Anna waited outside the airport terminal with a small red suitcase and a green spring jacket. She didn't carry much with her, just several changes of clothes, a pair of running shoes and a laptop which contained the parts of her life she still cared about. She had left the rest of her belongings, all the things she had outgrown from clothes to toys, in boxes stacked in the corner of her old room.
Uncle Jack was easy to spot. He was driving the same rust-green pickup truck she remembered from her last visit years before. Herbie, his golden retriever, sat on the passenger side of the truck. Neither of them seemed to have changed a bit. When she hugged Uncle Jack, he smelled of wood chips and fresh cut grass.
“You sure know how to travel light,” Uncle Jack smiled as he lifted her red suitcase with a single finger and tossed it into the back. “Or are you looking for a quick escape?”
“Hmmm. Not sure yet,” Anna kidded back. "I like to keep my options open.”
She had always liked her Uncle Jack. He was tall and laughed a lot and he liked to make things. His nose was slightly crooked from a momentary lapse of concentration and a line drive baseball in high school. She remembered he was a lot younger than her Dad, like eight or ten years, and he didn’t have her Dad’s always-worried expression which made him seem even younger.
Anna sat in the middle of the bench seat so that Herbie could ride with his head out the window, his ears and tongue flapping in the wind. It was a warm day for early spring and the air circulating through the cab of the truck felt good as they drove deeper into farm country. It smelled good too, like dirt after a rain. They talked about baseball and the Cubs’ prospects on opening day for the first half hour and science the next; her two favorite subjects. Uncle Jack didn't bring up her parent’s death or give her that sympathetic look she had grown to hate, not once.
It was mid-afternoon when they reached the outskirts of Uncle Jack’s hometown. A faded green sign with two bullet holes and a dented bottom corner greeted them with a Welcome to Smartt, Indiana - Population 2,503.
“Smartt with two t’s?”
“Yeah, I know,” Uncle Jack chuckled. “The irony is not lost on me, either.”
On the outskirts of town there were big box discount stores and farm equipment retailers with flapping orange flags draped across shiny green tractors. A two lane bridge overlooking a small, winding river marked the passage between the newer and older parts of Smartt. The older parts had a lot more charm. They passed by the downtown area with a white town hall surrounded by brick storefronts and an outdoor farmers market. They passed by the county fairgrounds that contained large barn-like structures and rusted carnival rides covered in tarp during the off-season. They drove by two lego brick buildings joined by a football field, a playground and a large garden. Kids were playing out front. Anna figured this had to be her new school, or maybe a very nice prison. Same thing in her mind. Four stop signs, a traffic light and a couple of left turns later and they were on the other side of town.
“Yeah, I’m afraid that’s about it. This isn’t anything like Boston,” Uncle Jack smiled. He must have been reading her mind. “But, you never have to worry about traffic and folks are nice for the most part.”
Within minutes they were on the last leg of their journey, down a half-mile dirt road lined with trees and a long white fence winding down a sloping hill. Fields, with rows of sprouting crops spread out like a green blanket on both sides. At the end of the lane, a row of large rectangular barns came into view. The sun reflected sharply off their tin roofs and solar panels, forcing Anna to squint her eyes. None of it looked familiar, but as the sun’s angle shifted she could make out the familiar old farmhouse her father had grown up in.
As the pickup truck rumbled closer, she noticed at least a dozen strangers standing under the shade of the old Burr Oak tree that covered part of the sweeping front lawn. The crowd was staring at the truck as if they had been waiting for Anna’s arrival. Next to the crowd were two picnic benches set side by side and lined with piles of food and pitchers of tea sweating in the afternoon sun.
“So how do you feel about surprise parties?” Uncle Jack asked. His mouth turned up in a crooked grin.
“They’re fine as long as they aren’t for me,” Anna grimaced.
“Well, too late for that,” Uncle Jack slowly rolled the truck to a stop near the front gate. "I just wanted you to meet some of the folks I work with here on the farm. I promise it will be painless.”
Anna reluctantly stepped out and fanned her hand in front of her face as the cloud of dust that had followed the truck rolled past. As the dust cleared, she could see the faces in the crowd. They were friendly and smiling and staring directly at her. Anna recoiled and wanted to get back into the truck. From her list of irrational fears — spiders, clowns and being the center of attention — being the center of attention was the thing she feared most.
“She’s a shy one, isn’t she?” said a short, stout woman with grey spiked hair and cloudy blue eyes. She had an accent, French or Italian, Anna wasn’t sure. Somehow, that helped it sound less condescending.
Uncle Jack held his hands up.
“Alright, alright. Let’s not overwhelm her. Everyone, this is Anna,” Uncle Jack motioned towards his niece. “Anna, uh...I guess this is everyone.”
One by one, members from Uncle Jack’s team came forward and introduced themselves. Anna didn’t like crowds, but she prided herself on being able to memorize people’s names. It was a game her mother had taught her. Anna would take a part of the person’s name and combine it with a silly image or sound. Memory tricks. And the game had the side benefit of occupying her mind and reducing stress. The woman with spiked hair, a botanist from France, became “Fay the Grey who likes to make hay.” There was “Kevin from Kenya,” an engineer, and “Gladness from Tanzania,” a veterinarian whose name was perfect just the way it was. There was a tall blond haired man, a seed specialist, Anna nicknamed “Liam from Sweden who preserves little seeds.” There was a soil specialist from China, “Li Wei or the highway” and various agronomists, animal scientists, craftsmen and makers.
“And, this freeloader here is Dr. Ricardo Gloria, my research partner, ” Uncle Jack put his arm around the shoulders of a thin, lanky man wearing a flannel shirt and cowboy boots. Dr. Gloria was tan, with smile wrinkles around his eyes.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Anna,” Dr. Gloria shook her hand firmly. “Your grace and intelligence must have come from your mother’s side of the family.”
Anna paused for a moment, looked around, processed the last couple of minutes then moved close to her uncle’s side. She leaned in and said under her breath. “Uncle Jack, who are these people?”
Uncle Jack looked puzzled for a moment, then burst out laughing. “I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?” Anna asked.
“Ever hear of Thomas Edison, the famous inventor?”
"Of course," Anna answered.
“And his team of inventors and craftsmen at Menlo Park?”
Anna nodded.
“We’re kind of like that, only dirtier and not nearly as smart,” Uncle Jack said. “You know this is a research farm, right?
“I thought it was just Grandpa’s farm,” Anna said.
“Well, it was. Now it’s the Armstrong and Gloria Regenerative Farms Research Center to be exact, brought to you by a healthy grant from Indiana University. Didn’t your aunt tell you?”
“Aunt Claire didn’t tell me anything except the time for my flight,” Anna looked around at the crowd who were now sitting down and eating and talking amongst themselves. “You guys do real science here? I thought you were just a farmer.”
“That’s Dr. Farmer to you, and yes, we do real science,” Uncle Jack arched his eyebrow and smiled. “I don’t want to brag or anything. But, we’re kind of saving the planet here.”
Over the course of the afternoon, Anna learned about each researcher’s speciality from dealing with a changing climate and soil erosion to drone maintenance and tool fabrication. She was taken on multiple tours, walking a network of paths that connected the barns, labs, workshops and rolling fields that made up her Uncle’s farm. She ate food with strange textures she had never heard of and tasted spices from countries she had never visited. She learned to sing several songs in foreign languages, not understanding the words but having a great time making the sounds, as Dr. Gloria and Uncle Jack played their guitars well into the evening. By the time the sky shifted from orange to a purple hue, and the temperatures had dropped by a good ten degrees the party finally began to wind down. One by one, her new friends said their goodbyes before heading out to their own dormitories on the other side of the farm or driving into town to their short term rented homes.
It was the most social interaction Anna had had in almost a year and she was exhausted. As the last truck left, she slumped down on the porch swing and let one leg hang over the side. Lazily, she rocked back and forth, feeling the slight breeze shift across her face from left to right and back again. It was quiet, but a different kind of quiet than the vacuum silence that marked her time with Aunt Claire. This was a quiet filled with life all around her. The slight creak of the swing. Uncle Jack and Dr. Gloria’s low-pitched conversation in the opposite corner of the deep set porch. The hush of tall grass in the wind. The light chorus hum of early spring katydids and crickets. Slowly, she closed her eyes and listened to one sound and then the other until each sound wove into a single note. Then sleep.
Anna woke up in a panic around two o'clock in the morning. Nothing was familiar. Her bed. The darkness. The silence. Then slowly, as her head cleared, she pieced together fragments of the previous evening. She remembered laying down on the porch swing for just a minute. She must have rocked herself to sleep. Somehow, Uncle Jack had carried her upstairs without waking her up. Anna was still in the clothes she wore from the plane trip and a garlicky film covered the roof of her mouth. Yuck. She hadn’t brushed her teeth before going to bed. A first.
Her bedroom was so dark she couldn't see the floor, the walls or the door. All she could see was a single open window on the other side of the room filled with more stars than she had seen in her entire life. Dead silence gave way to the hush of a night breeze through the trees outside her window.
Her eyes slowly adjusted to a kind of darkness she never experienced at her old home with its street lights and ever-present city glow. She crawled out of bed and made her way to the window to peer out at the night sky. The air was cool and felt good against her skin. She breathed in the smell of grass and dew. The stars were so dense she could almost sense their movement, the heavens spinning slowly above her in an arc. She instinctively leaned to her left to compensate for the motion of the earth.
From the corner of her eye, lightning flashed silently in pink and blue-white bursts on the horizon. A spring storm miles away, a contrast to the clear skies overhead. She waited for the rumble of thunder, but the storm was far enough away that all she could hear was the soft hush of wind. Another first. She was used to lightning, but never at this distance. Never silent. Anna traced the line where the storm came to an end to meet a sea of stars.
The storm began to fade. It had been several minutes since the last flash. Anna yawned and started to turn back inside, when a new burst of light caught her attention. This time the light was closer, just on the other side of the trees that lined the far end of the field. It looked like a flashlight or maybe a floodlight. Whatever it was, it was bright enough to create a halo above the trees. The light flickered, then disappeared.
Down below, Herbie ran in circles along the fence, looking out into the field and whimpering. Something was agitating him.
Anna leaned out the window. “What do you see, boy, what…”
Before Anna could finish, Herbie began barking out at nothing in the darkness. He sensed it before Anna could see it. A pause. A heart beat. Then, a circle of light rose silently above the line of trees a half mile away; a light so bright it lit the ground below it like the sun. From this distance, she couldn’t tell if the light was the size of a basketball or a car. But there it was, impossibly bright and floating in midair. Anna felt her legs give a little. She stood frozen, her eyes the only part of her moving as they tracked the light’s slow progress. The object shifted direction and floated out towards the middle of the field and stopped, flickering between brilliant white and red. Spotlights scanned the ground, back and forth in a criss-cross pattern.
Then just as quickly as it had appeared, the light disappeared with an audible pop. Almost instantaneously, sparks burst in a line along the edge of her Uncle’s farm like a fireworks display. There were five flashes of light, spaced in equal distance, leaving behind five glowing pinpoints of ember that faded quickly. Silence again. No bugs. No wind.
Herbie had stopped barking, and stared out towards the edge of the farm and the woods just beyond. Minutes passed. Neither of them moved. Slowly, the sound of the bugs returned first. Not all of them, just a brave few. But within minutes the night chorus of katydids and frogs returned. Anna leaned out the windowsill and took in a deep breath of cool night air, held it in her lungs for a four count, then exhaled. Another trick she had learned from her mother to calm her nerves. As her breathing slowed, her rational brain began to take over again. She could wake her Uncle up. But what would she say? What would he think? There was an explanation for what she had seen, she was sure. There always was.
She crawled back into her bed and glanced at the clock on her phone that read 2:45 AM. As the rational side of her brain took over, the more her eyes grew heavy and she felt herself fall into that space between sleep and consciousness. Before drifting away completely, Anna took a mental note to ask her Uncle in the morning.
The sound of a motorcycle idling in the driveway woke up Anna from a deep sleep. Her bedroom window, lightly coated with dust, scattered morning sunlight across the room. Had she imagined the light from the night before? She wasn't quite sure. One thing she was sure of was that her feather bed felt really good. She buried her head deeper into her pillow..
From downstairs she could hear the squeaky hinges of a screen door open and the heavy footfalls of boots across the kitchen floor.
“Rise and shine!” Uncle Jack called out from downstairs.
Did people really say things like that? Anna groaned, rolled over and groaned again before she flopped out of bed. She yanked a wrinkled sweatshirt from her suitcase and pulled it over the t-shirt she had worn the day before. So much for first impressions. It was her first day at a new school and her expectations were already low. Different school, same result. She brushed her teeth, looked into the mirror and turned her head to the side. Yep, her jawline could still cut paper and her ice-blue eyes were set too far apart. An alien. The freckles that dusted her nose were less pronounced than they used to be, but they still were there. She pulled her mane of wavy light brown hair behind her ears and shrugged in resignation before heading out the bedroom door. The smell of coffee grew stronger with each step down the stairway.
Uncle Jack rushed through the kitchen noisily opening cupboards and drawers and pulling out silverware with a clang. Herbie sat in the corner, happy and unmoving, except for his eyes which tracked Uncle Jack’s every move.
“Sorry about being late for breakfast. Had a little trouble out in the field this morning,” Uncle Jack paused and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m not used to actually making anyone...food. I’ve got eggs I can fry up, I guess. Some cereal maybe.”
“Cereal’s fine. Thanks,” Anna smiled.
“You drink coffee?”
“By the gallons,” Anna said.
“Me too.” Uncle Jack smiled. “Must be a family thing.”
Anna poured herself a cup of black coffee as Uncle Jack reached into the cupboard and pulled out a large plastic bag filled with seeds and grains and what looked like dried twigs from a forest floor.
“We made this cereal from stuff grown right here on the farm. It’s nutrient dense.”
“Mmmm,” Anna said under her breath. “Nutrient dense.”
“So, today is your first day in a new school. Are you excited?” Uncle Jack placed two bowls on opposite sides of the kitchen table.
Anna shook out several clumps of fused bark and watched as a cloud of cereal dust mushroomed out of the bowl. Milk helped settle the cereal dust and made the chia seeds expand like little boats. She paused before taking the first bite. Crunchy, really crunchy, but she was surprised to find it tasted pretty good.
“Exshited ish not exactly the word I'd ushe," Anna mumbled through a mouthful of cereal.
“Oh, I see,” Uncle Jack paused, “School's not your thing.”
Anna gulped before continuing.
“School's fine. It's the whole, you know, social thing," Anna made air quotes around the word thing. Black seeds stuck in the gaps in her teeth.
"Well, maybe that will change. That's the great thing about moving to a new place. You can reinvent yourself. Be the person you want to be," Uncle Jack sat down across from Anna.
Anna remembered her father saying almost those exact same words her first day of middle school, a little over two years ago. Her father had talked to her the entire drive to school and encouraged her to give the kids and herself a chance. She remembered her dad’s smile and the bubble of optimism that followed her from the car to the hallway and into her first class. Air started to leak out from that bubble within seconds as familiar faces from elementary school came walking in. Anna could feel some kids making faces. Some girls whispered just within earshot. Groups formed organically around Anna until she was an island left alone in the middle of the room. Anna looked at her uncle and figured it was time to change the subject.
“I saw a funny light last night. Just at the edge of the field outside my window.”
Uncle Jack leaned back, his face puzzled. “Really? What kind of light?”
“It was weird. I don’t know. But, it was really bright. Herbie saw it, too.”
Before Uncle Jack could answer, the screen door squeaked open. Dr. Gloria stepped in and let the door slam behind him.
“Oh good morning, Anna. I’m sorry to interrupt,” Dr. Gloria sat down at the head of the table, removed his baseball cap and sighed. “The good news just keeps coming, Jack. Looks like we found two more on the northeast side.”
Dr. Gloria threw two slabs of melted green plastic on the table. Their edges were curled and singed black.
“No kidding,” Uncle Jack picked up one of the plastic slabs and inspected both sides. “Hey, Anna. You’re a maker, right? You know what this is?”
“Sure, it’s a fried microcontroller.”
“Yep. Any idea what could have caused this?”
Uncle Jack tossed the microcontroller back on the table. Anna picked it up and ran her finger along the GPIO pins that had fused together like knotted hair.
“Was it a power surge?” Anna asked.
“Good guess, but no. All our sensor stations run off the grid. Each unit is powered by aerogel supercapacitors and solar.”
“Cheap capacitors then,” Anna looked at her Uncle through a hole melted in the center of the microcontroller.
Uncle Jack shook his head no again. “I can explain one sensor going down, maybe two. But, not five of them, and not all at the exact same time.”
From the moment Anna had seen the blown microcontroller, a thought had been forming at the back of her mind, or maybe more of an uneasy feeling, an intuition. The fried microcontrollers were related to the light she had seen the night before.
“2:45 AM,” Anna slid the microcontroller over to Uncle Jack. “That’s when your sensors went down. 2:45 AM. Right?”
Dr. Gloria shot a quick glance at Uncle Jack, his eyes wide. They both stared at each other for a moment, then a broad smile broke out across Uncle Jack’s face.
“Yeah. Well, 2:42 according to the sensor’s log. How did you know?” Uncle Jack leaned forward.
“Remember that light I mentioned. That's when I saw it. 2:42 AM. When it disappeared, sparks broke out like fireworks. Must’ve been your sensors shorting out,” Anna pointed to the melted plastic on the table. “All at the exact same time.”
"A light, huh? Weird,” Uncle Jack looked lost in thought, then his head snapped up as if just struck with an idea. “You know how to solder, right?”
“Sure,” Anna offered.
“Good. We’ve got some work to do when you get home from school.”