by Morgan Rice
“I know quite enough about your situation,” Professor Brewster said.
“That’s not it,” Kevin insisted. “There has been another message! A new set of coordinates. The aliens said—”
“That’s enough,” Professor Brewster said. “We all put enough time and effort into chasing this charade, without trying to revive it. I’m going to hang up now, Kevin. If you contact this facility again, I will be passing the details of it along to the police.”
He hung up, just as firmly as the receptionist had.
Kevin stood there, trying to work out what to do next. He didn’t have any other phone numbers to try, unless he was going to attempt to call a journalist or the White House or something, and in both those cases, he suspected that he would get pretty much the same response that he’d just had. He could go home and try to talk to the journalists there, or he could wait for his mother, but both of those options risked him being ignored, and—
“So,” Luna said, interrupting his thought process, “how are we getting to SETI?”
“What?” Kevin said.
“It’s the best option we have,” Luna said. “If we go to them, they’ll see that you’re serious, and they’ll be able to persuade NASA to move their telescopes. Dr. Levin always seemed far nicer than that Professor Brewster anyway.”
When she put it like that, she managed to make it sound so utterly logical that there was no arguing with it. Luna had a way of doing that kind of thing that was kind of terrifying, in its way. Even so, Kevin thought that he should at least try.
“My mom will kill me if I do something like that,” he pointed out.
“Your mom loves you too much for that,” Luna said. “Anyway, she’s going to ground you forever for sneaking out as it is. You might as well save the world while you’re in trouble already.”
“You don’t have to get into trouble though,” Kevin pointed out. “Your parents will be mad if you just go off to San Francisco.”
“You think I’m letting you do this alone?” Luna demanded. “You think I’m letting you get all the credit for finding the aliens again? You think I’m letting you have all the fun?”
“I’m not sure that it will be exactly fun,” Kevin said.
Luna was already shaking her head. “You got to go to the jungle without me, but you’re not leaving me behind for this part, Kevin.”
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
They bought bus tickets to San Francisco from a clerk who eyed them suspiciously. Kevin wasn’t sure if it was because the man recognized him from the news, or because he thought they were probably runaways, or both. They still managed to buy tickets though, and snagged two seats toward the back of a bus that rattled along half full in the direction of the city. They huddled in them, and Kevin found himself grateful that Luna was there. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to do this without her.
The bus journey seemed to take forever, and Kevin spent most of that time trying to work out what he might be able to say that would be able to convince them that he was telling the truth. He couldn’t just ask them to trust him, not after last time.
“Of course you can,” Luna said when he said as much to her. “You ask them to check the location of the signal. They might not be able to work out what it means, but they’ll still hear it.”
She made it sound easy, but the truth was that it probably was their best option. So, when the bus got into the station, Kevin set off with Luna, finding a taxi that would take them in the right direction, trying to ignore the way his body was starting to shake.
“You going for the excitement there?” the cab driver asked. “You missed most of it. They stopped talking about aliens a couple of days ago.”
“Maybe they’ll start again,” Luna said. “You never know.”
The driver took them as far as the entrance to SETI. There weren’t the people camped out here that there were with the NASA facility, and Kevin was happy about that. It meant that he could simply walk in without people spotting him, or grabbing him, or—
“You?” the receptionist said almost as soon as he stepped through the door. “Didn’t you get the message when I hung up on you? You’ve caused so much trouble here already. Get out before I call security.”
Before, it had been Kevin’s mother who had gotten into a shouting match with the receptionist. Now Luna started forward, obviously spoiling for an argument.
“It’s okay,” Dr. Levin said, stepping out into the lobby. “I’ve got this. Kevin, what are you doing here?”
“He’s trying to get through to you,” Luna said, the irritation easy to hear in her voice. “But apparently people who have already betrayed him aren’t willing to listen.”
“Hello, Luna,” Dr. Levin said. “Do your parents know the two of you are here? You really shouldn’t be here.”
“There has been another message,” Kevin said, guessing that they didn’t have a lot of time. He didn’t feel as though he had a lot of time right then. Maybe it was the effort of coming all that way, but Kevin could feel the pressure in his head building, along with a dizziness that made the world swim. He pushed it back. This was important.
“Kevin,” Dr. Levin said, “we all know by now that the messages aren’t real. Even if you think they are, you need to stop this.”
“How did I know about Pioneer 11?” Kevin demanded. He’d had a whole bus ride in which to think about what he was going to say, and how he could convince Dr. Levin. “How did I know where the first signal would be? You saw me do that with your own eyes, Dr. Levin.”
The scientist started to shake her head. “That doesn’t matter.”
“It does,” Kevin insisted. “If you don’t believe the evidence in front of you, then what’s science for?” He paused. “If you can explain it away, just tell me. Tell me how I’m doing it, and I’ll turn around and go, but I think that you can’t, and you can’t, because this is real, and there’s another message.”
He would have said more then, but he couldn’t hold back the sudden pressure in his head.
Suddenly, he collapsed.
*
Blackness claimed Kevin. For once, there were no visions, no messages, and no signs of anything.
Just emptiness
He woke to harsh light, blinking, trying to figure out where he was.
Luna and Dr. Levin were looking down at him.
“Kevin, are you all right?” Luna asked.
“We should get you some medical attention,” Dr. Levin said.
“No,” Kevin managed to say, and for a moment, even he wasn’t sure which question he was answering. “No more doctors. Don’t call my mom. We have to listen to the signal.”
He realized he had collapsed. He was lying on the floor, in the spot he had been standing just moments before.
He heard Dr. Levin sigh. He wasn’t sure what he would do if she threw him out. Put the information on the Internet, maybe? Send it directly to some other observatory in the hope that they would do something with the information? Probably, he would be in too much trouble with his mother for that by then. He just had to stand there and hope.
He saw her eyeing him with more compassion than she had before; he suspected his collapse had shifted something within her.
“Okay,” Dr. Levin said, “okay, I’ll admit, I’ve been thinking about everything from when you first came here. Unless you somehow managed to take control of all of NASA’s systems… No, it just doesn’t work. But that means…”
“It means you believe me,” Kevin said.
Dr. Levin nodded. “Yes, I believe you. I don’t want to, but I can’t see any other way. What’s this message of yours?”
“Coordinates,” Kevin said. “Like the last time we had to change the telescope’s alignment, only different. They want us to focus on a different place.”
“For messages coming from a different patch of sky?” Dr. Levin asked. Kevin heard her sigh. “You know that no one will move a telescope just on my word, right? Not after…”
“After everything I did?” Kevin guessed.
Dr. Levin nodded.
“There must be someone,” Luna insisted, beside them. “Professor Brewster doesn’t have to know. Or we could find a way to hack in.”
It was surprising, sometimes, just how little respect for rules Luna could have. To Kevin’s surprise, Dr. Levin seemed to be taking her suggestion seriously.
“Hacking NASA is hard,” she said. “To do that, we’d need someone who…”
Then her eyes brightened with realization.
“Of course,” she said to herself. “Phil.”
Kevin nodded at the mention of the scientist’s name. “Do you think… do you think he would help?”
“He might,” Dr. Levin said. “He’s our best shot, at least.”
She and Luna helped Kevin to stand. It took an effort, but he was going to see this through.
“I can’t believe that I’m doing this again,” she said, “but I guess… I guess we need to take a trip to NASA.”
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
They drove over to the NASA facility in Dr. Levin’s car. As the three of them drove up, there were still some people waiting outside, but fewer than there had been. They made for the gates in Dr. Levin’s car. There was a security guard there, standing behind a low barrier.
“This could be tricky,” Dr. Levin said. “I haven’t been back since this happened.”
She drove up and the guard there held up a hand.
“Can’t come in here,” he said, holding up a hand. “If I’ve told one of you, I must have told a… Dr. Levin, what are you doing here? You’re not on the list for today.”
“We need to get in, Neil,” she said. “I need to talk to Phil.”
“We?” the guard said. He looked back at the car. “Wait, isn’t that…”
Kevin didn’t shy away from the guard’s look. Right then, it was their only hope.
“You? You aren’t supposed to be here. They said—”
“They probably said all kinds of things,” Dr. Levin said, “but we do need to get in. Please.”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Levin,” the security guard said. “But I just can’t let you in like this, especially not if you’re bringing him here.”
Kevin looked across to Luna, who nodded.
“Please, Neil, this is vital,” Dr. Levin said.
“I’m sorry, you need to turn your car around and… Hey!”
Kevin and Luna burst from the car practically simultaneously,
Kevin darted past him at almost the same time that Luna did. The man couldn’t make a grab for both of them at once, and so they managed to slip past the barrier, running for the doors to the facility even as the security guard turned to run after them, his efforts hampered by a few of the people who had come there to protest, and who had clearly decided to follow and see what was happening.
Kevin ran forward, sprinting for the door. He and Luna were both quicker than the man was, and they made it to the doors before the guard had covered half the space. That would probably have meant much more if the doors hadn’t been locked. Kevin pounded on them, but he didn’t have the security clearance to get through them, had never had the clearance to get through them, and now the guard was bearing down on them.
“You’re both going straight to the police!” he promised as he closed in.
Then the doors to the facility opened, and both Kevin and Luna stumbled inside a step ahead of the guard. The door slammed to shut him out, and Kevin looked up at the figure who had opened the door.
“Ted?” He was the last person Kevin had been expecting there, but probably also the best person they could have run into. “You’re still here?”
Ted nodded. “I had to stay around to answer some questions about all this. But never mind that. What are you doing here, Kevin?” He looked over to Luna. “You’re both here?”
“There’s been another message,” Kevin said.
Where the others had hung up or looked at him like he was mad, Ted gave him a serious look. “You’re sure?”
Kevin nodded. “We need someone who can realign the telescope. There’s another set of coordinates.”
Ted watched as Dr. Levin came up, able to get through now that Ted had gotten the guard to back off. “You were coming to check?”
Dr. Levin nodded. “I was hoping that Phil might be willing to realign things quietly. The trick is getting there.”
“I can handle that,” Ted said. “I’m just supposed to be here to wrap things up, but I still have full access.”
He took out a keycard, letting them into the building. Some of the people in the lobby stared at them as they came in, but no one said anything. Kevin guessed that had a lot to do with Ted’s presence and that of Dr. Levin.
“We should move quickly,” Ted said. “Someone will tell Professor Brewster that you’re here soon enough.”
“Just so long as we have the new messages by then,” Dr. Levin said.
She led the way down toward Phil’s office, with Kevin, Luna, and Ted following along behind. Kevin saw the looks some of the people gave him, heard the muttering as he passed. They hadn’t forgotten what had happened before. Kevin just hoped that Phil would be willing to help.
Dr. Levin knocked on the researcher’s door, and Kevin watched his face as he saw them there. It moved from recognition to surprise, and then to a kind of worried understanding.
“No,” he said, holding up his hands. “Whatever it is, no.”
“We haven’t even asked you anything yet,” Dr. Levin pointed out.
“But you will,” Phil said, “and Professor Brewster will hear about it, and—”
“Do you care what David says?” Dr. Levin countered.
Phil shrugged, then sighed. “What do you need?”
“We need you to point the telescopes at some new coordinates,” Kevin said, answering for them. “I got another message.”
“You want me to… do you know what you’re asking?” Phil said.
“Look at it this way,” Dr. Levin pointed out. “If you do this, you’ll get to be the guy who proved that Kevin was right all along.”
Phil swallowed, then nodded. “Okay, but we have to do this quietly. Come on.”
He led them through the facility now, taking them down to a lab space equipped with monitors and screens. A few taps on the keyboard from Phil, and it started to show the data from one of the telescope arrays.
“Okay,” he said, “it looks like we’re set up here. We just… oh, there goes my career.”
Kevin looked round. Through the doors of the lab space, he could see Professor Brewster approaching, a thunderous expression on his face.
“What are they doing here?” he demanded as he advanced. “Stop what you’re doing at once!”
Kevin guessed that it had been inevitable that someone would tell him that they were here. He’d just thought maybe they would get a little more time before it happened.
“Looks like we’re done,” Phil said.
“Not if we do this quickly,” Kevin replied.
“Not even that quickly,” Luna said. She ran over to the door, shutting it and wedging a chair under the handle. “What?” she demanded as the others looked at her. “It’s just the obvious thing to do.”
“Only to you,” Kevin said with a smile.
Outside, Professor Brewster hammered on the glass door. “Open this at once! I shall call security! Anybody assisting that boy will be treated as a criminal!”
Kevin looked over to Phil. Without him, they wouldn’t be able to realign the telescope, so if he decided not to do this…
“Okay,” he said. “What are the coordinates?”
Kevin breathed a sigh of relief and recited from memory. As with the first set of numbers, these felt almost burned into him, there when he shut his eyes so that it was almost more like reading them than remembering.
“You’re sure?” Phil asked.
Kevin nodded, opening his eyes. There were more people outside the door no
w, gathering around to watch what was happening, or trying to help Professor Brewster get in there.
“Here we go then,” Phil said. He pressed another button, and Kevin saw the numbers on the screen shift as the focus of the radio telescope started to change. They shifted little by little, the numbers getting closer to the ones he saw, and closer, until…
The moment they matched, a signal came through, clear and strong. Sounds started to come from the system. They had a familiar feel to them, but at the same time they seemed different from some of the ones Kevin had translated. Less precise and mechanical, more flowing.
Even so, he found himself translating them automatically.
“If you are receiving this, beware,” he translated. “You are in grave danger. The last messages you received were a trick.”
Kevin could hear Professor Brewster continuing to hammer on the door, but he kept listening, and now the translation flowed from him.
“Their transmissions were a lie, designed to make you open the capsule. It is no time capsule. It is a weapon. It has destroyed us completely. This is our final transmission, to warn others not to make the same mistake we did.”
Kevin frowned, not sure if he was translating it right, but the message wasn’t done.
Brewster and his team burst through the door.
“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded—but stopped short as he listened, too.
“Do not make the mistakes we did. Do not open what they send to you.”
The message stopped, then repeated, as if it were being sent on some kind of loop.
“Someone wanted to make sure that we heard it,” Luna said.
Kevin nodded, trying to make sense of it. He looked over to the adults.
“Where is the rock?” Brewster asked.
“Downstairs—Lab 3b.”
“Get them on the phone!” Ted yelled. “NOW!”
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Kevin ran, trying to keep up with Dr. Levin, Luna, and Ted as they hurried through the NASA institute, trying to get to the space where the rock was being kept. He could see the shocked looks on the faces of the scientists they raced past, some of them obviously recognizing him, others probably just surprised that anyone would run that fast through a serious scientific facility.
