The Extraterrestrial Truth And The Girl From Seat 2B [ONC 2022]

2.3 [VIC GOES FULL ALIEN CONSPIRACY]

Vic didn't know where to go or what to do in the aftermath of it all. Truth be told, her mind was reeling from a second sort of vindication on the topic of aliens and what really happened to Scotty. Once would have been disprovable. Now that it had happened twice-- and she wasn't the only one who saw it, because Leo should have-- it was clear. Those aliens were becoming a real issue. 

The question was, why? What was the point of them doing this? Of taking people up there? 

And why would they take Connor? Why would they take Eric? Why would they take the two of them, but leave Vic by the car and Leo out in the corn? Was there something that brought them there? Was there a reason, a symbol? 

There were no answers, not that she could think of, unless she somehow made them show up with her damn bagel drippings. Her head was pounding and she didn't think she can walk all the way home in all this rain. Not in the dark. Not when it refuses to let up.

Who does she know that lives near here? Not herself. Not Scotty's aunt and uncle (who didn't even bother to look for him, who didn't care). Leo lived on the other side of town, and she was sure he wouldn't really want to see her right now, not after he drove home in a blind panic and left her behind (and his trunk open).

2B. That was who lived around there.

Shit. She was going to have to see her for the second time that day, after their little tiff that morning.

Vic knew the way well. She followed her feet, let them take her to the apartment building where 2b was living, where she had almost always lived, where, just as Vic lived with her mother and maybe would until she died, 2B would stay until some soft apocalypse overtook her. Vic remembers, vaguely, how 2B wanted to get out of here. She wanted to leave, to move to the city. Vic never saw the appeal of that. She was born in Cape Hux and, like every relative of hers, and everyone on her street, she was fated to die here. Who cared? Not her.

Still, maybe that's what they wanted. Not to get people to leave Cape Hux, but a soft apocalypse of some sort. Or the end of the world in general. That didn't seem right, though. Truth be told, Vic didn't really know what they wanted, just that they were taking people and she had no clue what to do about that.

Maybe it was funny, then. The only way for people like her to leave Cape Hux was to get abducted by aliens.

Vic scaled step after step of the familiar apartment complex until she, breathless, arrived at the door. It was in a covered part of the building, though the ends of the halls were exposed. Vic knocked on the door with a clenched, anxious fist, shrugging rain from her shoulders by accident, dripping water on the exterior doormat.

This place was a shithole. The walls creeped with peeling wallpaper and what was almost definitely mold. When 2B, clearly groaning with some exaggerated, slurred tiredness, answered the door, it was clear that the inside of the apartment was even worse than the partially-exposed-to-open-air-hall. The window facing the street was open, and some talk show was playing on the radio, replacing the audio on the muted TV.

2B's eyebrows raised when she saw Vic standing there, taking refuge from the rain in the hall.

"Hey, uh--" Vic remembered that, right, she didn't know this girl's name. She didn't know her name on purpose. "Can I come in? It's raining and, uh-- Something happened?"

"Yeah,you can come in! I'm home alone tonight." 2B's voice was a total mess. She leaned in for a kiss that Vic dodged.

"Thanks. No thank you, not right now. So-- it was bad, and I-- Are you drunk?"

"Maybe."

"God, where did you even get alcohol from? You're not twenty-one yet, you're-- Oh, god, I sound like my mother."