This place is a heap, Aria thought with some measure of despair. The state of the observatory, the overall disrepair of the building and the grounds around it did not bode well. It would have seemed abandoned if not for the grinding of the ancient air conditioning units and the two cars parked in the cracked and weedy lot below. If she had known she was going to be climbing a damned hill to this junkpile, she would have worn better shoes.
Pausing outside the entrance, she put her heels back on and tugged at her skirt to make sure everything was in place. Aria breathed deeply, pushing the door open and hoping for the best. Her heels echoed through the short corridor that led to the former conference room that now acted as a lounge. The government-issue grey wallpaper was peeling here and there and some of the cheap linoleum tiles had come away to expose patches of grimy black. When she stopped in front of the door, Aria took in the room with mild disgust. The stink of burned coffee hung in the air. A long table was centered in the room, the once-polished wood now scratched and pocked, crumbs and bits of paper littering its surface. Two men sat at the table in plastic folding chairs, blowing on styrofoam cups of coffee and stopping their murmured conversation to look at her.
"Dr. Young?" Aria asked experimentally, not knowing which of the men to address. They both seemed to be in their thirties, with deep circles under their eyes and and tired expressions. It looked like they had been awake for days. However, that was where the similarities ended. The pale man who was standing, coming towards her over the stained carpet of the lounge, was tall and rail-thin like someone had stretched him. Bleary brown eyes regarded her from behind the square lenses of his glasses and the dull brown and baby-fine hair on his head was parted like a schoolboy's and in need of a trim. He extended the hand that wasn't holding the cup to Aria. "Miss Garza, welcome. I'm William Young, and that gentleman is my assistant, Jared Moore."
Aria shook Young's hand firmly and nodded politely to the man still by the table. He had begun to rise but seemed to stop mid-way and was now hurriedly working on clearing the table, sweeping crumbs to the floor and gathering bits of paper in his hand to throw in an overflowing trash bin nearby. Jared smiled apologetically, "We don't get many visitors up here, and even fewer of them are women. Sorry for the mess." She waved his apology away and smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes.
"It's fine; please don't make a fuss on my account." She followed Young into the room and sat at the table, hanging her purse from the back of the chair. She could feel their eyes on her; it made her somewhat uncomfortable when strange men stared. Clearing her throat audibly, she began, "Thank you for inviting me. When I emailed Professor Harris I didn't honestly think that much would come of it and not at all this quickly. Once you hear what I have to say, it may put me back at square one though." Aria looked up at Young, his face impassive as he set his steaming cup down and pushed his glasses back up on his nose. "I'll admit, when Tuck called me and said he got a call from a strange woman asking about the discovery I didn't know what to think. No one could have seen that far out with one of the home-use 'scopes they sell in stores. Hell, we just caught glimpses a few days ago using the high-powered stuff we've got. None of this has gone public yet and likely won't until we know what's going on." He looked at Aria over his lenses, "So how do you know anything about this?"
Taking a steadying breath, Aria leaned back in the plastic chair. "Okay. Open minds, right? This is crazy even to me still, and I'm actually living it. It has to do with the shadows acting strange and-" she let out a breath that she didn't realize she was holding. Her stomach was in knots; so much was riding on what she said right now. "I'm getting ahead of myself. It started like this..."
The story tumbled from her lips, every detail that she could remember, every vague comment on the Unreality that Flinne had made; she omitted the things too personal to share but otherwise told them her story in its entirety. Never did Aria lift her eyes to look at the men who listened; she was certain that if she were to see the disbelief and mockery in their faces that the careful calm she had laid about herself like a mantle would crumble and there would be no chance at all. The thought made her throat tight, but she continued on until the end. In the following quiet, with the hum of the ancient coke machine suddenly seeming thunderous, Aria prayed.