Young turned and pointed up at the observation room, crowded with people in blue shirts—and Eddie, in a red T-shirt.
“Hey, can you guys come down?” He turned to Smithson. “I want to meet your best people. We’ve got a problem we’re going to have to work on together.”
“Sure,” Smithson said. “Do you need a rocket mechanic, or what?”
“Why don’t you introduce me to everybody to start with?”
Smithson shrugged. People were already surging out of the glass-fronted observation room, heading down the staircase to the hallway outside the Flight Control Room, thrilled to get a chance to meet the Earth aliens.
“I think I’m going to go now,” Eddie said. He gripped Trevor’s hand and upper arm and gave him a shoulder bump that passed for a hug. He gave Rosa a real hug. Somebody was motioning them into the room, but they pulled out into the hall. Eddie felt like a salmon fighting his way upstream.
“Because of their IA head?” Trevor said. “Who is he again?”
“The guy my old man killed.”
Trevor gaped at him, his eyes attaining a degree of liftoff from their sockets. “Are you messing with me?”
“Yes,” Eddie said. “I make up the most humiliating things possible, unlike other people who lie to make themselves look better.”
“Yeah, but … wow,” Trevor said.
“It’s not because of him. It’s … I don’t think you should go in there,” Eddie whispered. “Come with me instead.” He tilted his head down the hall.
Rosa hesitated, but Trevor said, “You can come in, too.”
“I don’t like it,” Eddie said. He could see the indecision play over Rosa’s features.
“You’re jealous ’cause we get to meet the Earth aliens,” Trevor said.
The last of the people from the overflow room pushed past them into the Flight Control Room.
“If there’s any trouble, we’ll leave,” Rosa said. “I promise. But I can’t just skip out. It would look bad.”
Eddie squeezed his eyes shut.
“This is like the moon landing!” Rosa whispered. “It’s bigger. I want to be here for this.”
Eddie tried to keep his voice steady. “There’s a lot going on. If I have to go, this is a good time to do it.”
Rosa hesitated, then threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, Eddie. I’m going to miss you.” She pointed a finger up at him. “Come back and visit. And write and let us know how you’re doing.”
“Or else,” Trevor said.
“Yeah,” she said. “Or else.”
“Okay,” he said, and gave them a smile that stalled at half throttle. They all knew how good he was at following instructions. He’d never write, and they knew it.
“Get in there,” the guy at the door growled. “They’re not waiting on some trainees.” He stepped toward them.
Rosa gave Eddie a sad smile and turned, and she and Trevor walked into the Flight Control Room. Eddie touched a finger to his forehead in salute to the guy at the door and walked away down the hall.
“Hey!” the guy called. “Get your ass back here.”
Eddie kept walking, but gave him a different finger over his shoulder.
He listened for the door closing or feet coming after him, but didn’t hear either, so he turned around. Flight Control was packed, so the guy had left the door open, probably to get a little airflow. Not Eddie’s problem.
He needed to get his stuff. His friend from home hadn’t sent a lot, but it was too much to carry. Eddie still had the box. Maybe he could mail back his bedding and just carry a bundle of spare clothes.
Eddie could hear Young’s voice, faint from the control room. “You don’t do extradimensional travel yet, so it’ll be weeks before your teams are back?”
Smithson murmured something in response. It would be weeks—and they were going to miss their targets because there was no target there.
Something was off. Trevor didn’t get it, him with his doctor parents and germ-free home life. Rosa knew something was wrong—she was too smart not to—but she had her father’s legacy to think of. Leave that room, now, because of a hunch? She couldn’t do it.
Eddie’s old man had given him something neither of them had—the ability to sense the air parting behind him when a fist swings, so he could duck without ever seeing it. The ability to think with his spine, because sometimes what he threw was one of Eddie’s books. But sometimes it was a baseball bat. Or a hatchet.
And then Eddie knew. He had to get out of there, now.
Instead, Eddie turned back and trotted down the corridor and into the Flight Control Room.
“There was a kid in a red shirt, too,” Young said. “I saw him upstairs.”
“That was me,” Eddie said, pushing forward. “I wasn’t supposed to be there.” Around him people were staring. All the smart people, the steady-job people, the people who never pitched a beer bottle at the meter reader once in their life. The people with the blue shirts. “I screwed up and got kicked out,” he said. He was craning his neck—the place was packed. Where were Rosa and Trevor? Then he had them. “They did, too,” he said, pointing. A few yards away Rosa’s jaw dropped open. “Sorry,” he called to Young. “We flushed out and were supposed to be gone by now.”
“I did not screw up,” Rosa said, trembling with fury.
“You stunk the place up,” Reg shouted from across the room. “Get out of here. Man, this is embarrassing.”
Rosa stared between them.
“Wait,” Trevor said. “Am I in or out?”
“You’re out,” Eddie said. “Come on, we’re in the grown-ups’ way.”
“Sorry,” Reg muttered, shoving his way through the crowd. “I’ll get them out of here.”
“Wait,” Moloney said. “Reg Davis?” Reg nodded to her, but kept shoving through the crowd.
“He’s in charge of our trainees,” Smithson said. “Till he feels ready to fly again.”
“Oh,” Moloney said. She looked at Young.
“I think we’re going to need you to stay, anyway,” Young said.
“Sure thing,” Reg said, pushing through faster. “I’ll get these scrubs out of here and hustle right back.” He reached them, grabbed Rosa and Trevor each by the upper arm and motioned Eddie on with a jerk of his chin.
As they got to the hall he turned sharply left and pulled them into the stairway leading to the overflow room.
“This better be good,” Reg hissed. “I just put what’s left of my career on the line following your lead. So why did you need these two out of there?”
“Um,” Eddie said. “Something didn’t feel right.”
Reg squeezed his eyes shut.
Rosa’s mouth was tight, and when she spoke her voice was carefully controlled. “Do you think you might just be upset about that Sensenbrenner guy?”
“Their IA head?” Reg said. “You know the guy?”
“My dad stole his car and killed him,” Eddie said.
“Holy crap,” Reg said slowly.
“I still don’t get it,” Trevor said. “What’s going on?”
“Okay, maybe you don’t want to tell the aliens that,” Reg said. “But what does that have to do—”
“I don’t know,” Eddie snapped. “I thought they should have put their director on speakerphone.”
Rosa stared at him. “That’s no reason to embarrass us in front of everybody. God, Eddie, that was humiliating.”
“Welcome to my world.” He didn’t say it nicely.
“Wait,” Trevor said to Reg. “Why did you drag us out?”
Reg hissed a sigh. “Eddie looked like he knew what he was doing. I was hoping he had an angle on that gizmo Young was using. That he could read it.”
Eddie shook his head.
“I know what this is,” Trevor said, standing on the steps above him. “You got bumped out, so you’re trying to screw me.” He jutted a finger toward the Flight Control Room, beyond the stairwell wall. “You just told absolutely everybody important at IA that I’m a screwup. In the back of their minds, they’ll always think that.” He put the bottom of his sneaker on Eddie’s chest and shoved, but it didn’t budge him. Eddie stayed very still and looked at him. He had an urgent desire to show Trevor what a bad fight move that was.
“Stand down, Trevor,” Reg said. “Did you watch their hands?” They all looked at him. “When the other three read the tablet they exchanged a glance, but then all three of them put their hand in their pocket. Three out of three.”
“You pulled us out because they needed a cough drop?” Trevor said.
“A weapon,” Reg said. “I’m sure they were checking their weapons.”
Rosa frowned.
“I’m just going to shut this door for privacy,” Moloney’s voice said, feet away from them.
“What about Reg Davis?” Young’s voice said in stereo from the Flight Control Room door and the speakers in the observation room.
“We’ll get him when he comes back.”
The door clicked shut. Rosa put a finger to her lips. Trevor and Eddie stared at each other, listening as Young’s voice floated faintly down from the speakers above.
“I’m going to stand up here so I can see everybody better,” he said. There was a scrambling noise. He must be standing on a workstation countertop. “Look, I don’t like our instructions, but we have to carry them out.” There was a pause, and Trevor sat back down.
“Director Sensenbrenner wants us to go ahead with the experiment.”
“Wait,” John Taylor Templeton said. “What?”
“He wants us to release the bacteria here.”
“What the hell?” Templeton said. “No, you’re not doing that.”
“I’m so sorry,” Young said. He sounded stricken. “I want you to know I don’t agree with this.”
A buzz of background noise rose up, making it harder to hear Young’s voice. “Director Sensenbrenner feels that this is an ideal opportunity to see how human life would react to this kind of mutation in the food supply, if it ever happened on Earth.” Another pause. They could hear Smithson’s voice, but couldn’t make out the words.
The speaker buzzed with noise, then went silent.
“This won’t hurt,” Young said. “It just freezes voluntary muscle control for a few minutes.” Then quieter, to his colleagues, he said, “Just put it on half spray. There’s too many of them to dose everybody at full strength.”
The room erupted in noise and shouting, but no one came out the door.
“Oh god,” Trevor said. “We should call the police …”
“We should open the door,” Rosa said, “so the people in the back can run out.”
“We can’t stop this,” Eddie said.
Rosa gaped up at him. “Eddie?”
“You’ve got nothing?” Trevor said. “Come on, now’s the time for an idea.”
“I’ve got lots of ideas,” Eddie hissed, “but none of them would actually work.” He ran down the stairs into the hallway. “We don’t have the capacity to stop them. All we can do is raise the stakes so this isn’t their biggest problem.”
They followed him down into the hall. “I’m in,” Rosa said. “What are we doing?”
“We’re taking it to them. They can’t release the bacteria if they don’t have it.” Eddie started running. Over his shoulder he called, “I’m going to steal some very expensive wheels.”