Transmission

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.

Kevin sat down, right there in the middle of the lobby. The carpet wasn’t very comfortable, but he didn’t care. “I’m not going anywhere until I speak to someone about this.”

“Wait, you can’t do that,” the receptionist said.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Kevin said.

“Kevin…” his mother began.

Kevin shook his head. He knew it was childish, but the way he saw it, he was thirteen, and he was allowed. Besides, this was important. If he walked out and left now, this was over. He couldn’t let it be over.

“Get up, or I’ll have to call security,” the receptionist said. She walked to him and took hold of Kevin’s arm in a firm grip.

Instantly, Kevin’s mother switched her attention from him to the receptionist, her eyes narrowing.

“Take your hands off my son, right now.”

“Then make your son get up and leave before I have to get the police involved.” The receptionist let go anyway, although that might have had something to do with the look his mother gave her. Kevin had the feeling that, now that there was one way she could protect her son, his mother was going to do it, whatever it took.

“Don’t you threaten us with the police. Kevin isn’t doing anyone any harm.”

“You think we don’t get crazies here on a regular basis?”

“Kevin is not crazy!” his mother shouted, at a volume she normally reserved for when Kevin had done something really wrong.

The next couple of minutes featured more arguing than Kevin was happy with. His mother shouted at him to get up. The receptionist shouted that she would call security. They shouted at each other, as Kevin’s mother decided that she didn’t want anyone threatening her son with security, and the woman seemed to assume that his mother would be able to move Kevin. Kevin sat through it all with surprising serenity.

It lulled him down, and in those depths, he saw something…

The cold darkness of space stood around him, stars flickering, with the Earth looking so different from above that it almost took Kevin’s breath away. There was a silvery object floating there in space, just one of so many others hanging in orbit. The words Pioneer 11 were stenciled on the side…

Then he was lying on the SETI Institute’s floor, his mother helping him up, along with the receptionist.

“Is he okay?” the receptionist asked. “Do you need me to call an ambulance?”

“No, I’m fine,” Kevin insisted.

His mother shook her head. “We know what’s wrong. My son is dying. All of this… I thought it would help him to come to terms with the fact that what he was seeing wasn’t real, that it was the illness.”

Put like that, it felt like a betrayal, as if Kevin’s mother had been planning for his dreams to be crushed all along.

“I understand,” the receptionist said. “Okay, let’s get you up, Kevin. Can I get you both anything?”

“I just want to talk to someone,” Kevin said.

The receptionist bit her lip, then nodded. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do.”

Just like that, her whole attitude seemed to have changed.

“Wait here. Take a seat. I’ll go and see if there’s anyone around who can at least talk to you, maybe show you around. Although there really isn’t much to see.”

Kevin sat down with his mother. He wanted to tell her about everything he’d just seen, but he could see from her face that it would only hurt her. He waited in silence instead.

Finally, a woman came out. She was in her early fifties, dressed in a dark suit that suggested she had the kind of meetings where more casual clothes wouldn’t work. There was something about her that said she was an academic—maybe something in the curiosity with which she looked at Kevin. She offered his mother her hand, and then Kevin.

“Hello, Kevin,” she said. “I’m Dr. Elise Levin. I’m the director here at the institute.”

“You’re in charge?” Kevin asked, hope rising in him. “Of all the alien stuff?”

She smiled with amusement. “I think that’s putting it a bit strongly. A lot of the search for extraterrestrial life happens elsewhere. NASA provides data, some universities get involved, and we often borrow time on other people’s telescopes where we can. But yes, I’m in charge of this institute and the things that go on here.”

“Then I need to tell you,” Kevin said. He was speaking quicker than he wanted to, trying to get the words out before this adult had time to disbelieve him. “There’s something happening. I know how strange it sounds, but I’ve been seeing things, there’s a kind of countdown…”

How could he explain the countdown? It wasn’t like numbers, there wasn’t an obvious point he could say marked its end. There was just a faint pulse that came with the signal in his brain, getting steadily, almost imperceptibly faster as it worked its way toward something that Kevin couldn’t guess at.

“Why don’t you tell me about it while we take a look around?” Dr. Levin suggested. “I’ll show you some of what we do here.”