I glanced back at where Oliver seemed to be looking.
“The rockets? Yeah, Why? What’s going on?” I had no idea why Oliver needed to be here this late at night.
“Can I come in?” He hadn’t answered my question.
“Yeah sure.” I stepped back from the door and held it open for him. Walking in, he took a few steps into the main room before standing quietly.
I closed the door and passed Oliver to sit on the arm of the couch. Maybe it had to do with the fact that I had only met him that day and now he was in my home or it could be that he seemed to be worked up about something, but either way I felt the need to be cautious.
“Oliver,” I said folding my hands and placing them in my lap. “Why are you here?”
“They are launching the rockets.” He wasn’t looking at me; his eyes were glued to the TV.
“What’s so important about the rockets?”
“They’re going to do something bad.” He had a panicked look in his face.
“Here sit down,” I prompted gesturing to the couch next to me. He did so, the whole time keeping his eyes fixed on the newscast. “Do you want me to turn it off?”
“No!” His abrupt tone surprised me.
“Sorry, I’ll leave it on then. Do you want something to drink? Tea, juice, water?”
“Tea sounds good,” he said absently.
“Ok, one tea coming up.”
I left the arm of the couch and put the kettle on. Heading back to Oliver, I sat down on the floor infront of the couch.
“Do you want to tell me what exactly is going on?”
Oliver took a deep breath and seemed to have to drag his eyes away from the television. I turned down the volume to background noise.
“The company says that the rockets will be able to launch people into space soon, but that’s not all they’re planning.”
“How so?”
He paused, glancing at the screen again.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to turn that off?”
“If it’s okay with you, can we keep it on?”
He seemed so distracted and unnerved I didn’t feel it would be right to say no. It wasn’t bugging me that much anyways. “Sure, no problem.”
“Thank you.”
He was having a hard time focusing. “What did you mean by ‘that’s not all they’re planning’?” I prompted gently.
“They’re also building robots that will be able to mine resources.”
I didn’t see why that was so bad. “And?”
“And what?” He said as if it was obvious.
“What’s wrong with robots mining for resources? Wouldn’t it keep more people out of the way?”
“Yeah, here on Earth. They’re announcement is a distraction from what they’re actually planning.”
The kettle began to whistle. Getting up I walked to the stove and turned it off. I grabbed a mug from the cabinet, filling it with hot water and a mint tea bag. I always found that mint could be calming; Oliver could use something calming.
“Here you go,” I said, handing him the mug.
“Thank you Clair.”
I was burning with curiosity. “So you were saying that the company is planning something?”
“They want to send the robots to Mars.”
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