by Nelson Angel
Jack taps his fingers on his chin, a habit when he’s thinking. He looks at the sky and sees a beautiful light blue, no clouds, a wonderful scenario, perfect, if not for everything else happening around them at that moment.
For the first time, he really regrets not talking to Jenn when he had a chance.
“It can be too late.” he thinks out loud while admiring the scenario.
Chapter 7: Meet Leonardo
They arrived in Montebelluna, driving a lovely and quiet narrow street full of trees called Via Risorgimento. In other conditions, Jack thought that the city would impress him far more than it was doing already. This spaceship and all the problems were messing with his mind.
Sophia got into a roundabout and kept driving her car on Via Piave, another street full of trees and smelling of nature, something that Jack had forgotten living in Los Angeles.
Right after a cross street called Via Ludovico Manin, she stopped in front of a yellow construction with two large glass windows and a door in between them.
As Jack opened the car door, his first inhaling breath brought that strong and delicious aroma of bread, and he remembered that he had not eaten anything for hours.
Sophia noticed.
“Come in. I’ll prepare something for you to eat. You must be hungry, right?”
“To be honest with you, I’m starving here. I just remembered that I haven’t eaten for hours. My last meal was a sandwich on the plane right after taking off from LAX. After that, I slept for the entire flight. I didn’t even drink water.”
They stepped into that place full of aromas, he notices that everything is very organized. He also notices that he’d never seen so much bread in his whole life in one place. Different shapes, sizes, and colors. For that small moment, he forgets about all the confusion and mess that was happening outside.
But reality dropped down like a bomb when Sophia’s employee came to the front and said something in Italian that Jack didn't understand. It seems that she agreed, and the young man left in a hurry.
“He’s the last one who stayed in the store. He didn’t want to leave without asking me.”
Sophia appears to be sad while talking.
All of sudden, she flips a button and like magic, opens a smile, closes the door, and invites Jack into the back of the bakery. It was a large kitchen that was used to divide the bakery from her house located on the back of the construction. Although the construction is old, it looked like new with modern machinery and equipment. Jack was impressed with the diversity in old and new worlds living together.
She prepared a strong coffee like a typical Italian and also prepared a huge sandwich. Cutting the bread in half, she spread butter and added mozzarella, salami, and prosciutto. The table had a huge sandwich, coffee, and red wine.
Jack couldn't believe how simply and beautifully the table had been organized. He ate and drank until satisfied.
“Everything was delicious. Thank you so much.”
She nodded and started cleaning the table.
“Sophia, do you have a landline phone here? I’d like to run some tests.”
Jack didn’t share the whole truth. He was trying to contact Jennifer and hoped to be able to do that right away.
“Of course. In the bakery. I still keep a landline there, for the business. My dad bought and kept it, then I inherited it. Go there and check if it is working.”
She didn’t need to ask twice. Minutes later, she hears him screaming.
“Unbelievable. It’s working. But how?”
Then he remembered what Sophia said that phone had been installed by her dad years ago.
“I believe that this phone is connected to an analog system, that’s why it’s working.”
Sophia was surprised and walked into the bakery to check the phone.
“Let me see if I can call somebody else from this number.”
“Keep in mind that it needs to be another landline number, otherwise it’s not going to work.”
Sophia called her aunt, and they started talking in Italian with Jack not understanding a single word.
Immediately, his mind started to think who he could call in Los Angeles to get in contact with Jenn. It had to be a landline phone, not a cell because he believed that satellites had been destroyed.
He turned on his cell phone and looked for a number that he knew to be a landline. He finally found it. His mother-in-law, or to be, or not to be has a landline.
As Sophia hung up, he asked if he could make an international call. She agreed. He dialed the number and… nothing happened. He tried again and… nothing again.
Then he remembered that in the US, the landlines are digital, for “better quality,” and he wasn’t able to talk to Jenn.
What else could he do?
Sophia had an idea. It was a long shot, but worth a try.
“I have a friend who is a physicist. His name is Leonardo, and he doesn’t live too far from here. We can go there and check if he has an idea to help you get in touch with your girlfriend.”
Jack felt some hope in the air.
Leonardo lives in a country house on Via San Luca close to Via San Matteo in Treviso.
It’s a large white house with details in yellow and some weird antennas on top of the roof.
Jack had a feeling that something was about to happen, he just didn’t know what exactly. But anything was worth it if he could get in touch with his girlfriend.
Chapter 8: Leonardo explains
When Sophia was introducing Leonardo, the first thing that came to Jack’s mind was how Leonardo looked like a nerd.
Leonardo is tall, slim as heck, no taste in clothing, his hair wasn’t combed, and bore the most common feature every nerd boasted… big glasses.
“Jack, this is Leonardo, a physicist and a friend of mine since we were kids. Leo, this is Jack, the guy who was supposed to help me make my bakery successful.” Both guys shake hands in a respectful way.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Jack.”
“Pleasure is all mine, Leo.”
Jack was a little confused by the way Sophia talked to Leonardo and didn’t understand well why she called him that way.
“Leo. That’s what she’s called me since we were kids. An old habit that’s not going to change, but I believe that’s not important now”.
“What do you mean?” asked Jack, curious about the statement.
Sophia was looking at both guys talking.
“Leo always has been a little, how can I say, pessimistic about everything.”
Leonardo looked at Sophia a little angry and pointed to the sky through the window.
“Can I be myself at least this time? Look around, you and tell me that I’m wrong.”
The silence was so intense that they could hear a fly flying in the room.
Jack decided to break that silence.
“What’s happening for real? I got on a plane and everything was normal. I get off that plane, and everything is in chaos. The only thing I know is that we have a spaceship near us. I don’t even know how far it is from us.”
Sophia looked to the ceiling.
“Eccoci qui” means “here we go”.
Leonardo clears his throat.
“Eighteen hours ago, we noticed an object near Neptune. Believe me when I say that it is far from earth. At least for our technology. Based on our technology, and not knowing if that “thing” was natural or artificial, we assumed that it would take days to get closer to us. We were also assuming that it was natural because we didn’t have proof of life outside of our planet.”
“And I assume that you all were wrong.” said Jack to Leonardo. “A friend of mine said the same thing at LAX just before I got onboard.”
“Certo (Right). We were able to see the object better by the time it was close to Mars. At that point, we found out that it was a spaceship, and it was travelling faster than we expected. We tried to coordinate with different monitoring centers, but it was too late. Three hours later, th
at spaceship was on our moon, and we literally saw something similar to a laser beam coming from the spaceship, and we lost all satellites.”
“I assume that we had lost satellites since we don’t have phones or the internet working anymore.” said Jack looking at both friends.
“And you are right. We still have landlines working here because our landlines systems are still analog. Probably you won’t be able to call the US because it’s changed to digital there, everything via satellite.”
“I’ve already tried with no luck from Sophia’s bakery.”
Another moment of silence as they processed frustrating news.
“Leonardo, do you know another way that I can use to get in touch with my girlfriend in LA?” Jack really hoped that Leonardo would say yes.
“I really don’t think so. The only way that’s working so far is radio, but it doesn’t have a long- range distance that would travel far enough to Los Angeles. You could try contacting someone near you and that person contacts someone near him and makes a chain until you reach Los Angeles. But with all that mess, I don’t know how willing people are to do that.”
Jack lowers his head in disappointment. He can’t see how he can contact his girlfriend. And he doesn’t even know what to say to her.
He’s trying to understand why he didn’t talk to her when they were in the house or later on trying to call her being more persistent. It would have been so simple his habits of taking shortcuts for everything made it all really complicated.
He’s feeling an empty space inside him and regrets having run away from a simple conversation that’s impossible to fix now. A really small problem made huge.
Chapter 9: The long journey
All three characters are inside the house, in the living room to be more precise. A place not different than any other living.
At that moment, Leonardo asks Jack and Sophia to follow him to his home lab. It is another large room in the basement, but this one is way different from everything Jack had seen before.
This room is full of equipment and cables. Jack; being Jack; saw that the cables connect the equipment from inside the room to the antennas on the roof that he noticed when they arrived at Leonardo's house.
Jack can’t resist asking.
“Are these cables connected to the antennas outside on the roof?”
“Yes, they are.”
“Is it possible to use any of these machines to connect to radios in the world?”
“No. I’m sorry to say. This equipment is digital, and is connected to my lab via the internet and satellite. That’s the reason you saw the antennas on the roof. For you to talk to somebody on the radio, you need to find somebody here with a radio, and the range is not that great. Unfortunately, not many people still use radios. With the advent of the internet, most people migrated from radio to the internet. Radios are mostly used by truck drivers, but their range is significantly short.”
“Do you know anybody who uses radio that we could ask for help?” asks Jack.
Sophia snaps her fingers because she remembered something.
“Remember Nate, that English guy living in France? He had radios and that big antenna at his house.”
“Sophia, he lives in France. Under normal circumstances, it would be easy for us to go to his place, but now…”
As Leo was talking, all three heard a loud noise coming from outside, followed by a tremor that shook so badly that Sophia and Jack fell. Leo is still up because he held a rack of equipment.
They looked at each other, and all three ran outside the house to investigate what was happening.
By the time they are outside, they can see the spaceship close to Earth’s orbit. This is the first time they can see it with their own eyes.
The spaceship is huge. Although being in high orbit, it looks gigantic. It doesn’t reflect light, giving it a dark appearance. It’s difficult to imagine if this effect is because the spaceship is in high orbit or if because of its color.
It’s so high that they can’t see any windows or more details. At this moment, they notice some lights coming from the spaceship. It appears that it is coming from the lower side portion around the entire structure.
They also notice a lot of small lights leaving the spaceship and flying in all directions. The impression that they had is that these small lights were flying in a pattern that would take them to cover Earth completely. They are flying in all directions from the spaceship. And it’s a lot of them. A lot.
Some of them are flying in their direction, getting closer and closer.
Sophia and Jack have terror in their faces. Their eyes are completely open as well as their mouths. They are not feeling comfortable with what they are watching at all.
Leonardo touches his glasses and calmly says.
“My friends, it’s started. We are going to know if they came in peace or not. It’s the beginning. It can be the beginning of a great relationship where we can learn a lot and evolve as a human race and society or it can be the beginning of the end, and we can’t do anything at this point. This shows how important or big we are. And yes, for them, we are not more relevant than the ants we can see under our feet.”
Sophia is starting to freak out. She’s breathing fast and moving in all directions.
“I don’t want to be here. Can we go somewhere else, please? Non voglio più stare qui (I don't want to stay here anymore)”.
Leonardo turns to her with all the patience in the world on his eyes.
“E dove possiamo andare? (and where can we go?). Can’t you see that they’re flying in all directions?”
Jack recovers from his shock at this moment. He is still lost but trying to bring sense to his thoughts.
“What if we go to this friend of yours in France? Is it too far from here? If he’s got this radio stuff that you told us about, we can be more well informed about what’s happening in the world, since the internet and communications are down.”
“I believe this is a good idea. Being here is not going to help us at all. We won’t know what’s happening worldwide and won’t be able to decide what action we can take. But it’s better using our, what’s the name in English, motorini…”
Sophia comes to the rescue.
“Mopeds. But why? They’re slower than cars and the range is shorter.”
“But we will be able to get into small places that a car can’t drive in. I’m playing it safe here. We never know…” Jack understands that Leonardo is trying to be prepared for any circumstance that may come in the future. “I have two here at home. Sophia, I assume you still have yours, certo?”
“Yeah.” Sophia doesn’t seem to like the idea, but because Leonardo and Jack agree, she’s forced to agree too. This is the first time that she doesn’t do what she wants in a long time. But aliens coming down to the Earth have rattled all of them. Sticking together as a team is best...
They need to travel back to Montebelluna for two reasons. First, Sophia needs to get her moped at home, and second, because travelling to France, Montebelluna is on the way when driving from Treviso.
On their way to Montebelluna, as they drive between the two cities, they can see different reactions from the people. Some of them are happy because they believe that the aliens up there are coming to “rescue” them from this world of injustice and primitive technology that they’re living in. Others are completely lost and desperate. They belong to the group that put religion above all, and the Bible never mentions life outside of Earth, at least is what they were taught.
It’s really difficult to understand what these two different groups are thinking because our race, the human race, is so primitive and limited in everything. Technology, knowledge of life, greediness, and an ignorant sense of importance that each individual has in society where it is most important to show what people want to be instead what they really are.
They notice two scenarios as they travel, people are uncoordinated, running everywhere, no direction to go, sacking businesses and
yes, there are always these kinds of individuals Jack realises. Or people doing nothing, inert, inactive for a lack of courage and knowledge. Meanwhile, above in the sky are numerous small spaceships flying in a coordinate pattern, going every place, following order and purpose, working together to achieve a common goal.
This by itself proves that humans as a race, are far away from being considered an organized society.
They arrived at Sophia’s place, miraculously intact. Leonardo gets off the vehicle and walks to the gate to open it, followed by Jack who at this moment looks at the sky and sees that those small spaceships are still flying out of the big one.
“How many of these small spaceships are they going to have to surround Earth?”
Leonardo checks the sky and can’t hold his expression of surprise.
“I’m not sure, but I can say that I believe that they are not here to teach us anything. At least, not anything good.”
Sophia is taking her moped from inside the store. Trying to turn it on, she notices that the moped is working fine. Jack and Leonardo already turned on the other mopeds that they took out of Sophia’s vehicle. They are ready to start their journey. They need a plan, coordination, and sense of collectiveness to achieve their goal successfully.
At this point, Leonardo opens a map. A paper one for obvious reasons. He checks and plans a route that they can follow safely to reach Nate’s house in France.
“Assuming that diesel trains are still working and electric trains are not yet affected, we can do most of this trip by train. Also assuming that soon the trains will stop working, my personal idea here would be to use our mopeds to end the trip. What do you think?”
Jack and Sophia agree because they don’t have a better plan. Sophia is completely lost, and Jack doesn’t know the place. They think that the best idea is to follow anyone who says something that sounds reasonable and coherent at the moment.
“Is it good? Better ideas?”
Honestly, Jack realized Leonardo was expecting some other ideas but Sophia and Jack are lost. He doesn’t know Jack but he seems surprised with Sophia’s behavior. She’s the type of person that always knows everything and wants everybody to follow her ideas. But this is not happening here. She’s quiet and passive in this situation.
