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Grey-blue skies hang overhead. Car horns sound out dully, far away, in the mid-afternoon traffic – some approach closer, ready to pick their children up. A completely normal afternoon is what greets the front desk of Grover Cleveland Middle School. That is, right up until… now.
“Where can I find Dr. Ryland Grace?”
The receptionist jumps, launching her keyboard halfway across her desk as she does. She hadn’t heard anyone come in; before her stands a sharp-looking woman in a dark, well-tailored business suit.
“Sorry?” Janet asks, having completely forgotten what the woman asked her. She appears to be in her forties, and has a slight accent that she can’t place.
“Dr Ryland Grace. He works here. Where can I find him?”
“Oh!” Well, even if Grace has managed to get himself a girlfriend, she’s making big assumptions. “I can’t let you into the building proper without the proper checks, dear, so-”
An ID badge is flashed at her, and an important-looking piece of paper slides onto her desk. Eva Stratt, Petrova Taskforce, it says, and below is a long statement about this woman having power over… okay, that’s a lot of signatures. And the UN’s emblem.
“Oh,” Janet says less enthusiastically than last time. Maybe she should try setting Mr. Grace up with her niece again. “Down the hall, to the left. Past the courtyard. His name’s on the door.”
The woman nods once, clipped and rigid, before stalking off to find her prey.
Janet immediately grabs her phone.
Office Angels 😇
Janet
So, apparently Mr. Grace is a doctorKatherine
WhatAoife
No way!Lauren
How’d you learn that, Janet?
[][][][][]
Mr. Grace usually avoids the courtyard at home time. He thinks none of the students know, but they do. He’s predictable. Cool, but predictable. So, when he strides out of his class with all his belongings in his hands instead of his bag, followed by a mean-looking woman in a suit, people notice.
“Uh, Kevin, no running,” Mr. Grace says, seemingly confused as to why he’s even saying it.
“I’m not,” Kevin responds, continuing to walk on. For a moment, he takes no notice of it, until his mind catches up to what he just witnessed. He begins to turn around, but as he does, he spots them; nearly a dozen black Jeeps, shined within an inch of their lives, with a veritable army of men and women in black suits standing around them. The mean-looking woman with Mr. Grace suddenly looks less mean, and more scary.
Curiosity killed the cat, or so they say. The remaining students make themselves scarce.
[][][][][]
Mr. Grace isn’t in the next day.
“I’m tellin’ you, I saw it! He got kidnapped!”
“He’s an adult, they don’t kidnap adults.”
“There were so many of them-”
“And they all wore suits, like in Men in Black!”
“Do you think he’s been taken to deal with aliens?”
“Hey,” the substitute teacher calls out, with about as much energy as a room-temperature pickle. The students only listen because Mr. Grace always asks them to behave for substitute teachers. “Thank you,” the man says once they’ve quieted down. “Now, there’s no lesson plan for today, so it’s study hall for an hour. I don’t want to hear any conversations about Mr. Grace, or any other teacher, for that matter.”
They work quietly. The substitute teacher doesn’t hear about Mr. Grace, or any other teacher, for that matter, the entire hour. He also doesn’t notice the notes being passed around. It’s good that he doesn’t, because the sheer volume of them fills both of the bins, so the children resort to throwing their discarded notes out of the window.
[][][][][]
Mr. Grace doesn’t come back the next day. He doesn’t come back the day after, either, returning on the Friday, looking worse for wear.
“Mr. Grace!” his students clamour the moment they see him.
“Where’ve you been?”
“Why do you look so tired?”
“Is it true that Astrophage are eating the sun?”
At that, Mr. Grace nearly falls out of his chair (which shouldn’t be possible, because he’s barely even sat in it).
“Woah, where’d you hear that word?”
This strikes everyone as odd. Mr. Grace keeps on top of the news so well that half of the class is convinced he’s secretly part of the industry.
“Uh, in the President’s speech last night?”
“Oh,” Mr. Grace says faintly, practically flopping into his chair. An indeterminable emotion flickers behind his eyes for a moment as he stares at the ceiling. Then, his mind appears to kick into teaching mode. “Uhm. Okay. Yes. Astrophage, it’s growing in the sun or near it. People aren’t really… sure.”
[][][][][]
Office Angels 😇
Katherine
Mr. Grace is back in today.Lauren
Did he say anything about the other day?Aoife
The man looked a bit run through when he got here, give him a chanceJanet
He didn’t say anything to me, and the kids are only speculating.Lauren
His girlfriend hasn’t appeared again, has she?Katherine
You jealous, Lauren?Aoife
Girlfriend? No way Mr. Grace is into women
Janet puts her phone down. The woman hadn’t come back, but discussing her appearance in the break room had become a favourite past-time of… well, everyone’s. Even the substitute teachers wanted to know. They all laugh in the break room, passing around coffees and those day-old doughnuts from the reduced aisle. They talk about the woman, and Mr. Grace’s reported confusion, and how frazzled he looked. How funny it was.
When Mr. Grace disappears again, they stop laughing.
[][][][][]
Two and a half years later, Janet sits in her living room, watching the news as she eats her microwave mac n’ cheese dinner. It’s another report on the progress of what they’re calling Project Hail Mary – the project to save the sun. The showrunner has eluded the public so far, though world leaders whisper their name in fear.
The news anchor talks at the audience, narrating the expected timeline for the project, when the shot behind her changes to a vessel. It looks like an aircraft carrier, and before that can properly register, it changes to an internal shot.
There.
She only sees it for a second.
A blur, in the background, catching her eye.
She pauses, and rewinds, and presses play. Pauses and rewinds again. And again, just to make sure she isn’t making it up.
There, in the background, heading up some stairs, is Mr. Grace, standing next to the formidable woman from two and a half years ago.
No one really believes the receptionist when she says Mr. Grace is working on Project Hail Mary.
[][][][][]
When the deaths of DuBois and Shapiro are announced, the world is in shock. For Grover Cleveland Middle School, though, the shock comes from the replacement’s name.
Dr Ryland Grace, PhD.