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

2.4 [2B FINDS A CLUE]

It was easy enough to get Leo into the car when he was having such an intense mental break about the disappearance of Connor and the apparent existence of aliens. He was very easy to move from one part of his apartment, where he moved in with Connor as his roommate almost immediately after graduation, to the side of the street down below where 2B was sitting in the car. He didn't even buckle himself in; he just laid across the entirety of the back seat of 2B's car, pulled his sweater over his head, and groaned gently every few seconds. His hair wasn't even gelled up. 

Vic had half a mind to feel bad for him. She figured she should have. They were friends, after all. It was hard to overcome the feeling of pride and total vindication, though. 

Except for asking for and receiving directions, the drive was mostly silent. Vic was glad for it. It gave her time to think, even if most of those thoughts were either nothing at all or an endless spiral of the same exact thing over and over again. 

In a few short words, Vic tried to fill everyone in on her plan on the way. It was simple. They were going to head back out to the area from the night before-- the parking lot by the cornfields, the one with the pit toilet-- and watch for aliens. Simple. Like a routine. Leo and 2B didn't even have to do anything other than be there. How simple was that? 

Simple. Very, very simple. Vic would have done it on her own if she weren't desperate for a ride and for company. 

*****

The hood of the car was still warm hours after it had been shut off. Vic knew, because she was sitting on it. It was turned off hours ago, but the summer sun has made the metal hot, and Vic didn't feel like moving. This was prime real estate and, this way, she didn't have to scramble up to the roof. This was fine, though.

Vic raised the binoculars to her eyes once more. The sun had already set; the mosquitos were out in full force; and Vic, under the cover of sunset and the excuse of using the bathroom, previously went out to the road to spray-paint a symbol. She wanted to see if it would work, if her theories about the symbols crop circles contain were correct-- if she could attract the aliens to certain spots just by invoking those symbols.

So she knelt on the hot asphalt, burning her hands and knees in the process, and sprayed it out, breathed in the fumes, hyped herself up.

And now she was watching. Waiting. Scanning the skies.

The idea was to see if it would summon them. The aliens. If she would be able to get them to bed to her whims by spray-painting the pattern from a crop circle and waiting for someone to drive over it. Hence the binoculars. Hence the being-here-at-night.

2B was next to her. Leo was laying in the backseat. Vic wasn't really sure why he was still here, besides the fact that he didn't want to be alone now that Connor was gone, and Vic didn't want to leave him alone. She was beginning to regret going to get him in the first place. It was clear to all of them that he didn't really believe his eyes when he saw what he did. And it was clear that 2B didn't really believe Vic, either, that she was there for some reason Vic couldn't place.

"Vic, I think it's probably time to go." 2B's voice was dry, and it carried no grace or kind will. It was neutral, bordering on concern and annoyance.

"Just a few more minutes," Vic insisted. "I have to know. I have to know if it's going--"

"If aliens are going to swoop down out of the sky? How would you even predict that?"

Vic didn't want to admit what she had done, so she lowered the binoculars and shrugged like she didn't know. That very clearly wasn't a good answer to the girl formerly from seat 2B, who sighed and learned back against the windshield. She folded bare arm over bare arm, sweaty leg over sweaty leg, sock-clad ankle over sock-clad ankle, and sighed again.