I started work on my father. I wheedled and begged and demanded, and he just laughed. For three whole days, I used begging as a way to avoid thinking of Tesla. For three days, my father shook his head.
I cried myself to sleep and wallowed in my guilt every night, and when I woke, I cried more. I stopped leaving the apt. I stopped eating. My mother and I sat all day, staring out the window. I stopped talking.
One morning, after my father had left, I dragged a stool to the window and pressed my face against it. My mother clattered around behind me.
"Go," my mother said.
I gave a squeak and turned around. My mother had folded my clothes in a neat pile and had laid a canvas bag beside it. She had the vid remote in her hand, and on the screen was a waiver for me to go to school. We locked eyes for a moment, and I moved to go to her, but she turned and stormed into the kitchen and started to clean the cupboards, silent again.
I left that day.
#
The saucers lift off to-the-second on-time. The crowd, which has grown, sighs collectively as the saucers disappear over the haze, then a fine mist of solvent rains down on our heads. It's as salty as sea-water, and the bat-house trembles as it begins to melt. Streams of salty water course down its sides.
The top of the building comes into view, the saucers chasing it down as it dissolves, spraying a steady blast of solvent.
I tense as the building's top reaches what I estimate to be 150. My calves bunch and my breath catches in my chest. I feel like I'm drowning, and the building's top crawls downwards, and my feet are sloshing to the ankles in dissolved foam, that runs off into the sewers.