She was 12 when she made first contact. Not with aliens, no, but the next best thing. She'd trawled forum after forum, board after board, after her dumb brother had left /x/ open on his laptop for her to access. The people there were edgy. They were so cool. But what interested her more were the stories. How the government watched over everyone with an ironclad fist. Skinwalkers roaming desert towns, and aliens, aliens!
She joined a discord from a link on some thread she couldn't remember. The discord got taken down by the owner later that month, but not soon enough to have kept her from meeting people. People who were awake and aware of the wider world. People who knew about the energy that ran through each and every soul; people who had strange stories of cities underground on planets red as blood, of crystal towers and lost continents sunk under the sea that in them contained the missing links of human evolution; of prophecies that united all of ancient tradition.
She met up with the chapter - an offshoot of the wider movement - not even three months later. Before long, two years had passed and the world's stuck in a pandemic and now she's here, almost done with her initiation. Then she found a splinter of her own. If she just wouldn't keep messing up….
She's a liaison. The board has eyes in many places and channels on planes from this one all the way to the 33rd level, and she's but one. She's trawled through around nine different servers about now, and no one fits the bill for what Chris wants. That is, until…
A random user, randomly presented before her in a random cosplay and RP server.
Serendipitous…
She stares at the bench in front of her, drowning out the noise of the boisterous schoolground around her with her own kind of hymnals. Everyone else has always felt so strange and different to her. It's only after she found the Academy that she grounded herself. Found purpose, meaning, and all that entails. Of course, no one she's involved with bothered passing her through the classic self-mastery techniques posted on the website. No, her training was more holistic. Money is money, and Chris had no need for that kind of stuff. You see, they have a mission. A very special mission. The channels have gone dark. They need someone who can bridge the gap. The problem?
That someone had yet to be found.
So she'd tried to help. She messed up, though. Why did she have to mess up? Stupid, stupid-
She's broken from her stupor by the sudden splash of muddy water all over her clothes and backpack. Stupid Eric Chen is laughing, because of course he is. He's always hated her, ever since middle school. Why does even go here anymore? Stupid, stupid Lin. She could be doing better things than this, no, she is doing better things, like- like-
Online she's treated right. Like she's important. Even the people who she finds, they don't treat her bad. They think she's smart. So why can't anyone in real life do that?
She clenches her fists until her nails leave little red crescents in her palms. At last she runs away, fisting tears from her eyes like pearls.
‘You’re making friends, aren’t you?’
Sylvia’s hands trace Lin’s face. The older woman has been through so much, Lin knows. Sylvia was there, there in the heyday of Ruth’s - of Uriel's - prophecies. When Lin had first joined, everyone had spoken of how Sylvia had a direct channel to the Space Brothers. Now? Lin knows better. But the woman is wiser than her years, and shrewd and smart too. It’s very hard to slip bullshit past her. The brightly coloured makeup lining her face, all turquoise and neon, hides sharp eyes, and warmth, so much warmth. Yes, Ruth is gone, and Spiegel, and even Ernest, but even they both know now there are more surefire ways to reach into the beyond now that the centuries have turned, there is still both power and presence hidden behind this frail image.
‘Lots of friends.’
‘Your brother hasn’t been bullying you?’
'No. He's too busy playing CS:GO in the basement.'
'What about your boyfriend?'
‘Never,’ she shakes her head, ignoring the stench of failure in her gut that she knows Sylvia can detect. Karma is following her, Lin knows. She'll eat shit someday, but not now. ‘I made mistakes, but it’s better now.’
‘Good,’ Sylvia intones. Her weathered hands twist around Lin’s dark hair, fastening it in loose braids, one strand looping over the other. ‘It’s good you’re not getting into any trouble. And that he’s treating you right. He’s so busy with the board. I’m glad he has a friend. Maybe something more special in a few years even, if you do your part.’
She’s never met him in person - her 'boyfriend', Chris, her contact on the board. His friend Mr. J had introduced them in the early Discord chats, though she doesn't know where Mr. J is or what they're doing now anymore, because that server got deleted a year ago now, and Chris keeps his friends close to his chest. It was Chris who first got her in contact with Sylvia. He gave her coordinates, as part of her first challenge.
'How do you stop people from hurting you?' she asks Sylvia.
'Did someone do something?' her brow furrows in concern.
'No.'
'Don't lie to me, child.'
'It's- it's stupid Eric again. And I can't tell my parents. They don't understand.'
'It's not their fault they're not attuned. Perhaps it's a past emanation. Something in this Eric's past life is coming back. It doesn't like you for whatever reason. But that's not your fault, you understand? Nothing's ever your fault.'
Lin swallows, but her throat's all dry. 'Of course, Sylvia.'
'Now you run along, now. Don't forget your mission, sweet girl.'
Which one, Lin wants to ask. The first or the second? Chris didn't want her to bother with the first anymore, but the second - it's boring. She's meant for more than that. She can feel it, in her very bones.
'How do you know it's time?'
Sylvia pauses for a long while, pursing her lips. When it comes, the woman's response it barely audible over the sound of the whirring fan.
'You just do.'
She cracks her knuckles. The first time she did this, she overstepped. The person was too vulnerable, too unstable. But she likes Kaiba. He's nice. He'd be a friend, if it weren't for the circumstances.
She's better this time. Chris might be mad for now, but give it time and he'll see her worth. He'll see he didn't misplace faith in her.
Lin sets her phone aside, letting it rest face up on her nightstand. She closes her eyes, anticipating contented, restful sleep, but only finds fitful slumber, interspersed by her waking up with a jump from a nightmare she immediately forgets, slick with sweat.
The night passes slowly, dawn unceremoniously begins to streak through the thin slits between her closed blinds.
Her alarm goes off. She sits up, groaning, still exhausted. She doesn't see the point in going to school. Why can't she just skip? It doesn't matter much, anyway. Her mom cares a lot about all this kind of thing, but her dad? He doesn't care at all. Her brother already dropped out. What's one more?
She just needs time. One more month, she tells Chris. One more month.
It's funny, how predictable the human brain is. How even at the tender age of fourteen, she realizes this fact. It's pliable. It wants and wants and wants, and can't help but want more even when it's given everything and then some.
All it takes is one rainy day, and even the doubting Thomas can at last come into the light.
She stops going classes. Her mom stops asking questions.
Both of them understand there's no point anymore.
It all bubbles over one day when Dad's not been home for a week and she can tell her mom has been sitting on everything else for far too long.
Just before Lin is about to leave to go see Sylvia, the doorknob in her hand, her mom calls her from the kitchen.
'Lin!'
Lin sighs. 'Yes ma'am?'
'Please come in here, Lin.'
Lin complies, if only to try to get out of the door without causing herself more headaches in the future. Her mother is sitting at the dining room table, a mess of papers in front of her, her hair unkempt, glasses askew. 'Where are you going, honey?'
'Out.'
'Out where?'
'To a friend's place.'
Lin's mother nods her head a bit, blinking slowly. 'Can we talk?'
Though she makes sure to roll her eyes clearly enough for her to see, Lin still pulls a chair out across from her, flopping down into it.
'What is it?'
Lin's mother runs a hand through her hair, moving stray hairs out from in front of her eyes, the mess of brown interspersed with greys and silvers. 'I got a call from the school today. They said you've haven't been in your classes.'
Lin only shrugs in response.
'Lin, you need to be going to school. It's important.'
'Got better things to do than school,' Lin mumbles.
'I don't care what you think is more important, Lin. You have to go to school.'
'Why are you bringing this up now? You know I've been skipping.'
'Lin, the school had to call me—'
'So you're humiliated? Is that it? I'm sorry that Dad being gone again is ruining your façade of some nuclear family, but that's not my problem.'
They collide like planets and asteroids, moons and men, destruction abound, each tearing into the other. Emotions are running too hot between them. Her mom stares at her for a moment, stunned, hurt, and Lin knows she has two options: apologize or double down.
'Just because people are gossiping about him and another woman doesn't mean you have to take it out on me.'
'I'm not taking it out anything on you! And where did you hear—'
'I'm not gonna be a doll for you to dress up and parade around, living some fake life just because your pride is down the drain! I have— have more important things to do!'
'Like what?!'
'Why should I tell you?! You don't respect me, don't know—'
'And where did you hear about— hear about another woman?!'
'The same places I know you do! Hushed whispers from behind, points and stares! Do you think Dad being gone only affects you?'
Lin leaps up from her chair, already stomping out towards the door.
'Young lady you turn around right now!' her mom calls.
'Stop trying to blame your shitty marriage on me!' Lin shouts back as she throws the door open and sprints away, tears forming in her eyes, muddling her vision.
She wishes she could tell Mom about Unarius. But then what would Sylvia think? What would Chris? Besides, her mom wouldn't understand the importance of the work she's doing. No one in her family ever did. Even her brother, who started all this in her eyes, treats her like a speck of dust on his windshield, ready to be wiped off because the only thing he cares about more in this life aside from video games is his dumb car.
She loses herself online.
Lin sits in a voice call with Kaiba, his soft, almost scared voice barely making its way through her headphones.
'What am I supposed to be listening for again?'
'Anything, really. Just relax, don't think about it too much.' She's trying her best to keep him from being too tense. She's afraid that if he tries too hard or gets too nervous, he'll impede himself and his clairaudience. Lin types a command into a separate channel and a bot joins the call, immediately beginning to pipe radio signal through. To her, it just sounds like white noise, but if all keeps going as she hopes it will, then Kaiba will hear something deeper within, just as he did with the test recording.
After only a few moments of listening, Kaiba broke his focus. 'I- I'm sorry I don't hear anyth-' he starts to stutter out before Lin cuts him off.
'It won't be immediate like the recording was, this is live radio signal. Private channel. Could be inconsistent.'
'A-alright.'
Ideally, the live radio signal will allow any passing soul to communicate with them. Only time will tell if it's going to work.
The two sit for a few minutes in silence, the white noise drowns out all of Lin's idle thoughts, leaving her stuck in a strange limbo where seconds feel like hours and minutes like picoseconds. Just as her head begins to lull to the side, Kaiba gasps.
'Wait- wait I hear- I hear something!'
Lin is shocked back to the present, suddenly intently focused on her keyboard and the Google doc open on her monitor. 'What?! What is it? What do you hear?'
'It… sounds like whispering. Really faint whispering.'
'What's it say-'
'Shh!'
Lin shuts up, putting a hand over her mouth.
'"Watching over…" "Prophecies to come…" a "moderator's efforts."'
Lin is typing all that she heard Kaiba say, transcribing every word to show Chris.
Kaiba prattles on.
'"Venus and Mars…"'
'"Amidst the grand teachers, your teachers themselves," I think?'
'"February fourteenth…"'
'Something about an "incredible hierarchy…"'
'Their "bodies of light" are… "at the needle's point…" "between here and…" "the dimension of energies."'
'"February fourteenth," again.'
Lin and Kaiba sit in silence for a few minutes longer before Kaiba speaks up again. 'I think that's it. I don't hear anything else.'
Frozen in amazement, Lin stares at the words she's transcribed, her mind already trying to put the puzzle pieces together.
'Their voices were kinda… in and out at time, I guess. I think we should try to improve the receiver somehow.'
There was obviously Uriel's prophecy that the people of Earth would be visited by their space brethren, was that the prophecy the signal spoke of?
'I could work on that if you let me see the current setup.'
February fourteenth was also easy being the wedding anniversary of Uriel and Ernest, the founders.
'Two-Track?'
Venus and Mars, the home planet of entities of great wisdom, according to what Ernest saw in visions of his own.
Kaiba clears his throat, pulling Lin back to reality. 'You there?' he asks.
'Yeah, yeah. This is really good stuff, Kaiba. Thank you.'
She can practically hear him grinning on the other side of the call. 'Oh! Yeah, yeah of course.'
'Let me give this stuff to someone. I've got some ideas, but she knows more than I do.'
'Sounds good.'
'Mhmm… I'm gonna go now.'
'Alright! Talk to you soon?'
'Of course.'
'The hell are you going, Lenny?'
Lin picks up her pace. The stark form of her brother, all knobby knee'd with baggy clothes and a black hoodie even though it's sunny outside stalks behind her. She knows it's him, even though she can't see his face. She's gotten good at recognizing him even when she can't see him. A sibling thing, or something else.
'You can't walk away from me,' he yells out, in that boastful way he always has. 'I've always been faster. Ever since we were kids, Lenny.'
Or so he thinks. That's the other thing about her brother. He's also quite dumb.
'I told you not to call me that!' she screams over her shoulder. 'It's not my name.'
'What, afraid you'll get shot?' Her brother's voice is tainted with some kind of grin. He has always been cruel. 'You're always so afraid of such bullshit, Lenny.'
'Why are you following me, George?'
'Dunno. Mom's spiraling, Dad's still not home. Guess I just thought to check up on my favorite member of this family for-'
'The real reason. Nothing's free with you.'
Not even since they were kids. George has always been hungry for some kind of edge over her, be it through a video game, or their Dad's affections, or anything else. He's careless and cruel, and little else is there despite Lin having tried so much to find something of value. Sylvia thinks she's overdramatic about this, but Lin knows she's right. She just is.
'Mom,' is all he says, so she scoffs.
'Bullshit.'
'It's real. I swear its real, Lenny.'
'Mom doesn't talk to you.' Because you don't talk to her, because if you did all you'd do is scream, goes unsaid.
'Yeah, cuz I'm such a disappointment. But she was really crying her eyes out this time, about you. Might have even grown a heart or two listening to that performance.'
His footsteps stop. Hers do as well. She doesn't turn around, though. She's not that stupid to look at him when he's like this.
'How'd you find me?'
'I talked to one of your friends. Ernie, or something. He said some stuff. I figured out the rest.'
'Eric?' Her blood starts to boil.
'That was the name, yes. Ready to come home to mom?'
'No.'
Her pace breaks into a run.
'Lenny-'
'Leave me the hell alone, George,' she calls out over her shoulder.
'Lenny!'
But she's already taken a turn into the alleyway beyond which she knows her refuge resides. Her brother won't be able to follow her anymore, not there. He just won't.
She feels it before anyone says anything. There's something in the air of the commune, something eerily like electricity. It's a soundless feeling, but there is rhythm in it, slowly building and building as if an unlife itself were exuding it.
'Something's changed, child,' is all Sylvia says. Her palms are open to a sky that is alien to the dark room in which Lin has found her, still sweaty from her run earlier. 'Everything has changed.'
'What?'
'We have decided you are in body,' Sylvia says, a warm smile gracing her lips. 'You may come with me. Leave your bags by the pedestal.'
Then she unlocks a door that Lin has never been in before. Whenever she's asked after it in the past, some variation of 'you're not ready' was all that was fed to her. The passage is old and grimy, lined with brick and metal pipes and niter. Even though it is dark, Sylvia knows her way around like it's the brightest of days, and moves with a deftness out of place for the aging woman. It's like she's a different person entirely. After, Lin would say this might have been the first sign.
'When Uriel first bought this facility, she had been concerned she might have misinterpreted things. It's a shame others convinced her otherwise, but ah, we knew better, didn't we? We knew best.'
'Where are we?'
The pipes she's noticed now are perforated with dozens upon dozens of little holes with wires laced through each and every one, cables snaking across the floor, hanging from the ceiling, stapled to the walls. The rhythm in the air is growing stronger. They loop around another corner, an another door rises, another gift.
It opens, and what greets her takes her breath away.
'It's not well communicated outside of our circle, you see, the importance of the flesh. For is not only energy that binds us, but a cosmic marriage too: life and death. Past and present. Flesh and blood. In every animal there is a common ancestor, a universal body plan. And there is no better body plan that carries and links the memory of a cosmic soul than that of the fetus.'
A great room of concrete pylons marches before her, with almost every surface covered in wires. Servers upon servers whir in the distance. The humming is now audible, and it's then that she realizes that the sound therein is similar, so similar to the recordings Chris sent her for her recruiting tasks. But even that pales at the other things: tanks upon tanks upon tanks, all containing curled up pickled life-forms with tails and half-formed eyes, each linked to the very network that is in turn linked to the servers behind and around them. And at the heart of it all - three bodies, entombed in cables.
'The song of life cut short can amplify that of life that has been lived. It is a bridge, do you see child? Between life and death. Between alien and human. One must only read the signs.'
'You want to wake them up.'
'Oh, but that's why I brought you here, my dear,' Sylvia says, and almost sounds remorseful for it. Her hand brushes Lin's cheek, warm and human despite everything. 'They've already done so. What did you do, Lin?'
'I… I don't know. I can't check my Discord. My phone's dead.'
'Your medium must have done something. Look at the little angels. Look at how they sing.'
In the jars, she sees it now: every so often, with every pulse of electricity in synchronicity with the song of the great translator, the limbs of the creatures move. They twitch.
They're alive. But for the first time since she joined, she's not sure if it's for the reasons she wants it to be.
'It's not long, my dear,' Sylvia continues, smiling glibly with mirth. Lin smiles too, though she's not sure if it's because she's happy or if it's something else. 'We can make contact soon. The thirty-three ships will come, just as she said. And it's all thanks to you. You are bringing about a new age, girl. A new-'
A loud banging sound breaks the harmony of the world around them, with muffled yells echoing behind them. It almost sounds like…
'Lenny, I don't know what the hell they're doing, but-'
Shit. It's George. He's stopped dead in his tracks, staring around the room in horrified awe. Lin's never seen him like this before. He's always maintained an air that emphasized that nothing could faze him, that he was a bastion of cool, of ease, but the image was shattered - scattered across the wire-strewn floor like glass - as his eyes jumped from server to server, jar to jar.
'What the hell is this?'
Sylvia snaps, 'You aren't welcome here, boy. This is a sacred place.'
'Shut the fuck up,' George throws back before letting his face soften as he turns to Lin. 'C'mon, let's get out of this freak show, go home. See mom.'
'Lin is not going—' Sylvia begins to say before George suddenly pulls a handgun out of his waistband, pointing it at her.
'Don't put a fucking finger on her!'
Sylvia ignores him and puts a hand on Lin's shoulder, 'It's quite past time for you to go, young ma—'
The next events move in slow motion, and Lin's not quite sure what she expected, but her brother pulling the trigger is not one of them, and neither is Sylvia falling onto the ground bleeding. George grabs her by the hand and begins pulling her through the doorway, back through the dim passageways, Lin still stuck in her shock. When the gunshot stops ringing in her ears, she begins thrashing, fighting George.
'We're getting out of here, Lenny,' is what he's telling her, over and over again, and he doesn't listen to those facts that she can't articulate properly but tries to over and over anyway like some psychobabble on the radio: that she wants to be here, that this is everything she's wanted and that he's ruining everything that's hers yet again just because he's selfish, but then none of that matters.
Step-by-step, pull-by-pull, her feet dragging on the filthy concrete floor. George isn't listening to her.
Lin sees the exit, growing closer and closer, still trying to fight George, crying out that he's a murderer. A low tone rises from behind them, filling the air. George casts a panicked glance back and begins pulling Lin faster. The tone rises, getting louder and louder, increasing in strength, all at a pace that only hastens.
Suddenly, a pulse made up of a thousand million human voices all trapped in one mournful, digital call surges so loud it's unbearable. The roof starts to crack, and they're running, they're running, and then she's shoved through the door and given an I love you years too late that just ends up confusing her even more and then-
A cascade of new noise, a low, rumbling sound. Lin tries to push on the door, but finds it's blocked. When she peers through the crack at the bottom, there's only darkness, some concrete dust drifting out.
No sound, no drone, no cries for help, nothing.
Silence.
Lin sits in a park, the mental bench under her cold. She's crying as she pulls out her phone, desperate for any semblance of victory when so much around her has turned for the worst, come crashing down around her. The source of so much comfort through the turmoil of her days past.
She opens up Discord and finds that amidst the multitude of DMs she's yet to open, she was sent some yesterday from a now deleted account. Curiosity overtakes her and she opens them up.
Lin scrolls up. She sees all of the messages she'd traded with Kaiba over the past few months, the ideas and jokes, the longings and happenings of life.
Now he was gone, suddenly vanished in smoke.
Something had happened, but what?
It didn't matter what happened, she realizes. Ultimately, something happened to Kaiba and she is to blame.
What did he hear? Did he even hear anything?
What had he done?
Why couldn't he have left her with anything else?!
It was happening again, she thinks she's killed another medium.
Killed Sylvia, killed Kaiba, killed her brother.
Who she hates so much. Hates him. But her chest is in knots, her mind retching. Every inch of her feels the suffering. She wants to leap from her skin, turn inside-out.
But there's still another place for her to go, another beacon of fortitude, a reason to keep going. Lin opens up her DMs with Chris and starts typing with shaky fingers stuck to trembling hands.
She sends fervorous message after fervorous message, trying to catch his attention.
His status changes to be online, Lin's never been so happy to see that little green circle. She sends a few more messages, hope washing through her, before it all suddenly drains away, dropping off a cliff.
A new message pops in below it, only confirming her fears.

Lin begins to sob, her phone drops from her hands and lands on the dirt. She played her hand and lost, for whatever good that gave her. There's no one left, she's burned all of her bridges, and there are matches in her gasoline-soaked hands.
Then she remembers why George had been there in the first place, what he'd told her. What he'd asked her to do. There is but one remaining bastion to flee too, a place where she can hide from all that's happened, all that she has done. Lin leaps up from the bench and sprints away, still crying, leaving her phone behind, so terrified of it, what she'd done with it.
It's almost sundown when she finally arrives home. She spends what feels like a million years on the front porch pacing back and forth waiting for tears to come out, but they just don't. Finally, her pacing must have made enough noise to wake up her mom from the couch, because the door opens anyway. For a moment, neither of them speak. Her mom looks like she wants to scream or tell her off or throw something at her or something else, but then she sees her daughter's eyes. She sees her daughter's hands hugging her stomach. She sees a backpack half destroyed.
A brother, a son, nowhere to be found.
When they again collide at last like planets and asteroids, moons and men, there are no words. There's nothing that separates them anymore. There is just them. There is just that universal human sound of crying.