“She was being monitored closely,” Corcoran said, to Ed.
“So here’s your problem, major. You’ve got a spaceship in an established orbit carrying sensitive data from every government database in the world. You think since the ship took off after I climbed out, and the message appeared in that secret computer while I was in custody, therefore an alien is still on board, planning something terrible. If that’s the case, I must be lying to you. But that’s only one possibility. The other possibility is I’m telling you the truth.”
“Then how did the message…” Corcoran stopped in mid-sentence, because that was when it came to him. “Oh.”
“C’mon, I even signed it for you guys. But look, it doesn’t matter. Either there’s an alien presence controlling the indestructible spaceship, or the sixteen-year old you’ve been trying to intimidate for the past half hour is. One way or another, we’d both like it very much if you arranged for me to go home now.”
“SO ARE you going to tell me what really happened?” Ed asked.
It took about a week to convince the necessary members of the government that Annie, a sarcastic but otherwise seemingly harmless young woman from a tiny Massachusetts town could exert control—somehow—over an extra-terrestrial warship. This was undoubtedly how long Ed had been holding onto this question. It might even have been why he insisted on being the one to return her to her home.
They were crossing the southern bridge to Main Street when he asked. At that point they were already seeing some of the impact on the town from the last time they were in Sorrow Falls. The bridge they were going over had scuffmarks on the side railings, there was still broken glass and debris in the margins, and the traffic was about double what it should have been. Up ahead, right near the library, there were several mobile satellite towers.
The media had returned.
Two days ago, Annie spoke to the most positive-sounding, enthusiastic woman on the planet. Her name was Nita, and she was a publicist. Nita was arranging a modest media blitz. This was something of an unfortunate inevitability. Annie needed the media to make sure everybody knew who she was. She was still the little girl who touched the spaceship when nobody else could and didn’t particularly want people to know that, but she appreciated celebrity as a form of protection in this case.
The ship in orbit holding international secrets was a better form of protection, but one couldn’t be too careful.
Soon, Annie would be appearing on national television in a variety of controlled settings and telling her side of the story. She hadn’t decided yet what that story was going to be, but there was still some time.
For the short term, she could ignore all the mobile TV units who would no doubt fall over themselves to talk to her.
“You didn’t like the story I gave to the army?”
Ed laughed.
“That was barely a story at all.”
“Where do you want me to start?”
“How about with so I met an alien.”
“Okay. So, I met an alien. He was pretty much as Violet described.”
“Terrifying, vengeful, willing to destroy the planet?”
“Maybe not terrifying. Confused. But that isn’t what I mean. He was a sentient idea. So I treated him like one.”
“I’m not sure I understand how one treats a sentient idea.”
They made it off the bridge and hung a left, up the hill to Spaceship Road. The whole area was an unfortunate combination of wrecked vehicles and roadside memorials. There were entirely too many memorials. Even more than when the ship first landed, Sorrow Falls was never going to be the same.
“Ideas aren’t meant to be alone,” Annie said. “They’re supposed to be shared. I asked him to share himself.”
“To… is there a non-creepy way to phrase that?”
“Probably.”
“So, um, was he a good idea?”
“Not a clue. He was right when he said he was too advanced for me to really understand. But that didn’t matter. As soon as I had him in my head I started thinking of a nicer version of him.”
Ed didn’t have a response to this. He just looked at her with a raised eyebrow.
On their left, they were coming up on the field where the ship had been until recently. The army still had the place cordoned off, and a state policeman was directing traffic. The campers were all gone. This made Annie sad.
“You gotta understand, everything worked different in that ship. It responded to thoughts. Actually, no, that’s not really right, it responded to ideas. I had to formulate a complete idea and… push it to the ship, I guess is the only way to describe it. The alien was kind of the same way, only more… pure. I couldn’t think the ship into being something other than what it was. But I could think him into being a slightly less malevolent idea.”
“Even if you didn’t understand it?”
“Apparently, yeah. Because I took his idea and imagined a version of him that wanted to leave the planet and go find another one.”
“And that worked.”
“He left, didn’t he?”
Ed smiled.
“Annie, honestly I’m in the same position as everyone else. You tell me he left and I have no way to prove that’s true or untrue. I’ll take your word for it.”
“C’mon, Ed, after all we’ve been through, would I lie to you?”
IT WAS another twenty minutes of traffic and wreckage before they arrived at their destination, which was not Annie’s house. They went past the house, but her mother wouldn’t be back from Boston for another four days, so technically Annie still couldn’t stay there alone. That was sort of okay, because her address wasn’t a secret and there were two news trucks parked on her lawn already.
The destination was Violet’s house.
They’d called ahead; Violet was sitting on the porch waiting. As a courtesy, her ‘parents’ weren’t around. There was no point in maintaining that illusion any longer.
“Meant to say, thanks for keeping her out of this,” Annie said.
“You’re welcome. I didn’t have a lot of choice, though. Nobody else remembered she was even there. I would have come off as crazy, talking about the dead kid with the anti-zombie baby coffin space capsule. I have about a million more questions for her, though, so I’m planning on coming back. Unless she makes me forget her too.”
“I think it’s too late. You’ve got an idea of her now.”
“I’m not going to get used to that.”
“I don’t expect to either.”
She leaned over in the car seat and gave him a long hug.
“Thanks for everything,” she said. “And hey, we saved the world or something.”
“I think we did,” he said. “Thanks for being the best translator I could have asked for.”
She kissed him on the cheek, and then climbed out.
Ed waved to Violet, and drove off.
Annie stood at the base of the steps for a time, just listening to her own breathing and appreciating the silence and isolation of the woods. Violet’s cabin was a whole lot more appealing to her this time around. After the past couple of weeks, it was exactly what she needed.
“So,” Violet said.
“So.”
“I’m glad you came back.”
“Yeah. Me too. I didn’t really know where else to go, anyway. You’re the only one who can understand. Plus, you’re my best friend.”
Violet came down the steps and hugged Annie, then leaned back and looked her in the eye for several seconds.
“He’s still in there, isn’t he?” she asked.
“I think I’m gonna burst. I need a chalkboard and a computer and a ton of paper and then you have to explain to me what all of it means, because I don’t get half of it. But it’s beautiful.”