Transmission

He heard Dr. Levin sigh. He wasn’t sure what he would do if she threw him out. Put the information on the Internet, maybe? Send it directly to some other observatory in the hope that they would do something with the information? Probably, he would be in too much trouble with his mother for that by then. He just had to stand there and hope.

He saw her eyeing him with more compassion than she had before; he suspected his collapse had shifted something within her.

“Okay,” Dr. Levin said, “okay, I’ll admit, I’ve been thinking about everything from when you first came here. Unless you somehow managed to take control of all of NASA’s systems… No, it just doesn’t work. But that means…”

“It means you believe me,” Kevin said.

Dr. Levin nodded. “Yes, I believe you. I don’t want to, but I can’t see any other way. What’s this message of yours?”

“Coordinates,” Kevin said. “Like the last time we had to change the telescope’s alignment, only different. They want us to focus on a different place.”

“For messages coming from a different patch of sky?” Dr. Levin asked. Kevin heard her sigh. “You know that no one will move a telescope just on my word, right? Not after…”

“After everything I did?” Kevin guessed.

Dr. Levin nodded.

“There must be someone,” Luna insisted, beside them. “Professor Brewster doesn’t have to know. Or we could find a way to hack in.”

It was surprising, sometimes, just how little respect for rules Luna could have. To Kevin’s surprise, Dr. Levin seemed to be taking her suggestion seriously.

“Hacking NASA is hard,” she said. “To do that, we’d need someone who…”

Then her eyes brightened with realization.

“Of course,” she said to herself. “Phil.”

Kevin nodded at the mention of the scientist’s name. “Do you think… do you think he would help?”

“He might,” Dr. Levin said. “He’s our best shot, at least.”

She and Luna helped Kevin to stand. It took an effort, but he was going to see this through.

“I can’t believe that I’m doing this again,” she said, “but I guess… I guess we need to take a trip to NASA.”

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

They drove over to the NASA facility in Dr. Levin’s car. As the three of them drove up, there were still some people waiting outside, but fewer than there had been. They made for the gates in Dr. Levin’s car. There was a security guard there, standing behind a low barrier.

“This could be tricky,” Dr. Levin said. “I haven’t been back since this happened.”

She drove up and the guard there held up a hand.

“Can’t come in here,” he said, holding up a hand. “If I’ve told one of you, I must have told a… Dr. Levin, what are you doing here? You’re not on the list for today.”

“We need to get in, Neil,” she said. “I need to talk to Phil.”

“We?” the guard said. He looked back at the car. “Wait, isn’t that…”

Kevin didn’t shy away from the guard’s look. Right then, it was their only hope.

 “You? You aren’t supposed to be here. They said—”

“They probably said all kinds of things,” Dr. Levin said, “but we do need to get in. Please.”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Levin,” the security guard said. “But I just can’t let you in like this, especially not if you’re bringing him here.”

Kevin looked across to Luna, who nodded.

“Please, Neil, this is vital,” Dr. Levin said.

“I’m sorry, you need to turn your car around and… Hey!”

Kevin and Luna burst from the car practically simultaneously,

Kevin darted past him at almost the same time that Luna did. The man couldn’t make a grab for both of them at once, and so they managed to slip past the barrier, running for the doors to the facility even as the security guard turned to run after them, his efforts hampered by a few of the people who had come there to protest, and who had clearly decided to follow and see what was happening.

Kevin ran forward, sprinting for the door. He and Luna were both quicker than the man was, and they made it to the doors before the guard had covered half the space. That would probably have meant much more if the doors hadn’t been locked. Kevin pounded on them, but he didn’t have the security clearance to get through them, had never had the clearance to get through them, and now the guard was bearing down on them.

“You’re both going straight to the police!” he promised as he closed in.

Then the doors to the facility opened, and both Kevin and Luna stumbled inside a step ahead of the guard. The door slammed to shut him out, and Kevin looked up at the figure who had opened the door.

“Ted?” He was the last person Kevin had been expecting there, but probably also the best person they could have run into. “You’re still here?”

Ted nodded. “I had to stay around to answer some questions about all this. But never mind that. What are you doing here, Kevin?” He looked over to Luna. “You’re both here?”

“There’s been another message,” Kevin said.

Where the others had hung up or looked at him like he was mad, Ted gave him a serious look. “You’re sure?”

Kevin nodded. “We need someone who can realign the telescope. There’s another set of coordinates.”