They didn’t know where they were, or when they were. They sat looking out the windows into nothing, glad they weren’t alone.
“I thought going into extra dimensions might hurt,” Trevor said. “Like getting folded. I was worried about my testicles.”
Eddie snorted, and Trevor blushed. Eddie didn’t want to harass the guy, but … okay, he kind of did. “What did you think would happen to your balls? Death from loneliness?”
“Who knows what this could do to guys our age!” Trevor said. “Why do you think there are extra dimensions, anyway?”
“Because three dimensions aren’t enough to hold my genius,” Eddie said.
“Three dimensions aren’t enough to hold Rosa’s luggage,” Trevor said. Eddie laughed.
“I hate to interrupt this,” Reg said, “but does anyone have a plan for landing?”
“You’re the guy with experience,” Eddie said. “If autopilot goes off, can’t you just land it regularly?”
“Yeah, I can land it,” he said, emphasizing his words. “And then what?”
“Their teams won’t be on our tail,” Eddie said. “We don’t have anything that could get them home, right?”
“Nothing,” Reg said.
“We’re so far behind, it’ll take them five years to design the ship, and fifty to persuade Congress to fund it!” Trevor said. “We suck!” He gave Eddie a high five.
“But when we land this craft and they discover the bacteria has returned and their teams haven’t, they’re likely to have some questions,” Reg said.
“Aw, hell,” Eddie said.
“Swear fine just went up to fifty cents,” Reg said. “Fundraising to get ourselves one of these babies.”
“What do we do first?” Trevor said.
“Run?” Eddie said.
“I have no idea when we’ll leave extradimensional travel,” Reg said, “but from the supplies Eddie found, they clearly weren’t set up for a long trip.”
“No frickin root beer,” Eddie grumbled.
“So we need to make a plan, and we need to make it now.”
“You just land,” Eddie said. “And then we need to get away from their Flight Control Room as quickly as possible. Put some distance between us.”
“No,” Rosa said, shaking her head. “We’re going to need help. We know their Earth is extremely similar to ours, but it can’t be exactly the same.”
“Lamar Sensenbrenner is alive there,” Eddie said, “so it’s at least a little different.”
“We need to find allies,” Rosa said.
Eddie snorted. “Who’s going to help us?”
She turned square to him and looked him in the eye. “We’re down there somewhere. We have to find ourselves if we’re going to survive.”
They let that sink in for a minute.
“Where would we be?” Trevor said. “I mean, we might not be trainees there.” He turned to Eddie. “What would you be doing, Eddie? Try to think like yourself.”
“I’d be punching you.”
“Okay,” Trevor said. “We can find me in the hospital. That’s a start.”
Reg grunted as the craft shuddered slightly and they blinked at the light all around them, at the arc of blue and then their own weight settling on them again. Just like that, they were out of the extra dimensions. Rosa’s hair floated down around her.
Straight ahead was a beautiful blue marble. Earth—but not theirs.
“It looks like an eye,” Trevor said. “It’s watching us come in.”
Reg was taking command back from autopilot and was absorbed in his switches.
“It’s like looking in your own eye,” Eddie said. He didn’t turn to them when he spoke. None of them could tear themselves from the blue sphere, beautiful and alien and home. “Death is a cyclops.”
“Or maybe,” Rosa said, “we’re the other eye.”