by Luigi Robles
“Where were you? What took you so long?” Mom asked. “Did you go over to the bakery and make it yourself? Better yet, did you go and plant the ingredients we need to bake the pie?” She chuckled.
“I’m starving,” Dad said as he patted Fain on the back and snickered at Mom’s questions.
“And so are we, but don’t try to change the subject. So?” Mom asked again.
“You know, there were a lot of people out there,” Dad said as he walked towards the dining room table. “The grocery store was full. All the registers were open, and people were buying an incredible amount of food and water. The traffic to get there and to come back was horrible too.”
“It isn’t a holiday today,” Fain said. “I don’t think there’s going to be a holiday for quite some time. I wonder what was causing all those people to go to the store?”
“You’re a good thinker,” Dad said. “I wonder the same thing too. We should turn on the news, just to make sure. Maybe there’s something going on that we don’t know about.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Mom said. “It’s already time for dinner, and I intend to have a warm dinner and not a cold one. So, get ready for dinner, and afterwards we will watch whatever you guys want, but now we’ll eat.”
As they sat down to eat, Fain realized he couldn’t remember the last time he had felt this whole, the last time he had felt this happy.
Although Mom has always tried to make the best out of it, to pretend Dad’s absence didn’t bother us, it did, he thought. Maybe because we never really knew what was going on, what he was doing. It made things worse that we seldom heard back from him. Why does anything need to be top-secret in the first place?
“So, what’s happening in school?” Dad asked as he cut a piece of his steak. “Anything interesting? Anything new? Did they give you a lot of homework for spring break?”
“No, I don’t think it’s a lot of homework,” Fain said with his mouth half-full. “But maybe it’s because we complained a lot and made the teachers change their minds. I just have to read a book and report on it.”
“Oh really?” Dad asked as he took a bite of steak. “Have you already chosen the book?”
“Yeah, I went to the school’s library before I came home,” Fain said. “Teacher said it had to be an old book, a physical book, paperback or hardback; the older the better. So, I chose The Art of War.”
“Oh, nice. Sun Tzu. Although, you might find it hard to understand fully,” Mom said.
“I am already finding it hard to understand. Sun the what?” Fain asked.
Dad chuckled. “Leave it to your mom to know all the books. That’s the author of the book. It’s a good book. I am interested to hear what you think of it.”
“So, both of you have already read it?” Fain asked.
But before they got the chance to answer, Fain’s phone rang. He quickly picked it up to put it on silent. As he did so, he glanced at the screen: it was Mikey.
Weird, he never calls, Fain thought. If anything, he would text, but I told him that I would be busy with my parents.
“Fain Jegga,” Mom said. “What have I told you about phones at dinner time?”
“I’m sorry, Mom,” Fain said as he put the phone down far out of reach. “It was just that I had forgotten all about it when Dad got here.”
But then Mom’s phone also rang; hers was all the way inside the kitchen.
“Can’t we get a moment of peace?” Mom said with a slight smile.
“So, what do you have to say for yourself, honey?” Dad asked as the phone went silent.
“Hey, it’s your fault,” Mom said, trying to hold back a smile. “I was waiting for you all this time, and I didn’t want to miss your call, just in case.”
“Oh, now it’s my fault,” Dad said, pretending to act offended.
Chuckles went around the table, but then Mom’s phone rang once more. Mom buried her face in her hands and got up from the table to go get her phone. At the same time, Fain’s phone vibrated and didn’t stop vibrating. But Fain didn’t pick it up.
“Go ahead,” Dad said, nodding. “Maybe it’s something important.”
Fain had another missed call from Mikey, and seven unread text messages listed on his notification screen.
Why aren’t you answering the phone?
Dude, pick up the phone! This is important.
There’s some crazy stuff happening on the news.
Have you seen the news yet?
Dude, if I were you, I’d drop whatever you are doing and turn on the news. You know this is serious because I don’t even watch the news.
I’m not even kidding, this is important. We are so screwed.
Shit, shit, shit.
“It’s a friend from school,” Fain said, still staring at his phone. “He wants me to turn on the news.”
Then Mom walked into the dining room with the remote control in her hand. She turned on the TV, and a thin digital projection appeared in the dining room. She quickly tried to find a news channel. Then the dining room fell dead silent as she found the news channel.
“Some government agencies are calling this first contact,” the news anchor said. “But others say that the threat goes far beyond that, and they are calling it a full-on invasion.”
Fain didn’t know what to do, or what to think of the situation. But the images that he saw on the TV shocked him to his core. It was a cluster of strange-looking ships making their way towards Earth. Could aliens really be coming to Earth?
“We are leaving now,” Dad said as he got up from the table. “Just get an extra set of clothes, warm clothes if possible. I’ll put whatever I can in the hover. We are leaving in no more than ten minutes.”
“Where are we going?” Mom asked.
“Somewhere safer than here,” Dad said as he ran up the stairs.
2
Fleeing
Pycca was in her happy place, the place she had always chosen to be in ever since she found out what Father did for a living, since the bring your kid to work day. She was almost done reassembling the 3-D printer that her father had tasked her with earlier that day. Pycca had always looked forward to the weekly challenges, and she was even more happy because they were beginning to feel like actual challenges—they were becoming difficult in nature. She felt that with every task completed, she was closer to becoming an engineer, just like Father.
Mother had always supported her becoming an engineer, and she helped Pycca any way she could, whether it was with the sometimes-complicated math or explaining things to her in other ways that made it easier for her to understand. Mother was a mathematician, and a pretty good one. She had written several books on the subject, and her name was pretty well known. But Mother also knew that Pycca took after her father; she liked tools, and she liked fixing problems with her hands.
Pycca’s dream was to one day be able to work on an actual spacecraft. She was especially aiming to be a part of the Earth-Mars highway that everyone was talking about. She could see it all now: her with a full space suit, floating around in zero gravity, working on one of the acceleration gates.
She felt butterflies in her stomach just thinking about it.
When she was done reassembling the 3-D printer and making sure it worked, she gathered her tools. It took her a few seconds to pick everything out and put everything in its place. She picked up the printer and ran downstairs, excited to show her parents what she had done.
“Mother, Father,” Pycca said as she ran down the stairs. “Look at what I was able to do. And I didn’t even have to look at the manual. At first I thought that it would be complicated, but when I started putting it together, it was easy. It only took me a few hours.”
No response.
Pycca was used to hearing a response right away from her parents, even before they had seen her work, so she was instantly worried. She left the printer at the bottom of the stairs and ran towards the living room, where she had heard noise coming from the TV. She found her parent
s riveted to the local news broadcast.
“Mother, Father?” Pycca asked as she got nearer. “Is everything OK? I got done with the printer.”
But they didn’t respond. Instead, Father held up one finger, asking her to wait. That was when Pycca began to pay attention to what they were saying on the news.
“It looks like they are not slowing down,” one of the news anchors said. “As far as the translation of the message they are transmitting, we have yet to hear from any of the linguists. We remind you that twenty-three of the best linguists in the world are working hard to decipher the alien message, but so far, no luck.”
They zoomed in to an image of what looked like comets with limbs being hurled through space.
“Yes, that is correct, Sherrill,” the second news anchor said. “We are just getting word that in fact, they are not slowing down. The five alien spacecraft are traveling at a constant speed towards Earth. The latest trajectory calculations estimate that they will make landfall just twenty miles inland from the Pacific Ocean within the next hour.”
The next hour? Pycca thought. Aliens are landing near home within the next hour? Is this real life? Is this for real? Her heart began pounding.
“Authorities are urging residents to stay indoors,” Sherrill said, “as more chaos is striking the streets with people trying to flee the city. Severe traffic and bottlenecks are occurring everywhere.”
“We’ll have the latest news for you on the spacecraft as soon as we get it,” the second news anchor said. “For now, there have been many speculations regarding where the alien spacecraft are coming from and what their intentions could be.”
The TV droned on, covering the alien spacecraft heading towards Earth.
Pycca’s heart began to beat rapidly. She didn’t know what to do, but she knew that she had to do something, they had to do something. Staying inside the house was just about the most reckless thing they could do. But what could she do? She had to get them to leave.
“Mother, Father?” she asked.
Again, there was no reply.
Pycca went up to the TV and turned it off, and the display disappeared into the ceiling.
“Hey, what are you doing?” Father said. “We were watching that. Turn it back on.”
“We need to leave,” Pycca said. “And we need to leave now.”
“Pycca, you know we can’t leave just like that,” Father said. “We need to have more information on the matter. We don’t even know if they are hostile or not.”
“So, are we going to stay here and find out if they are hostile or not?” Pycca asked. “That doesn’t seem like a good idea, Father, because if they do turn out to be hostile, we will be stuck.”
“They just told us to remain indoors,” Mother said, gesturing to the TV. “It’s going to be dangerous out there. A lot of people will be trying to get out of the city.”
“Anywhere is better than here,” Pycca said. “Because if something does happen, we are going to be stuck, maybe even trapped. Staying here is dangerous. Can’t you see?”
“We are going to be stuck regardless,” Father said. “I am sure that after hearing what we just heard on the news, everyone is going to try to leave the city. Do you know how many bottlenecks that’s going to cause?”
She hated when her parents were stubborn, or, in this case, perhaps they didn’t take her seriously enough. They usually treated Pycca like their equal, like her voice always mattered, but every once in a while, her parents were both stubbornly on the same page.
“Yes, that’s right,” Pycca said. “But we are close enough to the edge of the city to make it out if we go through the coast. And we will make it out of the city for sure if we leave now.”
“I’m not sure,” Mother said. “Seems a little bit rash.”
“The only thing that’s rash,” Pycca retorted, “is us staying here and waiting on some news or information to be made available to us. Only fifty percent of that news could possibly be good, while the rest will bury us.” Pycca instantly regretted the harshness in her voice, but she had to make her parents think.
“Pycca, watch your tone,” Father said.
“I just don’t understand; how can you not see the danger in staying here?” Pycca said, frustrated. “If these things are hostile and they start lasering everything in their path, where will we run to? The garage? Is that far enough away? And let’s not forget to mention that most people are going to try to leave the city. That includes business owners, neighbors, etc... We are going to be all alone here.”
Father pressed his lips together while he rubbed his chin.
“Come on, you two have always been about logic,” Pycca said, now with a calmer voice, knowing she almost had them. “You are all about the odds and numbers. What are the odds of us being OK if we remain in the same spot? We have to move in order to better our odds. We are not in a bunker…”
“OK, I am starting to see your point. But where would we go?” Mother said. “All our relatives are pretty far away.”
Pycca sighed in relief.
“Anywhere but here,” Pycca said. “As far away as we can get from that.” Pycca gestured towards the empty space where the TV was. “Whatever that thing is that is coming this way.”
“OK, OK…” Father said. “Then let’s do it. If nothing happens, we can always come back. Let’s just pack what we can before we go.”
“No, Father, not even that,” Pycca said. “We should really just leave if we want to make it out in time. We can always get supplies in the next city over if we need to.”
“Alright,” Father said. “You are right; let’s go.”
Without saying another word, they got into the hover car. Mother was a better driver than Father, so she was the one behind the wheel. As they sped towards the coast, they saw all the chaos the announcement of the incoming alien craft was causing. There were hover car accidents everywhere, and people running and screaming. And yet, there were still no signs of the visitors.
Pycca could only imagine how bad things would get if there were signs of the visitors. There would be bloodshed for sure, just people trying to survive, even if it was at the expense of others.
But why were extra-terrestrials coming to Earth in the first place? From what Pycca saw on the news, it wasn’t a large alien spacecraft heading this way. It wasn’t an invasion; that much was clear. Did they come in peace? That was doubtful, because if they did, they wouldn’t be coming so suddenly or aggressively. And how was it that nobody knew about them until the aliens were at their doorstep?
So many questions, so few answers, Pycca thought. And there’s no way of knowing any of those answers until the things come to pass.
Father reached out to turn on the radio.
“Father, please don’t,” Pycca said. “We will get distracted if we do. Once we exit the city—”
“You’re right. Don’t worry, we’ll be alright,” Father said, trying to sound comforting. “There aren’t too many people heading this way. You were brilliant for thinking of it, Pycca.”
3
Landfall
August and his family were riding down PCH, attempting to circumvent the traffic when the alien ships made landfall. Air raid sirens could be heard all over the city. They had the radio on, but it was tuning in and out. They knew the alien ship had made landfall because of the large explosions coming from within the city. Things had gotten much worse in the last half hour. People were coming out of nowhere, jumping in front of cars, trying to hitch a ride. They looked panic-stricken, almost mad, some with blood all over their clothes. Was it human blood? Or something else? August didn’t know.
It broke August’s heart not to be able to help all the people that were asking for help along the highway. He didn’t quite understand what they were doing there on foot in the first place. Could it be that they were trying to speed along the highway and they ended up crashing their hover cars? That would explain the mess of cars he had seen thus far.
For a few s
econds, August wondered if life after these events would ever be the same. If he would get to live out life as a normal kid. If he would see his friends from school once again. If he would ever get to go back home with his parents, or even if they would survive at all. He had more questions than answers, and the more he attempted to answers the questions, the more he wondered.
“Step on it, Henry,” Mom said. “If you go any slower, these people are going to be able to get on the car.”
“Ella, if we go any faster,” Dad said, “we might hit one of these people. They are already trying to jump in front of us. And if we do hit them, we might lose control. That might be what happened to them in the first place.”
“Can’t you go any faster?” Mom asked. “We need to get out of here as fast as possible.”
“Ella, you are really testing my patience,” Dad said, frustrated. “I am going as fast as I can. I am going as fast as I can.”
“Just look to your left, Henry,” Mom said. “Just look to your left and let me know what you see.”
Mom was referring to the large explosions that were coming from within the city. They were larger than anything he had seen before. The explosions left huge plumes of dark clouds behind, and with every one of them, the sky became darker. He wasn’t sure if the explosions were caused by the aliens that had just landed or if they were human-made. There was also a lot of military movement; jet fighters flying over the city, tanks, and trucks heading towards the explosions. It looked like a full-on war zone. The kind of war zone August had read about in the history books.
Brave, August thought. When others are running away, they run towards the bad; they stay and fight. The strong fighting for the weak.
“You really want us to crash, don’t you?” Dad asked. “I need to keep my eyes on the road ahead of me. It’s already hard enough not hitting anyone. And it’s beginning to get dark.”
“And I need you to look to your left,” Mom said. “So that you can see what will happen to us if we don’t hurry up and get out of this damned city.”
