When Life Turned Purple (10 page)

“Nah,” he said. “All that mental stuff is more exhausting. Getting creative with your hands can be kind of relaxing—cathartic, you know.”

Lia gazed at him with shining eyes. “Yeah, but still. This is so refreshing. Really, thank you so much.”

Russ felt his chest expand as he suppressed a smile and took another bite of his toast. “Eh, it wasn’t a big deal.”

“But it
is
,” Lia insisted. “You diced everything up just right and it takes a lot of work to do all that.”

Russ tried not to squirm. Instead, he just lowered his eyes and shrugged, saying, “Well, I’m glad you’re happy.” But when he peeked at her, she was still smiling at him with a mouth full of fruit salad and he couldn’t help grinning back.

Her skin had a grayish tinge to it and the flesh under her eyes looked sunken, but her eyes were a shade of purple that was both bright and dark.

“And now for some robust coffee,” Russ said, getting up.

Lia pushed her chair back. “I’ll get it. You’ve done enough.”

“Nope,” he said. “You sit.”

They savored their coffee in silence, Lia sipping with closed eyes and acting like she was eating chocolate mousse again.

Then Russ said, “So, what are they saying?”

Lia opened her eyes and looked at him over the rim of the cup. She finished drinking and stared off to the side.

“C’mon,” Russ said. “Let’s chill out on the sofa.”

Sprawled together on the sofa, Lia started to talk. “It’s making my head spin, all the possible scenarios and consequences. And it’s so frightening, it doesn’t seem real. It’s all so overwhelming, I just can’t feel any fear at all.”

Russ just listened. That’s how he felt, too.

“It’s so weird,” said Lia. “They’re so huge and strong, but they’re not affecting us in the way a planetary body would. Like, our orbit and tilt and weather is still exactly the same. And then there are all these questions! What if these things keep coming? What will that do to the amount and quality of sunlight we get? What if they get closer? What if they fall to earth?”

“Because of their mass?”

“We don’t even know what their mass is. We don’t even know what they’re made of. But we know that they are very, very strong. If they fall to earth—or decide to slam into earth—would that be like a gargantuan asteroid impact? Or could they move another way and end up knocking out our moon? Or maybe they’ll just float down gently and rest on us—maybe squashing us? Or the ocean, displacing who knows how much water over the coastlines?”

“Is that all?”

“Not even close. They’re discussing military solutions. But it’s questionable if even nuclear bombs will work—and if they do, what will happen to the bubble pieces? Will they remain in our orbit—and if so, how will they affect our satellites and the ISS? Or will they fall to Earth—and if so, will they cause damage? Or maybe there is an intelligence that we can’t see and attacking these bubbles will make them angry. What if there is a whole fleet of these things waiting in another dimension when we attack? How will they react?”

“And
that’s
all that has you guys calling each other in the middle of the night?” Russ tried to joke off the tension.

The corner of Lia’s mouth twitched with a wry laugh. “Yeah. Pretty melodramatic, eh?”

Then Lia slouched deeper into the couch, her mouth drooping, and said, “The thing is, I don’t think there is anything anyone
can
do. We set up so many scenarios with alternating consequences, but you can’t prep for everything. Sure, if nobody does anything, we could all end up very sorry. On the other hand, doing something could also cause global disaster. Anything the powers that be do or don’t do could wipe out humanity—theoretically. And whatever they could do has no guarantee of effectiveness.” She paused to gaze at Russ. “So there isn’t any point in doing anything at all.”

Russ wiped his palm across his mouth, then said, “So the best thing to do is what we’ve already done.”

She nodded, still gazing at him. “Yeah,” she said. “Until these purple things actually do something—other than messing up our GPS and cell phones—it’s the social element we need to worry about.”

“What will the world be told?”

“Oh, that everything’s fine. You know…stuff like how these are fascinating anomalies—and aren’t they so pretty? That scientists are so excited to study them. And maybe we’ll even send an astronaut to check them out!”

“Really?”

“No. But a space probe is a possibility—although even that’s a risk. We don’t know how these things could react.”

“Well, they seemed fine with GPS satellites crashing into them.”

“That’s true. But maybe these things somehow know those GPS crashes are accidents.” She sighed. “If people knew how much we really don’t know and all the terrifying possibilities, there’d be rioting and chaos already.” She spread out her arms in surrender. “And for all we know, these things will just hang out in our sky for the next two thousand years without making a move. So if people start panicking and society starts breaking down, it might all be for naught.”

Russ put his hand over his forehead as Lia rested her head on his shoulder. It was all too much to take in. And despite the coffee and the new day, Lia and Russ fell asleep until a knock on the door woke them up.

Russ’s hand went straight to his gun. He got up carefully so as not to wake Lia and went to the door, but she opened her eyes and looked at him without saying a word. Through the peephole, Russ saw a familiar figure, but couldn’t think from where.

Russ wasn’t sure he should answer. Was it better to let the unwanted visitor assume no one was home?

The guy kept knocking and shifting from side to side.

“Who is it?” said Russ.

“Hey, it’s Jack, your neighbor from upstairs.”

Oh, yeah. “Hey, Jack. What’s up?”

“Listen, I’m outta eggs at my place. You got any eggs?”

“No, man—sorry. We’re almost out of food.”

Jack swore, then said, “Well, good luck on that. If you find some place, then let me know.”

Russ wondered why Jack didn’t wait in the lines.

“Are you sure you don’t got no eggs?” said Jack. “Because I was pretty sure I smelled some cooking this morning.”

Better lay low on the cooking for the next few days
, thought Russ. “No, those were the last.” He paused. “Hey, aren’t there privately owned stores open?”

“They’re mostly cleaned out.”

Already?

“And good luck waiting in those lines. People start pushing, people start cutting and—and they’re people you shouldn’t be messing with, you know?”

“Yeah, I get it,” said Russ.

“I really hope things get back to normal soon. I mean, look at how people are freaking out over some harmless space anomalies. I mean, how are these different than the Northern Lights?”

“Yeah, you’re right,” said Russ and watched as Jack shuffled away.

While Russ didn’t feel bad about lying to Jack about his food supply, he felt bad about lying to him about the space bubbles. It was one thing not to share with Jack what Russ and Lia needed, but it was another to actually mislead him about the reality of the situation. Russ knew that someone like Jack wouldn’t handle things properly anyway, but Russ still felt like a heel for jerking him around.

When he turned back to the sofa, he saw Lia staring at him.

“Out of food already?” she asked

“Yep.”

“That means they’ll start looting the supermarkets soon.”

“Yep.”

Russ sank down beside her. He switched on the TV.

“Now, let’s hear some more about this great news,” said the blonde newscaster.

She turned toward the man sitting next to her, who wore a fixed smile and brown hair sprayed into place over his bald spot.

“Hey, I know who that is,” said Lia, sitting up. “He’s a top astrophysicist. My professor has been in contact with him.”

“So you were saying that NASA has discovered that these are just space lights?” the newscaster asked him.

“Yes,” said the astrophysicist. “Just bundles of electromagnetic light floating above our atmosphere. You can find these in the farthest reaches of the universe.”

“Oh, gawd,” said Lia. “What utter—”

“And you’ve confirmed that there are four of them?”

“Yes—two for each side of the world.”

The blonde newscaster smiled and said, “Well, that’s certainly thoughtful of them.”

The astrophysicist laughed as he said, “It certainly is!”

“But what about the satellites?” she asked.

“Oh, they’ve just been shorting out due to the powerful electromagnetism radiating from the space lights.”

“Urgh,” Lia said, throwing up her hands.

“So we’re going to need to do without GPS for the time being? And faulty cell phone and Internet operation? And cable?”

The astrophysicist nodded pleasantly. “And patchy flight service—for the time being.”

“But other than that, it’s back to life as normal?”

“Yes, that’s right,” said the astrophysicist. “Back to life as normal. There is nothing to fear from this rare, yet totally natural phenomenon.”

Lia clenched her hands into fists and threw her head back. “Ergh! He’s totally lying! And he
knows
he’s totally lying!”

The TV presenter gave the camera a reassuring grin. “Well, there you have it, folks. From one of the nation’s top astrophysicists, it’s life back to normal—albeit without luxuries like GPS, fast Internet, and some cable and cell phone use. But we got along without it before; we can get along without it now. Right, sir?”

Lia switched it off before the astrophysicist could answer.

“Hey,” said Russ.

“Can you believe this load of tripe?” said Lia.

“Baby, just one more day like this, and things would start getting really bad around here.” He paused. “What that physicist did is basically what I did to Jack.”

Lia shook her head. “No, Russ. He could tell people they
seem
harmless, but all the other stuff he said just isn’t true.”

“But you said there was nothing to do about it, no way to prepare anyhow.”

“True, but to declare it a totally natural phenomenon that exists elsewhere? Pure Grade-A baloney. We’ve never seen anything like this. Ancient astronomers don’t seem to have observed this either.” Lia frowned. “Planes rely on GPS. People really shouldn’t be flying. What if another satellite goes down when the plane depending on it is still in the air?”

Then the conversation turned to what they should do when everything started running again. Already, Russ heard cars and people outside. He assumed that trucks were on their way to restock the supermarkets.

They lost track of time and suddenly Russ heard a knock on the door. Hand on his gun, he peeked through the peephole and saw Evan looking the door up and down and running his hand along its length. Russ swung the door open.

“Evan!” He clapped Evan on the shoulder.

“Hey,” said Evan, and he gave Lia a grin and a nod.

“What can we get you?”

“You still got food?”

“Well,” said Russ, “we’re running low on eggs.”

“But otherwise, you’re okay,” Evan said. “Me, too.” He stepped in and shut the door behind him. As Russ bolted it, Evan turned to Lia and said, “Lia, honey, you’ve got to level with me.”

Lia’s brow wrinkled and her jaw stiffened.

“Is everything we’ve heard true? You know…like, are these really just cute plasmic products of nature?”

Lia blew out her breath, her cheeks puffing out.

“Nope,” said Russ. “It’s all a load of—”

“Russ,” said Lia, “everything I know is confidential. Classified. We were using secured lines the whole time.”

Russ clapped Evan on the back. “Evan won’t say a word.” Then Russ turned serious. “But seriously, Ev. If the truth gets out, things are going to get bad fast.”

Evan nodded and plopped himself down on the easy chair near the sofa. “I saw where things were going. Don’t worry,” he said, turning to Lia. “I’m not going to tell. Not Edison, not anybody.”

“How are you gonna get away with not telling your girl?” said Russ, handing Evan a beer.

“I’ll just do what I need to do. I don’t need to tell her why. So c’mon, Lia. What’s going on?”

Lia told him.

Evan listened silently, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, his fingers interlaced.

Then Russ filled him in on Steve and the door.

“Do you remember anything written or drawn on the index card?” Evan asked.

“Nah, I only saw it for a split-second.”

“Too bad. He could be a good resource.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Well,” said Evan, leaning back, “I’ll reinforce my condo as best I can. And I guess I’ll run some supplies to my cabin, but the cabin isn’t set up for concealment or defense. But it’s better than nothing.” He paused. “If no one else gets to it first.”

Sure enough, within two days, stores were mostly restocked. Russ and Lia split up and went around shopping for different supplies. Russ still caged up the store every night, just in case things would change suddenly. And he still slept with his gun next to his bed, just for practice. Lia went back to the astronomy department. But on the weekend, Russ got a spare key from Evan and contacted Steve, who was back home again. Steve, who said he needed to go to the mountains anyway, accompanied Russ and Lia to Evan’s cabin with a van full of all sorts of things capable of reinforcement and camouflage. The sky was overcast, but there was no rain.

Russ didn’t care that Steve knew about the cabin or their plans for it. It needed to be done, and he didn’t think Steve posed much of threat as Steve was a gung-ho prepper and seemed to have a much better bug-out location.

“This thing would be so easy to burn down,” said Steve, looking around as they stood in the entryway to the cabin.

“It’s better than nothing,” said Russ.

Steve shot him a skeptical glance and grunted. Then he said, “How was your honeymoon?”

Lia and Russ looked at each other in surprise as Lia clasped a hand over her mouth as a laugh popped out. Looking surprised at himself, Russ said, “Hell, we forgot all about it!”

Steve grunted. “Rare sparkly cosmic phenomena will do that to ya.”

They made some measurements and Russ picked through Steve’s equipment. Lia sat outside mostly, taking in the scenery. But Russ saw her eyes flickering toward where the sparkly outline of the purple bubbles would be if the rain clouds weren’t in the way.

“She don’t look like she spends much time outdoors,” said Steve as they unloaded some stuff.

“She doesn’t,” Russ said with a laugh. “She works in the astronomy department. I mean, she’s still a student, but they use her a lot for space art.”

Steve halted and straightened up. “Astronomy, eh?”

Russ tried to look casual. “Yeah. She’s a total geek.”

“She must have access to some pretty smart people—like people in the know.”

Russ shrugged. “I guess. Look, it’s like one big geek carnival over there. I’m not really into that scene.”

Steve stroked his beard. “So. She’s hanging out with these astronomy dudes all the time, dudes who are telling us that everything is cool, but here you guys are, spending your honeymoon weekend at your brother’s cabin to spruce it up for bugging-out.” He glared at Russ, but Russ tried to look perplexed.

Steve turned and marched out to where Lia was sitting.

“Oh, no you don’t,” said Russ, who went stomping off after him.

Lia looked up, startled when Steve approached.

“You wanna tell me what’s going on?” he demanded.

“Leave her alone,” said Russ.

“I don’t know much,” said Lia.

Steve made a face. “Oh, come on—”

“Steve,” said Russ. “You’d better watch it with my girl—my
wife
.”

“No, really,” said Lia. “I’ve been trying and trying to figure things out, but I can’t. That’s why we’re here. Because we don’t know. But we want to give it our best shot.”

“And be prepared for every scenario?” said Steve, stroking his beard again.

After a pause, Lia said, “There’s no way to be prepared for every scenario.”

“Huh,” said Steve. He seemed to be mulling that over.

Unexpectedly, Steve dropped the whole subject, went back to what he’d been doing with Russ, and didn’t bring it up again.

They worked there a long time, but when Lia invited Steve to eat the picnic lunch they’d brought, Steve said, “Nah, I’ve got to get to my own place. Last time I went, it was like a test-run and I found stuff that needs tweaking.” He leaned against his van, scribbling on an index card. “Here,” he said, handing it to Russ. “You can keep this. But don’t show it to anybody else. Don’t tell anybody else. Your girl—”

“Wife,” said Russ.

“Yeah—her. She’d be an asset if things go bad.”

Russ stood staring at the card in his hand. It contained a hand-scribbled map and directions. Then he said, “You know that my brother is part of any package that includes me?”

Steve cursed and snatched the index card out of Russ’s hand, shredding it to pieces. Still cursing, he got into his van and sped off.

Lia laughed and then she and Russ ate in companionable silence.

“We should have asked him if looking at those things made him feel anything,” Lia said.

“Did you ask anyone else?”

“I tried. But scientists don’t want to deal with that kind of metaphysical, right-brained thing. But yeah, it seems that they’re affecting people on a deeper level.”

“You said it made you think of God,” said Russ.

“Yeah.”

“But it made me think of Emma.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“You know,” said Lia. “I believe in God.”

“Okay,” said Russ.

“Do you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t really think about it. It doesn’t seem to matter one way or another.”

Lia gave an amused little “hm.”

“So…you were saying?”