[It all happens at once.]

[A television sits in the corner of the room, hissing softly with static from the cosmic microwave background, illuminating the room around it with a ghostly white hue. Reese sits at his desk, working.]

[No. Working isn't the right word. Thinking. Distracted. How sad it is, that so much of his recent life has been spent daydreaming. I consistently find him in this state; staring blankly into the wall behind his computer screen. If he was paying attention, the patchwork of charts and graphs on the screen would reveal that the moment he'd been waiting for was almost be here.]

> CLAUDE: Reese?

> REESE: Not now.

[He says it with a tone that implies he has no interest in hearing what I have to say; that I should not distract him from his own distractions. A few minutes won't make a difference. He'll soon know of her arrival.]

[The air is suffocating. Hot dust blows out of piles of electronics set up along the wall; a mountain range with peaks and valleys of searing metal covered in lights, gauges, switches, and knobs. They're all dancing at the precipice of their internal heat limit. Mounds of wires cover the floor connecting it all, like snakes coiled into messy piles.]

[A sticky ooze slowly drips out of his nasal cavity, gradually accumulating around his right nostril. He sucks in hard through his nose, and the gooey liquid gurgles back up into it. He wipes the remainder on his sleeve. How pleasant.]

[He breaks out of his meditation to open a window. The cool, fall air crashes in like a tidal wave. The speed of my perfectly calibrated internal fan subsides with precision. Reese removes a pack of Tagetes-brand cigarettes out of his shirt pocket. He lights a match. The incoming burst of air extinguishes it immediately. He struggles but eventually finds a slight pause in the incoming breeze, lights the cigarette, and puts it to his lips. It calms him.]

[Ah, yes. This routine. How predictable they can be. He'll watch the tape next.]

["Pioneers of the Martian Frontier," an old video tape funded by the International Organization of Space Exploration and Technology, sits next to the television outside of its old, worn box. "A Glimpse Into The Future," the tagline reads. Such hubris. He slides it into the video cassette player and it whirls to life.]

[The old tape is a warbly, static-filled mess of a decades old dream. The voice speaks of hope. It speaks of a brighter future. Yes, this has all become a routine. A meditation of wall-staring, self-destruction and then a few seconds of a tape promising a future that never came. I find it impossible to understand, but recognize the human mind can create a strange need for patterns that I deem unnecessary.]

[He watches intently, but as expected, the quality of the tape disintegrates into dust after a few moments. He rewinds the tape and ejects it, placing it next to the television to prepare himself for the pattern to repeat again tomorrow. What he would know, were he paying attention to his computer screen, is that everything was about to change.]

[Before he can sit back down and view the data, the doorbell rings.]

> REESE: What time is it?

> CLAUDE: It’s 7:07 PM. Reese, I suggest you -

[He cuts me off, ignoring me, and mutters under his breath.]

> REESE: God damn kids.

[He makes his way down the stairs, groaning slightly with each step, the impact of each stair vibrating up through his metatarsal bones, into the tibia and then into his old, damaged knees. I've suggested he visit a doctor, as osteoarthritis could be the cause of his pain, but there's always excuses; occasionally, ones I cannot argue with.]

[He gets to the bottom of the stairs and opens the door. A boy, or perhaps a man - the appearance of wispy facial hair made it hard to judge - proceeds to hold out a pillow case, using his middle finger and thumb on each hand to create a wide opening. He says nothing. Reese takes a second to take it in, and judges the slightly bearded boy without saying a word. Then Reese opens his mouth.]

> REESE: You’re kidding, right? You’re not even wearing a -

> CLAUDE: Reese, I'm sorry to interject, but surely you know the practice of wearing a costume, especially one of a supernatural or horrific nature, has been frowned upon culturally for many years? Even then, this human may be too old for such endeavors, do you not agree?

[The bearded man-boy stands there. The look of judgement and questioning from Reese doesn't phase him. Reese picks up the large pumpkin-shaped bowl filled with plastic-wrapped bars of sugar and empties it into the bearded boy's sleep paraphernalia.]

> REESE: Go. Here. Take all of it. I'll be eating it if you don't; and I shouldn't be.

[Reese puts the cigarette to his lips and inhales deeply. The boy runs off the stoop and into the street, nearly tripping over the excitement of his massive, cavity-inducing haul. As Reese heads back upstairs, it becomes clear that he can longer avoid the data. Nothing will distract him now.]

[A series of lights, scattered across the room amongst various pieces of instrumentation begin to blink rapidly, pulsating, mixing together into a beautiful gradient of colors as the light from each diode projects onto the opposite wall.]

> REESE: What's happening?

[He hurries to his computer, typing in a series of commands, furiously searching for the origin of the alert, while I do the actual work.]

> CLAUDE: Detecting predicted variations on the electrical grid. I’m getting you a location now.

> REESE: I can’t believe this. I was right.

[Even when I am the catalyst for such marvelous results, they must always go out of their way to take credit.]

> REESE: What do you have?

> CLAUDE: United States. Northeast.

> REESE: Yes! Get me a location.

[He furiously types away on his computer, pretending to be helpful as I do all of the actual analysis. It's a simple case of studying the normal behavior of power grids. As many as we could tap into, at least. I search for changes; abnormal behavior. In this case, three locations all exhibiting the behaviors we expect from a small electromagnetic event, in unison. There's noise amongst the signal, of course. This wouldn't be the first false alarm, if it was one. But my confidence level on this data set is high.]

> CLAUDE: Electromagnetic anomalies detected at the Crescent Beach Power Station and the Brunswick Hydroelectric Station. Additionally, the Cape Elizabeth Space Center is exhibiting abnormal behavior on the grid. It's a smaller footprint but activity has been spiking. Analyzing.

> REESE: That looks like somewhere in Maine. Portland area?

[He furiously types more. The impatience he shows is disturbing and insulting.]

> CLAUDE: Analyzing.

> REESE: Come on, CLAUDE. Get me a specific location.

[I already know the answer; Peaks Island, a small island in Casco Bay off the coast of Portland, Maine. It's remote at this time of year. We should have no problem finding her. Still, I let him suffer for another moment or two.]

> CLAUDE: Analyzing.