“Where were you the night of the Shelby Fireball,” Alex asked. She leaned toward the passenger seat, gaze jutting halfway between the country road and the camera lens. The afternoon sun glinted across her dirty blonde hair, which was tied in a loose ponytail.

Will swung the camera over to Seth, practically climbing over the back of the passenger seat to do so.

“Actually, I didn’t see the fireball myself,” Seth said. “I was at a physics test at the time. Not that I missed much.”

“Cut.” Alex sighed. “Come on, can’t you be a little more enthusiastic?”

“Enthusiastic? About what, a streak of light in the sky? It might have been big news here in Shelby, but anywhere else it wouldn’t have even made the local paper.”

“I know,” Alex said. “But if you pretend it's interesting, then maybe we can trick the audience into thinking it's interesting as well.” She turned to Will. “You ready to go again?”

Will stared into the screen of the camera and tapped at the buttons on the side. “Hold on.”

The car jolted as it sped over a pothole, and Seth’s laptop bounced against his thighs. He thrust his hands out to steady the computer. A fat progress bar stretched over the top of the screen, tantalizing him. Still at 76%, and it would be around an hour until it was finished.

Why’d he agree to help Alex with this film project? Especially tonight, with the career fair tomorrow and his demo so close to completion. If Seth could get the damn thing working, he could almost guarantee an internship with Torch Labs themselves. With such a lucrative prospect at stake, Seth should have been optimizing his code or polishing his presentation. Instead, he was on a trip to the middle of nowhere.

“Ready,” Will said. He pointed the camera at Alex and counted her in.

“So, Seth, they say the asteroid landed at Eldridge Creek. What does that mean for the local farmers?”

“A meteorite,” Seth said. “It’s called an asteroid when it’s still in space, a meteor when it enters the atmosphere, and a meteorite once it lands. But anyway, what does it mean for the farmers? Not much. Usually, meteors break up high in the atmosphere, but this one was big enough to leave a decent dent in the ground.”

When he realized Seth had nothing more to say, Will swung back around and lowered the camera. He was a tall man, lanky, but with lean cords of muscles under his tan skin. He wore a red tank top, which was entirely impractical for the chill November air.

Again, Seth turned back to his laptop. 76%. He knew watching the progress bar was pointless, but he couldn’t help being excited. This program could revolutionize telescope imagery. If it worked.

To be fair, the idea wasn’t all that unique. He was just training a machine learning model with public data from Torch Labs’ own radio observatory. The hope was that the model could transform images from Seth’s shitty, two-hundred-dollar telescope into the same output as Torch Labs’ two-billion-dollar observatory. With this model, even amateur astronomers could view cosmic background radiation from their own backyard.

Maybe that was a bit ambitious. Everyone was using AI for random bullshit these days. And even if it worked, it would still require a constant stream of training data, so it wouldn’t put the Lightbringer Observatory out of business. Still, Seth thought this demo he was working on could wow the Torch Labs representatives at the career fair.

“We’re almost there,” Alex said. “Just a few more miles to the place Jess is supposed to meet us. It won’t take long to get your drone running, right? I want you to get some shots while I’m interviewing Jess.”

“Yeah, no problem.” Seth shoved his laptop to the side. His drone was the only reason Alex had brought him on this little trip. He had no real interest in her meteorite documentary, he barely even knew her. But she’d offered him a hundred bucks for a few drone shots of the supposed landing site.

Alex pulled the car over to the shoulder and gently drifted to a stop. The car tilted to the side, one wheel still on the raised country road. There was no traffic here. Seth hadn’t seen another car for miles. With one final glance at the progress bar, he shoved his laptop in his backpack, pushed open the door, and stepped onto the yellow grass.

To his right stretched a wide field of corn, the stalks dead and dry and dark brown. A cold breeze drifted down the road, and Seth zipped up his hoodie. A wooden fence lined the cornfield, white paint peeling from the wood.

“Are you sure this is the spot?” Seth peered deeper into the field, but it all looked the same to him.

Alex hopped out of the car, Will on her heels. “Of course not. But I looked at satellite images online and the GPS says—”

Across the road, the corn rustled as a young woman jogged through the field. She had dark brown hair woven into a long braid, and she wore a plaid shirt tucked into her jeans. The woman, who must have been Jess, slipped under the fence and crossed the road. “Sorry, I’m late.”

“Not at all.” Alex shook Jess’s hand. “We just got here. Is this the right spot?”

“Yes, the landing site should be right over there.” Jess pointed into the field at a diagonal.

Seth left the others to their greetings, set down his backpack, and pulled out a hard plastic carrying case. Inside lay his CrowEye drone, a jet-black quadcopter with a 4K high-resolution camera. He carried the drone further into the shoulder and set it on the grass.

Will leaned close, camera in hand, and he slowly walked around the drone, getting close-up shots.

“Okay, I’m ready,” Seth said. “What should I be looking for?”

“There’s a slight depression in the dirt,” Jess said. “And a bare spot around it where the corn won’t grow. You can’t miss it.”

Right. A bare spot, how exciting. Seth tried not to roll his eyes as he pulled out the drone’s controller. This was a massive waste of time. There had been plenty of aerial footage in the news. Why didn’t Alex just use some of that? But he was here now, he may as well get this over with so he could go home and get some rest before the career fair.

The LCD screen within the controller flashed to life as Seth turned on the drone. The screen showed live footage from the drone’s camera, in much lower quality of course. With one final glance into the cornfield, he thumbed the auto-takeoff button. The drone rose smoothly into the air, the soft whine of its rotors humming in his ears.

Will stepped around Seth’s back and leaned the camera over his shoulder.

“Do you mind?” Seth asked.

“Um, yeah. This footage is the whole reason you’re here.”

“I’ll send you the 4K version later. You don’t need to film the controller’s screen.”

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Will smacked Seth’s shoulder. “I’m not an idiot. Filming the process makes the documentary feel more authentic.”

“He’s right,” Alex said. “After you’re done, we’re going to get some shots over here.” She pulled out a loose clump of papers and walked to the fence. “This field will be a good backdrop. Actually, before interviewing Jess—Seth, do you mind if I ask you a few more questions?”

“Kind of.” Seth stared at the screen as he flew the drone more to the right. “It’s distracting. Both of you are.”

He hadn’t expected Will to be so invested in this documentary. It was Alex’s project, and Seth thought she’d just brought her boyfriend along to film. Will didn’t go to Shelby State and he wasn’t part of her film class. He was a mechanic, or he worked at an auto shop, or something like that.

Seth ignored the two would-be filmmakers and focused on flying the drone. As expected, he saw nothing but a wide expanse of dead corn stalks. Wait, there was something. He brought the drone back around to a depression in the dirt. It looked like a shallow ditch, and a thin puddle of water lay within, reflecting the clear sky.

“Hey, could this be it?”

Jess stepped closer and peered at the footage. “Yep, that’s the landing site. Not much to see, I know.”

Alex pushed her way past Will, eager to check the feed herself. “Get closer. I want to see if there are any meteorite fragments nearby.”

Seth doubted that. Scientists had already scoured the area months ago, and even if they hadn’t, that puddle obscured most of the crater. But Seth wasn’t being paid for his opinion. He flew the drone closer.

As the drone descended, the screen flashed, and static flickered across his view. Seth frowned, and he held the controller higher, to hopefully improve the connection. Instead, the live feed cut out. Seth looked up just in time to see the drone fall out of the sky, lost within the cornfield.

Shit!

Seth thumbed the auto-takeoff. When nothing happened, he tried to manually fly the drone straight up. But the quadcopter didn’t rise out of the field, and he didn’t hear a hint of the rotors.

“What’s happening,” Alex asked.

“God damn it!” Seth tossed the controller onto the grass and stalked up to the fence.

Will danced to the side, camera in hand, and his cheeks curved into a smile. He trained the camera on Seth. “You going to slip the fence?”

“I don’t have a choice. I’m not leaving my drone out there, the damn thing cost five hundred bucks.”

“Wait!” Jess ran up to Seth and grabbed his sleeve. “I don’t know how much Alex told you, but I don’t live on this farm. I’m just the neighbor, and Owen, the owner. He doesn’t like people going on his property. I got permission for the drone footage, but we aren’t allowed out there ourselves.”

His sleeve bunched tight under her grip, and her arm trembled. Seth glared at her. She shied back. Wilted. But Jess didn’t let go.

Surely this Owen couldn’t be such a grouch. Seth just wanted to retrieve his drone. It’s not like he was going to damage the field in any way, and besides, all the corn was already dead. “I can’t just leave it behind.”

Seth pulled his arm free and ducked under the bars of the fence. The dry corn stalks brushed against his jeans as he waded deeper. He stopped for a moment, looked back to the street to orient himself. The drone had flown quite far, and once he was in the field it would be easy to miss it.

“We’re coming with,” Alex said. “Jess’s right, this is technically trespassing. But if you’re going in there, then we might as well get some footage up close. Even if we aren’t allowed to use it.”

Alex slipped under the fence and ran to catch up, Will lagging behind to film her doing it. Great, get all the evidence of illegal trespassing on camera. What a fantastic idea.

They continued into the field, silent save for the scratch of corn stalk against fabric and the light whistle of wind. After a few minutes of walking, Seth froze and looked behind him. This deep in the corn, he could barely make out the road.

“That way,” Jess said. She’d finally decided to join them, breath heaving as she hurried to catch up. Her eyes flickered across the field as if scanning it for danger. Was she that worried about Owen seeing them?

A few minutes later, the group shoved their way into a small clearing. Up close, the ditch was bigger than Seth had thought. The depression was long enough to fit a pickup truck, its sides sloping down at a steep angle. The wide puddle filled the bottom, its surface reflecting the bright sky. But beneath that reflection lurked an inky darkness, and it reminded Seth of the shimmering oil stains at a gas station parking lot.

“Get a shot of this,” Alex said as she ran along the ditch’s perimeter, looking for the best angle.

While Will fiddled with the camera, Seth scanned the surrounding field for his crashed drone. When he didn’t see anything, he began picking his way around the outer perimeter. The stalks stuck out in all directions, a spiderweb that tugged at him as he searched the tangled ground. The shadows danced over him, and he could feel the sunlight shrinking away, though they still had a few hours until night fell.

Forget it, Seth just wanted to get out of here. He turned back to the ditch, and as he did, a bright glint crossed his eye. The drone hung from the top of a corn stalk, its rotor caught in the fraying leaves. Seth jogged over and pulled it down. The drone seemed fine. He’d crashed it a couple of times before without any damage.

“Found it!” Seth walked back to the ditch. “Let’s get out of here.”

“One moment.” Alex sat at the bottom of the depression, her feet inches from the puddle. She held a long corn stalk, and she slowly dipped it into the water, testing its depth. The stalk disappeared into the liquid, and even when Alex pushed it all the way in, she couldn’t find the bottom. “Holy shit, it's deep.”

Will laughed, and he swung the camera back to Seth. “This isn’t just some ditch, man. This is some creepy shit.”

It was… interesting. Seth would give them that. “Whatever. Now can we stop filming our illegal activities and get out of here?”

“Yes,” Jess said. “We need to leave.”

Alex stood and dusted the mud from her jeans. “Alright, let’s go. We can’t use any of this footage anyway. Not unless you can convince Owen…”

“Not going to happen,” Jess said. She turned around and stormed into the field, her strides long and fast.

Seth followed. A few moments later, Alex and Will joined him, evidently over their obsession with the mud puddle. They walked in silence, and Will finally lowered the camera, holding it limp by his side. The wind whistled. Jess cut across the field, heading straight for the fence rather than retracing their earlier steps. When Seth finally caught sight of the road, he released the tension in his shoulders.

“This was stupid,” Seth said. He slipped under the fence, grateful to leave the farmer’s property.

“Yeah, yeah.” Alex flashed a slight smile. “But it was fun. And don’t worry, Jess. I won't show any illegal footage in the documentary. It’s just, I don’t know, I wanted to see it for myself.”

Jess nodded. “Alright. Thanks. Let’s just head back to the—”

She froze. Up the road, waiting beside the car were three figures, two men and a woman. They sat astride chunky ATVs, and they stared at Seth and Alex and Will. Hazy exhaust drifted from the ATVs, and it smelled of gas and burnt rubber.

“Hmm,” Will said. “I guess there are people out here after all. I’m sure it's no big deal.” He jogged past Seth and approached the strangers. “Hey, what’s up!”

Seth glanced at Alex, met her eyes, and she shrugged. He nodded back, and together they ran closer to the car. Jess lagged behind.

The lead stranger stood from his ATV. He was short and thick, and a bushy orange beard hung down to his chest. A baseball cap shaded his eyes. “Would you look at that, David? Looks like we got a couple of intruders.”

The second man, David, laughed. A motorcycle helmet hid his face, and he wore a denim vest over a black t-shirt. It looked like something Seth’s father would wear, and the thought filled him with disgust. “You think Grace sent them?”

“What?” Will asked as he stopped in front of them. “Oh, we were just looking around. We got lost and our phones don’t have a signal. We don’t mean any harm.”

“He has a camera,” the woman said. She had short black hair that cropped her mousy face, and she wore a brown leather jacket overtop a floral skirt.

“Well, would you look at that? Good catch, Riles.” The lead man lowered his arm to the side and bulged his hip out, flashing a holster and the shiny revolver within it. “Not just intruders. Spys.”

“It’s not what you think,” Jess said. She ran up to the front of the group and placed herself between Will and the armed man. “Just leave them alone, Earl. Take me to Owen and I will explain everything.”

Tears dripped down Jess’s cheek, and her eyes were rimmed in red. What was going on? All they’d done was go in the field for ten minutes. Surely this infraction couldn’t be that serious. Even so, Seth slowly backed away.

Earl shook his head. “You expect me to believe that? After bringing strangers here, one of them with a fucking camera, and on today of all days. Sorry Jess, but you know better than anyone the cost of treason.”

Earl whipped out his revolver and shot Jess in the face.