"It didn't work."
I looked up from where I was (still) sitting against the wall in the middle of the hallway, to see Julius standing in front of me with a grim look on his face.
My heart sunk, as I knew immediately what he was talking about. I knew that it wouldn't work, but I guess there was still a small part of me that was just daring to hope that it would, and this would all be over. But of course, its never that easy. I mean, in every movie I've ever seen, it takes them at least like five tries, plus a stupid plan that includes something ridiculous like going into space or something, before the protagonists finally defeat the threat.
"Of course it didn't work," I muttered, pushing myself off of the floor. "Anytime someone resorts to going nuclear to try and solve a problem, all it does is create even more problems. You'd think that someone would catch onto the pattern by now."
I rolled my eyes as I spoke.
"Well, I suppose we had no other plans," Julius offered in defense of the President and his staff.
I scoffed. "Yes, well, maybe if the brain power between all of the people in the White House actually added up to more than a teaspoon, that might not have been the case."
I sighed and rubbed my hands across my face. "Sorry, just pessimistic right now. When I don't know what to do, I just result to sarcasm and insulting everyone in the room. It doesn't necessarily help, but it makes the situation a little funnier and more bearable, at least," I joked.
Julius cracked a small grin. "Well, you and David figured out the signal in the first place, if anyone can come up with a plan to save the world, it's you two," he encouraged, looking possibly hopeful.
I shook my head grimly, and shifted my weight to my other foot. "I don't think there's anything else we can do."
"Don't give up so easily," Julius warned. "Keep that brain ticking, I'm going to find David before he does something stupid."
I laughed. "He does tend to do that, doesn't he?"
He grinned back at me. "I swear, that comes from his mother, not me," he joked, then turned around and walked away.
I sighed, and almost wanted to sit back down against the wall and pretend that none of this was happening. But I knew that it was down to the last chance before the whole world could be destroyed, and none of us could afford to give up now.
So I began pacing, forcing myself to slowly think over everything that we knew about the aliens, and everything that had happened, hoping that I might stumble across something that could help us all survive.
They can't speak vocally with each other like we do, they speak telepathically...No, that's useless, that doesn't help.
They have shields, so we can't even land a bloody hit on them, meanwhile they're picking us off like sitting ducks.....That's relevant, might be useful, I'll come back to that.
Much like we use radios to communicate, they used a signal to correspond the attack across the world, the signal that David and I found....the signal used our satellites to bounce off of and make its way around the world, but it had to have originated from somewhere...
THE MOTHER SHIP! Right when everything started, there was a giant ship the passed the moon, from which all of the "smaller" detached to fly over the cities. The signal must have originated from the mother ship, and as the smaller ships positioned themselves around the world, where there was no longer a direct line of sight, then they used our satellites to convey the signal.
So they hacked our satellites to use it against us....
I rubbed my face in frustration as I continued to pace. Somehow, everything was connected, but I didn't know how. It felt like there was one missing puzzle piece that I couldn't quite find, but it was the only way that everything would fit together.

Okay....so, forget the signal, the problem right now is the shields...we can't fight back or defend ourselves because nothing will get past the shields, not even a nuclear bomb, which is obviously a testament to the shields strength...
So to be able to attack, we need the shields gone...but how the hell do we do that...
Shields.....signal....shields.....satellites....signal....mother ship....shields....signal....hacking....mother ship....
OH MY GOD!!!
I smacked myself on the forehead. How could I have been so stupid?? It was so obvious!
The signal on the dashboard of the spaceship here in the base was similar to the earlier signal, but not the same, and at the time, David and I had no idea what that signal might have been for, but we just ignored it at the time.
Now, it suddenly all made sense, and I cursed myself for not seeing it earlier.
I had to find David.
I began running towards the room where the spaceship was, hoping that maybe that's where I could find David. Even if he wasn't in there, that was the best place for me to at least start planning and figuring out how this whole crazy plan might actually work.
I was surprised at myself for being able to remember the way back to the room, especially considering just a little bit earlier, it took a good ten minutes for me to find my way from that room to the break room.
This time, it had only been about a minute, and I was just rounding the last corner into the hallway that the spaceship room was off of. As I turned the corner, still running as fast as I could, I ran smack into someone's chest, effectively knocking myself straight back onto my butt.
I was about to get annoyed at whoever had knocked me over, but then I looked up and saw that it was exactly the man that I had been looking for.
Considering the couple conversations I had just had not long ago, if I ran into David under any other circumstances than this, I would be blushing furiously and fumbling for words.
Right now though, that wasn't what was on my mind.
I scrambled back to my feet, and as soon as I did, David grabbed me by shoulders.
"I have an idea!!"
We both closed our mouths and looked at each other curiously after our simultaneous outbursts.
"We have to give it a virus."
"We've gotta hack the mother ship."
Both of our faces split into large grins. We probably looked like mad scientists to anyone who might see us at that moment, but that was okay, cuz, well to be honest, we kinda were. Plus, it was really exciting that we both were thinking the same thing, so we could easily get a plan rolling.
I've never met someone who thinks so much like me. Jinx, jinx again!!!
David removed his hands from my shoulders and, grabbing my hand, began to drag me into the room containing the most essential part to our plan.
"If we can get into the mother ship, we could plant a virus to disrupt the shield signal," David began to brainstorm out loud as he let go of my hand (damn it) and grabbed some paper to plot out what we were thinking.
"Then as soon as the shields are down, we can attack," I finished for him. "Maybe somehow even coordinate across the world so that all of the different spaceships can be attacked at the same time?" I suggested.
"Yes...yes, that has to happen, I don't know how long we could keep the signal down. We can leave that to the President to figure out."
I looked over David's shoulder as he started to draw everything out. He seemed to really like doing that, drawing out what's happened to make sense of it. I suppose that helped me too, so I wasn't complaining.
"Would the virus be enough though? Could we make it last longer at all?" I wondered aloud.
David paused in his drawing to think.
"Maybe an explosion?" I suggested. "Could that disable the mother ship, and kinda screw up all the rest down here? Maybe that paired with the virus could be enough for an attack to work," I mused. As much as I was against the idea of nuclear weapons, this might just come in handy, plus it's in outer space, there's not much that could suffer collateral damage.
David turned to me, grinning. "You're a genius!!" he exclaimed, grabbing either side of my head with each of his hands, and quickly kissing my forehead. He let go and turned around, returning to his drawing.
I just stood there, dazed and blushing, completely zoning out from anything happening around me. David had just kissed me! Well, he only kissed my forehead, but still!
I shook my head, trying to get myself to refocus, and attempting to get my cheeks to return to their normal annoyingly pale state, before David turned around and noticed that I was blushing.
"-and me and the pilot can detonate the bomb, and then fly out as quickly as possible, and then it all should work from there," David finished running though our plan aloud, and then turned to me with his eyebrows raised, waiting for my thoughts.
I hadn't heard the entirety of the plan, but I heard enough to object.
"Wait, you and a pilot?" I questioned.
"Well yeah, someone needs to set off the virus, and I don't trust anyone else to know how to, so I need to go up to the mother ship, along with whoever is flying," David explained like it was no big deal, but I could tell that he wasn't a huge fan of the idea himself.
"Well, what about me? I know how to set off the virus, and I don't get sick while flying!" I suggested. I didn't want David up in space, number one cuz he hates flying, and number two cuz its dangerous and I didn't want him to get hurt.
"No, definitely not," David shot down the idea immediately, looking at me sternly. "You're too young."
"Wha-, I'm not too young!! I'm 26!! I'm not a kid!!"
"There's no way I'm going to let you go into space to set off a bomb, it's too dangerous," David insisted.
"What are you, my father?? Well, I'm not gonna let you go into space cuz it's too dangerous!" I crossed my arms stubbornly across my chest. He was not going to win this argument.
"Elaina, you're my intern-"
"Not anymore! I work there officially, remember? And you're not even my boss!!"
David pinched the bridge of his nose, obviously trying not to lose his patience with me. "Well you're not going to be the one to go up in space."
"I'm not going to just sit here!"
"YES YOU ARE!"
I flinched.
I looked to the ground, clenching my jaw and fists. I could feel angry tears welling up behind my eyes, but I refused to let them out. I hated conflict, and I hate when people yell at me, and David has never yelled at me before. Hell, I don't even think he's ever gotten legit angry at me before. I didn't like it.
David sighed, rubbing his hands across his face. "I'm sorry," he apologized, his voice much quieter now. "But I'm going to be the one to go up, it makes most sense for me to do it."
I clenched my fists even harder. "No it doesn't, because you have someone to come back for; I don't. My family's gone, I don't have anyone, so it doesn't matter if I don't come back. It matters if you do," I said, still looking at my feet. I felt a tear finally slip out and slide down my cheek, and I angrily brushed it away. I hate crying, and I refuse to cry in front of people, and right now was not going to be an exception.
I felt David gently grab my chin and lift my head up until I was looking into his eyes.
"You're not alone, you still have people who care," he said softly.
I broke eye contact, looking anywhere except for his face, clenching my jaw even harder than before, because he was making it a million times harder to not cry.
I felt his thumb across my cheek, wiping another tear away that had slipped out. I looked back into his eyes, and felt my chin start to quiver slightly. I was losing the battle, and I really just wanted to cry, to let David hug me and sob into his arms. The floodgates were about to open; tears from my family, tears from stress, and tears of terror from this whole situation and for the safety of David.
I heard a door open and voices beginning to come nearer to us, and I immediately pulled myself out David's grasp and tried to make myself look busy while I desperately to make it look like I was perfectly fine.
I could feel David's eyes on me as I took a deep shaky breath and swallowed all of the tears back down. I was fine, it was fine, everything was fine. At least, that's what I wanted to people to believe.
"We're still talking about this later," I heard David mutter to me before turning to some of the base workers and telling them what to do to get ready.
Once I felt collected enough to look okay, I turned around and starting directing some people as well.
Within a couple moments, there were people running all around, and the room was filled busy noise.
David ran over towards the spaceship, grabbing an empty coke can and placing it on the ship.
I understood what he was doing, and pulled up the ship's shield on the computer, making sure it was on.
David jogged back to where the plan and I were, and looked over my shoulder at the computer screen, with his hand on my other shoulder.
"Are we ready?" he asked, looking down at me.
I nodded, looking up to meet eyes with him. "We're all set."
He gave me a soft smile before moving away. "Good."
I turned around to see Connie, the President, and a few other people coming in, presumably to hear what David and I had to say.
I grinned widely at them as they got closer. "We have a plan," I announced happily. I raised an eyebrow playfully, still grinning. "Y'all ready for this?"