Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The phone call comes in the early morning.

Aleja is the first one awake. The sun is just beginning to slip up over the horizon, rearing its yellow-white head and reaching its long, hot fingers across the parched earth of the California desert. The sunrise is almost entirely orange this morning, the hazy desert air blurring the sky into one monochromatic gradient of pale auburn to rust. She can’t find a single spot of blue anywhere. It makes her uneasy.

She’s in her pajamas watching the sunrise cross-legged in front of the kitchen window, resting her elbows on the sill, when the phone rings. The sound is loud and jarring in the quiet of early morning, and it makes her heart freeze and her gut sour. She can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong.

By the time she crosses the kitchen to the place where the phone is, the phone is already on its sixth ring. “Hello?” she says, hesitantly.

“Is this the Sanchez-McClain residence?” asks the voice on the other end.

“Yes?”

“Can we speak to the parents of Lance Sanchez-McClain?”

Aleja can hear the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs—Mama. “Um,” she says to the person on the phone. “One moment, please.”

Her mother rounds the corner of the kitchen, dressed in her night gown with her dark curls tied back in a messy bun. The phone must have woken her up. “Who is it, mija?” she asks quietly. Aleja just shrugs and holds out the phone.

“It’s about Lance,” she says.

And then Aleja watches from the breakfast table as her mother says yes, this is Dora McClain Martinez, mother of Lance Sanchez-McClain, and no, she hasn’t seen her son since the last semester break, and—oh. Her mother’s hand slowly rises to her cover her mouth, her shoulders hunching over like the sky had fallen onto her back. Even from across the room Aleja can see how tightly her mother clutches the lip of the counter. There are tears in her mother’s eyes. A thick, viscous dread settles in the base of Aleja’s stomach, slow and dark and all-consuming. Aleja is drowning in it. She can’t breathe.

“Mama?” Aleja whispers.

Her mother doesn’t say a word.

—☆—

Three Garrison Cadets Missing After Freak Satellite Crash
By Mara Garrett, News Editor | The Guardian | Monday, June 13, 2103 7:40 A.M. ET

Two seventeen-year-olds and a fifteen-year-old went missing Friday night after a rogue satellite crashed into the desert a few miles away from the Galaxy Garrison Training Facility, reports say.

Garrison officials were quick to cordon off the area, claiming many of the remaining satellite fragments were dangerous and unstable. Thirty minutes after the crash, the three teens were reported missing by their resident supervisors. They were last seen in security footage headed in the direction of the crash.

The Garrison has released no names or official statement regarding the teens, but have confirmed that they are not in Garrison custody. Government search parties have been sent out into the surrounding desert areas. Details are forthcoming.

Comments

Why is the crash relevant to the missing children?? This connection is purely coincidental and is being exploited to get all the conspiracy theorists interested. BAD JOURNALISM!!!!

Did you even read the report? The children were last seen heading in the direction of the crash and they went missing shortly after it happened. That’s not a coincidence

The Garrison hasn’t made any official comments to confirm the connection, so it’s still meaningless conjecture

The Garrison? HAH! Don’t trust the Garrison. The Garrison is a corrupt organization that hides information from us and uses us like sheep

Get your politics and conspiracy theories away from this article. Three children are missing. Show some respect.

It’s not a conspiracy theory if it’s true

^They have a point. Why haven’t any reporters been allowed near the crash site? Also, why are the only search parties allowed in the area government ones?

It’s a private government facility, of course they’re not allowing reporters in

—☆—

KONSPIRACY
A Kerberos Conspiracy Forum

USER K80H0LT
Post Count: 9,802
Rank: Mod
Joined: August 3, 2102

Last Blog Post:

Sorry for the delay on the daily update! Gonna follow up on the weird readings from last night. Thanks @summer49 for pointing out the similarities between these signals and the ones just before Kerberos—I think we’re onto something. If something happens, it’s going down tonight. ETA 10 or 11 PM

Wish me luck, folks.

Last Visited: 3 days ago

—☆—

A woman in a hijab and a young man with dark hair are standing side by side in an office, wearing matching gray Garrison uniforms. A balding white man sits at a desk across from them.

“I’m putting you two on the background investigation for the seventeen-year-olds. Detective Khan, you’re on Garrett. Put your trainee here on McClain. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” says the woman. “Can I ask who you’re putting on Gunderson?”

“I’m assigning Gunderson to another division.”

“Sir,” the young man interrupts. “Wouldn’t it make sense to assign Gunderson to our division so we can coordinate efforts?”

The woman shoots a glance at the young man, but says, “I second my trainees concerns, sir.”

“I don’t need you to be concerned, detectives,” says the balding man. “I need you to get me information on these kids. Any more questions?”

“...No, sir.”

“Alright. Then get to work.”

The young man and the woman leave the office.

“He’s not even going to give us access to the security tapes, is he?” asks the young man. The woman shakes her head.

“Nope. Sorry to break it to you, Ryou, but—he’s blocking us out.“

“I just—” He lets out a frustrated sigh. “It doesn’t make sense, keeping us in the dark.”

The woman sits down at her desk chair and swivels to look up at her trainee. “Most things around here don’t make sense, kiddo. It sucks, but that’s the way it is. You’ll be a lot happier if you learn not to ask the wrong questions.”

With that, she spins around and goes back to her computer, leaving the young man to his thoughts in the middle of the windowless office hallway.

—☆—

The phone rings during dinner. The shrill sound sends a jolt through Aleja’s spine, making her clutch her fork in her fist so hard that the smooth edges of the metal leave white marks on her palm. Her mother immediately gets to her feet, picks up the phone, and takes the phone call to the other room.

None of them speak. The table is quiet except for the muffled sounds of her mother’s conversation in the other room and the clink of cutlery against their plates. It makes Aleja want to scream.

When her mother returns, her expression grim and weary, they all stop and watch.

“Any news?” her father whispers, and it’s ridiculous, because they can all hear him ask—he’s not sparing them any anxiety by pretending to be secretive. Aleja’s mother just shakes her head.

“They just have some questions. They’ll come by later this week,” she says, then takes a seat. No one says a word.

That’s it. Aleja can’t stay quiet anymore.

“They’re lying,” she says. Her mom, her dad, her siblings all turn to look at her. “The Garrison is lying. You know it. I know it—”

“We don’t know anything,” her mother interrupts. “He went missing five days ago. That’s all we know.”

“They’re lying. The Garrison meant everything to Lance. He wouldn’t have run away.”

“I don’t think so either, but—”

“And the story about the satellite—it doesn’t match up with what people reported. Just ask Hunk’s sister-in-law. She’s been doing a whole series of articles about it for the Guardian. The Garrison is lying.”

“The Garrison Academy is a restricted government area, Aleja.” Her mother’s voice is firm. It offers no room for discussion. “The Garrison is full of highly trained government personnel. I think they know more than you do, Aleja. You need to drop this, now.”

“But I’ve been looking online, and there are other people—”

“Enough, Aleja.”

“Just— listen—”

“Enough!”

The table goes deadly silent.

Her eyes are burning, and her throat feels too tight. “I’m going to my room,” she says after a couple beats. She leaves her dinner half-finished on the table and slams the dining room door behind her.

Her laptop is still open in her dark bedroom, the blue light illuminating the dresser, the desk, her bookshelf, the bunk bed she and Lance used to share when they were kids. She shudders out a breath and finally lets the tears come, leaning back against the door of her bedroom.

She looks at the text again on her phone, stares at the words until her vision begins to swim. “Going to hit the town tonight with Hunk and Pidge, wish me luck haha.” The text came in at 10:23 PM. The satellite crashed at 10:34. Lance hadn’t been planning to run away, hadn’t been planning to go after the satellite. Something happened between that text and Lance’s disappearance, and Aleja knows the Garrison is hiding it.

When she’s ready, she goes back to her laptop. The last thing she had open was a forum centered on the Garrison cover-up of the Kerberos mission failure. There’s a whole thread on the most recent disappearance. “These are the same tactics we’ve seen before,” says one poster. “They’re withholding all information until the press calms down. That facility has more surveillance equipment than the fucking pentagon. They know what happened and they’re just waiting until they can spin together the right story. ”

The right story. Aleja hesitates, then bookmarks the site.

If the Garrison is going to try to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes with their story, then she might as well spin her own.

—☆—

An ongoing description of the rightmost wall of Lance and Aleja’s bedroom

Updated June 15, 2103

The wall is almost empty. There are small pinholes and stray pieces of tape all across the thin plaster, reminders of the posters and photos and drawings and paintings that used to cover every inch of the pale blue paint. All of them are gone now. The only thing that remains is a single photo at the very center of the wall—small, maybe 6 inches by 8 inches, printed on glossy photo paper and stuck the to wall with Scotch tape.

In the photo are two kids. They have matching smiles, matching eyes, matching skin. One of them is wearing a gray paint-spattered tank top, her hair pulled up in a messy bun. The other is dressed in a crisp white and orange uniform. His arm is slung over her shoulder, holding her close, and it’s clear from the angle of the photo that he’s the one holding the camera. If one were to take the photo from the wall, they would see the words written on the back in black permanent marker: Lance’s send-off, September 2102.

The photo is alone. It is the only thing on that wall, but in some ways, this works to its advantage. It commands attention. It demands to be looked at.

Its story will be heard.

—☆—

From: Aleja Sanchez-McClain < [email protected] >
Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2103 9:47 PM
To: Mara Garrett < [email protected] >
Subject: Our Brothers

Hi,

This is Aleja, Lance’s sister. I think we met once when you came to pick Lance up at the end of his winter break?

I’m emailing to ask if you know anything about our brothers’ disappearance that you didn’t publish to your news articles. I really don’t believe that the Garrison has told us the whole story, and I get the feeling that you’re also probably as skeptical as I am.

~Aleja

From: Mara Garrett < [email protected] >
Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2103 9:47 PM
To: Aleja Sanchez-McClain < [email protected] >
Subject: RE: Our Brothers

Hi Aleja,

Thanks for your email. Although like every journalist I am skeptical of the statements the Garrison is putting out, I’m afraid I don’t have anything beyond what I’ve published. Even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to share it because of my work’s confidentiality policies.

If you ever just want to talk to someone though, feel free to give me a call. These last few days have been tough for everyone. It’s important that we support each other as much as we can.

Lots of love,

Mara Garrett
News Editor
The Guardian
(220) 555-5555

—☆—

A memory:

November 26, 2102 — Lance & Aleja’s room.

“The food here is actually starting to get, like, kind of nasty. I miss Mama’s food.”

Aleja holds the phone against her ear with one hand as she lays on the top bunk of the bunk bed, her feet swinging over the edge. “I could send you a package in the mail. Fill a cardboard box with Mama’s picadillo. It’ll be just like back in Varadero.”

Lance makes a disgusted noise on the other end of the phone. “Ugh, can you imagine how nasty that would be by the time it got to New Mexico?”

“Nasty nasty,” she agrees.

“Nasty nasty nasty.”

“I miss you,” she says after a moment. “It’s weird, you not being here.”

“I know. I miss you too, 'Leja.”

“At least you’ll be back for Christmas.”

“Yeah. Another month.”

“Another month.”

There’s a pause, and Aleja picks at the sheets of her bed, pulling away lint.

“Tell me about the Garrison,” she says. “Anything interesting happen today?”

“Oh, yeah. You know that Keith guy I told you about?”

“Keith? Hmm, I’m not sure....” Aleja grins. “Is he the one who got perfect scores on all the sims? Or the one who called you out for staring at him? Oh! You mean Keith, the guy whose mullet you can’t stop talking about—”

“Okay, okay, shut up. You wanna hear about my day or not?”

“Alright, fine. I’ll stop teasing. Go ahead.”

“Okay, well, Hunk and I were sitting next to each other in line for the long-distance sim, and Keith....”

Lance launches into telling his story, narrating animatedly with commentary and sound effects and imitated voices. Aleja knows that if she was there with Lance in his dorm room, he would be acting the whole thing out with his hands and face. She can almost see his expressions, can almost see the gestures he must be making. Her heart aches a little. She wonders if she’ll always be able to know Lance like this, or if those parts of her will start to fade now that he lives so far away. The question makes something dark and unpleasant settle in her stomach, so she shoves the thoughts away and lets herself get lost in Lance’s story.

“...And I swear, Iverson sounded just like Mama, except, you know, speaking in English, and not a middle-aged Cuban lady. It was crazy. He was so pissed.”

“¡Te calmas o te calmo!” Aleja mimics, pitching her voice up in an impression of their mother. Lance starts giggling.

“God, you are way too good at that, Aleja. It’s scary,” he says. “I really, really miss you, you know.”

“Ditto.”

There was a muffled noise from somewhere in Lance’s room. “Hey, uh, it’s almost lights out, so I gotta go.”

“Ugh, I thought you’d never stop talking,” Aleja jokes. When Lance makes an indignant noise, she adds quickly, “Love you, bro.”

“Love you too. I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”

“‘Kay.”

“‘Kay.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

“Adiós.”

“Adiós.”

“Are you copying me?’

“Are you copying—”

“¡BASTA!” Aleja cries into the phone, then sets it down and taps “End Call” . Two states away, she knows Lance is laughing, and she smiles despite herself. That’s the thing about Lance: his laughter is contagious, even if you can’t hear it, even if he’s not even there.

God. She really does miss him.

—☆—

When Aleja comes down the stairs for breakfast, she hears a voice she doesn’t recognize.

The first thing she does is turn around and run back to her room to change out of her pajamas. When she’s dressed, she creeps back down the stairs, listening intently to the voices floating down the hallway from the living room.

“...ever talk about leaving the Garrison, or running away?” asks the unfamiliar voice.

“No, no. He isn’t that kind of kid.” Another voice—her mother.

“Um, well. If we can figure out why he left, we’ll have a better chance of finding him.”

“My son worked hard to get to the Garrison. He wouldn’t have thrown that away.”

“But if he did—”

Aleja doesn’t want to listen to this. She walks loudly down the hallway and into the living room, startling both her mother and the young man sitting there with her. He looks like he couldn’t be much older than Aleja herself—early twenties, probably. His uniform is Garrison.

“Lance didn’t run away,” Aleja says, and she knows she’s glaring but she can’t help it, and she doesn’t care. “I’m sure you could tell us more than we could tell you.”

“Aleja—” her mother says warningly.

“It’s okay,” the man says. “Are you... Lance’s sibling?”

“Twin sister.”

“Lance’s twin sister,” the man corrects. “I’m a detective from the Garrison Military Police.”

“You look the part,” Aleja says. Her mother shoots her another ominous look, and she shuts her mouth.

“Is it okay if I ask you a few questions?”

“I guess.”

“Why don’t you think Lance ran away?”

Aleja looks between her mother and the newcomer, then says, “Because he texted me that night.”

The young man turns to her mother. “Is it okay if I talk to your daughter alone for a few minutes?”

Soon she’s fidgeting by herself in the living room with the detective. His dark hair is cropped close to his head, and his gray eyes don’t seem to miss a thing.

“So,” the young man says, folding his hands over his knees and twirling his thumbs awkwardly. He must be new, she thinks. He doesn’t seem confident at all. “What did your brother say? In the text, I mean.”

“Listen,” she says. “I’m sure you’re probably a decent guy, but I really don’t feel like cooperating with your organization.”

“What?” He actually seems genuinely confused. Either this guy is really new, or a really good liar.

“I know that the Garrison knows things that you’re not telling us.”

The man looks uncomfortable. “Well, we are an intelligence agency.”

“See, I didn’t used to care,” Aleja says, “but now my brother is involved. So I care. I’m not going to sit here and let you lie to me. As long as you’re working for the Garrison, I don’t want to work with you.”

“Okay,” he says. He frowns and nods. “I understand.”

“...You’re not going to try to convince me?”

“No,” he says. “The secrecy frustrates me too sometimes. I get it.”

“...Cool...”

Honestly, Aleja expected this to be much more of a fight.

The detective holds out a card for her to take with a name and phone number. “If you ever decide you want to talk, you can reach me with this,” he says, handing it to her. She feels like she’s stepping straight out of a crime drama.

“Alright,” she says. Then she takes the detective’s pen and tears off a piece of the newspaper on the coffee table. She writes down her phone number and hands him the paper. “How about if you ever feel like talking, and if you quit your job, you give me a call.”

The man starts laughing, and for a moment, he reminds her of Lance. “Fair enough,” he says. “I’ll see you around, Aleja.”

“See you around—” She glances at his card. “—Ryou Shirogane.”

When he leaves, the card goes on her wall. She doesn’t think she’ll call the number, but, well. She’ll take all the resources she can get.

Chapter Text

Ryou sits at a desk in a windowless office, a stack of papers spread out on the surface in front of him. “Garrison Military Police – Investigative Task Force” says the logo emblazoned on the lapel of his gray uniform. He yawns as he pushes his black hair out of his face and continues to flip back and forth between pages.

Suddenly, he stops.

He sets down the paper he’s holding—MEDICAL RECORDS: PIDGE GUNDERSON—then pulls out a small square magnifying glass from the desk drawer. A second later, he jiggles the mouse of his computer and begins typing. Another paper inches out of the printer under his desk, and he scoops it up: MEDICAL RECORDS: KATIE HOLT.

“Find something good, rookie?” asks a woman—Detective Khan—sitting two desks away. Her eyes are on him as he gathers his papers and gets to his feet.

“I think so,” Ryou says. She gives him a thumbs up, and he walks away down the hall.

Now Ryou is standing outside a private office, hovering by the door. He knocks hesitantly at the door frame. “Sergeant Pearson?” he says.

A balding white man looks up from the desk at the center of the room. “Yes, detective?”

“I have something I think you should see,” Ryou says, and he pushes the two papers onto the older man’s desk. “I think one of the missing kids was using a false name. See that discoloration near Pidge Gunderson’s name?” He points, and the balding man peers closer. “That’s where they photoshopped a new name over the old one. Gunderson’s medical records—they’re identical to this one here—” He taps the other paper. “—right down to the dates and locations they received vaccines. I don’t think this is a coincidence.”

The balding man frowns, folding his hands under his chin. “You think Pidge Gunderson is Katie Holt?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Katie Holt, the daughter and sister to Samuel and Matt Holt, from the Kerberos mission?”

Ryou stiffens.

“I put you on the McClain kid, right?” the balding man says.

“Yes, sir.”

“And instead, you’re bringing me information about Gunderson.”

“...Yes, sir.”

“Listen, detective,” the other man says. “This part of the investigation is above your clearance level. You’re a good kid, but this is not what I assigned you to do. I’ll take it from here. Go ahead with your part of the investigation.”

“Sir.” Ryou frowns. “Respectfully, I think I could have a lot to contribute—”

“I’ll take care of it,” the balding man repeats, firmly. There’s a short pause, then Ryou looks at the floor.

“...Understood.”

When Ryou exits the office, his hands balled into fists, he leaves the papers in the sergeant’s recycling bin.

Back at his own desk, Khan gives Ryou a sympathetic frown. “Let me guess,” she says, “he’s going to ‘take care of it’, isn’t he?”

“Something like that,” Ryou admits.

“You know what that’s code for, right?”

“...What?”

“It means you’re too good at your job, kiddo,” she says. “You sniffed up something the sergeant didn’t want you to find.”

—☆—

Shocking New Developments on Missing Garrison Cadets: Names, Fourth Teen Missing
By Mara Garrett, News Editor | The Guardian |  Wednesday, June 22, 2103 5:12 P.M. ET

In a press conference earlier this morning, Garrison officials revealed the names of the missing cadets as well as a fourth missing teen thought to be associated with the cadets’ disappearance.

Keith Kogane, 18, is a former Garrison cadet who quit the program five months ago after poor attendance and disciplinary issues. He was identified by Garrison investigators from security footage on the night of the other three teens’ disappearance.

The names of the three Garrison cadets were released at the beginning of the conference. Pidge Gunderson, 15, is a technician training at the Garrison for six months. The other two Garrison cadets are Lance Sanchez-McClain and Hunk Garrett, a fighter pilot trainee and engineer respectively.

“All we can say is that Keith Kogane is certainly a person of interest in this investigation,” said Garrison publicist Jill Ackerman. “We will update the press when we have more information. We urge anyone with knowledge of the missing children to come forward immediately.”

Comments

I don’t even need a tin hat for this one—just look at the photo of that Pidge kid. Am I the only one seeing the spitting image of Matt Holt, technician on the Kerberos mission? Family resemblance?

You need to stop adding your conspiracy theories to investigation for missing children. It’s tactless.

—☆—

A man and a woman sit in a living room in front of a buzzing television. An evening newscaster is speaking but no sound is coming from the TV, and closed captions inch their way across the bottom of the screen. The woman is tapping at her phone. The man is reading a book, a toddler asleep on his lap.

Footsteps sound from the stairs down the hallway, and a teenage girl appears. “Dinner?” she asks, quiet.

“Fridge,” says the women. She does not look away from her phone. “Plastic wrap, second shelf.”

The girl leaves silently. In the kitchen, the fridge opens, a dish is set in the microwave, and the machine whirs to life. While the microwave hums on the counter, the girl comes back into the living room and hovers near the doorway, watching the television.

The silence returns, and then—

“Isn’t that— Isn’t that Keith?”

The girl is pointing at the TV screen, and the man looks up.

“Keith?” he says, brows knitted. He turns to the woman. “Was he one of your foster kids?”

The woman peers at the television screen. “Hm. Looks like him. He left before I met you. Glad he didn’t stay longer. Seems like he’s made himself a criminal.”

The girl twists a strand of hair between her thumb and forefinger, watching the words crawl across the television. “...It looks like he’s missing. Not a criminal.”

“Oh? Can’t say I’m surprised,” the woman says, looking again at her phone. “He was always wandering off to God knows where. Way too difficult to control.”

The microwave beeps, but the girl’s eyes stay glued to the television, watching and worrying her lip and twisting her hair. A face flashes on the screen—a boy, black hair and dark eyes. Then the microwave beeps again, once, sharp, and the woman says, “Rose Genevieve Coughlin, get your food,” and the girl hurries into the other room. The boy’s face disappears from the screen.

The room is silent.

—☆—

KONSPIRACY
A Kerberos Conspiracy Forum

Recent Thread:

Missing Cadet Cover-up Begins: BACK UP BACK UP BACK UP!!!
Kaltenecker13
June 23, 2103 – 04:24 AM GMT

Hey everyone,

I was trying to get info about the Kogane kid they just announced went missing, and my searches keep turning up blank. I checked out the Way Back machine and—surprise surprise—a lot of the stuff that used to be there a month ago are dead links now. Looks like the cover-up is kicking into high gear.

For those of you who weren’t around right after Kerberos, this basically means that the Garrison has started their internet cleanup, and this forum is going to be especially at risk. The best thing we can do to combat that is to back as much up as we can. Make mirrors, build web crawlers, scrape the forums, download pages to your personal hard drive. I won’t be surprised if the we get a shut-down notice any day now.

—☆—

Aleja spends an hour searching Keith’s name on the internet, but he’s a ghost. No social media, no public school records, no news articles. It’s like he never existed. She wants to give up.

Then, fifteen pages back in her google search, she finds something: a digitalized newspaper microfilm from a small town in Oklahoma. It’s a short article, but, well. It’s better than nothing.

When she prints the article and closes her laptop for the night, she sits back in her desk chair and scrubs the heels of her palms over her eyes, taking a deep breath. Think. There has to be another way to get information. There has to be something she can do.

She stares at her phone on her desk absently. If she taps the screen, she knows she’ll see her lock screen, which is a picture of her and Lance from spring break this year. It’s honestly not a very good selfie, but it was the last picture they took together before he went back to school for summer quarter. Before he disappeared.

There has to be a way, she tells herself. She’ll find it.

—☆—

An ongoing description of the rightmost wall of Lance and Aleja’s bedroom

Updated June 23, 2103

Four new photographs decorate the small cluster of pictures and articles on the wall: a white kid with glasses and honey-brown hair, a tall boy with a headband and a square jaw, a boy with shaggy jet black hair and a grim expression, and a blue-eyed boy whose face lights up the entire photo.

Next to the black-haired boy is a printed scan of an Oklahoma newspaper article from ten years ago. OBITUARY: JAKE KOGANE”, the heading reads.  

—☆—

OBITUARY: JAKE KOGANE

Jake L. Kogane, 33, died at 12:46 a.m., Saturday, Dec. 24, 2093, from injuries sustained in a neighbor’s house fire in rural Roland, Oklahoma.

Jake was born Sept. 14, 2055, in Roland, Oklahoma and was a lifelong area resident. He worked at a local grocer and was a volunteer fireman and first responder for the Roland Fire Department. He lost his life coming to the aid of a neighbor whose roof caught alight during last night’s thunder storm.

He is survived by his son, Keith Kogane, 8 years old.

Services will be held at 10 a.m., Wednesday, Jan. 3, at the Trinity Funeral Home in central Roland. Burial will be in the Union Cemetery. Family and friends may call at the Trinity Funeral Home, Roland from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.

—☆—

A memory:

January 22, 2102 — Lance & Aleja’s room.

Aleja answers the call as soon as she sees her brother’s name light up the screen. “Hey Lance, what’s up?” she says, and she doesn’t mean to sound eager, but God, she is. It’s been a week. She sets down her homework and sits up on the desk chair.

“Nothing much,” Lance says, but she can hear the grin in his voice, and she braces for the good news. “Oh wait, there is one thing. I should let you know—you’re talking to a fighter class pilot now.”

“Holy shit, congratulations!”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t actually do anything.”

“What do you mean?”

“The only reason I got bumped up is because, uh.” He pauses, and she imagines he might be rubbing the back of his neck, or running his hand through his hair. (She’s not sure which anymore.) “Well, I got bumped because that Keith guy flunked out.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you mad?”

“Kind of. It’s like, I didn’t really earn my way here, you know?”

“But you did. You got yourself to the top of cargo class. There’s a reason you were bumped and not someone else.”

“Yeah, I know, I know, but....”

Lance trails off, and Aleja thinks she understands. “It’s okay,” she says. “I get it. You don’t want people to think you don’t deserve it.”

“No—it’s not.... It’s not about that. I mean, a little bit, but that’s not it,” Lance says. Aleja frowns and waits. “It’s more like.... I’m never going to get to beat him now.”

“Huh,” Aleja says.

“Yeah,” Lance says.

“I’m sorry.”

And for the first time in a long, long time, Aleja can’t picture Lance’s face at all.

—☆—

The next day, Aleja’s family gets another phone call from the Garrison.

She doesn’t have to ask to know what they said. The look on her mother’s face is enough.

—☆—

Missing Cadets Presumed Dead, Says Garrison
By Mara Garrett, News Editor | The Guardian | Sunday, June 25, 2103 3:50 P.M. ET

The four teens who went missing from the Galaxy Garrisons Training Facility on June 10th have been presumed dead, said Garrison officials during a press conference this morning.

The teens went missing during a freak satellite crash near the Garrison facility, though the Garrison denies all connection between these two events.

“It is with great sadness we tell the press that it is unlikely these cadets are still with us,” said Garrison representative Jill Ackerman. “They left on foot into the desert in the opposite direction of the nearest town. Although the investigation is still ongoing, we no longer expect to find them alive.”

The Garrison has still refused to address increasing public concerns about the handling of the investigation and the secrecy regarding the satellite crash.

Comments

Isn’t it a little soon to be presuming them dead? I mean, runaways go missing all the time.

It’s the desert though. You can’t survive for three days wandering in a desert.

But there’s a military town five miles away. Surely they could have doubled back and gone there and taken a bus out?

I’m sure the Garrison considered this possibility in their investigation. Let’s stop speculating without any facts and put a little trust in the people who do have the facts.

—☆—

The Sanchez-McClain household is drowning.

Aleja hasn’t been able to catch her breath, not since that phone call. The air is suffocating her, and her skin feels cold and distant, and when she walks she feels like she’s moving too slowly, like she’s pushing through currents just to walk to their bedroom, her bedroom. The house is underwater. All she can hear are muffled sobs down the hall and the ringing in her own ears.

No one has said a word. She feels like she’s in another home with another family, because they have always been the ones who talked, the ones who touched and smiled and laughed too loud. They are a family who cries together and holds each other and keeps each other strong, and she didn’t think anything would ever be able to change that, but—it’s Lance. Everything is different now. In an instant they shattered, and she doesn’t think they’ll ever find all the pieces. But—

Lance is not dead.

She says this to herself, over and over, believes it so completely that her thoughts are almost wild with it. She would know if something had happened. She would know. They shared a womb, their genes, and their first breath. They knew each other before they knew the world even existed.

If Lance were gone, she would feel it.

Her fingers shake as she takes the scissors from their desk drawer and sets a stack of newspapers down on the floor in the middle of the room. She begins to cut the pages to get the articles she’s looking for, and when she’s done, she uses a push pin to tack the papers to the wall.

This is not over yet.

—☆—

An ongoing description of the rightmost wall of Lance and Aleja’s bedroom

Updated June 25, 2103

Four new newspaper clippings are tacked to the wall around the cluster of clues at the center, their headlines black and bold. “MISSING CADETS”, “SATELLITE CRASH”, “INVESTIGATION UNDERWAY”, “CADETS PRESUMED DEAD”. The edges of the paper are cut jagged so that teeth hang from the edges where the cuts misaligned. The articles themselves, however, have been kept fully legible. Every letter of every article is there.

Above the four newspaper clippings is an article on white printer paper. The page is crisp and unfolded. The title reads “WHO IS KEITH KOGANE?”, but the word “who” is crossed out in blue ballpoint pen. Underneath is a note written in slanted handwriting: “where???”

—☆—

Aleja has no leads.

She stares at her wall, trying to will something to pull itself out of the collage of pictures and articles tacked to the plaster. Pidge Gunderson, Hunk Garrett, Keith Kogane. She’s scoured the internet for days now. Keith seemed like the most promising starting point, but she hasn’t had any luck yet, and every search leaves her more desperate. Maybe if she adds this term, maybe if she tries this search filter, maybe if she uses this search engine—maybe then she’ll get the answers she’s looking for.

Or, Keith Kogane is a dead end. That’s a possibility, too.

She slaps her laptop shut one late Tuesday afternoon and rolls back in her desk chair, tilting her head to the ceiling to stare at the plastic glow-in-the-dark stars Lance stuck there when they first moved here from Varadero. In San Diego, the light pollution makes it almost impossible to see the stars. “We’ll make our own,” Lance said. And up went the plastic stars.

Suddenly, Aleja has a thought.

Perhaps instead of squinting through the haze, she just needs to make her own constellations.

The internet seems to have been wiped of all traces of Keith Kogane, but the internet isn’t the only place that stores information. Everyone leaves a paper trail. Libraries, schools, hospitals, even dentist’s offices—they all have pieces of people tucked away somewhere in their private databases, a durable memento not easily erased. If she calls the right people with the right story... she could find what she’s looking for.

She looks at her wall, at the obituary pinned against the pale blue paint. Jake Kogane. Roland Oklahoma. It’s a start. The Garrison can’t erase a whole town off the map, can they?

She looks up the phone number of Roland Junior High, pulls out her phone, and gets to work.

“Hi,” she says when the receptionist answers, rounding and leveling her voice. “I’m Rachel Kogane. My son is a former student. I was wondering if I could get a copy of his attendance record....”

—☆—

An ongoing description of the rightmost wall of Lance and Aleja’s bedroom

Updated July 5, 2103

The cluster of paper extends almost to the floor and the ceiling, taking up the whole vertical plane of the wall. The name Keith Kogane is scattered across most of the new pages. In the upper left is an attendance record from Roland Junior High—31 absences, 71 tardy arrivals. Yellow post-it notes have been added to the mix too now, bearing phone numbers and names and addresses. Two notes in particular are placed prominently near the center of the collage: “Sequoyah County Child Welfare Office, (918) 555-8000” , says one. The other note also has a phone number: “Jenny Coughlin - Foster mother? (918) 555-2995 ”.

—☆—

Aleja’s finger hovers over the dial pad of her cell phone, the foster mother’s phone number typed in and waiting. She almost can’t believe she has it. She can’t even remember how many receptionists she’s talked to by now, how many fake personas she’s had to pretend to be to get what she’s been looking for. No one hands over personal information without credentials, of course, and Aleja doesn’t have those credentials. But having the right name, the right voice—sometimes that got the receptionist to slip details. “You still live at 201 Grant Street, right?” said a receptionist for a family dentist, and that was it—that was all she needed.

From there, it was a simple matter of looking up the name on the property ownership, and then googling through the Roland phone book to get the number. Now all she has to do is call.

She hopes it’ll be worth it.

The phone rings for a long time. She waits, swallowing twice, twisting the hem of her t-shirt as she listens. Four rings. Five rings. Six rings. She taps her fingers on her desk and takes another breath. Seven rings. Maybe it’s a dead number, maybe she got it wrong, maybe they’ll never pick up—

“Hello?” says a voice.

Aleja almost forgets what she was going to say. She licks her lips, then greets, “Hello. I’m an investigator looking into the disappearance of Keith Kogane. I’m calling for Jenny Coughlin?”

“She’s not home.”

“Oh.” Aleja frowns. “May I ask who I’m speaking with?”

“This is Rose Coughlin, her daughter.”

“Oh. Hi, Rose,” Aleja says. She taps her fingers against the desk again, then stops, paranoid about the sound. “Is it okay if I ask you a few questions?”

“The Garrison already asked us enough.”

“I’m not with the Garrison,” Aleja says quickly, and—shit. She hadn’t meant to say that. Her plan was to impersonate a Garrison investigator. She flounders, trying to figure out what to say next. “I’m actually....”

But no lies will come. Her heart is thudding fast, the words stuck in her throat. She hesitates, starts again. “I’m Aleja Sanchez-McClain. I’m the sister of one of the missing Garrison kids. I just want to find them. That’s it.”

There’s a pause.

“...I’m not sure they want to be found.”

“What?” Aleja’s fingers tighten around the phone, and she leans forward. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure about your sibling, but Keith, he’s— Well, this isn’t really... this isn’t the first time he’s disappeared.”

Aleja waits.

“He used to run away a lot, during junior high. That was when he was living here. Once he got into the Garrison, he barely ever came home. He stopped coming back altogether, after....”

“After he flunked out?” Aleja guesses.

“Yeah.”

“My brother used to talk about Keith,” Aleja confesses. “He was always going on about what a great pilot he was. He’d never admit it, but I think... I think he really admired Keith.” The photograph of Lance on the wall stares back at her as she pauses, collecting her thoughts. “Do you know why Keith flunked out?”

Rose is quiet for a moment. Then, softly, she says, “I think it had something to do with Kerberos.”

“Kerberos,” Aleja repeats. It’s not just a conspiracy, it’s all connected, they were right—

“Keith didn’t leave the Garrison on good terms. That’s why if the Garrison is looking for him, I don’t think he wants them to find him. That’s why I didn’t....”

“Rose— My brother— If you can tell me anything—”

“I think I know where they are.”

She can hear a shuffling sound from the other end of the line, and Aleja holds her breath, barely believing what she’s hearing. “You know where he is? You know where they are?”

“There’s a place called Crow Flats in New Mexico not too far from the Garrison facility,” Rose says. There’s a shifting noise, like she’s walking. “There’s nothing there, not really. No towns, no roads, no people.”

“You think Keith’s there?”

“I do.” The shuffling sounds stop. “Can I text you a picture?”

“Oh. Um. Sure.”

Aleja tells Rose her phone number, waits a moment, and then her phone buzzes against her ear. When she pulls it away, she sees a new text message in her messaging app.

It’s a picture of a map on a wall. Surrounding the map are printed out images, sticky notes with captions, coordinates written in bright red pen. It reminds Aleja of the wall in her own room. At the left side of the map, there’s a section labeled “Crow Flats”, and in the middle of it there’s an X surrounded series of thick red circles.

“How did you find this place?” Aleja breathes.

“I didn’t,” Rose says, “but Keith did. This map is in Keith’s old room.”

“And the Garrison—”

“Didn’t even bother coming in here,” Rose finishes. “It almost seems like they don’t care about finding them.”

“...Maybe not,” Aleja agrees. “But I do. And I will.”

“Good luck,” says Rose. “If it’s Keith, you’ll need it.”

Chapter Text

“Hey, rookie. Guess what?” Detective Khan storms into a windowless office and says, “They’re pulling all the search teams.”

“The search teams?” says Ryou. “Why?”

She throws her arms up. “Who knows what they’re thinking. It’s way too soon. First they declare them dead, then they give the media a hay day—”

“Does the public know?” Ryou asks. “About the pulled search teams, I mean.”

Khan shakes her head. “The public never knows, kiddo. Half our job is keeping secrets.”

“But we’re investigators.”

“I’m glad you appreciate the irony just as much as I do,” she says. She tilts her head back and smooths a hand over her hijab, sighing. “I really wish I’d get to do my job one of these days.”

“...You know that lead I found last week?” Ryou asks.

“Yeah.”

“It was a really, really good one. And they haven’t—I don’t think they’re even trying to look into it.”

“I’m going to give you a pro-tip, rookie,” Khan says. “You listening?”

“Sure.”

“In this department, if you want something to get done, you gotta do it yourself,” she says. “You dig your heels in, and you get your hands dirty.”

“Even if it’s against the sergeant’s orders?”

She laughs. “Especially if it’s against the sergeant’s orders. Off the books is the way to go.”

“Off the books...” Ryou repeats. “Hell, I don’t even know where to begin.”

“Retracing your steps is a good place to start,” she grins. “People are usually a lot more willing to talk to you if you tell ‘em you’re working behind the Garrison’s back.”

“It seems like it would be difficult to get someone to trust me from that alone.”

“You’ll find a way. You’ve got a lot of resources, kiddo,” Khan says. “A rogue detective has a lot more room to be creative.”

—☆—

Aleja’s bags are packed. She’s got the money for her bus ticket crammed into her wallet and three days’ worth of clothes stuffed in a backpack hanging from her shoulder. The trip to New Mexico will take her a day and a half, and if she plays her cards right, her parents won’t notice she’s gone until tomorrow. It’s seven o’clock in the evening, and she knows they must be sitting at the dining room table, eating dinner alone. She rarely comes to dinner anymore. It isn’t unusual for her to skip it.

Aleja’s bags are packed, but she isn’t leaving. For some reason, she’s still sitting on the edge of her bed, staring at the wall of her and Lance’s room and trying to force herself to move , goddammit. She has to go. She’s the only one who can find Lance, and she knows where he is, so why isn’t she leaving?

What if he’s not there?

The thought has been tormenting her for days now, all through her preparations. She tries to push it down, tries not to think about it, but it keeps coming back like rash through her thoughts. What if she finds the place marked on Keith’s map, and there’s nothing there at all? What if she goes all the way to New Mexico for nothing? What if Lance really is—

No, he isn’t. She would feel it. She would feel it.

She looks at the far wall of her and Lance’s room, covered in pieces of a mystery that she’s put everything she has into solving. But.... Who is she kidding? How is she, a seventeen-year-old girl still in high school, going to get herself to the middle of nowhere in New Mexico? The bus will take her to El Paso, but what then? She’s not old enough to rent a car, and no buses go to Crow Flats. No cars go to Crow Flats. Her plan to hitchhike will be unsuccessful at best and deadly at worst.

God. She’s not going to cry. She’s not.

She’s staring fiercely at that wall, refusing to blink through the stinging of her eyes, when her phone begins to ring. She doesn’t recognize the number.

“...Hello?” she says.

“Hi,” says the caller. She knows that voice. “It’s Ryou—”

“Ryou, the detective from the Garrison,” Aleja finishes. “I remember.”

“You said not to call you until I ditched the Garrison.”

“And you’re calling me now? So does that mean....”

“I’m still technically a Garrison detective but... I’m not following orders anymore. I guess you could say I’ve gone rogue.”

“You’re serious?”

“As death.”

Aleja has to admit that “rogue detective” sounds pretty bad-ass.

“Give me a second to think about something.”

“Sure.”

Aleja lets her arm drop and looks down at the phone cradled in her hand. She could tell him. She could tell him where Lance is, where Keith and Pidge and Hunk are—or, at least, where she thinks they are. If she’s honest with herself, it was never feasible for her to go there.

But he could easily be lying. As much as she wanted to trust him when he came to the house, he was still a Garrison detective. He might still be a Garrison detective. Her brother is too important, too vulnerable for her to risk his safety on this man’s word alone.

“Prove it,” she says when she puts the phone back to her ear. “Prove to me that you’re rogue, or whatever.”

“Do you have an email address?”

“Um,” Aleja pauses. God, she hates it when people ask that question. “It’s Gmail, uh... Aleja-underscore-rocks eighty-six. And, um, the ‘rocks’ part is spelled with an x.”

She swears to God that she can hear Ryou snickering on the other end.

A moment later, her phone vibrates against her ear with an email notification. It’s a message from a garrison.gov email address, and it has more attachments than Aleja can count.

“I just sent you an email with pretty much every file I have on the missing kids investigation,” Ryou says. “Now you know everything I know. No secrets.”

Aleja sets her phone to speaker mode so she can tap through the different files. “Are there any here that I should especially be paying attention to?”

“There’s one that I’m pretty sure shows that Pidge Gunderson is actually Katie Holt.”

“Katie Holt? You mean, Holt like—”

“Yeah, the Kerberos explorers.”

“Oh,” Aleja says. First Keith, and now Pidge—or Katie, she guesses. The ties with Kerberos seem to be getting stronger and stronger. “Well, um. How do you know I won’t just forward this to like, the Times and get you fired?”

“I’d probably be arrested, not just fired. And I don’t know that you won’t do that. I guess I just have to trust you.”

Aleja frowns. She feels a little like she’s been lead into the punchline of a joke.

“So, um. Is that good enough proof?”

“Yeah,” Aleja sighs. “Yeah I guess so.”

The line is quiet for a moment. Then—

“Ryou? I have something to tell you.”

“What is it?”

“I think... I think I know where they are.”

—☆—

Ryou gets off a hover bike in the middle of the desert. The bike is not government issue—no Garrison plates, no Garrison radio, no Garrison tracking device. Ryou hesitates. His palms are slick and his throat bobs as he stares at the dust-beaten shack rising from the rocks. Then he hefts his equipment bag higher onto his shoulder and steps forward.

No one answers when he knocks. There’s a thick padlock keeping the door shut. Ryou takes a tool out of his bag—a plasma cutter—and in moments the lock is split in two, lying in the dirt. Slowly, he pushes open the door.

“...Hello?” he calls. There is no response.

The main room is cluttered, the walls covered with papers and newspaper clippings and photographs. From the equipment bag, he pulls out a device with a flashing red light, sweeping the scanner over the grime on the table near the door. The scarlet glow illuminates the outline of a set of fingerprints, and the small screen shows a loading bar before displaying the name “ KEITH KOGANE ” in large white letters.

Ryou searches through every room, swinging open closet doors and cupboards. When he’s done he stands in the main room by the door, his hands by his hips. “Stupid,” he mutters to the vacant shack. “Stupid, stupid.”

The house is empty.

He’s about to leave, his hand on the handle of the front door, when he pauses and stares at the floor. The dusty hardwood is covered in footprints of all different sizes—some his own, some matching the sizes of the black shoes stacked next to the front door, and others... others too big or too small to be either.

He sets down his equipment bag and takes out the fingerprint scanner again.

Ryou searches through the house again, scanning surface after surface. “KEITH KOGANE, KEITH KOGANE, KEITH KOGANE”. Then he scans the handle of a mug sitting among the mess in the tiny kitchenette and the scanner finds a different name: “LANCE SANCHEZ-MCCLAIN”.

“...Shit,” Ryou murmurs.

He scours the rest of the house and finds two more names: “HUNK GARRETT, PIDGE GUNDERSON”. Then the device beeps a third time, and a third name appears. “What....” Ryou blinks, shakes his head. His arm reaches out to grip the lip of the counter and his knuckles are white and he sweeps the scanner a second time. The device beeps. Then again, he scans that last finger print—again, again, again. Each time, the same name: “TAKASHI SHIROGANE”.

“No,” Ryou says. He lets out a sharp laugh. “No, it’s—no, no. No way.”

He scans every inch of that house, every surface, even breaks out the DNA sampler to test hair from pillowcases, and the name appears three more times.

Ryou’s eyes are bright as he jerks open the front door and slams it behind him, so hard it bounces off the latch and hits the side of the shack. He’s shaking his head like his ears are full of water. It takes only a few seconds for him to get back to his bike and start the engine. Before the dust from his footfalls has even gotten a chance to settle, he’s speeding away across the desert, leaving the door to the shack open to swing in the wind.

—☆—

“I’m sorry that Ryou didn’t find them, Aleja.”

The voice of Hunk’s sister-in-law is soft and sympathetic through the phone, but that’s not what Aleja wants right now. She wants her to be angry. She wants her to be just as hurt and frustrated and confused as she is. This is exactly why she didn’t want to call Mara before, but... Mara is a reporter. She needs her now.

“It’s not your fault, Mara,” Aleja says. “They aren’t there—not anymore.”

“No, but....” And Aleja knows what’s coming before Mara even finishes the sentence. “It was still worth the effort, right? We found out something big. Something huge. Takashi Shirogane was here, on Earth.”

I don’t care, Aleja wants to say. It makes her feel like shit, to think that, but it’s the truth. I don’t care—Lance wasn’t there. I just want him home.

“You’re right,” Aleja says instead. “Focus on the positive, right?”

“Right.”

“So, you’re the expert. What are we going to do next?”

There’s a pause, then the sound of keys clacking on the other end. “Well.... The evidence that Ryou found won’t be admissible in court.”

“Why not?”

“He didn’t document it properly, for one,” Mara says. “And he was working rogue when he found it. People will think he’s tampered with it.”

“So what do we do?”

“We need more evidence. Files. Documents. Stuff we can publish to WikiLeaks. Stuff that can tear down the Garrison once and for all .”

Aleja grins. That’s more like it.

“I’ll talk to Ryou. We’ll see what he can get us.”

“Sooner or later, the truth will come out.”

“Yeah,” Aleja agrees. “I hope so.”

—☆—

Ryou sits at his desk in a windowless office. The clock on the wall reads 10:41. The office is empty except for two desks: his, and a desk across from him where Detective Khan sits, tapping away at her computer.

“Hey, Detective Khan?” Ryou says, breaking the silence of the office. Khan looks up.

“I keep telling you to call me Nazia,” she says, spinning her chair around. “C’mon, kiddo. You sound like Pearson when you call me Khan.”

“Sorry,” Ryou says. “I just... I wanted to let you know that I took your advice.”

“Which advice? I give a lot of advice.”

Ryou rubs the back of his neck. “You said that if you want something to get done, you have to do it yourself.”

“...What happened?”

“I....” He blinks once, twice. Clenches his jaw.

“That bad, huh?”

He nods. “I think... I think I’m gonna do something really stupid.”

“How stupid?” Khan asks. “Slap-on-the-wrist stupid? Or....”

Ryou lets out a short laugh. “I probably won’t come into work tomorrow. Or the next day.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“Wow.” Khan gets to her feet and walks over to his desk. “Just... be safe, okay? The Garrison doesn’t mess around.”

“Believe me, I know,” Ryou says. “But I can’t let them get away with this. I won’t.”

“Must be pretty horrible, to get you this worked up,” she murmurs. “Good luck, kiddo. It’s been fun.”

“Likewise,” he smiles. Then he stands. “I’ll see you around, Detective—”

“Nazia.”

“Nazia,” he repeats. “I’ll see you around, Nazia.”

“Where you headed?”

“Pearson’s on break, right?” Ryou asks. Khan nods. “Then I’m headed to his office.”

“And after that?”

“After that...” Ryou shrugs. “Turn on the news.”

—☆—

Ryou is standing by a doorway. The hall is empty; it’s quiet, and no one has walked past for several minutes. He shifts from foot to foot, takes a breath. Then he steps forward and pulls out an ID card.

The name on the ID card is not Ryou Shirogane.

When Ryou swipes the card, a green light flashes on the scanner, and the door slides open. Inside is an empty office. A computer sits at a desk against the wall, and Ryou makes a beeline for it. It only takes a quick swipe of the ID card for the system to boot up.

Ryou’s breath is shuddering and his palms are slick with sweat. Each tap of his finger against the computer screen leaves a mark. He plugs a USB drive into a port on the side of the computer and then begins transferring files, dragging and dropping them into the appropriate folders. “C’mon,” he murmurs as the file transfer loads. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon.”

Another moment passes, and then—

“FILE TRANSFER COMPLETE,” reads the computer screen.

He takes the USB and leaves the office.

As the door shuts behind him, Ryou pauses, the ID card in one hand and the USB in the other. Slowly, he turns and carefully sets the ID card on the ground, just in front of the door.

He clutches the USB drive tightly in his fist all the way out of the facility.

—☆—

There’s more information in Ryou’s files than Aleja could have ever dreamed. Kerberos, crash landings, cover-ups, aliens . For better or for worse, the world is going to know.

Aleja hopes some of it will lead to Lance.

—☆—

A woman in green sits at the end of an empty dining table. Her hair is short and blonde, cropped just above her ears. There is a dog sitting restless at her feet, licking its paws, adjusting where it rests its head. Aside from the clinking of the dog’s collar, the room is silent.

The woman’s hands are folded as she stares at a clock across the table on the wall. As the clock ticks silently, and the dog fidgets, and the woman sits and stares, and the breeze outside the window makes the trees sway, a car pulls up in the woman’s driveway. There’s the sound of a car door, footsteps, and suddenly there’s a knock at her door.

She stands and opens it.

“Mrs. Holt?” the man asks. He’s tall, taller than she is, standing half a foot above her in jeans and a black t-shirt. The woman smiles faintly.

“Ryou. It’s been a while,” she says. “I haven’t seen you since the launch party.”

Ryou flinches a little, his brow furrowed. “I’m sorry. I should have kept in touch.”

“Well, you’re here now.” Her eyes glance at his clothes. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

“That’s part of what I wanted to talk to you about,” Ryou says. “I’m not exactly... Well, I’m not with the Garrison anymore.”

There’s a short pause as the woman waits, patient, and Ryou takes a breath.

“Before it gets out to the press, I... I have something I need to tell you.”

The woman’s grip on the door handle tightens. “What is it?”

“It’s about your son and your husband,” he says, “and your daughter.”

—☆—

“Kerberos Files” – Release 1
10 July, 2103

Starting today, Thursday, 10th August 2103, WikiLeaks begins releasing the “Kerberos Files”: more than 100 classified or otherwise restricted files from the United States Galaxy Garrison Military Defense Agency covering the disappearance of explorers on the 2102 Kerberos mission as well as the disappearance of four teens from the Garrison Training Facility in June, 2103.

Over the next two weeks, WikiLeaks will release in chronological order the Garrison’s investigation plans, materials, and results from the past year. The documents include the transcript of the Kerberos explorers’ final transmission, the pilot’s flight schematics, the radio signals received by Kerberos scanners just before the explorers’ disappearance, imagery taken by flight equipment during the time of the explorer’s disappearance, the Garrison’s internally distributed policy regarding release of Kerberos mission information....

—☆—

Aleja sits cross-legged in front of the windowsill. It’s a half hour after sunset, and the sun has long since disappeared under the horizon, but there’s just enough light left over to paint the night sky a deep inky blue instead of pitch black. Peeking through the dusky haze above are the stars. As she looks up at the sky, connecting the stars into familiar constellations, she thinks she can see the band of the Milky Way. The longer she watches, the stronger it gets.

Lance is up there somewhere; she knows this now. Has he visited other planets? Has he spoken with alien species? Where is he, out there in the vast expanse of space? Does he miss home?

Yes—yes he does. She knows it as sure as if he’d told her himself.

Soon, they’ll find a way to contact them. All the information is out there now, free from the Garrison’s suppression, and it’s only a matter of time before the world’s geniuses use it to move forward. If her brother wants to see her as much as she wants to see him, then they’re bound to find each other.

They’ll be alright. All of them. The only thing left to do now is wait.