Look Up

At precisely 11pm the image on the screen flickered, and dissolved into static for a few seconds. Instead of returning to its regularly scheduled programming, a figure dressed in black was sitting in front of a red curtain, his gloved hands lightly clasped together. His hair was long and manicured, and a wide brimmed hat cast a shadow over his pale, masked face.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," said the figure. "I apologise for the mild inconvenience but I really do wish to say something."

Meanwhile, the National Security department was in an uproar. Harried agents rushed between the cramped desks, transferring documents and slamming down phones.

"Who the hell is that guy?!" shouted the chief in exasperation. "What the hell is he doing on national TV?"

"Looks like that guy from that movie," said his assistant, calmly. "What was it called again? Victory or Venison or something like that." They stared at the screen in their office, watching the figure make his announcement.

"Since the dawn of the twenty-first century, there have been so many major advancements in modern technology. Electricity has lit up even the darkest corners of the farthest ends of the Earth, bringing light to the uncertainty and darkness. Yet in all this time we must have forgotten the light that we always had, always there in the sky."

People were staring at their television sets across the island. The masked figure had hijacked every broadcasting system, every network station. And he was definitely being heard.

"So this is what I'm going to do. Tonight, at exactly midnight, I will be detonating a device I have planted in the city's central power grid. It would be wise to make preparations for the temporary island-wide blackout. And for the hundreds and thousands of citizens who will be plunged into darkness, I merely ask you to appreciate the rare spectacle that you will be treated to. Tonight, midnight."

The image flickered, and dissolved into the blue standby screen. "Dammit, sir," one agent called from his computer terminal, "he was too fast for us to get a trace on the signal."

Frowning, the Chief of National Security folded his arms. "Get a bomb defusal squad to the central power grid. Bring along as many S.W.A.T. as you can. I don't want that power supply to even flicker for a second, you got me?"

* * *

Three minutes to midnight. The bomb defusal squad had raked the entire building, but had found no trace of any explosive device. Everyone within a five kilometre radius had been evacuated, and hordes of people were standing around in the streets, shunted behind the lines formed by the riot police. No sign of the masked man on the television was seen anywhere.

"I don't know how he's doing it," muttered the Chief of National Security, "but he's not going to win his little game. There's no explosives anywhere in the building, but if he somehow cuts the power, I want the backup generators to kick in as soon as possible, you hear me?"

"Already on it, sir," replied his assistant, unclipping his phone and pressing a number on speed-dial. "Done half an hour ago. If the power really does cut, the reserves will come online in under five minutes."

"Five minutes is too long!"said the Chief, angrily. "Who knows what will happen in a five-minute island-wide blackout? Half the island is out on the roads now, and if there's looting and rioting, I'll personally have your head for-"

The Chief of National Security stopped in mid-sentence. The lights in the building that housed the central power core just extinguished.

"Damn," he swore.

Lights winked out across the island. Lampposts flickered off. Bulbs, both incandescent and florescent, closed their eyes and gave way to darkness. The blackout was total and instantaneous. The island was plunged into darkness.

The crowds began to get nervous. Murmurings broke out; they washed over the sea of heads like rustling waves. People started shifting restlessly, uneasy in the gloom.

And suddenly there he was, standing in the middle of the herd of police cars, masked face upturned at the night sky. He spoke, and his voice was clear, and filled with wonder. "Beautiful, isn't it?"

Instantly, a dozen guns were swivelling in his direction, laser sights dotting his black cloak and hat. But the figure didn't flinch; he continued staring upwards. An order was yelled, "Get him!" Policemen closed in on the figure, grabbing his hands and cuffing them behind his back. And still he continued to gaze towards the heavens.

The Chief of National Security stood in front of the figure, with his arms folded, a smug look on his face. "Your blackout failed, whoever you are," he said triumphantly. "If you were trying to throw this country into chaos and disorder, it didn't work. Our backup generators will be restarting power across the island. You've lost."

"On the contrary," he said in his clear, ringing voice. It carried across the shouted orders, the police sirens, the murmuring crowds. "It all went according to plan."

"How did you shut down the power?" the Chief of National Security asked roughly, while the figure's cloak was being frisked. "We found no bomb in the building, nor any structure within five kilometres."

"I used a virus to crash the power grid's computer systems," the figure said. "It's not permanent; once the power cut it should have unwritten its own programming."

"You said you would use a bomb?"

"I lied." The figure turned his masked face towards the Chief. "I am no comic-book villain, my good man. I don't reveal my plans to the authorities and purposely get caught for no good reason."

"And yet here you are," said the Chief of National Security, grinning again.

"That's because I had a good reason."

The Chief of National Security was getting slightly irritated. He grabbed the figure by his collar and lifted him bodily into the side of a police van. "And what, pray tell, might this reason be?" he asked coldly.

The figure's expression was unreadable; the mask just grinned its unreal grin. Then, he said, "Look up."

As the Chief of National Security looked skywards, so did the rest of the population, who had now realized that the night was not as dark as it should have been. And the night sky greeted them with a million pinpricks of light, twinkling for light years across the galaxies. The moon hung high in the sky, a brilliant silvery orb shining down upon them all. The constellations danced their eternal song across the sky, and the pale white band of the Milky Way could be seen, splashed across the starfield. The crowd gasped in collective amazement as a shooting star streaked across the sky, flaring brilliantly for a second before burning out into the darkness.

For a minute the wonders of the night blazed down upon them all. Then the backup generators kicked in and the lights began snapping, blinding out even the brightest starlight. As the Chief of National Security turned back to face his captive, he noticed that his masked face was cast half in shadow once again, and the painted smile seemed strangely real.

"Even if people stop noticing the stars," the masked figure said, breathless, as if assuring himself, "they won't fade away."