We made our way over to the table to say hello to Jeong and Shaw. I nudged Luka, whispered, “Mr. Crane is over there. Hanna said something about introducing us to his friends later.” His friends were all serious-faced men, and they seemed deep in quiet discussion in the corner.
We joined the conversation with Jeong and Shaw. Correction: Luka participated, and I nodded at appropriate intervals, sneaking glances at the men gathered around Crane.
“Okay, you two,” Hanna said, her voice flinty and sudden in my ear. “Come on. Mr. Crane wants to officially introduce you.”
We rose as one from the table, my legs feeling surprisingly weak as Luka excused the both of us. Hanna’s anxiety put me on edge. I shot a sideways glance at Luka. His jaw was clenched, eyes focused on the men in the corner. If Hanna needed a drink before talking with these guys, and Luka was already steeling himself, I knew for a fact I wasn’t going to enjoy the encounter.
Hanna led us across the room. Mr. Crane didn’t even acknowledge her presence beside him for five solid minutes, but Hanna seemed to expect that.
When he finally did acknowledge us standing there awkwardly outside the tight circle of men, Mr. Crane gestured to us with an arm and the circle split open to accommodate us. “Ah, gentlemen, here are the exceptional young people I wish you to meet. You already know Hanna Schulz. These two here are our top contenders for our fifth crew member. I’d like you to meet Luka Kereselidze and Cassandra Gupta.”
The men—one stout and bearded with a sweating glass of scotch in one hand, one with thick eyeglasses and bushy brows that were constantly furrowed, making him appear permanently concerned, the third pale and stern and gaunt-faced, all of them old—did not smile. They did not give their names. The bearded one inclined his head slightly, acknowledging only Luka in his greeting.
Crane continued. “I believe you are familiar with Mr. Kereselidze’s qualifications, as they were furnished in my report. He has continued to impress here on campus, and I think his knowledge of the mission-essential skills rivals even mine. But both of these young people have shown remarkable fortitude and maturity for their age, and each has their own special skill set that would prove invaluable to our mission. Just this morning, Ms. Gupta successfully formed a direct neural link with our testing computer. She possesses an able mind with abilities we know are exceedingly difficult to find. Which is why, gentlemen, we are considering increasing crew manifest to six, and including both of these talented individuals on our mission.”
My breath caught. Both of us? Yes! I wanted to shout, but I kept my face impassive. I snuck a glance sideways at Luka to see if he was happy for me, too. His eyes widened in surprise, but he allowed no other emotion to surface.
“The craft is built for five,” the gaunt man said. His voice was as heavy and plodding as steel boots.
I let the air deflate from my lungs, slowly.
“It is not a critical change, Yeltsov,” said the man with the glasses. “One extra module, a few calculation changes for the extra weight and oxygen. It can be done.”
“Not without extra cost,” said the bearded man. “And added risk. The simulations must be run again to account for the changes. You would be looking at a launch delay of at least a year. To be conservative.”
He spoke as if we weren’t standing right there, like we didn’t matter at all.
“She formed a neural link with the test computer, you say?” said the man with the glasses.
I drank the rest of my rum and Coke too quickly; the burn provoked a cough I couldn’t suppress. The men glanced at me as though they’d only just noticed I was there.
Hanna stepped in. “The test computer is simply a scaled-down version of Sunny, possessing all the same capabilities at lower processing speed—a way to test candidates cheaply. The neural handshake—the ability to make the connection—that is the difficult thing, and that is what Cassie has proven she’s capable of achieving.”
I appreciated her defending me, but even in its best light, my “success” sounded insubstantial. I tried projecting an air of unaffected genius. As though I weren’t a teen girl unable to handle alcohol.
Hanna’s words actually provoked an impressed raise of the eyebrows and a few nods from the men—except for pale Mr. Yeltsov, who did nothing.
“And Luka cannot perform to the same level,” said the man with the glasses. “The board will not sign off on yet another redesign of the craft and spending years testing it just so you can add an additional crew member, Crane. You want to have your cake and eat it, too.”
“We need to see a return on our investment. Now, before any more unfortunate accidents occur.” The gaunt man’s voice was grave, and with the way the other two leveled their eyes at Crane, they were in agreement.
Luka and I both startled. Crane had told them about the sabotage? Or could they be talking about something else?
“The solution seems quite simple to me,” agreed the bearded man.
Crane’s schmoozing facade broke only for a second, his annoyance showing through. “That is not quite—”
“This supercomputer,” Mr. Yeltsov began, apparently changing the subject. “This is the project you reported as being over budget, yes?”
Crane’s eyes turned hard, and he flicked his head almost imperceptibly at Hanna. She put her hands on our shoulders and pushed us away. “Time to go, kiddies,” she muttered under her breath. “Daddy and his friends have to talk privately now.”
Luka was still having trouble with his EEG tests.
Crane’s investors were doubling the pressure to launch.
Something was going to give. Soon.
We went to the bar, where Hanna immediately got another drink and I let the bartender refill my glass as I slipped onto a bar stool between her and Luka, my body still wound with tension.
Crane wanted both of us on the mission. Crane was trying to convince his investors to allow us both without compromising a quick launch date. But it might not work. As much as SEE professed to streamline the process of getting into space, bypassing politics, there seemed to be plenty of politicking going on behind the scenes.
I don’t know why I was surprised when Luka motioned the bartender over and immediately downed half the amber liquid the bartender poured him. The drinking age in Georgia was probably eleven.
“So that part’s over,” Hanna said. “I’ve fulfilled my official duties, and you two are on your own. I’d avoid that happy little foursome for the remainder of the night, though, unless Crane asks to see you. And even then I’d probably try to get out of it.”
“He’s been having money trouble? I thought the guy was loaded,” I said.
“It isn’t money trouble, and it isn’t any of your business. Or mine,” she added, almost as an afterthought. She slipped off the bar stool and grabbed my arm. She said nothing, but her eyes flicked meaningfully to Luka, then back to me.
Confused, I allowed a quick glance at Luka, who was intently staring into his glass.
Luka hadn’t said a word since meeting the investors. He was still lost in thought, eyes focused on the amber liquid in his glass as he swirled it slowly in a circle.
“Hey, you okay?” I asked. Maybe Hanna thought Luka could use a pep talk, and thought it’d better come from me.
He looked up as though he’d forgotten I was there. Then he nodded. Took a sip. “Yes, of course.”
His voice was hard. The words clipped. A lie.
I watched him a moment, studying his profile, trying to read him.
Then it hit me: Luka, despite all the work he put into this, despite his consistently high scores, had failed on one crucial element, and now they were considering bringing me in, too. That’d hurt even the most humble person.
“Your EEG tests haven’t been improving,” I guessed out loud. “Even after . . .”
“No.” He didn’t seem eager to discuss it. I was probably the last person he wanted to see right now.
He downed the rest of his glass and rose fr
om his chair. “I don’t wish to be here any longer. Would you like to join me in an escape?”
A corner of my mouth quirked upward of its own accord. “We’ll have to be quick. Before Krieger or Hanna can catch us.”
We slipped into the empty hallway. Emergency fluorescents lit the linoleum in patches every fifteen feet or so. It was otherwise shadows and stillness, a welcome relief from being in a room full of tense strangers.
We strolled slowly, nowhere in particular to go, only wanting to be somewhere other than where we’d been. Luka occasionally glanced sideways at me, as if he meant to speak, but never did.
“Something’s wrong with you and I don’t know what it is,” I finally said. “Can I . . . help? Can I do anything?”
He just shook his head.
“Did I do something wrong? If I did . . . I’m sorry.”
He stopped, his voice emphatic. “No! No. I’m happy for your success. It’s simply that . . . I’ve been reconsidering why I am here. Perhaps it is dawning on me, the finality of our mission. The ramifications. I am not . . .” He stopped, shook his head, and looked up at the dark sky. “I am not sure I want to be so far from my family. Perhaps this is why you have succeeded where I have failed. Perhaps I have not found within myself the sufficient desire to succeed.”
Hearing him say it, the tide of my own homesickness crested over me, barely kept at bay.
His eyes were so blue in the too-bright light of the sole fluorescent above us. They were pleading with me. “How do you manage the possibility of never seeing your loved ones again?”
“I don’t let myself think about it.” It was the truth.
“Don’t you? That is brave.”
“Brave?” I huffed, skeptical. “More like willful ignorance. I’m very good at compartmentalizing my feelings.”
He considered me, eyes still locked on my face, as if searching for some answer there. “What is it that makes you so driven? To give up your family, your home, potentially your life, to leave behind the known for the unknown? What . . . drives you to this?”
My heart was beating faster, my breath coming a little harder. “That’s just it,” I said, willing myself to remain calm in the face of some rising emotional storm in Luka. He’d always been the stalwart one. Now his calm sea was becoming a tempest and I didn’t know how to navigate it. “The unknown. I’m so curious about the universe—we know so little and I want to learn it all, see it all—I always have—there are so many wonders out there that humans have never dreamed possible. I want to help us get there. I want to discover and I want to learn. I want to know. Don’t you? Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“Yes,” he said with a little smile.
“And this?” I added, dropping my voice. “Meeting an alien civilization? They would have so much to teach us. It’s so cheesy, but—this is the dawn of something entirely new. I want to be right there when it happens. I’ve dreamed of it my whole life.”
Luka was smiling with only half his mouth.
“What?” I asked, self-conscious.
He just shook his head, as though he was trying to discourage something.
I was about to push him further into revealing it—he’d somehow gotten me to reveal more of my inner thoughts without giving away much himself—when we both heard, at the same time, the sound of voices down the hall behind us.
Everyone we knew to have clearance in this part of the facility was at the party.
Luka and I shared a confused glance, and then silently crept back the way we’d come. I was glad for my ugly, quiet shoes now. High heels would have announced my steps like a snare drum.
We found the occupied room easily. The door had been left open a crack, like someone had forgotten to push it closed, a narrow rectangle of yellow light spearing the darkness between the emergency lights.
A raised voice met my ears, and Luka held out an arm to stop me from going farther to see its source. But I recognized the deep, plodding words of the gaunt-faced man. “The board cannot and will not abide further delays, Mr. Crane.”
Mr. Crane’s voice was, in typical fashion, calm and aloof, but the words were quiet and their meaning lost to me. A note of aggravation in his tone told me this was an escalating argument.
Whatever Mr. Crane had been saying, he didn’t get a chance to finish. “Christmas,” said the louder voice, the word final, like the pounding of a gavel. “The launch must happen before Christmas. Or it will not happen at all. Make your decision.”
Luka and I looked at each other.
Shadows danced on the floor; someone was moving inside the room. Coming closer to the door. Luka and I flew backward, turning and ducking through the first door we saw, out into the chill of the night air.
Momentum carried us farther in the darkness of the courtyard, until there was enough distance between us and the door that I no longer felt in danger of being discovered.
A spot of moonlight had broken through the clouds, like a narrow spotlight on the grass. I stopped there to read Luka’s face. His expression was grim.
I didn’t know what to say about what we’d overheard. How many weeks till Christmas? I wasn’t sure.
What did this mean for Luka? For me?
Luka took a half step closer to me. “You’re shivering.”
In the adrenaline of the moment I hadn’t noticed the chill of the air. My limbs were quivering. “I’m from Alabama. I’m not designed for the cold.”
He slipped out of his jacket and held it open for me in offering.
“Oh, you don’t . . .” But the offer was tempting, and it seemed rude to refuse, so I turned and allowed him to help me into it.
His jacket was soft, warm, and suffused with the smell of him—fresh and sharp, like aftershave; I felt at once both comforted and electrified. I turned back toward him, holding the jacket tight around myself. The sleeves were so long that only my fingertips emerged from them. The grim set of his mouth and around his eyes had softened somewhat. “You didn’t have to . . . but thank you.”
He took another step closer, and I heard him exhale quietly. Watched his face lose more of its tension, lose its guardedness—the facade he’d worn inside. “Cassie . . . Cass. I never asked. Which do you prefer?”
Nobody had ever asked me my preference. “Cass is fine,” I whispered.
“Cass.” His hands were on my elbows now, an almost-embrace. A chill breeze rustled through the courtyard, making goose bumps break out on my bare calves.
My head was full of the smell of his jacket. Such an alien, boy scent.
I started taking shallower breaths. It didn’t diminish. It blocked out every other thought.
“I’ve enjoyed this,” he said. “The competition. Getting to know you. I’m glad you’re here with me. I’m glad it was you.”
His tone was suspiciously final. “You’re not giving up, are you? Nothing’s changed, Luka. You’re amazing. You’re the obvious choice. Don’t act like this now—we’re so close.”
A ghost of a smile. “No, I won’t give up. And neither will you. Agreed?”
I breathed a little easier. “Agreed.”
He shook his head with a huff of rueful laughter, like he hadn’t expected my reaction. And then he came out with it, his face open and sincere and genuine. “I like you, Cass.”
It wasn’t a throwaway line, something you said to a friend, like something Emilio would say. It wasn’t casual.
“I like you a lot more than I expected to,” I answered honestly.
He laughed, surprised and genuine and true, and it wrung out my heart.
I didn’t know if he was trying to say his good-byes now, while we were still friends. All signs pointed to one of us going and the other one staying. At this moment, either scenario was unthinkable. I’d glimpsed the tenuous hope that we’d both be able to go, together, and it had been a heady thing.
I desperately wanted that hope again.
And then his mouth was right there—right there. I found I couldn’t look
away from his lips, thin and pale pink and a little chapped. They parted as though he meant to say something, and then closed again. And I realized with a glance he was also looking at me in the same way I was looking at him.
All the blood went rushing to my face. And with it, the realization of how much I really did like him. I’d meant it when I’d said that. I respected him. Enjoyed his company.
He inclined his head and I realized, with a jolt of fear, that I knew exactly what he meant to do.
I took a step backward, breaking out of the gentle grasp of his hands.
His eyes flashed hurt only a moment before the facade came over his emotions again. He held out his hands, open and empty, meaning no harm. “I apologize. I overstepped.”
I closed the short distance I’d made between us in my moment of panic. I struggled for a way to make him understand without pushing him farther away. “No. You didn’t. I just . . . I’m not a big fan of kissing, I don’t think. I . . . don’t have much experience in that area. With someone who actually wants to kiss me. And who isn’t drunk.”
“Of course. I understand.” He was putting distance between us, putting up his guard again. His voice dropped an octave. “But I’m not drunk.”
The scent of alcohol on his breath seemed to contradict those words, but he was as clear-eyed as I was. Probably more.
I’d closed this door hastily, a fearful knee-jerk. Luka was holding it slightly open for me, just in case I decided I actually did want to step through.
This may be my last chance to ever kiss a boy I like.
I’d never thought that would matter to me, but suddenly it did—making me wonder if I knew anything about myself at all. I’d never wanted, never even had a glimmer of wanting to do this with someone else before.
My mind rapidly ticked off explanations. This was supposed to be the big, formative teenage experience, wasn’t it? I didn’t want to leave Earth with regrets. Maybe it’d be different this time. It certainly couldn’t be as bad as last time.
And I was genuinely curious. It could be nice. It was supposed to be nice, wasn’t it?
I stepped close enough to him that the backs of my hands, still holding his jacket closed, bumped into his sternum. “But maybe my hypothesis is wrong. Maybe I should . . . test it again. Under different . . . experimental conditions.”
Dare Mighty Things Page 23
