Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The lab was not as bad as he used to say. Or, I just was too new to realize. Recruited to be one of the best researchers, the Academy gave me years of rigorous training.

“Madison, bring Subject number twenty-four to the accelerator, before any microbes get to it,” the professor commanded.

I obeyed without question, as the art of cloning was a technology created and mastered by Dr. Evans, the same person standing in front of my eyes. Using metal stabilizer ‘chopsticks’. I picked up the fertilized egg, dipped it in nutritious liquid, and set it to rest against the walls of the incubator. A news flash blared across the single computer screen, the speakers broadcasting the excitement of the reporters, as the final plate of the first colonial shuttle was welded in place.

“Interstellar travel? Jeez. How is that even a part in the news? We are literally working with life here!” complained Dr. Evans.

“Sir, a single mistake could cost us our jobs. Can we focus on the accelerator?” I warned him.

The world had barely understood the concept of cloning, before extremists appeared and considered the act inhumane. Dr. Evans was shot twice, and only his bulletproof gown had saved him from death. I had never seen a person that would come that close to death, yet return to the cause. To be fair, the accelerator would make any person, in any major, to cast a jealous eye. Able to accelerate the aging process of the clone up to the age of the original, it meant that clones would be able to provide organs to its genetic original. The thought still gave me chills, but if the professor thought a clone wasn’t human, then so be it. I activated the electric currents.

“Wait, sir. Isn’t that some static in the TRM? Maybe we shouldn’t continue.”

“No, just go for it. The TRM shouldn’t cause any telomere damage, unless its just not functioning.”

“I will continue, sir.”

“Good.”

The process was simple, really. Check all the machinery that the doctor built, then just set the age to the current age of the subject, 30 days in this case. The TRM that protected the cloned cell’s telomere from deleting, the accelerator as mentioned, and the main incubator with cloning functions. Still, just like the past twenty-three trials, I held my breath when I pushed the start button. Lightning like static bursted all over the incubator, and I instinctively realized that something was wrong.

“Madison, I thought you said the TRM was the only malfunctioning one!” Dr. Evans screamed at me.

“I said that there was static discharge in the TRM! You said to ignore it!” I squeaked out.

“Holy shit. Compare the two’s DNA. If there are any changes, we may run out of this business in the next 24 hours.”

With shaking hands, I pressed a needle into Subject Twenty-Four, and the newly made clone. I then dumped the needles, and shot the blood into the testing valves. The computer returned a meek 99.3%.

“Isn’t that, uh, really bad? I thought our average was 99.97%.”

“It is. Madison, any ideas? Since both are alive, we can’t just delete them from our test base. Think, then send me it. I think we are done here today.”

I don’t know how I returned home, my mind was nearly all ‘Holy shit. Something actually went wrong, what can I do?’ The results, if ever shown, would cause massive damage in the reputation of the whole science, and remove governmental funding. An idea sparked in my mind. ‘Why don’t we just get rid of any evidence that the 30-day olds are indeed our test subjects?’ The whole plan came to mind. Using the reputation of Dr. Evans, we could get a tour of the ship, and I could hide both in one of the emergency fail-safe pods. Both would be cryogenically frozen, not to be found until the landing. I sent a quick text to Dr. Evans.

‘I think we can ask for a tour of the ship, and I will hide the clone in one of the escape pods. I mean, the launch is this Sat. Right?’

‘Good idea, except we need to hide the original too. Make an entirely new Subject 24.’

‘Got it.’

‘Seriously, good idea. I will arrange for a tour tmrw, get going.’

I prepared two incubators with life function, as killing any life was considered the greatest crime of any possible. The next day, I ran to the lab, and found myself staring at the two smiling little infants, the death rate in a colonial ship for infants must be high. All I could hope was that cryosleep would work on them. Dr. Evans walked in.

“If you can’t do it yourself, I will.”

Dr. Evans was always ruthless. Nothing would ever impede him in his work. No religious beliefs, just worried about the possibility that he gets discovered before the “twins” landed in the disposal chute.

“Stop thinking, we are late to our tour! Quick, put them in the luggage!”

I hurriedly packed the two machines in the luggage bag, cringing as my fingers got stuck in the tight fit. The limo left just as I buckled myself in, and closed the door. Each time we turned a curb, the whole inventory of items in the car jumped, and one champagne glass even shattered. I didn’t need to ask what speed we were going at.

The events were blurry, I remember running into the elevator, zigzagging through the hallway, flirting with the tour guide to get a minute of my own, tucking the two machines in one pod. I distinctively remember, taking the time to put in their names as I wished it to be, David and Andrew, David the clone. I ran into the tour guide again, who pushed me up against a wall, and tried to kiss me. I kicked him in the groin, and ran up, rendezvoused with Dr. Evans, and got back in the limo. Our job was done.

A few days later, the rocket launched.

Chapter Text

I stared out the window, sitting in the very back of the dusty classroom. Classes ended hours ago, but I was going to wait until the school closed. There was only one opportunity to access the school observatory and test out my findings.

Flashback

"I will now call out the teams for the fair, this will be your final grade. Also, as you are all over the age of fifteen, some representatives of the highest executive order are ready to assign you into fitting assignments. In short, these projects may determine your future, so put some work into it, you literally have five months," the teacher called out for the final time.

"Now, Caleb and Brian,"

"John and Alice,"

"and, Kalie with Laura."

The teacher knew which of us worked best together, and due to how radical as she was, even in simple matters like this, she would never follow the tradition of 'learn how to work with other people'. Simply, why learn how to work with another person if you work well with another? Kalie was my childhood best friend and continued to be today.

"No need to submit your subjects to me, I'll find them out the day you present them. Now, good luck!"

Flashback End

I heard the school gates closing, snapping me out of my lethargic state. With my bag full of stacks of paper that had my star-system lists printed on, I called Kalie using her TMS, a simple telepathic connection on the internet. (It's real, and it will be soon, trust me, I did my research) Soon enough, she came running to the classroom.

I asked, "Where were you hiding out?"

"I'm in 'Ancient Languages Club', I was hiding out in their homeroom! Phew, that place was stinking! There were scraps of food everywhere!" Kalie answered.

"Well, let's run to the observatory, dorm check-in is in five hours."

"You have the list right?" Kalie asked.

I pulled out the twenty-page "list" of planetary coordinates that would help us finalize our project. I flipped through, making sure that not a single sheet was lost.

"Yup, and we better get working. There are about eight-hundred and sixty-seven galaxies that we have to analyze!"

"Yikes! Let's get going then!"

Breathless, we swiped our key card in the observatory door. I had already disabled our cards' external data transmission so that we wouldn't be discovered, using skills I inherited from my grandmother. Using my flashlight, I located the switch, with musky cobwebs everywhere, and piles of dust floating up from the ground. They tickled my nose, and I sneezed loudly. Same with Kalie too.

"Okay, that should power up the whole telescope, let's go!"

"Sure, but first go boot up that scanner, feed in the paper, and then we can start."

"Dammit, why do you have to be like that? I know already,' I complained.

Anyways, I complied, as the computer registered the twenty-thousand nine-hundred and seventy-two planets in total. The one that I had a particular interest in was in the star-system number 635, or XK as I classified it. Even more direct, it was my 794th habitable planet in the XK, as I heard faint radio waves from the surface and noticed movements on the surface that were too precise to be nature.

"Earth to Laura, wake up! Should we use all sixty-four of the forty-mega-parsec telescopes?"

"Whoops, spaced out again. Wait, are you sure? There's fucking sixty-four of the highest tech telescopes in this place? Are you kidding me?"

"Nope, I really don't know why no one decides to study astrology here. Actually, I think my parents supplied these to the school after the incident in the Mark-Kembler Observatory."

"Don't mention that please, you know."

My older brother died in the mentioned observatory five years ago, when the robotic arms failed and one of the telescopes crashed down on top of him. It still was a painful memory, even though I didn't witness it myself.

"Sorry. Anyways, changing the subject, this really isn't overkill compared to your parents' donations. You guys built a computer lab twenty floors high, except underground! It literally is a nuclear bunker!"

"Aww, thanks. No, seriously, like the campus only has about twenty-thousand students, and it is twenty acres big, so yea, not overkill."

"Okay, the telescopes are responding to your coordinate system, apparently its going to run for the next seventeen hours. Lucky tomorrow's Saturday, or we won't be able to stay here."

"To be honest, since both of us are day students, dorm check-in doesn't matter. My dad doesn't even care where I sleep, where I am, or even what I do!"

"Same here. I mean, it does sound sad, but it gives us freedom, right? Also, maternal this side."

"Yeah, did you bring any food? Or should we go raid the vending machines below if the food is still edible?"

"You told me to bring one thing, fifty-seven in the list, but one thing. Food. Oh, and water."

"Okay, that's done then."

I didn't know what we should do, other than, pretty much, party and release stress, while the computer worked its magic. I did code the program in the computers the day we received our projects, but maybe I should have added something that needed manual input. Or, something that would require us to work more, to feel better about ourselves. All that was left for us to do was to enjoy the night, and tomorrow morning. As usual, I pulled out my gaming HUD goggles, while Kalie brought out two books that she copied from the ancient books stored in the library, "Ants" by Bernard Werber.

"Why 'Ants' of all creatures? Why 'ANTS'?"

"I don't know, but the first book was super fun to read, and this author's style is amazing!"

"Ehh, can't be as disgusting as a real one. " 

"Sure. Now, let me read in peace, and I won't bother you during your top five-hundred gameplay of the newest Snowstorm game, whatever it was called?"

"Team Fortress 7, how many times do I have to tell you?"

(See what I did there? Fuck you, Blizzard.)

"Look, I don't care about games. After I finish reading, let's have an actual party."

"Gotcha."

 I booted up TF7, and decided to join a competitive match, to complete my entry into the top five-hundred rank, going for the holographic animated spray, that was also in 3D. The moment I joined the match, I cringed. There was about an hour left in the match, and the enemy team was pushing the payload, undeterred. Half of my team was dancing in the spawn room, while others gave futile lives by running straight into the enemy. I joined the voice chat, using a voice modulator that would talk in monotone, talk about whatever I thought. Starting with a sharp noise, I made sure to get the attention of the others. I called out directions, and after a short pause, some of the "dancers" changed to a support character, which meant that they looked at my profile, saw the blazing seven season "Grand-Master" X-11 sniper icon, and resigned to healing me. Good enough. After systematically sharpshooting players on the payload, the tides turned. My whole team was basically playing support, all deciding to either heal me, or damage boost. It was fine with me, and I ended up spawn camping the enemy, for the next forty minutes, and I died only once. Mr. Gaben, the owner of SnowStorm, blessed me, as I received more than twice the normal SR(Season Rank), 67, for the single match, boosting me to top-500. In fact, I was three-hundred and sixty-third place in the whole world, or Earth. I grinned, feeling stupid as the research that I was doing was to prove that alien life could exist, and considering the world as Earth would not be logical. I put down my headset, and looked at Kalie.

For some reason, Kalie looked amazing in the sunlight, making me mindful of my hair. Her white/blond hair became golden in the sunset, her dark green eyes seeming brighter contrasted to the darkening background. No jealousy registered, just friendly amazement. Pulling out my age-old iPhone, passed down through generations, I snapped a photo, and showed it to her. She cringed, claiming that her eyes were too green. No matter what, Kalie would never acknowledge beauty and/or personal achievements, regarding self-compliments as absolutely useless. It was quite funny to watch her reaction when doing so, so I kept on bothering her with such matters, since we became close friends.

"You done reading?" I asked.

"Yes, want the food?"

"Yeah, I wasted a lot of brainpower in that match, need to rebuild my energy reserves."

"If playing games drain your energy, why do you play them?"

"For the ninety-seventh time, same as reading when it hurts your eyes."

"Those two are distinctively different!"

"No, they are not. Don't tell me you packed alcohol, Kalie."

"Obviously not, still under-age according to the law, right?"

"Blah, blah, blah, it's just bad for your health. Pass me the cake, will you?"

"Your favorite, one chocolate-crusted-blueberry-cake coming right up!"

I rolled my eyes, and took a big bite. For no reason at all, this cake was my all time favorite, even though most people considered blueberry and chocolate a bad match.

"And you?"

"Oh, typical me. Normal cheesecake, right?"

"I knew it. Well, this is dinner, I guess. I'll go check in with the computer, see if anything's wrong."

Without listening for an answer, because it would be an 'okay', I walked over to the machine, that was spewing out numbers and sorting through a massive list of papers. The most probable planet list had seventeen planets as of now, with progress at ten percent. Coding the planet observation system would already be a qualifying project for the science fair, but an extra step never hurt. We both wanted to get the attention of the Startup visitors, that would help us make our own company if judged perfect. I walked back to our sleeping bags, and notified Kalie.

"Okay, good and bad news. Which one first?"

"As always, good."

"It's working."

"Bad?"

"There's seventeen planets already, with literally only 986 minutes elapsed. The progress is about 85 minutes faster than estimated right now, but it may be shorter or longer depending on range later. We are gonna have to work our asses off tomorrow, get some rest."

"Damn. Okay, I'll be waiting for a three-hundred long list of planets. Then we have to look at each one. Dammit, why do we never do anything easy?"

"As I said, get some rest."

I set the length of the sleeping bag up to my neck, and tossed around till I found a comfortable location. I loved my sleeping bag, especially the light tranquilizer drugs it injected, allowing me to fall asleep instantly. The current consensus on drugs was to use if you want, and tranquilizers weren't harmful anyways. I had insomnia. My polar opposite, Kalie refused to take any type of drug, even when she was sick or hurt, no sort of anesthetic, medicine, or remedy would be given to her, if she could help it. Before, I told her to go in surgery without anesthesia, and she replied, 'I did that before.' I thought she was crazy. Anyways, I set the dose of the drug to ten milliliters, just enough for me to wake up after six hours. Even if I was asleep, if the tranquilizer wore off, my mental condition would force me to wake up. At least the tranquilizers made me feel refreshed.

"Good night, Kalie. See you in, uh, six hours? You fine with that?"

"Heh, I only sleep for average, hmm, five, so that would be awesome."

"Got it."

I barely registered the prick of the needle, and closed my eyes as my senses dulled. Within moments, I was asleep. 

 End

Was this long enough? Next chapter coming soon! Telescope, part 2.

Chapter Text

The chemical haze slowly wore off, and the moment it was thin enough, my mind would not let me get another minute, even a second, more of rest. One could say that I was an addict to the specific chemical. But, if it let you sleep, why not use it, right? I unzipped the sleeping bag, to immediately cringe, due to the temperature drop in the building overnight. Part of me wanted to cuddle in the sleeping bag again, but I knew that I had to go and check the results that should have compiled overnight. The observatory had an ability to take results correctly even during daylight, using radio waves for "decent" results.

Shivering, I pulled on my sleeping bag, and decided to drag myself there. I hadn't thought of the structure of the observatory, how it lost heat overnight, and gained heat slowly during the day from the sunlight. Even though the seasons were mostly gone, and the temperature averaged out at twenty-two degrees Celsius, there still was a way to make "natural" temperature changes. Processing all these thoughts, not so long after waking up, made my head hurt. After fifteen minutes passed, I finally made it to the computer. I pulled my hands out of the bag, made a face, and typed up the password on the computer screen. The file size of the planets had quintupled, and I opened it. A list of seven-hundred and eighty-five planets were listed. Progress was faster than expected, and the whole list was due around 4 P.M. tonight.

Bored, I put on my headset again, and flipped through the news in the TV. Surprisingly, I wasn't hungry, probably because I ate before sleeping. Apparently, while the two of us were immersed in this single project, the Cryosleep Project had been finished, and they were able to revive a person from four-hundred years ago, with complete memory, and also without any diseases or health problems. The company was advertising one pod for about 2 million NetCoins, and I set a note to my father about purchasing two or so of them, just in case. Next up in the program, the wars continuing in Arabia and Asia were raging on, the nuclear warheads decimating nature. We didn't have anything to worry about, as after the annexation of Canada, the biggest State and the Federal Government worked together to create a radiation-proof force field over the whole country. (Author's Note: this will be important later.)

The public were so ignorant. By simply hacking into my father's computer, I was able to find out all the projects that were going on. To be completely honest, I didn't just hack into my father's computer, I hacked into the server that it was connected in. I cracked the concept of Blockchain ages ago, yet still the masses hail it as the impossible-to-hack futuristic concept. This is going off topic, so let me re-write this. The most important parts of the server that I hacked into contained all the projects that the government was undertaking, and one of the biggest ones were a two-person atomic rocket, with fuel with a 500-year half life. It was no secret that the government supplied Cryosleep to build the pods, it was an essential part of the rocket. I decided to hack into the security cameras in the base where the projects were held, and discovered what looked like two of the Cryosleep pods that were just advertised five minutes ago. It was the only reason why I recognized them.

My thoughts were becoming jumbled, I was skipping from one topic to another without logical structure. In situations like this, I wished that I had a mechanical chip in my brain. I decided to then go and wake up Kalie, storing this knowledge somewhere in the back of my brain, or front, or wherever in it. The observatory warmed up enough, and after dragging my sleeping bag back to our "camp", I woke up Kalie.

"Mmm.... Five more minutes Mom..."

"Not funny, Kalie. Get up."

"Alright, alright. Wait, six hours and thirty minutes? What?"

"Yeah, I already went and checked the computer, watched the news, and finished my daily hacking job."

"Well, then. How many planets in our list?"

"Seven-hundred and eighty-five. Progress at 55%. ETA at 4 P.M. Today, or whatever the acronym was."

"If you are in a high-tech company, sure. We kind-of are, so I guess ETA works."

"Okay, do we have to stay in here until 4 P.M.? Or can we leave?"

"You tell me, your the computer geek. Can you make sure no one bothers with our research?"

"Nope.'

"Then we better stay here."

"Who's making the first food run?"

"You, Laura. Specifically, Laura Brehm. I'm staying here, I just woke up!"

"Okay, okay."

When Kalie said something like that, it meant she was annoyed but didn't want to show it. Too obvious, though. 

"I'll see you soon. Fried chicken with pepper, right?"

"You know me too well."

I head out to the cafeteria, the food was better than what the automated production service could ever make. Food was still best when made by humans. And, she didn't trust any robots, when anyone with basic skills like her could hack into them without many problems. I ran back to the observatory, making sure that none of the food spilled.

"Here, I bought like seven plates of them."

"Damn."

After eating breakfast, there was nothing more to do, other than wait, so I decided to play games till four P.M. 

Time Skip - 4 P.M.

"Laura? It's four, lets get working."

"Okay."

We walked to the computer, for hopefully the last time. Progress was at 100% and done, the planet list at eight-hundred and seventy nine. Apparently there were not many habitable planets in the other 45%, only hundred or so. I printed two lists, gave myself one to four-hundred and fifty, and gave Kalie four-hundred and twenty-nine. The first planet on the list: AL:563. I did have XK:794, I made sure to give myself that planet to look in the telescope. We both took hold of one of the telescopes, and got to work. We scratched planets off the list that were either too far, or not habitable.

AL:563: atmosphere consists of carbon dioxide. Not Inhabitable.

AL:728: atmosphere consists of nitrogen, but no oxygen, not inhabitable.

The list ran long, and in the end, after about four hours of work, I had ten planets left on my list. Nine of them were minutely habitable. The last one, that I still had to look at, was XK:794.

XK:794: 13.8 light years away, estimated travel six-hundred years.

I noticed faint radio waves on the planet, and using the telescope, recorded the waves and saved them as Transmission XK-794-1 and Transmission XK-794-2. I decided to decode them later, and zoomed in to the surface of the planet, even though it was only ten pixels by ten, on the screen. I knew that this was 13.8 years ago in the planet, but as I watched, one of the pixels turned from brown to green, chlorophyll green. Something was going on in the planet, and it seemed to be plant growth. By far, XK-794 was most promising.

I decoded the two transmissions, because my excitement grew, and I couldn't wait.

They both had many undetectable scratches and more, but I managed to find pieces of advanced language, and attempted to translate them into English.

1. Help, the atmosphere - -- -- -- engines failing! - ----- Escape pods have fired early!  --------- this seems to be it, goodbye.

2. Automatic terrafo----- Phase 1 complete. ----------------------------------------------- Phase three is impossible, none of the-------- remain.

From the translations, I could guess that

1. It was a colonial ship from another planet that crashed.

2. The ship had crashed, but the functions were still effective. Phase 1 seemed to be the atmosphere, Phase 2 the plant life, and Phase 3 the animal life. Obviously, during a crash, embryos would die, but seeds wouldn't. I didn't know if there were anyone alive on the planet, but the thought filled me with ecstasy, and chills. I had something to present as my final project, but also that an alien craft crashed on a planet meant aliens did exist.

"Kalie, I found one super promising planet, and nine other slightly promising ones."

"Lucky, I found none."

"Well, can we work on this super promising planet?"

Time Skip

The day of the fair arrived.

Chapter Text

The launch went successfully, better than anyone could've imagined. Due to the massive weight of the ship, everyone thought that the new colonial shuttle would suffer significant damages, and brought hundreds of repair tools and materials, to be worked on years before setting out for the planet Wolf 1061c. Thus, the crew was already preparing for cryosleep, and the two infants were never discovered. However, the computer detected life signals near the escape pods and activated the cryosleep pods that the infants were inside. The two were asleep, along with the rest of the crew. Years passed as the starship's propellant power system was built, the photonic sail's laser power source. The political situation had toned down to peace, and the construction was not hindered.

Computer #14: "Received signal to open photon sails. Activating all motors."

Days later.

Computer #14: "No tears found, activating anti-collision protocol, displaying atomic force field."

Computer #14: "Forcefield activated. Removing any potential collision atoms inside the force field."

Computer #14: "Vacuum achieved. Removing air inside cabins."

Computer #14: "Finished. Sending signal to activate propellant."

Computer #14: "Propellant received. Estimated fifty months till reaching maximum speed, one percent of the speed of light."

three hundred and ninety-six years later:

Computer #14: "Activating slowdown protocol, calculating distance between stars, photons received on the opposite side of the panel."

Computer #14: "Activating all other systems."

Computer #1: "Calculating exact distance until Wolf 1061C. Calculations correct, distance judged."

Computer #3: "Cryosleep pods are all still active."

Computer #7: "Active systems: Computer 1,3,5,6,7,8,9,10,12,13,14. Lacking: Landing sequence, dismantle sequence."

Computer #5: "Rejuvenating crew. Awakening crew. Crew awakened."

David & Andrew: "Mmmffff"

Crew: Running commands

Five months later

Crew: "Earth, we have arrived."

Crew: "Earth, sending signal, we have no way to land, and the photon panel is pushing us towards the planet."

Crew: "Earth, all landing systems are not operational."

Crew: "We are going down. We are now in the gravitational pool of the planet."

Crew: "Force field has been damaged by solar radiation. We will be attempting a landing."

Crew: "Sail is not slowing our descent, instead is being burnt. Goodbye, Earth."

Computer #13: "Escape pods have been activated. Life signals discovered in E.P. 3 and 4. Launching."

Computer #13: "Switching to autonomous control over landing."

Computer #13: "Connection lost with mothership."

Computer #13: "Suitable landing location discovered. Landing."

Computer #13: "Life signals still detected, activating cryosleep pods and terraforming pods."

Three hundred and eighty three years later

Computer #13: "Attempting to activate animal terraforming pods. Failure, none of the cryosleep embryos are alive."

Computer #13: "Atmosphere judged to be breathable, plant life have adjusted. Awakening pods, age detected: Five months. Activating Children protocol."

The two were together for six years, before one of the twins died of an unknown sickness. David remained alive.

For the next eleven years, David learnt social norms, basics of life, poisonous and non poisonous plants, animal life, etc.

Chapter Text

The day was same as any other, the false sky blue and clear, the checkmarks faintly visible above the clouds. The weather was always the same inside the field, the days ever similar. Today was different. Today will determine Laura’s and my future. Today, we will present our findings and discoveries. The thought made my stomach knot, but Laura was going to do most of the talking anyway. I was going to manage the images, the simulations, the technological part. There was only about eight hours or so left until the presentation started, and we were still finalizing our plans. There were energy syringes all over our desks as we were copy and pasting images into a massive canvas file. Laura organized the tech that we were going to be showing off.

The time for our presentation at the fair was in the night so that we could prove our system and show the telescopes working. Every so often, I looked up at the clock, and watched the seconds tick by, till Laura poked me in the face, waved a hand in front of my eyes, picked my hands up and put them back on the keyboard, and more. Procrastination never stops, that was my motto.

Finally, when my fingers felt like they were about to break, Laura finished the last text box and the last widget that would make the whole project look cooler. I trusted Laura with her part of the “speaking part”, and I was running through my script in my brain twenty times over. ‘This system allowed us to look at more than twenty-thousand planets in less than ten weeks, from a total of six hundred and seventy-seven galaxies. We have also created a classification system that classifies the galaxies and the planets, and a list of viable planets that could become humanity’s home.’ I was pretty much done. 

“Laura, you ready?”

“More than I will ever be. Kalie, you?”

“Just finished rehearsing my script.”

“Okay, are we done then? A good nap will take care of my anxiety issues.”

“No, you can’t be planning a nap three hours before we present.”

“Yeah, your right. Well, I will go and check the telescopes to see if they are all active.”

“I am going to check for any embarrassing mistakes/typos. ”

“Got it.” 

Time passed, and no issues came up. Soon it was time for us to go backstage, prep all the gear, check all the tech for the seventeenth time. I fiddled with a lever on a telescope, it was jammed and had no intention of releasing so that I could connect it to the main system. I grabbed some hot-wire cutters and simply bent it till I managed to see the glistening wires inside, protected from the passing of time by sheets of metal. It was funny how I couldn’t see that this telescope wasn’t connected, and I barely managed to connect it before the group before we finished. 

“Time for you to get out there, group forty-seven. Rock it out there!” The monotone announcer said.

Laura lugged her projectors and computers on stage, and I could visibly see her shaking in the darkened stage. I moved the telescopes on, and with a minute of prep time remaining, I walked over to her.

“Laura, we are going to rock it out there. Come on, don’t worry. There’s bound to be someone that is sophisticated enough to understand how much our work is valuable, right?”

“I just wish I don’t mess up…”

“You will do great, I promise. Now, get to your station.”

I smiled at her, before heading over to the telescopes. The lights came on, and the curtains raised slowly. It was time to wow the crowd with our project. I tried not to show my shaking hands by hiding them behind the massive amount of wires tangled up together. Keeping a straight face on, I tried not to show any sort of emotion other than excitement. Laura began talking.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Today, we will be presenting our project on astronomical classification methods and possible extraterrestrial life.”

Laura pressed down hard on the projector button, the virtual simulator whirring to life. Or, I should say, the core of the computer straining against the heavy load of a total of fifty-seven thousand graphical user interfaces. It was my cue to toggle the dome switch. Slowly, the telescopes aligned themselves to the specific planets that we looked at, and I now had nowhere to hide.

“Our classification system is comprised of two major factors, which are, respectively, the distance from Earth, and the location within the galaxy. We were able to classify about fifty-seven thousand galaxies with this method, and some examples are on the screen.”

The screen now zoomed in to the Andromeda Galaxy, that would collide with ours in fifty trillion years, now that the moving galaxy theory was debunked. The moving galaxies were basically the universe shrinking back or expanding.

“We classified this familiar galaxy, or Andromeda in the Greek sense, as Galaxy AA013. Looking deeper into the classification method, the galaxy AA013 is in the chunk AA, as it is the chunk of the universe that Earth is located within. Modifications to our telescopes from the famed observatory let us judge the temperature down to the nearest kelvin, the location down to the exact kilometer. Even further, we were able to read radio waves that were emitted, judging them using their angles. Moving on, we examined the planets in the selected galaxies, ones that were not facing any imminent danger from cosmic dangers, including the so-called “black holes”. We eliminated the planets that were near a black hole, or the centers of the galaxies, with near as in fifty light years, just to make sure. Now, my partner, Kalie, will present our findings on the diverse planets that we researched on.”

I picked up the microphone, making sure that it was turned on, and I wouldn’t make a fool of myself.

“We looked at about five hundred galaxies in total, eliminating the ones that were to far to be of any use. This resulted in approximately a forty-nine thousand planets, and we have marked them on the simulator. Using the Forty-Seven-bit radio-wave inspectors, we were able to judge the temperature and climate of the respective planets, and narrowed our focus down to approximately two hundred.” Then, Laura picked up her laser pointer and began talking again as planned. There was no sign of stage fright, but I kept my eye on her because she seemed to be quite disturbed somehow.

“The planets highlighted in green had the highest chance of being able to support life, Earth ones, and the rest are marked yellow or red by their percentages. Now, we are proud to present our findings on one specific planet in the green region.”

The audience still showed no reaction at all, making me worried. I was wondering if they were all robots and fake humans, but then I realized that they were the leaders of the highest tech companies in the world, and they could not be an android. I could even see slight facial expressions in some of them and immediately felt disgusted. They were not paying any attention to our presentation, but looking at Laura in a strange way, that made me tense. Unfazed, Laura kept talking.

“Zooming in on this planet, we discovered very exciting news. Over the time of two months, we gathered up data on this planet for 80 years, using the collective data capture method. Here is the footage sped up by eighty-million times the original speed. The following 36 seconds of footage shows a shocking discovery.”

The footage played, and from the few that were still paying attention, a gasp ensued, causing the others to take a peek at the screen. From eighty-years ago, the planet was completely brown, no blue signaling water. As the footage played, many points on the planet turned green. Soon, they spread out, eventually covering most of the planet. 

"This signals plant life was taking over on the former "lifeless" planet, and it seems that evolution was undergoing before our very eyes. We were able to classify the green color as plants due to the increase in oxygen and complex forms of sugar."

 Someone called out, "LIES! We have proof that cellulose cannot form on other planets!"

It was my turn. "Thank you, Laura, for the footage. Now, to prove our case, we set up an environment similar to Mars in the observatory and was able to grow plants in the environment, just with a few days. Then, using the approximate temperatures of the planet XK-794, we tried the plant growth again and had successful results. Continuing on, this planet is less than twenty light years away from Earth, meaning it will be easily reachable using cryo-sleep and atomic rockets. Thank you for listening to our presentation."

The jerk kept on going. "Just because you both are kinda pretty won't mean that we will go easy on you. None of your facts can be proved! Right?"

"Can someone get this person out of here? We just showed proof of every concept we have presented. Leave."

Laura began trembling, her hands shaking. It awfully looked like she was caught with something unjust, while it was just stage fright. In short, it looked like she had been caught with a lie, even though any logical person would tell that nothing was wrong. I never knew that a jerk of the likes of him would be let into the presentation.

"We will be ending our presentation now. Our research is available now as public data, so if you wish, you may take a look at it to prove its authenticity. Have a great night."

I walked over to Laura, and put my hand on her shoulder, and walked off the stage together, steadily, even though I felt queasy. I thought, 'What just happened?'

Seconds later, Laura said the same thing out loud.

"What happened out there? I really don't understand..." she left off.

"Some jerk tried to ruin our lives. Hopefully, or obviously, they will realize we did nothing wrong."

"You saw how that same jerk was looking at me, right?"

I realized that she was trembling, beyond control. There was nothing I could do, but call a cab using the call service, and ride back to the campus with her. The jerk probably ruined our future forever. This was hard-to-believe results already, and someone voicing out doubts without proof would still cause massive damage. I could only hope that a company recognize the level of technology that was used to conduct this project, and recruit us. I texted Laura, telling her that everything will be fine, and crawled on to my bed. I closed my eyes and tried to get some sleep, which would probably evade me for the next few days. Laura would probably be unable to sleep anyways, due to her insomnia. At least she had a syringe that would help her.