Chapter 9: Preparation and Promises
Kyla spent the rest of the day trying to act normal, which was almost impossible when you knew an alien invasion was scheduled for tomorrow night. She cleaned her apartment, did laundry, even called her mom in Arizona just to hear a familiar voice. Her mom talked about the weather and her book club, completely normal things that made Kyla want to cry because what if she never got to hear those boring, wonderful stories again?
"You sound tired, sweetie," her mom said. "Are you eating enough? Getting enough sleep?"
"Yeah, Mom. Just been a busy week at work."
"Well, don't work too hard. You're young. You should be out having fun, maybe dating someone nice."
Kyla thought about Josh, then immediately felt her face get hot. "I'm fine, Mom. Really."
After hanging up, she tried to sleep but couldn't. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw that portal, those creatures pressing against the barrier between worlds. Around midnight, her phone buzzed with a text from Josh.
"Can't sleep either?"
She smiled despite herself. "Nope. Too much thinking."
"Want company? I could bring food."
Twenty minutes later, Josh showed up at her door with a bag of Chinese takeout and two bubble teas. He looked as tired as she felt, with circles under his eyes and his hair messy like he'd been running his hands through it.
"Couldn't sleep, so I figured why try?" he said, walking into her apartment. "Whoa. Your place is way cleaner than mine."
"I stress clean." Kyla grabbed plates from the kitchen. "When I'm anxious, I organize things."
"I stress eat." Josh pulled out containers of lo mein, orange chicken, and fried rice. "So this is basically therapy."
They sat on her couch, eating and not talking about tomorrow for a while. It was nice, pretending everything was normal. Just two friends hanging out, watching a late-night cooking show on TV and arguing about whether pineapple belongs on pizza.
"It's fruit," Josh insisted. "Fruit does not belong on pizza. That's just science."
"It's delicious," Kyla argued back. "You're just boring."
"I'm not boring. I'm traditional. There's a difference."
"You're twenty-three. You're not allowed to be traditional yet."
Josh laughed, and the sound made Kyla feel warm inside. When had she started liking his laugh so much? When had she started noticing little things about him, like the way he always pushed his sleeves up when he was thinking, or how he hummed quietly when he was concentrating?
"Hey, Kyla?" Josh said suddenly, his voice more serious. "Tomorrow night... whatever happens, we stick together, right? No heroics, no splitting up like people in horror movies."
"We stick together," Kyla agreed. "Partners."
"Partners." Josh held up his bubble tea like a toast, and she clinked her cup against his.
They stayed up until almost three in the morning, talking about everything except the invasion. Josh told her about his college years, about the time he accidentally joined a competitive salsa dancing club thinking it was a cooking class. Kyla told him about her dad, the stories she remembered, the way he used to let her wear his police hat when she was little.
"He'd be proud of you," Josh said quietly. "What you're doing tomorrow... that's real hero stuff."
"Or real stupid stuff. Haven't decided which yet."
"Can't it be both?"
Eventually, Josh fell asleep on her couch, still sitting up with an empty container of fried rice on his lap. Kyla carefully took the container and covered him with a blanket. He looked peaceful when he slept, younger somehow. She had to resist the urge to brush his hair out of his face.
What was happening to her? They'd known each other for barely a week, and most of that week had been spent running from danger and investigating impossible things. This wasn't the time to develop feelings. They had a world to save.
But her heart didn't seem to care about timing.
Kyla went to her bedroom but left the door open, somehow feeling safer knowing Josh was just in the next room. She finally fell asleep around four, dreaming of portals and glowing stones and a partner with kind eyes who made her feel braver than she was.
Morning came too soon. Kyla woke up to voices in her living room and the smell of coffee. She stumbled out of bed to find Josh on her couch, now awake, talking on the phone.
"Yes, Professor. That's great news. What time should we come by?" He paused, listening. "Okay. We'll be there at noon. Thank you."
He hung up and looked at Kyla. "Professor Hoffman figured it out. She's modified a fragment to generate the counter-resonance. Says if we introduce it to the portal array within the first thirty seconds of activation, it should work."
"Should?" Kyla repeated.
"Well, she's never actually tested it on an active interdimensional portal before, so 'should' is the best we get." Josh stood up, stretching. His shirt was wrinkled from sleeping in it. "But it's better than nothing. She wants us to come by at noon to pick it up and go over the final details."
Kyla checked the time. Nine thirty. They had a few hours. "I need to shower and change. You probably should too."
"Yeah, I smell like fried rice." Josh grabbed his keys. "I'll head home, clean up, and pick you up at eleven thirty?"
"Sounds good."
After Josh left, Kyla took a long shower, letting the hot water ease the tension in her muscles. Tonight was it. Tonight they'd either save the world or die trying. Maybe both.
She got dressed carefully, choosing practical clothes—jeans, a dark t-shirt, comfortable shoes. She strapped on her duty belt with her gun and radio, then added a few extra things: flashlight, multi-tool, the small first aid kit she kept in her closet. She looked at herself in the mirror and barely recognized the person looking back. One week ago, she'd been so excited about her first day at Tides PD. Now she was preparing to break into a government building to fight an alien invasion.
Life came at you fast.
Josh picked her up exactly at eleven thirty, looking much better in clean clothes and with his hair actually combed. They drove to Professor Hoffman's farmhouse mostly in silence, both lost in their own thoughts.
Sarah was waiting for them in her barn, which she'd converted into a makeshift laboratory. In the center of the room, on a special stand, sat a fragment that glowed differently from the others—instead of steady blue light, this one pulsed with alternating blue and white light, almost like a heartbeat.
"This is it," Sarah said, handling the fragment carefully with insulated gloves. "I've modified its crystalline structure to generate a counter-resonance at exactly 437 hertz. When it comes into contact with the other fragments during activation, the conflicting frequencies should cascade through the entire array."
"Should," Kyla noted again.
"The theory is sound. Whether it works in practice..." Sarah placed the fragment in a specially padded case. "You'll need to be careful with this. Don't drop it, don't expose it to extreme temperatures, and whatever you do, don't let it touch any other fragments before you're ready. The reaction would be immediate and unpredictable."
"No pressure," Josh muttered, taking the case gingerly.
Sarah pulled out a map of City Hall. "The ceremony starts at seven PM. The mayor's speech is scheduled for eight. That's when the public areas will be most crowded. You'll need to use that as cover to reach the basement levels."
"How do we get down there?" Kyla asked. "City Hall security is pretty tight during events."
"There's a service entrance on the east side." Sarah pointed to the map. "It's usually locked, but maintenance crews use it during events. If you can get maintenance uniforms, you should be able to blend in."
"Where do we get maintenance uniforms?" Josh asked.
Sarah smiled slightly. "I may have anticipated that question." She walked to a corner of the barn and pulled out a bag. "I worked at the university for fifteen years. I know people who know people. These are official City Hall maintenance uniforms, courtesy of a friend who owed me a favor."
Kyla took the bag, impressed. "You really thought of everything."
"I've been planning for this possibility for over a year." Sarah's expression turned serious. "Once you're in the basement, you'll need to find the main mechanical room. According to building plans, it's the largest open space on the lowest level. That's where they'll set up the portal."
"And we just walk in and throw the fragment into the array?" Josh said.
"Not quite. You need to wait until activation begins. The fragments will start glowing brighter, and the air will shimmer—that's the dimensional barrier starting to weaken. You'll have approximately thirty seconds from that moment to introduce the modified fragment. Place it in the center of the array if possible. The reaction should be immediate."
"What kind of reaction?" Kyla asked nervously.
"Honestly? I'm not entirely sure. Best case scenario, the conflicting frequencies cause all the fragments to shatter, collapsing the portal permanently. Worst case scenario..." Sarah hesitated.
"Worst case?" Josh prompted.
"Worst case, the reaction causes a dimensional implosion that could level several city blocks." Sarah saw their faces and quickly added, "But that's very unlikely. Probably. The math suggests a ninety percent chance of controlled collapse."
"Ninety percent," Kyla repeated. "So there's a ten percent chance we accidentally blow up downtown?"
"More like eight percent. And that's only if everything goes perfectly wrong." Sarah didn't look particularly reassuring.
Josh set down the case. "Okay, so we break into City Hall, sneak into the basement, crash an interdimensional invasion, and hopefully don't cause an explosion. Anything else?"
"Yes." Sarah pulled out two small devices that looked like hearing aids. "These are communication earpieces. They're encrypted and should work even with the electromagnetic interference the portal will generate. Stay in contact with each other at all times."
They spent the next two hours going over every detail of the plan. Entrance routes, backup plans, what to do if they got separated, how to recognize when the portal was about to activate. By the time they left the farmhouse, Kyla's head was spinning with information.
"We can do this," Josh said as they drove back to the city. He sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as her.
"Yeah. We can do this." Kyla looked at the case containing the modified fragment. Their one shot at stopping the invasion. "Josh, if something goes wrong tonight—"
"Nothing's going to go wrong."
"But if it does, I just want you to know... this week, working with you, it's been the best week of my career. Even with all the crazy dangerous stuff. Maybe especially because of the crazy dangerous stuff."
Josh was quiet for a moment, keeping his eyes on the road. "Kyla, when this is over—when we stop the invasion and save the world—I want to take you to dinner. Like, actual dinner at a restaurant, not takeout in someone's apartment at three in the morning. A real date."
Kyla's heart did a weird little flip. "A date?"
"Yeah. If you want to, I mean. No pressure. I just... I really like you. And not just as a partner, although you're a great partner. But as a person. And I know the timing is terrible, and we've only known each other a week, and we're probably about to die fighting aliens, but I needed to say it." Josh's ears were turning red. "So, yeah. That's... that's what I wanted to tell you."
Kyla couldn't help smiling. "Josh Reeves, are you asking me out right before we potentially save the world?"
"Is that weird?"
"It's terrible timing."
"Yeah."
"But yes. When this is over, I'd like that. A real date. Maybe somewhere with actual plates instead of takeout containers."
Josh grinned, looking relieved and happy and nervous all at once. "It's a date. Or, it will be a date. After we save the world."
"After we save the world," Kyla agreed.
They spent the afternoon at Josh's apartment, changing into the maintenance uniforms and going over the plan again. The uniforms fit reasonably well, and with their hair tucked under caps, they looked pretty convincing.
At five PM, Josh ordered pizza—"Last meal before battle," he joked—and they ate while watching the news. The mayor was interviewed, talking about the ceremony tonight and his vision for Tides' future. He looked so confident, so unaware of what was really happening in his city.
"Should we warn him?" Kyla asked. "Just tell him to cancel the ceremony?"
"He wouldn't believe us. And even if he did, the Messenger would just pick another time and place. At least this way, we know when and where it's happening." Josh checked his watch. "It's almost six. We should head out soon."
Kyla felt her stomach tighten with nerves. This was it. No more planning, no more preparing. Time to actually do this.
They loaded up their gear—the modified fragment in its case, their badges and guns hidden under the maintenance uniforms, the communication earpieces, flashlights, everything they might need. Josh also grabbed a crowbar "just in case."
"Ready?" he asked at the door.
Kyla took a deep breath. "As ready as I'll ever be."
"Hey." Josh turned to face her fully. "We've got this. We're smart, we're prepared, and we're together. That's enough."
"Promise me something," Kyla said. "Promise me we both walk out of City Hall tonight. Both of us."
Josh held out his pinky finger. "Pinky promise. Both of us walk out. Then we go get that dinner."
Kyla linked her pinky with his, feeling silly and serious at the same time. "Deal."
They drove to City Hall as the sun was setting, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink. The building was beautiful in the evening light, with its classical architecture and marble columns. People were already gathering for the ceremony, dressed in nice clothes, laughing and talking. Normal people doing normal things.
If only they knew what was about to happen beneath their feet.
Josh parked three blocks away, and they walked to the east service entrance, looking as casual as possible in their maintenance uniforms. A few real maintenance workers were going in and out, and nobody gave them a second glance.
"Here we go," Josh murmured, and they slipped through the door into City Hall.
The real mission had begun.
End of Chapter 9
Hope you guys are liking this amazing story so far! Stay tuned for chapter 10!