The main convention hall of the hotel was full of the strangest people Jory had ever seen, herself included. There were people with antlers, people with gills, people covered head to foot in fur, people who spoke and it sounded like two people speaking at the same time in near perfect unison. There were also people in wheelchairs that, from the look of things, were new to whatever disability had put them there.

At the far end of the convention hall was a small stage where the doctors and nurses were gathered. They let Jory and the others mingle for a bit before dimming the lights and motioning for everyone to sit down in the rows of seats in front of the stage.

“Good morning,” the lead doctor said to them, “I’m happy to report that none of you is contagious and we will be ending your quarantine very soon. A few of you have had more complicated symptoms that require ongoing care, and we just want to make sure we don’t send someone home prematurely. Now, I”m sure you all have a number of questions but before we get to that, let me share with you all some of our findings.”

The lights dimmed and a projector turned on.

“We’ve compiled the data from among all the Starfall patients, not just your group here,” he said as a graph was projects behind him on the screen. “As you can see, the symptoms are not actually random, though their distribution around the world is. There are exactly one thousand people with each and every symptom, spread out around the world. That’s one thousand people with the same mutation, and it is a mutation. Your DNA has been rewritten, though how exactly that happened we still aren’t sure. Of those effected, about ten percent of the mutations were not compatible with human DNA and those people have, unfortunately, not survived. Another two percent of mutations were detrimental in some way but not fatal. They rest of you, while altered, are otherwise quite healthy.”

Jory looked around the room once more, glad she was one of the lucky ones who had a harmless mutation. The rest of the presentation focused mainly on the types of mutations. It was mostly more technical than she could really grasp. The images of some of the more unusual mutations that were shown were interesting though. Her biopsied skin even got shown, detailing the different layers of bio-luminescence. There were also pretty graphic images of mutated lungs from one of the people who didn’t survive. Jory had to look away for that one.

She got the impression that the doctor was giving this presentation more for himself than for anyone else. Thankfully, it only lasted around fifteen minutes.

“Feel free to mingle among yourselves,” he finally announced. “Lunch will be served momentarily and then you can all go back to your rooms. Going forward we’ll have scheduled times each day when you can come down here and visit with one another.”

As the food was being wheeled in, Jory spotted Kevin.

“Hey,” she said, waving to get his attention.

It didn’t take long for him to look her way and wave back. They made their way over to one another as the majority of people went to the food.

“You excited to get out of here and go home?” Jory asked.

“I guess,” Kevin shrugged. “I’ll miss the food, though. Neither of my parents are all that big on cooking.”

“Same,” Jory agreed. “It’s been like getting to eat out for every meal.”

“Have you been following the news?” Kevin asked, turning more serious.

“I haven’t,” Jory admitted after a pause. “Anything I should know about?”

“Just that they think they’ve identified a signal being beamed at earth.”

“Where’s it coming from?” Jory asked.

“There’s a star only half a light-year away that seems to be the source.”

“That’s crazy.”

Jory couldn’t think of anything else to say on the subject. She was both excited and terrified by the possibilities and mostly she found herself wanting to ignore it all.

“They haven’t been able to decipher it yet,” Kevin went on, “but they’re almost certain it’s from intelligent life. That could explain how we got here. They brought us here.”

“Okay, but why?” Jory found herself asking. “What do they want? Are they going to keep experimenting on us? Are we their lab rats or something? They’ve already killed all those people who didn’t survive their mutations.”

“Maybe that was an accident?” Kevin shrugged.

“I don’t know. I don’t like that they just plucked us out of our place in the universe and moved us all the way over here. It’s like when animals get captured in the wild and then set up in a zoo somewhere else.”

I guess, maybe,” Kevin halfheartedly agreed, “but isn’t it exciting? We might finally have proof that we aren’t the only intelligent life in the universe!”

“Let’s just hope they’re not too much like us,” Jory warned.

“What do you mean?”

“Just look at how we’ve treated each other every time we found someone that was less technologically advanced.”

Their conversation ended there, awkwardly, and Kevin wandered over to get himself some food. Jory didn’t eat lunch. She didn’t have much of an appetite anymore.