Darkness in the Brightest Day - Part 1

Ming's Disappearance

The next day Jake went to work as usual.  When he got there Ming didn't greet him, but then again, he never greeted anyone.  Jake's day went as usual but then at the end of the day, he remembered his promise to see the "alien" device.  His only motive was keeping his word.  He reluctantly approached Ming and they went out to the old man's car together.  Whereupon Ming produced a small featureless sphere about the size of a golf ball that had a ceramic appearance.

He told Jake: "Take it home.  See if you've ever seen anything like it." 

Jake replied: "It's interesting but doesn't look too unusual, I don't know what the point would be."

"Just take it home and see if any experiments pop into your head.  I guarantee you, it's alien."

That night, Jake kept the device in his room and forgot about it.  He didn't notice the faint bluish purple glow that the device emitted.   The next day, Ming didn't come to work.  Jake didn't think anything of it because they didn't usually interact for business purposes but he was ready to give the device back.  Ming didn't come to work the next two weeks either.  It wasn't like him to take days off like that.  Jake began to wonder if the old man had retired so he approached his boss, Hank Popple.

"Did Ming retire, Mr. Popple?"

"Not formally, no, we haven't heard from him so I've finished and submitted the paperwork for his discharge.  Frankly, you know I liked Mr. Chu but he was a problem employee.  He got his work done surprisingly fast but some aspects of his personality made him an enemy of some fairly important people.  If this weren't a government job, he would have been fired a long time ago."

Jake was sad that Ming hadn't said good-bye.  He didn't have his home address or any other personal contact information so he couldn't return the device.  He guessed it would make a nice souvenir of his time with Ming.

Finally Thanksgiving arrived.  Jake stayed home with his parents that weekend.  On Black Friday his mother went out.  She had a whole circuit of elderly people that she sometimes brought meals to.  If they were sick, she would often keep them company.  While she was out, Jake bought himself a new Nexus tablet computer.  He saw another Black Friday deal and also bought a new PC for his mother that came with graphics tablet for drawing.  His mother had a very old PC and she liked to play computer games.  She had been a talented and prolific painter but she was out of practice and didn't have the space in their current home for an artist's studio.  The new computer would be able to play more modern games and support decent painting software.  He hoped that she would be inclined to try doing her art using the more space conserving computer instead of a paintbrush.