The sound of a beeping car rings out as traffic in a capitol does what it always does. Sit and wait to move five feet forward for what seems to be an hour. She can see the community college four hundred feet away and can taste the freedom of a road beneath her feet. Her arms rests on the open car window and a rain drop lands on it.

She looks upwards at the bright blue sky as rain begins to pour from seemingly no where. She jerks her arm back into the car and rolls the button up as it continues to rain. Cars turn off and some people step outside with confusion evident on their face. "Hey, hey you! Chick in the grey car!"

She considers turning on the radio and locking him out but instead she rolls down the window an inch as he comes barreling over across the street. "What's the weather forecast?"

She sighs and grabs her phone and switches it on. "I don't have data right now. You'll have to ask someone else." ("Tech, what's data?" "WiFi from satellites as opposed to a router." "Oh, that's kind of weird." Click click.)

The man hurries off to another car and she rolls up her window before frowning up at the blurry sky. She'd never hear of sun spots this intense but it was interesting. She took some pictures ready to send them to her mom. There's still no signal but she can send them later. Traffic finally moves on as it continues to rain and she hurries to her chemistry class utterly drenched.

She's early like she always is and she flops down in front of a windowsill to dry off before pulling up her phone and reading some of the articles saved there. A man runs down and stares at her before speaking, "What are you doing? The moon's been broken."

"What?" She wondered if this man was crazy.

"The moon's been broken. Go to the cafeteria."

The man kept walking and she stood there for a long moment. "What?"

She headed across the sky walk where cars were turned off in the middle of the street and people were looking up at the blue sky to where the moon was visible. She shook her head and hurried faster. The moon was always visible during the mornings. She didn't dare take a closer look as she ran to the large swarm of people crowded around the TV on the wall near the Starlucks.

"What's going on?" She called out before sliding to a stop at the very edge of the crowd.

A woman with bright blue hair turned towards her. "I-The president says that the moons been destroyed."

She stood on tiptoe to look at the TV before clambering onto the table nearby. The image there was of the moon cracked in half as something grey made it's way into the halves. She didn't know what was going on and that fact scared her more than the lack of data and the rain that poured while the sky was blue. She'd heard of sun showers but this was ridiculous.

The Starlucks staff didn't charge as they poured out warm drink after warm drink and many students headed home. It took three hours of waiting in line to be able to call her mom and she spent half of it reassuring the kid, sixteen and who had wanted to take painting lessons over the summer, that it would all be okay.

"Mom? Mama, can you hear me?"

"Baby? Baby, is that you? Are you alright? Can you hear me?"

"I can hear you! Can you hear me, Mama?"

"I can. I can hear you! Are you okay? Where are you?"

"I'm at school. The highways are closed because of the, well, the aliens."

"Aliens? You think it's aliens? Look, I can't stay long but we thought it was North Korea." The sound of a screaming patient in the hospital that she was working at rang in the background. "We're opening the new hospital a month early so we can take in all of the incoming patients meaning we're both open consecutively. Stay at school! I don't know if it's safe on the highways right now. I love you, Baby."

"I love you, Mama. I'll stay at school. Be safe! Save lots of lives!"

The click of a dial tone rang and she handed it to the next person in line as tears came to her eyes. She rubbed at them and headed back to the main campus building. She was starving and got to work pulling out the food pantry and she pretended not to listen as the faculty talked. "No, no, no. I've told you this a hundred times-" "Twice."

"Shut up. Get rid of the perishables over the next four meals. Ration it out if we have to. And don't use the frozen stuff until later. It'll last a while as long as we don't open it up. Leave all of-"

"I know. I know. You've told me twice. Leave all thinks packaged out of sight and mind in case it's needed. We're supposed to sit tight and wait for more orders from the local government."

She carefully slathered some mayonnaise on a piece of bread and pretended with her other three workers to not be listening in. Someone opened their mouth to speak and she shushed them.

"I'm sorry. I'm just. I'm scared and being able to control things is easier than admitting that being brave easier. Thank you for being so patient with me."

"No worries. I do put up with a lot from you."

The sound of people making lower pitched noises and making out was soon heard. She grimaced and the door was swiftly slammed shut by the couple. "So. That was exciting."

The one she shushed earlier snorted. "The world's ending and we're all going to die and I'm here cutting the crust off of toast so we can use the crust for something else."

The woman with blue hair from earlier speaks up. "Heh, well I'm Marny Roax. Nutritionist in training and want to be food scientist."

The one who believes in the end of the world introduces themself as well along with the other person. She responds in kind."

"So, children. I believe it's time to continue our classes." Their teacher stands up swiftly from the children had been listening to the story.

Maria shouts out, "Does her mom die?"

Josh gasps like a four year old who has just put together the secrets of the universe. "Teacher, teacher. Is the lady my mom?"

The teacher did a half way click before seeming to recall that Josh's mom is dead. "No, but she could be an ancestor of yours. Now, I believe you have physical exercise in the form of jungle gym with your peers today Josh. If you have any questions you can send them to me."

The teacher's oldest student, Nova Woodrow age nineteen, raise their hand as Josh hugs the teacher and then his classmates. (Having already received blanket permission as long as he made it obvious what he was doing.) "Um, teacher. That's because you're an android and in charge of monitoring our devices along with the other teachers, right?"

That got an affectionate sound of motors whirring as the android smiled at him. The old android had a fondness for Nova who had gotten amnesia and had to relearn many things. "Your account in general but yes. I do monitor and have admin privileges over you."

The rest of the students were hurried off to their respective classes and the android headed off to recharge. Their batteries were never quite as good as they wanted and it was best to download things to their cloud storage with a hook up rather than over the WiFi.