A halo of blue light flashed above Anna’s iCom. Startled, she dropped the book she had been reading and shot up in bed. A holographic map of the valley appeared just above her wrist, followed by a pulsing blue dot. Based on the placement, the pulse of light looked like it was just west of the town center, near the railroad tracks. A thin blue line traced a path to the pulse from her current location. This was it. She knew it. She ran to her dresser and pulled out her goggles before turning off the lights and locking the door.
“I just picked up a 911 call from Wilderman’s Feed Store,” Mara said over the iCom. “I think we finally found our friend. Are you ready?”
“Yeah,” Anna answered. Butterflies in her stomach. She activated her cloaking device. “I didn’t think this time would ever come.”
She hopped up onto the windowsill, her feet perched on the ledge for just a moment, then stepped out into the late evening sky. As her body fell forward, she leaned in and caught the air, a sensation between a sustained fall and acceleration. Faster and faster she flew, her body no more than twenty feet off the ground, until she made her way to the railroad tracks and followed the path west. The wooden planks beneath her passed by in a blur.
As she drew closer to her destination, a fifty-foot yellow grain loader peeked above the tree line like a toy erector set. At the end of the grain loader, along a rusted crane arm that extended over the railroad tracks, a body, outlined in blue, sat crouched in silhouette. It was Mara resting high above the ground. She was scanning the area. Anna landed gently by her side on the metal overhang and assumed the same crouching position. The evening light was now just a thin faded line on the horizon. The rest of the sky was dark and speckled with early-evening stars.
“I believe the creature is in the warehouse,” Mara said. “And see down there—I think that’s the person who called 911.”
She pointed to a pickup truck fifty feet below, parked in an empty gravel lot between the feed store and the warehouse. The headlights were on and the engine was running. Inside, the driver’s face was lit up from the dashboard lights. Even without zooming in with their goggles, they could see he was scared. His eyes were wide as he looked nervously from side window to side window.
“Hey, wait. That looks—I know that guy. That’s Fiona’s older brother, Finn,” Anna said.
“I think we have about ten minutes before the authorities arrive. Maybe fifteen if we’re lucky. That doesn’t give us much time. I thought we could go through the skylights on the roof, but they appear locked. We’ll need to go through the bay door in front,” Mara said. She turned to face Anna. The lines of her jaw were tense. “Before we go in, remember what we discussed before.”
“I’m not supposed to get too close to the creature.”
“And why is that?”
“Because we have to assume that it’s dangerous.”
“Exactly. Guide the creature toward me. I’ll try and incapacitate it with light, maybe sound if needed. We don’t know how it will respond. But hopefully, once it’s incapacitated, we can immobilize it with this,” Mara said. She held up a small, perfectly round white sphere.
“Your ball of goo. You have more than one of those things?”
“One should be sufficient. I’ve tested the targeting mechanism multiple times. It’ll work.”
“Okay, so we capture it, then keep it safe at your place until we find its home. Right?”
“That’s the plan. Ready?” Mara asked.
Anna nodded.
“All right, then. Follow me down to the entrance and listen for my directions. I mean it. Listen,” Mara said. “Nine minutes and counting.”
Mara stepped off the metal scaffold and glided down toward the front of the warehouse. She landed gently in front of the open bay door, with Anna following close behind, invisible to everyone but each other. If Finn had been paying attention, he’d have seen a small cloud of dust kick up where their feet touched the ground. Light from the truck’s headlights cut a sharp line through the gap in the bay door and out across the warehouse floor. The rest of the warehouse, fifty feet wide and one hundred and fifty feet deep, was shrouded in darkness. Mara stepped through the door and into the shadows. No sign of movement.
She levitated several feet off the ground to avoid making a noise herself, then floated slowly toward the ceiling. The warehouse looked empty from this angle. Maybe the creature had escaped through another entrance, she thought. She signaled for Anna to move to the far wall. They would float on opposite sides of the warehouse and scan for any signs of life between them. Even with the aid of the goggles, it was difficult to differentiate shapes in the darkness.
They moved slowly, keeping each other in their field of vision. Anna was halfway across the span of the warehouse when she heard a faint crunching sound, like someone chewing ice.
“Mara, can you hear that?” Anna whispered into her iCom.
“Yes, it’s coming from your side. Remember, not too close. I’m coming over.”
Anna ran her hand along the wall as she descended to floor level. Her feet landed softly on concrete. The cracking sound was louder here and appeared to be coming from between two large shelving racks, each one twenty feet in height. Anna slowed her pace then peered around the corner.
A dim ray of light shone down from the skylight above, providing just enough illumination for Anna to make out a shape. She couldn’t tell if it was a box or a sack. She stepped closer. Then the shape moved. What looked like long legs unfolded from a crouched position to standing. Joints unhinged at odd angles. In its hands, the creature held a white cube. The crunching stopped. Anna had interrupted its feeding.
“Anna! Step back!” Mara shouted over her iCom. She was floating down from the opposite end of the aisle with her arms spread wide like an angel.
But Anna couldn’t move. Her brain was working too hard processing what was in front of her. Long arms and legs. Small body and an olive-shaped head as black as night. There were words typed along the white cube it was holding: SALT. The creature was eating a large block of salt, the same kind they give to horses and cows, and dust covered its chin and chest. Slowly the creature turned its head in Anna’s direction. Impossible, she thought. Somehow it sensed her even with her cloaking device on. Then all at once black scales spread out in a fan around the creature’s head and shook like a rattle. Tick—tick—tick—tick—tick—tick—tick—tick.
Scales on the creature’s arm opened, and small green and blue lights slowly wafted out like dandelion seeds and floated toward Anna. Fairy lights. The fear that had gripped her quickly melted away as the small floating lights grew closer. A wave of calm and visions of dark, still waters. Her eyes grew heavy. Something in the lights made her—
“Anna! Move!”
Anna’s eyes snapped open from her daze. She was only out for a few seconds, but in that moment the creature had leaped to the shelving rack and was now quickly scurrying up the side. Mara tried following it, but the thing moved too fast. Anna flew to the top edge of the rack to cut the creature off. She held her arms out to block it.
On top of the shelf, the creature sat crouched on its hind legs, its head pivoting back and forth. Although it couldn’t see its pursuers, it sensed it was trapped. Mara moved forward cautiously, gliding slowly along the top of the rack. The creature sensed movement and its scales fanned out in response, a black halo around its head—tiktikitkitik.
Mara held out the white, spherical ball in her palm. It rose slowly to hang in midair, then began to spin as it locked on its target.
“Keep its attention, Anna. Just a moment longer,” Mara said quietly over her iCom. “Three.”
Anna waved her arms and tried to whistle. The creature turned its head sharply, aware of Anna’s presence but unable to see her fully.
“Two.”
The creature began to sway its head back and forth. It took one step toward Anna.
“One!”
The white sphere shot out toward the creature and erupted in a small, silent explosion of translucent goo. But the creature was already gone in a blur.
“Where did it go?” Anna shouted as she looked frantically around.
She strained to see into the shadows and the corners of the warehouse. Nothing made a sound except the liquid goo dripping down the sides of the rack to the floor below. The green and blue lights began to fade beneath her.
“I can’t see.”
“Stay still, Anna. Don’t move,” Mara whispered. “It’s right above you.”
Above me. How can that be? Anna looked up. Fifteen feet above her head, the creature’s limbs splayed out against the ceiling. Its skin was the absence of light, so dark it looked like a cutout silhouette. It moved slowly across the ceiling. A lizard scaling rock.
“You gotta be kidding me,” Anna said out loud.
“Close your eyes. I’m going to use the bang lights to incapacitate it,” Mara said as she drifted closer.
“No. Not yet. We don’t know if the lights will hurt—”
“Close your eyes, Anna.”
“It’s scared. I can feel it. Trust me,” Anna said.
Anna turned off her cloaking mode and opened her arms, an outward demonstration that she meant no harm. Later, in a moment of quiet and with time to think things through, she’d look back and realize how foolish that gesture was. In nature, open arms could be a warning or the first step toward violence. Without a common language or understanding, any sign could be misconstrued as a threat. The creature snapped its head toward Anna now that it could see her. Scales fanned out across its head and its limbs and began to rattle. A high-pitched wail, completely alien, seemed to emanate from its entire body—the sound of a thousand metallic bees echoed back and forth through the warehouse.
“Now!” Mara shouted.
Anna closed her eyes just in time. A series of bright light pulses exploded in the back of her brain, followed by an afterimage of black stars set against a blanket of white snow. She blinked, disoriented, and shook her head. The black stars began to fade. The white snow disappeared. She rubbed her eyes from the aftereffects of the bang lights and looked up just in time to see the creature fall limp from the ceiling straight toward her. Mara raced to catch the falling creature, but Anna was closer. She opened her arms and prepared for the heavy impact that never came. The creature, weightless like paper, fell lifeless into her arms. Its body the size of a small child. Its long arms and legs hung limp at its side.
“Anna, be careful!”
Up close, Anna could make out features she was unable to see at a distance. The shape of the creature’s face was almost human: a small bridge of a nose, a tiny mouth, and two large black eyes shaped like almonds. Its ears were holes surrounded by thin ridges in a half-circle. She leaned in closer to see if it was still alive. The creature blinked back, and Anna almost dropped it in surprise. The creature blinked again; a reflective lens covered its eye. Anna could feel wiry muscles like rope begin to tighten and move.
“Uh, I think it’s awake,” Anna said, unsure whether she wanted to hold onto the creature but afraid to let go.
Just as Mara flew down to assist, the creature flipped and uncoiled like a spring, easily breaking Anna’s hold and crawling up onto her back. The creature’s legs wrapped around her waist in an impossibly strong grip. Its hands grabbed the sides of Anna’s face with soft rubbery fingers like suction cups. Suddenly, an image of an alien landscape—rocks, lights reflecting off standing water, and an infinite night—flashed in her mind.
Her brain tried to process the two different sets of images and sensations. That’s when the panic set in.
“Aaaaahhhh!” Anna screamed as she began flying in no direction at all, spinning and twisting in an attempt to get the creature off her back.
Anna flailed her arms and kicked out at nothing. Outside. That was all she could think of. She had to get outside. She twisted her body toward the entrance. The creature’s fingers dug deeper into her temples. Up ahead, from the open bay door, the truck headlights appeared to grow brighter, the line of light expanding out across the warehouse floor. The lights. She just needed to make it to the lights. Anna leaned forward and made a straight line for the exit.
Just as Anna broke the plane of light, the creature loosened its grip. This was her chance. Anna spun quickly just as she shot through the open bay door into the blinding brightness of the truck’s headlights. The creature sensed the light and kicked away, knocking Anna off balance.
The last thing Anna remembered was tumbling in the air. Then her back hit gravel hard. She bounced once then twice in a somersault before skidding to a full stop on her butt. Dust billowed up around her in a cloud. She coughed, blinked her eyes, then looked up. Seriously? was the only thought her brain had time to process.
Headlights sped toward her. Her pupils dilated in the approaching light as she brought up her hands to cover her face. She prepared herself for the impact, but the truck skidded to a stop just feet away.
Slowly, Anna allowed her arms to fall to her side. The truck engine ticked in the silence as dust rose like smoke in the headlights. Anna sat dazed as she heard footsteps in gravel come closer, then a body stepped in front of the headlights.
“Anna? Is that you?”