He had been out on patrol that morning when he had noticed the scorched metal lying in the middle of the road. It was mostly black, but with patches of grey and white here and there. The object was triangular, and it was quite hefty. He didn’t think it would be possible for any vehicle to have been carrying it, as the object was much too large and heavy for any normal car to weigh.
For nearly an hour Steven had been trying to figure out how the object had come to be in the middle of the road, but his efforts had led to nothing. He swung the triangular piece of metal to his side and he dropped his head, which hung low.
He had just been trying to clear his head when he heard the sound of an engine behind him. He turned, and was surprised to find himself looking at a shiny grey car coming towards him. The headlights were low, and Steven raised his arm to shade his eyes from the glare. He instantly recognised the car from the black and white colour scheme, and from the lack of any other vehicles in the surrounding area.
Steven watched as the car came to a stop beside him. He opened the door, and stepped out onto the road.
“What’s the matter?” he asked the driver, who was sitting in the car behind him. “Most people can’t handle a part that seems to be out of place, so to speak,” he said to Steven, who stepped past him and approached the strange object.
“It’s heavy!” he said with obvious frustration. “I don’t know what it’s supposed to be, but it’s heavier than I thought it would be!”
“Don’t worry,” the driver said, smiling and getting out the car to come and stand beside Steven to admire the triangle. “I had it tested, and there doesn’t seem to be any adverse effects of holding it.”
“What?” Steven asked, lifting his head and looking at the driver. “What do you mean?”
The driver stood for a second, gazing at Steven with a serious face, and then he smiled.
“You seem to have missed the memo,” he said. “I thought that everyone would have found it by now.”
Steven gave a nervous laugh. “Someone hasn’t been keeping up with the news, probably because they’ve been out on patrol dealing with scalies. Anyway, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about! What the hell is going on?”
Steven was getting increasingly annoyed, and the driver seemed to take it in his stride.
“This thing—“ the driver said, stepping forward and placing a hand on the strange object, “—is important. It’s known as the light prism. It’s the key to the Earth surviving.”
“What?” Steven said, disbelieving. The driver stepped back in agreement with Steven.
“I know that you don’t have much time,” the driver sighed. “We all know that the Earth is in serious trouble, and with the end of the galaxy just over one moon away we probably won’t have much time. But we have to try. We have to save as much of it as possible.”
“How do you know this?” Steven asked, shaking his head.
“We had a prophecy from the islanders of New Zealand,” the driver said.
“So the islanders had some kind of prophecy about the oncoming destruction of the Earth?” Steven asked.
“Yes, but not just that,” the driver said. “There was something else that came with it: the light prism.”
“Okay,” Steven said, still obviously confused as to the relevance of the triangular prism. “But what do you mean by saying that is the key to the Earth surviving?”
“We think that there are aliens right now,” the driver said. “We have no way of knowing that for sure, but we think they’re here, and they’re helping us.”
“So you’re saying—“ Steven said, but he was interrupted by the driver.
“We know that they’re here,” the driver said in an excited tone. “And we know that they came to help us.”
“How?” Steven asked, uncertain. “I mean, what kind of alien race is capable of that?”
“The Whangers,” the driver replied.
“The who?” Steven asked.
“The Whangers,” the driver repeated. “We call them the Whangers.”
“And what are the Whangers?” Steven asked, becoming more and more confused.
“They’re aliens,” the driver said, as if this was obvious. “They’re from another part of the galaxy, and they can travel faster than anything on Earth. They’ll come to the Earth to help us when we need them to, and they’ll come in their light prism.”
Steven shook his head. His mind had become quite blank in the face of what he was hearing. He didn’t know whether to believe it or not. He knew that the driver standing before him was intelligent, but he didn’t know if his plan was real or not.
The driver seemed to notice his confusion.
“I don’t suppose you have time to see the light prism for yourself?” the driver asked. “We’re the closest to it, and my team could really do with some help.”
Steven thought for a minute before answering. “Sure,” he answered. “Why not? I’ll give it a look.”
“Great!” the driver said, smiling. “Come on, get in.”
Steven got into the car, and the driver turned the engine back on. He drove the car a couple of metres further ahead on the road, and he stopped. He stepped out, and stood beside the door.
“Would you mind?” he asked, gesturing to the triangle. “I’m going to be driving, and I don’t want to confuse the other drivers when I take it out of the middle of the road.”
“Ah, yeah, sure,” Steven said, stepping up. He raised his arms, and with a great heave he lifted the triangular prism up and out for the driver to take. He was impressed at how heavy it was to have been carried by the other man, because it was much heavier than he thought it would be.
“Just leave it there,” the driver said, nodding to a staggered grey box that had been placed beside the road. “I’ll come and clear it up later.”
Steven put the prism down. “Sure,” he replied, shifting on his feet, and wondering what else they could be talking about. It was then that he noticed a young woman standing behind the driver.
“Oh, hey,” he said, nodding to her. “Who’s your friend?”
The driver turned, and gave an uncomfortable laugh. “Oh, that’s my daughter,” he said. “Her name is Hazel.”
Steven was surprised. He had expected the driver to be a man in his fifties, or at least older than him. If the driver’s daughter was his age, that made the driver one of the youngest people in the whole country.
