Transmission

Kevin wasn’t sure how he felt about his mom and Phil getting along so well. He was probably supposed to feel happy for her or something, but this was his mom. He was sure there were supposed to be rules about that kind of thing. He set off toward another door, hoping to hurry the tour along before the two looked meaningfully into one another’s eyes or something.

He opened it, and found himself staring at a thing out of his nightmares.

Kevin staggered back as he found himself face to face with a robot almost as large as he was, covered in spikes and blades, two great pincers sticking out from the front like a hungry ant. It took him a moment to realize that it wasn’t moving, wasn’t any kind of threat to him in spite of how fierce it looked.

“Is this some kind of weapons project?” Kevin asked. “Something for the military?”

It looked like the kind of thing that would be terrifying coming toward someone on a battlefield. It managed to look pretty terrifying even standing still.

“It’s for the local robot fighting league,” Phil said. “Some of the grad students from Berkeley come up with vicious stuff.”

He looked over at Kevin’s mom as if hoping she would declare herself to be a huge fan of robot fighting. When she didn’t look particularly impressed, Kevin dared to breathe a sigh of relief. It seemed that the world had returned to normal, kind of.

His mother hugged him. “I have to go, Kevin. I wish I didn’t, but…”

Kevin hugged her back. “I know.”

Even though he knew she would come back soon, it was hard to let her go.

When she was gone, Kevin turned to Phil. “So,” he said. “What now?”

“Now, we have a bunch more tests to get through,” Phil said.

A bunch didn’t cover it. Even though Phil had tried whole batteries of tests on Kevin before, both Professor Brewster and Dr. Levin seemed determined that they should keep going. Dr. Levin seemed to hope that by understanding what Kevin could do better, they might be able to make more contact with alien civilizations. Professor Brewster… well, Kevin suspected that he hoped it would all prove to be nothing, a mistake.

Either way, it meant test after test with different sets of scientists, question after question, most of which Kevin didn’t have the answers to.

“I don’t have any control over what I translate,” Kevin insisted, when one of the scientists wanted to know if he could look around the alien world he saw to give them more data on it. “I don’t even know how I’m doing it. When you play the signals, it’s just… obvious.”

He suspected the scientists weren’t very satisfied with that, but Kevin didn’t know what else to say. He got what he got, and for the moment, that seemed to be mostly the countdown in his head, pulsing away ever faster, along with the memory of a world eclipsed by a bright, all-consuming light. So far, it had been the only image he’d gotten. The signal seemed to be just words.

Kevin, needing a break, found a quiet corner in one of the research center’s recreation rooms and pulled out his phone and Skyped with Luna.

He smiled when he saw her; he hadn’t realized how much he missed seeing her face.

She smiled back.

“Hey, stranger,” she said. “They putting you through the mill?”

“Every test you can imagine.”

“Being poked and prodded must get pretty bad,” Luna said. “But it probably means you’re getting looked at by more doctors than you would otherwise. That has to be good, right?”

“I don’t think it means that they can do anything for me,” Kevin said. He’d thought about this, briefly, but decided he couldn’t afford that kind of hope when it came to his illness. He knew what was going to happen. “Most of them aren’t even that kind of doctor.”

“But some of them must be, and I bet that if there is any research into…” Luna looked down, and Kevin guessed that she’d written it down so she wouldn’t forget it, “… leukodystrophies, it’s going to be somewhere near you.”

“If there is, I haven’t heard about it,” Kevin said. No one had exactly come up to him and told him that there was suddenly a cure for what he had.

“And have you been looking?” Luna asked. She had her determined expression on, the one that meant she wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

“I’ve been too busy trying to translate messages from an alien species,” Kevin pointed out.

“Okay,” Luna said, “as excuses go, I’ll admit that’s pretty good. Just think, when they come here and say ‘Take me to your leader,’ you’ll be the only one who can translate, so you’ll be there. Your name will be in the history books.”

“And when did you last pay attention in history class?” Kevin countered. “I remember trying to help you study for tests, remember?”

“Well, maybe I’d pay more attention if there were more aliens in them.”

“Kevin?” Professor Brewster was standing there, looking impatient. “When you’re ready, the signal is waiting.”

“Looks like I have to go,” Kevin said to Luna.

“I miss you,” she said, and there was a kind of wistful note to it that wasn’t normally there in Luna’s voice.