Mom wanted to pack and do laundry, so I took the Flyby to work. I bicycled everywhere, so it was always a treat to travel under power other than my own. The car stopped at the PAB garage entrance and I swiped my employee key card as always, but the gate didn’t rise. I swiped again. No go. I got out of the car and checked the gate. I never paid much attention to it before, but it looked new—sharp blue paint, heavy rubber bumper, even the steel hydraulic lift arms shined. It also looked larger, thicker, sturdier. No plastic, no wood, all metal. I decided to pull around to the front entrance, but as I backed up, the gate went up. “Cool,” I said to myself, figuring security saw me through one of the cameras that watch the garage from every conceivable angle.
The Flyby parked a few spots from the elevator. Instead of the key card reader next to the stairway door I usually use, I saw electrical wires protruding from a hole in the concrete wall. I instead swiped my key card at the glass door to the elevator lobby, but it didn’t unlock. I turned and saw a new security camera. But before I could hold up my card and yell “hey, I’m legit” I heard the door’s electronic lock click. I pushed it and went to the elevator, whose doors opened before I could swipe my key card for a third time. It started ascending before I touched the floor-five button. I looked at the oddly-shaped round touchscreen Malachi playfully palmed a few days ago, then got off on the fifth floor.
“You made it. Good,” Dr. Levitt said. “Conference room.”
We hurried, and on entering, saw the interior of one of the space station’s two labs on the big screen monitor. Unpacked boxes, other containers, and equipment I didn’t recognize sat beside the hyperbaric chamber housing our latest Crimsy experiment.
“What’s up?” I asked Dr. Marcum.
“A Deep Space Gateway Christmas,” he said. “Someone has come bearing gifts.”
“We still have a couple stragglers,” Levitt said.
“What’s with the gauntlet?” Dr. Shonstein said as she walked in.
My eyes lit up. “You’re back.”
“For now,” she said coyly. “What’s up with getting into the building?”
“They’ve assured me—” Dr. Levitt said.
“Garage gate wouldn’t open,” Shonstein said. “Had to go around front. But that fingerprint thing still doesn’t recognize me so I’m standing there knocking and waving. Jill from Astropaleo let me in.”
Dr. Cooper walked in. “Hey!” He shook Dr. Marcum’s hand and waved at me and Dr. Levitt. He opened his arms and went toward Dr. Shonstein like he was going to hug her, but instead hugged the air. She reciprocated. I looked at them.
“Virtual hug,” Cooper said. The latest satire going around about the Workplace Anti-Harassment Act.
“We’re only missing one Mike Brando,” Levitt said.
“Dr. Brando’s back, too?” I asked.
“He better be,” Captain Hightower said from the station. “We need to know what to do with all this stuff.”
We mulled around for a few minutes, then Dr. Levitt went to the head of the table. “I texted Dr. Brando,” she said. “Let’s get started.”
We were all seated when he appeared at the door.
“Mike!” Levitt said. She stood up and I could tell she stopped herself from going further. She smiled and held out her hand to the table. “Please.” He smiled, exchanged waves and nods, then sat, I thought a little awkwardly, next to Dr. Shonstein. They briefly whispered to each other.
“Rob,” Dr. Levitt said. “You have the floor.”
“Dearly beloved,” Captain Hightower began. “We are gathered here today to thank whomever sent all this new equipment we have no idea what the hell to do with.”
“Two state-of-the-art glove boxes with pre-loaded OpenGro software, an automatic colony counter, fresh supplies of nitrogen and carbon dioxide, a new autoclave, and more of Brando’s caviagar,” Captain Gillory added. “CRS delivered a couple days ago.”
“CRS?” I whispered.
“Commercial Resupply,” Levitt said.
“Ryong didn’t get a bill of lading,” Hightower said. “When has that ever happened?”
And for the first time, I saw their third crew member, who very matter-of-factly said, “Never.”
“I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced,” Gillory said. “Flight Engineer Ryong,” and she went around our table. Ryong, we learned, was from North Korea.
“You with NASA?” Cooper said, squinting at the monitor.
“NADA,” Ryong replied. He approached the camera so we could read the fine print on his jacket patch: National Aerospace Development Agency. He handed Hightower a box and concluded with a Korean greeting for us, Annyeong-hasimnikka.
“Forgot to mention these vials,” Hightower said. He took one from the box, held it up and read it. “Teixobactin. If I’m reading it right.” And another. “Tetrodecamycin.” Yet another. “Dihydrotetro—”
Dr. Shonstein leaned in, staring at Hightower reading the labels on the monitor.
“Rob—hang on a sec,” she said. “Anything in there labeled trexomycin?”
He pawed through the packaging, took out another vial, and moved it close to the camera where we could all see the label. “Trexomycin.”
“How about orthonizole?” Shonstein asked.
“Right here,” he said.
“I asked if those antibiotics were aboard DSG,” Shonstein said. “And suddenly, they are.”
“The missing exotics,” Marcum said.
“How many more vials are in that box?” Shonstein asked.
“Fifteen, twenty,” Gillory said, taking the box from her partner.
“Are we being watched?” Shonstein asked.
“All the time,” Hightower said. “Lotsa cameras up here.”
“But none down here,” Levitt said.
“Audio bugs then?” Shonstein said.
“Sure as hell better not be,” Levitt said.
“Could JPL have overheard during a conference call?” Gillory said.
“Are they listening to our calls?” Shonstein said. “Not only shouldn’t they be, but I don’t think I mentioned wanting to test exotic antibiotics during a call in any event.”
“Testing exotics is in our original grant proposals,” Brando said, the first time I’d heard his voice in two weeks.
“Well then—they’re a mite late.” Shonstein surveyed the room. “Why didn’t anyone contact us before shipping that stuff?”
“Anyone contact us about the staff garage?” Brando asked.
“Should be finished next week,” Levitt said. “So they keep telling me.”
“What’s the plan for this stuff?” Hightower asked.
Levitt looked at Brando and Shonstein.
“I say we finish what we started,” Shonstein said. “We can use the colony counter. Refrigerate the antibiotics until further notice.” She looked at Brando.
“How about until right after Little Green Women?” he said. “Fire Operation Lederberg back up.”
“That suggestion pleases me,” Shonstein said. She smiled. A thaw. “I’d rather do it here, but—”
“Any news on our favorite Martian?” Levitt asked.
“Tad greener,” Hightower said. Crimsy appeared on the 3D projector. Brando got up for a closer look. He bent down, eyeing the sides of the Petri dishes.
“Bex.”
Shonstein joined him. “Errant agar?” she asked.
Gillory looked too. “Hmm,” she said. “That shouldn’t be happening.”
“What’s so interesting?” Cooper asked.
We gathered around. I bent down as I circled the Petri dishes. Crimsy was growing on the sides while the only agar I could see was spread along the bottom of the dish as always. Our protocol used three techniques called “plating methods”—spread, pour, streak—to spread agar and bacteria in each dish. “Avoid splashing the melted soft agar onto the sides of the Petri dish” so bugs grow in the right place is standard operating procedure.
“What’s she growing on?” I asked.
“Any chance you might have gotten agar on the sides of these dishes?” Brando asked.
“Nope,” Gillory said.
“Contamination?”
“On sterile glass? How?” Shonstein looked at Brando. “Should we take one of the plates out for a closer look?”
“I don’t wanna disrupt anything,” he said. “What about culturing Crimsy on a blank dish?”
“We have the equipment,” Hightower reminded.
After the meeting broke up, I performed the daily ritual of taking Crimsy pix before DSG adjusted the gas again. We were at ninety percent carbon dioxide and six percent nitrogen, approaching Earth’s atmosphere as it was four to five billion years ago, when Crimsy might have hitched a ride from Mars, maybe on a chunk of volcanic gunk blasted from the planet surface that brushed against a passing asteroid, or disintegrated into a bevy of interstellar dust bunnies. If she could grow on sterile glass, she could probably grow anywhere.
Dr. Levitt startled me. “How’d it go with Parada?”
“Well, I think.”
“Great. An objective opinion can break a lot of ice.”
“Mom said to thank you again, and include her when the wedding invitations go out.”
“If,” she said. She smiled, I thought uncomfortably.
I wanted to catch Dr. Brando before he left and in the hall I saw a smartly-dressed woman enter his office. I softly rapped at his open door and peered in.
“Jennifer,” he said. We hugged with quick discretion.
“Welcome back,” I said.
“Jennifer—I’d like you to meet my court-appointed custody evaluator. Jennifer is finishing her Ph.D. in our department.”
We shook hands.
“Penelope,” she said.
“The court wants to know if I’m a fit father.”
I wanted to say something snarky to her, but thought it best to hold my fire.
“Would you mind if I asked you a couple of questions?” she said.
I looked at Dr. Brando. He shrugged in assent.
“Fine,” I said.
We stepped into the hall and she asked how long I’d known “Mister Brando,” (“Dr. Brando,” I corrected); what we worked on together; if I’d observed him around his daughter and if so, what had I observed; if I’d observed him around his wife (“a couple of times, at faculty gatherings”); what were his work hours, generally; if anything we worked on was contagious or hazardous; how often we were together and if we were ever together alone.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“Nothing. These are just routine questions.”
“He’s always a perfect gentleman,” I said, as she followed me back into his office. Now seemed a good time to introduce another ally. “Mom wanted to know if you’d come to dinner with us,” I asked Brando. “She’s really bummed about not seeing Lexi again.”
“Sure,” he said. “When’s she leaving?”
“Sunday.”
“I get Lexi every other weekend. It’s not my weekend, but if we can do Friday night or Saturday, I’ll see if I can get her.”
“You gonna be around?” I asked.
“For awhile,” he said.
I left his office and overheard Penelope asking him about my mother. I popped my head into every open door and knocked on all the closed doors, delivering a simple pitch. “There’s this woman in Dr. Brando’s office who wants to know if he’s a good dad,” I said. “She’s a court-appointed custody evaluator.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Da fuck?”
“Shouldn’t they have figured that out before he lost custody?”
“Jarndyce and Jarndyce continues. Lead the way.”
Which I did, delivering Dr. Marcum to a line at Brando’s door. Cooper, Shonstein, and leaving her office, Dr. Levitt. Cooper knocked, I heard voices, and everybody filed in. I looked through the little crowd, at Brando making introductions, and Penelope the court-appointed custody evaluator, looking slightly off balance.