Where is she now, SID?” Mara asked, as she swung her legs back and forth over the edge of the terrace.
<Just leaving the stratosphere and entering the mesosphere. 48 kilometers and climbing.>
“How are her vitals?” Mara asked.
<Surprisingly steady. She shows no sign of elevated heart rate. Breathing is normal.>
“That’s my girl. Calm and collected as always,” Mara said.
She looked out at the clouds swirling around her and the lush green farmland far below. The newness of open green spaces still thrilled her. In her time, there were no sweeping vistas outside the manicured safe zones. How quickly this will all change, she thought, the droughts and shifting climate, and even now, she could see some of the earliest impacts.
Mara took a final drink of water, placed the container back in its compartment and closed the picnic basket. Just to the left, Anna’s backpack lay open, and the corner of her black sketchbook poked out. As Mara reached over to close the backpack, a gust of wind buffeted her side and pushed the bag several feet away. The sketchbook fell out and slid to the middle of the terrace, its pages flapping in the wind.
“When will these gusts die down, SID?” Mara asked. “I was expecting a little calmer weather by now.”
<That gust was an anomaly, but not unexpected. It was likely a hyperlocal weather event that was never recorded. You should expect decreasing winds over the next hour.>
“Can you tell me what she is seeing now?” Mara asked, as she stood up to retrieve the contents of the backpack before they scattered to the wind.
<The curvature of the Earth and the thin envelope of our atmosphere.>
“That should change her life,” Mara said softly. She picked up the backpack and the sketchbook and returned to the ledge. “Even though she’s seen so much already.”
She opened Anna’s notebook and began flipping through its pages. The first few pages contained rough sketches of the farm and a surprisingly realistic version of Dr. Gloria down to his laugh lines and cowboy hat. Anna was less successful with Jack, whose broken nose took on cartoonish proportions. There were sketches of Mara’s home and the two of them flying for the first time together; silhouettes against a bank of clouds.
<Anna will reach the exosphere in approximately one minute. I’m going to alert her that I’m limiting her ability to fly any higher. Do you have any message you want me to convey?>
“Just tell her to enjoy the view,” Mara said, then returned her attention to the notebook.
She flipped the page and saw a rendering of an alien landscape, so detailed she could make out the individual dew-shaped leaves along the canopy of a forest. They were sketches of the first alien planet Anna had visited, and the drawings helped connect the myriad stories Mara had heard over the past month. One sketch showed small, four-legged animals along the canopy, and another sketch that spanned two pages showed two cascading rivers and a towering crag of a mountain range. The next series of sketches revealed a great plain of grass and giant trees that rose hundreds of meters in the air like skyscrapers.
For all the wonders Mara had seen in her own life, she felt a twinge of regret that she was unable to travel alongside Anna during her adventures to other worlds. She had been close. She had touched the wormhole and felt its pull, and seen unfamiliar stars on the other side, but even now she had no idea what force prevented her from entering.
<I’ve conveyed your message to Anna. She’ll be returning shortly.>
“Thank you, SID. Just keep an eye on her. We want her home safely, and on time for . . .”
She flipped the page and stopped cold. A fear, deep and black, gripped her entire body as the winds suddenly died down to complete stillness. Silence.
On the page, staring back at her from a universe away, was an image of the Others.
“No,” Mara whispered.
She flipped to the next page. Scrawled out in rough, black strokes was a stick-like creature dressed in black, with bone-white skin and holes for eyes; holes filled with spinning star formations. Its mouth was gaping open and its finger pointed off the page directly toward Mara.
“No, no, no! This is impossible,” Mara cried out to no one.
<Mara. What is it?>
She flipped to the end of the book and saw more pictures of the Others, peering out from behind strange, squatty trees and across space and time. She had been found.
“Why didn’t she tell me?” Mara said.
<You’re concerning me, Mara. What is wrong?>
She was still gripped by dread but rising quickly beneath it like a river was a sense of absolute loss and sadness. She felt paralyzed, unable to look up from the page.
“Why now?”
<Mara. Please.>
Mara didn’t respond. The wind began to pick up again, this time in gusts that blew her hair across her face and buffeted her ears. But she didn’t notice. Clouds began to swirl around the terrace. The sky darkened.
<I’m detecting a new energy signal, strong and very close. I estimate within 100 meters.> SID paused as it tried to identify the optimal tone of voice to break through to Mara. <I’m sorry, Mara. But I believe the Others have returned.>
A new feeling began to run roughshod through her body as the winds kicked up even higher. Anger and frustration at the unfairness. She shoved the sketchbook back into the backpack and leaped to her feet. Within the last minute, the canyon of white soft clouds had turned into a dark grey wall, threatening her from all sides.
“SID! Get Anna on the iCom. Tell her to get down here now!”
Rain began to bounce off the terrace surface and poured off the edges in streams. A sharp gust of wind knocked Mara off her feet and forced her to activate her anti-gravity boots as the terrace tilted to the side like a boat in rough waters.
<I can’t reach Anna. The energy signature is interfering with my communications.>
“Try again!” Mara shouted above the wind.
It took all her focus to not be tossed like a ragdoll in the winds. A deep, low rumble emerged from within the wall of clouds like a giant, ancient door opening. It echoed out across the canyon of clouds and forced Mara to put her hands over her ears. Balls of lightning began to pop like flashbulbs along the surface of the clouds temporarily blinding Mara, followed by the sharp crack of rapidly expanding air.
<I was able to reach Anna, just for a moment. She’s returning now.>
“Tell her . . .” Mara started, but was hit with a percussive wall of wind that spun her full circle. She struggled to stay upright. “Tell her to avoid the storm.”
<I’m sorry, but I’ve lost contact again.>
“Can you track her?” Mara shouted.
<Yes.>
“Then find a way for me to get to her, now!”
<Taking over control of your navigation systems.>
Mara could feel the micro-adjustments in her anti-gravity boots as SID helped guide her toward a small clearing in the clouds. Even with SID aiding her flight, she felt helpless against the gale force winds.
“I’m going to try and contact Anna myself,” Mara said. The air felt like it was being pulled from her lungs. She activated her mask and tried to steady her breath. “Anna! Can you hear me? Avoid the storm. I’ll meet you on the northernmost edge of the cloud bank.”
No response.
Mara strained to hear any sign from her young friend. But nothing. Anger welled up inside her again, as her muscles tensed and adrenaline flowed, giving her a short burst of energy. She began to thrash against the wind like a swimmer against a riptide.
Then just inside her peripheral vision, a figure appeared to float in the air just above her and to the right. Mara didn’t need to turn her head fully. She knew who was there. Hovering less than a hundred feet above her, was the Other. Its stick-like figure a black silhouette against a wall of slate-gray clouds.
The world seemed to slow down, and even through the winds, Mara could hear her heartbeat in her ears. Two other figures materialized from the clouds and floated, unmoving and impervious to the winds, just behind the first.
“Why now?” Mara whispered, but somehow, she knew the Others could hear. “I promise. I’ll go. Just leave me alone and don’t harm my friends.”
The Others remained silent like still waters. Flashes of light in the clouds behind them outlined their bone-white faces in an unearthly glow.
“Please.”
Mara felt a tingling sensation build throughout her body, just before the world came to an end. Jagged lightning flashed out and struck the floating terrace in an explosion of plasma, superheating the air and dissolving the small platform into a mass of tiny translucent cubes that quickly evaporated in the wind. The picnic basket and Anna’s backpack exploded in flames as a wall of sound from the rapid expansion and contraction of air hit Mara like a blow to the head.
Dazed, Mara looked up. A swirling column of gray clouds began to circle her and the Others, faster and faster, until her body, in the center of the vortex, began to spin like a leaf caught in an eddy of a stream.