Heller scowled, running a hand through his thinning hair. "And you're telling me no one knows where this came from?"
"Not yet, sir," Emma chimed in. "We've checked all available data. It's not from any known source."
Heller slammed his hand on the desk. "This can't be a coincidence. Three discharges, all in the same night? Someone needs to figure this out, fast."
"We're running secondary checks now," Kaitlyn offered. "But sir, the discharge from Miami is off the charts. If this was an attack, it could be catastrophic."
Heller grunted, his eyes darting between the data points. "I'll escalate this. In the meantime, keep digging. And keep me updated."
Kaitlyn and Emma nodded, turning to leave, but Heller's voice stopped them. "Blackwood," he said. "Good work catching this. And to the both of you, don't let me down."
Back at her desk, Kaitlyn took a deep breath. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, unsure of where to start. The readings made no sense. A surge like this should have been detected by satellites or ground-based systems immediately. Yet nothing—nothing except her console had picked up on it.
"You're freaking out, aren't you?" Emma asked, sensing Kaitlyn's internal panic.
"I'm trying not to," Kaitlyn replied with a wry smile. "But this... it's bigger than anything we've seen before. What if it's some kind of test? Or worse—"
"Aliens?" Emma interrupted with a grin.
Kaitlyn shot her a look. "Not helping."
"Hey, I'm just saying, if we're going to jump to conclusions, might as well make it interesting. Besides, the amount of energy we're talking about? It's not something any nation can just whip up overnight."
Kaitlyn sighed, leaning back in her chair. "I know. But the more I think about it, the less sense it makes."
They worked in silence for the next hour, running simulations, pulling up satellite imagery, and cross-referencing energy records. But as the minutes ticked by, the strangeness of the situation only deepened.
Then, another alert came through.
"Kaitlyn," Emma said, her voice tense. "You need to see this."
Kaitlyn turned to Emma's screen, her eyes widening as she took in the data. The system had located physical anomalies at two of the sites—Lake Tahoe and White River National Forest. There were objects. Large objects. But the Miami site? Nothing. No trace of any anomaly, object, or energy residue, despite being the largest of the three discharges.
"God this is about to become so classified... What do you think Kaitlyn?" Emma asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Kaitlyn's eyes darted across the screen. The objects were unlike anything she'd ever seen. The data suggested they were translucent, geometric, yet nothing man-made.
One looked like a sphere fused with multiple cubes, though it was a hexakis octahedron to be more specific. And they were somewhat large— roughly 3 meters in diameter, both hovering slightly above the ground at their respective locations.
"What was that you said about aliens?" Kaitlyn whispered.
~ Afternoon - Same Day ~
Kaitlyn's phone buzzed on her desk, pulling her attention from the endless stream of data flooding her monitor. She glanced down, saw Emma's name flash across the screen, and immediately picked it up.
"Hey Em."
"You seeing this?" Emma's voice crackled through the line, sharp with tension but laced with an undeniable excitement.
"I don't know, am I?" Kaitlyn asked, half-distracted as her fingers hovered over her keyboard.
"Check your messages," Emma urged, the urgency in her tone unmistakable.
Kaitlyn put her phone on speaker, quickly opening her inbox. A flood of new messages blinked in, and within moments, she clicked on the first attachment. Her breath caught in her throat.
Emma nodded, her eyes glued to her screen. "Yeah, just got confirmation from the UN. One in Russia, one in Brazil, one in the UK, and two off the coast of Australia. Same size, same shape. Looks like every major agency is scrambling now. The Russians are pissed—apparently, some civilians spotted their object before the government could get there. Social media's already flooded with pictures."
"Five," Emma said, her voice now quieter, more measured. "Five more of these things, Kait. We're not the only ones dealing with this."
Kaitlyn stared at the images, each one more impossible than the last. Her stomach twisted as she scrolled through more reports coming in from across the world, each detailing the same object: a translucent hexakis octahedron, always the same size, always hovering a few inches off the ground. Each one like the objects found in Lake Tahoe and White River National Forest.
But no one had reported anything like Miami—the energy discharge without a trace.
"This is going public," Kaitlyn muttered, her mind racing ahead of her words. "There's no way we can contain this."
"Too late for that." Emma replied.
The Pentagon was in chaos. Normally, the halls of the Department of Defense buzzed with activity, the usual hum of coordinated intelligence, logistics, and security matters that filled the day-to-day operations. But today was different. Today, the air felt electrified, as though everyone knew something unprecedented was happening, and no one could quite grasp the weight of it.
Kaitlyn and Emma hurried through the maze of corridors, making their way to the classified operations briefing. By the time they reached the conference room, half of the senior leadership was already seated, their faces grim as they stared at the screens on the far wall.
Each screen displayed live feeds of the objects that had been found, their translucent forms shimmering against various landscapes: forests, deserts, oceans. A surreal collage of strange geometry that defied understanding.
Director Sanders stood at the head of the table, his expression unreadable as he glanced up when Kaitlyn and Emma entered.
"Blackwood, Taylor," he said in a low voice. "We're dealing with a full-scale global event now. Intelligence agencies from five countries have confirmed the presence of these objects."
"More are still being reported," Emma added, glancing at Kaitlyn. "Dozens of sightings are popping up on social media. Civilian photos and videos are spreading like wildfire."
As if to prove her point, Sanders clicked a remote, and a new screen lit up behind him. It was a video, shaky and shot from a cell phone, showing the hexakis octahedron floating above a quiet suburban neighbourhood in Brazil.
A few distant voices could be heard shouting in awe, or perhaps fear, as the camera zoomed in on the strange object. The video ended abruptly as the cameraman got too close, the feed cutting out as if the phone had malfunctioned.
Another video and pictures from civilians near the Russian site played. A shaky clip showed the translucent hexakis octahedron hovering in midair, its angles shimmering faintly in the light. A crowd had gathered, phones out, recording and snapping pictures. Another video from Australia showed a group of fishermen spotting the object near the water. You could hear their voices, speaking in alarmed tones, though they kept their distance.
"It's only a matter of time before every conspiracy theorist on the internet goes wild with alien invasion theories." Emma whispered to Kaitlyn.
"Both footages are from less than twelve hours ago," Sanders said grimly. "We're seeing an uptick in civilian interaction. So far, the objects haven't exhibited any hostile behavior, but the lack of data is unsettling. We don't know what they are, where they came from, or what they want."
Kaitlyn sat down, her mind whirling. It wasn't just the presence of the objects that unnerved her—it was the silence. The eerie stillness of these things. They hovered without movement, without sound, as though they were waiting for something. But what?
"The scientific community's going to tear this apart," Emma muttered, flipping through her tablet. "Astrophysicists, engineers, biologists—every field's going to get involved. But right now, the only thing we know for sure is that these objects are defying the laws of physics."
Kaitlyn's eyes darted to the live feed of the object near Lake Tahoe, the same one her team had first discovered. It hadn't changed at all. Its surface remained smooth and translucent, barely refracting light, and it emitted no heat, no radiation—no signature of any kind.
"This is above anything we've ever encountered," Kaitlyn said, half to herself. "No traces of propulsion, no signs of how these things are staying in the air, and no indication of what caused those energy discharges last night."
"And Miami?" Sanders asked, his gaze piercing.
Kaitlyn hesitated, knowing the answer wouldn't be satisfying. "Still nothing. No object, no energy readings, no residual signatures of any kind. Whatever happened in Miami, it left behind no evidence."
"Which only raises more questions," Sanders said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Why did Miami register such a massive discharge, while the others didn't? And where is the object? Is there something else we're missing?"
"We've combed through the data repeatedly," Emma added. "Even using every tool at our disposal, we can't find anything abnormal in the aftermath. It's as if whatever was there disappeared entirely."
Kaitlyn felt the weight of her words as she spoke. "And yet, Miami's energy output was higher than any of the other sites. It's like something... shifted. Or moved."
The room fell into an uneasy silence as everyone absorbed this new piece of the puzzle. Sanders leaned back, his gaze moving across the team.
"Be that as it may, we've got international cooperation on this," he finally said. "But I need you all to stay focused. We're tracking every new report, every new object, but we can't lose sight of the bigger picture. We still don't know what we're dealing with."
Kaitlyn's thoughts raced as she mentally reviewed everything they'd learned in the past few hours—yet, they were still no closer to understanding what these objects wanted or why they had appeared. The fact that there were now five more, scattered around the world, only amplified the urgency of the situation.
"Blackwood, Taylor," Sanders said, snapping them back to attention. "You're heading the research coordination for our team. I want updates on the status of each object by the hour, on the hour, and I want answers about Miami. You're our best bet at figuring out the patterns here. Keep your teams running through every possible model, and work with the field agents to gather more data."
Kaitlyn nodded, "We'll get on it right away."
Hours passed in a blur. Kaitlyn and Emma, along with a rotating team of scientists and engineers, poured over the data from every corner of the globe. By now, the strange objects had become a media sensation. News outlets worldwide were showing clips of the translucent hexakis octahedrons, while online forums buzzed with conspiracy theories and wild speculation.
"At least the UFO crowd's having a field day," Emma joked half-heartedly as they sifted through a fresh batch of satellite images.
Kaitlyn didn't smile. She felt uneasy. The objects had appeared without warning, and despite the global response, they remained impenetrable. No one could get close enough to gather solid readings. Every instrument they tried to use failed. The objects simply absorbed or deflected every attempt at scanning.
"Have you seen this?" Emma interrupted her thoughts, turning her screen toward Kaitlyn. It was a new video, taken by a group of hikers in a remote region of Australia. The object hovered just over the tree canopy, its sharp edges glistening in the sunlight. As the hikers approached, the image distorted slightly, as if space around the object itself was bending.
"That distortion," Kaitlyn said, leaning in. "It's like it's interacting with the environment, bending light or gravity. But it doesn't seem... hostile."
Emma nodded. "No, it's just... there."
As the video played on, Kaitlyn's mind raced with possibilities. These objects weren't behaving like traditional technology. They were something else entirely—alien, for lack of a better word.
But even as she analyzed the video, her thoughts kept drifting back to Miami.
The missing object. The higher energy output. The lack of any trace. What if it hadn't vanished? What if it had... moved?
And if it had, where was it now?