Departure

Ken,

I'm sorry. It seems that analog communication is most secure now.

I assume that everything in this box is self-explanatory, so I leave you with this:

The cavebird has more feathers. 

I look forward to seeing you.

Irina

Ken stared at the note in his hand, reading it over and over. The cavebird? he thought, placing the note back in the box. 

He grabbed the white card. Plain white, no distinct features, not even a visible magnetic strip or anything. 

The train ticket was mildly interesting. It listed on it the departure time and the train line, but there was no indication of a destination. He knew it headed into the city, but not to where specifically. 

"No, most of this is not self-explanatory..." he muttered, picking the note up again and turning it over in his hands. 

He held it up to the light behind him. Nothing.

Grabbing a lighter, he held the note over the flame. Nothing.

He rummaged through a box in his closet, getting out a blacklight and shining it on the letter. Nothing.

No secret message of any kind. Just unusual, unnecessary cryptic-ness. 

He sat down at the kitchen table with the note. The cavebird? What does that mean? 

He got up, walking to the living room. Sounds of one of Alice's action anime she loved seeped from the door as he approached. 

He looked over at Alice as he walked in the room. Just a short hour ago, she was crying tears of dread and confusion. But now, he wouldn't have known without his memory telling him so. 

She stood perhaps a meter from the TV screen, watching a fight scene playing out on it with wide eyes. Her hands were balled up into fists and her arms were bent up, putting her in a boxer-like stance. Her eyes jittered all over the screen, watching and absorbing each jump, punch, and slash. 

A chuckle forced itself out. "You really love that show!" It didn't seem like she'd processed the end of the world yet. For the briefest moment, he couldn't help but envy the freeness of her mind. 

"Yeah!" she replied, imitating a jumping slash delivered by the heroine. 

"Well, I'm glad you're happy, honey." He smiled at her, picking up his closed laptop from the ground.  

"Did you see that, Dad?" She beamed at him.

"Yes, I did! Awesome!" He patted her head on the way by, walking back out to the kitchen. Alice carried on her heroism, her little battle cries and imitations of weapons clashing drawing a reluctant smile onto Ken's face. Some much needed normalcy among the chaos. 

But Ken had to focus. He had to protect the blissful lives his children led. 

He had to figure out the message. 

He opened his laptop and a web browser on it. 

The note crinkled as he opened it, reading each word of the clue carefully. The cavebird has more feathers. "What is a cavebird? Surely not just birds that live in caves, right?"

He typed the word into a search engine and sent it off. Millions of results came back, though none specifically for "cavebird," joined into one word as it was. First on the list, though, was a wiki article titled "Cave Birds." 

He clicked it. Under A was the word Aerodramus. The word immediately set memories bubbling up, some of them unpleasant. Project Aerodramus, he thought. 

Project Aerodramus, to Ken, was two things: Irina's greatest success, and the cause of their divorce. Ken thrust the second thought back into the pit of tarry blackness it had boiled out of, but summoned to mind all the information he could on the project itself.

It was a federal research project. Its result was a simple statement: dark matter is provably existent. Though the minutia were largely lost on Ken even in his researching "prime," he could recall a handful of details: dark matter consisted of particles that are observable only through their gravitational interaction with objects surrounding them. There was no "physical" component of these particles in any sense of the term, and so they could arbitrarily occupy space already occupied by traditional matter, and passed harmlessly through most matter as they moved due to their individually petty gravity. 

But that was where Ken's theoretical understanding ended. However, he had created a number of simulations for the project, all at Irina's behest. Simulations of particle behaviors in the absence and presence of dark matter. But that work was finished near the beginning of the project. 

As that work concluded, Ken had left the project. Irina became so obsessed—so absorbed—that it was detrimental to their family. As the memories of their divorce resurfaced, chills wracked his body more and more the longer he thought about it. His stomach twisted in his gut—a feeling he thought buried with their divorce finalized. But now, thinking about this project...

Shaking the feeling off, he turned back to his screen. Why did she direct me to that project? And what about the "more feathers"? he thought. Did she mean more complexity? More potential? 

He reopened the package, inspecting the items again. Alice was still preoccupied with her show and emulating its heroine. Nodding slowly, Ken gingerly picked up the pistol from the box. The last item to make sense of.

It was a fairly run-of-the-mill pistol, from all he could tell. Though he was hardly an expert.

He placed his hand on the grip, clutching it in his hand. His forefinger rested above the trigger, parallel to it. He turned it over in his hand. There was a small button on the side just above the trigger guard, and another by where his thumb was placed. He pressed the one by his thumb. 

The magazine slid out, thudding on the bottom of the box. He jumped, expecting something catastrophic. 

Nothing happened. 

He picked up the magazine between two fingers and his thumb as though it was a vital sample of some kind. Pushing it back into its place, it clicked as it clamped in.

As he turned it over again in his hand, the front door flew open and May came bursting in, panting.

Ken's eyebrows shot up. He placed the gun back in the box and threw the flaps shut. 

"May! Where were you?" he asked, standing up.

"Why do I have to—" A loud gasp for air. "—tell you?" She doubled over for a moment, breathing heavily. 

"I was worried." He found that his hand had subconsciously moved to rest on top of the box.

"Well," she said, straightening back up, her breathing more steady, "I can take care of myself for an hour. Or do you think that's too much for me, too?"

He sighed deeply. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, May. I am."

She breathed a laugh from her nose, a bitter smile curling across her mouth. "If you're really sorry, you'll tell me what's in there." She gestured to the box.

His heart sank into his gut. Well, now what? he thought. He glanced at the box, and then at Alice, still fervently cutting down her imaginary foes, and then back to May. 

"It's... it's from your mother. But I don't want to show you what it is until I can confirm—"

"Ugh, are you serious?" she cut him off. "Again with that crap?"

"May, let me finish."

"No, Dad, you're just hiding something from me again." She scowled, running a hand through her hair. "And I know you won't tell me everything anyway." 

"May, enough. I—"

"Dad, I'm the one who's had enough! I don't understand how you're still—"

"Enough!" he shouted. Her mouth snapped shut by instinct, the rarity of proper anger like this shutting down her vocality instantly. His breaths were heavy. "May. I need you to listen to me." 

She nodded slowly.

"I believe this package is from your mother. I'm not trying to keep it from you. I'm refusing to show you in case anything inside is dangerous." He breathed deeply. "I have not guaranteed that the things inside are safe by nature. I have also not checked that it's even actually from your mother." 

Her eyes narrowed at his words, but she nodded again.

"And there is no good way of verifying that. So do you understand that I don't want to show you everything before I know?"

Her face was thoughtful for a moment before she responded, "No. I can't understand that."

"Even if something happened to you because of something in the box?"

She shrugged and shook her head. "Nope. Especially when we could check together."

He removed his hand from the box. "Okay, well, I'll tell you what I do know for sure. Would that help?"

May nodded. 

"Your mother sent me... 3 things: a train ticket into the city, a cryptic note, and a plain white keycard." 

Her eyebrows raised a bit. "That's all?"

"...Yes." He couldn't bring himself to mention the gun. 

"What's the note say?" She looked at the box, gesturing toward it. 

"Here..." His hand reached into the box, drawing the note from it and handing it to her. 

"Can I read it after?" came Alice's voice. She was standing in the living room doorway, arms hanging at her sides. She'd abandoned the show, which still played in the living room, at the sound of their argument.

May nodded at her, smiling. Her eyes turned down and skimmed it, then she refolded it and handed it to Alice as she walked over. "What about the other stuff?"

He shook his head. "I don't know about the card. But the train ticket..."

"Are you gonna go?" May asked, eyebrows raised.

He looked back at the box. "...I have to."

"When?" she asked, sitting down across from him. 

"Tomorrow. Early. Before you leave for school."

"How long are you gonna be gone?" Alice asked, finishing the densely-worded note with a satisfied nod. He hoped she at least got the meaning, but he found it likely she just mimed May's reaction. 

He looked over to her. "I'm... not sure yet."

"Then we're coming with you." May said, her countenance becoming defiant as she spoke. 

Before she finished the last word, Ken was already shaking his head. "Not with you and Alice having school tomorrow. You have to be here."

"Dad! Are you kidding me?"

Ken shook his head and shrugged his shoulders, unwilling to give in. "I don't know what I'll find there. And you kids need to continue living normal lives. We have to assume we'll be able to stop it."

May's mouth hung open and her eyes were as narrow as Ken had ever seen them. "You cannot be serious. Who cares about school anymore?"

There wasn't really a good answer to be given. He pressed his lips to a line, then took a deep breath. "It would help me focus on helping your mother."

She didn't look convinced, and it looked like a retort of some kind danced on her lips. She was able to hold it in, it seemed. "...Fine."

"Thank you." He walked over to her and Alice, carrying the box under his arm. "I love you both. So much." He wrapped them both in a hug, awkward due to the package. He felt May's head nod from within his embrace. 

And for that moment, nothing else mattered.

———

Ken stood on the train platform. The bag on his back made his legs feel the weight of holding him all the more, especially after having walked to the station. 

The train was late. Not by much; just enough to be irritating. He had a meeting to attend, after all. 

He looked around at the people surrounding him. Commuters, by the looks of it—salarypeople, dressed in suits. There were a couple people dressed casually: a brunette girl standing with a surly blond man, and a few younger teens. 

Ken pulled his sleeve back to look at the time. But as he did, the sounds of an approaching train filled the station, just as the train emerged from a faraway corner into view. 

"Perfect..." He flicked his arm to right his sleeve and stepped close to the safety line. The train pulled past him, coming to a smooth and controlled stop. Its doors opened slowly, revealing a mostly-vacant interior. 

Ken stepped aboard.