I Hope You Get This Message

by Farah Naz Rishi

  Now Adeem tightened his fingers on the steering wheel. “Bad news. My car’s low on juice.”

  Cate pulled out her phone, typed, and searched her screen. “I’ll see what’s nearby—it’s spotty as hell, but I actually have some service,” she said, her voice barely carrying over a staticky piano cover of “What a Wonderful World” playing on someone’s personal broadcast. “Looks like there’s a town called Tonopah down the road. We can ask around, see what’s open.”

  “Your best idea yet.” His mouth was dry, anyway, and he was getting hungry.

  A few minutes later, they reached Tonopah: a tiny town, devoid of any trees or green, but where it lacked in plant life—or life at all—it more than made up for in liquor stores and RVs and dirt. And hopefully gas stations, even though, at least on the surface, most houses and stores seemed empty if not outright boarded up. Some of the houses even had white crosses painted on their doors, which gave Adeem the chills.

  Adeem pulled into the parking lot of a corner convenience store and, this time, locked the car doors. He wasn’t in the mood for fate forcing him to bring along more stragglers. And with the way his parents kept texting him every hour—and the way he was ignoring them—he couldn’t be away from home longer than a day without them imploding from panic.

  By some miracle, the convenience store was still open, and was one of the few places in the area that still had light. It would have seemed almost normal on the outside, except that a cop in a gray patrol uniform was positioned just outside the entrance. Another effect of Alma, he supposed.

  Adeem mumbled a polite “Hello” to the cop as they walked past him. Adeem made it a point to be polite to cops—especially since he was a brown guy who was always stopped by TSA or stared at by overly cautious store owners who assumed he might steal something. He simply grinned in return, a Cheshire-cat smile that kind of creeped Adeem out.

  The doors slid open. Both Adeem and Cate froze.

  Though the ceiling lights were on, they flickered dimly, casting the inside of the store in a cold, foreboding light. Some of the shelves had been overturned onto the ground, which was covered in spills and stains and broken things; a broom leaned against the broken glass door to the fridge where drinks should have been kept, as though someone had meant to start cleaning, but had given up. Most of the remaining shelves were empty, save for a few scattered sundries: packs of cheap mascara in the makeup aisle, some greeting cards and stationery no one had bothered to take, a couple tabloids and newspapers strewn across the front counter. Besides a ripped bag of Sour Patch Kids scattering the floor—a total travesty—the food aisle had also been entirely cleared, as well as the battery station next to it. He was sure if he ventured farther to the back, the medicine aisle would be empty, too. Either the place had been ransacked by panicked looters last night, determined to take everything they’d need in case of an alien attack, or they’d simply sold out of everything.

  “Holy shit” was all Adeem could think to say.

  “Looters,” Cate said unnecessarily. She rubbed her bare arms. “I still can’t believe this is happening.”

  Adeem could get a good look at her now, under the barely-there fluorescent light; she stood in front of an endcap covered in thick green dishwashing liquid from a broken bottle. Her short brown hair was a little greasy around her forehead, and though her fingernails had been painted a sparkly dark blue, the tips had been chewed and the nail polish was flaking. He’d probably find her bitten-off nails—lunules, he believed they were called—in the back seat of his car.

  “I keep thinking none of it’s real, like I’ll wake up from a dream.” She looked at him. “Do you think Alma’s actually going to”—she scowled—“terminate us?”

  “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “every day, I find it increasingly difficult to justify human existence to an outside observer. But we domesticated dogs. I mean, that has to count for something, right?”

  Cate blinked, as if trying to figure out if he was serious, before chuckling softly. “That sounds like something Ivy would say.”

  Adeem realized it was the first time he’d seen her smile. Hers was tentative and featherlight, revealing a single dimple on her left side.

  “Who’s Ivy?” he asked.

  Cate’s smile faltered. “My best friend. She was at the casino with me—but she got out before everything went down.” She tapped a fallen, leaking shampoo bottle with her foot. “She was my ride.”

  He wondered what had happened between them. But he didn’t prod. “So now you’re stuck with me instead.”

  “Yep.” She made her hands into fists, placed them on either side of her head. “Help me, Adeem. You’re my only hope.”

  Adeem laughed. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad having her along for the ride. If they could crack each other up despite everything, then maybe everything would be all right.

  The universe always has a way of sending you a message.

  “Excuse me?” Adeem called out. But there was no one: no cashiers, no shoppers, either. He caught a glimpse of one of the newspapers fanned on the counter. MOB ATTACKS KENNEDY SPACE CENTER. He almost laughed at that. What did the mob think would happen? That they could commandeer a rocket and fly into Alma?

  “Excuse me!” Cate tried again. Her voice echoed back to them, and she shrugged.

  But finally a man with graying hair and a dark blue collared shirt emerged from the back. A pin on his left breast pocket read MANAGER. He was carrying a backpack. “We’re closed,” he said. His voice was gruff and rusted, as though he’d been yelling for days. “No stock.”

  “We’re just looking for a gas station,” Adeem said. “You know of one close to here?”

  The man rubbed his eyes. He was tired, too. Hell, everyone was tired. “It’s not about which one’s closest,” he said. “It’s about which ones have fuel. You can try the Taylor Street Gas, but that’d be back the way you came, off the highway, twenty miles or so. Last I heard, the Chevron down the road was running low. And they’ll charge you an arm and a leg for it, the bastards.”

  Adeem pushed his fingers against his forehead, where a ball of tension was expanding. It would be a risk to drive out of the way to get more gas, and worse, it’d be a waste of precious time. At this point, he was less worried about the War of the Worlds than being skinned alive by his parents.

  “What about water?” Cate blurted out. “Do you know where we can find any water?”

  The store manager eyed Cate hard, then slumped his shoulders. “Not officially . . .” He seemed to make a decision and opened his backpack to toss a water bottle over to her. “Take one of mine. I gotta rack up those karma points while I still can.”

  Adeem was surprised. It was a tiny gesture, but it was something. A kindness he hadn’t expected.

  They thanked the store manager and headed for the door.

  “Should we take our chances with the Chevron?” Cate asked. “I could put it on my credit card . . .”

  “Yeah, but I’m hungry,” said Adeem. “Think the Sour Patch Kids are still good?”

  “The ones on the ground? What are you, five?”

  The automatic doors shut behind them. Once outside, Adeem realized they were alone in the parking lot. The cop, strangely enough, had left.

  As they approached his car, Adeem’s blood suddenly ran cold, and his stomach clenched so painfully fast, he might have preferred a punch to his windpipe.

  The hood of his car was open.

  A wave of nausea struck him, and he had to hold the frame of the car to keep himself steady. Someone had stolen the battery. His phone charger was gone, too, as well as the bag of quarters he used for parking meters. Even Derek’s baseball bat was gone.

  No. Adeem ripped open the glove compartment and let go of the air filling his chest. The radio was still there, where he’d tucked it after he’d found Cate in his car. Whoever had robbed them must not have had a use for an old transistor. Freaking pleb obviously didn’t know its worth.

 
The cop. The thought slapped him, hard, in the gut. That guy stationed outside the convenience store.

  Not a cop.

  Was the uniform a fake? Or maybe he was a real cop and just didn’t care anymore about doing his duty, didn’t care about ripping off some kids for whatever they had.

  It felt like a hive of bees was trapped beneath Adeem’s skin. It didn’t help that his phone was vibrating in his pocket, a reminder of just how screwed he was if he didn’t come home soon. And he was hardly any closer to finding Leyla.

  Beside him, Cate was silent for a while. She swallowed. And then finally, she calmly asked him a simple question.

  “So, what the hell do we do now?”

  Four Days Until the End of Deliberations

  14

  Jesse

  Someone—or something—was watching Jesse.

  It was just after six in the morning—and a few minutes after his mom, bleary-eyed from exhaustion, had once again departed for the diner—when he went to unlock the shed. The sun was just beginning its ascent, and long shadows made fingers across the stubbly yard. But just as he reached the door, he felt his back go rigid. As though eyes—a gaze hot with fury and malice—had pinned his feet to the grass. He knew the feeling well. He trusted it. It was the same way people looked at him in school as they whispered when they thought he couldn’t hear. Fruit. Fag. Freak. Thankfully, no one had the balls to mess with him at school. His reputation was good for that, at least, even if it didn’t stop them from staring.

  He thought right away of the wolves from the Spring River Zoo, where his dad used to take him when he was a kid; someone had set the wolves loose, and Animal Control didn’t give a shit anymore. The pack had been spotted last night, rummaging through the trash bins behind someone’s house not too far from Jesse’s neighborhood. But in typical Roswell fashion, some guy had gunned one of them down and injured another.

  Late last night, after Jesse’s mom trudged back home from her shift at the diner, and as she nibbled at a peanut butter sandwich he put in front of her, she mentioned she’d overheard the neighbors talking about it—the injured wolf had wound up bleeding out in the middle of Highway 101.

  “Why didn’t they do anything to help it?” he growled.

  Behind his mom, a poster of a leaping cat with the caption Nya-ver give up! was beginning to peel off the wall. Another one of Ms. K’s weird gifts, one that Mom had hung up despite Jesse telling her not to bother. Normally, the poster made her laugh every time she saw it. She didn’t look amused now.

  “Some tourists found the poor thing,” she explained. Her tired eyes narrowed.

  “Apparently, they were on their way to see that popular machine of yours.”

  Jesse stuffed his hands in his pockets, trying but failing to ignore the sudden prick of guilt. The news of his machine had reached Mom at work, and the fact that she wasn’t asking for details meant she had taken their unspoken stay-out-of-my-business policy to heart. He didn’t have to ask; her face had said it all.

  It made Jesse sad: that wolf, separated from his pack, slowly inching toward a painful death. One of the only times he’d ever paid attention in biology class—and one of the few times he’d actually shown up—was during their animal behavior unit. Mr. Weaver had explained how most predator species were actually afraid of humans. Wolves were misunderstood, with complex social behaviors—nothing like the mindless, bloodthirsty monsters they were made out to be on TV.

  Humans were the real monsters.

  Though he was pretty sure Ms. K would scold him for saying so.

  He turned around, scanning the stubbly yard, the stunted desert trees, the slump of weather-beaten houses extending toward the horizon. Nothing.

  Still. Something was definitely watching him.

  It was afternoon when Corbin came back.

  Corbin tossed him a dazzling smile. “We meet again.”

  Jesse felt the urge to smile right back, except he was sure it would make him look overeager, and he hadn’t checked his teeth since he’d scarfed down a sandwich for lunch. He opted for what he hoped didn’t look too much like a demented, tight-lipped smirk. “Small towns, am I right? Just can’t avoid each other.”

  A little girl, half-hidden, clung to Corbin’s arm. She gawked at Jesse with dark brown eyes, as clear and huge as the old tea plates Mom used on the rare occasion she had a friend over. Her hair was gone, and she wore a baby-blue headband that threatened to slip off her head. Her blue checkered T-shirt, with a small white daisy adorning its center, cascaded over her tiny frame. And her skin was pale, Jesse thought with a fluttering of unease in his chest, like thin, wet paper. Too pale. He’d seen little kids that looked like her on brochures he’d get in the mail sometimes, asking for donations for the Ronald McDonald House or places like that. Places for kids with cancer.

  “Who’s your friend . . . ?” Jesse asked, his throat tight.

  Corbin gently pulled the little girl in front of him but kept his hands on her shoulders. “Jesse, I’d like you to meet Mariposa. She prefers Mari, though. My sister.”

  “Oh.” Jesse relaxed. A sister—of course. Not a love child or anything like that; he’d dealt with that kind of thing before, back when he’d hooked up with a guy named Mark who’d come with one too many strings attached for Jesse’s comfort. But little sisters? He was pretty sure he could handle little sisters.

  Jesse bent down until he was face-to-face with Mari and put on his best, most charming smile. “It’s very nice to meet you, Mari. I’m really loving that headband of yours. Do you think I could wear one, too?”

  She giggled and buried her head in Corbin’s stomach.

  Jesse had sometimes wondered what it would have been like if he had had a sibling growing up, too. Most times he’d dreamed about a brother—an older brother, someone to teach him the ropes and help keep the dirtbags in school off his back. Ms. K had sometimes joked that Jesse was like her kid brother—and she acted like a big sister, the way she nagged and annoyingly tried to insert herself into his life, the way she’d pat his head after their one-on-one sessions.

  But looking at Mari, he wondered if he could have ever hacked being a big brother himself.

  “So. Business is booming, huh?” Corbin’s gaze trailed the long, unattended line of people behind Jesse, some locals and mostly tourists now, beginning at the entrance to the shed and reaching past the mailbox. Today, they’d lined up even before he’d finished slugging his coffee. Eager. Desperate. Squirming with impatience. In their minds, they only had four more days left.

  Jesse couldn’t believe what other people would believe. In a few days, the government would announce some big triumph over the fake threat, and in the meantime, no one would notice they’d launched a war with North Korea or whatever. Politics was all a scam. This one was just bigger than usual.

  “You could say that. Got almost fifty people already.” And Jesse had the money to show for it. Plus countless messages on his home phone from local papers and radio stations, promises of press coverage and more money. Even with all the fires and killings, people are looking for hope, one journalist had claimed. Your machine can be part of that.

  It almost made Jesse laugh.

  Even if his mom didn’t approve now, she would change her mind when she saw how much he’d earned—when she saw, too, that no one had been hurt, not really. The whole Alma thing was a hoax. What was a tiny scam compared to an enormous one?

  “Long odds are better than nothing, right?” Corbin’s face was unreadable.

  Jesse hesitated, his fingers itching toward the leather cuff on his wrist. “Sure. I mean, that’s why I fired up the machine in the first place. To give people a voice, a fighting chance.”

  Lies. They came so smoothly for him but saying them to Corbin and his kid sister left a bitter taste in his mouth. The truth was, he didn’t give a shit about any of these people waiting outside his house. It was ridiculous; some of them were coming from out of state, now, desperate to send out a translated
message to Alma, as if their words would somehow convince these imaginary aliens that their lives had value—as if Alma was real, and would actually care about what humans would think.

  Conning those people was easy because people wanted to believe.

  “Our dad brought us to Roswell so we could all stay together, with our grandparents. They own a bakery here: Creciente,” Corbin explained. “We’re not too far—just off North Montana and London Court—” He paused. Mari was tugging on his pant leg. He bent down to her level, and Mari whispered something to him.

  Corbin’s ears reddened.

  “What?” asked Jesse, curious. “Uh,” began Corbin, rising. “Mari wanted me to tell you that I”—he put his hand on his chest—“know how to make the bread laugh.”

  Jesse looked at Mari, then Corbin. “Oh?” A grin slid across his face. “Do tell, Mari.”

  “Cori can tell you,” giggled Mari.

  Corbin sighed. His ears were still red. “It’s nothing, it’s just—our grandma makes these apple empanadas at Creciente, and they look kind of like mouths, so sometimes I put them on my face . . . it’s not important.”

  “He makes funny noises,” added Mari.

  Corbin threw her a look that instantly melted away when she smiled back.

  Jesse knew Creciente Bakery; the place was one of the few beloved local spots to have remained standing since the ’80s. Mom and Dad had loved the bread there, back when they had the pocket money for it. Jesse definitely knew London Court, too. The nice houses. Jesse should have figured. Poor people didn’t smell like Corbin. He felt suddenly ashamed of his house, then ashamed for feeling ashamed, then angry for feeling ashamed.

  “Anyway,” continued Corbin, determined to change the subject, “one of Mari’s nurses told her about your Wish Machine.” He put a hand on her head and tousled hair that wasn’t there. At least, not anymore. “She’s been stuck on it ever since. After she heard I met you yesterday, she said she wanted to see the Wish Machine, too.”

  Jesse felt his stomach seize. “Wish Machine?”