Light Through the Window

by Cassandra Morphy

  "Not me," Red said. "I like it here on Earth. I like being able to breathe the air and go outside and feel the sun on my face."

  "Yea, that's nice," Eric said. "I mean, all power to these guys. I hope they make it and find... whatever it is they're going there for."

  "Personally, I don't see why we can't just stick with the robots," Red said. "We've been learning plenty from that."

  "Because it's not just about going to Mars now," Mare said. "It's about colonizing. That's why they're called colonists, not astronauts. If we have people in the neighborhood controlling those robots, there's no time lag in the commands. They can be repaired locally instead of just running until they can't function anymore. Even just getting there, they learn so much about landing on the planet and everything. Plus, I mean, it's Mars."

  "Yea," George said. "Mars is awesome."

  "The colonists should be strapping themselves into the main rocket now," the announcer continued. The cross talk ended so they could listen to her. "The rocket itself won't be going far, just to low Earth orbit, where the interplanetary vessel is stationed. The technicians that are up there, putting the finishing touches on the construction, will be coming back down with the rocket later today. Their landing will mark the one hundredth such landing with the completely reusable rockets, created by Angel Corp. It was their financing that finally pushed this project past the initial theory phase back in 2014. While Google managed to outbid them in further financing steps, the project will always have Angel Corp to thank."

  "Yea, and their logo is everywhere," Becky muttered. "God, could they be any more..."

  "Self-satisfying?" Mare offered.

  "Cool," George said.

  "Egotistical," Becky said.

  "You don't know them," Red said. "For all you know, the Simms's are just a bunch of nerds, trying to make the world a better place."

  "I have actually met them," Becky said. "Trust me, they're not."

  "Woah, you've met them?" Alex asked. "All this time, you've never told us? Heck, that's something I'd brag about when I first meet a person. 'Hi, I'm Alex. And, oh yea, I know the richest family in the world. We spend time just hanging out on their personal, transcontinental train.'"

  "They're really not as cool as they, and apparently you, think they are."

  "I would have thought that you would have cut them some slack, given that they're paying your tuition," Ellie said. It took her a moment to remember that she shouldn't know that. "Oh, uh, I mean, um--"

  "Oh, please," Becky said, not missing a beat. "Even that is just some stupid tax write off for them. They were going to be paying for it anyway, but they put it in the form of a scholarship so they can deduct it."

  "Woah, wait, they're paying your tuition?" Alex asked. "That makes them that much cooler."

  "Just mine, and that's because of my relationship with them, not because of any degree of charity on their part. Mostly, I mean, it was closer to blackmail, really. I keep their secrets; they pay for my school. I almost made off with a car as well, but I aimed low."

  "That must be some story," Ellie said.

  "That must be some secret," Eric said.

  "Shh," Red hissed, pointing towards the TV. The timer in the corner was just passing two minutes.

  "We're being told down here in the press tent that the final checks have been concluded. Everything checks out on the rocket. The Discord 5 will launch on schedule, here in Cape Canaveral. The Ares 1 mission is a go." Cheers rang out all around the room, echoing what Ellie could hear on the TV and the tablet in her hands. She also thought she heard shouting from outside the building, in the quad. She would have gone over to the window to peek out, but she didn't want to miss any of the broadcast. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity, to see off the first group of Martian colonists. "The weather service is giving us clear skies down here, with no signs of storms on the horizon. As we're closing in on the final seconds before liftoff, nothing will stop this crew."

  "Oh, now why did they have to say that?" George whined. "Now something has to go wrong."

  "I'll settle for a little wrong," Mare said. "Not that any of us have any chance of catching up with them, but I would have liked to have been in the running for this first group."

  "Why go at all if you're not first, right?" Red asked. He toasted the TV with a bottle of beer that he had been hiding next to the couch.

  "Bite thy tongue," George said. "Better to be the eight hundredth than to never go at all."

  "Hear hear," Mare cheered.

  "We have ignition," the announcer said, shutting everyone up in the room. The cheers over the TV and tablet died off as everyone held their breaths. However, the noise from outside the building only built. "We have liftoff. The Discord 5 is off the ground, carrying the crew of the Ares 1, the first ever interplanetary mission to Mars." The cheers renewed everywhere. Ellie clapped her hands over her ears as Alex and Becky shrieked their own approvals of the success.

  "Woot," Red said, unemphatically, toasting the success of the mission.

  As Red placed the bottle to his lips, the room suddenly went dark. The blinds had been closed, probably to reduce the glare on the TV, but the day still flitted in around them. That sunlight was suddenly the only illumination in the room. The TV had gone off with the lights, and the tablet had gone to the black "Lost Call" screen. Despite none of them having moved, Ellie could only just make out her friends around her.

  "What the hell just happened?" Eric asked.

  "The lights went out," Red said.

  "No duh. Why did the lights go out?"

  "I'm guessing the power went out, too."

  Ellie flipped the tablet around in her hands, trying to reconnect with Mare. When she went back to the dial screen on Skype, it showed that she wasn't connected with the system. She flipped down the connection settings on the tablet, but there were no wifi access points coming up.

  "Wifi is down, too," she said.

  "So is the cell network," someone said in the crowd.

  "Great," Eric said. "Now what?"

  His question went unanswered in the silent room, the only source of sound being the cheers that went on, unhindered, outside the building.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The Out of Control Revelry

  "This is ridiculous," Eric said. He was peeking out through the blinds against the window, looking out at the party that was happening on the quad. None of them were quite sure what was going on with the lights, but Ellie had an unsettling feeling that the revelers outside had something to do with it. "You would think the campus police would have shown up by now."

  "They're probably busy trying to arrest people for stuff they didn't do," Ellie said.

  "Or did do but they can't prove," Becky said.

  "Same difference."

  "I wanted to see the end of it," George said. He was still on the couch, still staring at the blank screen of the TV. It was clear that he had hoped the power outage would be short lived, but as the hour went on, it was equally clear that it wasn't going to.

  "God, even my watch isn't connected," Becky said. She was playing with her smartwatch again, as she always did when she was nervous, but she had only just looked at it then. "Hero is probably freaking out right now."

  "Mare, too," Ellie said.

  "Yea, yea, it's not a competition," Alex said. "No one probably cares if I'm alright or not."

  She stretched her arms over her head, rubbing her wrist. As she did so, it became clear she wasn't wearing any form of fitness band. Ellie wasn't either, but she knew that Mare didn't need one to know that something was wrong. Just the way the Skype call disconnected, and the fact that Ellie hadn't reached out to her yet, would have been all the evidence that she would need that Ellie was in trouble, and probably do something stupid.

  "That's not true," Ellie said, trying to focus on something other than Mare ruining her life for her. "Your mom cares. Your dad probably does too, when he's not being an ass. I care."

  "Yea,
perhaps a little too much," Becky muttered.

  "As long as we stay in here and keep out of everyone's way, we'll be fine," Red said.

  "What are you talking about?" George asked. "It's just a party. They're celebrating the launch."

  "Except they were celebrating a lot earlier than when the launch happened," Eric said. He continued to gaze out the window, moving the blinds around to give him a better angle.

  "Why couldn't this blackout have happened like five hours earlier?" Alex asked. "We could have missed the test."

  "Dad would have just rescheduled," Ellie said.

  "At least we'll get out of the rest of classes for today," Red said. "Maybe it'll last until dinner tomorrow and we can miss those as well."

  "Except what are we going to do about dinner tonight?" Eric asked. "It's not exactly like we should risk going outside in all of that."

  "Oh, please. You're too worried, little brother. Plenty of people have gone out in that since it started and none of them have come back bloodied."

  Red motioned around the room as if to demonstrate his point. The six of them had stayed down in the TV room while most of the crowd that had assembled for the broadcast had disbursed. Some had actually gone outside to join in the fun they were having out there, but most seemed to feel it best to stay inside, going up to their rooms instead.

  "I don't think any of them have come back at all," Eric said.

  "And here I thought it was Ellie that was the paranoid one in the group," George said.

  "It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you," Ellie said.

  "You keep saying that, but have any of them really gone after you?"

  "You mean other than the one that attacked her on Sunday?" Becky asked.

  "Other than the times that you straight out picked a fight with them? I mean, they chased you down when you broke into one of their rooms. They attacked you when you stole the medical files of their parents. What were you expecting them to do?"

  "Woah, wait, you did what now?" Red asked. "Eric, what kind of friends did you make here?"

  "Who said anything about them being my friends?" Eric asked. "They're just my study group. I only listen in on their little conspiracy theories so I don't feel left out when it comes up during the study sessions."

  "Little conspiracy theories?" Ellie asked. "Seriously? You were just talking about how it's not safe outside right now."

  "Well, yea, because a mob is forming, not because of anything related to your supposed alien conspiracy."

  "Woah, wait, aliens? Seriously?" Red asked. "Aliens are nothing to joke about. Remember that kid, Mike, from high school? That dude was abducted by aliens back when he lived in the boonies. That's why his family moved into the city."

  "They moved into the city because Mike was doing peyote," Eric said. "He was probably high when he was supposedly kidnapped by aliens. Seriously, there is no such thing as aliens. This whole theory of theirs is based on one bad feeling and notes written by a shrink about the crazy ramblings of one serial killer. There is absolutely no truth to any of it."

  "Serial killer or alien hunter?" Red asked. "It's a fine line when people think you're crazy."

  "Only one of the people she was reported to have killed was an alien," Ellie said, remembering what she read in the file. "At least, as far as she knew."

  "Or thought," Eric said. "Like I said, she was crazy. And so are at least some of the people in this room."

  "Dude, you do know there are demons, right?" Red asked. "Big honkin' demons that live out in Oregon and Washington? Are aliens really that hard to believe?"

  "Yes, Red, they are," Eric said. He turned on his brother, angrily, stepping away from the blinds for a moment. They swung back into place, batting around at their neighbors as they swung back and forth before settling down. "It's crazy enough that demons actually exist, but they have nothing to do with aliens. All that their presence proves is that, at least at some point, there was a hell where people went when they died. There's even debate on whether or not people still go there. Plenty of people still die, but without an afterlife, do they still exist? There is nothing, nothing, that proves that aliens exist, or ever existed, or ever will exist."

  "What about the second plane?" Becky asked.

  "Yea, that conspiracy theory is older than we are," Eric said. "That's been rejected over and over again. No aliens abducted the second plane, certainly not these aliens, because there are no aliens."

  "That's like saying the clown in the corner didn't eat the last slice of pizza because there is no clown," George said.

  "Wait, what?" Ellie, Eric, and Alex all asked together.

  "What clown?" Red asked. His eyes darted nervously around the room.

  "There is no clown," Eric said.

  "Then what happened to the pizza?" George asked.

  "George is right," Becky said, pointing at him. Everyone turned to her, questioning looks on their face. "We should order pizza."

  "Hmm, pizza," George mumbled.

  "It'll solve the whole problem with needing to go outside for food."

  "Aren't you forgetting something?" Alex asked. "The phones are down."

  "Cell service is down, sure, but what about landlines?"

  "Do those even still exist?" Ellie asked.

  "If they do, they're probably working on the network, which is down as well," Alex said. "We're not going to be able to call anyone from on campus."

  "So we head off campus," George said. "It's only a few blocks that way, away from the party. With the power down, we could probably use the doors in the stairwell without the alarm going off. We get off campus, away from whatever is blocking the cell service, and call for a pizza. Then we come back here, or regroup somewhere off campus. Does anyone know somewhere off campus we could go?"

  "We could go to my place," Ellie said. "It's not that far away, though we'd be better off driving there. My Leaf is in the parking lot up the block."

  "There are an awful lot of people between us and there," Eric said. He went back to looking out the window, as if that were the most interesting thing to watch.

  "What is so interesting outside?" Ellie asked. "Or is it like a train wreck or something, just too gruesome not to look at."

  "I think it's more about the fact that I know so many of them out there."

  "Well, yea, we know them," Alex said. "I imagine at least some of them are freshmen. Half the freshmen are in that one class, after all."

  "Which is about like an eighth of the school," Ellie said. "Chances are we know about one in eight of the people out there."

  "I think we know considerably more of them," Eric said. "I'm getting a rather unsettling sense of deja vu over here."

  "What are you talking about?" Alex asked. She got up from the couch, bumping Ellie as she went, and headed over to stand next to Eric. He lifted the blinds for her, which just resulted in her glaring at him.

  "If we're heading out the emergency exits, we could probably slip along the road and then hop the fence into the parking lot," George said. "Once we're in the car, they'll be hard pressed to stop us."

  "I'm not running over anyone in my Leaf," Ellie said. "It hasn't even hit ten thousand miles yet. I'm not about to get blood all over it."

  "And, of course, it would be wrong to kill people," Becky said.

  "Yea, sure."

  "Uh, guys? You might want to come look at this," Alex said.

  "'You might want to come look at this' cliché," Red muttered.

  "Huh?" Ellie asked.

  Instead of waiting for a response from Red, she headed over between Eric and Alex. Becky followed her soon after, but she was content to watch from behind Ellie. She was tall enough to see over her head. Seconds after arriving at the window, Ellie knew exactly what Eric was talking about.

  The quad was packed with the revelers. Most of them were just standing around, too packed into the crowd to do much of anything. Those on the fringes were doing all manner of things, including a few people that
were burning papers over a trash can, which subsequently caught on fire, and two people that were shooting guns into the air. Ellie was hoping they were shooting blanks, or the bullets that came back down might hurt people. If they landed anywhere within the quad, they would.

  Those closer to the window looked like they were dancing, jumping into the air and twirling around. It was one of these that ultimately tipped Ellie off to who this group of partiers were. Rebecca Anne had just landed back onto her bare feet on the grass, facing the building. Her familiar dark eyes locked onto Ellie's, her smirk turning to a grimace. With her being there, Ellie figured that most, if not all, of the group were her fellow aliens, though the group seemed twice the size it was during the Remember Sami rally the week before.

  The five of them didn't have much of a warning before a garbage can came flying at the window. They just barely had time to duck away, shielding their eyes and heads against the glass as it rained down upon them. The garbage can, barely deterred by the window, came flying through it and into the TV room, raining down burning garbage onto the couch that Red had only just vacated.

  "Okay, who pissed off the red head?" Red asked. "We are a fiery breed."

  "She did," Eric said, pointing at Ellie.

  Chapter Forty

  That's No Party, That's a Mob

  Once the window had stopped raining glass down on them, the group gradually came back to a standing position. Ellie stared out at Rebecca Anne, who was standing defiantly in front of them, daring them, daring her, to come after her.

  With the window gone, Ellie could hear the car alarms going off in the distance. At first, she thought they were coming from her parking lot. She feared that her Leaf was at risk, that the aliens had known it was her car and had done something to it. But the alarms sounded further away than that, and coming from in front of her rather than to the left. Still, she wanted to head over that way, to run to the defense of her car and, more importantly, away from the aliens assembled in front of them.

  As Ellie stood up, she felt a little light headed. She gradually became aware of a throbbing pain in her forehead. Before she could reach up to that spot, though, Alex's hand beat her to it.