Lawrence, Kansas
There was the blackness of space, beautiful and mysterious, strewn with a billion stars. Atop a building, a wrought-iron sign - a giant spinning sword - spun listlessly in the wind as a swirling breeze kicked up. A hint of what was to come.
A main street extended in this one-horse town, set amid endless flat, arid scrubland. A large SUV slowly moved down the street and heads out of town.
The SUV sat parked in the desert. Suddenly, the roof panels of the SUV folded open. The underside of the panels housed a variety of hand-built astronomical equipment, which now pointed at the sky.
Kurisuta Selvig popped her head through the roof. Kuri had long straight hair with bits of hair framed inward towards her face. There was a split in the middle of her widow's peak and she let a streak of hair on both sides frame her face in front of her shoulders. Her eyes were blue and her skin was pale. She had a star shaped birthmark on her forehead, a little to the right. She wore a gold pentacle around her neck.
"Hurry!" Kurisuta said. "This is where I saw the shooting star!"
She positioned one of her father's magnetometers, so its monitor calibrated with the constellations above. It appears to be cobbled together from spare parts of other devices.
There was a loud BANG followed by muffled cursing from below. Kurisuta offered a hand down to Erik Selvig, her father, who emerged as well, rubbing his head.
"Oh- watch your head, Dad." Kurisuta said. "So what's this "anomaly" of yours supposed to look like?"
"It's a little different each time. Once it looked like, I don't know, melted stars, pooling in a corner of the sky. But last week it was a rolling rainbow ribbon-" Erik said.
"Racing "˜round Orion?" I've always said you should have been a poet." Kurisuta said.
Kurisuta reigned in her excitement. She tried for dignity.
"Hey, sis. Pass up the bubbly and my gloves, will you?" Kurisuta said.
Reiko Hikawa handed Kurisuta a bottle of Champagne and a pair of gloves through the window. Reiko looked like Kurisuta in the face and body shape, but that's where the similarities ended. Her hair was fierce red, and her eyes were bright green and her skin was even paler than her sister's, with a smattering of freckles.
Kurisuta passed the champagne to Selvig to hold while she pulled on the old gloves - too small for her hands. He started to unwrap the foil, and she stopped his hand with an excited grin.
"Not until you see it!" Kurisuta said.
"I recognize those." Erik said about the gloves. "Think how proud she'd be to see you now. Kurisuta's grin faded to a sad smile.
"Thank you." Kurisuta said.
"For what?" Erik said.
"The benefit of the doubt." Kurisuta said.
The two stared out at the sky expectantly. A long beat while they scanned the skies. Nothing. Kurisuta was worried.
"It's never taken this long before." Selvig said.
Rei called up from the front seat. "Can I turn on the radio?"
"Sure, if you like rocking out to KFRM, "All agriculture, all the time." Worried, Kurisuta headed back down into the vehicle.
The SUV was bathed in the glow of high-tech monitoring equipment and laptops, some looking like they're held together with duct tape. Kurisuta opened a well-worn notebook of handwritten notes and calculations. Selvig watched the frustrated Kurisuta with sympathy.
"The anomalies are always precipitated by geomagnetic storms." Kurisuta said.
She showed him a complicated chart she'd drawn in the book, tracking occurrences and patterns.
"The last seventeen occurrences have been predictable to the minute... I just don't understand." Selvig said.
Something caught Rei's eye out the driver's side mirror. She adjusted it. In the distance, odd glowing clouds formed in the skies over the Northeastern end of the desert.
"Sister?" Rei said.
Kurisuta shushed her, leafed through her notes. The bottle of champagne began to vibrate.
"There's got to be some new variable... Or an equipment malfunction..." Selvig said.
The lights and equipment in the SUV began to flicker around them. The computer monitors squelched with static.
"I don't think there's anything wrong with your equipment..." Rei said.
The champagne bottle started to rattle noisily now as it shook more violently. Kurisuta and Selvig noticed.
"They watch it curiously, pressure building up inside it, when the cork exploded out of it. Champagne went spewing everywhere - over equipment, over Kurisuta.
"Sis?" Rei said.
"What?!" Kurisuta said.
"I think you want to see this." Rei said.
Rei pointed out the window. Kurisuta and Selvig looked out. Over the desert - massive clouds of rainbow light churned in the sky. The three stared, dumbfounded.
"Holy. Shatner." Kurisuta said."That's your "subtle" aurora?!"
"No- yes! Let's go!" Selvig said.
"The roof panels still open, the SUV raced towards the strange event, Kurisuta, amazed by the sight, stood with half her body out the roof, taking video of the light storm before them. The SUV hit a bump. Kurisuta nearly flew out. Selvig grabbed her, yanking her back in.
Kurisuta grinned, thrilled, pumped with adrenaline.
"Isn't this great?!" A thought struck her. "You're seeing it too, right? I'm not crazy?"
"That's debatable. Put your seat belt on!" Selvig said.
The SUV lurched.
Winds howled around the SUV now. Up ahead, spiraling down from out of the clouds came -an enormous tornado, suffuse with the strange rainbow light, roaring like thousand freight trains as it touches down.
Selvig looked up through the still-open sunroof at the enormous glowing funnel cloud with wonder. Kurisuta clambered into the front seat, beside Rei. She leaned way out the window, taping the storm.
"You've gotta get us closer so I can take a magnetic reading." Selvig said.
"Yeah, right! Good one!" Rei laughed at first, then realized. "Oh God, you're serious..."
"Are you my daughter or aren't you?" Selvig said.
The SUV tore across a field towards the tornado, Kurisuta leaning out the window, taping the event. The SUV disturbed two ravens perched on a cactus as they race past. The birds took flight, when - KRAKABOOM! A huge ice storm struck down through the center of the funnel cloud before them with a terrifying intensity.
The SUV rocked from the blast. Rei had enough. She turned the wheel, started to head away.
"What are you doing?!" Kurisuta asked.
"Saving our lives!" Rei replied.
Kurisuta grabbed the wheel, jerked it hard the other way. They struggled for control, when the headlights fall on -a man directly in their path, stumbling through the winds. Rei slammed on the brakes, Kurisuta turned the wheel hard to avoid him. The SUV swerved - but too late.
The side of the SUV slams into the man with a thud, sending him flying. The car skidded to a stop.
Kurisuta, Rei, and Selvig traded shocked looks, breathing hard. They peered through the dust clouds, unable to see through.
A paralyzed moment, then they all leapt out of the car.
The three raced from the SUV with flashlights. Kurisuta spotted the man lying on the ground. He was dressed in tattered clothing, charred and blackened.
"I think that was legally your fault." Rei said.
"Get the first aid kit." Kurisuta said.
Rei headed back inside the SUV as Kurisuta, concerned, knelt next to the man. Selvig hovered, protectively.
She gently turned his head to the light, and she saw him clearly for the first time. He was magnificently handsome, with raven hair that went passed his shoulders. His pale skin contrasted with his hazel green eyes and thin light pink lips. His tattered clothes were all in green.
Kurisuta cupped her hands around his face, as if willing the life back into him.
"Come on. Do me a favor and don't be dead, okay? Open your eyes and look at me." Kurisuta whispered.
Suddenly, he groaned, and she's startled, then relieved, as his eyes fluttered open. She looks deep into his confused, dark blue eyes, which at last focused on her own. Locking onto them, for a moment, they each forget to breathe.
The connection was broken as Rei returned with the kit. She froze when she saw how gorgeous the man was.
"Wow. Does he need CPR? Because I know CPR." Rei said.
A flustered Kurisuta smoothed her hair and sat back on her heels. She looked up at Selvig.
"His eyes-" Kurisuta began.
"-are beautiful." Rei said dreamily.
"-are dilating. That's a good sign." Kurisuta said.
"We still have to get him to a hospital." Selvig said.
"After we get a reading on the storm?" Kurisuta said hopefully.
"Immediately, Kurisuta." Selvig said.
Kurisuta sighed and nodded, regretfully watching the storm evaporate above their heads. A thought struck her. "Where did he come from?"
They exchanged puzzled looks.