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Katie Holt had a bit of a reputation.
When someone first met her, their first thought would be that she was, to put it simply, a bit of a nerd. She was always talking about the latest video game she had played (and Phantasm Killbot, which she had played multiple times), or a new discovery in astrophysics, or how cool robots were. Sometimes her rambles were hard to keep up with, especially if she was talking about coding. (She was a master at coding, and often talked a little too fast or with words a little too advanced to keep up with.) But ultimately, when someone met Katie Holt, they would think of her as a very smart yet endearing girl. Most people, after meeting Katie Holt, said that she was cute, or something along those lines. To think that she could have been, technically, convicted and put into jail for what qualified as treason would be absurd.
And yet.
Everyone who had met Katie Holt far more than once knew that she was technically a criminal. Her classmates had seen her hack into multiple government websites to find out classified information, and, unable to keep such a scandalous secret, told all their friends about it. The only reason she hadn’t been thrown in jail ten times over was because she had made a deal with her school: she’d routinely hack into the teachers’ computers and give people straight A’s if they kept their mouths shut. Such a deal was irresistible to shortsighted eighth graders, and so no officials (government or otherwise) ever found out about the fact that Katie Holt technically regularly committed treason.
So that was her reputation: the nerd who was also, for some reason, a conspiracy theorist and dangerous criminal.
The thing was, she never did anything with the information she found out. So what if aliens were close to Earth? Yeah, it was super cool, but some scary-looking purple guys didn’t really concern her. She just wanted to practice her programming.
There was only one person Katie had ever told about her adventures in hacking: her older brother Matt.
Matt was, like Katie, a very big nerd. He spent most of his days playing Phantasm Killbot, much like his sister, and cursing out anyone who beat him (Katie had learned so many creative insults from him), so he wasn’t exactly the endearing type. He was, however, extraordinarily intelligent, even if he chose to show it in...different ways. One time, he refused to talk to anybody in anything that wasn’t binary code. (Katie had responded to that by only talking in Morse Code. Matt had been so proud to have a little sister who was as much of a smartass as him.) Another time, he wrote a school paper entirely in a code he and his father had made up, which was completely based off of quantum equations. (He failed that class.) Nevertheless, Matt was just as smart as Katie, and just as much of a nerd.
So when Katie told him about all the government conspiracies she had unearthed, he was over the moon.
“Pidge, holy shit,” he said. Katie scowled at the nickname (she had tried to pick up a pigeon one time). Matt ignored her expression. “That’s so fucking awesome, like, dude. Girl. You’re a criminal! You’ve committed multiple acts of treason! You’re so awesome.”
“I don’t like to think of it as treason.” Katie smirked as she spoke. “I mean, the firewalls on those websites are barely there! You can’t blame me for finding out some...things.”
Matt laughed. “You should be a programmer for the Pentagon.”
“Would they even allow that?” Katie asked.
“Yeah! I mean, doesn’t the government do that thing where they hire former criminals to work with them so that they can like, weed out others? Because they know how? I think I saw that in a movie once,” Matt said.
Katie waved her hand dismissively. “Eh, I kinda want to see how they do without me.”
Matt snorted. “Not well, obviously.”
They both laughed hysterically at that. You know, as siblings do, bonding over the possible downfall of the government.
So Katie Holt had a reputation, which gained her quite a bit of notoriety in her school. Her brother, however? The only thing he feared about her was her ability to eat an entire jar of peanut butter cookies. (Katie loved peanut butter cookies, and had, one time, eaten one hundred of them in an hour. Matt never looked at her the same way again.)
Anyone with common sense could tell the two were close. So it would be no surprise that Katie’s reaction when Matt said he was going to go to a fancy boarding school for college was less than stellar.
To preface, a bit, the school of Matt’s choosing was none other than the Galaxy Garrison, a government-run military/astronaut school. It doubled as a high school and a college, as well as a military base. Sam Holt, Katie’s father, worked there as an instructor. Seeing as Matt had the grades and the ambition to make it in as a fighter pilot, he didn’t hesitate to apply. There was only one small problem: he never told Katie. That is, until he got in.
“You what?”
The scene: Katie standing up, a rolling chair pushed back from her legs. Matt looking a mix of nervous and elated, clutching a Garrison acceptance paper in front of his chest, as if protecting it. Katie looking shocked and angry, possibly betrayed. Her thoughts: This can’t be happening. Her feelings: Betrayed. Confused. Happy?
“Pidge,” Matt said, “I got into the Garrison.”
Katie pushed her hand into her hair. She was happy for Matt, she really was, but...since when had he even applied? Had he not told her?
“I,” Katie considered her words carefully, “I’m happy for you. I know you wanna go into science and like, astrophysics and stuff. And the Garrison is an awesome school. But...you’re going to college already? You’re seventeen! And...and you didn’t even tell me.”
Matt flinched. “I...I didn’t want you to be sad that I was going. It was...a bad decision in hindsight.”
Katie snorted, a little meanly. “Yeah,” she said. “No shit.” She crossed her arms, pulled the chair closer to her, and sat back down, turning her head to the lines of code on her computer. She had been working on coding a new website, one about funny conspiracy theories she had found. It wasn’t supposed to be serious, just something to do if she was bored. (She’d probably be really bored with Matt gone, she thought to herself bitterly.)
Matt walked closer to her. “Come on, Katie, don’t be like that.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “Look, not telling you I was applying was a dumb move, okay? I’m sorry.” Katie kept typing, paying no attention to him.
Matt sighed. “We can still talk to each other when I’m at the Garrison, you know.”
Katie turned around to face him. “I know,” she said. “I’m just mad that you didn't tell me when you were applying. We’re siblings, dude. We’re supposed to tell each other stuff. That’s how we operate.”
“I know,” Matt said. “I’m sorry. Again, it was a dumb move.”
Katie smiled a little. “Everything you do is a dumb move,” she said.
Matt gasped. “Excuse me.” He placed his hand over his heart, acting mock-offended. “Everything I do is a gift to this world.”
Katie snorted. “Yeah, a really bad gift that gets given away the moment you leave.”
“Damn it, Pidge, let me live.”
“Hm. No.” Katie smirked at Matt’s expression. He was slack-jawed, eyebrows arched up comically. (He should be a comedian, Katie thought.)
Matt broke the act to say, “So, I’m sorry.”
Katie’s smirk fell. “I know,” she said. “I forgive you...hesitantly.”
Matt chuckled. “Okay, yeah. That’s fair.”
Katie nodded. “I know.”
-
So Matt went to the Garrison.
Katie and him would FaceTime every other day and discuss a multitude of things: how much he hated that one teacher, if Katie had made any new friends at school (she hadn’t), how much of a legend that one guy was, and how cool that new video game they were both playing was.
One day, during one of these FaceTimes, Matt was way more excited than usual.
“Pidge,” he said, not even reacting when Katie scrunched her nose at the nickname, “I’m gonna go to fucking Kerberos.” He started talking really quickly after that, explaining how he was the best pilot and smartest person in his grade and how he, his dad, and some guy named Takashi Shirogane were going to fly to one of Pluto’s moons, Kerberos, for a mission that, in the words of Matt Holt himself, was “so fucking cool, like holy shit Pidgey, I think I’m going to die. What the fuck.”
“Dude,” Katie said when he was done explaining, “that’s so. Fucking. Awesome. But you and Dad are going?”
Matt’s face fell a little. “I mean, yeah. We’re gonna be gone for like, over a year. I know, it sucks, but Katie. Kerberos.”
Katie smiled. “I know. We’ll miss you a lot. Like, a lot a lot.”
“Me too.”
The two sat in silence for a minute, wondering what life would be like for those months they couldn’t really talk to each other. It would probably suck.
“But dude,” Katie changed the subject, not wanting to wallow in emotional pain any longer (she hated doing that), “what if you find aliens.”
“Dude!” Matt yelled. Then, a little quieter, he said, “Dude. That’d be awesome.”
“Do you think you will?”
“I mean like, probably not, but fingers crossed.” Matt showed his crossed fingers to the screen to prove just how much he was hoping to meet aliens on Kerberos. “Then, if I do meet aliens, I can tell everyone who ever doubted that they were real how much of idiots they were. Ha!”
Katie laughed. “You’ll find aliens and then immediately after tell Megan from fifth grade that you told her so.”
“Yes! Exactly!” Matt pointed his finger at Katie through the screen. “That is exactly what I’ll do!”
Katie cackled. She wouldn’t be surprised if Matt actually did do that.
The two joked until Matt had to go (“The Garrison’s homework load is a nightmare.”), and Katie was all smiles as she went into the kitchen to eat dinner with her parents.
Her parents, however, were not nearly as happy as she was.
“I don’t want my son going into space when he’s this young, Sam,” Katie’s mother, Colleen Holt, was saying to her dad. “I’m worried about what’ll happen to him. It’s too dangerous.”
Katie paused on the stairs, making herself unnoticed to her parents.
“I know, Colleen, but Matt is a talented boy,” her dad said back. “Plus, he won’t be alone in space; he’ll be with me and Commander Shiro. You know him. He’s responsible.”
Katie’s mom sighed. “That doesn’t make the trip any less dangerous.”
“Yes, it does. The Garrison’s rockets are high tech and safe, and Shiro’s a great pilot. There’ll be no problems,” her dad said. And then, in a softer voice, “You have to let him do this, Colleen. He’s so excited.”
Her mom closed her eyes. “I just don’t know how Katie will react. It’ll just be us and the dog for a while, and you know how close she is with Matt.”
“I know, but Katie’s a strong girl. She can handle it.”
Katie smiled at that, then decided to walk downstairs before the conversation could go anywhere else.
“Oh, hello Katie,” her mom said, a sad smile on her face.
“Hi Mom!” Katie said.
Her parents looked at each other for a second, before Sam said, “Sweetie, there’s something we need to talk to you about.”
“Is it dinner? Because I’m hungry.”
Her parents looked at each other again.
“No, sweetie. Your brother and I...we’re not going to be home for a while,” her dad said.
“Oh, yeah, I know. Matt told me about Kerberos,” Katie said, grinning. “Tell me if you find aliens!”
“Matt...told you already?” Her mom asked.
“Yup!” Katie said. “It’s super cool.”
“Oh.” Her mom put her hand on Katie’s shoulder. “Listen, Pidge-” (Matt had gotten the whole family to call her that. She considered killing him for it.) “-it’s going to be hard for us to live without your brother and father for so long, but we can do it. I know we can.” She was talking more to herself than to Katie. “I know we can,” she muttered again.
Katie smiled up at her mother. “Yeah,” she said, “we definitely can.”
Katie’s dad chimed in, “And when we get back, I’ll tell you all about the aliens we found.”
Katie pumped her fist in the air. “Yes!” she whooped.
All in all, it was a bittersweet affair: Matt and her dad would be gone for a while, but they’d come back with stories of how cool space was. They’d be gone, but they’d come back.
They would come back.
-
Eight months had passed.
They didn’t come back.
According to the news, they never would.
Pity clung to Katie like a leech. Everywhere she went, people were staring at her, a sad look in their eyes. She hated it.
Matt and her dad weren’t dead. She was sure that Shiro wasn’t, either. She didn’t know it for sure, of course, but there was...something, a gut feeling, maybe, telling her that something about it all was just...off.
The Garrison hadn’t told Katie and her mom when the rocket allegedly crashed; they had seen it on the news. And there was little coverage on it. Like the Garrison was trying to make the world forget about the Kerberos Mission.
After Matt and her dad’s funeral, her mom was distant. She was always either working or sleeping, breaking her life down to the bare minimum. Katie didn’t mind (or she told herself she didn’t); she was spending most of her days busy, anyway. She didn’t need any distractions.
Those days, all she did was sleep, eat, and try to find out the truth of the Kerberos Mission. Some days, she forewent sleeping and eating entirely and focused all her energy on her work.
She scoured the Internet, reading every conspiracy theory and speculation almost religiously. She read newspaper articles about it and watched every news video on the mission. She read the Garrison’s official website’s take on the case. She read people’s comments on the official statement. She read everything, watched everything, took note of everything she could, hoping to find something more.
But it was all baseless hunches, people explaining that they just felt like something was wrong about it all. Just like Katie had felt.
She couldn’t go on using only the Internet to find the truth.
She needed to go one step further if she wanted to find out anything at all.
Maybe multiple steps.
-
“Pidge Gunderson!” The professor, called Iverson (usually with no shortage of contempt when students spoke the name), yelled. Katie looked up, noticing painfully the way no hair brushed her shoulders as she did.
“Present, sir.” She hoped her voice didn’t sound unnaturally deep as she said it.
Iverson grunted, marking her false name on his attendance sheet.
Katie looked back down at her desk, feeling wrong. She had acquired the false identity not long ago, when she cut off nearly all her hair, took Matt’s glasses, and snuck out her back door without a glance behind her. She had vowed to herself that she wouldn’t be going back until either Matt was found or she was.
I’ll find you, Katie promised to herself. I swear. We’re both going back home.
Iverson’s lesson began, and Pidge Gunderson listened.