Backwater Girls from Backwater Worlds

Chapter 01

Reyna Gillespie was having one of those days. The kind where she was well aware that it was all very #FirstWorldProblems but she could not help the grimace that passed over her features as a particularly drunk person knocked into her from behind. There was the tell-tale dampness of a spilled drink and the guy mumbled out an apology before moving on without a backwards glance. She shifted slightly and debated on using it as an excuse to head back to her bedroom and change her top, but she wasn't interested in listening to her friend bitch at her. The top was black so she was confident that nothing showed anyway. She would just smell like a bar.

Rey shook her head in irritation and turned back to the window. It was by far her favorite thing about her new home. New York gleamed in the night sky and it was a far better view than the slightly obnoxious mingling going on in her condo. There aren't enough booze in this city to have made any of this a good idea, she thought. But James had assured her that having a party in her brand new loft was the thing to do. Even if she didn't recognize half the people currently gabbing at one another on her seven thousand dollar leather sofa.

I thought you were supposed to get gifts for your home, not have to pay a fortune repairing damage, she thought with a twist of her lips. Rey had already spotted signs of red wine stains on her polished concrete floors and she resisted the urge to sigh. Her glass was still too full and she needed to remedy that.

She gulped down another large swallow as James came up behind her. "Girl, this party is swank." James was her best friend for the last five years, ever since her brother Poe beat it off to the Navy to be a pilot. Rey had no idea what the swank meant but it sounded positive so she smiled.

"How long before I have my house back?" she asked through pleasantly gritted teeth.

James, as usual, was unimpressed. "It's like midnight, babydoll. It's gonna be hours."

That's what she was afraid of. She hated crowds of people, but she'd just been promoted at her job and her condo was finally finished with her renovations to make it her own personal modern oasis in the city. That being said, she spent much of her time on her terrace with its lush plants and beautiful view. She'd be out there tomorrow planting flowers if she wasn't too hungover after this shindig. While the party hadn't been her idea, people in her line of work needed to make social and business connections. Connecting with other people had never been one of Rey's stronger suits so she'd agreed to host a little soiree, and James had handled the invites. She didn't know half these people but then that was the point. Most of the people she did know had already said their hellos and hung around for a few minutes before they went off to take advantage of the new faces and potential connections.

She took another drink of her sangria and was about to get up, perhaps try to converse with one of her guests, when she felt her phone start buzzing in her pocket. Rey ignored it at first, but it just kept buzzing with updates from her twitter feed. She set her glass down on the sill and pulled her smartphone out. Rey blinked as mass texts and social media notifications started cascading down the screen, but she couldn't read them fast enough before another notification buried the one she was trying to read. Rey looked up and saw that most of her guests were having a similar experience. She quickly unlocked the little machine and pulled up her twitter app.

Her feed was blowing up in front of her and she clicked on a link to a news site. First Contact, it read and she blinked several time. Must be some kind of hoax, she thought. Rey was about to play the accompanying live video stream when the people around her began talking even more loudly. There was a note of panic as the volume in the room began to increase.

"Holy shit you guys! Turn on the fucking television!"

Rey looked over to see her seventy inch flat screen light up and whoever had the remote was flipping through the channels rapidly. Whatever it was, it had gotten the attention of this crowd . . . it had to be big.