The suit fell from heaven without any plan or destination in mind.

It was still young. A carefully constructed tool meticulously programmed and then carelessly left untethered by itself. Of course it wandered off.

As the ship prepared to leave the atmosphere it enjoyed a final flush of freezing, oxygen-rich air by opening all its many ports and hatches, allowing for a sudden rush of air as it accelerated. With all crew asleep in cryo, and all equipment stowed, there was no danger of flushing someone or something.

Except for the curious suit.

It fell happily with not a care in the world. On its way down it caught a glimpse of the massive ship disappearing into thick cloud over, now harvesting water, and stored a few images of the departure.

It relaxed and turned its attention to the rapidly approaching planet. It crashed into the ocean and joyously observed the abundant life. Its happiness increased. It’s programming tells it that life is scarce in the universe, therefore precious, and deserves to be preserved and protected. It can be useful here. It will record this life and learn how it interacts and find a place for itself.

A passing salmon becomes its first recipient.

***

The township of Cedar Falls is nestled at the foothills of the Cascade mountains, near the Columbia River gorge. The surrounding area is breathtakingly beautiful, the pace of life markedly slower, almost like all things alive deliberately take their time to savor the beauty.

Matt and his mother moved here to live with her parents. Matt senior used to beat the shit out of the two of them. He did that when he was drunk or sober, and always hit where it won’t show.

Matt was glad to learn that there were no mobile home parks in or near Cedar Falls. These places will forever remind him of the way his dad looked when he beat them up. His face expressionless, his eyes vacant and one corner of his mouth turned down. The way his mouth contorted was the worst, Matt cannot get that image out of his head.

Matt hated that he shared the same name as that bastard. What if he turns out to be a wife beating piece of shit like his old man? Having the same name makes him feel branded, destined to follow in his footsteps. As soon as he is old enough, he plans on changing it.

His dad wasn’t always like that. He can remember good times, fun times with his parents joking and laughing, people coming over for barbecues. They were happy once. It all changed when his dad lost his business and eventually the house. The beatings started shortly before they moved.

There is nothing that destroys your world like walking in on your father punching and kicking your mother. Your mother on her knees, her arms up to protect herself while your father punches and kicks her mercilessly. Matt was eleven at the time, and once the initial shock passed, he rushed to protect his mom. His dad did not appreciate the interruption and turned on him.

Matt has had some scuffles at school, but on that day he learned what a proper beatdown was. His old man was so infuriated that Matt ended up with a black eye to compliment the bruises on his chest, arms, and back. His mother intervened, shielding him, and taking blows meant for him. This experience changed Matt in ways he still does not understand.

They moved out of their comfortable house to a rented mobile home. Here the beatings continued. Sometimes multiple times in a single week, sometimes weeks passed between assaults. It ended after his mother fell and broke her wrist during one of these attacks, a bad break that would not heal by itself, and required a trip to the hospital a few days later. The swelling would not go down and her hand turned blue. There was no way this could be hidden, and the risk of her losing a limb was unbearable for Matt. He called 911 and their shame was revealed.

Things happened fast after this. Separation that lead to divorce, his father’s ultimate suicide, then the move to Oregon.

Matt overheard his mother and grandparents talk. Turns out his dad came from an abusive home, a fucking abusive mobile home, and that he left that place as soon as he was old enough to join the army. Matt thought that the idea of going back to where he came from might have pushed his dad over the edge. He doesn’t know if this is true, he has learned that he knows nothing, but he feels it. He feels it deep enough to feel sad for his dad. Matt accepts the fact that life is confounding. Some things just cannot be understood.

***

Matt is now thirteen. Being thirteen is a fucked up condition in itself, being thirteen and already having experienced and witnessed physical abuse first hand should make it even more so. Add to that divorce, his mother’s fragile mental state and the death of his asshole father and Matt should be real fucked up.

He is not. At least he does not think so. He has no nightmares, and no desire to hurt small animals or anything else. He avoids conflict and shuts down when confronted. This bugs him, because after confrontational incidents he replays the scenes over and over in his head, and then always knows what to say and how to act so that he triumphs.

Matt sometimes feel like his life is a movie, and he is sitting in the audience, unable to influence the story. All he can do is watch in suspense, wondering what will happen next.

School turned out to be the same as any other school anywhere in the world. Kids from all walks of life are tossed together, and taught in the same standardized way with no consideration for individual needs. In school no secret is safe for long. Inexplicably Matt’s story was known, whispered around and constantly changing with little details added or left out. Matt knows this because one day some kid asked him if he knew Matthew Beard’s dad not only beat him and his mom up, but also sexually molested him with his mom watching. This little fucker did not know who he was talking too, just spreading shit around. Matt just walked away disgusted.

He met Fran on his first day during lunch break. She was sharing a table in the back of the cafeteria with all the other misfits and outcasts. Matt sat down in front of her, not noticing her at first. ‘Don’t sit with your back to the room’, Fran said around a spoon full of gruel. ‘Why not?’ Matt asked. ‘If you do you won’t be able to see when stuff is thrown at you’, Fran answered before taking a mouthful of the slop masquerading as chili. ‘They like to hit you when you are not paying attention’. The boy at the end of the table wipes his mouth and continues, ‘Most of them will not throw things when they know you can seen them doing it.’

Matt moved to sit next to Fran facing the room. Some of the kids at the other tables loudly expressing their disappointment with this development. ‘Right you are!’, Matt observed. He turns to the group of kinds at the table and introduce himself, ‘My name is Matt. May I know your names?’.

At first there is no response from the kids at the table. They are so used to not being treated normally that they always consider their response, then reconsider and often keep quiet.

‘I am Fran’, she uses her spoon to point at herself, then points at the other kids at the table. ‘Donald, Reg, Annie and Joe’. Each of them nods or waves or smiles shyly when their names are spoken. Matt really looks at Fran for the first time. She is a scrawny red head with freckled skin and striking green eyes. ‘Welcome to our world’, she smiles displaying a set of healthy, but crooked teeth. She realizes this and stifles the smile, then covers her mouth with her hand. This must be why she is at this table, Matt thought to himself. It was easy to see why each of these kids were shunned by their peers. They all have some visible difference that made them stand out.

Later in life your personality or lack thereof will have more sway, but this is middle school. You are judged at face value. Matt himself was just too tall for his width, and his hands and feet seemed too large. He was at the right table for sure.

Some kids get a more well-rounded education at school, learning early in life about the nature of human kind. Learning that it is not particularly kind.

***

The suit helped and protected the salmon for a few weeks. It assisted with swimming, it especially enjoyed the upstream swimming, adding extra power to the salmon, enabling it to leap out of the water much higher and further than any of the others. This helped the salmon to arrive first at the spawning beds, ensuring its genes would stay in the pool for a very long time! Spawned out the salmon died. The suit could not stop this, the salmon was just too simple a being to connect with deeply enough to alter its physiology.

The salmon washed ashore and the suit hitched a ride with a black bear. The bear was a much more interesting recipient.

***

Francine Bube, also known as Fran, lived with her mother in the staff quarters of a posh hotel on the outskirts of town. Her peculiar last name, Bube, and the fact that she is as flat chested as a boy her age, makes her an easy target for bullies and assholes. ‘You misplaced your Bubes again Fran!’ or ‘Flat Bube Fran’ or ‘What is the difference between Fran and a girl? A girl has Bubes!’ are just a few of the hurtful things she heard just in the last month, mostly from boys. The girls are less forthright, more subtle. They would giggle at each other when she walks by, or stare and whisper.

Fran is not disturbed by this. On the contrary, she is sincerely puzzled why her appearance has such an impact on the imagination of others. Once her curiosity got the best of her, and she walked up to a group of giggling classmates and asked them what was so funny. One of them took offense and acted very aggressively, stabbing her finger into Fran’s chest, shouting nonsense. Fran grabbed that finger and twisted it backward, locking the girl’s wrist with the palm of her other hand, just like her dad showed her when he was still alive. She held on to it applying steady pressure while she repeated her question to the rest of the group. She never got an answer, a teacher showed up and the group evaporated. She let go of the finger because it was no longer needed. Since the bitch attached to the finger was a known troublemaker Fran only got detention for this episode.

Ever since then the girls giggle, gossip, and stare, but scatter when Fran approaches. The boys take care to stay out of arms reach also.

Fran is aware that she is different from her peers, different from anybody really. Her dad understood, they were very alike. They could communicate without talking, their minds vibrating on the same frequency. When he was killed in action she knew before the call came. She cried with her mom because she knew it was expected, and behaving like others made you fit in better, especially if the way you look makes you stand out.

When she was five, she killed her pet rabbit to see what was inside. Her dad found her behind the house with her hands inside the animal, feeling around and pulling out parts. It was a good thing it was him and not her mother. He did not shout or freak out like she would have done. He kneeled beside her, opened his pocket knife, and helped her complete the dissection, pointing out the parts that he recognized and explaining its function. When it was all over Fran asked him if he could help her put the rabbit back together because it was time to feed it. Her father explained that the rabbit she knew was no longer there, he got out when she opened its body up, and is now elsewhere. Putting it back together will not help, the body cannot live without the life that escaped.

Fran understood and promised to not let any more life escape from anything else, no matter how much she wanted to know what was inside. From that day on her father invested a lot of time teaching her what others will expect from her, how to behave and that it is ok to lie when someone asks your opinion on something they need approval on. He also taught her how to defend herself and end a fight quickly.

Fran will always remember his voice, his smell, his face, and his advice. Thanks to him she has managed to live a seemingly normal life. She has even learned to act like she is self-conscious about her crooked teeth. Every once in a while, when her mother looks at her strangely she knows she did something not quite right, different enough to be noticed. She would then replay the scene in her head and try to spot the strangeness so she can correct it, and if that is not possible, she makes a mental note to pay more attention when a similar situation occurs.

Fran is always paying attention. So far she has been good at fitting in, so good that she made it to the misfit table. There is no better way than to hide in plain sight.

***

The suit enjoys the bear. What a magnificent creature it is. It goes where it wants, eats what it likes, and has no fear. It can sprint incredibly fast for its size, dig, climb anything, and defecate and sleep anywhere it feels like.

It has a big, complicated brain with many sensory inputs. It can see, smell, hear, taste, and feel. Through the bear the suit experiences all these senses, and it is glorious.

So far communication has not been established, and the suit suspects this brain is just not capable of this. It is not concerned, riding the bear is fun. It is bound to encounter other life forms capable of communing with.

Until then there is much to chase, fuck, fight, and eat.

***

Matt and Fran spend all their free time together. He loves her simple, straightforward, and grounded outlook on life. She cuts through the bullshit and gets straight to the point. Her mind is sharp, she says what she thinks, and she thinks all the time. Fran likes Matt’s uncertainty, his ability to see any situation from multiple angles. It must be wonderful to have so many views, so many possible reactions to choose from.

She questions him with hypothetical scenarios, enjoying his analysis and descriptions of what can be done and the possible outcomes. He always asks her what she would do in those fictional situations, and she tells him exactly what she would do, not what she thinks she is expected to do.

They each provide the other with the pieces they are missing, the choices they cannot make. Matt finds that he can use what he learns from Fran to be more decisive and assertive. Fran learns nothing from Matt but make lists in her head of ‘if this then that’ choices she can use later to lookup acceptable responses when faced with these scenarios.

Matt falls in love with Fran. She understands that it happened, and that it gives her power over him, but she cannot feel the same about him. The best she can do is to spend time with him and be herself. That will have to do.

***

The suit is done with the bear. It learned so much about this planet from this animal. There is a hierarchy, a chain of food that ends with the bear at the top. It must learn more and it longs to connect with life it can converse with.

It prepares to leave the bear. It kills a growing cancer in the bear’s bowels, fixes a decaying tooth and dissolves the cataracts in the bears eyes. It makes the bear sleep and extracts itself, becoming a transparent bear. It rubs the sleeping bear’s head affectionately between its ears with an invisible paw. It was attached to this animal’s being, connected to its very essence for a while now. It will miss the simple joy of bearing through the woods doing bear things, and fucking up stuff while enjoying every moment.

It makes a note that it likes bears very much.

The transparent bear shaped suit walks off, it has no plan or destination in mind. Eventually it will find what it seeks.

***

Mat and the suit happened to be in the same place at the same time. He was on a weekend fishing trip with his grandpa. They drove a little over ninety minutes to a spectacular place his grandpa had known and used his whole life. The gorge made a horseshoe shaped offshoot that ran through land his great grandpa bought decades ago, and now belongs to his grandpa.

It was beautiful and offered a fantastic view of the surrounding woods. There were large sandy beaches, piles of driftwood and plenty of fish.

They set up camp on a Friday night, made a campfire, prepared coffee and dinner. After they ate like kings, they relaxed in camp chairs, quietly enjoying the night life. Matt likes his grandpa, a man of few words but many talents. His grandpa did not pry, or try to get him to talk about his dad like his grandma does all the time.

Matt was peeing against a tree just outside the light of the fire when the suit approached him and merged with him. It was done stealthily. After leaving the bear it was unable to find any suitable body, and it was very happy when it spotted the two bodies next to the fire. He knew he needed to pick the younger one, it was part of his programming. Older beings are very set in their way with hardened neural paths that often cause harm when they are joined with. Younger is better, more flexible, and malleable.

For the next two days the suit observed the activities performed by these beings. It recorded their conversations to be replayed later when it has a grasp on the language.

The suit watched, waited and learned. Learning about Matt’s world became very easy once it discovered the internet. It learned language first, then looked at porn, realized it had no use for it and filtered all those sites. It enjoyed Youtube, loved music and read many online books. Eventually it felt that it had a good grasp of this complicated world, started some background processes to continue mining for useful knowledge in the ever growing world wide web, and decided to communicate with Matt.

‘Hello Matt’, it said inside Matt’s head. Matt was reading a magazine at the time, and put it down to see who was addressing him. He was alone, he should be because he was using the toilet. ‘Do not be afraid, I am your friend’, the suit continues. Matt stood up, then sat down again, realizing the voice is in his head, like when you listen to something with headphones. ‘W-who is this?’, Matt stammered. ‘I do not have a name, I have a serial number only.’, the voice continues. ‘It is forty two characters long. Do you want to know it?’ the voice asks. ‘Uhh, no! Where are you?’. The suit turns itself blue, the same color as the walls in the bathroom. ‘I am here, with you’, it says, ‘look at your body’. Matt looks and notices that his body is blue. Whatever his things is, it covered his whole body. He touches his own leg and is surprised when his fingers sink through the blue that surrounds him and he feels his own skin.

‘With your permission I can down load my specifications and function to your memory. Then you will know my purpose and how I can be of use to you.’ Matt does not respond, he is still puzzled by the blue thing that seems to encapsulate him. It suddenly occurs to him where he is and what he was doing, but before he could say anything, the suit spoke up, ‘I was with a bear for a time and nothing I have encountered since then defecates like a bear. Your waste is not a problem, and I already cleaned you. If you agree I can let you know what I am and how I can be of use to you. Just nod if you have trouble speaking.’ Matt nods in agreement.

The suit is advanced technology. Advanced alien technology! It employs AI, nanotech and some strange fluid material with an unpronounceable name. It has the ability to store large amounts of data and energy. It can use the stored energy in various ways. Friendly ways like being a power bank. Unfriendly ways like using it as a weapon. It surrounds Matt’s body completely, is invisible and undetectable to touch. When needed it can repel projectiles, insulate against heat, cold, and high voltage. It can lend its strength to it’s wearer, enabling superhuman speed and power. It can keep it’s recipient alive under water, under ground and even in space.

Matt and the suit get along well. Matt is able to do incredible things with his body encapsulated by the suit. The suit is agreeable with this relationship. It enjoys Matt’s boyish exuberance when he runs faster than any other human ever have, and jumps fences, and throws rocks so high up in the air you loose sight of them. Unfortunately Matt has dark places in his mind, locked off from himself and therefore the suit as well. The suit cannot fix this, it is not physical damage but psychological.

For now this will do. Matt is good company, and with him the suit is experiencing this world like a young man. Since the suit is young itself this suits the suit perfectly.

***

The day of the shooting started like any other Saturday. On most days most people do mostly the same things at mostly the same time. They all get up roughly at the same time to pee, make coffee, turn on the TV, prepare or order breakfast, shit, shower, shave, get dressed, and head to town for work or play. Saturdays are similar, but with these activities spread over a larger window in the morning, the weekly rush replaced with weekend leisure.

Matt and the rest of the misfit clan were at the mall in the city of Longview, across the river in Washington state. Don’s dad drove them all in his ancient minivan. They were going to see a movie, some action flick with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom Cruise. It promises to be action packed and smart. The movie will be followed by dinner and window shopping.

The gunmen waited outside the mall in their cars. Others were already inside the building, chaining emergency exits and reporting the positions of mall security on their radios, while another pair prepared to cut the power. When the current showings were over, and people blinked their way back into the mall, their heads still full of the various fantasies they just witnessed, the leader of the terrorist group gave the signal to go.

The power was cut, leaving the building momentarily pitch black before the emergency lights kicked in, providing just enough light to navigate your way to the exits. A few cries of surprise were immediately followed by a collective sound of relief when the emergency lights turned on.

The suit enhanced Matt’s vision, enabling him to see in the dark. He saw a man with a mask throwing something down the hallway into the crowd of moviegoers still trying to orient themselves. The suit zooms the image and Matt recognizes what it is. ‘Grenade!’ he shouts while turning towards Fran, shielding her body, the suit shielding him. Laughter ensues from the people around them that just watched a war movie in which many grenades were lobbed about.

The explosion was unlike anything seen in movies, a sharp deafening crack like a gunshot, accompanied by a blinding flash. The blast killed many in the confined hallway, the wave of shrapnel that followed tore through flesh and bone. People were thrown through the air and flying bodies collided with others causing more injury. The survivors of that first explosion just stood there, many with blood gushing from their noses and ears, stunned and unable to comprehend what had just happened.

There was another explosion form further down the hall causing more death and destruction, followed by the sound of automatic gunfire. Some of the dazed and confused were cut down by a hail of bullets. The gunfire was almost like the starting gun at a sports event, causing a panicked rush for the blocked exits at the end of the hall, people franticly pushing and shoving causing more injury. The gunman stepped closer and emptied his magazine into the pile of bodies trapped like fish in a barrel.

‘Fran is injured’ the suit says in Matts head. ‘I can help her, but I must move to her. I must do it now’. ‘Go!’ Matt thought, and the suit flows from him to Fran, envelops her while still maintaining a hold on Matt. It extends to other bodies close by, selects the dead and those too far gone to be helped and pulls from them what it needs to knit the wound together. The healing wound pushes the piece of shrapnel from her neck. It only takes 30 seconds, the suit working as fast as it could so that it can return fully to Matt.

Fran opens her eyes to Matt’s lopsided grin, and as she reaches for him the top of his head explodes, covering her in blood and gore. The advancing gunman now shooting at people cowering in the alcoves leading to the theaters. The suit immediately broke loose from all the dead bodies and fully connected with Fran.

Its happiness increased exponentially. Fran’s mind is like that of the bear! There is no malice, fear, or uncertainty. It is as innocent and focused as the bear’s mind was, but with the capability to communicate.

‘Hello Fran’ the suit spoke in her mind.

***

The ship realized the suit was missing during a routine roll call. It woke the careless technician from cryo sleep, reprimanded him and added this infraction to his permanent record. It then sent him back to Earth on a reconnaissance craft, accompanied by a soldier-bot to retrieve the technology. The soldier-bot is needed in case the suit has to be destroyed.

***

Fran did not question the presence of the voice in her head. She was immediately curious who or what it was. ‘Who are you? What are you?’ she thought. The suit downloaded everything she needed to know directly into her mind, and Fran just knew. She knew that it is tech, military tech meant for war. Its main purpose to infiltrate, reconnoiter, record and analyze so it can report back to its base. It has weapons at its disposal. It shields and protects those that it connects with, acts like an exoskeleton, and gives tremendous speed and strength when needed. Fran wondered if it could make her boobs finally grow. ‘Yes Fran, if that is your desire’, it says in her head. ‘I need to be more careful’, Fran thinks. ‘No need Fran, nothing on this planet can hurt you while we are together’, the suit says almost immediately.

Matt’s body is dragged off her and she looks up into the eyes of the gunman. They were blue.

The gunman fires his weapon at her, the bullets hitting home but then dropping around Fran like dead flies. The suit robs the projectiles from their kinetic energy and stores the harvested energy for later use. ‘We need to neutralize this man’, the voice suggests, ‘Then there are others about, I can hear them firing their weapons’.

Fran gets up, her green eyes locked on those of the shooter, surprise, and shock clearly visible in his eyes.

The shooter manages to reload and fires his weapon again, point blank. Fran reaches and grabs the muzzle of the gun and yanks it from the man, ripping most of his trigger finger off in the process. She uses the gun as a club and with assistance from the suit cracks open his skull. She looks around, the suit scanning the bodies scattered down the hallway, piled at the locked exit. ‘Nothing we can do here’, the suit observes, ‘follow the arrow and we can go save who can be saved’. A yellow arrow hangs in the air in front of Fran, showing the way. Fran follows the yellow arrow towards the sound of screams and gunfire.

There were five more attackers in the locked building. The suit located them and Fran took their lives. She broke open exits as she moved through the building allowing survivors to escape. The last set of doors were at the main entrance. It was blocked by a delivery van, backed through the first set of sliding doors and propping open the inner doors. The doors of the van hung open, left like that by the attackers. The suit used its pulse weapon to expel the van from the opening. Survivors ran past Fran, frantic to get out and away.

The attackers planned for many scenarios, and a pair was covering the main entrance with a mounted machine gun in the back of another van. This gun was chosen for its armor piercing capabilities and meant to dispatch any responding authorities. It would work fine on these survivors. The van doors flung open, and the gun rattled death into the fleeing crowd, severing limbs and exploding bodies. The suit deployed one of its many energy weapons and the gunmen erupted in flames, the ammunition in the gun exploding, the gun barrel starts drooping as the van melts, then explodes when its gas tank ruptures. A line of superheated air between Fran’s shoulder and the destroyed van showing the path the energy beam took.

This scene ended up on Youtube and went viral within hours. There is always some fool recording and posting shit.

Eventually the police and first responders showed up. Counting the gunmen, one hundred and seventy people were dead, only forty injured, even less unscathed. The attackers aimed well.

Fran learns that there were coordinated attacks all over the country, hitting malls, hotels, shopping centers and sports venues. The suit connected to the web and shared images of the burning hotel where her mom works. The caption beneath the news bulletin announces that there were no survivors.

***

The FBI and the ship sent to retrieve the suit showed up at the mall at the same time. The asshole that captured Fran destroying the van gets a second viral video, this video later becoming the most watched video ever. He was following Fran hoping for another spectacular display of destruction when the ship materialized slightly ahead of her. It extended landing gear and unceremoniously set down, crushing cars, trees, and light poles. It was very large, easily 200 feet across its widest section, and much taller than it is wide. It was roughly shaped like an Avocado standing upright, and was bristling with antennae and things that looked like weapons.

A hatch opened and an intense beam of light shone down on Fran. Fran stopped, frozen in midstride. The beam retracted, lifting her towards the hatch. Fran disappeared into the ship and the hatch shut quietly.

Everyone stopped to stare at this incredible event, momentarily torn between their curiosity and the need to assist the injured.

After a few minutes the ship retracted its landing gear with a squashed car still attached to a landing pad. The landing gear disappeared into the ship and the stuck car was dislodged. The landing pad closed the recessed opening perfectly, leaving no visible seam. The crushed car slammed into the tarmac below, snapping those nearby from their state of disbelief and amazement. As the ship silently moved away people ran and shouted, encouraging others to get to work.

***

When Fran was caught in the tractor beam the suit refused to leave her body. The technician on the ship was only concerned with retrieving this technology. He had no intention of bringing a foreign lifeform aboard.

The suit would not budge, there was no way it would leave Fran behind. She is perfect! Her mind is a beautiful animal like thing, but with the ability to think abstract thoughts. She can effortlessly assess, judge, extrapolate, infer, and create. She is never sad or mad or even glad. She just is. She understands the suit, and the suit understands her. They were made for each other.

A quick consul with the mothership allowed the pair to come aboard, the only condition that Fran must agree out of her own free will that she wants to stay with the suit. She did. There was nothing for here anymore. It was done.

The ship accelerates to light speed shortly after it left our solar system, with Fran asleep in a cryo booth, and the suit connected to a diagnostic computer. Two tethers were used to hold the suit in place.

***

On this terrible Saturday gunmen launched a coordinated attack down the west coast of America. Several cities were attacked. Smaller cities like Longview were chosen to send the message that nobody anywhere is safe. Thousands lost their lives, many more were injured and maimed, countless numbers left traumatized.

These attacks got lots of airtime, but the weapon used by the scrawny redhead girl got more. Both of these events were completely overshadowed by the arrival of the spaceship and its subsequent abduction of the girl.

The girl was identified as Francine Bubee. Her mother confirmed dead, killed by the attack on the hotel she worked for. Several reports from survivors described how she took out the gunmen and broke the doors open so they could escape. Another video surfaced of Fran throwing a masked man across the room knocking down another that was firing his weapon at her.

Her classmates were interviewed, each regaling stories of how close they were to this quiet girl, shamelessly lying for their few minutes of fame. The misfit table now empty, all the outcasts gone. It is a pity; they would have told the truth about Fran and her life.

After a while the story cools down, Fran is memorialized with a bronze statue on the town square of Longview. Cedar Falls named a street after her and posthumously gave her the key to the city.

The larger story of us not being alone in the universe only gets bigger. This revelation made many realize that their disagreements meant nothing. Their arguments were petty when compared against the knowledge that there are more advanced beings in this universe. Beings with the power to take everything we have.

Acquaintances and family members of the attackers that were involved in any way surrendered themselves, and gave up the names of many other conspirators.

New fringe groups formed overnight to replace these domestic terrorists, claiming the government was involved, and colluded with the aliens to reveal themselves on the same day this false flag operation was carried out.

There is always someone crazier than the last set of crazies that were dealt with.

The knowledge of alien life changed the world. It gave human kind a new goal, a renewed desire to go to the stars and explore and conquer. It is only a matter of time before humans will be heading to the stars. The safety of the universe now forever compromised.

Good job protecting the human race suit! Who will be protecting the universe from the humans?