Transmission

A glance out the window suggested that wouldn’t be easy. Already, the crowd of reporters had swollen until it seemed like a horde of them wanting to get in, the security on site barely enough to keep them back. That security looked as though it was about to be reinforced, though, because military vehicles were rolling up, spreading out around the perimeter of the facility, with armed men jumping out.

“All this because I talked about aliens on TV?” Kevin said. It seemed like a lot, given the number of people who did that.

“All this because we proved aliens to them,” Dr. Levin corrected him, and Kevin guessed that far fewer people had done that. “There will be a lot more.”

“How many more?” Kevin asked. He wasn’t sure he was comfortable with the idea of being surrounded just because he’d said something.

“Follow me.” She led the way over to one of the recreation rooms. The TV there was on, scientists staring at one of the news channels.

“The boy, identified as Kevin McKenzie of Walnut Creek, California, claimed to be in contact with an extraterrestrial source of information, and gave extensive details about the Trappist 1 planetary system, believed by many experts to be—”

Dr. Levin flipped the channel, and now there was an interview there with a wild-eyed man in a grubby T-shirt for a band Kevin didn’t know.

“It’s all a lie,” he said. “It’s a distraction. The government wants us looking at this, so that we’re not looking at the truth! It’s an excuse, so that when they start drugging the drinking water, it will all seem normal!”

Dr. Levin flipped the channel again. Now, there was a pastor on the screen talking in front of a large congregation.

“It’s clear that what the boy is actually hearing is the voice of God, preparing us for the Rapture! We must be—”

She turned the TV off, ignoring the protests of the scientists as she did so.

“That’s enough,” she said. “You all have work to do, and it will be complicated enough now without listening to all that trash. You know the truth. You’ve seen it. Get back to work.”

To Kevin’s surprise, they did, even though Dr. Levin wasn’t their boss. Maybe they were just looking for someone to tell them what to do. He knew he was, right then. He might understand the aliens’ messages, but he wasn’t sure that he really got what half of this might mean.

“Things are going to get tricky,” Dr. Levin said to him. “There will be people now trying to twist what you say, and use it for their own ends.”

“So what do I do?” Kevin asked.

She shrugged. “Just keep saying things exactly as you see them. You’re at the heart of something big, but you need to tell the truth, do your best with it. It’s all any of us can hope to do right now.”

Kevin nodded, but he doubted that it would be that easy. At least one reason it wouldn’t be easy was his mom, and she was standing across the recreation room from him now. He found that he was afraid. What would she say? He knew she’d been almost as eager to keep the secret of all of this as Professor Brewster, and yet he’d told people everything.

She rushed forward to hug him. “Kevin, are you all right? I thought they’d bring you back to your room, and then I went to Professor Brewster’s office and he was on the phone to the Pope, and…”

“I’m fine, Mom,” Kevin assured her. Right then, he would have said it even if he weren’t, just to take away some of the look of worry on her face.

“There are so many people out there now,” she said. “Kevin, we were just trying to keep you safe.”

Kevin shook his head. It was important that people knew about what was happening. It didn’t matter if he was safe. “I had to tell them.”

“And now I think they’re going to go crazy out there if somebody doesn’t tell them more,” his mother said.

Dr. Levin cocked her head to one side, then looked out at the crowds beyond the building. “Your mother has a point, Kevin. Someone needs to explain all this to people.”

“What did you have in mind?” Kevin asked.

“I think we need to organize a press conference.”

***

“We need to be very careful about this,” Professor Brewster said, as he, Kevin, and Dr. Levin stepped into one of the institute’s conference rooms together. “I’m only agreeing to this because the alternative is letting people make up what they want in place of the truth.”

Kevin guessed that he didn’t like the idea of people trying to force their way into his research center to learn the truth, either.

“So we tell them the truth,” Kevin said.