Transmission

“Maybe like a delivery time and a location?” Kevin suggested. “Those second parts sound like they might be coordinates.”

“It’s not quite right for a map reference,” Luna said. “Maybe if I just Google it… oh, cool.”

“What?” Kevin asked. One look at Luna’s face said that they’d hit the jackpot.

“When you type that string of numbers into a search engine, you only get results about one thing,” Luna said. She made it sound so certain like that. She turned her phone to show him, the pages set out in a neat row. “The Trappist 1 star system.”

Kevin could feel his excitement building. More than that, he could feel his hope building. Hope that this might really mean something, and that it wasn’t just his illness, no matter what anyone said. Hope that it might actually be real.

“Why would I see those numbers, though?” he asked.

“Maybe because the Trappist system is supposed to be one of the ones that have a chance of harboring life?” Luna said. “From what it says here, there are several planets there in what we think is a habitable zone.”

She said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. The idea of planets that might have life seemed like too much to be a coincidence when Kevin had seen that life. Or seen some strange life, at least.

“You need to talk to someone about this,” Luna declared. “You’re… like, the first proof of extraterrestrial contact, or something. Who were those people looking for aliens, the scientists? I saw a thing about them on TV.”

“SETI?” Kevin said.

“Those are the ones,” Luna said. “Aren’t they based in San Francisco, or San Jose, or something?”

Kevin hadn’t known that, but the more he thought about it, the more the idea tugged at him.

“You have to go, Kevin,” Luna said. “You have to at least talk to them.”

***

“No,” his mother said, setting her coffee down so firmly it spilled. “No, Kevin, absolutely not!”

“But Mom—”

“I’m not driving you to San Francisco so that you can bother a bunch of nutjobs,” his mother said.

Kevin held out his phone, showing the information about SETI on it. “They aren’t crazy,” he said. “They’re scientists.”

“Scientists can be crazy too,” his mother said. “And this whole idea… Kevin, can’t you just accept that you’re seeing things that aren’t there?”

That was the problem; it would be all too easy to accept it. It would be easy to tell himself that this wasn’t real, but there was something nagging away at the back of his brain that said it would be a really bad idea if he did. The countdown was still going, and Kevin suspected that he needed to talk to someone who would believe him before it reached its end.

“Mom, the numbers I told you I was seeing… they turned out to be the location for a star system.”

“There are so many stars out there that I’m sure any random string of numbers would connect to one of them,” his mother said. “It would be the same as the mass of the star or… or, I don’t know enough about stars to know what else, but it would be something.”

“I don’t mean that,” Kevin said. “I mean it was exactly the same. Luna put the numbers in and the Trappist 1 system was the first thing to come out. The only thing to come out.”

“I should have known that Luna would be involved,” his mother said with a sigh. “I love that girl, but she has too much imagination for her own good.”

“Please, Mom,” Kevin said. “This is real.”

His mother reached out to put her hands on his shoulders. When had she started having to reach up to do that? “It’s not, Kevin. Dr. Yalestrom said that you were having trouble accepting all this. You have to understand what’s going on, and I have to help you to accept it.”

“I know I’m dying, Mom,” Kevin said. He shouldn’t have put it like that, because he could see the tears rising in his mother’s eyes.

“Do you? Because this—”

“I’ll find a way to get there,” Kevin promised. “I’ll take a bus if I have to. I’ll take a train into the city and walk. I have to at least talk to them.”

“And get laughed at?” His mother pulled away, not looking at him. “You know that’s what will happen, right, Kevin? I’m trying to protect you.”

“I know you are,” Kevin said. “And I know that they’ll probably laugh at me, but I have to at least try, Mom. I have the feeling that this is really important.”

He wanted to say more, but he wasn’t sure that more would help right then. His mother was quiet in the way that said she was thinking, and right then, that was the best that Kevin could hope for. She kept thinking, her hand drumming on the kitchen counter, marking time as she made up her mind.

Kevin heard his mother’s sigh.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll do it. I’ll take you, but only because I suspect that, if I don’t, I’ll be getting a call from the police to tell me that my son has collapsed on a bus somewhere.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Kevin said, moving forward to hug her.

He knew she didn’t really believe him, but in a way, that made the show of love even more impressive.

CHAPTER FIVE

It took around an hour to drive from Walnut Creek down to the SETI Institute in Mountain View, but to Kevin, it felt like a lifetime. It wasn’t just that traffic into the city crawled its way through road closures; every moment was something wasted when he could be there, could be finding out what was going on with him. They would know, he was certain of it.

“Try not to get too excited,” his mother warned him, for what seemed like the twentieth time. Kevin knew she was just trying to protect him, but even so, he didn’t want his excitement dampened. He was sure that this would be the place where he found out what was going on. They were scientists who studied aliens. Surely they would know everything?

When they got there, though, the institute wasn’t what he was expecting. 189 Bernardo Avenue looked more like an art gallery or a part of a university than the kind of ultra-high-tech buildings Kevin’s imagination had conjured up. He’d been expecting buildings that looked as though they might be from outer space, but instead, they looked a little like expensive versions of the kind of buildings his school had.

They drove up and parked in front of the buildings. Kevin took a breath. This was it. They walked into a lobby, where a woman smiled over at them, managing to turn that into a question even before she spoke.

“Hello, are you sure that you’re in the right place?”

“I need to talk to someone about alien signals,” Kevin said, before his mother could try to explain.

“I’m sorry,” the woman said. “We don’t really have public tours.”

Kevin shook his head. He knew he needed to get her to understand. “I’m not here for a tour,” he said. “I think… I think I’m receiving some kind of alien signal.”

The woman didn’t look at him with the kind of shock and disbelief that most other people might have, or even with the surprise his mother had at him coming out with it like that. This was more a look of resignation, as if she had to put up with this kind of thing more often than she would like.

“I see,” she said. “Unfortunately, we’re not in a position to talk to people who walk in off the street. If you want to send a message to us through our contact email, we’d be happy to consider it, but for the moment…”

“Come on, Kevin,” his mother said. “We tried.”

To his own surprise as much as anyone’s. Kevin shook his head. “No, I’m not going.”

“Kevin, you have to,” his mother said.