Rim of the world with you

-18-

I've thought about how I was going to die before. I've always thought that I was going to end up like my mom. But that's okay, I had nothing I really wanted to live for. That was before four dumbasses came into my life and how I would die for them. But what I didn't think was I was going to die during an alien invasion with said dumbasses in a NASA facility.

"I guess I'll... go try and find my parents" Dariush said reluctantly,
"Me too" Alex joined. Gabriel just muttered off some excuse and let go of my hand walking away. Zhen and I looked at each other and sat down pulling down some glow sticks, cracking them and placing them standing. Alex looked back and saw that we weren't following them.
"What are you doing?" Zhen looked up at him but stayed silent. All of a sudden the guys just came back and sat around out little glow stick circle.

"Look, they didn't even get to open this" Dariush said holding up a wine bottle,
"Well, since were all gonna die together, may I propose a toast?" He jiggled the bottle,
"Oh, crap. This is from 1969! I mean, could at least get some fresh woe if this is gonna be my first time right?" He YEETED the fucking wine bottle behind him onto the computers and it pushed a button.
"Dude- wait what?" I said hearing another voice coming from the screens.

"Citadel, this is Crystal Palace."
"What? What was that?" "Go! What the heck?!"
"Citadel this is Crystal Palace. Do you copy?" Alex grabbed this mic first and started yelling into it.

"Hello?! We're here, over!"
"Citadel, identify yourself. What is your name ma'am? Over!" I snorted.
"I'm Alex" he said pointedly.
"How old are you?"
"I'm thirteen. And if you don't mind me asking, who are we talking to?" Alex asked.

"This is General George Khoury at Cheyenne Mountain, is anyone alive at JPL? Is Dr. Fielding there?" Gabriel ran over to Dariush to help him because he started swaying in spot.
"There are five of us, everyone else is dead. The astronaut sent us, before she died."
"You were sent by Major Collins?" The General asked.
"Yeah, that's why we came." Gabriel joined the conversation,
"She gave us a key and said something about Excalibur"

"What- you have the Crypto-key in your possession?" He sounded disbelieving.
"That's right, what do we need to do to get it to work?" Alex asked, the General just sighed and paused.
"Nothing, y-you need to get out of there, I'm, I'm sorry, it's over. There's nothing you kids can do against this thing." Dariush, Zhen and Gabriel all walked away. I turned to Alex and pointed at the mic in a 'may I?' gesture.

"Now get out of there immediately, we're sending two units to pick-" Alex nodded and stepped back.
"No." I started talking into the mic. Everyone paused and looked at me.
"Who are you and what did you say to me?" The general asked fairly pissed.

"My name is Rowan Henderson and I'm not leaving this place until we get rid of the aliens. People DIED trying to get this key here and we promised a few of them to get it working. Besides you should know that kids our age are stubborn so you should also know that even after you disconnect to do your useless ass shit instead of saving the fucking world, we're going to be here doing the work you and your incompetent soldiers couldn't do. We made it halfway across the country, past aliens, explosions and even a fucking diddler to get here. So if you wish to save the world a whole lot fucking faster... then tell us what to do."

There was a pause,
"All right, someone needs to go down to the basement and fire up the emergency generators." I stepped away from the mic.
"Start them in sequence, exactly four seconds apart. Send your fastest, strongest-" the General was cut up by Zhen,
"I'll do it!" I just smirked at her.
"I'm-I'm sorry that sounded like a young girl" who the fuck is this general and why is he so hypocritical? So what if it's a girl, do you know how many girls are faster than guys?
"Oh, yeah! Aliens don't stand a chance against her" hell yeah
"Alright! You need to climb through the vent. The vault door won't open until the power is back on."
"Got it"
"Look, you're not safe at JPL" that's when Zhen and Alex has their little talk and she kissed him on the cheek.

"Zhen wait!" She turned around to me,
"You be careful alright? Cuz when we're done with this we can start our own families because we don't need our parents. Got it?" She nodded,
"Also good job with Alex" I winked and walked away.
"What are we doing!? What is Excalibur?" Gabriel screamed at the General,
"Excalibur was a Cold War defense project, it was meant to shoot down Russian missiles."
"Yeah, using fusion pumped X-ray lasers, I read about that" Alex interjected.
"Never mind him. He knows everything. Keep going." Dariush said out of breath.
"The key Major Collins gave you contains the coordinates of the alien mothership in high orbit." Cool.
"We can destroy the mothership" Gabriel realized.

"You're our last hope." I snorted again.
"And yet you wanted us out of here before."
"Rowan shut up, what else do we need to do to get this shit started" Dariush said.
"You need to realign the satellite dish on the roof, then get a working computer and load the coordinates Major Collins gave you. Then activate Excalibur."
"Alright, I'll go to the roof." Now or never right?
"No Gabriel!" Alex yelled,
"You guys load the programs, Rowan and I'll go to the roof, plus you're hurt and he's the only one keeping you alive." Alex steps forward and slams the key on the table.
"What are you talking about Alex? You're afraid of heights!"
"I'm scared of everything! It's my turn, plus if I chicken out then that's why I'm taking Rowan with me." That when everyone looked at me,

I just looked a Gabriel.

A/N
Well whooptido we're almost done.
Like, comment and have a good day!