They ran quietly toward the far door, slipped out, and then raced down the stairwell at the end of the building. The three of them headed toward the spacecraft out on the runway, but Reg called them back.
“We’ve got a camera on it, remember? They’ll see us from inside.”
“I want them to see it,” Eddie said. “That’s the point. I want them to see me boosting their ride.”
Reg shook his head. “It’s a mile and a half away—half a mile past the launch tower. We won’t get there before one of them notices and does something about it.” They exchanged an uneasy glance. “They freeze us, it’s all over.”
“How are we supposed to get there if we can’t be on camera?” Trevor said.
“Where’s the car they brought them up here in?” Eddie said. “They’ll see it, but we’ll have a head start.”
“That was a med vehicle. They return those immediately, so they’re always ready.”
“Even now?” Trevor said.
“This is NASA,” Reg said. “We put our tools away.”
Eddie shifted his weight, wanting to move. He had the look of a guy who might bolt into the open just to do it.
“We need to keep them from seeing us till the last second,” Trevor said slowly. “So we have as much time as possible to figure out the controls.”
“Bingo,” Reg said.
“I know how to get a head start,” Rosa said. “We use the emergency egress system.”
“That’s at the launch pad,” Trevor said. “It’s for getting off the tower.”
“But we can get to the launch tower without the camera in Flight Control picking us up,” Rosa said. “And then the emergency egress will shoot us from the tower to near where they’re parked.” She grinned. “It would be fast.”
“Heck, yes, it would be,” Eddie said, giving her shoulder a gentle bump.
“Oh crap,” Reg said. “I’ve trained on that.” He ran his palm over his scalp. “Yeah, that’s the best plan. Then we run the last bit to the craft.”
“Wait,” Trevor said. “I don’t understand. What are we doing?”
Reg led them around to the parking lot and pulled a set of keys from his pocket. “We’re driving to the tower. They won’t see us as soon, and if they chase us we’ll go up the tower. They’ll think they have us treed.”
Eddie grinned. “Then we go zoom off the top.”
“Zoom?” Trevor said.
They ran at a crouch behind Reg. An outside speaker crackled.
“… taking him too long.” It was Richtig’s voice, coming from a black speaker attached to the building.
“He’s one guy,” Doepker said. “Not that big a deal if we don’t get him.”
“Oh, we’ll get him,” Young said. They didn’t realize they were being heard outside. Someone must have thrown the audio switch, hoping to alert someone, to get some help.
Reg paused at the side of a blue four-door. “Ain’t that sweet! They think I’m a threat.” He started the car, then stepped across the console and motioned to Rosa to drive. “I’m gonna use that at my next performance review.”
The guys climbed in the back and pulled their doors shut as quietly as they could, and Rosa eased back out of the spot, then accelerated toward the launch tower. She sneaked a glance sideways as Reg fished a receipt out of the glove box and wrote on it: J—Love always, R. He flipped it facedown on the dash, for his wife to find.
Rosa wished she hadn’t seen it.
She roared across the lip of the launch pad and rocked to a stop at the base of the tower, cut the engine, and kicked her door open. They hit the elevator at the same time, running, and the doors didn’t open immediately. Unbelievable.
“Crap,” Eddie said. “It’s got to be at the bottom. This tower is three hundred and seventy-three feet tall.”
The elevator doors opened. They stepped in and Reg flashed his ID in front of the panel and they began the climb.
“So,” Trevor said. “We’re going up the elevator to take the emergency egress system down.”
“Yep,” Eddie said.
“And then we run for it,” Rosa said.
“And we think this will be faster than just driving to their craft?”
Rosa hissed. There really was a reason he’d come in third. “This way we escape detection longer.”
“I think it’ll be fast enough for you,” Reg said.
“I don’t remember hearing about the emergency egress system,” Trevor said. “What is it, exactly?”
The doors slid open, and Reg ran around the corner and jumped into the front seat of a little open cart. The wind on the tower made it noisy and whipped Rosa’s hair across her face.
“It’s a roller coaster!” Reg shouted.
Rosa jumped in beside him, and the guys vaulted in the back. “You in?” Reg shouted, looking over his shoulder. Eddie nodded. Trevor said, “Oh god.”
Reg grinned and released the brake. They jolted forward and accelerated down the track for eight yards, then the track fell off at near ninety degrees, so they were pointed straight toward the earth. They plummeted off the edge of the tower, gray metal tubing flashing by them on the sides, the ground rushing up.
Rosa’s hair flew above her. She gripped the restraint bar with one hand, the strap of her crossbody bag with the other, and screamed. Beside her Reg yelled and raised his arms over his head. If you’d asked her that morning which of them was craziest, she’d have said Eddie. It hadn’t occurred to her that it might be Reg.
Colors streaked as they shot down toward the parked craft, then bumpers burned off speed as they approached the end of the line. The car was slowing itself to sixty miles per hour, then fifty, then forty.
“Get ready to run,” Reg shouted.
The roller coaster clattered to a stop and they clambered out and streamed across the half mile of open ground toward the spacecraft. Rosa didn’t look over her shoulder as she ran. Her track coach had drilled it into their heads that turning meant slowing, and slowing meant losing. Still, she was itching to check the windows of the Flight Control Room. She couldn’t see anything that far, anyway—but they had cameras out here, and if anyone was watching, they’d see them.
There were a hundred people in Flight Control being systematically frozen so that the alien teams could get out here and release their freaky alien bacteria in Iowa farm country. It would be the end of Earth’s food supply. The end of this world.
Eddie was the first to disappear into the alien craft, with Reg on his heels. Trevor shot Rosa a nervous look as they pulled themselves in. The shell of the craft gave slightly, soft and firm and ultrasmooth under Rosa’s hand.
“Did you feel that?” Reg said. “The outside feels like a boiled egg.”
“Looked like it, too,” Rosa said, staring at the inside of the craft, studded with switches and controls.
Reg grabbed a helmet off the commander’s chair and lowered himself, bouncing on the seat. “Comfy. Hope this guy doesn’t have lice.” He strapped on the helmet.
“Reg, this is way more complicated than what we trained on,” Rosa said.
“There are switches on the ceiling,” Trevor said. “All across it.”
“No time for sightseeing,” Reg said. “Get your helmets on and strap in.” He patted the seat next to him. “Rosa.” She was being invited to be copilot on an unplanned space journey with equipment they didn’t understand. She pulled her hair into a low ponytail, then slipped the helmet on.
“This would be a great time to check in on Social Earth,” Trevor said. “Trevor is at: alien spacecraft!”
Eddie gave him an appreciative snort. Reg began a preflight systems check, clicking items off rapid-fire. He knew what he was doing. He’d done this before.
“We don’t have time for that!” Trevor said.
“Forward Reaction Control System Module,” Reg said, checking a switch. “I’m looking at what we know, and what we don’t.”
“All that stuff in the middle of the panel—about sixty switches worth? We don’t know that stuff,” Eddie said.
“Very helpful, Eddie, thank you,” Reg said. “Okay, looks like they’re burning monomethylhydrazine fuel and nitrogen tetroxide oxidizer.”
“They’ll burn when they touch,” Rosa said, “even in an environment without oxygen.”
“Yeah,” Reg said. “They’re in separate tanks so they don’t go boom.”
“Pressured by helium?” Rosa asked.
“Looks like it,” Reg said. “Probably spring-loaded solenoid valves. Maybe they’ve got something better.”
Reg kept running down his checklist, all the while scanning the panels of switches before them and overhead. There were control panels aft where Eddie and Trevor were sitting, too.
“Your controls look like backups to ours?” Rosa whispered to them, trying not to interrupt Reg’s preflight systems check.
“Looks like we’ve got life support back here,” Trevor said.
“I like life support,” Eddie said.
“I think we’ve got chemical carbon dioxide canisters to remove the CO2 by reacting it with lithium hydroxide,” Trevor said.
“Do we know if they were ready to make a return trip?” Rosa said. “I mean, do we have extra CO2 canisters on board? Do we have fuel?”
“I think so,” Reg said, finishing his check. “It’s all pretty familiar, except for the part I don’t understand at all, not even the terms.”
“You know,” Eddie said, “we’re more likely to get the bacteria out of their hands if we can actually start their buggy.”
“Do we need space suits?” Trevor asked. “There aren’t any spare suits here.”
“We’ll be okay,” Reg said. “As long as everything runs perfectly. And if it doesn’t, they wouldn’t have saved us.”
Rosa glanced back at the guys and caught their sober return looks. They all knew this. Hearing it from Reg was different.
Reg examined the switches on the main panel—the ones they didn’t understand. He took a deep breath and flipped one. Nothing happened.
“Maybe we should have gotten help, instead of trying to steal a spaceship,” Trevor said. He shot Eddie a look.
“Listen, Mr. Cautious, I never invited you along. I said I was going,” Eddie said. “You could have gotten security if you’d wanted to. But if they can hold off a hundred people, do you think a couple of guards are going to make a difference?”
Reg flipped another switch. Nothing.
“Maybe you have to start it traditionally?” Rosa said. “Get it going, then switch to extradimensional?”
“That’s what I think, too,” Reg said. “I wish I knew what I was doing.” He started the engine, and the craft began to vibrate.
“You gonna switch into drive?” Eddie called.
“Got to get the engines to ninety percent before we take off,” Reg said. His forehead was beaded with sweat.
“I don’t know if we have time,” Trevor said. “They have to have picked us up by now.”
“Oh, they’ll see us all right,” Reg said. He pulled on the throttle, but it didn’t move.
“Do you have authorization to fly this vehicle?” the spacecraft asked in a woman’s pleasant tone. They stared at each other for a moment.
“Roger that,” Reg said.
“Verify authorization,” the craft said.
“Damn it, Reginald!” He looked around wildly. Rosa pointed—there at the bottom of the rudder control was a little rectangular panel. She held up her thumb and raised her eyebrows. Reg nodded and pressed his thumb against the screen.
“Welcome, Commander Davis,” the spacecraft said.
They exchanged a sober look. It’s one thing to hijack an alien spacecraft. It’s another thing when the aliens are you.
He pulled back on the throttle and the boiled-egg craft shot down the runway, the force pushing them hard against their seats.
“When do we turn on the extradimensional capacity?” Rosa asked.
“Dunno,” Reg said. “But realistically, that’s when we’ll die.”
Rosa swiveled in her seat. Eddie’s and Trevor’s faces had identical expressions. She bet hers mirrored theirs. They hurtled down the runway and rose into the air, then banked hard left. Reg grinned over at Rosa.
“Um …”
“We want them to see us, right, Eddie?” Reg called back.
“Yep,” Eddie shouted over the engines.
Reg swooped past the command building, cutting his speed and swinging right past the fourth-floor windows of Flight Control. Rosa craned to see past him. They shot by too fast to get a good visual, but she thought she saw Young staring out the window.
“Ha!” Eddie shouted. “We boosted your ride, asshats!”
“I want to moon them!” Trevor shouted. “Can I unstrap, Reg?”
“Not advisable,” Reg said, pulling back on the throttle. They rose and curved backward, making a loop-de-loop in front of the Flight Control window.
He pulled them out of the loop and swept toward the ground, pulling up at the last minute to shoot straight up past the window like a rocket.
“Um, considering there’s apparently some lethal bacteria on board,” Trevor said, “maybe we should get out of here.”
Rosa had a different concern. “Reg? You doing okay with flying again?”
“Yeah,” he said, shooting away from the command building and arcing right, in the direction from which the ship had originally come. “I crashed one of these. Well, a much simpler craft, of course.”
“That’s comforting,” Eddie said.
“Three, two, one,” Reg whispered in a private countdown. He simultaneously flipped two switches in the extradimensional travel panel, then another overhead. Nothing happened. He gave a quick glance at Rosa, took a breath, and flipped another switch. Nothing.
“This is an incorrect sequence,” the craft’s voice said pleasantly. “Is your flight crew disabled?”
“Um, yes,” Reg said.
“Would you like to fly on autopilot?” the voice said.
“Yes!” Reg said. “Oh god, yes.”
“Confirming: Do you wish to enter extradimensional flight mode?” the voice said.
“Yes,” Reg said. “Engage extradimensional flight on autopilot.”
“What is your destination?” the voice said.
They all exchanged a glance. “Home,” Reg said. “Take us home.”
“Confirming,” the voice said. “Destination: Earth. Do you wish me to have a medical team standing by at Flight Control?”
Reg’s eyes widened. “No. Let’s cut off communications, too. We’ll surprise them.”
“This is an incorrect procedure,” the voice said. “Communications should be maintained at all times.”
“Not this time,” Reg said. “We’re flying in without notification.”
“Don’t blame this on me,” the voice said, and Reg grinned. The ship shuddered slightly and began to spin, and then everything outside was black. The interior lights stayed on, dim against the outer gloom.
“Are we still spinning?” Rosa asked. “It doesn’t feel like it.”
“I don’t think so,” Trevor said. “My stomach feels a lot better than when Reg had the throttle.”
“I think we’re in extradimensional travel,” Reg said, his voice hushed. “God, I hope we live to tell about this.”
“I thought there would be streaking lights and glimpses into the past,” Eddie said. “Something like that.”
Rosa’s hair rose around her and her purse floated free. “Wow. I need a special space purse.”
“I can’t believe you brought that thing,” Trevor said.
“I do not travel light.”
They all stared out into the blackness, with no idea what it was or how long it would last. Then Reg said, “What’s the first thing we do when we’re traveling in space?”
“Selfies!” Trevor said.
Rosa snorted, but Reg said, “Rightamundo!” and reached back to give Trevor a high five. Reg pulled his phone from his pocket and motioned them together. “Let’s get all the pirates in the picture,” he said. They leaned in and smiled, and when they were all in focus, the phone snapped the shot.
When they were done, Eddie wandered off to look for snacks. The inside of the craft wasn’t roomy, but he found a cupboard with packets of food fastened to the sides. He frowned, rummaging through the cupboard.
“No root beer? What the hell, NASA? We have to travel through dimensions we don’t understand to face a future of untold danger, and there’s no stinking root beer? This is not okay.”
“The carbonation and the soda don’t separate in microgravity,” Reg said. “No root beer in space.”
Eddie threw his hand over his heart and staggered.
“Well, they could develop a microgravity dispenser,” Reg said.
“Why has this not been a priority?” Eddie demanded.
Rosa rolled her eyes.
“Yeah,” Reg said. “You’d think they’d have gotten around to it by now. I gotta say, though, I love their technology. They didn’t just make the craft better, they made it easier to use. Brilliant.”
Eddie snorted. He was still ticked about the root beer. He pulled a biscuit from his pocket and let it float. “Lightest biscuit in history,” he said. “I could be one of those TV chefs.” He snapped it out of the air like a crocodile.
“I found the bacteria,” Trevor called. They all swiveled to look at him. “The case is locked, but that’s got to be what’s inside. The whole thing’s about the size of a lunch box.”
They were quiet for a minute after that.
Finally Trevor said, “Is this freaking anybody else out? This—nothingness?” He put his hand against the window.
“It feels like everything to me,” Rosa said. “Like every possibility is out there.”
Then they settled in for the pitch-black glide into the parallel Earth.