Chapter Text
The press conference was finally wrapping up, and I discretely pulled out my phone to see if anything was scheduled yet about getting us back to the Vat. There wasn’t. I tapped idly on my text messages. Maybe I should text Marissa. If they weren’t going to ship all us “science communicators” back ASAP–if they would leave us all in California until the group at the JPL was done, which would take at least another day–we might be able to meet up … .
Then I heard my name. Mentally kicking myself, I pulled my attention back to the room. “Sorry, what?”
“I have a question for Dr. Grace,” someone in the back of the crowd repeated. Nothing more specific, and no identification by publication—huh. Someone who didn’t know they were supposed to do that—a niche science-y Substack blog, maybe? We had a few of those on the invite list.
“Hit me,” I said.
“Yeah, this might be a bit weird, but, uh— Are you adopted?”
What.
The crowd buzzed in irritation too. This was a press conference. More than that, it was a science-focused press conference; the people here ran the gamut from science reporters for major news outlets like CNN and the New York Times to things like Popular Mechanics to people working for industry publications in the sustainable energy sphere. Embezzler Bob probably hadn’t even had to bribe most of them to be here. The point is, nobody was here for gossip.
“Uh,” I said, glancing over at the other Project staff. They were all either looking at me with various degrees of confusion or frowning into the audience with what looked like annoyance on my behalf, which was nice. Steve Hatch’s sister-in-law (communications and PR lead for the beetles, usually pretty good with people) gave me a sympathetic grimace and a shrug: I don’t know how to deal with this one either, sorry.
I looked back at the audience, trying to see the person who had spoken. “Yeah, that is weird, and I don’t see what that—”
“—’cause I am,” the voice continued, and I could see people moving and hear the tone of the murmurs changing as someone pushed their way to the front, “and I saw you on the news and I think we might be related.”
The guy who stepped out in front was about twice as wide as me, in a leather jacket and a baseball cap with some company logo on it. He looked up at me as he pulled the hat off and gestured between the two of us.
Holy crap. Holy freaking crap.
I might have said that out loud.
“Yeeeeah,” said me from the cool dimension.
~~~
“Sorry to crash your thing,” the guy in the jacket said. We’d ducked out of the big auditorium into the hallway, where Carl had given him a once-over, given me an eyebrows-raised look, and pointed us both into a much smaller conference room. I didn’t feel too bad about leaving. Everyone else could finish mopping up the press conference while I navigated the Twilight Zone. “I couldn’t get in touch with you. Any calls or emails I tried to make kind of went into the void. I had to use the Project Hail Mary public contact info to do it, so your people on the project probably thought I was crazy. Which, y’know, reasonable assumption, some crank calls up and says he thinks he’s secretly the brother of one of the main scientists, but . . . .”
“Uh, no,” I stammered. “I mean, yeah. You’re definitely . . . not crazy.” I kept staring at him. It was rude, but seriously! It’s not every day your doppleganger (brother?) shows up. Fortunately, he seemed to be having the same problem.
“It’s like looking in a mirror,” he said, shaking his head. “A weird alternate-reality mirror.”
He was right. We were both still awkwardly standing, so I could tell we were about the same height. His hair was longer than mine, and maybe a little darker--his beard was scruffier and there was a tiny scar over one eyebrow—he wasn’t wearing glasses--but essentially, we had the same face.
He also looked like he could bench-press me, but whatever.
I shook my head to snap out of it. Reasonable explanation time. He’d already proposed a theory, and I thought it was a good one. “You asked—yeah, I was adopted. Don’t know anything about my biological parents. I tried looking them up when I was twenty, after Mom and Dad—my adoptive parents—there was a car crash . . . .”
He flinched. “Oh, shit. I’m sorry.”
I’ve never been sure how to react to that in general, and I was definitely not sure how to respond to it from this guy. “Thanks. Anyway. After that, I wanted to see if I had any other family, I guess. I tried to find out. There was a note on file that said they didn’t want to be contacted, and there wasn’t anything in there about any siblings. I’d think there would have been, but I’ve heard about other situations were families get split up, so.” I shrugged. “You?”
He fidgeted with the cap. Up close, I could see that it read Fall Guy Productions. “Same—about no contact information, I mean. My folks are fine. There wasn’t anything about any siblings for me either, but, I mean . . . ” He gestured at my face again with his free hand. “What else could this be, right?”
Well, the people handling PR at the Project who screened out his calls could be right and he was crazy, but if so, there would have to be some serious plastic surgery involved. And why on Earth would anyone get obsessed with me? How would the average person even know I existed? There were way more prominent people involved with Project Hail Mary.
“How did you learn about me?”
“You were on the news. It was a clip from another press briefing, I guess. My girlfriend saw it and sent it to me. At first she thought it was someone’s weird joke and she was really mad about it.” I raised my eyebrows. He waved a hand dismissively. “Someone did a deepfake of me once before. Tried to frame me for murder. Long story. But when we realized this was real--”
“Hold on, tried to frame you for murder?”
“—I knew I had to talk with you. I had to see you in real life, at least, to make sure it wasn’t just that clip, it’s not just a coincidence where we look a little bit alike under the right circumstances. I know what that’s like, I know how to push that, I’m a stunt double, that’s my job—and this is so much more than that. You—I—we—” He’d dropped the cap onto the conference table now and waved both hands back-and-forth, a give-and-take gesture. It’s the same gesture I used explaining conservation of momentum to my class. “We actually look the same. Like, exactly the same.”
I had so many questions.
“I have so many questions,” I said. “Where did you grow up? What’s your birthday? Why did someone try to frame you for murder?”
“San Diego, March 15th, the actor I doubled for was a narcissistic asshole and the producer was evil.”
That really didn’t explain much, but I was focused on another piece of information. “March fif-- 1990?”
He nodded.
I reached out to steady myself on one of the swivel chairs, then switched to leaning against the table instead, because swivel chairs aren’t exactly steadying.
“We’re twins,” I heard myself say. “Twins. Got to be. I mean, we can do a DNA test, I bet Carl knows how to get one sent here, and we can confirm it, but that’s my birthday.”
“Holy shit,” the other guy said, his face twisting into a strange expression. My own face felt pretty strange too. I wondered if it looked the same.
“I don’t even know your name,” I said blankly.
“Oh—sorry—Colt Seavers,” said my twin. (My twin!) He awkwardly put his hand out, and I shook it, even more awkwardly.
“Ryland Grace. But you knew that.”
“Yeah. Thanks for, um, saving the world stuff, by the way.”
“That makes me sound way more important than I am.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “I do a little of my own research, a little administration stuff, a little coordination—I kind of fell into it. I teach seventh and eighth grade science in real life. You do . . . . movie action stuff?”
“How do you fall into being the world’s leading expert on the stuff that’s eating the sun?”
“How do you get framed for murder by your coworkers?” I shot back.
“You wanna get a beer?” Colt offered.
“God yes.”