As I stepped forward into the portal, I felt a hand on my shoulder pulling me back with tremendous force. I fell backwards onto the floor and all of a sudden, four security guards with batons surrounded me on each side.
“WHAT DID YOU DO? WHAT IS THIS HOLE THING? WHO ARE YOU?,” a burly, large guard yelled. I assumed he was their leader and I was quite intimidated. I didn’t know what to say because I didn’t know quite what I did, what that hole was, or who I was at this point.
“My name is Lacy Watson and I am the Senior Design Architect for Glu Studios and I came here for research and I spilled coffee and it turned on and I don’t know what I did and... and... and... please don’t call my boss, I’ll get fired!” I quipped in fear.
The four guards looked at each other and picked me off the floor, locked my arms behind my back, and began to escort me outside the exhibit. I assumed they were going to arrest me but they took me to the Curator’s office where I was questioned for four hours about whether or not I was a witch. After they deemed I didn’t know anything about the portal, the Curator decided that I had to go upstairs and enter it to “test” if I was from “another universe.”
I had no idea what was going on but phone calls were being made, I don’t know what I had done but the Homeland Security and the Department of Defense were sending representatives to the museum because of my stupid coffee that spilled on the Commodore 64.
As I sat in the Curator’s office, the number of suited officials grew, as did hushed conversations and fingers being pointed at me as well.
“Good Afternoon, Lacy Watson. My name is Bill Herrick and I am the Director of Extraterrestrial and Alien Affairs at NASA. We are very interested in who you are and where you come from, and we want to tell you we come in peace,” he paused and gestured to everyone in the room. I was so confused, they thought I was an alien?
“Oh sir, I can assure you I am very much not an alien. My name is Lacy-“
“Ah, see we’ve heard your Earth Name, Lacy Watson or whatever, but right now we’re going to send in an ETA Marine with you into your portal to your land. This is a negotiation, we expect him to return safely or we will find you, detain you, and you will have the full force of the United States Government fighting your country,” he retorted.
I gulped. I didn’t know what I had done but there was no point convincing them otherwise, so I agreed to enter the portal with an ETA Marine, I didn’t even know what that was.
Multiple guards begin to handcuff me and escort me back up the stairs to the Commodore 64 Exhibit while Bill Herrick and bunch of suited officials led the group ahead of me. Suddenly, all I heard was gasps and exclaims as the crowd stopped at the exhibit. I got on my tippy-toes to try and see what happened but the guard yanked me back down. As I was pushed forward, I realized why they were exclaiming and shocked; the exhibit was back to normal, the portal was gone, the Commodore 64 was turned off and the exhibit looked brand new.
“I don’t even know what is going on,” I said.
“We need to investigate, check the tapes, hold her for longer and call her boss,” Herrick said seemingly frustrated. He seemed like someone who had to know everything that was going on at all times and for the first time, he was helpless and confused.
After three hours of detainment, the officers could not find anything against me and they let me go after Glu vouched for my “humanness”.
I walked outside of the museum and it was 10:00 P.M in D.C. As I got into my heli-car, I realized that the perfect idea for a new video game was the experience I had gone through – a secret government exercise that was monitoring the presence of alien portals and extraterrestrials on Earth. As the heli-car routed back to Los Angeles, I began designing the game with a smile on my face and I thought to myself, “Weirdest research trip I have been on for sure.”
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