Page 76 of Technically Abducted
"Deal," Alex says with a slight smile. "Though I have to admit, the waiting is killing me. How long do we give them before we assume this didn't work?"
It's a question I've been avoiding. How long do you wait for an impossible rescue? How many hours pass before hope becomes delusion?
"I don't know," I admit. "Days? Weeks? At what point do we accept that they're not coming?"
"Maybe we don't," Alex suggests. "Maybe we keep trying different approaches until something works."
The idea of escalating our digital rebellion, of finding new ways to force contact, is both terrifying and oddly appealing. We've already crossed the line from law-abiding citizens to whatever we are now. Why not commit completely?
My stomach growls, reminding me that we've been subsisting on coffee and anxiety for the past six hours. "Want me to order food? This could be a long wait."
"Yeah, but maybe something that won't get cold if we suddenly have to leave," Alex says. "I have a feeling our evening plans might change unexpectedly."
I'm reaching for my phone when Alex's laptop chimes with an alert.
"What is it?" I ask, noting how his expression has gone from casual to intense.
"Government communication networks are lighting up," Alex says, his fingers flying across the keyboard. "DOD, NASA,State Department—they're all in active communication about something classified."
"Related to our message?"
"Has to be. This level of interagency chatter doesn't happen unless something major is developing." Alex pauses, reading something on his screen. "Finn, I think they're taking us seriously."
"Government agencies, or...?"
"That's the question, isn't it?" Alex looks up at me. "Are we about to get a visit from the FBI, or from someone a lot more blue and a lot less human?"
Before I can answer, my apartment's power flickers. Just for a second, but enough to make both of us freeze.
"Did you see that?" Alex asks.
"Power surge. Could be nothing."
But even as I say it, I'm remembering another night, weeks ago, when I was fixing a client's database and strange things started happening to my electronics. When blue light began filling my apartment and my entire life changed.
"Finn," Alex says, his voice tight with either excitement or terror, "look at your monitors."
I turn toward my computer setup and feel my heart stop. The screens are flickering, displaying interference patterns that have nothing to do with normal electrical issues. The kind of interference that suggests something is interfering with the fundamental electronics of my equipment.
"It's them," Alex breathes. "It has to be."
The power flickers again, longer this time, and when the lights steady, there's something different about the quality of illumination in my apartment. Something that's coming from outside, growing brighter with each passing second.
Blue light.
I stand up slowly, my chair rolling backward as I stare at the windows where an impossible glow is beginning to seep through the blinds. The same blue light that started everything, that pulled me away from my isolated existence and showed me what connection could feel like.
Except this time, I'm not running from it.
This time, I'm running toward it.
"Alex," I say, my voice barely above a whisper as the blue light grows brighter, more encompassing, "I think we got their attention."
Chapter Twenty-Six
Tev'ra
The transport coordinates are locked to Finn's apartment—the same chaotic space where I spent twelve crucial hours learning that human innovation thrives in apparent disorder. My bioluminescence pulses erratically beneath my skin, betraying the anxiety and hope warring inside me. Three weeks of emptiness, of trying to function with half my empathic capacity severed, and now I might see him again.
