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He couldn't just let the world die, right?
And yet, walking in circles all over the table of their dining room wasn't helping his brain to get a useful idea. But if Ryland was being for real, he didn't know what he had expected would happen when he decided that maybe he could help the world and still stay on earth.
"Can't you do something alike to that episode of black mirror? The one with the astronauts?" Dan suggested from the living room, where he was playing with a pop it.
"Satellites don't reach that far. In the very unlikely scenario where he could discover how to transfer the nervous system to a machine, that still wouldn't work" Ryland rejected his idea kindly.
"What about clones? Those are real. You made me read about Dolly the sheep back in high-school" Colt proposed from the stairs, where he was bouncing a ball against the wall.
"Highly unethical. Takes too much time. And you're forgetting about epigenetic. You technically are a clone of me, and that doesn't mean we have the same knowledge" Ryland refuted playfully.
"And AI? As a director, I'm totally against it. But if you could make one with all the information they need to know, then that solves it" Jody offered from the kitchen, where she was lying on the floor.
"It would take lots of equipment to make that work in a spaceship. Mary has a simple program. It's not built for an all-knowing AI" Ryland explained with a light tone.
"Oh! I got it! You could send robots to retrieve the samples. Like in Wall-E!" Tom said excitedly.
The apartment quieted down. Dan stopped popping, Colt's ball fell, Jody sat up, and Ryland stayed still as a rock. All of them were looking at Tom while trying not to laugh in different degrees.
It was Ryland who broke the silence. "Tom, honey..." He choked a little with his own chuckle. "That's just too fictional to be posible".
"He means you're an idiot" Colt finally laughed.
"Hey! I thought we said all ideas are good ideas!" Tom whined, balancing his body on the chair in a childish manner.
"C'mon, guys don't–" Jody giggled a bit. "Don't be like that. It wasn't so bad" She attempted to sound serious.
"It does sound stupid" Dan joined Colt with the laughing.
Ryland simply sighed. "I don't know why I called you for this" He rubbed his temple.
"Because you love us" Tom responded.
He did love them. That was why he wanted to save the world for them. But Ryland knew that if he died in the process, it wouldn't matter how many planets he saved. His family would still feel like they lost. So, at last, they were trying to find a solution.
"Ok, you know what? Time to sleep. We're not getting anywhere with sleep deprived brains" Ryland stated.
The others complained, acting worse behaved than the kids he taught. They were probably tired. After returning from the beach, Ryland told Tom about his decision to stay, but not without helping. Tom told Colt, who in turn told Jody, who in turn told Dan. Following act, his family was invading his apartment.
"I don't wanna sleep next to them" Dan groaned as he was preparing one of the couches to sleep in.
"Why not? We're the best" Colt defended, while Jody was putting blankets on the sofa bed.
Their ideas weren't the worse, admittedly, out of touch with reality? Yes, but he couldn't blame them. They were no scientists, Ryland was. Still, his brain wasn't cooperating. Perhaps because it was already two am. Figures.
"Jody snores, and you talk in your sleep" Dan declared. "Change places with those two so I can rest" He demanded lightly.
"No can do, Danny boy. I ain't sleeping on the couch" Tom refused.
The time frame Stratt had him calculate was ending. If Ryland didn't think of an idea soon, the number of deads in the following years would increase. All they needed was more time. That way, he could train someone else before the window closed. Otherwise, they needed a way for Ryland's knowledge to be there somehow.
"You say that because you want to be all lovey-dovey with Ry" Jody joked.
"Ew, that's gross, Jody" Colt complained.
But no, time was the priority. Ryland didn't have to find a way to avoid space. Time was the key to the solution. He had been trying to fix a problem that didn't exist. Whether or not he was in that ship didn't matter. He was replaceable. The knowledge wasn't. The time wasn't.
"The thought of you in my bed is what's gross. Who knows what diseases you carry" Tom mocked.
If only his poor excuse of a brain could think of a solution. Just a temporary one, that would do. Just a single viable solution.
Solution. Solution. Solution.
"Not more than the ones you carry" Colt affirmed.
Solution. Solution.
"I'm pretty sure that's not how it works" Dan said.
Solution.
"And besides, I'm all vaccinated" Tom exclaimed.
Solut– That was it.
Eureka!
—
Most times, Grace methods were... strange.
Eva learned not to question them. They were fruitful, almost always anyway. And, preferably strange than useless. Like the past couple of months that had been, to put it nicely, slow. But to put it objectively, useless.
Having to reorganize a whole project without the main expert on a non studied topic was hard. Trying to look for a candidate with the right genes was already a difficult task. Add to the equation the five months of preparation for the mission that would have to be resumed in five weeks instead. Practically imposible, even for Eva and her team.
She thought the mission would fail. That she would have to start from the beginning. A new astronaut, who Yáo and Ilyukhina would attempt to train with the help of Grace's investigation and unreadable notes.
She wasn't expecting this...
"What is this?" She pinched the bridge of her nose when Carl told her that there were people at the gates trying to reach her. Not only that, her bodyguard let them in.
"I think you want to listen to them" Carl stated, letting Grace and his entire family inside her office.
"Dr. Grace" She greeted politely but distant. "To what do I own this pleasure? Are you here to go to Tau Ceti?" She asked impatiently. She didn't mean to be rude, but the stress of saving the world would do that to anyone.
"No, but–" Grace denied.
Eva interrupted. "Then what is this?" She found herself making the same question again.
Grace's family looked like they were about to call her out on her behavior –something they had done too many times in the past– and just as Grace opened his mouth to talk, his lover intervened for him.
Ryder handed her a tiny notebook and put his hand on his hip. "Eureka, bitch" He said with a smirk, before being slightly hit in the arm by Grace and not so gently kicked in the kneecap by Moreno.
Eva grabbed the notebook, which was full of formulas, annotations and theories so out of her field that she couldn't help but look at Grace. It was a non written agreement between them. Whenever she didn't understand the science behind something he would explaining without making her ask.
So Grace explained. In front of the whole science team. With his family sitting on one side of the table –merely for moral support, she guessed– and her experts on the other.
"Think of it as the same principle of an antibody" Grace presented his theory on a white board. "We create vaccines so the body understands the dangers and fights it. That way a common cold doesn't kill us. However, living beings have antibodies. Stars don't. So what do we do?" He addressed the people in the room. The scientists stayed quiet, but the civilians spoke.
"We created them some antibodies!" Grace's family yelled enthusiastically. Eva could bet that this was the same dynamic he had in his classroom.
"Yes! If our sun can't fight on its own, that means we have to fight for it" Grace declared excited.
"What does that entail?" Yáo questioned.
"It entails looking for a microorganism that can survive both to space and the radiation of the sun. Said microorganism must be able to mess with the internal machinery of the astrophage and kill it" Grace broke it down.
It sounded great, actually. "That would solve the problem completely?" Eva stuttered her question, failing to keep her hope at bay.
Grace smiled sadly. "No, it wouldn't. In my experience, nature is far superior to us. The astrophage will undoubtedly find a way to adapt. And unless humanity wants to spend the rest of their history breeding the sun antibodies, then this is just a temporary solution. I'm really sorry" He apologized.
"How temporary?" Ilyukhina raised her hand.
"You give me a couple of months to crack this up completely. I'll give you a couple of years so we can train someone else" Grace promised. "And what's better. After the Hail Mary leaves, we can keep prolonging it for at least a decade if we're lucky. But we'll have to work together to identify every useful microorganism. It could be bacteria, archaea, protozoa, algae, fungi, helminths– Uh! We could try viruses too. Bacteriophages, ever heard of them?----" Grace kept talking, not that Eva was listening. She felt lightheaded, because for the first time in a long while, there was hope.
Hallelujah!
—
Scientists were not as bad as he thought.
The only scientist he had met until now was his beautiful boyfriend. He was nice, had a brighter mind than Tom, and poor self care habits. That last part was important to take into account, especially when dealing with Ryland.
"You hit your mark of forty-eight hours. You need to sleep, sweetheart!" Tom tried to drag his lover to bed.
"Just one more hour! This last batch of cultures is beginning to make progress!" Ryland affirmed.
"You need to sleep, Grace! You need it for nutrition" He knew Olesya was supporting him, but she looked as tired as Ryland right now, so she wasn't helping.
"Alright! Alright. No. Let me call reinforcements" Tom texted Jody, because Colt and Dan went to land for some sort of scientific grocery list.
If Tom squinted a little bit, he could almost feel like they were vacationing. They were on a boat, making stops in several countries. The only difference was that the people around him had doctorates, and the closest to drunk they were was sleep drunk. There was also the fact that they have been here for a couple of months now, which wasn't really fun.
"I'll sheep when I'm deed" Ryland slurred, no sense in his words.
The door of the lab opened, revealing Jody. "Again?" She groaned.
"Yeah, same as always?" He asked, taking his boyfriend in his arms.
"You know it" Jody said, preparing to carry Olesya to her own room.
"Aww, shame on you, Grace. You didn't tell me your family was full of party poppers. I thought Tom Ryder would be cooler!" Olesya whined as she was dragged away by Jody.
Tom got distracted with fetching coffee, and Ryland snuck out of his bed again. Though neither he nor Olesya made it after the shared hall for the bedrooms. They were both laying in his lover's quilt when he found them, chatting nonsense, half sleep.
"I would liked a friend lie you when high-school" Ryland mumbled, his eyes closing.
"We be friends noooow" Olesya drawled. "Just lemme find a gas station a space and we'll friends forever!" She laughed like a maniac.
"Oh my! Eureka!" Ryland yelled.
"Yes! Eu-fucking-reka!" Olesya joined.
He decided to write in a yellow sticky note what he could remember of their conversation. It seemed important, as if they made a breakthrough, but he couldn't know until they had twelve hours of sleep on their pockets.
The next day, he was rewarded with a kiss. Ryland's erratic hands were on his hair while their lips melted together. The hot scientist he had managed to win over took a deep breath as they separated, love reflected in his eyes.
"You're a genius, Tom" Ryland chuckled, planting another kiss on his cheek.
"Nah, it was Olesya's idea" Tom deflected playfully. "But I'll admit I deserve a price for being such a good assistant" He winked teasingly.
"We're at a science facility. Don't be nasty!" Ryland snorted, pushing Tom's face away.
He hummed, pretending to think about it. "Science, yeah. If that's the case, I'll ask differently. Would you like me to do you periodically on the table?" Tom flirted.
Clank–
Olesya gasped. "OMG! That's the nerdiest dirty talk I've ever heard!" She squealed dramatically. "Yáo, you heard that?" She elbowed the man.
"Unfortunately" Yáo sighed.
"Say another! Say another!" Olesya demanded, her body vibrating with mischief.
"Please don't" Both Ryland and Yáo pleaded. His boyfriend was fully red. The pilot just looked done for.
Tom grinned, clearing his throat. "We have such great chemistry, maybe we should do some biology next" He quoted one of the many science puns he had learned since he met Ryland.
Olesya laughed her ass off, almost bending over due to the pain in her stomach. His boyfriend covered his face with his hands to hide a mortified expression. And Yáo ignored them in order to pull out a wheeled whiteboard.
"Explain" Yáo told the scientists.
Ilyukhina calmed down and started. "Let's see. When we get to Tau Ceti, Mary will be completely tired, no more fuel. And we don't have a gas station nearby, do we?".
"But you do" Ryland continued. "Close to Tau Ceti there must be another star with a Petrova Line, per se, lots of astrophage. We just need to build something similar to the device we use to collect the samples".
"We attract the astrophage, trap it in a fuel tank and boom! Back home, baby!" Olesya finished. "Now, you. Talk" She prompted to Yáo.
"I say we should eliminate the third party. So we won't need too much food for the way back" Yáo reasoned.
Ilyukhina cheered, leading Ryland and Yáo to a group hug. They smiled, relieved, and high fived each other. Tom was happy they found a solution. The world and everyone in it could live, including the astronauts.
Hurray!
—
The day of the launch came again.
Colt felt the memory of the first launch, like one would feel an open wound. Despite having passed two years, he still couldn't forgive Eva Stratt. He barely made his peace with Carl, because he understood it was his job. But Stratt was a different piece of cake.
His brother, though, seemed to like her.
"What do you mean testify?" Colt questioned his twin.
"I mean that we can't let Eva go to jail. Everything she did was for the greater good" Ryland explained.
"And what? When they call us, we say 'Oh, she almost sent my brother to space, but most times, she's nice'" Colt bantered lightly, but reality was that he didn't want to do that.
"No. Just say that you think this was all for the best" Ryland sighed.
Colt huffed. "Fine. I'll see what I can do" He relented. "Let's just go say goodbye".
As before, a lot of people came to the launch to say goodbye to the astronauts. Just this time, Ilyukhina and Yáo were leaving alone. Ryland had spent a whole year training them in handling astrophage, and now they could go to Tau Ceti to retrieve some samples.
Ryland was to stay here to make more 'vaccines' for the sun while waiting for the beatles to come back. He said it would be easier if Stratt was with him, but even if he didn't admit it, his brother was fond of her. Betrayal and all, they were friends.
Colt thought that maybe if Dan betrayed him to save the world, he would forgive him... eventually. Ryland must have felt the same for Eva.
"–to say goodbye to our brave heroes, Captain Yáo Li-Jie and Engineer Olesya Ilyukhina, who are going in a journey to save our planet" Stratt was giving a speech. Everyone clapped, screaming their goodbyes. The astronauts were already in their induced coma, having said goodbye to their families beforehand.
Stratt's speech continued despite appearing to be over. "And I want you to say hello to another brave hero. Doctor Ryland Grace, who stays here, to keep our world save during the wait" Eva smiled, something rare for her.
A surprised Ryland made his way to the scenery, taking the microphone from Eva. "We will keep the world safe" He declared, holding her hand and looking at the cameras on them.
The Hail Mary launched with hopeful cheering and lots of tears. The Petrova Team –as Colt called them– organized a big party, karaoke, and everything. He and Jody were dancing when Eva started to sing 'Amazing Grace', her eyes shining with relief.
Later on, the world would defend Eva Stratt as one of the saviors of earth. Colt would too. Because if Ryland wasn't the sacrificial lamb, Eva didn't have to be the scapegoat. They could just be Ryland and Eva. Saviors of earth.
The world was saved. They were safe. And things were looking forward, so...
Eureka!