Chapter Text
There is an old English proverb which states when March comes in like a lion, it goes out like a lamb. It was March when he came into my life and true to that old proverb, he was a lion when he entered; a whirlwind of energy and boundless thinking. He was exhausting and excitable. Lucky like the leprechauns of March with the riches of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. He had dreams bigger than this world and he knew no limits, not even the sky. He was positively brilliant; without a doubt more brilliant than I; possibly the most brilliant in the world. His morals were questionable, everything in his life nothing more, nothing less than a means to an end. There was much to be questioned about him, but one thing was for certain: No one in the world had the ability, or maybe it was the courage, to try, against all odds, to do the impossible. Not to discredit anyone who overcomes insurmountable odds. Perhaps I’m biased, but this was different. He was different. He wasn’t a man of faith in the traditional sense, at least. But he certainly had faith beyond any measure I had seen before. Faith in his own ideas, in his own dreams. Most of all, he had faith in me.
We all have stories to tell about how our lives shift and change, how our personalities mould to fit our surroundings. Sometimes we can split our lives into eras, big events abruptly changing the path our life was meant to go, or where we thought it was going. Sometimes the shift is gradual, going unnoticed until one day we look back and realize that we’re different from what we used to be, and there is no big event to mark the change, only growth and environment. In my case, there is a bold mark on my life’s timeline. A before and after. While I’d certainly never thought my life was boring before, when I look back on the day he came into my life it simply seems so very average in comparison. That’s saying something, considering the space program that I founded sits at the forefront in advances of human orbital travel. But in hindsight, even that seems dull.
He came in on a gust of wind, quite literally. Outside, March was roaring in like a lion in a concerning apocalyptic global warming type of way. I was quietly bent over the laptop on my desk, working on my latest model and fidgeting with complex calculations and measurements to ensure the mechanics worked as required. When the door crashed open, I barely had time to look up before I was blasted in the face with a handful of papers. I hadn’t been expecting any visitors, and it was extremely unusual for people to simply walk in off the streets, considering the gated security this building had. I was already on edge with him and in terms of first impressions, he wasn’t off to a great start.
The apology that followed his entrance was uttered so rapidly it was difficult to catch individual syllables. “Bugger, sorry- sorry. Sorry, bit clumsy today. Sorry.” There was a rustling sound as what I assumed was a pile of papers falling to the floor. “Oh the papers…” I peeled a sheet from my face to reveal a tiny sparrow of a man struggling with the door. The steel door was easily three times his weight and he fought the wind with his entire body. The situation might have been comical, if I hadn’t already been put off by this stranger barging into my private office unexpected and uninvited. I was far from amused. The door finally slammed shut with a bang. Panting with effort, the slight man leaned against the door, his black hair a messy birds nest atop his head.
“ ’s a hurricane out there, innit?” he flashed me a grin that revealed one crooked front tooth. I stared. His entire being screamed Englishman. The wonky tooth, the pale skin, the skinny, wiry figure. And his clothes. His clothing choices were atrociously mismatched and ill fitting. He looked almost as if he’d stepped out of the wrong decade, the early two thousand’s perhaps.
He leaned over, eyeing the new hole in the wall the door handle had made. “Shit… did I do that? I’ll pay for the repairs. Bugger, really sorry.” He bustled forward, grin still plastered on his face and hand extended in greeting. “Matthew Bellamy, pleasure to meet you. I hope I’m not interrupting anything important.” He invited himself into the chair across from my desk, and immediately squatted in it like a child. Upon examining him further, it seemed he actually was a child. Or rather, he was young. I garnered he looked to be nineteen or twenty at best. He even had bits of post pubescent acne scattered across his cheeks.
I shook his hand with hesitance. “Dom Howard… Please, sit down…” I gestured, though he was already seated. Sarcasm, outside of broken French, was the only language I was somewhat fluent in. He laughed, his glee manifesting itself in a memorable high pitched giggle. There was nothing funny about this, but evidently he found humor in it.
“I already know who you are, Dominic Howard,” he reassured me, rocking forward with his long fingers clenched around his knees. My brain continued to struggle to keep up with his quick words and I noticed his speech had a slight woo to it, as though no one had spent the time to teach him how to properly pronounce his R’s. I placed his muddled accent as from Devon, which was recognizable mostly because I’d grown up in Devon as well. Ironically. It was probably the only saving grace that allowed me to understand him at all.
He babbled on, ticking off on his fingers as he went. “You’re the head engineer and owner of Howard Enterprise, a privately run space program- the first and only of it’s kind or any kind of space program, for that matter, in the UK. You founded the business after you left Virgin Galactic because you recognized the UK’s need for a similar program. You studied at Cambridge and then with the NASA space program before joining the team at Virgin. That’s all common knowledge, but I know you distrust the government getting involved with the space program these days. Global politics,” he trailed off, mumbling something about the Tories and if they could keep secrets so could we. “Anyway, you’re single, a workaholic, you live close to your work and you’re charming and like-able, you have a huge network of people and resources, and you also need money for your private project on the interstellar research probe. Also your mum makes a banging banoffee pie and your favorite book is 1984.” He flashed a toothy grin at me, as if it wasn’t at all uncommon for a complete stranger to know intimate details about my life and my mum’s pie?
I could only stare at him, mouth slightly agape. I tried to speak, but found myself mute. How could he know some of these things? Sure, the business and where I studied were all public knowledge. But how could he know what my private life was like? And my private research was my private research. It wasn’t published. It was simply theoretical work. None of it had been tested. I didn’t even have a team yet. This was baffling and completely unnerving. I felt my privacy was violated and it immediately put me on edge. His first impression was not improving in the slightest.
“You don’t talk much, Dominic Howard,” Matthew noted, still smiling. His gaze never wavered from mine. His eyes were an astonishing blue, lit as though he had an internal source of light. And his gaze was penetrating, as if he had direct access into my brain. It was intimidating and I had to look away, instead focusing my gaze on the papers still in my hand. I flipped through them. Pages and pages printed from the internet about Trappist-1, a planetary system 39 lightyears away that hosted seven potentially earth-like planets orbiting a cool dwarf star.
“They found seven planets going round that star that could potentially host life,” Matthew explained, nodding at the paper in my hand as if I couldn’t read what the article was about. Trappist-1 was old news to me and the rest of the scientific community, the planetary discovery was quickly dwarfed by hundreds of new Earth-like planets found, now almost on a daily basis. These were discoveries, once unusual and exciting news, that rarely got news coverage anymore simply because most ordinary citizens had bored of the subject. Of course there were more important, Earth relevant topics to discuss such as war, terror, death, politics, all things that provided shock value and depression to the world. Britain generally had better news channels than some other countries, but since Brexit and the rise of the Tories and nationalism, the news felt more dystopian than ever. Humanity’s waning interest in things relating to outer space made me lose hope for the future of space exploration. Which was why I was here, I suppose.
The articles in my hand were old and dumbed down for the general public, mostly artists representations of what life on the planets might be like, nothing much at all about the science behind the discovery of the planets. I looked back up at the man across from me to find he was still watching me eagerly. Who was this loud, nosy person and why was he here, showing me this amateur article about something that had been researched now for ages? I furrowed my brow at him and he nearly rocketed out of his seat waiting for my response.
“And?” I asked. Surely there was an explanation for this bizarre visit.
“Well, that’s where I want to go!” His voice quivered with excitement and his body seemed to vibrate due to his foot jiggling at approximately one hundred kilometers an hour. I half expected his shoe to fly off. He could probably rocket himself to Trappist-1 on that kind of energy.
I laughed loudly at the absurdity of his statement. That would explain it. It was a joke. A prank. “Good one! You almost had me! Who set you up?”
Matthew’s expression was puzzled. “No, wait, this isn’t a joke! I’m serious!” He burst up from his chair and paced madly about the room, occasionally bouncing so much that his feet left the ground. Not joking. Serious. My smile fell. This was becoming a bigger problem than I had initially thought. This man was clearly not right in the head. I wondered if I would need to get security involved. I set the papers on my desk and cleared my throat as I dug deep into the recesses of my mind to find the necessary patience it seemed I needed with this mad man.
“Do you know anything about space travel, Mr. Bellamy?” If that was even his real name. I folded my hands together on my desk, an exercise that reminded me to remain calm, even if inside I was certainly not calm at all. This wasn’t the first time that we had gotten a strange and impossible request from someone but never anything to this magnitude. Nothing this insane. Most people had common sense. Well... Some.
Matthew sat back down in the chair across from me, still fidgeting. “Well, not much,” he admitted, “But that’s why I need your help! Since you’re researching interstellar travel…that’s why I came to you. It took me a long time… to decide…years…” he began ticking away on his fingers again, mumbling. “Extensive background checks, history with the government, political alignments, acquaintances, social networking, staff, their backgrounds, their political alignments, scanning for corruption, essentially. A virus scan, if you will.”
“You’ve done background checks on me? And my staff?” I asked, immediately alarmed. I was quick to get on my feet. Who was this guy? “All of that is very personal information, and some of that is confidential! That’s illegal!”
Matthew shook his head. “It was all public information, you just have to know where to look, that’s all. There were lots of potential companies, but I picked you! You really impressed me! Also your mum sure is a pleasant lady. There’s nothing illegal about talking with people, you know.” Was I supposed to feel flattered? Because I didn’t. I definitely did not. Not even a little bit.
A cold chill shivered down my spine. “Well I’m not comfortable with that. I’m going to have to ask you to please leave now,” I stated in the most calm voice I could muster, which was admittedly, not very at this point. There was a definite quiver there. I stood to assert my authority and reached for the phone.
“But you should be flattered! You’re the cleanest, most uncorrupt business out there! That’s very hard to come by these days, you know. Please listen!” he begged, leaning over my desk now when he should have most definitely been heading the other way, toward the door.
“I will contact security to have you removed, Mr. Bellamy.”
His eyes widened in fascination. “This place has security? That’s very fancy. Oh. I suppose. Lot’s of equipment. Danger. All that science stuff.”
“And creeps like you. Now get out,” I demanded, eyes flashing as I picked up the phone and began dialing. Finally, Matt put his hands up placatingly and began backing toward the door.
“Alright, alright,” he said and I began to lower the phone. “I guess I should have expected that sort of reaction. I’m leaving now,” He plucked up his jacket from the floor. I hadn’t even noticed he’d dropped it there when he’d come in, such was the whirlwind of his entrance. He continued to back up as he shrugged his jacket on, never taking his eyes off of me. “Please consider it?” he asked eagerly.
“You’re mad!” I shouted. “Get out of my office!”
Matt looked startled and fumbled for the door handle, backing out. “Ooright,” he muttered quietly as the door shut gently behind him. The following silence felt deafening despite the muffled sounds of engines and machinery of the distance test room and the constant hum of the industrial HVAC system. It felt like a bomb had gone off and I was left with the devastated aftermath.
Exhausted and shaking with rage and maybe a bit of fear, I sat heavily back in my chair, rubbing at my temples. Finally, I opened up the top drawer of my desk and pulled out a bottle of paracetamol. I popped two pills and guzzled half of the bottle of water that was on my desk. Then I carefully rearranged the papers on my desk, tossing the article’s about Trapper-1, perhaps with more violence than was really necessary. How seriously should I be taking this? Was this person a threat? Should I take it up with security? The police? Probably the police. He had managed to get some really personal information about me. Better to be safe than sorry, probably.
I reached for the phone again to call security but paused. I flipped open my laptop and pulled up Google, carefully typing Matthew’s name. I scrolled through pages and pages of results, trying different combinations of his name and Trapper-1 or other details he mentioned. He was probably part of the NSA or some shit. There were plenty of Matthew Bellamy’s out there but none of them seemed to fit the profile of the man who had been in my office. Perhaps he really had given me a false name. I wouldn’t have any way of knowing. Giving up on him, I typed in my own name, checking to see how easily someone could find information on me. I was fairly well known. There were numerous articles about me and written by me. The company’s webpage popped up almost immediately. I even had my own Wikipedia page. I had to admit, there was a lot of information on me available for public access. But it didn’t give someone the right to track every move I made, did it?
…
I shot up from my seat and went to the door. It was equipped with multiple locks and I flipped them all. Evidently it was an extra precaution I would need to take in the future, even when I was present. I turned to pick up the phone to call security again but my foot slipped on something and I looked down. Under my shoe was a small bit of paper, slipped under the door. I bent down and picked it up, peering at it for ages to be certain that I was reading it correctly.
It was a check. A check written for one million pounds. Signed Matthew Bellamy. A note attached with his contact information.
Alright. He had my attention.