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“What the heck is this?”
Director Grace stares wide-eyed at the paper set in front of him, glasses slipping down his nose.
Stratt just points to the top where NOTICE OF RESIGNATION is printed in bold letters.
“No— I got that, I can read.” He drags his hand over his face. “But— Stratt— what the hell?”
Stratt shrugs. “I am resigning from the project, Director.”
He stares up at her, then down to the paper, then back to her again. “Wh— why? We're making such good progress!”
“My work here is done,” Stratt says simply. “I have done all I can for the project.”
“That's not true.” Grace shook his head. “You still have a lot to contribute! There's always more to understand about astrophage, you're still needed for consulting, and the astronauts are just getting started with this stuff and need an expert around.”
“These are not my specialties. I’m a researcher, not a teacher. Many people now know what I do. Someone more suited—”
He flails an arm out in a flabbergasted gesture. “There's not anyone more suited, are you kidding me? Stratt, we still need you here.”
“I can be of more use on land,” Stratt argues. “In labs helping develop food and medicine. I can’t stay here.”
“What kind of messed up logic is that?! The launch is in two years Stratt, you can't wait two years?”
“I can't.”
“You can’t?!”
“I told you. My work is done.”
Grace stares at her, mouth agape, before looking down nervously. He wrings his hands together. “I don’t know how to make you realize how important you are to the project.”
“I know my worth,” Stratt says simply. “And I know what I need to do.”
“...I don’t think you do.” He shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath. “Please, please reconsider,” he asks, eyes squeezed shut. “I can't do all of this without you.”
Stratt softens, slightly. “You can,” she promises. “You're smart. You'll figure it out.”
Grace opens his eyes at her, brow furrowed and mouth drawn into a frown. “Is there anything— anything— I can do to change your mind?”
She shakes her head. “No.”
He grimaces. Then, he stands and walks around the desk to stand in front of her, a hand coming up to ruffle through his already messy hair. She wonders how the world takes him so seriously, with his blazer and blue jeans combination. He’s always wearing those sneakers, too.
“I… gosh.” Grace laughs, short and breathless. “C’mon Stratt, don't make me do this.”
Stratt blinks. “Do what?”
He leans back on his desk and looks up at the ceiling, then down at her with a sympathetic look on his face. Somehow that makes her uneasy. Shouldn’t he be angry? Or maybe even happy to see her go? “I mean… do you think I can really just let you walk away from this?”
Stratt straightens, a bit offended. “You're not letting me do anything. I’m tendering my resignation. You can refuse it if you insist, but you cannot stop me from quitting.”
He tilts his head to the side, sucking in his teeth, then says, “Well, uh, I actually can.”
She scoffs. “What?”
Grace pushes off the desk, and she can’t help but take a step back. He’s starting to make her nervous.
“Dr. Stratt,” he says, almost gently, “you're on my aircraft carrier. You're surrounded by my soldiers and employees, with my jets the only way out. Nothing happens here unless I say so.” He rubs his eyes under his glasses, and it's so disarmingly him that it makes her stomach drop. “I’m honestly not sure what made you think this was optional.”
Stratt suddenly becomes very, very aware of how much bigger than her he is, of how he’s gotten closer as he talked, of how he’s looming over her.
“I don't know what you're talking about, director.” She straightens, pulls her bravado around her like a heavy coat, stands her ground. “I want to leave. I volunteered for this project and I want out.” She hardens her voice. “Now.”
“I know. And I’m sorry, but I'm saying no,” he says firmly, but kindly. Like a teacher.
“I’m not asking for permission.”
He raises his eyebrows at her. “Good, because I’m not giving it.”
This isn’t happening. Stratt shakes her head, so furiously her hair whips in her face. “You can’t possibly— you can't hold me against my will. This is criminal.”
“Criminal?” He laughs, a short, humorless thing. “Stratt, we nuked the freaking Antarctic. You signed off on that. We, you and me,” and he gestures violently between them, “we decided to wreck our planet for everyone. And now suddenly it affects you, and you get all high and mighty? I don't think so.”
“I’m a German citizen,” she tries. “This is kidnapping. They'll never let you get away with this.”
“Stratt,” he says slowly, like she’s a particularly stupid schoolchild, “They already have.”
The realization comes, too late: Grace is serious. He’s actually not going to let her leave. Panic seizes her chest with sharp claws and all her bravery and iron walls are suddenly gone, leaving her shaking. In front of her eyes he morphs from Grace, her kind of dorky friend, to the Director, the most powerful man in the world.
I have to get out of here.
He must read something on her face, because he reaches out a hand for her, face lighting with alarm. “Whoa, hey. Why don’t we sit down and talk this over? Just relax.”
Relax? Stratt stumbles back away from him, towards the door, hand scrambling for the knob.
“Stratt, there's guards out there,” he sighs, sounding resigned, his hand dropping back to his side. “You're not going anywhere.”
“Watch me,” she snaps. She unlocks the door and shoves it out of her way, darting past the surprised guards and into the bowels of the ship, with no plan but get away.
——————
Grace’s face is buried in his hands when the chirp comes from his radio.
“Yeah,” he grumbles into it.
“We got her.” Carl’s steady voice is like a balm on his soul. He breathes out in relief. Not like she could go anywhere but, y’know, better to not have a panicked civilian running around an aircraft carrier.
“Awesome, great, perfect. Bring her back here, please? We weren't done talking.”
There's a pause on the other side. “That might be difficult. Not sure if you want us walking by the crew.” Grace hears a loud curse in German from somewhere near Carl. He’s almost impressed. She must’ve said it pretty loud to get caught on the radio.
Darn it, Stratt, why do you have to be so stubborn? Pain in my butt. He doesn't know how she got it in her head that she was better off helping the world somewhere else, but once she has something like that she is not letting go. He remembers admiring that about her when she dogged his footsteps to get onto the project. Why is she doing this to me?
Well, dragging her kicking and screaming through the ship at 8 in the morning wouldn’t work. He’s trying to avoid any huge blows to morale like the second in command finally realizing he’s kidnapped her. So much for that. He turns the radio on and sighs into it, long and dramatic.“Okay, um, let’s just get her sedated. Not anything intense, okay? I want her awake by tonight, at most. If anyone asks, she just passed out.”
He feels bad, but if she didn’t want to be drugged so much she should’ve just listened to him.
“Got it. You still want her in your office?”
“Yeah, thanks, Carl. You’re the best.”
Grace sets the radio down and pulls up his laptop while he waits. No use wasting time. He still needs to lay out his schedule for when he’s in the Netherlands next week, but now that his lead scientist has gone and gotten herself labeled a flight risk he’s going to have to set up some precautions when he needs her to come along.
——————
One moment, Stratt is restrained by guards, feeling the pinch of something on her neck, and the next she’s blinking awake.
There's a soft surface under her, and her head is propped up. The walls and ceiling are bathed in the golden light of sunset and deeply familiar.
She’s back in the Director’s office.
At the desk, Grace is looking at her over his glasses, papers in hand, like she had stepped in while he was in the middle of something. “Oh good, you’re up. Hey, come check this out, I need your opinion.”
Stratt sits up slowly, head pounding, muscles protesting at every move. She would think this was a dream if not for how much pain she's in. “What?” She croaks out, her throat and mouth dry as cotton.
He gestures for her with a hand. “C’mon.”
Stratt stares at him, then around the room. How did she get back here…? Her eyes lock on the door.
“I wouldn't.”
She whips her head to face him, caught.
He gives her a sheepish smile, shrugs. “They're ready for you this time.”
Stratt tries to swallow past her parched throat. She feels herself swaying in her seat, and she’s pretty sure she’d meet with the floor pretty quick if she tried to stand.
Grace frowns, then, and stands up. Stratt tenses as he strolls around his desk, picking up the stack of papers he was looking through and a bottle of water. She leans away from him as he sits next to her, dipping the cushy leather down with his weight.
“Here.” He sets the papers on his knee, then uncaps and holds out the bottle. He wiggles it when she doesn't take it. “C’mon, you’ve gotta be thirsty. It’s just water, Stratt.”
She doesn’t really want to take anything from him ever again, but she’s so thirsty that she can’t help herself, snatching it from his hands and taking a huge gulp. Then another, and another, until the bottle is empty and she’s shaking droplets into her mouth.
He’s watching her, eyes glittering with amusement as she finally finishes. “Better?” He asks.
The wave of fury comes suddenly, and the bottle crinkles in her hand. “You drugged me.”
His face scrunches up, tilting his head to the side. “Well, yeah. Sorry about that, I’m sure that sucked. But uh, you’re fine now! No drugs in the water or anything, I promise.”
Stratt doesn’t even have words for him.
“…Well, the thing is, we never finished our talk.” He straightens the papers on his knee, almost nervously. “First of all, gotta ask— What can I do to make you more happy here?”
“You can let me go.” She means it to sound cold, but it comes out as a beg more than anything.
He laughs, as if it was a joke. “Okay, besides that.”
She stares down at her hands.
After a moment, he sighs.
“Okay. I know you’re upset by all this, but just hear me out.” She hears him shuffle the papers. “I have two options for you. You can either get locked in your room with nothing to do for the next two years except some crosswords, if I’m feeling generous, or you can go ahead and keep doing your job like normal. How’s that sound?”
“Why,” She finally looks over at him, searing him with a glare. “Would I ever go back to helping you.”
“Whoa-ho-ho. If looks could kill.” He raises his hands. “I mean, Stratt— it’s not helping me, it’s helping Earth. You do want to help the world, right? That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?”
Stratt doesn’t reply.
“Right, that’s what I thought. Well, this is me telling you that sorry, you’re wrong, you can’t help from some other lab, okay? You’re stuck here, and you can either help the world, or you can just do nothing.” He leans forward. “And I don’t think you could stand doing nothing while the world freezes.” He gives a wry smile. “Not even to spite me.”
She hates, hates that he’s right. But she can hold on to her spite much longer than he thinks.
“You think you can wait me out. And yeah, maybe you could try. But I really don’t think you would want to waste the world’s time like that.” He picks a paper out of the stack and holds it out to her.
She doesn’t take it, but she can see on the top: Projected Casualties. Her stomach lurches.
“Stratt.” His voice is low and serious. ‘We lose more people every day. I know you look at these numbers all the time.”
“So you don’t need to show it to me again.” She wants her voice to be strong, but she’s shaking.
“A quarter of the population, as a conservative estimate,” he continues anyway. “That number goes up every time the Hail Mary runs into some problem or another.”
“I know,” she says quietly.
“Every minute we waste, Stratt, is someone starved.” He shakes the paper for emphasis. “We can’t afford to lose focus.”
Stratt stares at the ground.
Grace sighs. The paper is slid out of sight. “…You know, I really didn’t want this job. I really, really didn’t. But they said— ‘Hey! Former NASA admin Ryland Grace! We want you, no one else will do!’” The paper crumples, and there’s a whoosh of his arm moving. “They said only someone who’s been out of the game could be trusted. And, well, a couple years as a middle school history teacher will do it.”
She knows this. She always looks up the background of anyone who she’ll work with.
“I said no.” She hears him shuffle, huff out a nervous laugh. “‘Course I said no! I mean, shoot, I was kicked out for a reason, you know?”
…He said no? He was given an opportunity to save humanity, and he said no? She feels her brows furrowing. Stratt had imagined he’d vied for this position, for the undeniable power that came with it but also for the sacrifices.
“But it was… impressed upon me the level of, um, destruction. And, I dunno, I just thought of my kids. My students. And I figured…” She hears him shuffle again, and she thinks he’s shrugging but she refuses to look at him. “I’d be dead if I didn’t, so I’d better get on this whole world saving thing,”
She’s struck, then, by his selfishness. By his concerns with his own small world, his classroom, this boat, the ideas he believes will save his world and more importantly himself. He had to be convinced to even care.
And he won’t even let her do what she believes needs to be done.
“...Okay. Alright, I have one more thing to offer you.”
She finally looks at him and glares. He’s not looking at her, instead shifting through his stack of papers. “I don’t want any of your bribes,” Stratt says as coldly as she can muster. Her voice is raspy, but he still winces.
Grace grabs another paper from the stack and offers it to her. She doesn’t take this one either, and he shakes it at her, eyes pleading. “Please take this one. You’ve not seen this before.”
She eyes him, but takes it, her curiosity regretfully piqued.
This paper isn’t a graph of human suffering, a categorization of Earth’s dark, cold days ahead, but is simply a list of very few names.
HAIL MARY: SCIENCE OFFICER ROSTER
Martin DuBois (Primary)
Annie Shapiro (Secondary)
Eva Stratt (Tertiary)
“I’m not an astronaut,” She says immediately, looking up to frown at him.
He huffs and rolls his eyes, resting his hands on his knees. “Yeah, Stratt, I know. That’s why you’re tertiary. But like I said— you know more about astrophage than anyone else on the planet.”
“If this is a threat,” she says, almost dryly, "it is not a very good one.”
“Nah, not a threat. It’s kinda a bribe, like you said. Although this was already my plan so, y’know, this is more, like, me letting you know. So that you don't start thinking you're wasting your time here.” He shrugged. “Again.”
The paper catches her attention again. Stratt brushes her thumb over her name, printed in simple unassuming font. Is this why he kept her around, for all of his plans on plans on plans? The list on the paper stops after her name, but she knows he must have more.
“You stay here, work with me,” He promises lowly, “and you’ll stay on that list.”
She turns to him, annoyed, shaking the paper. “You didn’t tell me this.”
He can’t seem to help the smile creeping onto his face. “Sorry. Most people would go running for the hills if they knew they were on the shortlist for a suicide mission.” He plucks the paper back from her hand and raises his brows at her. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t, like, look into medicines or whatever. I’m just asking you to stick around until the launch. We got a deal?”
Stratt stands, wavering for a moment. “Whoa,” he says, standing with her and holding out a hand to catch her, but she doesn't fall.
“I have to get back to the lab,” she says, forcing her voice clipped and business-like. “I lost too much time today.”
“Alright! Guess that’s a yes.” He smiles down at her over his glasses. “Take it easy though, alright? You were uh, just… y’know.”
Grace walks her out, waving off the guards at his door. Stratt feels the director’s eyes on her as she walks away, feels it all the way to the lab where his cameras and his people watch her. She gets the feeling she’ll never be able to shake him.
It’s all for Earth. It’s always all for Earth.