Belief

"Dad, someone broke the computer again."

I tucked the phone between my ear and shoulder and leaned back in my chair. There was a lull in the noise, and I took advantage of it. "What do you mean, 'someone'?"

Sam sighed. At twelve, it was little more than theatrical, but I was glad he'd called me and not his mother. "Ash sent me a file for a report we're doing--"

"Oh, well, see, there's your problem." I waved to Jo, who was heading out for the day. She gave me a small smile. "The last time I fixed your computer, it was because Ashleigh gave you a virus. I told you not to accept files from her."

"Da-ad!" Now he was whining. "I gotta do the project, and her computer sucks!"

I shook my head. Ashleigh was Sam's first "girlfriend", if a twelve-year-old could have that sort of thing. She was leading him around on a leash, too. I knew girls matured faster than boys, but this was ridiculous. "I get out of here at seven," I said. "If you can get your brother to bring you and Ashleigh to the apartment, I'll make dinner and you guys can work on the project on my computer. Just check with your mom first."

Sam huffed at me. "You know what she'll say." The boy had alarming insight into the way things were between me and my ex.

"It's homework. You have to do it, and I'm sure it's due tomorrow."

"Hang on, Dad, I'll check."

"I'm sure," I said again, stressing that part, "that it's due tomorrow." Stressed that last word too.

It still took Sam a second. Not the quickest on the uptake, that boy. "You're right, Dad. It's due tomorrow. Can I come over and use your computer?"

"Sure thing. What do you want for dinner?"

"Whatever. Are you cooking?" He sounded hopeful. Michelle had never cooked when we were married.

"I could be."

"Please?"

I made that little half-chuckle-half-laugh noise that no one's bothered to name yet. "Sure, I'll cook. See you between seven and eight. And make sure," I added, "that you scan Ashleigh's stuff before you open it on my computer."

"Okay." Normally he'd have sounded long-suffering, but I think he was just happy to be having dinner at my apartment, with his girlfriend, and his mom nowhere in sight.

I'll take it. "Love you."

He grunted, but didn't say it back. I didn't bother to force him into it, either; Sam wasn't the only one celebrating. Maybe it was petty of me, but I was getting to see at least one of my sons before my official weekend. One per month, two weeks in the summer, two weeks in the winter.

At least I got that much. Some of my friends and co--workers barely saw their kids.

The phone rang. I sat up and answered it.

Back to work.

"I know Sam lied to me."

"Hello to you too."

Michelle waved toward the interior of my apartment, but I didn't invite her in. Instead I stepped out and closed the door. "Your computer was broken. He had to use mine. He told me the report was due tomorrow."

"And you believed him?"

"Why shouldn't I? Why would he lie to me about schoolwork?"

She slapped a piece of paper against my chest. I held it up to the anemic sodium-yellow light above my door.

"See?"

I shrugged. "So he lied. Is it so terrible that he asked for my help, and that I gave it to him?"

Michelle sniffed. "You bribed him to come over here. You know your computer's better than mine, and I can smell that you made him dinner." She folded her arms under her breasts; I knew that signal, and leaned against the door frame. She was settling in for an argument. "Damn it, Greg, you know the rules!"

"And I'm supposed to ignore when my kids need me just because a judge said so?" I tried to keep my voice level; I spent too many years rising to her bait. "That's bullshit, and you know it."

"It's not bullshit!" she snapped back. "You signed the papers. You had your chance, and you blew it."

I opened my mouth, then closed it. We'd been over this ground before. Back in Baltimore, when I'd been a news reporter instead of an assignment desk jockey, the station had sent me out on assignment. The court had changed our date--I didn't have any proof, but I was pretty sure Michelle had been behind it--and I hadn't found out until I got back. But she'd maintained her innocence, and I'd grown tired of her lying about her lies to me. "If Sam or Dan need my help, I'm more than happy to let them come over here so I can help them."

She sniffed again, this time even more derisive. "You've got them eating out of your hand, don't you?"

"Don't punish them, Michelle. They didn't do anything wrong."

She sputtered, but recovered. "Didn't do anything wrong?"

I held up a hand. "We're not married anymore. I don't have to listen to this. I'm going inside."

"So am I. And I'm taking Sam home with me."

"Michelle, don't be stupid. He's working on a project for school. When he's done, or when it gets close to ten, I'll bring him home. He'll be at your door by 10:30, I promise." I didn't like the plaintive tone I heard when I said that, but there was nothing I could do. "Just let it go."

"Sam comes out now," she said, almost snarling, "or I call the cops and they bring him out, and then we see what the court says about your custody arrangements."

I closed my eyes. "Thanks so much."

"For?"

"Reminding me why we're divorced."

Sam had been hustled away in a hurry, but Ashleigh has protested, saying she wanted to finish up before she left. "Can you take me home?"

"No problem," I said, flipping on the television. "Let me know when you're ready."

"Okay. Thanks."

She disappeared back down the short hallway and into the tiny room I sometimes called an office, when I was feeling charitable. Sam had left a small stack of papers on my coffee table, and I flipped on an episode of Star Trek on my DVR, more for the background noise than anything else, before shuffling through it.

"Hey, Ashleigh?"

"Yeah?" she called back.

"What's this stuff on the table?"

"Sam said it came out of his printer."

At first glance, it looked like garbage text--usually the kind that wastes a whole cartridge and half a ream of paper. Page after page of three-digit number-letter blocks that looked like halves of hex codes. Later, as I drove Ashleigh home, I asked if she recognized any of it.

"No. Sam said it's because my computer has a virus, but I've been doing all that stuff you said I should to keep it secure."

"Virus scanner?"

"Yes."

"Spyware eliminator?"

"Yeeeees." She drawled it.

"Firewall?"

"Yes! God!"

"Sorry," I said, grinning. "What was the file supposed to be?"

"Our report. I left a copy on your hard drive, in case Sam needs to work on it more." My eyebrows rose and fell. Apparently my son hadn't told his girlfriend that it was unusual for him to be at my house on a weekday. "You can look at it if you want."

"Okay." I took the Excelsior exit toward Interlachen. We stopped at the hospital to let an ambulance scream past. "So...um..."

"You don't have to talk," she said, not unkindly. "It's okay." And she took out her cell phone, clicking the keyboard, probably texting Sam.

"You see this?"

I leaned over to look at the other computer at the assignment desk. "What's up?"

Frank pointed at his monitor. "Shuttle's going back up."

"Now why do you have to do that to me?" I moved back to my own workstation. "You know how those stories make me feel."

"Oh, please, don't start. That teacher from Edina--"

"I know, Frank." My fingers slammed keys on my computer, making it rattle and shift on the scratched, pitted desk.

I hated being reminded of what I believe.

When I was five, Star Trek came on every evening at six. My dad would get home from work and we'd sit and watch it together before dinner. Some parents bond with their kids through sports, but for me and my dad it was Star Trek. Also Saturday afternoon TV on TBS--The A-Team, Knight Rider, NWA wrestling. But mostly Trek.

And at that age, I wanted to believe. I would lay in bed at night, clutching my stuffed dog and hoping that, when I woke up, I'd be on a starship, exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life-forms and new civilizations.

I wanted to believe.

I wanted to believe in a future where I could work with robots. Or join a ragtag fugitive fleet searching for a shining planet known as Earth. Or have a super-powerful car with lasers and turbo-boosters. Or even hang out with a group of ex-soldiers, on the run from the government, wanted for a crime we didn't commit. That sort of thing.

Then came real life. Kids in my high school didn't think it was cool; they thought it made me weak and stupid. And by the time I got through college, real life had taken over. Instead of the United Federation of Planets, it was United Healthcare. Instead of NCC-1701, it was 401(k). And the only Dr. McCoy I ever met wore a rubber glove and told me to lay on my side and draw my knees up.

Oh, I still believed. I still watched sci-fi shows, still saw fantasy and action movies on opening day, still tried to get my kids interested in Star Trek. But that was it. No aliens, no superheroes, no James Bond.

Just reality.

"Dude, where'd you get this?"

Ben--the IT guy--was in my passenger seat; we were headed out to lunch, and I'd given him the inch-thick stack of paper to look at while I drove.

"My son. His girlfriend sent him a file, and it printed out all this junk."

"That's crazy, man."

"Why?"

Ben handed me his iPhone. I glanced down as we waited for a light to change. "How did you get this?"

He shrugged. "Showed up when I synched this morning."

"Any of the numbers the same?"

"Haven't had a chance to look that close."

"Well, we've got time now."

Ben took back the phone. I tried to listen to the radio, but all I could do was flick my eyes in Ben's direction every few seconds. "Slow your roll," he said. "I'm checking."

After another couple of minutes, I tucked my car into a parking spot around the side of the Longhorn. "Well?"

"Don't know, dude. It's just numbers to me."

We ordered our food and Ben slid the phone across to me. I started flipping through the pages, hoping I'd see a pattern, but nothing jumped out at me.

"Yeah, you're not getting it either."

"It takes time," I said, not looking up.

"Well, your time's up."

The waitress was setting plates on the table. I handed him the phone. "Can you e-mail me that?"

"Whatever, dude."

I didn't think about the numbers until close to midnight, until I was at home on the couch, half-watching the end of a James Bond movie on Spike. The credits started rolling and I hit the saved-items button on my remote, hoping that something might be in there to put me to sleep.

Instead, all the movie names had been replaced by groupings of numbers and letters.

I snapped awake and grabbed my phone, making sure I had photographic evidence to show Ben tomorrow. I also played around a little in the DVR menu--all the options had been replaced by three-character combinations, but everything still worked normally.

Well. I couldn't leave it alone, not after that. I shut off the TV and went into my office. Google brought me a surprising number of porn sites when I dropped in a few groupings, but there were some truffles in the mud, mostly in the form of cryptography and conspiracy websites and forums. I joined one that looked promising--one would think it would be harder to get into a community of paranoid people--and read through the thread called "THR EED IGI TNU MBE RSI NMY STU FF!" Members were seeing it in their e-mail, on their phones, even when they tried to use their GPSes. I shared my own story and a few blocks of characters from the e-mail Ben forwarded me, then went to the bathroom.

When I got back, my screensaver had kicked in. But it wasn't the Windows logo floating serenely, like it was supposed to be. It was more of the number-letter blocks, slowly filling the screen until they rolled up and off.

I shifted the mouse back and forth a couple of times, then hit the space bar. Nothing. "What the hell?"

After a few more futile attempts to turn off the screensaver--and more than one failed three-finger salute--I flipped off the surge strip. The code--that's what it had to be: some sort of weird code taking over my computer--blinked off.

And as it did, my phone trilled its e-mail sound.

More numbers.

Another trill. Another bunch of numbers.

And a third time.

"This is too weird." I switched the phone's profile to silent mode, dropped it in its cradle, and went to bed. Probably not the best thing to do, but I had to be up early for work and no amount of numbers would change that.

My alarm clock flipped on, barely jolting me out of the zombielike half-slumber I'd managed after sitting up in bed for hours, poring over the papers Sam had left--was it only two days ago? I couldn't even remember, I was so exhausted.

Coffee. That would help. I ambled into the kitchen and started it up, then flicked on the little under-the--abinet TV. It was only a nine-inch set, so it was hard to see at first, but soon enough I had the big TV in the living room turned on.

In the crawl across the bottom of the screen, in between stories about gas prices and the war in Iraq and the reconstruction of 35W, I saw the numbers and letters again.

A82
10F
CC5
51C
909
BA9

"What was up with the crawl this morning?"

Anna didn't look up. "Seemed fine to me."

"Really? Nothing strange? No errors or anything?"

She grunted. "If you count Diane misspelling a bunch of words, sure, there were errors. But nothing major." Anna was the EP of the morning shows. If she didn't see it, it didn't happen. "What's up?"

"Can I borrow your DVR?"

"If you need it." She hefted herself out of her chair--it groaned a little in relief--and clumped off in the general direction of the bathroom.

I'd learned my lesson about sitting in Anna's chair; I leaned against the side of her desk instead and clicked back to 6:10, when I'd seen the numbers in the crawl.

A82
10F
CC5
51C
909
BA9
28C
8A0
219
208
72A
EBB

And so on. Except now it was the whole crawl. No lottery numbers, no weather or traffic or sports scores. Just block after block of numbers and letters, each separated by our logo.

"That's strange." Ben had come up without me noticing and was leaning over the short wall separating Anna's desk from the one next to it. "I missed it this morning."

"I was up all night trying to figure out what was going on."

"I can tell." He peered at the screen, then slammed his hand onto the desk. "Pause it!"

"What happened?" The freeze-frame looked no different than it should, except for the crawl. "You see something?"

"Maybe." He tilted his head to the side. "Go back a little."

I did. "Hey, so I joined this forum last night. Bunch of conspiracy nuts talking about seeing the numbers and letters. I posted some of ours."

He made a noise and came around, sitting in Anna's chair. A cloud of funk rose from it, but he ignored it as he remoted into his computer in IT. "Check this out," he said. "I think it's repeating."

"What?" I leaned down and scanned the screen, then ran the DVR on slow. "Holy crap. What the hell is it?"

Ben looked up at me. We were a little too close for comfort in that position, but it was the last thing on my mind. "I think it's a message."

Four hours later, over lunch in his little cave of an office--bagels scrounged from a sales presentation; neither of us felt like going out--we set laptops up like a game of Battleship and ran our number-letter combinations through a little application he'd written. "How long did this take you?"

"All morning." He rubbed his eyes. "And most of last night."

"No wonder you look so shitty. You probably slept as much as me last night."

"Well, it took me until almost 2:00 to even think of it."

"Why?"

He smirked. "I saw movie credits. First the names of the stars, then the crew, and finally everything was numbers and letters."

"Was it View to a Kill? That was on last night."

Ben didn't look at all apologetic or embarrassed as he told me what DVD he'd been watching, and he shrugged off me you-ought-to-be-ashamed glare. "Like you've never."

I didn't reply. He was right, but I wasn't going to say it. "So you copied down all the numbers?"

"Nah. I put the DVD in my computer and ripped them to my hard drive."

The bagel was a little stale, and my jaw ached as I talked around it. "What about the morning show? Did you pull that in too?"

"Yeah." There was a beep. Ben's eyebrows went up. "Check this shit out." He turned his computer around.

In a movie, I would've whistled to indicate surprise or shock. Instead, all Ben got was a quiet "holy shit."

"You believe that?"

I didn't reply.

I still wanted to believe the impossible was possible. Oh, I knew it wasn't. I knew it wasn't possible for a man to fly, or shoot heat rays from his eyes, or dodge bullets, or reverse time. Deep in my heart of hearts, I hoped I was wrong, but I'd long since downgraded my expectations. And aliens? At first, I'd hoped to be an astronaut or end up in Starfleet so I could meet them, but now I had a mental picture of aliens in earth orbit, laughing at us. Or planning to invade. If they wanted to take over, we wouldn't be able to stop them, and at the rate we were going, sending Roman candles into space instead of actual starships, we'd never get to their planets.

For years, I hadn't even considered that any alien race might want anything to do with us.

But there it was on Ben's computer screen:

IF YOU CAN READ THIS MESSAGE ACCEPT OUR GREETINGS ATTEND THE SPORTING CONTEST BETWEEN THE TWINS OF MINNESOTA AND THE DEVIL RAYS OF FLORIDA ON THE 194TH DAY OF THE HUMAN CALENDAR YEAR INFORM YOUR COMRADES SO THEY MAY WITNESS THIS EVENT

"What. In. The. Hell?"

"Yeah, really." Ben forced a laugh. "Who goes to Twins games, anyway? Couple months, they could've seen some football."

"Yeah." I didn't remember picking up my bagel, but there it was in my hand. I put it back down. "I wonder why they're talking to us this way."

"No idea. Maybe they can only talk to our computers? Like, maybe they don't talk? Or maybe they're deaf or something."

"It could be anything," I said slowly. "Maybe they're telepaths, or they come from a planet where the air is too thin and sound doesn't carry..." But I trailed off. "I have no idea."

"We going to tell anyone?" He didn't usually sound this thoughtful. "I mean, who would believe us anyway, right?"

I shook my head, a couple of quick jerks. "Has anyone mentioned this to you?"

"Huh-uh. What about that forum you joined?"

I refreshed the page on my laptop. "No one yet, but one guy says he thinks he's close. Most everyone else says it's a hoax."

"No way, dude. No way."

I definitely agreed with him on that. "So, what, do we get tickets to the game and just show up?"

"I guess." He turned his computer around. "You buying?"

"I'll write you a check." I paused. "You think my kids might want to come?"

Ben slowly closed his laptop. "You're kidding, right?"

"I dunno, man." Another refresh; nothing new. "I mean, this could be historic, right? Aliens landing on earth...would they forgive me if they weren't there to see it?"

He sighed. "Okay, A? We don't think it's a hoax, but what if it is? B, terrorists. C, maybe the aliens are just trying to get us all in one place so they can blow us away or probe us all at once or whatever. D, that's a Friday and it's not your weekend to see them anyway, so do you really think your wife's just going to roll over and let you take them to a game? Do they even like baseball?"

"Dan played little league," I said. "Sam doesn't like sports. But he'd come if I was there."

"How sweet." Ben's voice didn't lend itself to sarcasm. "Seriously, not a good idea."

"Why not? We've agreed it's not a hoax. I'm pretty damn sure it's not terrorists, and as for them blowing us up?" I shrugged. "If they were going to kill us, I bet the message would've been more attractive. This is just, like, 'come see us, please,' not 'if you come see us, we'll make you rich'."

"But what about Michelle?"

"Maybe we can work something out. Go ahead and get four. Five, if your girlfriend is coming."

"Nah. She hates baseball."

"Okay. I'll talk to Michelle."

"Good luck."

"Out of the question."

"Oh, come on, Michelle, it's one damn night!"

She sucked her cigarette like she was mad at it instead of mad at me, then blew the smoke in my direction. "It's not your weekend. Hell, even if it was, you don't get Fridays. You get Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning."

I took a couple of steps away--not because of the smoke; I just didn't want to be that close to her. "Look, Ben won the tickets, so it's not like there's money involved." A small lie, but it wasn't as if Michelle had never lied to me. "It's just something nice he wants to do. Why can't you accept that?"

Michelle dragged down the last of the cigarette, then flicked it out into the parking lot. "It's very simple, Greg. If the game was next month, or on a Saturday or Sunday, you could take them. But Friday? No. No way."

"Can we work out a trade?"

She fingered the pocket of her slacks; there was a rectangular bump in one pocket that I figured was her pack. "You couldn't have found a better time?"

"You don't return my calls or e-mails, and the last time I went to your house, you called the cops on me for dropping off a book Sam forgot. This is all I had." I stopped pacing. "Oh, smoke another one if you want, I don't care!" that old snap, the same one I'd had so often toward the end of our marriage. Apparently I hadn't forgotten about it. "When'd you start that, anyway?"

"Why do you care?" She didn't pull out another cigarette, just her lighter, which she turned around and around in her fingers.

"I don't need my kids getting sick from your smoke. At least you do it outside, right?" She gave me a sharp look. "Hey, I'm sure a judge would be thrilled to hear the primary caretaker started smoking after the divorce. I may not make as much money as you and Randy," I said; she winced when I mentioned her new husband, "but I do have a three-bedroom apartment. Plenty of room."

The lighter stopped spinning. "Whatever," she murmured. "Get them home by noon on Saturday."

It was juvenile of me--and I knew it--but as I cut into traffic on the way out of the parking lot, I replayed that moment in my head. I finally had some leverage over her, and I could use it.

Not even her nastygram text--"u owe me 1 day of ur 2 wks in dec"--could deflate my mood. Aliens coming to Minneapolis and a victory over Michelle? Best day of the year so far.

The seats were very good--tenth row, a little bit past third base--and Sam, at least, was impressed. I could tell Dan would rather have been out with his friends instead of at a baseball game with his father, especially on a Friday night, but at least he was keeping it to himself.

"Where's the bathroom?" Sam asked halfway through the bottom of the third."

"Uh..."

"I'm heading up," Ben said. "I'll show him."

"You cool with that?"

Sam shrugged, imitating Dan, who, if he noticed it, didn't show it.

"All right. Bring me back some nuts." Ben gave me that goofy grin that said he was about to make an inappropriate joke, and I rolled my eyes. "Yes, yes, deez nuts, I want deez nuts, now get out of here."

Ben looked like he wanted to pout--he hated when people stole his punchlines--but trooped up the stairs with Sam.

"Very droll, Dad," Dan said.

"Thanks. Glad you like it."

"Eh."

There was a crack, and we both turned back to the field to see one of the Twins knock one into left-center. "So, Dad," Dan said after a gulp of soda, "what's up?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," he said, "why'd you fight Mom so hard for us to come with you to this game?"

"You think I can afford tickets this good on my own?"

"I don't know. You work in TV."

"Right." I took a hit off my own soda. "Short answer: Ben won the tickets, Ben and I are friends, and he invited us."

"Cool," Dan said, but in that unenthusiastic way all teenagers seemed to say it.

The inning ended. The Twins trotted out onto the field. It wasn't until the second batter made it up to the plate that Dan, rather idly, not even looking my way, asked what the long answer was.

My head snapped up--I'd been watching a pretty girl in an unflattering top sidle her way across the sixth row. "What do you mean?"

"What's the long answer?" Now he was looking at me.

And Sam was back too. "Long answer? What's the question?" He dropped into his seat next to me and handed me a plastic bag of peanuts. "Come on, Dad," he said, lips pressed together in disapproval. "You tell Dan all the good stuff, but not me. What's up with that?"

"Do people still say that?" I asked, trying to stall.

"Da-ad."

Crap. "Ben?"

Ben shrugged. "All yours, dude. I'm just here for the baseball."

"You're full of shit."

Sam looked scandalized--had I really never cursed in front of him before?--but I could tell neither he nor Dan were going to let it go.

I took a breath and looked up at the top of the dome. In a perfect world--or a movie--whatever was going to happen would've happened at that exact moment.

In this world, though, it took until I'd explained about the crawl on the morning news.

All around us, people were shouting, running for the exits, taking photos and videos with all kinds of cell phones. Sam looked like he wanted to bold; Ben and Dan were with the cell phone crowd.

I put a hand on Sam's shoulder. "It's okay, son. It's okay."

"Okay?" His voice was an octave too high. "Dad, what is that thing, and what's it doing in the middle of the field?"

I looked at the infield; the players had scattered, back to the catacombs of the building, somewhere under our seats. The ship--it had to be a ship; it couldn't be anything else--had appeared out of nowhere. No noise, no lasers cutting open a hole in the dome, no thrusters burning the grass. I'd been looking at the girl again until someone had yelled "What the fuck is that?"

The thing was about as big as the infield itself, rectangular, maybe five or six stories high. I flashed instantly on Borg ships, but this couldn't be the Borg. A, they were fictional, and B, whoever these people or aliens or whatever turned out to be, they had at least bothered to put windows and doors on the ship. Parts of it--looked like exhaust ports to me--were still glowing reddish with heat. The ship itself was a deep, silvery color, and it didn't reflect light. Flashes from photographers didn't shine back off the skin of the ship, but there were slight flickers of reflection from the windows.

"Dad," Dan said slowly, eyes wide and fixed on the ship. "What. The fuck. Did you bring us here for?"

"Don't curse," I said automatically, my own eyes examining the ship.

"No, Dad, I think I deserve a fuck or two here." He looked at me, and he looked pissed. "You got some weird messages, figured out what they meant, and decided you wanted me and Sam to be here when aliens invaded our planet? Is that it, Dad? Is it?"

"Damn it, Dan!" I snapped, finally looking at him. "Don't you get it? This is...it's..."

Ben picked up when I stammered out. "It's history, dude. It's like, where were you on 9/11, or where was your grandpa when Kennedy got shot, or when we landed on the moon. Stuff like this, you'll want to say you were there. Your kids will think you're awesome."

"My kids?" He looked past me and I turned; Sam's knuckles were white where he squeezed the arms of his seat. "How many kids in here tonight, Ben?"

Sam's face was as white as his knuckles, brown eyes wide and glittering. "I want to go home, Dad." His voice was very, very small.

I put my arm over his shoulders and tried to pull him to me. "It'll be okay, Sam. I'm sure it's safe. They...um...probably just needed a way into the dome." I smiled, but it felt fake, even to me. "Maybe if they waited a couple of years, they could've just come into the new stadium without worrying about the roof, right?"

"That's not funny," Dan said, almost snarling. "Come on, Sam. Let's get out of here."

"Where are you going to go? I drove."

He held out his hand. "Give me your keys, then. Your new alien friends--" and he choked on the word "--can give you a ride home."

"Dan, come on!" I pointed toward the ship. "They sent us a message. Look around you, and think about the people you passed on the way in. How many of them looked like real baseball fans?" He glowered, but I pushed on. "A lot of people got this message. Why would aliens bother to tell us they were coming if they were going to kill us all?"

He shook his head. "Give me the damn keys, Dad."

I glanced at Ben, who shrugged again. "Dan," I said, "please, don't go. This is important."

"Important to you, maybe." He waved in the general direction of the rows of seats behind us. "Look around you, Dad," he said, parroting my words and my tone. "People are getting the hell out of here. They're scared. Even your conspiracy-theory buddies aren't staying."

"I--"

But Dan kept going, raising his voice right over mine. "I don't care who's in the ship! I don't care if they're here to give us warp drive or the cure for AIDS or what! You just dragged me and Sam with you because you don't think aliens can be evil! Come on, Dad, I watch movies just like you, but you're an optimist and I'm not!"

"Dan..."

He got up and crossed in front of me to put his hand on Sam's arm. "Come on, bro. We're going."

"Sam...you know I wouldn't put you in danger..."

"I'm scared, Dad," Sam said. "I want Mom."

I swallowed hard around the lump in my throat. "Sam..."

He let Dan pull him to his feet. Dan held out his hand again. "Keys, Dad."

I gave them to him. "Here."

"Thanks." He didn't sound appreciative, just sad. "Good luck."

The stadium had been empty enough by that point that Dan and Sam had no trouble getting out of the stands. I hoped they'd be okay on the concourse level.

"Dude, that was harsh." Ben had his phone out, probably on the internet.

"Yeah." My own phone was vibrating in my pocket; I put it to my ear. "Hello?"

"What the hell is going on over there?"

"Yeah, Michelle, have to call you back in a few minutes," I said, voice dull.

"What about Sam? What about Dan? What the hell--"

I ended the call.

"Hey, Greg?"

"What?"

"Check this out." He handed over his phone; the CNN app was open. "Dude, every baseball game in the country has one of these things at it. It's not just here."

"Really?"

"Really!" His forehead was starting to shine with sweat. "I gotta get out of here. Something's not right."

"Fine. Go."

"Come on, Greg, let's get the hell out of here before it's too late!"

"You go ahead." I turned back to the ship. "I'm going to see what happens."

He muttered something and ran for it.

I don't know how long I sat there, watching the ship, waiting for something to happen. My phone was vibrating non-stop in my pocket, but I ignored it. There were a few people still in the stands; I ignored them too.

The ship would open. The aliens would come out. They would be benevolent. We would learn so much from them. We would go into space and join a peaceful federation of other starfaring cultures. We would--

"Citizens of Minneapolis, Minnesota."

It was coming over the speakers in the stadium. It was displayed in all capitals on the jumbotron.

"Please form an orderly queue and make your way to our transport. You will receive further instructions once inside."

I looked around. No one was closer to the field than I was, not now. I jogged down the stairs and jumped the railing; a door had opened in the side of the ship, and I made for it. I couldn't see what was inside, but I didn't care.

I believed.

Josh Roseman (not the trombonist; the other one) is a writer whose fiction has most recently appeared in Asimov's, Big Pulp, and Port Iris, and whose nonfiction appears regularly on Escape Pod. Visit him online at roseplusman.com, or find him on Twitter @listener42.