Mike rubbed at his tired eyes, standing up from the desk and stretching. Some of his vertebrae cracked as he stretched, and he walked over to the window, looking out at Washington DC. All those people out there, he was thinking. How many of them knew about these aliens? How many were aliens themselves? There were so many stories of UFOs and beams of light, time slowed down or stopped, broken memories and other unexplained experiences. Most of the people involved in such things were met with derision or disbelief by families, friends, workmates and the media. But all of it was true.

He turned and looked back at the paperwork on his desk, and at the 3 monitors, all showing various bits of information to help bring him up to speed. His first task had been to familiarise himself with as much of the data as possible, to understand what Night Watch was all about, how long it had been around, and why. What he discovered had, to say the least, shocked him.

Unidentified alien activity had started with Roswell in 1947, which was the first of many such events. As jets became more prominent in the skies, so did sightings of UFO's, and there were accidental collisions and even shootdowns during the 50's and 60's. However, the UFO's seemed to back off somewhat in the 70's, avoiding military detection and interfering more with the civilians around the planet. From the 80's through to 2001, the US had no contact with any UFOs.

In 2001, however, that changed.

What the people didn't know about the attacks on the World Trade Center was that some of the terrorists had walked away from the crash sites. Many people felt that there was a government conspiracy, and while they were right, they claimed all the wrong reasons. Whole websites sprung up about government involvement in the terrorist attacks, or widespread incompetence leading to failed intelligence analysis, or failed action to prevent the attacks from occuring. All of them were wrong, looking in the wrong places, but the truth could never be revealed.

Project Night Watch sprang up overnight as a result of what the video footage showed; footage which 'disappeared', along with anyone who viewed it and were unauthorised to do so. Night Watch was a project created within the National Security Agency, headed by Alex Morgan, Deputy Director National Security Agency. Lisa Wright, Assistant to the Deputy Director, was also responsible for bringing the project together and ensuring its target goals were met.

The goals? In over 17 years of experience in Special Forces operations around the world, he'd never seen anything like what the goals were meant to combat. Simply, "the investigation of enhanced terrorist activity, and the protection of humanity."

'Enhanced terrorist activity.' It was almost funny, but Mike didn't feel like laughing. The video footage he'd seen showed the interior of the floor that one of the planes had crashed into, with debris and bodies lying everywhere, lit up by the flames from the jet fuel spilled throughout the area. It was obvious that the probability of survivors was extremely low to nonexistent, what with the shattered remnants of the plane, and the fires. A part of the cockpit was visible, and the eyes were immediately attracted to that point when two men stepped out of the cockpit, pushing a large bulkhead out of their way. It must've weighed at least a couple of tons, but they pushed it aside easily. They looked around at their surroundings and then walked over to the edge of the floor, gaping open to the sky. Their clothes burnt away as they walked through the intense flames from burning fuel, but their skin looked unharmed. And then they jumped out.

The next scene in the video was taken from the camera of someone filming the building from the outside, and amongst the falling debris and burning paper could be seen the two men falling, looking like they had been occupants of the building, falling to their deaths. The next scene however, from yet another camera, showed the same two men amongst a group of people gathered to watch the burning buildings. They were wearing business suits which looked like they didn't really fit. The camera continued past them, filming other people and the building.

The meaning behind the edited video was obvious. The two hijackers survived the crash into the building, pushed aside heavy metal bulkheads, jumped out of the building and fell a thousand feet, and then walked away.

The information in front of Mike told him that 7 of the 19 alleged hijackers had apparently walked away, with only 2 of them being filmed during the process. None of them have been retrieved to date. These 'enhanced terrorists' were believed by Night Watch to be aliens, disguising themselves as terrorists. Alternatively, aliens were affecting terrorists in order to engage war on the western world, for reasons as yet unknown.

This information gained credibility when members of Al Qaeda, captured in Afghanistan, spoke of the unusual abilities performed by some of their leaders who spent a great deal of time in the desert, communing with Allah within beams of light. In return for their devoted service, Allah granted them great strength and immortality in return. Unfortunately, some of these highly dubious claims were confirmed by various special operations forces who became engaged in combat with these 'supermen', as they called them, suspecting they were enhanced by drugs.

And so we came to the present, where the information Mike had showed that there was no real confirmation of any of these claims, until that US military patrol in Afghanistan had spotted the two soldiers 'communing with Allah'. And the results were scary. There seemed to be no defence against this light, and luckily - as far as anyone knew - it was also the first time the light had been used against US forces.

The day after Night Watch intercepted the satellite feed from the patrol, Kurt Rollins, their Head of Security, was compromised, either showing his true colours as one of these aliens, or being changed to help them. Mike remembered all too well the fight he'd had with the man, and how lucky he probably was. Whatever enhanced strength the terrorists had in the World Trade Center was missing from Kurt, which Mike was certainly happy about.

He rubbed his eyes again, feeling very tired. Looking at the time, he decided to have a nap. No point burning himself out before he even started, he thought. Laying down on the couch against the wall, he shut his syes, visions of aliens dancing in flames behind his eyelids, before drifting off into sleep.

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