Sean and Dillon had separate bedrooms connected by a bathroom. It was a silly arrangement as far as Sean was concerned. How much could it have cost to put in a second bath and give the kids some privacy? As it was, two of the bathroom’s walls were basically nothing except doors. There were a lot of things Sean didn’t like about the place they called home. Their bedrooms had biggish walk-in closets, but the bedrooms themselves were narrow and hardly larger than the closets, like they’d been designed for princesses-in-training. Sean had always known it wasn’t the closets or the narrow bedrooms or the silly plastic cross-hatchings they stuck on the windows or the blinds that constantly broke down. Or the one bathroom where there should have been two. Sean had always been restless. He had always felt like the home trapped him and Dillon more than it nurtured.
The bathroom doors were open so he and Dillon could talk. They used to do that all the time. Now, not so much.
Dillon murmured, “So . . . this whole deal. You think maybe it’s real?”
Sean decided not to mention the silver beast parked in the drive next door. The same machine, minus the red paint and the side flames, that Dillon had as his computer’s background. “We’re wearing crowns to bed and you’re asking me this?”
The things did actually look like the tiaras they’d seen in movies, when the young princelings were trotted out to greet the world. The circlets had snapped into place as soon as the boxes were opened, silver wire that could be flexed and folded with ease. A flat plate about the size of Sean’s thumbnail fitted snug over his forehead. Another two were set on his temples.
Dillon said, “Not to mention how we were handed these things by a military officer from the other side of the galaxy, right?”
“Right.”
“He could still bring out the knives and surprise us tomorrow.”
“Doubtful.”
“Yeah. I mean, he knew about the Charger.”
“And the Beemer.”
“Really?”
“He told me while Chet was walking you around the car.”
“Old Chet. We sure made his day.”
“The guy is still quivering.”
Dillon went quiet. Then, “I don’t know how I feel about them listening in on us.”
Sean didn’t respond. He knew how he felt. It made him burn.
“But I guess it’s okay, since we spent the day traveling to our train station.”
“With the modulated gravity.”
“Right. Just like we imagined.”
“We didn’t, though. Imagine it.”
“Sure.” Another pause, then, “I wonder what that means. Modulated.”
“Means you can walk on the ceiling, I guess.”
“So we study all this stuff,” Dillon said. “We pass the tests. And we go fight aliens. Sounds like a good life to me.”
Sean nodded. He had been thinking the same thing.
“I don’t like the idea of getting mind-wiped if we fail.”
“We won’t,” Sean said. He hated a lot of things about this deal. Most of all, he hated the fear he felt over this prospect. Now that he had done it. Now that he had accepted the reality of something more. “We can’t let that happen.”