The next few mornings went like clockwork, though today she woke up to the sounds of Mr Mittens scratching the bedroom door. He was meowing loudly as she got up. Lila fed him the food from last night as a treat. After getting ready, she walked into work. The morning went by rather quickly, and the customers were as usual.
It wasn't until around lunch that anything interesting happened, Marina came into the store and spoke to Lila. Marina had a concerned expression on her face and wanted to probe Lila about something. They both left the shop and went out to have lunch together, and then walked through the streets. Marina spoke excitedly about the job, and thanked Lila again for hiring her.
Eventually they came across a park bench, and they sat down. Marina looked around warily, before saying;
"You know that factory I mentioned yesterday, with the strange flashes and lights?"
Lila nodded, remembering the events and thinking about the demonstration last night. She said this, and Marina nodded before saying;
"Well, Juan called me today. He said he was fired."
Lila's eyes widened and she asked, surprised;
"Fired? Why?"
Marina shrugged;
"He said they claimed he had broken the machines. Which is a load of crap, he has been working there for 10 years and they have never had a problem before."
Lila frowned, the information not quite fitting in. She spoke up, confused;
"But they must have some sort of reason, about the machines being broken?"
Marina shook her head and pulled out a cigarette and lighter;
"I don't know, I've been asking him for a few days but he doesn't know. They didn't even give him a reason, just fired him out of nowhere."
Marina lit the cigarette, and breathed out the smoke as she sighed;
"Juan said there was something funny going on, he told me that he saw these weird machines. When he looked closer, they were glowing blue and seemed to be generating power."
Lila looked surprised, she could hardly believe that the machine existed. But she couldn't shake the feeling of something odd about the whole situation. She spoke up;
"That is odd. Are you sure they weren't the normal machines, just glowing from the heat or something?"
Marina took another puff of the cigarette and replied;
"He said they were the usual machines, but then he saw them moving on their own. They had this weird blue glow around them and they seemed to be hovering over the floor!"
Lila was shocked. It did not seem possible that they were the same machines, let alone the fact they were floating and glowing. She could hardly believe it, but Marina looked as if she was telling the truth. Lila frowned, before replying;
"That can’t be right, what did Juan say? He must be wrong, maybe he miss-remembered or something? It sounds very odd."
Marina took a breath from her cigarette and shook her head, blowing the smoke out and replying;
"Not even. Juan has worked at the place for a decade. I wouldn't be surprised if he could do the job with his eyes closed."
Lila shook her head and frowned;
“That sounds like a wrongful dismissal or something. Either way, Juan should be careful the company doesn’t contact him for compensation. I know factory machines can be really expensive. But the glowing lights and the hovering machinery? I don’t know what to say.”
Marina nodded, and the conversation carried on. They parted ways after a bit and Lila headed home. Mittens meowed to acknowledge her presence, and she sat down to do some admin work on her laptop and turned on the news to listen to it in the background as she worked. The presenter was the news lady from yesterday, she was tall, well-dressed and generally quite charming. She spoke about the normal news, before mentioning the recent events in the area.
"So Mister Gerald, we have been hearing a lot about this UFO and alien invasion. We have heard a lot from the public and from the factory workers, but what about the workers who have seen the lights and the UFO?"
A Man appeared in a box on the screen, his hair was brown and short. He wore a gray-brown flight coat, though Lila vaguely noticed the heavily muscular frame under it. Eve acknowledged the man, smiled and spoke;
"Welcome back, I have here with me Jack. He is one of the employees of the local factory, who has claimed to see the flashing and bright lights when the incident occurred."
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The man nodded and replied, a bit nervous;
"Yes, I work at the factory and a couple weeks ago, I saw these flashing bright lights in the middle of the day. I called for the manager, but they said there was no scheduled maintenance for the day"
Eve nodded and asked curiously;
"And did you see any strange or unusual happenings during the day? Did you see any flying saucers or little green men?"
Jack smiled awkwardly and shook his head, before replying;
"Not exactly, I did hear about strange lights from some of my coworkers. Though, there was something really weird that happened when I was at work the other day."
Eve smiled and continued the story;
"Well, why don't you tell us what happened? Maybe it could give us some clues as to what the government is hiding."
Jack nodded and continued the story, explaining his part and describing his actions;
"So I was working, and I had noticed some weird movements happening with the machines. I could hear the clanking, and it sounded like they were moving but it was too loud to hear anything"
Jack continued the story, describing the situation and the things he heard and saw. Lila was interested, and listened carefully as he described the situation. Jack was the last one in the factory, and he had just finished up for the day. As he was leaving, the factory doors shut behind him. He could hear the factory starting up, and the whirring of machines.
"So I was trying to get back in, but the door was locked. I looked through the window and I could see the lights turning on and the machines turning on."
He said he looked in through the window and he could see a blue glow in the distance. It was small, and was shining brightly. It was moving around, and eventually disappeared behind the large machines. Then, the lights all shut off and the machine noise stopped.
Jack, the man being interviewed, disappeared from the news broadcast as the feed had cut out and turned black.
Eve, the news presenter, perked up and held her hand to her ear. She looked down and nodded, before turning to the camera and speaking. She explained that the producer had heard from the local government and they’d requested that the rest of the story was to be made confidential at this time. The camera zoomed out and showed Eve sitting behind her desk in the news studio, smiling and nodding towards the camera.
"Thank you, Mister Gerald. So, there we have it. The mysterious blue lights are back and now it is being investigated by the local government. Our correspondence from the company blames the incident on a rowdy worker, more on that at 9."
The channel changed to show a coca-cola advert.
Lila looked on, surprised. She had never heard of the government intervening directly in a news story like that. She turned off the TV, she'd missed the end of the story due to the feed cutting out and tried to make sense of what it meant.
As the news clicked off, Mr Mittens hopped onto the sofa and meowed towards her.
Suddenly there was a knock at her door.
Getting off from the couch, Lila stood up and stretched her arms. Mittens immediately ran off to some corner off the room, spooked. Walking to the door and opening it, she saw it was Juan. He seemed to look well, though had a worried look on his face and was breathing heavily. An old man stood behind Juan, dressed in a long black coat. It only took her a few moments to make out who he was.
“Hi Juan!”
Pausing, Lila turned to look at the other man Before continuing;
“Dad… What are you doing here, I thought we agreed never to speak again?”
Sighing, Lila turned and turned to go back into her house and waved vaguely welcoming behind her. Juan and her father followed behind.
“This is a nice place you have here Lila…”
Coming around a corner, they sat at the table in her dining room, Lila turned to him and spoke;
"So what have you come to see me about? Because if you've just come here to start preaching the religion that mom loved then I would like to remind you she is very dead and I can have the police remove you from my property"
Juan winced and turned to her father, glancing over and shuffling his seat awkwardly. Juan had always gotten along with Lila, her dad did not help by bringing in his presence and so she could almost feel his discomfort in the situation.
Her father, named David, sighed and looked tired. His gray hair was all around and had gotten quite disorganized. His eyes had bags under them, and he seemed to show a distinct air of exhaustion.
He looked around, before meeting her gaze. His eyes were deep, and conveyed a powerful intent.
"Do not presume that, Lila. This is not something either of us can turn away from. You remember those lights in thefactory and how Marina said Juan had been fired"
Lila scoffed and got angry;
"Oh don't pretend like you know what has happened, how are you even involved in this. I'm still not over how you faked your own death."
David turned serious and he leaned into Lila. Lila looked towards him, seeing her reflection in his gaze and focused to what he was going to say.
"The government does not have their hand in every factory. Why would they be so protective of a single metal workshop and do you really believe Juan would just get fired like that?"
Juan cut in;
"Even the cops were weirdly on our side, you wouldn't believe what they did when we started asking questions"
Lila frowned and tried to follow the train of logic that her father was giving, the words she knew. Yet it seemed a little impossible to make them all fit.
"Just because you say things, doesn’t mean I actually understand how either of you are involved in what was on the news"
Her father David frowned, before shaking his head, he needed to give the evidence to her for this to be proved. Reaching into the pocket on his coat, he took out a small tube glass cylinder with a small cork on the end. The tube itself was small, no larger than half his fist and inside the cylinder was a clear material that was similar to water yet clearly wasn't as it sparkled and reflected similar to metal. Lila looked at the vial intently, Juan remained silent at its appearance before David opened the tube and pulled out the cylinder inside, placing it gently on the table.
Lila, Juan and David sat in silence for the moment before David motioned and reached back to his pocket and retrieved the cylinder, reattached it to the bottle and shut it again. As quickly as the song was brought on, it disappeared with the sealing of the lid.