Author: Larson Holm

He splashed the cold water up into his face and looked at himself in the mirror. It would have to do. Why did she want to talk now? It had been five years, and she’d been the one to break it off. It hadn’t made sense then, what could’ve changed? Did she have the answers? That was what he wanted, he thought: someone or something to arrive, up from the ground or out of the sky, and tell him all the answers, make it all make sense. The air buzzed around him – the door? – he jumped round, was she early? No, it was just a fly. It didn’t even sound like the door. He shook his head and watched the bright red insect land on the wall beside the cracks in the flaking paint (damp from the shower, again) where it stopped, antennae twitching. It was one of those new ones, he thought. A big, bulbous thing, its colour made it seem furious. An invasive species, they were saying, but invading from where? They weren’t dangerous, apparently. Anne from next door – and he was proud to say that he knew his neighbours, people can change – said her black lab (who would chomp down anything in front of her) had eaten one of the red flies a couple of days back and suffered no ill effects, unlike last year’s wasp incident, so these new insects couldn’t be too bad.

He stepped over to get a closer look, leaning in towards the bug, its black compound eyes bulging out from its crimson body. The insect shuddered and shook its wings, and he jerked back. The movement looked strange, he thought. Mechanical, almost. He stared into its eyes, keeping his distance – where had these things come from? – and it stared back at him, peering at his fleshy face. The fly twitched its antennae again. ‘I have been seen,’ it thought. ‘I have been noticed.’

Quite some distance away (quite some distance indeed!) these thoughts were received, processed, and acted upon. The drones could easily handle some tasks by themselves, but being detected was always a situation where they needed some additional guidance. And they were being detected a lot, the handler thought. There had been far more incidents than expected. Some losses due to swatting or errant pets were to be expected, but it seemed that the drones could only observe for a few seconds before their subject stopped whatever they were doing to observe back. The handler was displeased: being noticed was not the goal. The drone was to remove itself from the area and try again later. Perhaps those beings down on the planet had a sense of smell much better than anticipated, or maybe their vision worked in abnormal parts of the spectrum. That would at least be interesting, the handler thought. They had come here through the long darkness of space to learn, to see if these strange people had any answers. It had been a huge price to pay, but the potential scientific rewards outweighed the costs. Or they would do, if they could ever make any proper, undisturbed observations.

Back down on the ground, the fly had been forgotten, and he marched towards the door, hand flattening his hair then tugging his shirt so that it sat right, then back to his hair again. She was here, and maybe she would have some answers.