Chapter Text
He’s packing up his stuff to go home as normal. He just finished a good day of work, his students had good days as well. He always hopes it's at least partially because of him. He is very much ready to go home, watch some reality tv re-runs and eat … something. He hasn't thought that far yet.
“Ryland Grace?” he jumps when he hears a voice behind him. He turns around to find a woman, no older than 50, if he had to guess ( and he did ). She looks important, he thinks to himself.
“Yes? Can I help you?” he responds cautiously.
“You can actually. I’m Eva Stratt, head of the Petrova Task force. I’ve been assigned to find a solution to the current Petorva-line issue, I’m sure you’re aware.”
“Ok … Why are you here? I mean, why are you looking for me?” At this point he's just confused, what does she want from him? He's just a middle school science teacher.
She pulls out a paper with a title he knows all too well.
“You wrote this, correct? ‘An analysis of water based assumptions and recalibration of expectations for evolutionary models’? Bad title if you ask me.”
Now he's even more confused. What in the world is the head of the Petrova task force doing with a paper he wrote years ago that got him bullied out of his field of study?
“Yeah and why do you have it?”
“I need you to come with me.” She states, no room for questions. She’s not asking him kindly to come with her, she's telling him. He doesn't like wherever this is going.
“I can’t go with you, what do you even want?” he questions her with a fake authority to match hers. She doesn't respond and instead turns on her heels and goes to walk out the door.
Before she makes it she says over her shoulder, “ill be outside, be there in 5 minutes.”
Yeah, he is not going with her. No way is he gonna leave his job and follow some random lady to god knows where, just because she asked. Wait no, she didn't even ask!
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When he finally finished packing up his stuff (and it was a lot of stuff). He has to take home a bunch of papers he's been meaning to grade, his students have been going crazy waiting for them back.
He makes it out the building hoping she’s gone and he can just walk calmly to his bike and go home like he’s wanted to since seven in the morning. But of course she’s still there and this time she seems to have back up. Why does she need back up? Is he about to be kidnapped?
“Dr. Grace, I need you to get in that car,” she points behind her to a black SUV parked behind the building. “I know you don’t want to and you have no clue who I am but I think you might be exactly who I need.” she said this all as if it were fact, as if he knew anything about what she was saying.
“No. Final answer. I have to go home and grade these papers or my kids will kill me.”
“You don’t have kids.” she just doesn’t understand that some people don’t need to ‘have’ kids to care about them. He loves every one of his students as if they were his own.
“My students are my kids. I’m with them everyday.” he only sounds a little creepy saying this but he hopes she gets the point.
“Well if you care so much about them then you’ll come with me. You want them to have a planet to live on in the future, right?” and again she turns her back and walks away expecting him to follow, but this time she's caught his attention. What does she mean ‘have a planet to live on in the future’? He knows the sun is ‘sick’ but that wouldn't really destroy all life on the planet, right?
He has to find out. So…
He follows her.
This leads him to the black SUV that seems very government coded. ‘Well if she's the head of the Petrova task force then she must have some government authority’ he assumes.
He gets in the car, looks across the parking lot to his bike still locked to the rack. He thinks of his students and the sub plans he hasn’t written. He has no clue where he’s going or when he’s coming back. But he knows that whatever this lady wants from him must be important and for the greater good of his students, he has to go with her.
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“They don’t do anything.” he says exasperated. He’s been working with the stupid astrophage for 2 days already and hasn’t found a single useful piece of information.
“ Have you tried everything? Every possible thing?” Carl asks this as if he weren't here watching Ryland try ‘every possible thing’.
“ Yes. I have Carl. You got anymore suggestions?” He responds sarcastically. But Carl’s eyes light up like he’s been waiting for this moment.
“I do actually, why don’t we go on a little field trip teach?” With that he leaves the security office he's been sitting in for two days and heads for the main entrance of the building.
Ryland has no choice but to follow.
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“You know I really don"t like this place.” They have been on the aircraft carrier for long enough that Ryland hates it. He doesn’t normally ‘hate’ things so him hating this is definitely saying something.
“I don’t either. But we all have to make sacrifices for the greater good Dr. Grace.” Stratt always has a way of saying things that make him feel like he shouldn’t have said anything to begin with. She seems to be in an extra bad mood today.
“So… what’s next? How are we gonna keep the planet's temperature high enough for the crew on the hail Mary to figure out what's going on with tau ceti?” he’s been wondering about this for a while but since it was a topic of discussion at today's meeting (which he didn't want to go to and was forced to by Stratt) he thought he would bring it up to her.
“I’m gonna bomb Antarctica.” She turns to him to see his reaction. He’s beyond shocked but he’s also not shocked enough. That’s the exact type of thing she would do.
“Wait… so let me get this straight. You're gonna … bomb Antarctica, to keep the planet hot enough?” She turns away, he's trying to understand the logistics and yeah on paper he assumes that it makes sense but they would have to bomb ALL of Antarctica for it to actually do anything so what's the point?
“That's what I said, isn't it?.” She's un-amused by his question. “I’m also paving over half of the Sahara desert, if that doesn’t work … I don’t know what will.” She’s leaning her elbows against the railing of the deck with her head in her hands.
“Hey,” he reaches a hand towards her shoulder, “are you ok?” he’s never seen her this… distraught before.
“No I'm not ok. What do you expect! I’m killing the planet! Just to buy some astronauts some goddamn time!” She's not exactly yelling but she's definitely shouting.
“Hey, I understand exactly how you feel. I'm the one who discovered the stuff that's sending those astronauts on a suicide mission.” he still hasn't fully wrapped his head around the fact that he's partially responsible for ending three peoples lives. How is one person supposed to cope with the fact that they had to find a way to kill some to save many? This is why he teaches science and not history.
“You know Ryland, I don’t think you do understand,” she’s turned to face him now, she looks like she’s about to cry. You could probably see it on his face with the way he’s looking at her but he’s extremely worried. “You don’t stay awake at night thinking about what your next move has to be for the greater good of the human race. Maybe they shouldn’t have given me so much to handle. I’m a history major for gods sake. I know how this ends, It's always the fucking same.” Now she’s crying and yelling. Great, he just loves it when people cry (sarcasm).
He takes a step towards her and pulls her into a hug, she gasps as if she wasn’t expecting it but soon she relaxes into it and hugs him back.
“I think you need some sleep, come on.” he releases her from the hug and leads her towards the cabin.
She follows.
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He’s asleep in his bunk as usual. Nothing seems to be out of the ordinary. Until he hears the most faint yet intriguing sound he’s ever heard. It’s like the low thrum of some sort of wind instrument or power tool, but it’s not like one he’s ever heard.
He sits up in bed, grabs his glasses from the side table and is about to leave his cabin when all of a sudden… it just … stops. He doesn’t even remember it starting but it’s definitely gone now. Must just be someone in the lab working on… something? He takes his glasses off again, rolls over and falls back asleep.