Do Aliens Feel Pain? Leaked Document Reveals Extent of U.S. Torture Experiments on May 17th Martian

Leaked documents uncovered in a hack on United States Air Force databases early Thursday morning reveal the brutal extent of the long-rumored experiments performed upon the “May 17th Martian,” infamous for the attack on the Area 51 air base and ensuing three-month chase that killed or wounded 6,756 active servicemen, 1,231 scientists, and 926 innocents just three years ago on May 17, 2233.

The U.S. Air Force documents leaked over social media revealed an extensive program of experiments performed upon the May 17th Martian prior to the attack that controversial community organizer and founder of End Martian Law, Gabriel Anaya, took to social media to call “equivalent to torture.” 

The End Martian Law campaign was founded just three days into the rigorous 13-month-long state of emergency the U.S. government declared as a means to eliminate the extraterrestrial threat, under which time the U.S. invoked martial law. Though polls showed nearly 80% of the American public supported the government’s decision, the resulting security measures—which garnered the U.S. accusations of becoming what the United Nations called a “full-scale totalitarian security state”—led to international condemnation and denunciation by humanitarian organizations, culminating in Anaya organizing the End Martian Law march on Washington. It was estimated to have garnered at least 700,000 in attendance.

The documents shed some much-needed light on the mysterious circumstances of the earth-shattering tragedy that took place on May 17, 2233. The U.S. State Department has been predictably tight-lipped around the details of the deadliest attack to ever take place on its soil. As speculation flies all around us on the true motivations for the carnage, the documents add a new wrinkle to what is already a highly polarizing matter in American society today.

Alaina Greene, covering for the Free Press of New York

“Incredible Alaina. Truly, incredible.”

“Thank you, si—”

“No, thank you. I mean, seriously. This front fuckin’ page … ” Pat Goldstein looked down at the paper in his hands like it’d just bought him lunch.

“It’s going to be in the Smithsonian one day. You said this leaked?”

“Bossman still surprised at how the internet works in 2236. Ha—”

“Cut it, Carlos. We are still on a deadline and I need some goddamn—”
A knock at the door. Then, a flood.

“Interrupting the editors’ meeting. Good plan for upward mobili—-”

“Look at this, Pat. Look!”

A cavalry of fresh-faced beat reporters and newsroom staff raced with their phones to pull up the website of the U.S. State Department. It was a short statement. Jointly signed by many, including the Air Force, Marine Corps, NASA, the CIA—a who’s who of American authority. It took Goldstein seconds to read it, even less to understand it.

“So they know Mars did it.”

The room became uncharacteristically quiet for a room of young, busybody reporters. The severity of the news still seeping into the faces of each and everyone in it.

“Who’s on lead for this?”

“Me and Valencia been on the K’Tualnpp rumor for months. I’m writing it as we speak.”

“Alrighty then. Carlos and Valencia on lead. I still need a fucki—”

“I don’t even get it.”

“I know.”

“The K’Tualnpp rumor has been around since we learned Mars had colonies. Shouldn’t be a surprise.”
“But still. To aid May 17th? A terrorist attack?”

“I mean, we already called him Martian.”

“But that was just a nickname! We never knew—”

“Those fuckin’ alien bastards. We knew those bug-eyes did it.”

“It was a rescue mission.”

Once again, the room fell silent. Although this silence, Alaina felt, wasn’t one of shock.

“Huh?”

Alaina spoke again, although her confidence did not come with her. “Well, you said they aided—erm—a terrorist attack, but it was really a rescue mission. At least, that’s what this document says. Right?”

“It says K’Tualnpp aided an escape attempt.”

The once warm and energetic room, in an instant, turned cold as ice. 

“That murdered thousands of innocent Americans.”

Alaina took the hint. Goldstein cleared his throat and continued.

“It also says the president is recommending Congress draft a letter requesting a representative of the K’Tualnpp territory stand trial in an American court. DeFrancis is calling for war.”

“The far-right caucus in the House has always been war hawks. This isn’t new either.”

“But it is news. Get on it.”

As the small editors’ office began to clear, Alaina turned to Goldstein for her assignment, an open phone meeting her face.

“It’s impromptu. Those EML idiots love to hear themselves talk, huh?”

“I think I’d be better served—”

“The rally is starting in Times Square now. Don’t miss the speeches.”

“I just wrote you your headlin—“

“Weren’t you the one concerned with May 17th, the terror attack that kicked off one of the darkest periods in our history, being a Martian rescue mission?”

Goldstein cracked a sarcastic smile.

“I think this story is right up your alley.”

The End Martian Law rally for military de-escalation was truly a sight to behold. The sheer mass of people alone—later estimates went into the three-hundred thousands—that held up a sea of peace-sign filled poster boards and thunderous voices chanting, “No more war,” were, if nothing else, a reminder of the deeply powerful essence of collective movement.

For hours, she stood there. She watched students talk. Scientists. A local politician. A nun. The energy of the rally was, after all, contagious and open. All were welcome and all came. But nobody spoke quite like Gabriel Anaya. As Alaina watched her footage back in her small apartment, she could barely even make out the EML leader’s words over the incessant cheers of the crowd he had garnered.

“Soon, the United States will announce that they will be asking a representative of the Martian colony, K’Tualnpp, to stand trial in an Earthly court.”

Small chuckles are heard throughout the crowd. He continued.

“An American court. Again, it is us.”

As Gabriel Anaya began to orate, he didn’t look scared, defiant, angry—no. When Gabriel Anaya spoke to his crowd, he spoke to his friends. And his friends listened to his every word.

“The circumstances are foreign to us, that’s for sure. None of us expected that in just three years time we would live in a new world of aliens and the threat of extraterrestrial warfare. But as odd as it may sound as we stand here today, amidst the threat of planetary war, something about this just feels—familiar. Doesn’t it?”

He paused.

“While the United States may be the military power of the world, it is not the military power of the universe.”

A mountain of applause erupted.

“They act like they don’t get it. They act like they don’t have a responsibility for how all this ended up.”

Thunderous applause.

“They act like they didn’t experiment on the ‘May 17th Martian’ since they found it at only four months old.”

Anaya began to shed a tear.

“They act like they didn’t round up our families—my family-–in small, windowless cells. Held without trial on suspicion of space origin. They act like it never happened.”

“But they did. They did round us up. Despite the fact they knew what was happening the entire time. They did.”

“And they did EMP half of Houston so they could finally stop their creation, and it did shut off the ventilators at Texas Children’s Hospital. It did.”

Alaina was taken aback. There was a lot she had forgotten in three years.

“And this is their creation. The ‘May 17th Martian’ was tortured by us. For centuries, it went through painful bodily experiments by generations of our scientists. Resistance to mutilation, burning, freezing, extreme pain, extreme loneliness. It’s all in the U.S.A.F. documents. Experiment after experiment, in a 6-by-6 holding cell. In the name of intelligence. In the name of resources.”

As Anaya took a breath, the over-300,000 occupying Times Square fell silent.

“They tried to see if they could kill it. Hundreds of times. And when they realized it wouldn’t die? They made it as hard as possible for it to live.”

As Anaya finished his address, Alaina closed her notebook, his booming words ringing as the footage played out.

“It all feels familiar. Doesn’t it?”

“What?”

Furrowing his brow, it was times like this that Pat Goldstein wouldn’t have minded a different profession.

“I don’t get why you are surprised, Alaina—the Feds barely tolerated this kinda stuff before the Martian Law era. You are lucky they even let up on us. Everything changed afte—”

“Explain it to me again.”

Goldstein lifted the cover of the latest edition of the Free Press of New York and shoved it in Alaina’s face.

“Don’t take my word for it. My paper said it, too,” he added, chuckling happily at himself. The headline was as clear as it could be.

The End of End Martian Law: Over 90 EML Members Arrested in RICO Indictment

Only a week after the End Martian Law occupation of Times Square, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has announced ninety-six arrests of the EML resistance group on racketeering charges. A date for trial has not been set. Gabriel Anaya, 22, alleged leader of EML, faces 72 years behind bars for—

“This is bullshit. I’m sorry, but you know it’s bullshit.”

“Look, I understand you have some type of schoolgirl crush on this Anaya guy, okay? But these EML folks are no saints.”

“They don’t have to be for this to be bullshit.”

Goldstein threw his hands in the air, defeated.

“Alright then! Try this. What the fuck did they expect? They knew very well this could happen. The Extermination Cabinet banned militant anarchism and pro-alien sentiment the second it took power during martian law. They were there. I know because I heard them yelling every day out in the streets as I came here to go to work. Something that those unemployed basement-dwellers never even tried to do.”

As he ranted, Goldstein didn’t even notice Alaina Greene had quietly shuffled out the door behind him, closing it shut. Her Free Press pass on his desk.

“And it’s not bullshit. Why should I care about some whiny, pro-bug-eye kids? Why? It was them who attacked us. Killed innocent Americans. It was them.”

A rare editorial was featured in the very next edition of the Free Press. In it, Pat Goldstein pledged full support to Congress ratifying a letter requesting K’Tualnpp send their sovereign leader to an American court for trial.

–

If only they had known. If only they knew what a galvanizing moment the kidnapping and brutal torture of four-month-old Terash from K’Tualnpp was for Martian society when it took place a mere three centuries ago. The average Martian lifespan is 721 years after all. If only they knew they would all remember him. If only they knew the extent to which he was always on the collective Martian mind. If only they saw the rallies. If only they saw the ferocious disdain that Martian society displayed toward the continuous, uninvited Mars Exploration Rovers the U.S. continued to send unapologetically up until May 17, 2233. The way Martians took that as encroachment of their planetary sovereignty. It was a ticking time bomb after all. If only they knew. When the Martians learned who their enemy truly was, they studied how they thought. If only they knew what the Martians were thinking, too. If only they had cared to ask.

On August 25, 2236, the president of the United States signed the letter ratified by Congress requesting the K’Tualnppen Representative for Galactic Affairs to stand trial. The available technology at the time got this message to Mars in 167 days. The next day, on February 8, 2237, the United States was annexed by K’Tualnpp. The awesome power differential was exposed immediately. First, there was a mass blackout. From the Hawaiian islands to the tip of Maine, there was no electricity. Nuclear capabilities were shattered on arrival. Impossibly fast, sleek white cylindrical Martian ships dropped artillery over major population centers. Later K’Tualnppen record-keeping revealed that the mass of the lone K’Tualnppen aircraft carrier brought to battle, the Terash Alpha, crushed the entirety of Cleveland, Ohio, simply by landing. In the first three days of occupation, over five million innocent Americans were dead. Two million at least, incinerated fully, by weapons beyond comprehension.

The bombing was indiscriminately cruel and viciously effective. Such a broad display of clear technological superiority that many K’Tualppen scholars, along with large swaths of Martian civilization at large, would go on to protest it themselves, once they learned the true details of just how utterly barbaric it was. Alaina Greene wasn’t exactly sure how she was still alive, considering. It was exactly one week after the Martian invasion of the United States, and Alaina was doing what she spent her life doing. Reporting. There were no more homes to go to, anyway. She doubted after all this was over if there would even be anyone to really read it, but at this point, it was no longer about that either. She knew that the day she gave up her job at the Free Press, she would likely never have an audience again. The black bulletproof vest and accompanying helmet she put on that read “PRESS” in all-white block text, she decided, was not for some abstract audience for which the story must be able to sell. But for those in the stories sold. For those who were forced to pay the price, when the giants of the universe decided to step without looking. Stories that reminded you humanity still existed. Even amongst times of unimaginable depravity. These were the type of stories she was looking for when the Martian Trooper Kalek Boone, the decorated K’Tualnppen soldier, caught her by surprise. As she looked up from furiously scribbling into her notepad, she was met by a rifle that held the capacity to destroy her entire apartment complex, had it not already been. The barrel was larger than the circumference of her head, and from no more than four feet away, it was aimed directly at her.

At that moment, she knew she would die. It was certainly a surprise when Trooper Boone slowly removed one hand from his still-aimed rifle, pressing the translator embedded into his advanced K’Tualnppen exosuit.

“Ask me a question.” He looked amused. “Press.”
She was already dead.

“Fine.” She looked around quickly. A last-ditch prayer for help, probably. But also a desperate look for someone, anyone, out there who was brave enough to be wearing the same “PRESS” attire she wore currently to be watching. Then, at least, she’d know someone was seeing her humanity as it still existed.

“Why?” she asked defiantly. “Look around you. Look at this destruction.”

She held back tears. “I understand we wronged you. We disrespected you all. But how could it possibly justify—”

A single one rolled down her cheek.

“All of this.”

She caught it as it fell.

“And why now, huh? We had that alien since before the 2000s. Why wait to do this until now? What was it about the diplomatic message we sent that caused all—”

The rifle moved from four feet away from her face to just one in less than a second. It was no consolation for the situation she found herself in now, but though the biggest weapon she had ever seen in her young life was directly pointed at her skull, she felt at ease. Her words had stung. But Boone was no cherry. 

“Your type is always asking the questions.” As he spit, his saliva burned a small hole on the ground beneath them where it landed. “Never answering them.”

She sneered at him. “Well, now’s your chance.”

Without much thought, Trooper Boone removed his hand from his rifle once again, pulling out a small photo. It was the iconic picture of Buzz Aldrin as he first landed upon the moon in 1969, saluting the vibrant red, white, and blue American flag he had triumphantly placed upon its surface.

“What made this your moon?”

The question stumped Alaina.

“When our boy Terash was taken all those years ago, we made immediate plans to siege your territory and take our child back. The only reason we didn’t was because not even a month later, the United States put their flag on a moon outside of their planetary domain for the first time. This intrigued the Great Leaders of K’Tualnpp. So we watched and waited, but justice was demanded. That was around the time we had the Terash Conference. It was decided then, by democratic decree, that any of your Earthly aggression or expansion, at any point in time, would be returned in kind. You held our child. Poked and prodded him while he was not strong enough to fight back. And when he finally did, you had the nerve to ask us to repent.”

Boone’s demeanor shifted for a moment, almost as if in his uncharacteristic outburst, the years of disdain toward this little colony on Earth had washed over his body in an instant. He handed her the photo.

“So, I ask you again. What made this your moon?”

And without warning, the alien shot Alaina Greene dead.