Falling Stars, Rising Hopes

Normality Returns

                                                                        Chapter 3

    The next morning, Tanya stretched, yawning, as she went to the kitchen to get breakfast. She hadn’t gotten much sleep with the meteor shower gone wrong. Handful meowed, and she reached down to pet her.

    “More minutes,” she said, distracted. Handful’s tail twitched angrily at the unwelcome phrase, and Tanya smiled. No cats liked being told they couldn’t do something. She got ready to go while the 3-D printer made her breakfast. As she smoothed the front of her tan jacket, the printer beeped.

    “Heard it.” She made sure to say the words clearly. Otherwise, she would have to go and physically shut off the beeper. After grabbing her bacon, egg, and cheese burrito, she poured more powder in and set the printer for Handful’s breakfast, trying to imagine a time when printers didn’t exist. She couldn’t fathom having to buy or make every single thing you wanted. Printers were as great an invention as the telephone, in her opinion.

    “Time?” she asked the apartment computer.

    “The time is 7:35 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time.” As always, she wished her landlord weren’t such a big fan of the "movies" from the late 1900’s and early 2000’s. The computer voice was Robot Robert, who was most decidedly not one of her favorites. The cat food slid into the bottom hatch with another beep, and Handful came racing over, tail upright and quivering with excitement. She settled down to her meal happily, purring loudly. Tanya made sure that the printer was set for Handful’s second meal in twelve hours, put on her shoes, and hurried out the door.

    The drive to work was everything it always was. Hovercars raced along with complex acrobatics as everyone fought to get to work on time. It was obvious which cars were on autopilot, as they were going in basically straight lines. Tanya’s was one of them.

    And people once thought hovercars would solve all our traffic problems, and there would never be another accident, she thought, amused. Driving got even more complicated. Sure, the autopilots helped, but there were always those people who were too old-fashioned or too rebellious to do it, and then driving your own car became the fashionable thing to do. But once that died down, I suppose the accident rate was lower than it had been, she conceded. I wonder which of our ideas the future generations are going to laugh at.

    The hovercar’s nose jerked upward to avoid a lunatic coming up from underneath. Her thoughts returned to the present, and she concentrated on not spilling egg all over her clothes as everyone tried to compensate for the crazy person’s acrobatics.

    At work, she almost forgot that there was anything outside of her office and the voices blaring out of the speakers as she gave them their list of commands.

    “What is your name?” she asked the latest voice.

    “My name is Melancholy Marvin, and I am here to serve in any way possible.” it droned. Melancholy Marvin: Slow robot voice, she typed in the air, her fingers sliding over the virtual keyboard. Strange accent, slightly British, might be popular with people who like movies.

    “What can download you?”

    “I am compatible with watch, recorder, and apartment systems.”

    “Define the word ‘modify.” It did, moaning and droning its way through the irritatingly long passage. Tanya listened, concentrating and making notes on the tone, accent patterns, and speed of the new voice rather than the irritatingly familiar words it was saying. At least they'd gotten rid of the poem. That one had almost driven her insane. She didn’t quite have the new passage memorized, but she probably would in a few months.

    Sometimes, it chased her through her dreams as people with computer voices popped out of the walls of a maze like cuckoo clocks, chanting the definition in their own unique ways and speeds, overlapping to create a disharmony that made her want to claw her ears out. There was always a mirror every few turns to reveal the expression on her own crazed face. She shuddered at the memory and jerked her mind back to her job. The computers were waiting.

    “Next,” she called, sending her notes with a flick of her right index finger, forcing herself to be absorbed in her job rather than wandering in her own thoughts. The rest of the day passed in a blur, as it usually did. She almost laughed in relief when Cheery Cheryl announced that it was 5:30 and they could leave. As she was heading out, someone caught her arm.

    “What is it?” she asked, irritated, before realizing that only one person would grab her arm that way. Twisting out of his grip, she turned to look at her cousin Alex, who handled some of the customer complaints.

    “Hi, Alex. How was your vacation?” He grinned.

    “Great. We went over to the mountains. We saw all the museums, did lots of hiking, and took a ridiculous number of pictures. The kids loved it. Lisa’s already planning for our next trip.”

    “That’s great,” Tanya said with a genuine smile. Alex was the only one of her relatives she enjoyed talking with. “Why did you want to talk with me?”

    “I was wondering if you could tell me about the meteor shower last night. I knew you were planning to go…” His voice trailed off expectantly.

    “Of course. What about it?”

    “Did you see any of the things up close?” His brown eyes were eager, sparkling with curiosity, which made her smile. Alex may have been six and a half feet tall, but no one would think he was at all threatening when they got to know him.

    “Yes. But they’re completely evil.”

    “Really? From what I’ve heard, they’re really cool. CNPS said this morning that they had writing on them.”

    “The New Reality. I didn’t realize they did a special on them. I don’t usually watch the news.” Alex tapped his watch.

    “Good thing I recorded it, then.” The Central News Processing Station office, with its constant stream of footage visible in screens around the room, appeared with a slight shiver.

    “Good morning. The time is 12:00 Greenwich Mean Time. My name is Teresa Paladar, and I am here with the top news stories,” the dark-haired anchorwoman announced. A timetable flashed across the bottom of the screen. Alex had recorded it at 8:00 A.M, local time.

    “All around the world, people are recovering from the unexpected additions to last night’s meteor shower. Thankfully, there were only twenty-seven casualties around the world, most from falling buildings. The counts of the wounded, however, are much higher. Current estimates say about two hundred were injured, but the list is not yet complete. Roger Santiago is here to learn more about what the exact nature of these pseudo-meteorites.” The camera shifted to show two middle-aged men sitting across a dark wooden table from each other.

    “Thank you, Teresa. I am here to interview Doctor Daniel Hill from Bristol, England. Doctor Hill, have you had any progress analyzing these things?” The man on the left, apparently Roger, turned away from the camera and extended the microphone he was holding to the other, who must be Doctor Hill. Tanya could see how some people might be impressed by the doctor’s fancy suit and polished appearance, but she wasn’t.

    “Some, yes. We cannot say for sure, but we can be fairly confident that these objects are not human in origin.” Roger leaned forward in his chair, eyes fixed on the other man’s face.

    “Do you have any evidence to support this claim?”

    “Well,” Doctor Hill leaned back casually, like they were discussing a business proposal rather than the possibility of alien contact. “the shielding is like nothing we’ve ever seen before. There were two shields, actually. One of them was ablative, burning off to create the impression of a meteor. The second is the amazing one. Somehow, it let the capsule slip gently through the atmosphere like an airplane, with only tiny thrusters smaller than your fingernail to soften the landing.” He laughed. “To put it in layman’s terms, whoever made these things had technology far beyond what we are currently capable of, which is the basis for saying that they were probably made by aliens.”

    “I see. Is there anything else that supports this theory?”

    “Yes, actually. Not all of the dents and pits are designed to increase drag. Whoever made these wrote a message. Scientists from around the world report that they used different languages for different places, which seems to indicate that these things were on planned trajectories.”

    “What is the message?” Even watching a video of a video of a video, Tanya could feel the tension grow before Doctor Hill answered.

    “It says ‘The new reality.’ And every time, it is written in the native language of wherever the particular object fell.”

    “How did you find out about it? Did you get inside them?” Dr. Hill laughed again.

    “No, of course not. These things are stronger than diamond. Nothing we have could even scratch them, and they are remarkably resistant to pressure, as well. We found out about it because the message starts glowing when you touch it.” A short video played in the upper right-hand corner, showing one of the things on a table. A man in a white lab coat came in, took off one blue latex glove, and ran a finger over its surface. The camera zoomed in to show the letters. The eerie color radiated malice, and all of Tanya’s instincts told her it was dangerous. What had she been thinking, touching one last night? It must have been temporary insanity. That was the only logical explanation. Then she laughed to herself. None of this was logical. What made her think her thoughts would be?

    “Very interesting. What do you make of it?” Roger asked, seemingly unfazed by the thing’s creepiness.

    “Clearly, these aliens understand which languages go with which place. It also shows that they didn’t shoot these things off randomly. Each object had a specific destination.” Roger nodded.

    “Thank you for your time, Dr. Hill.”

    “It was my pleasure.”

    “This is Roger Santiago, live from Bristol. Back to you, Teresa.” The hologram shivered and disappeared.

    “That’s the interesting part. I didn’t record the part where they were talking about the damage,” Alex said.

    “That makes sense. Listening to all the talk of damage and death is quite depressing.”

    “Exactly!” They grinned at each other, caught in the joy that comes from finding someone else with an unpopular opinion, a joy Tanya rarely had.

    “So, would you like to go ice-skating with us tomorrow night? Lisa’s sister was going to come, but she sprained her ankle.”

    “I hope she’s okay.”

    “She is. But you can’t skate on a sprained ankle. What do you say?”

    “Better not. I’m terrible at skating. No coordination whatsoever. Harold might be interested, though.” Her brother loved all things related to sports, and had dominated the hockey rink throughout high school. He would love spending time with Alex, and Tanya might even get to have a conversation with him that didn’t end with them shouting at each other.

    “I’ll ask him. Just thought I’d give you first crack at it.”

    “Thanks. See you tomorrow,” Tanya called as she climbed into her hovercar, not knowing how wrong she was.

    “You too,” he called back with a wave. Tanya smiled, closed her door, and relaxed.

    “Take me home,” she said.

    “Of course,” Alto Alice said. Tanya sat in silence, occasionally looking out the window to see the swarms of traffic above and below. The car moved gracefully, constantly adjusting to the other cars at a speed much faster than any human could. She sighed, admitting something to herself. She was lonely. Handful was nice, but she wasn’t another person. She couldn’t have a conversation with a cat like she had last night with that George Whitfield. He seemed like a nice guy. Maybe she would call him when she got back. He didn’t live that far away. They would probably get home about the same time. Yes. She would go home, eat supper, then call George. She assumed the meteor thing was over, except for the media dragging it out. Everyone did. Everyone was wrong.