saucer lore available to keep each issue packed with stories. As a result, I don’t think there’s a major UFO (or “alien”) incident between World War II and 1980 not covered in the mags’ pages. I’ve frequently turned to reading/re-reading those old issues for inspiration on this series. It really gets me in the mood!

Of course, nobody really knows why UFOs are spotted around power transmission lines. The Believer conjecture is they draw energy from them; the Skeptic thinks that perhaps the glowing objects sighted are just energy, like ball lightning, somehow caused by our wacky electrical grid. Who can tell what’s the truth?

But in this story, those mysterious glowing objects are definitely newly improved, deadlier versions of the “friendly” mutant fireflies from earlier in the series. Now that their lightning bug nickname is more literal, they’re not so harmless anymore.

I try to make my locations for this series real—I even have a Google Map of all the adventure locations—but this one required some vexing research.

I think I’ve gotten the final locale fairly close, but my earliest attempt went awry after I discovered that the map I’d been using had the electrical line markings turned off, and what I’d thought were power lines were really gas lines. Which explained why no power lines had been visible in the roadside photos I’d found of the area.

I’m still not seeing huge high-line towers on Google’s satellite maps of my final story location, though my map of the power grid clearly indicates some should be there. Does Google remove the big towers from its images because they’re ugly and obscure the landscape? Or because they might be targets for terrorists?

I don’t know, but I hope that you won’t hold it against me if reality doesn’t quite match my descriptions.

After all, the landscape (and power lines) could have changed since the 1950s, you know!