Aiden Reyes sat cross-legged on the floor of his bedroom, hunched over a mess of copper wire, gutted plastic casings, and scribbled blueprints. A cracked soldering iron warmed on the old skillet he'd jury-rigged into a heat plate. A flashlight, balanced under his chin, lit the chaotic tangle of what used to be three different radios.
The smell in the room was equal parts dust, metal, and burning plastic.
He didn't notice. Not really.
The boy had that stillness, an animal stillness common to those who'd learned early that movement drew attention. He was wiry, olive-skinned, with too-long hair that half-covered his face when he hunched over his work like this. His wrists were scabbed from small burns. His fingers moved like a pianist's, but slower, more careful, as if every motion had to mean something.
On the bed beside him, an open spiral notebook was crammed with frequency charts, electromagnetic diagrams, and loose sketches of antenna mods. All in Aiden's hand. His blocky, aggressive handwriting filled the margins: DON'T CROSS THESE. WATCH THE LOOPBACK HERE. TRY 162.4 AGAIN.
The light overhead was off. He preferred the flashlight—it made the world smaller, easier to think in.
Downstairs, his parents were arguing again.
The walls were thin. He could hear the shape of their fight, if not the words—the clipped, breathless tones of his mother, the slow, sharp corrections from his father. It always circled the same drain: his "obsession" with electronics, his refusal to go outside, the fact that he hadn't made a friend since last summer.
Aiden tuned it out.
He twisted the dial again.
Static swelled and dipped, sweeping across the band like a sandstorm. Then, a flicker—something buried in the noise.
A voice.
Aiden's fingers froze.
"…–peating: incident contained to five… no civilian threat…"
He adjusted the gain knob with a twitch of his pinky. Another voice broke through, garbled and echoing:
"Negative, negative—containment failed at east quadrant—it's in the wind now—repeat, it's in the–"
Static swallowed the rest.
Aiden leaned forward slowly, as if the sound might flee if he moved too fast. He shifted the antenna, now a clothes hanger wrapped in stripped copper, and locked in on the nearest clear frequency. He pressed a fresh page into his notebook.
8:51 p.m. – Emergency chatter. Possible military.
He didn't realize he was holding his breath until the next transmission cut in—this one quieter, closer, less encrypted.
"–urban spread confirmed. Cases reported in three zones. Symptoms: disorientation, hypoxia, brief catatonia, extreme aggression. Do not engage infected civilians—repeat, do not—"
The broadcast cracked apart.
Aiden sat very still.
From the vent above his closet, a burst of laughter shot up from the television in the living room—something his mom had put on to drown out the shouting. Aiden rose, still listening, and crossed to his window.
The neighborhood looked normal. Too normal.
The lawns were damp, glittering under the streetlights. Crickets buzzed in the wet hedges. Sprinklers ticked quietly across the sidewalk. Somewhere down the street, a dog barked once and fell silent.
Across the road, porch lights glowed on a house just like theirs.
The Ward house.
Mr. Ward was a construction foreman—tough, heavyset, always smelling of cedar and oil. Aiden had only spoken to him twice, but the man's voice was like thunder. His younger brother, Cal, was the opposite—lean, fast-talking, always fixing up old dirt bikes in the driveway. And Tess… well, she came and went, but when she was around, things moved sharper. She had a gun once, Aiden remembered. He saw it tucked under her jacket when she brought over supplies.
And then there was the girl—Mira Ward.
Same age as Aiden. She'd once punched a boy for calling her "weird." Aiden never talked to her, but he remembered the way she looked up when people shouted, like she was already calculating whether to run or fight.
She was on her porch now.
Barefoot, hair messy, staring at the stars. She had a soda in one hand and her phone in the other, thumb tapping the screen with mechanical regularity.
And then—she looked up.
Straight at him.
Aiden didn't move. Didn't blink. He felt the chill run up his arms, like he'd been caught doing something illegal.
She tilted her head slightly. Then raised the soda in a mock toast.
Aiden lifted his hand, barely.
Mira smiled, just once.
Then the sky rumbled.
Far off, over the horizon, the dull red flash of an explosion lit up the clouds like a slow-moving storm. A boom followed—a deep, animal growl that shook the windowpane.
The radio in Aiden's hand screamed static. His flashlight dimmed.
And somewhere behind him, his mother shouted up the stairs: "Aiden? What was that? Are you alright?"
But Aiden didn't answer.
He was still staring at the sky.