12 Days of Christmas: A Christmas Collection

by Laura Greenwood

  She winced. Or not making discoveries. Nine red herrings. But the theory was good.

  She glanced at the telescope. Perhaps the lens needed cleaning. Maybe she’d counted dust motes. But that couldn’t be it. She wasn’t some amateur. And Ryan had been there, too. Two of them couldn’t have made a mistake, even with Bob’s unfamiliar, and at times, unwieldy technology.

  She didn’t even know how Bob had found her. As a total newbie to the industry, fresh from her astrophysics degree, not known in the field in any respect, he assured her she had a job waiting for her whenever she wanted it. Of course, as soon as he mentioned the inflated salary he was willing to pay, and the fact there’d be no competition for the role, she wanted it straight away. Screw getting into NASA. Bob, which she was pretty sure was a pseudonym because it was the only name he ever used, offered something much more exciting. Something covert. Who didn’t want to be on the inside of something secret, right on the forefront? He’d paired her with Ryan and that, as they say, was that.

  She sniffed. Well, stupid Ryan. She’d sit and look out into the sky all night. And he could just piss off if she found something. She wouldn’t share it with him. She adjusted the telescope and assumed the position, counting off the familiar stars and planets as she went. It was like something from a story. First star on the left, seventh star on the right, straight ahead at the gas cloud, and repeat until morning.

  She shifted the telescope slowly, scanning the heavens. At times like these, she felt close to her granddad. He’d done nothing but encourage her study, and memories of them outside in the winter, using the first telescope she’d ever owned, chatting until their lips turned blue and Grandad produced the customary flask of hot chocolate, warmed her. She was certain he could see her now. He was probably even smiling.

  She stopped. Shit.

  There. She adjusted the focus. But it couldn’t be...stars didn’t move. But there they were. She focused in again. Nine stars. She stared, unblinking, making sure. Yes, nine. Then she pulled back and glanced at the drawing Ryan had thrown back onto the table-top before he huffed off.

  Indeed, nine, but they weren’t the same. The locations of them in relation to each other weren’t even remotely similar. She shook her head. Never-the-less, the group seemed to be made up of the same stars. She counted. Three little ones, blinking and winking at her, five medium sized ones, and one large one that she could only guess was a sun, maybe.

  No. She was wrong. Both she and Ryan had been wrong yesterday. She wasn’t looking at stars. They were planets. She’d done it. She’d found something Bob would want to know.

  “Oh my God.” She whispered the words. “I’ve finally done it.” She pulled out a blank sheet of paper. She’d document them properly this time. No room for error. Truth be told, she knew she shouldn’t have left it to Ryan yesterday.

  She turned to the telescope again. What? “Shit. I don’t believe it.” Seven planets remained where she’d just counted nine. “But what happened to the two on the left?” As she watched, they slowly brightened back into view. “Oh my God...” And they said there was nowhere to hide in space.

  She scanned the area around the stars. Nope. Nothing else was remotely in view. She watched more closely, afraid to move from her telescope in case they all disappeared entirely again. As she watched them, different stars began to blink in and out of sight, their movements growing more rapid until they were a haze of flowing lights, neither there or gone. Just a glow in outer space. She rubbed her eyes. Bob wouldn’t believe a word of this. It was like some sort of erratic rave dancing. All they needed was a beat and some glow sticks.

  She stepped away from the telescope and headed towards the coffee machine. Caffeine would help her think. She couldn’t report what she’d found to Bob in the format he required—accurate measurements and diagrams—but she had to tell him something. He’d want to know about a dancing solar system, after all.

  Only, what if they weren’t planets…or stars...or a solar system at all. She took a gulp of molten coffee, mourning the skin on the roof of her mouth as she did.

  What else moved like that? Lights that were being switched on and off. Heaven’s disco lights, then. Headlights, maybe. So, what were they? Vehicles? She laughed and gave herself a mental slap across the face. Of course they weren’t vehicles.

  Space vehicles? Not even coffee could rescue her mind mush tonight. Someone put in a phone call to Area 51, or the local home for the bewildered. She’d lost all of her sense. The lights definitely weren’t vehicles, but what else could they be? Maybe they were angels, or some sort of celestial being.

  She froze, the coffee cup held loosely in her hand.

  She’d done it. It seemed, even after only being on the job for three weeks, she’d found exactly what she suspected Bob was actually looking for all along. Oh, it was fine to say that they were just mapping the stars, But he didn’t need to pay out-of-this-world money to two recent, inexperienced graduates for that. He had to be doing more. Like looking for extra-terrestrial life. When she thought about it, and really broke Bob’s mandate and instructions down, it was really the only thing that made sense. They weren’t just making discoveries, the three of them…Bob was trying to make contact.

  She threw back the coffee—no time to also mourn the skin of her throat when she was on the brink of something world changing—and almost ran back to the telescope. She adjusted the focus and stared out...into dark, inky sky.

  Not again.

  Surely they hadn’t all vanished on her again. What was she supposed to do? Wait until tomorrow?

  She scanned the skies until for the remainder of the night, but they remained disappointingly empty of her nine mystery objects. When creeping dawn light filled the office, she stood and shoved her paperwork into an ordinary manilla folder. Then she pushed it beneath every other ordinary manilla folder in her drawer, locked her desk, slipped the key into her pocket, and left.

  She couldn’t take any chances Ryan would roll in and tell Bob everything, regardless of his assertion they shouldn’t tell Bob anything at all. She didn’t want him stealing her thunder before she had chance to find out what was going on.

  Walking out onto the unfriendly concrete frontage of their warehouse, leaving the disguised office behind, was like entering another world. Re-entry, really. No one would look at the warehouse and guess it housed the technology it did. They couldn’t know the people scurrying in and out at ridiculous times of the day and night were on the verge of breaking science as the world knew it.

  She looked up into the pale blue sky and pulled her fingerless gloves onto her hands, then lifted her woolly scarf across her nose. She’d just have to hope winter temperatures clung on, and for no cloud cover again later.

  Ugh. She’d barely been away. No, literally, it felt like her six hours not in the office had passed in one short blink. Bob hunched over his computer in the corner when she arrived and barely threw her a glance of interest. She’d never seen him not in a suit. He’d have been right at home on a morning rush hour train into the city but in their office, he almost looked a little out of place.

  “That was a short sleep.” His slightly nasal tone filled the room as he spoke to her, and an unfamiliar chill crept over her.

  She hadn’t spent a lot of time alone with Bob. “Yeah. I think Ryan’s coming down with something so I wanted to get a good start.”

  “He already phoned. Didn’t sound too sick to me.” Bob sniffed, then took a deep breath, as if savouring an aroma.

  Eve shrugged at his news and hurried to her desk. She had better stuff to do than get Ryan into trouble for missing work. After pulling a random file from her drawer, she spread the contents over her desk and tried to read the report inside but couldn’t concentrate on the words in front of her.

  She glanced at the clock but the second hand seemed stuck.

  “Is everything to your satisfaction?”

  She looked up, and met Bob’s enquiring gaze.

  “Af
ter all, that’s the third time you’ve looked at the clock in five minutes. Are you expecting someone? I think I already mentioned that Ryan has called in today. It’s just the two of us here.” He smiled, but it was really just a slow reveal of his teeth.

  “No.” She forced a yawn to disguise her shudder. “It’s just...it feels later than it is.”

  “Well, lucky for you, sunset comes earlier each day until the winter solstice. We still have a few days left of the nights getting shorter. And I should ask—anything unusual from last night to report?” His lips stretched into another faux-smile.

  “No. Nothing unusual.” She shook her head as if to reinforce her lie. Besides, it wasn’t really that unusual if it’d happened two nights in a row, right?

  “As you say.” He inclined his head. “Although it is just a little unusual to pass twenty-four hours without an epic missive of a report from you or a few cursory lines from Ryan.”

  Suddenly afraid, although she had no reason to be, she stared back down at her desk. “There was nothing. In fact, we wasted most of the previous two nights looking at dust on the lens.”

  After summoning the courage to meet his disapproving stare, she segued into an apology. “Really sorry about that, Bob. That was a newbie mistake.”

  “Yes, well.” His mouth tightened again, but not into a smile this time. “Ryan did mention a disappearing constellation. Perhaps dust explains his strange assertion, after all.”

  Her gut tightened. How much had Ryan said? He’d probably thrown her completely under the bus in an attempt to become Bob’s favourite employee and safe from his criticism. “It was nothing, Bob. Just a mistake we both know we shouldn’t have made. I’ll look again tonight. I’ll be more careful.” She hesitated. “What...what exactly am I looking for? What sort of thing do you expect me to find?”

  Bob stood, the movement abrupt. “Anomalies, Eve. You’re looking for anomalies. Find me something strange. Find me something right on the boundaries of believability. Find me something no one has ever seen before. Do you think you’re up to it?” The way he looked at her as he spoke sent a chill through her, and she watched as his tongue slid over his lower lip.

  She straightened and tried to avoid glancing at her desk drawer, even though it felt like it was about to burst into flames right next to her. “Let’s hope so.”

  “Good.” He pulled on his coat. “Well, I’ll leave you to it, then.”

  She looked at the clock again. “You’re leaving early.”

  He shrugged. “I can see you’ve got things to do. Don’t forget to write me a report of anything you find…and clean that lens.” He grabbed a thick book from the shelf above his desk and threw it to land next to her computer. “Here are the instructions for the telescope. Take the manual home with you if you haven’t read through it by morning. I won’t allow any more mistakes. My time is too valuable.”

  Oh, for goodness sake. She grabbed the book and flipped open to the middle. Tiny printed text filled the page. She flipped to the next one and found more of the same. Maybe the author hadn’t heard of diagrams. But Bob was imagining things if he expected her to read the whole book tonight, and she had better things to do after all. Like monitor the sky for his anomalies. She shook her head and turned to the table of contents, before weighting the book open with her coffee mug.

  As her gaze scanned down, she took in some of the headings.

  X-Ray

  Laser Guidance

  Shooting Distances

  What? She only wanted to know how to clean the lens. Oh, and maybe if it had a built-in camera—that would certainly be useful for proving her findings to Bob.

  The longer she sat, the more her irritation at Ryan welled inside her. He only wanted the glory of his name on something and his paycheque. Eve wanted to…know stuff. Curiosity burned a hole deep inside her. She glanced towards the darkening outside. Nightfall couldn’t come fast enough.

  She wandered to the large window Bob had installed looking out over the fields, opened the door and stepped out onto the frigid balcony. Good. The icy chill in the December air should mean there wouldn’t be any clouds to block her view. She glanced up. Nothing. Just Jupiter doing its usual showing off in the early night sky. But her disappearing lights were out there somewhere.

  Or they weren’t.

  The case of the nine disappearing stars gnawed steadily at her gut, and anticipation flickered through her. She rested a hand on the rickety railing running around the edge of the balcony and stood, breathing in the quiet night and putting off her return to reading the manual.

  Finally, she flicked off the office lights and stood in the glow of the various tiny LEDs that signified Bob’s apparent love of technology. Bob hadn’t switched his computer off, and the screensaver played stars rushing by. Eve wiped her hands on the sides of her jeans as she approached the telescope. This shouldn’t have been such a big deal. Yet, somehow, it was more than just the stargazing she’d signed up for.

  A shiver ran through her. Bob was getting weirder, and something about him today had creeped her out. She’d almost wished Ryan was there just so she didn’t have to be alone in the office with Bob…and that was a crazy thing for anyone to want.

  With a deep breath in and long, semi-controlled exhale, she pressed her eye against the telescope.

  Nothing.

  She’d have shrugged if that sort of movement wouldn’t have dislodged the telescope from the spot she’d lined it up to point towards. In reality, she hadn’t expected anything else but for them to remain gone.

  Still, she’d hoped.

  She scanned the night sky, her breath growing stale in her lungs.

  Nothing…nothing…nothing.

  A brief blink caught her attention, and she tightened the focus of the telescope. Something…maybe. She waited, counting the ticks of the clock until the whooshing in her ears matched the same rhythm. Her whole world centred on that brief pulse of light from an otherwise dark abyss in deep space.

  There they were. All nine of her lights appeared and twinkled as if they’d been there all along. Her pulse froze, and her chest hollowed out. She blinked, unsure of what she could see, and whether to trust it, then rubbed her eyes and checked her previous two diagrams. Then she looked through the telescope again.

  Yep. The stars formed a new pattern. It kind of looked like an E, if she squinted a bit. She let out a resigned sigh. The deal with Bob was they’d record everything. And he’d specifically mentioned anomalies, which this way…so she scratched the position of the stars onto a fresh sheet of paper. Then took a second look to check she wasn’t just on the way to losing her tenuous grip on her sanity.

  As she watched, the stars disappeared, and she snorted. “Really? Is that all you’ve got for me this evening? One little display?”

  Without warning, they reappeared, but different again. “What the…?” Too startled to even blink, she dutifully copied down the shimmering V from the night sky.

  With just a pause for them to rearrange, they presented another E, and she scribbled it next to the previous two letters.

  Wait. She scanned her diagrams again. E. V. E. Eve. Eve? “That’s me. I’m Eve, It’s me. They’re talking to me.” She backed away from the telescope, and the hand holding her paperwork shook. The large office became filled with sound. The clock on the wall ticked louder, the papers in her hand rustled, and Eve’s breathing grew rapid and harsh. She sank to a sitting position and clamped her arms around legs, then rested her chin on her knees. “I’m losing it. I just…I can’t. I need Ryan.”

  That was one sentence she never expected to say. She automatically reached for her phone, easing it from her pocket. Just two easy thumb movements to Ryan’s number. He’d never believe this.

  She swallowed. No one would believe this. Not even Bob would believe this anomaly…if that was what she could call it.

  She shoved her phone away again. Ryan could wait. She approached the telescope before pressing her eye back to it. The sky was
empty again. Suddenly, all nine stars blinked into being. Brighter than they’d been before, and she squinted before grabbing her pencil.

  She checked again and drew the pattern on the paper.

  B

  Or kind of. Close enough, anyway.

  This time, when the lights turned off and back on, she was ready.

  O

  It really was like some kind of strange synchronised dance. Nine of them dancing, just for her.

  B

  Great. First Eve, then Bob. What next? Ryan? She skimmed her gaze across the office. Was Bob the kind to set up an elaborate practical joke? Maybe install a nanny-cam and film her doing this for kicks or money…or T.V.? That was always an option.

  She sighed and looked through the telescope again. Might as well stick around and be the show, see it through to whatever finalé Bob had planned.

  B A D

  The letters flashed up really quickly, like some kind of strobe effect.

  What the…? She put her pencil down. Had some constellation she’d just discovered really called her bad? And Bob? Surely he hadn’t set up this prank. That only left Ryan.

  She tugged her phone into her hand, again, and brought up Ryan’s number.

  “Mmph.” He didn’t even try to form a word, tonight.”

  “Wakey, wakey.”

  “For crap’s sake…Eve? What do you want?”

  “Like you don’t know, Ryan.” She tutted into the phone. “Your stars showed up again. How did you do it?”

  “Do what? Hang up the phone and leave me alone. I’m tired.”

  His whiney voice left her wondering how she’d ever spent even one night with him. She’d be lucky to get through this thirty second phone call. “Look. I know what you did. Now come over here and show me where the cameras are before Bob gets in in the morning and we’re both in trouble for your joke.”

  “My what? Eve, have you been smoking something tonight?”