Pulling up in her neon blue Skoda Fabia and rolling down the window, Ada asked“Where ya headed?” to the underprepared American hiker.
“Anywhere in Dublin city would be great” Kyle replied peering into passenger side window.
“City Centre?” Ada asked
“Whatever you can do would be great” Kyle said as he clambered into the car. Mud flaked off his runners as he got in
“Sorry about that, I…” he continued.
“No worries, cars a mess anyway” Ada said as she pulled off back onto the road “Were you up the mountain there? You’re not exactly kitted out for it”.
“Yeah, a bit of an impromptu early morning stroll that just kinda snowballed” Kyle panicked. He hadn’t really thought about how he was going to explain why he was out here.
“Jesus, like Forrest Gump. You just started walking and kept on going?” Ada laughed but she was starting to worry he might be off his nut.
Kyle had no idea what Forrest Gump was. He had learned a lot about the planets media but there were always going to be gaps. ”Hah yeah, it’s just such a lovely area to walk around.”
Just then Kyle’s watch vibrated and a new message appeared.
WINSTON: Forrest Gump is a movie about a mentally deficient man who leads a fantastical life beyond all reasonable sense.
Sensing some awkwardness in the air he continued “The name’s Kyle Lewis by the way, nice to meet ya”. He offered out a hand for a shake.
”Ada Flanagan” she said as she tried to steer with her left hand and awkwardly reaching over with her right hand for the shake.
“So how’d the hike go?” she asked. She wanted to probe further but was starting to worry where the line of questioning would take her. She couldn’t outright ask him if he had a meteorite smuggled up his arse without sounding like a weirdo herself.
“It was beautiful. Great to get out in nature for a while” Kyle replied. He was panicking now. He had a full backstory for why he was walking around Boise Fucking Idaho but Winston would give him little to nothing on Dublin.
“You didn’t see anything unusual up there, did you?” Ada asked. Feck it, she may as well throw it out there. “Nothing weird up the top? No fallen branches or anything falling from the sky”.
Kyles heart spiked. Another vibration on his watch from Winston.
Winston: SHE KNOWS, ABORT!
Ada quickly looked down at the watch on his wrist but couldn’t read anything. What type of watch was that? She’d never seen a smartwatch so chunky.
“Noooo, just a lot of green trees and grass” Kyle said. He began to pry back “Why? Were you expecting something unusual?”
“Eh yeah. It’s stupid but a friend thought there might be something up there.” Ada said “I work for an observatory and with the comet going by we thought we’d spotted something coming down around Ticknock. Looks like nothing now though”.
Another burst of vibration. This time more intense and immediate.
Winston: GET OUT OF THE CAR KYLE!
“Fuck off” Kyle muttered at Winston.
As he did so he noticed Ada’s eyes glancing over. He quickly rolled down his sleeve and looked out the passenger side window. He had no clue where he was but it was starting to look more populated.
“Sorry, I wasn’t trying to take a look at your messages, you were just getting a lot is all. Someone looking for ya?” Ada asked “What kinda watch is that? It’s a big piece.”
“Oh yeah, just a buddy wondering where I’d gotten to.” Kyle replied. He ignored the watch question to not draw any more attention to it and said “Actually, you can drop me anywhere. I’m gonna meet him around here somewhere.”. He had no clue where here was.
“You sure? I don’t mind dropping you closer to your friend” Ada said. Something was definitely up with this lad but she was starting to get worried. She started to slow as they came to some traffic lights.
“Nah, seriously, here’s fine.” he abruptly opened his door and jumped out of the car. “Thanks again for the lift.” Starring back into the car. With that he ran off down the road.
“Fecking weirdo” Ada thought as she watched him disappear around a corner. Being weird wasn’t crime or an admission of meteorite theft though.
As she sat there, her phone buzzed.
Ciara: Any joy out there? I’m gonna guess you didn’t. Some of the trajectory calculations I’m seeing here are really off for that thing.
“What the fuck is going on?”
----------------------------------------------------------------
Ada headed back to her 2 bed flat in Dundrum after Kyle made a hasty exit from her car.
She was intrigued to get more details from Ciara about what she'd found out about the supposed meteoroid trajectory.
She logged into her laptop in her spare bedroom which had been the home office for a couple of years now. She opened a chat with Ciara.
Ada: What do ya mean it was off?
Ciara: That basically. Whatever it was that Nemetode saw coming down didn't exactly match a falling meteoroid path?
Ada: Why? What was it meant to do?
Ciara: Well not course correct for one thing. And definitely not change fall speeds for another.
Ada: Feck off, so we're looking at a rocket or something? A drone maybe?
Ciara: Too big for a drone and way too high up. Maybe a rocket but that wouldn't explain why it vanished from sight after a couple of minutes.
Ada: Bizarre!
Ciara: Bizarre! And what's weirder is that we're getting a similar story from people on the Discord in the US 🤨
Ada: Go on! What the fuck like?
Ciara: Yeah so similar to us. Brief glance of something coming down, landing plotted but nothing found. Nearly the same exact time too but this was in the middle of the night over there so reports are sketchier.
A few of the lads we know from the Discord went to check for the impact crater around where they figured it'd be going down, but nothing. Should have been obvious too cause it looked like it was coming down in a massive car park. You'd notice that. Diddly feckin’ squat.
Ada: Jaysus! So what's the thinking now? Maybe a bit of the comets debris hit a satellite or 2 and knocked them out of the sky. Debris field spread out on re-entry?
Ciara: Maybe but that's the huge spread. And only here and in Idaho? What are the odds it's only seen in 2 places? Somethings definitely up.
Ada: Alright, I know where this is going but hold your horses Giorgio. There's probably a really rational, boring explanation for all this.
Ciara: C'mon, even you have to admit this is fucked looking Ada. And get this, our 2 yank buddies in Idaho went back to the car park a hour ago to check something and the whole place is cordoned of. Big ignorant police tape around it. Businesses all shut beside it and huge stupid hazmat-y tent gone up. Commmmmmmeeeee onnnnnnn!
Ada: Yeah, come on. Now I'm worried it was a biological weapon and I'm getting super cancer in the next 20 mins. Fecking hell Ciara.
Ciara: What are the odds of that? No ones sending biological weapons to Ireland FFS. You're grand
Ada: Aliens though, of course they couldn't wait to land on our fair shores.
Ciara: Of course. Wouldn't you try and land in a place that doesn't have armed guards and a low gun violence death ratio first?
Ada: No more. Did you run all this up with anyone over in DIAS? Are they sending anyone out?
Ciara: Are they fuck? I said it to the lads here an hour ago and they said they'd send you out to take a look tomorrow 😂
What about the American lad? Did you get anything else out of him?
Ada: Sweet FA. He was either on a spiritual quest to find himself in Ireland or he's having a drug induced mental breakdown. I'm going with the second one with the way he had a freak out getting out of the car.
Ciara: Or nervous because he was hiding something?
Ada: Something was up with him but I doubt I'll be spotting him around town any time soon.