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Eva Stratt reached the apartment door, turning the key.
She halted for a moment.
She was about to step into a dead man's apartment.
Well, he wasn't dead yet, but he would be in a few years, thanks to a decision she herself had made against his will.
With an exhale she pushed the door open. It was necessary. He was the only one who could do this job.
“You're murdering me!”
His voice echoed in her head.
She squared her shoulders, giving the soldier waiting outside a sharp nod, and stepped in.
Ryland Grace's apartment.
She needed to gather a few of his personal things.
8 Kilograms. That was how much personal stuff each of the crew could bring.
Less than what most people would pack for a one week vacation.
But in Space travel, there were always limits, especially on a mission like this.
His crew colleagues had chosen themself what personal belongings to bring, Grace didn't get that luxury.
So, she was here to do it.
She easily could've sent someone else here to do the job, but she personally wanted to do it. She owed that to Grace.
Also, she might've known him and his taste best after working with him so long.
Sad somehow, that all his few real friends couldn't be here to do this. They might have gotten suspicious if asked about Grace's preferences, wondering why she wouldn't let him pick his things himself.
Looking around, Eva took the apartment in. Small but nice. An open kitchen leading to the living room, two doors leading to bed and bathroom.
There were pictures on the wall, drawn by children.
His students... He had really loved that job.
Tearing her eyes away, she made her way to the bedroom.
The blanket was rumpled, a few things lying around in the room, but in no way messy.
She dropped the empty duffle bag she had bought on the bed, opening the wardrobe doors.
If there was any way to describe the clothing style of Ryland Grace, it was nerdy millenial.
The crew would be provided with overalls, but they also got to take personal clothes.
Perks of a suicide mission.
With a solemn expression, Eva grabbed a few t-shirts.
Almost all of them had some sort of science joke on them.
I wear this shirt periodically.
I had potential.
Hopefully, they'd bring him a little comfort.
She had already packed up the fox cardigan, along with his white chucks and earth beanbag back at the NASA HQ.
He had flown home for a weekend recently, leaving some clothes here and taking others.
Grace hadn't known that it would be the last time he had slept in his own bed.
Maybe when he had left the last time, he had thought about how he would return here after the launch, maybe he had made plans to relax and also how to prepare the next lessons for his students.
But now his apartment would remain empty, its owner travelling away from earth at 90% the speed of light, never to return...
Eva wasn't sure yet, what would happen with his apartment. Unlike his crewmates, he hadn't been able to set up a will and define what would happen to his stuff.
If the mission was a success, NASA probably would claim ownership, using it for some kind of museum. She wasn't sure wether she liked that idea or not.
Carefully putting the folded clothes into the bag, she noticed one more thing in the room.
A colorful hat with a face and ears, and two pompom like arms.
She had seen him scroll through his phone gallery once, noticing him wearing said hat in a picture with his students on a field trip.
No doubt a gift from one of them.
They clearly had loved him as their teacher, but now they would never see him again.
Stuffing the hat into the bag, she ignored the tug in her heart. These kids would get to grow up because of him.
A knock interrupted her. The soldier outside held a package. “This was just delivered for Dr. Grace. Apparently a gift from his students, made after the announcement he would go on the mission.”
Eva took it. “Thank you.”
The package was soft.
She opened it after hesitating for a moment.
It was a blanket, made of multiple squares, along with some pictures and a note atop of it.
She stared at the piece of paper. The names of all these kids would be burned into her brain forever.
Blinking rapidly she packed all of it up into the bag. She was sure he'd appreciate it once he found it and remembered.
She looked around again. Grace had no siblings and his parents had died in an accident when he was in his early twenties. She wondered where he possibly would keep photographs so she could maybe add them.
It felt wrong to rummage in his private belongings, but over the last few years she had done so many morally grey and wrong things, that it barely irked her anymore.
Barely.
She found a photo album after a while, old and obviously looked through a lot.
The first one, a bit faded. A young boy, blond and with glasses, grinning brightly, a man and a woman on both of his sides, the beach in the background.
Another one of the boy proudly on his fathers shoulders, holding a science fair trophy.
One, in a High School graduation gown, his mother looking at him with beaming pride.
And then, two obituaries and dried rose petals. She looked at the date.
Now, suddenly something made a lot of sense to her.
The time he wrote that paper, when he lashed out at other scientists, the time he had been kicked out of university and had described himself as not doing well.
That was around the time his parents had died.
Carefully she picked a few of the photos, packing them up.
She shut the zipper of the bag, setting it down on the floor for a moment.
Seeing this, the glimpse of his life here. It made her hate the position she was in.
If she could've changed it, she would've.
But Ryland Grace was the only person on the entire planet who was right for this mission.
The only one with the coma gene, the knowledge and the training.
He wasn't an astronaut, but there was no one else.
Grace didn't want to go. He was scared. He didn't want to die.
But it was him or 8 Billion people.
The Trolley problem on a planetary scale.
Eva hated it. She would've switched places if she could've, but she didn't have the gene and neither the scientific knowledge needed.
She made the bed before leaving the room, picking up a few things lying around.
A small Newton's cradle on the nightstand had her face contort in a mix of a smile and sadness.
The door clicked softly as she exited the bedroom, finding herself in the living room again.
The old couch had a dent in what was probably his favorite spot.
An empty clean mug sat on the sink. On it was a print of the skeletal formula of caffeine.
The bookshelf on the wall held a wide array of books, neatly sorted into fiction and science.
A bunch of them were marked with colorful tabs, clearly a system behind it, that she couldn't understand.
A little basket full of beanbags, made to look like planets.
A cheap record player and correctly sleeved vinyls of various artists.
A plant on the counter with a little spray bottle next to it, in a yellow pot with a smiley face and legs, clearly deeply loved and cared for at some point, but now dried out and dead.
Her knuckles whitened around the straps of the bag and she tried hard not to let any implications get to her.
She couldn't let the mask slip, the icy facade made of steel. No one could see her like that. For the sake of humanity.
Before finally leaving, she turned around to the empty apartment once more, giving it a silent salute.
“Dr. Grace,” she called out, looking through the grids of the cell to the human roll of misery in the corner.
He turned, standing up slowly, sluggishly towards her. He was on that sedative.
“The fudge do you want,” he slurred, his entire body rigid and trembling, eyes red and swollen.
“I just wanted to tell you that you'll have a few of your belongings on the Hail Mary. I personally made sure of that.”
He swallowed at the mention of the ship. “Please,” his voice was hoarse. “Please don't make me go. I… I can't… I don't… I don't want to die, not like that.”
She kept up her stoic face. “I am sorry, truly. But there is no other chance to save humanity but you.”
Grace looked almost defeated, but the fear in his eyes, the tremble in his voice would surely haunt her darkest nights.
“How can you live with yourself knowing that you send a man to his literal death against his will?”
She exhaled. “I am sure you are aware of the concept of trolley problem.”
“Of course I am.” he weakly grabbed the grids to stabilize himself, “but you took me from one side to the other and actively strapped me to the tracks.”
Stratt could barely stop the twitch in her eye at his words.
“Maybe I am, but your face haunting my nightmares for the rest of my life, will be worth it if it means humanity survives.”
She turned to leave.
“Stratt!” His voice had her halt and face him again.
“My students,” his voice was quiet now. “Make sure they and their families are going to be okay, yeah? And tell them to stay curious. If I don't get to grow old, at least they should get to be… please”
She just nodded, then left, knowing it was the last time she would ever see him.
That was it.
The Hail Mary had left earth's orbit, now on the way to Tau Ceti.
Stratt wasn't sure what would happen to her now.
There had to be some kind of reprimand for what she had done, even if it had been for the greater good.
Now she was standing here in that little San Francisco graveyard, the headstone displaying the last name of a family whose entire bloodline had ended with her decision.
“I'm sorry,” she murmured. Nothing more.
It wasn't enough. It would never be. But there were no words that would've changed anything, so that was where she left it.
She was responsible for their son's death, so she wanted to apologize, even if it was just to a grave.
With that she left. She would never find peace up until the day she was laid in a grave of her own.
“Ms. Stratt.”
She looked up, to find an officer looking at her.
After everything had gone down, the beetles reaching the earth, the video messages, she had been sentenced to a life in prison with no parole.
Eventually that had been changed to a strict, 24/7, heavily surveillanced house arrest. She had been a big reason for humanity's survival after all.
After the video messages of Grace had reached them, him going after his friend, sacrificing his one chance to return to earth, for the greater good, Stratt had realized something.
Grace had always thought of himself as a coward.
But he wasn't. He was the complete opposite of a coward, a brave Hero!
She however, was a coward, keeping the truth back for so long and it was burning in her until she had finally admitted to the world what she had done.
Banning the thoughts of the aftermath from her head, she looked at the guard. “Yes?”
He seemed a little weird today and she squinted at him as he cleared his throat.
“Ms. Stratt, NASA and the government received a message a while ago, and they think it would be right to tell you now before it goes public. Ryland Grace is alive. And he is coming home. Very soon. And he's bringing friends ”
She still didn't let her emotions show, despite feeling like her chest was about the explode.
There had been a tightness compressing her lungs ever since that fateful decision, and now it finally released, after decades of crushing her.
“Thank you for telling me,” she answered, voice steady.
“Please tell them that if he wishes to see me, I'm ready to do so. He deserves to give me a piece of mind.”
The guard nodded and turned, speaking into his walkie talkie.
Stratt turned towards her window, the sun warm on her skin.
She looked down at the yellow and orange marbled bean bag in her hand.
It looked like the sun.
And like Eridani.
Grace had not saved one, but two stars.
“Dr. Ryland -I can't do this, I'm not qualified- Grace,” she mumbled. “You are an overachiever.”
She hoped he would actually curse at her once they met again...