The Countdown

  I let out an audible gasp as the ship leveled out again. Open skies stretched before me on the screen. We’d somehow not only cleared the bay doors, but the ISA and the mountain entirely.

  “Kyra? Kyra, can you hear me?” It wasn’t Molly now, but Dr. Clarke, insistent. I smiled, guessing she was angry too.

  “I hear you,” I answered, but only because even though the signal wasn’t nearly as strong now, Dr. Clarke still intimidated me. But that didn’t change the fact that I was flying a freaking spaceship . . . not exactly the kind of thing that happens every day.

  “We need you to come back now . . .” I could hear her but she was definitely breaking up. Crackly.

  I looked at the screen, and reveled in the weightless feel of the spacecraft beneath and around me. I’d come back . . . I mean, of course I’d come back. “Five minutes,” I finally answered. “Just give me five more minutes.” And then I tipped forward and did something I knew they wouldn’t want me doing—I disabled the ship’s tracking device.

  She said something back to me, but I couldn’t make it out; it was too static-y. And then there was only white noise. Real white noise.

  I had no plan, no coordinates or destination in mind, so I leaned back and thought only, Go. Plain and simple.

  As if on a course of its own, the ship went, ascending higher and higher. My ears were congested, similar to the sensation when we’d plunged underground in the elevator, or the one time I’d flown across the country—to Florida—when my parents had taken me to Disney World when I was in the fourth grade. And like that time, I reached up to plug my nose so I could unblock them.

  Then, all at once, before my fingers even reached my nose, there was an explosion of lights—flashes that blinked in and out and all around my periphery. For a moment I thought I was seeing fireflies, that’s what my brain told me, how I processed them. But that wasn’t what they were at all.

  They were small bursts happening inside the ship, like miniature stars that formed and exploded and re-formed, all within a matter of milliseconds. All close enough that if I reached out, I might actually be able to touch them.

  The air is too thin, I thought fleetingly. I’ve gone too high. I’m not getting enough oxygen.

  But I was. Somehow I knew that what I was witnessing wasn’t an optical illusion caused by an oxygen-deprived brain.

  When the ship suddenly lurched forward, the shoulder harness locked in place. If I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn my entire body had just been turned inside out. My organs exposed, my heart beating right there in the open, my lungs slippery and raw. Everything else, my skin and hair and eyeballs felt like they’d been turned inward, while the force of the journey thrust me so hard against the back of the chair I was immobile.

  The whole thing lasted only moments . . . a breath . . . a heartbeat, maybe. And then the ship came to a sudden and complete stop, and everything went still and freakishly silent. My body, this body of mine went back to feeling . . . normal.

  Even without looking at the monitor I could have guessed where I was: in outer space.

  These stars were the stationary kind, unlike the ones I’d seen inside the cockpit. They didn’t burst like angry fireworks in the margins of my vision.

  But it was what appeared in front of me that got my attention—a giant glowing ball of some sort. The sun, I might have thought, except the shape wasn’t uniform, and there were shades of green and gold and even flashes of red bursting throughout it.

  A ship, I realized. This, I somehow knew, is where the signals have been coming from.

  Maybe I should have been afraid . . . probably terrified. But afraid was the last thing I was. Even curiosity somehow escaped me.

  “Go,” I said, this time out loud. The ship obeyed, leading me directly into the glowing orb ahead of me.

  SIMON

  DR. CLARKE’S FACE HIT A SHADE SO FAR PAST RED IT qualified as another color. “Someone tell me what the hell just happened!” She spun around to glare at everyone in the control room, including us, like we were the ones who’d let Kyra slip through those bay doors in the first place.

  But it confirmed what I’d suspected. What I saw, up on that screen . . . I hadn’t imagined it. The blip we’d been watching, the one we’d all been focused on because it represented Kyra—her ship—it had just . . .

  . . . vanished.

  The guy manning the radar screen was the jumpiest of all. You could tell he didn’t want to answer. “We, um . . . we lost her, ma’am,” he admitted at last.

  Dr. Clarke’s flinty gaze leveled on the poor guy. “Lost her? And how do you suppose that happened?”

  His eyes shifted toward the elevator as if he was seriously contemplating making a break for it. He undid the top button of his shirt, his fingers shaking. “She . . . the entire ship . . . they just dropped off the radar.”

  “Send up a drone,” she demanded without missing a beat. “I want the entire grid scanned for signs of that ship. If she crashed it, I want to know, and I want the wreckage recovered ASAP.” She turned to Molly, her jaw set. “Tell me you tagged her before you sent her up?”

  Molly nodded. “Of course.”

  Dr. Clarke granted Molly the most restrained smile. “Good. See if you can get a lock on it.”

  But they all seemed to be forgetting we were talking about Kyra here. “Tagged? What the hell did you do to her? You better not’ve hurt her.” I wished I could back my threat up somehow. Here, I doubted it held any weight.

  “It was nothing,” Molly reasoned. “Harmless. Nothing she was even aware of. We had to be prepared. Just in case.”

  “You mean, in case she crashed?” Tyler railed, and at least he had the balls to sound hacked about it, because this whole mess was bullshit.

  Dr. Clarke waved to someone at the door. “Get these kids out of here.”

  “No way!” Tyler insisted. “We’re staying.” And then, when one of the guys tried to grab him, he shoved back. “Get your hands off me!”

  Another one of the beefy security guards charged at me, and if I hadn’t been so worked up I might’ve pointed out that my guy was built like a bull . . . because—clearly—they considered me the bigger threat. I ducked away. “We’re not leaving ’til someone tells us what happened to Kyra. Where the hell is she?”

  “If we knew we wouldn’t be forced to track her, now would we?” Dr. Clarke enunciated, pressing her lips together. “But we will find her. We just need to focus. Now, please, just go upstairs and let us do our jobs. I promise, we’ll tell you if there’s news.”

  I glanced at Jett, who’d thrown his hands in the air the moment there was a hint things might get physical. Thanks for nothing, I told him with my glare.

  Sorry, he shrugged in return.

  Then Molly’s voice interrupted our silent altercation. “I think I’ve got something.” She pointed to the large monitor. “Yes! There! That’s her.” I saw what she meant, the tiny blip on the radar.

  But she had to be mistaken. The place she was indicating was way, way too far away, and not just because it was nowhere near us—near the mountains, or even near California. It was nowhere near Earth.

  She was implying Kyra was somewhere in space.

  “Where is that?” I asked, hoping someone would tell me I’d completely misread her position.

  Jett took several steps toward the screen, his hands still raised high above his head. And then he lowered one and pointed at something else. “The question is, what is that?”

  An enormous oscillating globe had appeared on the screen—one that hadn’t been there a moment before. It was like it had come out of nowhere. It pulsed and swelled, looking ominous next to the microscopic speck that was supposed to be Kyra’s ship.

  He glanced at me and Tyler, and then to Molly and Dr. Clarke and the others, to see if we were all catching this.

  I swallowed, wondering what Kyra must be seeing, if that was really her up there. What the hell was she up against?

  Just as
Jett turned back to the image, just as we all turned back, the giant blob began to break apart. Or rather smaller dots began to erupt out from the larger one. It happened fast, in synchronized bursts. Like the larger thing was releasing hundreds or thousands of smaller ones in rapid-fire succession, until there was an army of them.

  A fleet.

  “Holy shit,” Dr. Clarke breathed.

  “What the hell?” I asked, even though I felt like I already knew what I was witnessing.

  And before she could answer, the little dot that was supposed to be Kyra was swallowed up by the enormous mass in the center. And like that, we could no longer see her ship on the screen.

  “It looks like they’ve arrived,” Dr. Clarke said, shaking her head. “And they just captured Kyra.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THERE WAS . . .

  Nothing.

  Not blackness.

  Not light.

  Just this strange sense of timelessness, and . . .

  Nothing.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Days Remaining: Unknown

  COMING BACK.

  Again.

  I was a million times more terrified than when I’d taken off just a half hour earlier. Everything had changed. I knew things now.

  This time as I neared them, the bay doors were open, so at least I wasn’t taking my life in my hands. Not just yet anyway.

  By the time the ship touched down, there were men in biohazard suits already swarming it. It was definitely overkill for a joyride, but considering I’d told them I’d only be five minutes I was in no position to argue.

  Their ship, their rules.

  When I disembarked, I walked right into the middle of a plastic decontamination bubble they’d sealed around the steps. It was airtight, and made me wonder what exactly they were worried about.

  From the outside of the bubble, a man instructed me to strip down to my underwear—which, are you kidding me? The plastic didn’t make me invisible. But he was adamant, and he pointed at the jumpsuit he’d left for me—one that matched his own—to let me know he wasn’t going anywhere until I put it on.

  After realizing I had no choice, I held it up. “Seriously?” I double-checked my watch. “All this because I was gone for less than an hour?”

  He didn’t answer, just smiled politely while he waited.

  “This is crazy,” I muttered.

  No response.

  I stripped while he gave me the courtesy of pretending not to watch, and once I was changed, he said through the plastic, “Hold your breath.”

  Before I could ask why, the entire tent filled up with a yellow smog-like substance, and I did as he’d instructed, afraid I might choke on the stuff.

  When Mr. Personality finally dubbed me cootie-free, I was released from the toxic shower and escorted to some sort of interview room with only a table and two chairs.

  Proving worthy of the nickname I’d silently given him, Mr. Personality told me, “Wait here,” in his android-like voice.

  “Yes, sir.” I would have saluted, but I was worried even that pinch of sarcasm would blow his robot brain.

  I was restless during the twenty minute or so wait—I had no way of knowing how long it was exactly, since along with my clothes, my watch had also been confiscated. I tried doing a jumpsuit makeover, rolling and unrolling the sleeves to see if there was any improvement one way or the other. I pulled the zipper all the way to my chin, and then dragged it partway down again, opting for a more casual look.

  In the end though, a jumpsuit was a jumpsuit. Besides, there were more important things to worry about.

  All I really wanted was to get out of there and back to my friends, but no one would say if or when that might be. So when Dr. Clarke and Molly finally appeared, I practically launched myself at them, knocking over the plastic chair I’d been perched on.

  “What’s happening?” I asked. “Where are Tyler, Simon, and Jett?” I’d expected to find them waiting for me when I came back.

  Dr. Clarke wore a strange expression on her face, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d swear she was onto me. Like she somehow knew what had happened up there.

  But she couldn’t. There was no way she knew the things I’d discovered, I reminded myself.

  “Where were you?” she hissed. “What the hell happened?”

  I kept my cool, sticking to my plan. “Um, I think the phrase you’re trying to come up with is: you’re welcome.” I took a step back from her. I crossed my arms over my chest, my back rigid. “Not only did I fly your little spaceship, but I brought it back in one piece. Or was that not the point?” I challenged.

  Dr. Clarke eyed me. “Is there something you want to say to us?”

  She was probably waiting for some sort of explanation about the ship’s tracking system. I didn’t have to admit to shutting it down or anything. For all she knew it was an internal malfunction. How was I supposed to know why it had glitched?

  But I could at least try to act like I felt bad over how long I’d been gone.

  I let out a breath and wrung my hands in front of me. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be gone so long, I just . . . Where are my dad and the others?” I bit my lip. “I want to make sure they’re okay. Can I see them?”

  Dr. Clarke glanced at Molly, and I got the sense it was a nod. A Go ahead. You do the talking.

  Molly took an entirely different approach. Her voice was more soothing. We’re friends, you and me, her tone suggested. She was definitely Good Cop. “Sure. I get it. They’re fine. We took your friends back upstairs so they could wait with the others . . .” She glanced at Dr. Clarke. “Until you came back.”

  “Look, I know I said five minutes, but couldn’t they have just waited a little longer?”

  The two exchanged a look I couldn’t decipher, and Dr. Clarke’s brows raised. “We’ll need to debrief you,” she stated, all Bad Cop. “We need to go over your timeline, every second of your mission.”

  My mission, is that what they were calling this? Was that typical, to do a debriefing, just routine stuff?

  Good Cop put her arm around my shoulder and led me toward the door. “Come on. We can do that later. For now, let’s get you upstairs so you can see for yourself that everything’s A-OK. Then when you’re feeling better we can do that debrief. Sound good?”

  Dr. Clarke wasn’t thrilled by Molly’s suggestion, but I, for one, was happy to see the door shut behind us. I was in no hurry to be interrogated by Dr. Clarke.

  I was already assembling a list. A people-not-to-trust list. After my brief encounter back there, Dr. Clarke was at the very top.

  I wondered how much she knew about all this. How deep her involvement ran. How dirty her hands had gotten.

  The sooner we got the hell outta here, the better.

  But things were never that simple.

  I’d learned too much, and we were past the point of just making a run for it and hoping for the best.

  The Interstellar Space Agency was nothing they claimed to be—the peace-seeking scientists who worked selflessly to establish interplanetary contact.

  We’d been duped.

  From here on out, I had to proceed carefully . . . calculate every word that came out of my mouth, watch every step I made. If I didn’t, not only would my dad and my friends pay the price . . . but possibly all of mankind.

  Blondie had been wrong. It wasn’t just a probability they were on their way. They were already here.

  And our entire planet, along with everyone and everything on it, was at stake.

  The Earth.

  But there was a way I could stop it. It was a huge burden, and I had no intention of taking that burden lightly.

  “Sorry about all that . . . back there,” Molly said when we reached the door to where we’d been staying . . . where my dad and the others were assembled now. “Dr. Clarke’s not a bad person, just a little intense.” She shrugged.

  She was intense all right.

  I waited while Molly entered the
code on the keypad, and I wondered when that had been instituted. “What’s with the security? I thought we were free to come and go. Are we being kept prisoner now?”

  She paused, right before hitting Enter. “This is for your own good.” Then she pressed the last button.

  I averted my gaze because none of this—the secrets, the security, the debriefings—were for our good. Whether she admitted it or not, I knew the truth. I bit my tongue—it was the smart thing to do, to just shut up. But seriously?

  The door clicked open and for a moment I stopped thinking about Molly and Dr. Clarke, and about whether we were really safe or not. The people I loved, the people I knew I could trust, were all around me.

  Simon only said, “Where the hell . . .” before Jett added, “. . . they made us leave . . . locked us in . . .” and hugged me hard.

  It was reassuring to be surrounded by them, even Willow, who wrapped her arms around me. It was kind of like being mauled by a bear and my instinct was to go limp so she’d stop pawing me.

  Simon shoved Willow aside, then clung to me in a way that made me feel like he’d just won some huge trophy—something to be treasured, but also something to gloat over.

  Tyler came next, and while he was more restrained than Simon, there was something gentle in his touch, something sweet that made me feel cherished. “I have so many things to say to you.” He said it so silently it was more like listening to a memory . . . a whisper from the past. The low timbre of his voice, and the feel of him against me, made me wish it were just the two of us . . . alone together, for a very long time.

  Griffin sat hunched over a table in the corner, scribbling furiously on a scrap of paper as she poured every ounce of concentration she could muster into whatever she was writing or drawing. Her pen stilled only once, and that was when Tyler reached for me. From where I stood, I couldn’t tell if she was concentrating to keep her distance from her dad, or to stay away from me.