Reg hustled them out of there. He offered Eddie a wheelchair but he refused it. The paralytic had worn off, and he felt terrible, but he could walk.
“Dude, what was with the song?” Trevor said.
“What?”
“In the simulation. You were singing, man.”
“That wasn’t me. That was the choir.” There was no choir. “Rosa?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know that song.”
“I was singing?”
“Yep.”
“Maybe that’s why Brad was out to get me.”
“I thought it was to move up, and because you foiled his plot against Rosa,” Trevor said. “But the singing is a better explanation.”
“Not to change the subject,” Rosa said, “but what’s going on? The ‘situation’?”
Reg pulled them aside by a planter in front of the building. There was more sidewalk traffic than they’d seen before, people getting places without slowing their pace when they passed one another.
“My thought is that if you’re going to be on Team 3, you need to know some things.” He glanced over his shoulder, like maybe not everyone agreed.
“IA sensors picked up gravity microvariations weeks ago, but they’ve gotten steadily greater.”
“I don’t get what this means,” Eddie said.
“We have incredibly sensitive sensors pointed out there into the dark,” he said, “measuring gravity as far into the universe as we can. Because this is how you detect another world.”
Reg started to walk again. “We know there are an infinite number of stars and planets and Earths out there. Within an infinite universe, every possibility will occur.”
“So you’re saying you found another planet or something?” Trevor said. “Because they do that all the time. I mean, think how much they discovered after they installed the Tyson telescope on Pluto.”
Reg shook his head and ushered them into a building that had been off limits before—the command building. It was at the edge of the compound, overlooking the helicopter pad and the launch tower for vehicles that would leave Earth’s orbit.
“Those don’t cause gravitational disturbances,” he said. “Think.” He tapped his forehead. “You only get a disturbance like this when something changes, something moves—when something is out there that didn’t used to be.”
“You mean …” Eddie wasn’t even sure how to phrase it. “You mean something is coming?” The hairs on his neck rose.
Reg gave him a sober look. “We don’t know what it means. But something is off in a way it has never been before.” He yanked on the door handle and they walked into the building. It was a hive of activity. He pulled them over against the wall. “I’m going to try to sneak you into the Flight Control Room. It’s where the data comes in and is analyzed in rough form, and the satellite feeds come in to the screens there. It functions like a combination of the White House war room and an air traffic control tower.”
“That’s where they launch the probes?” Trevor said.
“Yeah. Any craft we send up. That’s where the countdown takes place. It’ll be the best learning experience of your life if you can lie low and keep your mouths shut.” He looked at Eddie, which Eddie didn’t think was entirely fair. Then something occurred to him.
“Is that why the head of NASA is here?”
“Yeah,” Reg said.
“I didn’t think he was just here to torture me with green badges.”
Reg gave a little snort then led them, trotting, up a staircase. They flattened against the wall at the landing when a woman raced past them. Reg stopped them in the hall and said, “These are serious people doing serious work. Keep your wisecrackery to yourself.”
They nodded, and he pushed open the door under the Flight Control Room sign and they slipped inside. The room was humming, vibrating. John Taylor Templeton was leaning over a computer bank, one arm propped against the wall. The room was the size of two basketball courts. To the right were windows overlooking the launch pad, about a mile away, where one deep space vehicle was attached vertically to a launch tower. There had been two—Young and Moloney had already shot off, then. The trainees looked through the window, hoping to see their contrail, but there was nothing.
To the left was a bank of large screens showing views of space fed from space-based telescopes. They pressed against the wall, watching the place vibrate. It looked like chaos at first, but after a couple of minutes Eddie began to see that it was actually several interconnected systems operating within the same space. Rosa was staring at the deep space screens.
“It doesn’t make sense,” the IA director said. “We’ve been tracking this gravitational anomaly for weeks. We sent Young and Moloney off a couple hours ago, and now the anomaly’s coordinates have shifted.”
“Yeah, that’s crackers,” John Taylor Templeton agreed. “Did we send our team to the wrong location?”
People were ducking heads and averting eyes.
“Get Richtig and Doepker ready to go,” Smithson said. “They’re still prepping?”
“Yes, sir,” someone said.
The IA director was silent for a moment, then swore under his breath. Eddie didn’t catch all of it, but was impressed by the creativity of what he did hear.
“They should just give him a plaque and retire the swear jar,” he whispered to Rosa. Reg shot him a look.
“Did we send Team 1 on a wild goose chase?” Smithson said, then roared, “Well? I want an answer.”
“Sir, all the data were consistent on the location of the anomaly,” a man said.
“And now it’s coming from nineteen degrees to the left. Nineteen degrees! We can weigh a proton, and we were off by nineteen degrees?” He punched a fist into his open hand.
“Are we sure it’s not coming from both places?” John Taylor Templeton said.
“It seems to be coming only from the new location now, sir,” a woman at the computer bank said.
The NASA director’s mouth tightened. “We could send a probe,” he said.
“They’re unmanned,” Smithson said. “If it runs into something, it can’t deal with—by the time we dispatched a team, it could be too late.”
Eddie and Rosa exchanged a glance. Too late for what?
They stood against the wall, watching and listening for an hour. Eddie felt conspicuous. Rosa was small, and Trevor had an angularity unusual for a biological life-form. He was well camouflaged for a room like this. But Eddie was all bunchy muscle and attitude. The only thing about him that stood at attention was his hair. People were too busy checking instruments and running calculations and swearing to notice them, but when someone did shoot them a look, it was Eddie they saw. He kept his mouth shut and watched the hive vibrate.
The woman who’d almost flattened them in the stairwell was back in the room. She was on the phone, tapping at a keyboard while she talked, and then she stood up and looked for Smithson.
“Sir? The Russians say their data are the same as ours. The source of the readings has shifted.”
Rosa was trying to catch Reg’s eye. “Couldn’t it just have moved?” she whispered. Eddie had been wondering that, too.
Reg shook his head. “Distance we’re talking about? With a terrific energy source and a few hundred years, sure. This is what I meant by gravity flutters. We get a reading, and then it just shuts off. But it’s never been this close before.”
“How close?” Rosa whispered.
“Close enough that we think we can make contact. That’s why they sent Team 1.”
They all stared at the huge screens showing deep space. It stretched in lonely darkness forever. Smithson worked the room, walking down the rows of computer banks, talking briefly to each person in turn. Once he turned and shouted, “What are the Chinese saying?” A woman rose and yelled back, “They appreciate our leadership in this time of crisis.”
“Oh, screw them,” Smithson said. He finished his rounds, then stood under the screens at the front, the cosmos hanging over his head. “Okay, we’re sending Team 2. Somebody tell Richtig and Doepker to get their suits on.”
Reg jerked his head into the hall and the trainees followed him, but they were reluctant ducklings. None of them wanted to leave the Flight Control Room.
Reg kept his voice low, even though the door shut behind them. “It’s gonna take a while to get Team 2 ready to go. They’ve known this was a possibility so they’ve been prepping, but they’re still fueling the craft. That takes a while.”
Eddie nodded. They were dispatching their last team, and whatever needed doing from now on would fall to Rosa, Eddie, and Trevor. They weren’t well trained—they weren’t really trained at all—but he was ready. Whatever IA needed them to do, Eddie was itching to do it.
“You guys go get some lunch,” Reg said.
Ouch. Eddie’d been hoping for a tougher assignment.
“They’re just gonna stare at screens and go mad for a while. You can watch the launch later.”
Smithson stepped into the hall just then, stared intently at the trainees and then at Reg. “I just heard that you lost one of your trainees.”
“Yeah,” Reg said.
“I authorized a live explosives exercise …”
Reg laughed. “He didn’t blow up.”
Smithson blew air out loudly. “You get that working with you takes a couple years off a guy, right?”
Reg grinned, then turned sober. “He broke into the office and he tried to injure—possibly kill—two other trainees in order to secure a spot.”
“We’re sure he’s off the compound?”
“Yeah,” Reg said. “The guard booth texted me a few minutes ago.”
Smithson nodded. “You’re going to have to cut one of them now,” he said. “If we don’t have two teams, we need one. Not one and a half.”
“I’m keeping one as an understudy.”
“Reg,” Smithson said. “NASA doesn’t have understudies.”
Reg shrugged. “Consider it a redundant system, then.”
“Everything is turning to crap in there,” Smithson said, jutting a finger at the Flight Control Room. “I don’t want to think about this. Cut somebody.”
“I’ll make that decision later,” Reg said. “When things have quieted …”
Rosa and Trevor exchanged an uneasy look, but Eddie looked at the floor. He’d seen this before.
“Which one is the understudy?” Smithson asked.
Trevor squirmed.
Reg hesitated, then nodded at Trevor.
“He’s the understudy for …?” Smithson said.
“Eddie,” Reg said. “He had some unusual test results.”
“Eddie, thanks for your time,” Smithson said, “but you’re gone.”
“The hell?” Reg said.
“I do not need any more goddamn unusual test results! I am up to my ass in anomalies,” Smithson shouted.
“He’s a remarkable—” Reg said.
“Is there any chance they’re not all remarkable?” Smithson snapped.
Reg squeezed his eyes shut. “We could make even teams by adding another—”
Smithson shook his head and stalked back into the Flight Control Room.
Reg stared through the wall, then softly said, “Damn it.” Finally he looked up. “Eddie, you were terrific. I’m sorry.”
Eddie stood very still as Reg disappeared back through the Flight Control Room door, leaving them in the hall. He’d lost his place. Brad tried to blow him up and got cut for it, leaving the teams uneven—and he was getting cut as a result. There was no Eddie on any Earth with worse luck than his.
“Come on,” Rosa said quietly. “Let’s order a pizza.” A guy walking past them into Flight Control glanced over. “You can’t,” he said. “The compound’s on lockdown.” He disappeared through the door.
They headed toward the cafeteria without speaking. How long would a lockdown last? Eddie didn’t want to stay there while Trevor took his place, while Trevor went off in the morning with Rosa. But where would he go? Oolitic, he guessed. Could any of his friends drive this far to get him? Trevor and Rosa would be making trial space flights, and he’d still be hitching east down I-74.
They went through the food line.
“Can I take the tray outside?” Eddie mumbled.
“Get the dishes back before two o’clock,” the cashier said.
He nodded and took an extra plate of cookies. He didn’t ask Rosa and Trevor to come with him, but they trailed him out of the cafeteria.
“Where to?” Rosa said.
Eddie shrugged. “Someplace in the sun.” It felt like a last meal. He wanted the sun burning his forearms. He wanted to breathe free air.
They found a grassy hillside and sprawled across it. Eddie should have been thinking about what he was going to do now that they’d kicked him out, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the Flight Control Room. He knew he’d be thinking about it for the rest of his life. He didn’t want to leave. He just didn’t. He took a bite of his grilled cheese.
“Congratulations, Trev. Tomorrow they’ll measure your flinty little head for a space helmet.”
“I’m sorry.”
Eddie snorted.
“You know, it’s not my fault you have to die on every hill,” Trevor said. “You’re the one who decided to jump over that barrier.”
Eddie looked up at him, his face twisted. “You think the simulation’s what did it?” He shook his head. “It’s because they met my old man.” Eddie bent his spoon until it snapped and tossed the pieces into the grass. “They look at me and you and decide I’m the one who has to go. Why do you think that is?” He snapped his fork. “They think I could be the old man. Or like Brad.”
“Smithson was just stressed,” Rosa said. “He—”
“And maybe I could be,” Eddie said. “I mean, how do you know what you might do?” He speared the broken fork into the ground.
“Dude,” Trevor said. “You are not like Brad.”
“When Ms. Bauer tried to get us to fight,” Eddie said, looking up at Rosa, “I thought about it. About hitting you.”
“They were trying to make you think about it,” Rosa said. “I thought about hitting you, too.”
He smiled faintly.
“During the simulation, the voice—Brad—tried to provoke us into doing something stupid so we’d look bad or maybe get kicked out. He read our psych profiles,” Rosa said. A shudder ran up her back.
“He was in the office to get a key to the rec center,” Trevor said. “I wondered why he was being helpful. It gave him an excuse to go in there.”
“The reason it bothers us is that the voice wasn’t really him,” Rosa said. “Brad was talking, but the voice is the one inside our heads, right? I worry that I’m not like my dad, and you worry that you are like yours.”
Eddie nodded but didn’t look at her.
“How do we know who we are under the weight of all the expectations?” she said, twisting the broken spoon in the grass. “Good and bad.”
A crow flew in and landed on the slope beside them, the sun gleaming off its black back. It tilted its head, examining them. Trevor tossed it a french fry, and it took a trial peck at the food.
“You can trust yourself, Eddie,” Trevor said.
“How do you know?”
“Because you wanted to hit me a minute ago and you didn’t.”
Eddie gave him a half smile. “I want to hit you a lot.”
“Further proof!” Trevor said. “And you’re a friend to church choirs everywhere.”
The crow snatched up the fry and flew away with it trailing from its beak.
“You need to give yourself a break,” Rosa said. “You’re having a rough day.”
“You almost drowned today and got blown up a couple days ago,” Trevor said.
“The day before that wasn’t so great, either,” Eddie said. He picked at a piece of grass, splitting it with his thumbnail. He had no idea what he was going to do next.
They returned their dishes and then sat outside to watch the launch. Reg texted that they couldn’t go back in the Flight Control Room, so it seemed as good a place as any.
“Knock knock,” Rosa said.
Eddie looked at her. She was trying to make him feel better—he could see it on her face, all lit up in the Iowa sun. “Who’s there?”
“Oswald.”
“Oswald who?”
“Oswald my gum and now I don’t feel so good.” She smiled expectantly at him.
He groaned. “How long did you work on that?”
“Two days. A piece of gum was harmed in the creation of this joke.”
Team 2 exited their transport and walked across the tarmac to the launch tower. Rosa, Eddie, and Trevor ran through the equipment check they’d be doing, but they must have missed some things because they finished before Team 2 did. Then the tower pulled away from the spacecraft, and moments later a bloom of flame appeared underneath it. The needle vibrated.
“I get why the engines wobble,” Trevor said, “but watching it still freaks me out.”
“It’s because the initial explosions aren’t evenly distributed,” Eddie said. “Once the engines get to full power the explosions will even out and the engine bell will stop rocking.” Eddie knew Trevor understood it. He needed Trevor to know that this was stuff he knew.
Rosa grinned and ratcheted back an imaginary control, and then the ship shot into the sky. A wave of heat blew over them as far away as they were, and the wind buffeted their faces and whipped Rosa’s long, dark hair across Eddie’s face. His eyes stung, but it wasn’t because of her hair. They filled and made the craft looked wavery as it shot up, and a drop of water rolled down his cheek.
It was Newton’s fault—equal and opposite reaction. For everything that went up, something had to come down. Eddie just didn’t know why the thing that went down was always him.
Screw Newton.