Galaxy's Most Wanted

by John Kloepfer

  TJ was up and out of the room already but had left a note at the foot of Kevin’s bed.

  Dear Slackers,

  When you’re not so busy snoozing, get the following supplies and meet me and Tara for breakfast.

  A metal rolling cart

  An HD digital satellite dish

  One 1-inch-thick piece of pyrite—that’s fool’s gold, Warner.

  One amethyst crystal

  One handheld laser signaling device

  A small backup generator

  Three car batteries

  Four heavy-duty extension cords

  Three USB hookups

  One rabbit’s foot, for luck. We’re gonna need it.

  Check you later,

  TJ

  P.S. Tara says you both better bring your A games.

  P.P.S. Especially you, Warner!

  “I guess these guys got an early start,” Kevin said aloud after reading through the list. He nudged Warner with his foot. “Wake up, man.”

  Warner stirred and rolled over. “Just give me five more minutes,” he said, groggy-eyed, before flopping over and going back to sleep.

  “Come on, buddy, let’s get this show on the road,” Kevin said, but his friend kept snoozing. “Warner!”

  Once Kevin finally woke up his sleepy-headed pal, the boys got dressed quickly and hustled out of the bunkhouse. Strolling through the sunshine, they walked briskly across the main lawn toward the long, rectangular science lab trailers parked behind the mess hall.

  Northwest Horizons was nestled in the lush forests of Oregon along the eastern bank of a small, deep lake where a few of the younger campers were already collecting silt samples before their morning ecology lab. The large white trailers didn’t look like much, though enclosed within them were some of the most state-of-the-art scientific facilities in all of the Pacific Northwest. But the crown jewel of the camp was the Russ Planetarium and Observatory, where mind-bending astronomy labs and guest lectures were held. Like at any good camp, though, physical activity was encouraged. There was a field house with a gymnasium, but it was mostly used as a robot-versus-robot battleground.

  Kevin and Warner made their way to the scrap room, a trailer between the robotics and forensics labs.

  “Jackpot,” Kevin said, tapping all ten of his fingertips together like a mad scientist, happy to find a fully stocked room without any other campers searching for last-minute parts. Kevin and Warner immediately started rummaging through the bins of electronics and appliances. Kevin unloaded a bunch of circuit boards off a metal rolling cart, and Warner dug up a satellite dish, a tangle of USB and extension cords, and a laser-signaling device. They also found a small generator and two out of the three car batteries.

  “Looks like we got pretty much everything, Kev,” Warner said, loading their parts onto an unused cart in the corner. He wiped the sweat off his brow. “Let’s hit the mess hall before we stop by the geology lab. I’m stizz-arving!”

  “Me too, man,” Kevin said. “I hope they still have some of those raspberry Danishes left.”

  “I call last raspberry Danish!” Warner blurted out as if by reflex.

  “No way, man,” Kevin said. “I totally just called it!” Not taking any chances, he ran out the door.

  The cart full of supplies rattled and clanked as Kevin and Warner rolled into the cafeteria. At the far table, over by the breakfast buffet, the Vainglorious Math Nerds—Alexander, Luke, and Dante—turned in their chairs, eyeing the boys’ goods. Trying to ward off any would-be snoopers, Kevin had covered it with a spare bedsheet from their room. This way no one could hazard a guess about their new project.

  “What took you guys so long?” Tara looked up from the table for a second before going back to work. She was drawing up a rough blueprint for their design. The Brainstorm comic book was creased open in front of her, and the morning sun gleamed off the glossy pages.

  “Hey, you gotta be careful with that,” said Warner, picking up his comic book. “This is a limited edition.”

  “If you don’t put that back down,” Tara said, “you’re gonna be a limited edition.”

  TJ peered silently at the galactascope diagram, holding a magnifying glass up to his right eyeball, then jotted down some notes they would need for the instant messaging program code. TJ was something of a computer-programming prodigy, which was why Kevin had convinced TJ that this was the summer camp for him.

  “How long do you think it will take you to write the code?” Tara asked TJ.

  TJ held up two fingers, then a third.

  “Two or three hours,” Kevin confirmed for Tara, knowing TJ’s signals.

  “Where are we going to build this thing?” Warner said, chewing a spoonful of cereal with his mouth open.

  “What about the old sports shed?” Kevin said.

  “Great idea, man.” Warner swallowed his food. “That’s the last place anyone goes around here.”

  “Before we head over,” Kevin said, “let me just . . . we’re gonna want a detailed record of this.” He took out a fresh camp-issued logbook and flipped it open to the first page:

  Project: G-Scope

  Mission: Contact alien life (!)

  Location: Northwest Horizons Science Camp

  Date: 22 June 2014

  From the logbook of Kevin Brewer:

  9:05 a.m.: Arrive at sports shed, set up shop.

  9:15 a.m.: This place = crawling with spiders! Warner keeps tickling back of my arm so that I think a spider’s crawling on me. Note: get fake rubber snake to put in his bed.

  10:00 a.m.: Energy source installed on lower shelf of cart.

  11:00 a.m.: TJ finishes galactascope operating system; uploads the file to Warner’s PS3. System is a go!

  12:30 p.m.: Lunch break. Fingers crossed for chicken tenders and french fries.

  Much to their delight, Kevin, Warner, Tara, and TJ all returned to the sports shed with their bellies filled with chicken fingers and curly fries. Now they were ready to get back to work. And they had a lot of it. The galactascope was nowhere close to being done.

  “All right, guys!” Kevin said, closing the door behind them. “Time to finish this bad boy.”

  In a few hours’ time, Warner finished installing the laser device to reflect off the pyrite, and Tara worked some mechanical magic so that the satellite dish could be wired through the computer system.

  “Okay,” Tara said. She set down a screwdriver and lifted her safety goggles to wipe the sweat from her forehead. “I think we can finally turn this baby on.”

  Kevin noted the time in his log, then took a deep breath as Warner pulled the rip cord on the generator. The galactascope revved up, then grumbled and sputtered out. He pulled it again.

  “Dude, give it a sec,” Kevin said. “You’re gonna brea—” Warner yanked the cord once more and the generator suddenly powered on, silencing Kevin midspeech.

  “See, it’s fine,” said Warner, pointing to their device, which was rumbling loudly. A few seconds later, the computer inputs started to spark, and smoke began to rise out of the PS3 console.

  “Uh-oh,” Kevin murmured as the top of the galactascope ignited with a small blue-orange flame. Tara sprinted over by the door to the shed and snatched the emergency fire extinguisher off the wall.

  “Look out, boys!” She aimed the nozzle at their invention and doused Warner’s PS3 in white foam.

  “My PlayStation!” Warner cried.

  “Chill out, man,” said Tara. “You’ve got a PS4, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, he does,” Kevin said. “And we’re going to need it.”

  “No way! Dude, Kev, you know I love you, man, but come on—that’s my pride and joy,” Warner pleaded.

  “Warner!” Tara pointed the fire extinguisher at his midsection. “I’m beginning to doubt your commitment to this team.”

  By the time Warner agreed to give up his prized possession and Kevin had rewired a new generator from the robotics lab, it was long past dinnertime. Luckily, their hard work
had paid off. The new generator growled and chugged and then started to hum. They inspected the new galactascope setup for any signs of shorting out, but everything looked stable.

  “We did it,” Kevin said, half in shock. “It works!”

  “Now for the finishing touches,” Tara spoke as she began painting a team logo on the side of the rolling cart with the words “The ETs’ Galactascope.”

  “Who are the ETs?” Warner asked, making a face.

  “We are,” Tara said. “The Extraordinary Terrestrials.”

  “Wait, I already gave us a name,” Warner said. “I thought we were calling ourselves the Little Pascals?”

  “We were,” said Tara. “Which is why I had to think of a new name.”

  “I love it,” Kevin said. “Did you just make that up?”

  “Yup,” Tara said. “Coming up with awesome names is kinda my thing. I’m in this all-girl punk band back home. Haven’t I mentioned it? Polly and the Peptides. I came up with that, too. Anyway—” Tara focused on her paintbrush and finished the little e at the end of the word “galactascope.” Then she quickly painted an Earthlike planet getting bombarded with radio signals from outer space. “What do you think?”

  “Looks awesome,” Kevin said, admiring her work.

  TJ smiled and gave two enthusiastic thumbs-up, while Warner rolled his eyes from across the shed and sat on a sack of nearly deflated soccer balls. He was flipping through the Brainstorm comic again. “Not that crazy about the name, but I like your logo, Tara.”

  “Thanks, crankface,” Tara said, putting down her paints and brush.

  “This thing looks nothing like the thing in my comic,” Warner said, examining the illustrations.

  “Stop being so negative,” Kevin said. “We did everything it said to do, man. It’s gonna work!”

  “It better,” said Tara as she wiped her paint-covered hands off on her clothes.

  “It will,” Kevin said, feeling pretty confident. “But we need to test it. Let’s meet later tonight. Down by the lake. It’s time to see what this thing can really do.”

  By quarter to eleven, a hush had fallen over the camp as the lights flicked out and everyone snuggled into bed. Well, everyone except for Kevin, Warner, TJ, and Tara, who were wide awake and getting ready for possibly their biggest night of camp ever.

  Bailey had checked on the boys a little over an hour before and was now most likely listening to his headphones in bed, dozing.

  Kevin threw off his covers and climbed off the top bunk, fully dressed and ready to go. Warner was on the bottom bunk, snoring loudly. TJ looked like he was asleep, too.

  “Wake up, guys,” said Kevin. “No time for snoozing.”

  “I’m just fake snoring,” Warner said. “We all ready?”

  TJ hopped off his bed, fully clothed, and opened the window.

  Kevin grabbed his walkie-talkie, which was crackling with Tara’s voice.

  “Ten-four, fellas,” Tara said softly. “Let’s roll out. Over.”

  “Be right there,” Kevin whispered. “Over.”

  Kevin, Warner, and TJ climbed out of their window and dropped to the ground, where Tara was waiting in the shadows. The four of them tiptoed down to the edge of the lake. The night sky was crystal clear, sparkling with hundreds of stars. It was the perfect night for a test transmission. They set up the galactascope where the shore rose up slightly and a row of tall reeds would hide them from view.

  A chilly wind blew across the water. Kevin pulled the rip cord on the generator, and the motor rumbled into a smooth, steady hum. Tara flicked on the laser, which reflected off the pyrite’s brassy metallic surface and refracted through the purple crystal.

  “All right,” Kevin said. “It’s ready to go. . . .”

  “Wait, you guys,” said Tara. “We might be contacting aliens for maybe the first time ever. We could be making history right now! We need more than a hello.”

  “Okay, I got this,” Warner said as he began to dictate their message to outer space. “Dear Aliens, What’s up? We just want to say that we’re totally peaceful, so if you want to meet up and exchange cultures, then we’d be down for that. As long as you, ya know, don’t invade our minds or anything.”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Kevin as TJ finished typing out the message.

  Tara rolled her eyes and mumbled something to herself about boys.

  The satellite dish tilted upward, aiming itself at the night sky. Kevin gave the thumbs-up and TJ hit the send button. Kevin felt his stomach clench as the laser refracted through the prism, shot out through the satellite dish, and carried their message to the universe across the black, starry night.

  “So what happens now?” Kevin asked.

  “We wait for the aliens,” said Warner. “Obviously.”

  Kevin settled cross-legged into the grass and started to jot down the sequence of events in his log.

  11:30 p.m.: No response yet.

  11:37 p.m.: Tara challenges Warner and TJ to a staring contest. Warner blinks first. TJ wins.

  11:38 p.m.: Warner challenges Tara to a laughing contest because that’s what he thought they were doing in the first place. Tara laughs first.

  11:45 p.m.: My butt is getting wet from the wet grass. Should have brought a towel.

  11:50 p.m.: Everybody cranky. Warner regrets not bringing snacks. We all regret the no snack bringing, too.

  12:00 a.m.: Galactascope still silent.

  As Kevin marked the mission failure into his log, he felt his stomach tighten with panic. Even if there were aliens out there, it could take months for them to get the message, and they only had a few days before the convention.

  “Come on, guys,” Kevin said, his face crestfallen. “Let’s pack up and get out of here before we get in trouble. We can try again tomorrow.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to wait a little longer, Kev?” Tara asked. “I could stay up a little laaaaaay-ter.” She yawned, stretching her arms out.

  THUNK! Tara’s wrist whacked the device, and the galactascope abruptly began to blip and bleep. The laptop monitor flashed to life, and a long, repetitive jumble of ones and zeroes appeared on the screen.

  “What’d you do?” Warner asked.

  “I didn’t mean to!” Tara scowled at Warner then looked at the computer. “What the heck is that?”

  “It’s a message,” Kevin whispered, his voice tinged with anticipation.

  They watched as the coded message scrolled down the computer screen, stopping abruptly and morphing into English through a neat little translator programming code that TJ had installed. “SOS. Need interstellar coordinates. SOS. Need interstellar coordinates. SOS.”

  “Quick,” Warner said. “Send it a map of our solar system.”

  TJ typed frantically on the laptop, pulling up a diagram of Earth’s solar system.

  “Now give it our longitude and latitude,” said Kevin.

  They waited in suspense by the lakeside, hoping for a reply. “I don’t know,” Kevin said, beginning to get discouraged after ten minutes of silence. “Maybe someone’s messing with us?”

  “But no one knows we’re even out here,” Warner said.

  Alexander, Kevin thought. Is he spying on us?

  “Come on, Kevin,” said Tara. “It has to be real. Let’s try it again.” She turned to TJ. “Resend the coordinates, Teej.”

  TJ nodded, interlocking his fingers and pushing out the palms of his hands. As his knuckles cracked, the night sky suddenly opened up with a bright neon-blue flash.

  “Whoa,” Warner and Tara said together.

  Kevin blinked twice, completely speechless. He squinted and watched as a speck of otherworldly light started to grow against the dark backdrop of the sky. At first it looked like a normal star, but as the speck became larger and larger, Kevin could see a UFO hurtling toward them on a billowing trail of gray smoke. This can’t really be happening.

  “Get down!” Kevin shouted as the UFO flew right over their heads.

  The fo
ur of them ducked for cover as the spacecraft crashed into the lake, sending a large wave rippling toward the shore.

  “Holy Moley Mother of Cannoli!” TJ spoke for the first time since the beginning of camp. “Did you just see that?”

  Tara, Warner, and Kevin all turned their heads to TJ.

  “Dude,” Warner said. “I totally forgot you even knew how to talk.”

  Kevin swiveled his head back and forth, waiting for one of their counselors to check out the commotion, but the camp was still.

  “Omigosh,” Tara cried out, pointing toward the center of the lake. Something had burst to the surface and was flailing frantically in the water.

  “It can’t swim,” Kevin shouted, and ran toward the paddleboats that were beached on the lakeshore. “We gotta save it! Come on!”

  At the lake’s edge, Warner and Kevin dragged one of the boats into the water and hopped into the pedaling seats. Kevin’s mind was reeling with the possibilities. They had actually summoned alien life to Earth, but if they didn’t act quickly, it might all be for nothing!

  “Hurry up, guys,” Kevin called to Tara and TJ as they jumped into the back, rocking the boat unsteadily. A swell of water splashed over the side, soaking Kevin’s sneakers and socks as he and Warner began to pedal fast toward the center of the lake.

  As they drew closer to the drowning alien, Kevin watched the space creature gurgle one last breath and disappear below the surface, drifting down in a sinkhole of air bubbles.

  Without thinking twice, Kevin tossed his glasses to Warner and jumped in after it. He dove straight down, blindly searching with his arms outstretched. After a few seconds, he grabbed hold of something that felt like the tail of a snake. Kevin gripped his hand around it and propelled himself back up to the surface, gasping for air, hoping with every particle in his body that this mystery creature was not about to bite his arm clean off.