Page 87 of Strange Lights

Orion blushes. “Reggie gave them to me when she rescued me from the dungeon at Agency 51.”

“A situation most of us at this table are all too familiar with,” Calvin says wryly.

Luca’s head whips toward him, and his eyes run over his scars before flicking down to Calvin’s and my intertwined hands. “You seem to have a type,” Luca says to me, a brittleness in his voice that makes me flinch. In a more neutral tone, he says to Calvin, “Was Reggie the one who locked you up, or was it her mother?”

“You mean the most recent time, or the first time in the Winnebago basement?” Calvin says, and I can’t tell if he’s mad or joking.

“Well, at least I got both of you out eventually,” I say. “I’ve spent my own time in that dungeon with no one to rescue me.”

There’s enough room to sit next to me, but Luca pulls over a chair instead and makes himself comfortable at the end of the table. “I watch your channel, St. James,” he addresses Calvin without introduction, with the casualness of old friends. “Knew something was fishy, but even I didn’t guess lycanthropy and aliens. I cannot wait to hear what you have to say in your next episode.” Luca sounds genuinely excited.

Calvin’s expression remains guarded but intrigued. I’ve told him what happened with Luca.

“I’m not sure where to take the podcast from here, to tell you the truth,” Calvin says.

Luca turns back to me, with a wry grin and a mean glint in his eyes. “Nice upgrade. He’s pretty and accomplished.”

Calvin flushes crimson.

“It wasn’t like that,” I snap, my own face burning.

“But the matter at hand, the reason we’re here,” Zara interrupts, impatiently rapping on the table with her knuckles, taking the conversational reins back in hand. She nods at Eldi and Orion. Eldi tucks into his lap, with no sign of moving anytime soon. Orion looks like he never wants to let her go. He nervously twists a thick ring on his finger. It’s metallic, but it almost looks like it’s moving on its own, rippling and changing. It’s analogous to Eldi’s watch, but more appropriate for a teenager.

“You two. Extraterrestrials, I presume?” Zara probes. “And the lights, the crop circles, the race of rogue sentient electronics popping up all over the place. All that’s you and the rest of your people in the sky?”

Orion stiffens and meets Luca’s gaze for a moment before he nods.

“Are we talking about an invasion here?” Zara asks.

Orion looks offended at the very idea. “No. Not by us,” he says. “It’s easier if I show you.”

He pulls the ring from his finger, or rather it uncoils itself like a mini version of Doug or Dave, all tentacles and stretching and clicking metallic jointed appendages. At this point, nothing surprises me. Everyone at the table looks apprehensive. Wolff shifts nervously. Even impulsive Meredith looks like she has misgivings. The little device reaches its tentacles out toward us all but waits patiently without touching anyone.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Orion says. “I’ve shown Luca.”

Luca huffs but doesn’t disagree. He meets my eyes, and I can see the pain in them. Whatever Orion’s shown him isn’t pretty. I’m the first to reach out a hand toward the grasping little tentacle, letting it wrap around my finger. Its grasp is warm and deceivingly comforting. Everyone else besides Luca and Eldi follows suit. Orion’s hand hovers over the body of the little metallic creature resting on the table.

“Sorry,” he says, meeting my eyes across the table as he presses his hand down onto the device. “This will be intense.”

36

Cosmic Pluralism

What happens next is impossible to describe. It’s as if everything Orion shows us happens in an instant yet is simultaneously happening in real time. Like an existing memory was downloaded directly to my brain. I can tell time isn’t passing for me, not really; I won’t wake up from this to find years have passed, but I’ll have a memory of these years to carry forward as if I’ve lived them myself. My soul still resides in my own body. A vague awareness of my physical self in a booth at a Waffle House remains. Yet, at the same time, I am Orion for a while. His feelings, his thoughts, I’m privy to all of them⁠—things he wants me to see, but also those he doesn’t. This experience is both a gift and a curse, an intimate bit of trust that comes with the agony of being unable to escape from what he shows us.

Orion’s “sorry” feels woefully inadequate, because this does hurt. It hurts so deeply, but I know why we have to see this, to understand. There’s no preparing us for the horror, no apology that will be good enough for what he’s just done to us. But then, who am I to complain? If the universe owes anyone an apology, it’s Orion.

It’s Orion’s eyes I look out of, his home planet I view through his true body. Colors, so many colors. Vision like this is a dream. I can see every minute detail, even in the dark night. I am living in Orion’s body, his original one, chameleon skin and long tail. Switching deftly from bipedal creature to quadruped with a gracefulness my human body will never have. Orion is outside, surrounded by foliage of unfamiliar (to me) shapes and colors. And it smells delicious. Food my human tongue has never known, but I feel the familiar ravenous hunger. The bottomless hunger of a growing teenage boy. And the delight in the freedom Orion feels gallivanting in the brightly illuminated night, the safety he takes for granted so near home and family. Near parents who keep him safe and sheltered and loved. I feel it all. I’ve never known love like that, but it is all Orion knows.

Orion looks up at the sky, and doesn’t feel the shock and awe that I do. Of course he doesn’t, because this is home. This is normal and comfortable and safe. Two moons grace the sky, one larger than the moon I know, full and heavy and ringed. The second one is smaller, a sliver of a crescent.

But something out of the ordinary has captured Orion’s attention. Strange lights in the sky. For a moment they are beautiful. Then fire blooms on the horizon and someone screams in the distance and I feel Orion’s alarm at that. That isn’t normal. He’s not sure what to do. He isn’t used to danger. His brother and sister hover nearby. They’ve crept out into the open when he wasn’t watching. He calls them, in that lyrical language. I understand what he’s saying this time, a strange sort of overlay as Orion’s memory translates for me.

“Brother, Sister,” he hisses. Their names don’t translate, but this is who they are to him. “Come back under cover. Let’s go home.”

But large shapes are hurtling down from the sky, crashing down into the surrounding areas. Worry permeates his mind, paralyzes him with indecision. Freeze, flee, or fight? Parents. Home. Hide. A flurry of choices, too many strange factors unbalance him.

“Brother, Sister,” he calls again as quietly as he can manage. His brother listens this time, takes a few hesitant steps, calls Orion’s true name. The beautiful trill of it, that familiar cadence, is tainted by the fear in his brother’s voice. A shadow looms from overhead. A strange scent permeates the air. His sister freezes in fear, crouching in the open. Her stillness and silence buy her another few moments of life.