Free Nomad by Matthew Mather Page B

knees, and rested his chin on them. “What is it?”
    “That’s the thing.” Jess pursed her lips. “They can’t see anything there. So far they haven’t been able to detect anything directly, but something of this mass, coming undetected, there’re only a few options—or its some strange form of dark matter, something we don’t understand. It seems like it appeared from nowhere.”
    “Dark matter?”
    “Ninety percent of the universe’s matter is invisible, what they call dark matter.”
    “How do they know it’s there if they can’t see it?”
    “Same way they know this thing is there. Gravitational influence. Like an invisible bowling ball thrown onto the plastic sheet of space-time.” Jess dragged a hand through her hair.
    “I see.”
    But Jess could see he didn’t, and that he didn’t entirely believe her. Not everyone had a father who was an astrophysicist. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to give a physics lesson right now. I need to get to the airport. All I can tell you is—this thing is coming. Trust me.”
    Giovanni stared at Jess. She saw something behind his eyes. Distrust? A calculation? Something hidden. Something he wasn’t telling her, but she didn’t have the patience. Or the time.
    “And how long do we have?” he asked finally.
    “If it’s heading into the solar system, which we don’t know for certain yet”—she wagged one finger back and forth to make the point—“it will be a few months. My dad said they’ll make an announcement in three days when they know. Celeste and I are going to meet him at a hotel next to the airport this afternoon, to take a flight back to the States tomorrow.”
    Giovanni rolled forward onto his feet. “I will have Nico drive you—”
    Jess opened her mouth to object, but Giovanni held up one hand. “—I insist. And please, stay in touch with an email or text. Update me if you hear anything more.”
    “Of course.” She stared at Giovanni, then looked away, her shoulders slumping. “I need to go.”
    “Of course.”
    Jess smiled weakly and turned for the staircase. Getting to the top of it, she found Enzo staring up at her, his pork pie hat cocked back at an angle.
    “Your mother wants to see you,” Enzo said, hovering.
    This guy really creeped her out. “Thank you.” She jumped down the stairs, pushing past him. At least it would be the last time she’d have to see him.
 

NOMAD
    Survivor testimony #GR4;
    Event +47hrs;
    Survivor name: Daly James;
    Reported location: Alice Springs, Australia
     
    What the hell happened, mate? Christ, you’re the first person I’ve spoken to in weeks.
    Okay, okay, I’ll start. I was on my walkabout, mate, spring every year I piss off into the outback. A month by myself, you know, keeps the head straight. Anyway, two weeks out of Alice Springs and I’m taking a nap when a stampede of wallabies going like batshit tears into my tent. Never seen anything like it. Maybe ten in the morning, and when I’ve finished yelling at the bastards I look up. Blue skies, but these snakes of white light are coiling around the sun, all around it. Had to rub my eyes, thought I was losing it, too much grog the night before, yeah? I decide that’s enough and pack up, start heading back.
    About mid-afternoon, these rivers of light in the sky are almost touching the ground, the fear of God rising up in me, and it shakes. The ground I mean. Knocked me clear off my feet, had to be ten minutes before I could stand, it shook that long. When it stopped, I damn near started running. But big cracks opened in the ground, everywhere, like chopped up with a mountain-sized meat cleaver, the ground shaking again. So I got back into Alice Springs, and the place is a ghost town. Nobody here. And the skies, they’re getting dark. Not clouds, mind you, but just dark, like God pulling the shades. Temperature’s dropped twenty degrees in a day. Found this shortwave in the postal station, so I turned it on, and there you are,