Gifts from Above

Prompt from DailyPrompt.com

The impacts happened at 14:53. The internet exploded soon after. Metaphorically.

At first everyone assumed meteorites. But pictures of the featureless metal spheres swamped feeds, forums, and news lines. Silver-grey, impossible to scratch or dent, not magnetic, exactly 12.79cm in diameter… piece by piece the picture grew and spread.

Jane dug her old science kit out of the garage and set to work. The rest of the neighbourhood gathered around to take pictures, help out, or simply watch from a distance.

Her extraterrestrial boards were clogged with hapless newbs. The big one had even crashed under the deluge. But direct messaging with the core members kept the investigation ticking.

[Seems like it’s every six miles or so, grid pattern.] Cory sent. Bitterly fuming that this had to happen now, while he was laid up with a broken ankle. Unable to venture into the field he was left playing mission control.

[Ocean too] Siti sent a picture of the beach near her house, which was awash in orbs. [Boats stuck in port]

[but orbs not do anything?] Jane wiped her forehead on her sleeve and frowned down at the enigmatic lump.

[:eyeroll: Who’d risk it]

[How many can you collect?] Cory gnawed on his lip and wondered what it would cost to get to the coast. Too much, and it’d be too slow; people would have picked everything clean long before he got there.

Jean paused then grabbed her phone again. [wait they float?]

Siti posted several more pictures of the orbs doing just that.

Jane rapped on the orb’s surface and hefted it in her hand. It felt solid. While it was way lighter than even aluminium, no way it should float.

[Consensus is 3677g] Cody frowned at the six windows crowding his monitors.

Siti’s latest photo was a tidy pyramid of orbs on her kitchen table. [has anybody melted one down?]

Cody tore his envious gaze from his phone back to the monitors. A few searches later he reported [They don’t do anything until they hit like 1638 and then they EXPLODE! :0]

Both girls’ responses were hidden by the chat filter.

[Nobody’s managed to cut them, either.]

Jane chewed on her lip, trying to think what she could do next. What tests she could possibly try, here on the sidewalk with an old kit from the science museum.

Then gasps and cries echoed from the group around her. Then a message from Siti landed [THEYRE HUMMING]. Then she looked down and heard it herself.

[What do they sound like?] Cody sent over and over. Until finally he found a video someone shared.

[Prompt was “Write a multi-POV story from the perspective of three different people across the globe looking at the same thing.”]