As I lean back in my chair, I look at the small tv screen in front of me. It's been tuned to one of the big news channels since I got home and, still, no reports of satellites falling out of orbit.
Why am I even watching this? There's no way the thing actually works.
My eyes switch from the TV over to my computer screen and begin to look over the report I'd been working on.
Yuri Sadisuto:
Second year associates in engineering with a minor in physics.
Symptoms: Delusions of grandeur, potentially narcissism.
Potential Diagnosis: Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Bipolar Disorder
Notes: Yuri Sadisuto has delusions regarding the existence of the supernatural. She is convinced of the existence of things that are not possible. Not only this, her mind converts any evidence to the contrary into the belief that her theories on how to prove that existence are wrong instead of her core belief that the supernatural is possible. Additionally, she has further delusions about her abilities; for instance she believes she can build a machine to pull satellites out of the sky.
Typing in that last sentence, my eyes flick back to the screen and see something unbelievable. It's a breaking news headline about an old satellite seemingly falling out of orbit early. I delete the last sentence and update it.
Additionally, she has amazing skills in making seemingly out of this world inventions.
It's Tuesday, early in the morning. Today, I don't have any classes, so I'm just sitting in the club room.
The air feels cool as the window is open and letting in a soft breeze from the outside. Even though it's cold, I'm wearing a T-shirt and jeans. As the air drifts over my skin, it gives me a slight chill up my back.
It's days like these that make me happy. Especially since today is the day I'll be proven right. Today, outside of any other day, is special. Today is when the satellites fall from the sky and a man of steel or a dark knight comes out from the woodwork to save the day. Someone's going to come, I know it.
Do you really believe that though? This is what you thought about the last few incidents like this, and you remember what happened then.
Of course she believes it, I mean, you have to believe in something.
I believe it. Although, I'm not sure if today will be the day. I mean, she's right, I've had quite a few failures.
I know that the satellites are currently falling out of orbit, they're following the exact trajectory I calculated. But that doesn't guarantee that someone's actually going to come out and do something about it.
As I'm trapped, living in my head, I'm brought back to reality by a knock at the door.
"Come in." I respond as I stand up.
The door opens up and in walks Terri, dressed in a red button up shirt in the same style as the one he wore yesterday.
"You really like that shirt, don't you?"
"I don't like to think about what I'm going to wear, so I just have multiple versions of the same outfit."
"That sounds like ocd or something to me."
"Perhaps. Anyways, I saw the news. I guess that thing really does work."
Terri walks over to the magnetic attractor sitting in the center of the room. The machine is still emitting the same rhythmic hum it was making yesterday.
"Yeah, I told you it did. It's your fault you thought it was crazy."
"What other impossible inventions do you have in there?"
As he walks over to the closet and peeks in, Terri pulls out a pair of bulky glasses with circuit boards and dials attached to it. I immediately recognize what the device is.
"X-ray glasses."
"X-ray glasses? Like, seeing through walls and stuff?"
"Yep. It can see through five feet of solid lead. The walls in this place are trivial to it."
As Terri puts on the glasses, he turns to the wall facing the outside of the building and I see his eyes open wide.
"Wait, these actually work."
"You bet they work."
"I can see right through this wall."
"Turn the dial on the right."
His thin fingers grab at the grey dial sticking out the side of the glasses and he begins to turn it.
"Whoa, I can see the inside of the wall now. It's like I'm standing on a construction site."
Turning towards me, Terri gasps.
"What, are you seeing me naked or are you seeing my skeleton."
I instinctively cover up my body.
"No, no, it's just the skeleton."
"Good."
I pluck the glasses off of Terri's face and put them on my own. Looking at Terri's skeleton, I'm reminded of the reason I never took these things any further in development.
"Pervert glasses, I called them. The potential to expose people's naked bodies made them too dangerous, so I put them with all my other failed inventions."
"How much stuff is in here?"
It's a fairly large closet, and yet, by this point I was reaching the limits of what I could store in there. There was the infinite mind repeater, a device that simulated the brain waves we emit when thinking and looped them unendingly. That one was to drive mind readers insane. There was the multi-spectral analyzer to detect invisible people. There was the instant sleep inducer, a device that, when placed on the forehead, would instantly make the user fall asleep for however long they wanted to sleep. That last one was used to force me to sleep when I was up too late working on inventions.
As Terri looks through the variety of different gadgets I'd built, I check the timer on my computer, which reads one hour and two minutes. That was the amount of time I had before it was too late to reverse the magnetic pull from the attractor.
"Hey, is any of this dangerous?"
"Some of it. Just don't turn anything on."
"Got it."
I turn over to the window and look out at the trees surrounding the university. Most of the leaves have already fallen, and the ones that haven't have turned color.
It's a beautiful day out.
That it is.
Terri finally comes out of the closet and walks over to enjoy the scenery.
"Hey, Yuri, why do you look for the impossible?"
"Because it's interesting to me."
"In what way. I mean, to me, you seem a bit desperate to find something that might not exist."
"I mean what else is there to do. I can either accept that the world is the way that it is, or I can look for something better."
"Better?"
You need to explain it to him.
"To me, the world is kinda boring. I mean, everything is just normal, nothing exciting happens."
"I mean isn't that a good thing? Exciting isn't always fun, exciting can mean danger."
"I know that, but sometimes I want a little danger in my life. To me, I want the world to function like a comic book. The world of fiction is much more fun than the world we live in right now."
"Yeah, but it's fiction for a reason. You can't just will physics defying super heroes out of nowhere. Certain things are just not possible."
"Who says I can't. I truly believe if I could find just one supernatural entity, I can change the world to be just like the world from movies and TV shows."
It's hard to explain to someone like him, someone happy with how the world currently is. But I refuse to be happy with the status quo.
Terri lets out a deep breath.
"I just don't want you to get your hopes up, just be brought back down to Earth."
"I'll gladly get my hopes up a million and one times if it means eventually getting my way."
At this moment, I'm reminded of my first ever attempt to find the supernatural.
It was in Spring of 2023, way before I started this club. Back then, I was convinced that aliens had started surveilling earth. An UFO had been first spotted on February 1st and by the fourth, it had been "shot down". They said it was a Chinese spy balloon, but I knew the truth, it had to be aliens spying on us. They had covered up the truth in the past, they may have even had an alien corpse hidden from the public. I built an UFO of my own, small and not suitable for interstellar travel, but beyond that of conventional drones. I intentionally flew it in a way to grab as much attention as possible. I wanted the outer space visitors to notice, understand that we had similar capabilities to them, and encourage contact with the human race. After a few days of repeated voyages over the Midwest, it had attracted copious attention. There were news outlets covering a mysterious object being seen in the sky, many people believed that the device itself was an alien craft. Of course they would never accept the idea that they were wrong and that the alien craft was actually human made. Several attempts had been made by the government to shoot it down, but all failed. Finally, on the seventh day, I gave up. I decided that if the aliens were watching, they weren't impressed. I allowed the device to be hit by a missile and gave up on the project all together.
That night, I sat in my room and cried for hours. Was I simply not good enough for them, did they expect more from me? Did they simply not care? Maybe, they didn't exist.
Nonsense. Of course they exist.
Maybe they left already?
With those thoughts, I wiped away the tears and decided that I would continue my search for the paranormal.
Since then, it's been numerous inventions and not a single success. But, I haven't let that break me, not yet, not ever, I am unbreakable.
"Attention, everyone is to evacuate the building. I repeat, evacuate the building."
The warning came from the speakers in the ceiling above us.
"Let's go."
"Go? But it's almost time for a hero to show up and stop the satellites. I don't want to miss it."
"Miss it, you're gonna get crushed by the thing waiting for someone who's not gonna show up."
"I'm not leaving."
Terri turns away from the window and makes his way to the door. I wait to hear the sound of the door open, but I don't.
"Yuri. I'm not gonna leave you here to die."
"Thanks, but I'm not gonna die."
"Yeah, yeah, I know."
An hour later, the satellites are now close enough to be seen from the ground. Looking up at the sky, you'd assume they were large meteorites flaming through the sky, leaving a trail of smoke behind.
"Yuri, we have two minutes left."
Terri is standing over the computer, diligently watching over the timer as it ticked down, second by second. I, on the other hand, am laying on the couch, trying to relax and ignore Terri freaking out."
"I can read the timer."
"Then hit the repel button already."
"But we still have time. Someone could still-"
"No one is showing up. What, are they supposed to deal with hundreds of satellites in a matter of seconds?"
"It's possible "
"If there was some kind of hero out there, why would they wait until the last second?"
"To build tension."
"This isn't a story goddamnit, this is real life. Reality. As much as you don't like it, that's the way things are."
"Hmph!"
I turn away from Terri and start reading the news on my phone.
By this point, the state has enacted a mandatory evacuation up to five miles from the university, which would be the epicenter of all the satellites' trajectories.
Everyone on social media is freaking out, talking about how this is the end of the world. If only they knew they'd be saved by some heroic man in a cape and spandex, then they wouldn't have to worry.
"Yuri, there's only a minute left!"
"Fine!"
I put my phone away and get off the couch. As I make my way over to the magnetic attractor, I remind myself of the combination of buttons and switches I need to press to switch the device over to repel mode. I bend down, and switch the machine over to its other operating mode and press the button to re-engage the electro magnet. Nothing happens. I press the button again, and while it does go in and presses all the way, still nothing happens.
"Why isn't it repelling?"
"Relax. Something must be up with the button. Let me take a look at it."
I feel for the familiar chunk of metal in my pocket and pull out my Swiss army knife. The Philips head screwdriver bit flips out and I unscrew the panel on the front of the machine.
Let's take a look inside.
Removing the panel, I see a series of wires and circuit boards that only make sense to me. I mentally pull up the machine's schematics and look over everything.
The button itself seems to work, I could test continuity, but I doubt that's the problem.
"Hey can you get me my work kit from the closet? It's the big black bag on the top shelf."
Hey, did you check if we have any cold solder joints?
No, that's a good idea though. Let's see, the switch has good joints, no problem there… but the board does. Ah, so that's it.
Terri hands me the bag and I open it up and pull out the cordless soldering iron from within it.
Just gotta reflow the solder and… that should do it.
Without even waiting to put the panel back on, I press the reversal button again and this time, I can hear the hum from the device change to a high pitch whirring noise.
"Success!"
But did you make it in time?
I slowly turn my eyes over to the timer and see that it has passed the deadline. Jumping up and darting to the window, I look into the cloudless sky and see most of the flame trails have stopped, except for one. It's slow, but it's still coming this way. Whatever satellite it is, it's a big one, and it's coming right for us.
"I'm- I'm sorry, Terri."
"We need to evacuate. Let's go."
"No."
"Are you still hoping someone is going to come?"
"Nope. We already ran past the time limit. No one's coming."
Just then, every drop of life drained out of me.
Again. Once again, no one is coming.
Don't you get it already?
Leave her alone!
No one's ever going to come!
I said stop it.
No, he's right. I was wrong.
I sit down on the floor and let it all just sink in.
I'm crazy. I've always been crazy. And now…
Now you get to die because of it. Isn't it better that way? Not having to feel this pain anymore?
Hot tears run down my face.
"Yuri. Yuri, I need you to get up."
Terri pulls at my arm but- What's the point, I'd much rather die.