Dark Energy by Robison Wells

Author:Robison Wells
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-02-04T08:00:00+00:00

ELEVEN

All I could think about was Coya. She was the gentlest creature I think I’d ever met. So calm and fragile. And she had been stranded inside the ship for so long.

“Dad,” I asked, holding his hand like I was half my age. Wishing I still was. “Did they still have lights on inside the ship? While they waited to open the door?”

“We think so, Aly. At least most of the time.”

“Good.”

We showered for a long time at the NASA tent, and then when we got back home, we showered again, hoping that by some miracle our shampoos and bodywashes would somehow soak through our skulls and into our brains and turn us back into innocent teenage girls.

When we got back to our room, Brynne asked if she could sleep in the room with me and Rachel—it was late and she didn’t want to be alone in her room with Coya. Not tonight.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” I said, knowing that this was exactly what the stupid RAs would have wanted me to ask. They’d be all into us expressing our feelings in order to process what happened.

“It’s not like movies,” Rachel said. “Well, it’s not like most movies. It’s like Alien. It’s not like 2001.”

“These people are not Guides,” Brynne said. “I don’t care what they say. I don’t care how miserable it was waiting inside a spaceship for everyone to get out. They don’t have some heretofore undiscovered miraculous philosophy. They’re people who can’t even be bothered to make their beds. I can understand a messy bathroom, because they didn’t have running water, but not making their beds? Not cleaning up the hallway? I know that’s petty, but I don’t care. Did you guys see that movie with Keanu Reeves where he’s an alien who comes to tell the world how we’ve all gotten it wrong? It’s The Day the Earth Stood Still or something like that. Anyway, his solution is to wipe everything out and make the world start over from the cavemen. Maybe that’s the kind of Guides these aliens are. They’re not peaceful. They’re messy, and they’re ready to start a fight.”

“I’ll admit it,” Rachel said. “I’m a Star Wars nerd. I love it. And the production designers say they want to give their ships a ‘lived-in’ look. But they don’t have ships like that. The real world sucks.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, staring at the ceiling. The textured paint reminded me of a sea of stars. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this. I should have warned you about the suicides.”

“No,” Rachel said, leaning up on one elbow. “It was awesome. It was horrible, and I hated it, but it was going into a spaceship just days after it landed. If I was with a group of NASA researchers—people who knew what they should have done when they came across what we found—then I’d go back in a heartbeat.”

“You would? Seriously?” Brynne said.

“Yes, seriously. It was totally a freak show, but that’s because it was just the three of us, and we didn’t have any real protection other than the lasso of truth.

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