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The air was thick with uncertainty.
There were sticky notes all over the windows and red yarn connecting the most important clues he had. It looked fully like the professional investigation board of a smart detective.
The problem was. He was no smart detective.
"If you really believe this nonsense, then you need to tell the police" Colt said. They had a truce while the evidence was supporting Tom.
"Oh yeah, why didn't I think about it? Because that worked wonderfully before" He quipped harshly. Neither of them were in the best mood as of late. "Look, I know I ain't got the smarts like Ry does. But it doesn't take a genius to put two and two together" He signaled the sticky notes.
"What's four then, huh? Ry abandoned you, that's final" Colt huffed, but Tom knew he wouldn't be there if he didn't believe him at least a little.
"That would mean he also abandoned you" He reminded him, watching as Colt made a face like he bit a lemon.
"Laying it on a tad thick, aren't you?" Colt scoffed as he was bouncing his leg up and down, either nervous or keeping himself from hitting Tom.
He didn't back out. "C'mon! You know I'm right" He crossed his arms. "You're supposed to be the oldest brother and protect Ry. But you don't even where he is".
Tom needed to knock some sense into Colt in order to get him in the game. He couldn't afford to have him whining and bitching like he had done for the past month. Like they had done for the past month.
If Colt had a little bit of Ryland's intelligence then he could help Tom solve the mystery. And he felt necessary to find the truth, because every time the clock ticked, a horrible uneasiness made its way into his guts.
The stuntman stood up from the couch, eyes angry and fist curled. For a moment Tom thought that he would hit him, but instead, Colt grabbed a manilla folder that was on the table and opened it to inspect it.
After a few minutes, Tom saw him arrange the evidence on the table.
"Alright, let's put two and two together" Colt declared, looking at his work and then at Tom. He took it as a clue to explain what he had.
He started a week before their anniversary, with the letter. Then, the day of the disappearance, when Ryland's bicycle was found by him outside the school, but his lover was nowhere near it. They talked about the document the school showed them and how the signature looked rushed.
"Wait! Ry was nervous, remember? He was fidgety all the time and didn't talk about science" He said, taking a sip of his sixth cup of coffee –geez, his boyfriend's habits were rubbing on him–. "Do you remember when that started?" He asked.
"The exact date? Maybe I can look into our messages" Colt proposed, taking his phone out and scrolling through the chats. He showed his phone to Tom, pointing the date.
"That was after the day of the field trip" He sighed, not remembering anything important from that day, except– "He... threw a science magazine at the trash can that morning. That was the first time I saw Ryland do that. It kinda stuck with me" He stated.
"Yeah, it doesn't sound like him" Colt confirmed. "By any chance, you remember what it was about?" He questioned.
"I don't read those, so no" He confessed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "But... I think I paid for it" He opened his bank app and found the transaction. "Here".
'Smithsonian Magazine. Space & Science' was the name of the magazine, which they got with a quick trip to the library. Tom didn't understand a word about it. Colt pretended he did. At last, they knew they needed someone to explain it, but Ryland was not there.
"You said that Eva Stratt was the lider of the Petrova Task Force, so maybe if we figure what's the Petrova Line, we can figure why they need to kidnap a stranged molecular biologist" Colt reasoned. "Any ideas on how to do that?" He asked.
Tom smiled, a group of little people came to his mind. "I might know just who we need" He declared.
They drove to Grover Cleveland Middle School as fast as they could. Tom could feel like they were about to solve this case. The clues were growing, the facts were aligning, and the story was starting to make sense.
Like in a mystery movie.
—
The air was full with emotions.
It had been a long time since someone confused Colt with his twin. Actually, people confused Ryland with Colt more frequently. So he didn't expect to be ambushed by a ton of kids after stepping out of the car. Even less to be almost knocked to the ground by a little girl.
"Mr. Grace! You're back!" The girl sobbed, unaware that she was not hugging her teacher. "You promised to be here for graduation! That's very soon, remember?" She sniffed.
"Um, Regina. That's not your Mr. Grace" Tom told her softly –apparently the asshole could be good with kids, who knew– "This is Colt. He's–"
"His twin!" A boy interrupted enthusiastically, grabbing Regina off him and into the little circle they made around him.
"Exactly, Parker" Tom praised. "Now, can any of you, little geniuses, explain this to us?" He showed them the article about the Petrova Line.
Everyone raised their hands.
The kids took them to their classroom and began to deliberate between them. They settled with letting a girl named Abby explain the article to them, while a boy named Trang showed them a digital presentation.
"–but! Righ now, the best minds in the entire world are on it!" Abby stated, as if she hadn't told them that the sun was fucking dying.
"Including Mr. Grace!" Regina added.
"Wait, what?" He questioned, turning to look at Tom whose face said that he was just as surprised.
As the kids explained, the day after Ryland's disappearance, a man named Carl had told them that their teacher would be absent because he was working on a very important project. The children –who really loved Ryland– assumed he was talking about the Petrova Task Force and went along with that.
A quick check on the security cameras –with a little bribing, of course– confirmed that Carl and Eva Stratt had taken a reluctant Ryland somewhere. And just like that, they understood the harsh reality of things.
He and Tom sat on the car, still parked outside the school. Colt could have stayed silent, just letting the lingering emotions disperse and be forgotten. But he decided that talking was the right thing to do.
"I'm sorry" He struggled to say.
"Why for?" Tom chuckled sadly.
While it was true that Ryland had not abandoned them, there was also another detail to be addressed. And Colt was sure that both knew what he was talking about. It was just hard to say out loud.
"When... when Court died. I felt useless" He confessed. "I wanted to protect Ry, but we were seventeen, and the people in high school always teased me about my name... So I changed it" Colton Grace was not the name of a fighter. "My father was Seavers. He was an angry, violent man, and everyone feared him. I thought that if I had the same name..."
Back then, he had tried to reason it was for the best. To protect his little brother. Because no one messed with an angry, violent man. But in the end, that stupid last name had hurt Ry again, by cutting off his support network just like that monster had cut off his air supply years ago.
"It's not your fault" Tom said with practiced empathy. The kind that Ryland probably taught him. The kind Ryland taught Colt every time he forgave him for doing something idiotic.
He drove back to the apartment in suffocating silence. Tom was just laying his head in the car's window without speaking. Colt was thinking that at least, they would have Ryland again in a few weeks. He wouldn't even be opposed to shed some tears the next time he hugged his twin.
Like in a drama movie.
—
The air was light with laughter.
For the record, Eva Stratt didn't dislike fun. But she knew it was a privilege. And the people who we're saving the world could not have that privilege most of the time, or else mistakes would ensure.
This time, however, was different. She wanted the astronauts to have one last moment of fun before leaving everything behind to save earth. Though, personally, she would die happy if she was able to give at least one chance to humanity to survive.
"–and then she comes to me and says 'we have pills for that' like being an engineer makes me less of a girl" Ilyukhina laughed, telling an old story about her times in college.
The other members of the crew started to tell stories of their own, drinking and laughing.
"–but he fell from the shelf before even reaching the cookies" Captain Yáo shared about his kid.
She saw the faces of Martin DuBois and Annie Shapiro as they laid their heads against each other, presumably thinking of the kids they wouldn't have. In her opinion, it was worth it if they allowed all the children that already existed to have a chance to survive.
"–and I told her no, but she kept insisting. Until one day, I got tired of her hiding my petri dishes, and I accepted to have a date with her" DuBois narrated, getting a cheer from Shapiro as she kissed him passionately.
"It was the best decision you've ever made, admit it!" Shapiro squealed victorious.
At the scenery, some other scientists started to sing songs drunkenly, not caring about the fact that they sounded like out-of-tune violins. Eva would know, she was in the girls' choir back home.
Subconsciously, she left to find a place that lacked all the laughter –laughter of dead people, the people she had to kill–, only to be followed by one Ryland Grace, who seemed to also be uncomfortable with the party, and now was awkwardly talking to her.
"Must be hard having to ask everybody to... you know" Grace said nervously. Eva's mouth knew the answer before her brain even processed it.
"Actually it isn't" She replied calmly, a little smile making its way into her lips, resigned.
While she was fond of Dr. Grace, she also had no respect for his cowardice. Because sacrificing three people for the sake of three billion was not an option, it was a duty. And she wished Dr. Grace loved the world more than he feared the pain of pulling the right lever.
"Yeah..." Grace sighed. "So, what do you think? You think you're gonna pull it off?" He asked, playing with the threads of his fox cardigan.
"What, the whole thing?" She questioned, understanding the worry behind the thought of not being capable of saving the world. "God willing" She told him.
"You believe in god?" Grace made a face of surprise.
She had to. If not, there was no explanation on how she could give one last shot to humanity in merely six months. No explanation on how she found the right, willing people that could go on the Hail Mary.
No explanation on how she got Dr. Grace. A man who, despite being expendable at first, ended up being an important key to the project. To the point that every corner of the ship had a piece of him and his admittedly extraordinary brain. It was almost funny.
Hail Mary, full of Grace.
"It beats the alternative" She confessed.
Later that night, she decided to enjoy the moment for a bit, took the microphone, and started to sing. People around her cheered happily, and at the back of the party, she saw Grace smiling.
She closed her eyes and pretended that she was at cruise, in summer vacations. She let herself be engulfed in the laughter and chuckling and chattering. Her eyes locked with Grace's, and she tricked her mind to think that they were friends, having a good time.
Like in a comedy movie.
—
The air was tingling with apprehension.
He wouldn't call it gut feeling, no. He told Colt several times that gut feelings are not real. Instead, he would blame it on his cowardice, that was probably it, yeah.
They were three days away from the launch of the Hail Mary, and Ryland didn't know what scared him the most. If thinking about Yáo, Ilyukhina and DuBois dying in space or if thinking about them living but not finding a solution.
It was a calculated risk, he had been told. Who calculated it was the question, because how could they not see all the possible way this could go terribly wrong.
"Grace!" Ilyukhina called him from the other side of the field with captain Yáo at her left. They were now on solid land to prepare the ship for its long journey.
He smiled and greeted her. "Hey!" She was holding a blue phone in her hands, shaking it excitedly while she ran towards him.
"Did Stratt give you your phone?" She questioned with a wide smile.
"Mmm, no. She has to keep it until I leave" He shrugged with a chuckle.
"They said we'll be with our families this last three days" Captain Yáo said as he walked to them slowly.
He silently thanked them for the great sacrifice they were about to make. Without a warranty of success, no one would want to die alone in space.
"What about you, Grace? When are you going back with your family?" Ilyukhina asked with a curiosity that rivaled Regina's.
The thoughts of catastrophic outcomes plagued his mind. The Hail Mary failing before leaving the atmosphere. Tau Ceti being already infected by the time they get there. The astrophage engines getting pierced by a meteorite.
"Soon" He answered, pushing the fear away in order to show them he was happy to return home. "I'll be home soon" He affirmed.
And then, the lab exploded.
His ears were ringing so bad he thought that maybe they were bleeding. His mouth tasted like ashes, and his lungs were filled with smoke. Stratt ran, he ran behind her, everyone ran behind them, because between the fire and the debris they remembered it.
DuBois and Shapiro were in that lab. The hope of humanity was incinerated by the same microorganism that was devouring their sun.
The fear resurged. Who would have the bravery to go to a suicidal mission? Who would be so selfless to risk enjoying the last years of the planet in the company of their family? Who would step up for a mission three days before it?
The field was a morbid sight. Some of the people close to the explosion were burned and thrashing from pain in the ground. Paramedics were rushing to rescue scientists out of the rubble. The forensics team was looking for bodies. Everybody was screaming.
Like in a horror movie.