Page 74 of Stardusted

“SETI?” I arched a brow. “Like the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence?”

“Oh, so youdoknow about them.”

“Yeah, because SETI’s a real, science-backed organization.” I could see by her imperious look that I was getting nowhere. I sighed. “Never mind. Go on.”

“Thank you. So, my friend Cane? He’s in FETR. He’s an electrical engineer. Graduated from TWU last year. He, like, works for the city now. He’s always scanning for electrical or radio-wave anomalies, and this week? He picked up someweirdreadings all over the country. Power surges, random bursts of radio static…”

I slumped a little. “Yeah, Kelly. That was the solar flare?—”

“No, Raven.” She clamped her hand around my wrist, and I stopped short. She looked... Wow—for once, Kelly looked dead serious. Solemn, even.

“I can show you,” she whispered, eyes darting to both sides, like she was ensuring no eavesdroppers closed in. “Come to a meeting. It’s not what the news says it is. The signals werejumpingaround, erratic, but not random. FETR cross-referenced it with grid spikes, light sightings, reported anomalies. It followed a pattern. Apath.Like a…I don’t know. One of those scavenger hunts people do on Snapchat.”

Like a scavenger hunt…or like a search grid? Ice chilled my veins.

The tablet flashed in my mind, glowing, humming, crumbling in my hand. My palm tingled like it remembered, too. I gently freed myself from Kelly’s grip and rubbed my thumb over the nearly invisible marks.

“They’re looking for something,” Kelly murmured, her blue eyes locked on mine.

I held her stare. She had me now. I waslistening.

She nodded like she knew it, too. “Cane dug deeper. The anomalies—they led here. ToOne Willow.”

My lungs caught on a gasp.

Wasthisthe proof? In case I’d had any doubts that the object, that strange tablet someone had stuffed in a Styrofoam cooler, was the actual target. It’d been destroyed, though. I’d watched it disintegrate. Once again, hope rose. Maybe the fact it’d blown up meant this was over. Nobody had spotted any lights last night. No new reels or videos had appeared in my feeds.

But that didn’t mean they’d left. There was a chance the robots were hunting down loose ends. Read: me.

Or maybe not. Maybe they’d hightailed it off Earth.

I was going to drive myself crazy worrying withoutanydefinite information. My arm ached, and my head throbbed. I found myself rubbing the markings on my palm again before catching the motion and forcing my itchy fingers to still.

Instead, I frowned at Kelly. “So what does your friend think this means?”

“Well, it gets better. There’s some kind of?—”

“Hey!” Sandy’s voice cracked through the air like a gunshot. I gasped and looked up. She marched toward us, cutting through empty tables, her frown stormy and her manager’s badge glinting under the fluorescents like a sheriff’s star. “Is this social hour or a working restaurant?”

Kelly rolled her eyes again, this time with much more dramatic flair. “Well, it’s Sunday, so technically both?”

“Cute, Miss Ardmore. Don’t you have a section to cover?” Then her gaze landed on me. “And you. You need another day off or something?”

I nearly winced. “No. No, I don’t. I’m on it.”

I exchanged a glance with Kelly then ducked my head and peeled away from the server station, circling toward the restaurant’s main floor. Nobody else had wandered into my section yet.

But my thoughts were spinning.

FETR. Friends of the Extraterrestrial Races. A legit organization, albeit named like it’d been thought up by a late-night Reddit thread. But they weretracking movements.Actual patterns. And somehow, Kelly, of all people, had the goods.

How many aliens were hanging around on Earth if they had enough friends to form a damn club?

The idea sent dread slinking through my chest, dousing any remaining urge to laugh.

Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to get more information from Kelly after all. Maybe even hear thisCaneguy’s take on it.

I felt a little like Alice—except instead of chasing rabbits, I was chasing flying saucers. Lights in the sky. Possibly even evil robots from outer space. Take your pick.