CTRL-ALT

The first time Davina Vidal faded was a cool September night. There were fireflies blinking across the lawn. Crickets serenaded the neighborhood backyards. She remembered how she always used to think the equinox was so cool. Just the word itself made it somehow sound otherworldly. Ironic. Her friend Skye was following this new punk band called CTRL-ALT and she convinced Davina to come over after softball practice for their album release. Punk was definitely not Davina's scene. She was an old soul who grew up on her dad's Motown LPs.

Skye was adamant. "Come on! Dad's making lumpia, adobo, garlic rice. You can't say no to that!" Skye's father used to run a restaurant that was pretty popular. She knew it was the best way to entice Davina. She wasn't wrong.

They chatted with Skye's parents through dinner. The usual... "How's school?" "When's your next game?" "Where's Aaaannndreee?" Ugh. So embarrassing... Andre was definitely not about to come up in casual conversation with Skye's parents.

Davina pivoted on the spot, "When's the show start, Skye?"

"Oh, yeah!" Skye checked her phone. "It's cool, we got 20 minutes."

"What if they go behind the scenes before the live event?" Davina had more than enough chit-chat already. "Or maybe a fan page with chat boards and merch. Let's go! Need any help with the dishes, Mr. Mendoza?"

"No, that's okay, Davina. But thank you," Mrs. Mendoza said. "You girls get your jams on. Not too loud!"

"Get our jams on, Mom? Wow." Skye teased.

"You're too cool for your own good," Davina laughed. "We need lessons when we're older." They all laughed. Shaking her head, Davina got up from the table. "Thanks! So yummy!"

Skye blew kisses as they left the table and headed to the kitchen. Ice cream and cookies ready, they went out back and waited for CTRL-ALT to start. Cozied up in two big Adirondack chairs by the fire pit, they listened to the band's lead singer grinding out the lyrics.

" Where did you went?

Why on Earth, did you go?

Who am I, who are them?

How will we, ever know?

When will it stop?

Why and how, out of place?

What are those, status quos?

Where is this, outer space?"

The iPad dropped from Davina's hands. Not from her hands... Rather... Through her hands? "What is this?" It was as if she dematerialized and everything else stayed in place. Davina turned to Skye who mirrored her own startled look as a weightlessness (not of body but "soul") pulled her toward a void away from herself. Panic took hold and then, quick as a flipped switch, they found themselves in a static fuzz resembling a sprawling metropolis of concrete grey monochrome.

Amidst a bustling, frantic, and rapidly increasing populace, they hurtled down side streets and through mass transit tunnels at a pace they had no ability to control. Like being in fast-forward. Others popped into their field of vision out of nowhere like kernels of Orville Redenbacher's. They were shuffled into an urban center and fitted with cubic graphite devices on carbon fiber chain links clamped around their necks.

An automated voice boomed over a PA system.

"Welcome, Helio Savants. Do not be alarmed. You are safe and in good health. Your physical vessels are presently occupying massless space in the precise locations from which you were each respectively harvested. We've managed to isolate your unique ancestral phylogenetic radiance in direct correlation to your specified frequency of heliotropism. The static-altering diffusion devices you've been assigned emit frequency variance that is congruent to your individual heliotropic resonance. They must be worn at all times. You may encase them to suit your personal stylistic preferences, but their integrity must not be compromised or you may irradiate into the ether. You may recall nothing upon return to your corporeal vessels, but in time this may change. You will soon be returned to your corporeal vessels for the next iteration. In the Interim, you are all lights. Prepare for noncorporeal sustenance --"

Butterflies twisted through their tummies as vague disorientation shifted into an unnerving hyper-awareness of the alternate physics that governed this space. Davina would say it was like they had all the software updates installed to function within this ALT world after a reboot. The entire population of what would come to be known as the Interim would later report their individual experiences felt the same--

Dawn broke. "What happened?" Davina rubbed her eyes and turned toward Skye who began stirring in the Adirondack next to her. The first wisps of light were creeping into the darkness above, and both Skye and Davina felt the suddenness of their equilibrium shift.

Must've fell asleep. Why'd Skye's parents leave us out here all night?, Davina thought.

"Man, I slept like the dead!", Skye muttered through a gaping yawn.

Davina agreed, "Ugh. Sames, dude. What the heck?"

They padded into the kitchen through the patio doors, startled to see Skye's parents asleep on the couch in the adjacent family room.

"Mom? Dad?" Skye yawned.

Eyes flashing open, the Mendozas leapt from the couch and came tearing into the kitchen, nearly tackling Skye in their elation.

"Baby, baby! Oh, my God! Where have you been?", cried Mr. Mendoza.

Mrs. Mendoza wept shakily, grasping at Skye's hair and reaching out for Davina's hand. "Where you went? Oh, God, thank you, God. Thank you! We were so worried! Oh, my God. Thank you, God!" She broke down and fell to her knees weeping.

Mr. Mendoza clutched Davina's shoulder. "It's been all over the news all night. Everyone everywhere has been reporting missing children. Kids disappeared. Everywhere! What happened? Where WERE you two?"

Davina was confused. "We must have fallen asleep out back. Why didn't you just come out and wake us up? I mean... you knew we were watching the album release. I don't remember. After the first song, but... I mean... We must’ve fallen asleep. Skye?"

Skye was barely there. Seeing her parents in hysterics had taken the spark out of her eyes and she stared into the backyard where pillows and throws sat in heaps across the Adirondacks next to melted bowls of ice cream. "What do you mean 'everywhere'?", Skye asked.

Mr. Mendoza walked over to the family room. "Your band too. Those guys were on the news, the music guys you were watching last night? They were in the middle of their show and POOF, gone. Just like that. They have video." He turned on the TV.

Images of joyous families were seen embracing as he flipped stations. His laughter turned to tears of relief. "They're back?" He laughed. "The kids, they're back! They’re all back…" The weight of the moment overwhelmed him. He dropped the TV remote and staggered back to the kitchen, pulling Davina, too, into a familial embrace. "You're back. Thank God, you're back. It's over. You're back..."

Mrs. Mendoza stepped back and touched a strange little trinket hanging from a chain around Skye's neck. She looked over and noticed Davina had one too. "Is this from the music guys' fan club or something?"

Davina and Skye shared a look of bewilderment and fear as they felt the strange chains resting on their collarbones.

Skye traced around the periphery of hers. "There's no clasp..."

"Um, I should call my mom," Davina said.

Mr. Mendoza's eyes popped open in alarm. "Your mama! She's here! Oh, I'm sorry, honey. She's in the guest room, go see her! Oh, I'm so sorry."

Davina held back sobs, emotional from the chaos of her waking moments this morning, as she crossed the family room. Arriving at the bedroom, she found her mother asleep on her stomach. She hustled to the bedside, shaking her awake. "Mom. Mom!"

Evie woke with an irritated grunt. Then she remembered the night prior and spun to a seated position in one quick motion, clutching her daughter's face in both hands, staring wide-eyed into Davina's soul. "MIJA! Oh, Mija! Oh, baby girl! My baby! Oh!" She sucked in the sweetest breath of air and wrapped her arms around Davina, pulling her into the bed next to her. She peppered her face with rapid little kissing pecks as she bounced on the bedsprings. "Where you go, Mija?! What happened? Oh, my God, we were so worried! Everyone's going crazy! Where you been?"

Davina... didn't know.

The news media had put their own spin on things, unabashedly capitalizing on the obviously traumatic nature of the unprecedented event. When all the kids from that first night "disappeared" again the next night, the press went to work coining phrases and framing the phenomenon for content creation and marketing angles.

One particular interview with a doomsday zealot from a fringe religious sect went viral and seemed to be responsible for the naming convention most of the English-speaking world adopted. The Sombering. Somehow things like this almost need a name. This is the one that stuck.

For the Helio Savants (known as "Faders" to the "Grounded" on Earth), life carried on. Infrastructure was redeveloped wherever possible to ensure no Fader caught off guard by approaching dusk would be whisked away to the Interim from an unknown place. To the research sector, every evening offered an opportunity to learn more about the connection between the Interim and Earth. Most of that early study had centered around the carbon-graphite medallions each of the Faders returned with. Faders became the objects of endless questions and intrusive inspection, gross misunderstandings and myopic attempts at uncouth "compliments."

Navigating the Interim without having been prepared for the culture shock was hard enough. As that first dusk turned into weeks and months of dusk after dusk, Skye and Davina had become one another's gravity. Because they knew each other so well, they didn’t get marginalized early on and alienated like some of the Helio Savants tended to be when they didn’t know anyone in the Fadelings quadrant. (They'd all self-ascribed an entire subculture of vernacular during their many dusks.)

As snippets of memory began to come to light for some of the Interim kids, the incentive to share them became less attractive as most became subject to a barrage of questions and testing procedures. Davina had managed to keep strict confidence with Skye and they were beginning to put some pieces of the puzzle together. They had to be cautious about their Internet use. Every Fader was most likely under constant government surveillance. Definitely.

Moving through the clip-in channels that lined the underground system expanded from the old LA subway tunnels, she checked her watch. She'd fashioned the heart-shaped locket her father had given her before he died into a little makeshift housing unit for her Helio Cube. Now it hung against her chest beneath her jumpsuit, jostling lightly as she moved. She liked that. How she was able to transform a constant reminder of trauma into fond memories of love and joy, and simpler times. An hour till sundown.

Mom was making butter noodles with pepper again. "Good home cookin'," as she liked to say. "Good grief" was more like it. Davina chuckled. She loved her mother, but her optimism could be a lot sometimes. They were still broke, without answers, and it vexed her. No matter how desperately the Grounded wanted to frame it in a different light, things were NOT okay. They don't get it, Davina repeated to herself. They couldn't possibly.

Scientists wanted purpose; the media wanted sensation. It was anybody's guess what the government and military wanted. Everything? Control.

Skye and Davina were onto something else. Each dusk had them climbing the ladder of hierarchy in the Interim. There was a labyrinthine syndicate at the heart of this whole thing, and they were laser-focused on getting to the bottom of it. Davina mused: In time...