Transmission

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Around the room, Kevin could hear the murmuring of the scientists and the reporters as they started to realize the same thing Kevin did.

The inside of the “capsule” was just a solid, rocky surface. There was no hollow, no sign of any advanced technology. The rock that the scientists had just cut through was…

…well, it was a rock.

Instantly, there was uproar, as a hundred reporters shouted questions simultaneously. On the screen, the scientists were looking just as shocked, standing there as if they didn’t know what to do next.

“How would you like us to proceed, Professor Brewster?” one asked. “Professor Brewster?”

He didn’t answer. From what Kevin could see, he was too busy standing there red-faced, not knowing how to respond.

“Professor Brewster, what’s going on?” a journalist called out above the others.

“Is this some kind of joke?” another managed to shout.

“Why is this rock empty?” a third yelled.

Kevin could see Professor Brewster looking around as if there were someone who might have all the answers for him. He looked so embarrassed in that moment that Kevin actually felt sorry for him.

“I… I don’t…” Professor Brewster said. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, but there has been some kind of mistake…”

***

Kevin had never been as disappointed as he felt on the flight back to San Francisco with the others. They were going to head back to the institute, because they had equipment to take back, and because Professor Brewster had said something about wanting to do a proper debrief there. Right then, though, a part of Kevin just wanted to run home and hide.

 He sat there, hoping for the sensation that would come before a signal, hoping that there would be some kind of answer, an explanation, but there was nothing. There hadn’t been for so long now it was hard to remember that the signals had been real, that they hadn’t just been a figment of his imagination. He huddled in on himself, not sure what to think, or what to do right then.

Perhaps it was the headphones, but no one bothered him there. His mother sat beside him on the plane. Everyone else seemed to keep their distance, even people like Phil, Ted, and Dr. Levin, as if someone had warned them against getting too close, telling them that it would hurt them now by association with Kevin’s failure.

It was his. He’d been the one to decode all the signals. He’d been the one to lead them to South America, and then to the spot where the meteorite lay in the small lake. Something had gone wrong somewhere, and Kevin couldn’t help feeling that he’d been the one to get it wrong.

“Don’t blame yourself,” his mother insisted, obviously guessing what Kevin was thinking about. “You couldn’t know it would turn out like this. Maybe we should all have been more careful about going along with it.”

That sounded as though his mother was blaming herself for ever taking Kevin to SETI in the first place. Maybe she was thinking that she should have been firmer about it.

“I don’t know what went wrong, Mom,” Kevin said. “I mean, I heard the signals. And we found the capsule right where they said it would be.”

“We found something,” his mother corrected him gently. “Maybe we were all so eager to find it that we assumed we knew what it would be. We all got ourselves convinced.”

Except that it had been Kevin who had convinced them, because he’d been the one hearing the signals. They were real. They’d come through the institute’s listening equipment. Everyone had heard them. If so, why hadn’t the capsule been where it should be?

“What will happen to the capsule now?” Kevin asked.

“I don’t know,” his mother said. “I think I saw them loading it onto the plane. I guess no one cares who owns it now that it’s just a rock. That doesn’t matter right now, though. The important thing is that we get you back safely.”

Something about the way she said that told Kevin that his mother was worried about being able to do it. She sounded as though she was expecting trouble, and Kevin couldn’t understand why.

He understood once they landed, though, stepping down from the plane and then out into the arrival lounge. Almost as soon as they did, a wall of voices hit him, camera flashes going off everywhere.

“Why did you do it, Kevin?” one reporter called out.

“Tell us all that it’s not a hoax!” a man near the back shouted.

“We believed in you!”

There were reporters there, but there were other people too, some with placards, some just shouting. None of them looked happy to see Kevin there. They mobbed around the scientists, pressing in as they started to unload their gear. The meteorite was in amongst it somewhere. Now that there was no sign of aliens, no one cared if they took it back to the NASA facility.

“Is it right that the public pays for all this when you are going off to Colombia to chase rocks?” one reporter called out. “Don’t you think that this is a waste of money that could be spent on schools or the military?”

People came forward, still shouting questions, and for a moment or two, Kevin found them pressing in on all sides. He lost sight of his mother in the crush, and then it was like he was drowning in the camera flashes, the questions coming so fast as to be almost deafening.

“Why did you lie, Kevin?”

“Was this just to get attention?”

“Was it all about your illness?”

Kevin kept his head down, not knowing what to say. He looked for a way through the mob, but everywhere he looked there were people looking at him with accusing expressions. Some grabbed for him; not the reporters, but they were happy enough to take pictures as the people with the signs did it.

“Fraud! Liar!”

Kevin huddled in further, and he felt as though at any minute he might fall to the ground under the weight of them all, pushed down by the sheer numbers of people around him. Another hand fastened onto him, but this one kept hold, pulling him through the crush. Kevin saw Ted there, pushing back anyone who got too close, his hand up to get in the way of the camera flashes.

“Keep moving!” he called out above the noise. “There’s a car waiting outside!”

Kevin did his best, not stopping as Ted carved a path through the reporters like someone pushing their way through deep snow. Kevin hurried to fit into that space before it closed up again, following as they fought their way forward, toward the airport’s main entrance.

“Out here!” Ted said, pointing to where a minivan stood waiting, Kevin’s mother and half a dozen scientists already inside. There was a brief moment of space there, and Kevin ran for the vehicle, jumping in beside his mother. She clung to him as if afraid that if she let go he would disappear. For once, Kevin didn’t complain.

Ted drove, fitting into a convoy of vehicles that felt as tense, in some ways, as the one through the rainforest had. Kevin saw cars drive up close, their windows rolling down to reveal more cameras, but Ted kept driving.

It seemed to take forever before they reached the NASA facility. The crowds that had surrounded it before were still there, but now they weren’t curious, they were angry. Kevin could hear them shouting as they drove in, and when Ted stopped in front of the doors to the institute, Kevin ran inside without hesitation. He didn’t even try to talk to them, to explain. He wasn’t sure that he had an explanation. Instead, Kevin just ran back to his room in the facility. He ignored his mother when she followed, sitting there hoping that somehow, some of it would make sense.

When it didn’t, he went to one of the recreation rooms and used a computer there to call the one person who might understand what was happening to him.

Luna looked worried when Kevin called, and Kevin could guess why.

“You saw the broadcast,” he said.

“I think everyone saw the broadcast,” Luna replied. “I don’t get it. I thought that there was supposed to be some special… I don’t know, alien stuff.”

“I thought so too,” Kevin said. “Now… I’m sure I got the signals right.”

“Don’t start that,” Luna said, in her firm voice. “Don’t start doubting all of this. I was there when you saw the numbers, remember? I know that this is real.”

It felt good to be believed, particularly by Luna. There was something reassuringly solid about Luna’s belief. It was the kind that people could have built on, unwavering and strong. Kevin needed that right then.

“You might not want to go back to your house right now,” Luna said. “You know how there have been reporters around it since this started?”

Kevin nodded.

“Well, now there are like twice as many, plus a bunch of other people who don’t look happy. It’s like a mob or something.”

“It’s because I gave them a dream,” Kevin said. “And they think that I lied to them.”

“Well, they shouldn’t blame you,” Luna said. “I mean, I was watching that broadcast. That Professor Brewster himself said the rock was from outer space.”

That wasn’t enough, though, was it?

“I don’t think that will make things better,” Kevin said. “They’ll say it was just some random meteorite. There are plenty of those.”

In fact, he suspected that it would make things worse, because if there was one person who didn’t like being made to look stupid, it was…

“Kevin,” his mother called from the doorway. She was standing there with Phil. “You need to come with us. Professor Brewster wants to speak with you and me.”

Kevin swallowed, because that sounded far too much like when the principal wanted to talk to someone at school.

“Looks like I have to go,” Kevin said to Luna.

“Okay,” Luna replied. “Just remember, this isn’t your fault.”

Kevin tried to remember that as he made his way with his mother and Phil through the facility. Ordinarily the researcher might have joked around, but now he had a serious look, and barely said anything, just opening the doors ahead of them as he had to. When they got to Professor Brewster’s office, Phil didn’t say anything, just turned and left.

“What was that about?” Kevin asked his mother.

“I think a lot of people are hurt by how angry people are at them,” she said. “They all believed that they would find aliens and… they didn’t, Kevin.” She took his hand. “You’ve got to be prepared. I… I don’t think this will be good.”

They went into Professor Brewster’s office. He was waiting for them, sitting behind his desk, looking formal, even imposing. He didn’t say hello as they came in, just gestured for Kevin and his mother to sit down in two chairs in front of his desk.

“Kevin,” he said, “Ms. McKenzie, we need to talk.” He paused, looking at Kevin as if trying to see into him. “Kevin, I need to ask you, did you make all of this up?”

“How dare you ask my son that?” his mother demanded, half rising out of her chair. “Kevin is not a liar.”

“Please sit down, Ms. McKenzie,” Professor Brewster said. “Kevin, did you make this up?”

Kevin couldn’t believe that he was asking that.

“No,” Kevin said, shaking his head.

“Are you sure?”

“This is uncalled for,” Kevin’s mother said. “You have no right to ask this.”

Professor Brewster steepled his fingers. “Given the amount of money that the government has put into this project, not only do I have the right to ask it, I have the obligation. Kevin?”

“You heard the signals,” Kevin said. “I didn’t make it up!”

“I heard signals, yes,” Professor Brewster said. “But you were the only one who could ‘translate’ them, and space is full of electromagnetic oddities.”

“I didn’t make it up,” Kevin said. “I gave you the numbers for the coordinates. I gave you information about the planets that no one else knew.”

“Which you could have memorized,” Professor Brewster said. He looked at Kevin’s mother. “Maybe you were coached.”

“Are you accusing me of something?” Kevin’s mother shot back.

“I’m just noting the possibility,” Professor Brewster said. He sighed. “As are many other people. The truth is that you came to us and we threw resources at you that we should not have. We provided you with healthcare, testing… and now I have important people calling me to ask if that was all a trick.”

“It wasn’t,” Kevin insisted. Why were people not believing him now?

“Then why was there nothing but rock when we cut into that ‘capsule’ of yours?” Professor Brewster asked.

“I… don’t know,” Kevin admitted. There should have been more. He didn’t understand it. “You said that it was from space.”

He saw Professor Brewster wince at that. “Don’t remind me. I put my reputation on the line in backing you, Kevin. I stood up in front of people and told them that you were real. But many rocks are from space. At any one time, the Earth is peppered by fragments from space. We have meteorite hunters who sell them over the Internet. The fact is that this one didn’t have any evidence of the aliens you promised.”

Kevin tried to remember what Luna had said. “That isn’t my fault.”

Professor Brewster put his hands flat on the table, shaking his head. “The truth is, that doesn’t matter at this point,” he said. “The fact is that your presence here has become toxic for this facility. Powerful people were expecting results from us, and we weren’t able to deliver them. Already, I’ve had calls suggesting that our funding will be cut if we don’t sever all ties with you at once.”

Kevin tried to make sense of that. “You… you’re sending me away?”

Professor Brewster was stony-faced. “I don’t know if you faked all this or not, but I’ll say this: already, the FBI is looking into whether you and your mother have committed crimes through your actions here. The best thing that you can do right now is to leave, both of you. You will take nothing with you, and you will receive a bill in due course for any medical services we provided.”

 “Come on, Kevin,” his mother said. “We’re leaving.”

She managed to make it sound like something they were choosing to do, rather than something they’d just been all but ordered to do. She marched angrily along the corridors that led from the building, and if Kevin hadn’t been able to see the tears at the corners of her eyes, he might have believed that she really was just furious and not hurt.

They walked past Dr. Levin, who half turned away from them. Kevin stopped in front of her, hoping she might be able to work all of this out.

“Dr. Levin…” he began.

The SETI director didn’t give him any time to finish. “I’m sorry, Kevin. I heard what happened.”

“You could talk to Professor Brewster,” he said.

Dr. Levin shook her head. “I don’t think David would listen to me right now. I lost a lot of my credibility around here, bringing you to them.”

“But I’m not making this up,” Kevin insisted.

Dr. Levin sighed. “I know you believe that, Kevin,” she said. “It’s just… maybe I should have checked things more carefully. Maybe you found out about things another way, and didn’t even realize.”

“I didn’t,” Kevin insisted.

His mother took his arm. “Come on, Kevin. We’re done here. We’re going to go home.”

She led him away from Dr. Levin, and when Kevin looked back at the scientist, Dr. Levin wouldn’t look at him. The two of them kept going to the exit and out through it, into the noise of the questions being shouted from every angle.

To his surprise, Ted was waiting there, standing by Kevin’s mother’s car. He must have brought it around for them.

“Are you here to question my son’s honesty too?” Kevin’s mother asked, moving between him and Ted.

To Kevin’s surprise, or maybe not, Ted shook his head. “Nothing like that. I just wanted to talk to him.”

 Kevin’s mother looked as though she wasn’t sure, but Kevin put a hand on her arm.

“It’s okay, Mom,” he said. “I trust Ted.”

He’d trusted lots of the scientists too, though. He looked up at Ted.

“I didn’t make this up,” he said.

“I never said you did,” Ted replied. “People change what they think to fit in. They get disappointed because things don’t work out, and they look for someone to blame. They start thinking that proof they’ve seen with their own eyes must be a trick.”

He held out his hand and Kevin took it. “Thanks, Ted.”

“You stay safe,” Ted said. “And… try not to let the things they’re going to say get to you too much, okay?”

“Okay,” Kevin promised.

He couldn’t see how he could avoid it, though. He’d promised the world aliens and he’d failed.

He’d failed.

Was he a fraud, after all? Had he unconsciously imagined the entire thing?

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

There were reporters surrounding Kevin’s house when they got back. Reporters, and protestors, and even a few police, obviously there to keep the rest of them back. Kevin kept his head down in the passenger’s seat of his mother’s car, hoping that no one would see him, but there was no real hope of that. The moment they saw the car pulling up, the mass of people surrounded it, and the car practically shone with the glare of the camera flashes.

“When I open your door, don’t stop,” his mother said. She got out, and Kevin braced himself.

She pulled open the door on his side, wrapping a protective arm around Kevin even though he was taller than she was.

“Get back,” she yelled at them. “Get off my property.”

The reporters pulled back a little, but the press of people barely slackened. Kevin held tight to his mother as they fought their way through. The cops there yelled for people to get back, but they didn’t make any move to help the two of them physically. Kevin got the feeling that they were probably just as upset as everybody else about what had happened. How many of them had believed that they were about to talk to aliens directly? How many of them now hated him because the capsule hadn’t been what they expected?

He and his mother pushed their way forward anyway, shoving past people who grabbed at them, demanding answers to questions Kevin didn’t have an answer for.

“Why weren’t there aliens?”

“Why did you do all this?”

“Do you know how many people you’ve hurt?”

Kevin saw his mother turn to them angrily, and he tried to pull her back, but it was too late to do anything about it.

“Leave my boy alone!” she shouted. “He hasn’t done anything wrong here. He’s ill!”

They pushed their way into the house, shutting the door behind them. Kevin saw his mother bolting it the way she might have if she thought that people were going to try to break in. She went through the house, drawing the curtains, blocking out the flashes of the photographers along with the light.

Kevin went over to the TV, turning it on. The news was running, with pictures of their house from the outside, and a short clip of his mother that made her look like a madwoman as she pushed reporters back.

“Leave my boy alone. He hasn’t done anything wrong here. He’s ill!”

The words An admission of the hoax? played across the bottom of the screen, in a question that managed to accuse without accusing. They made it sound as if Kevin’s mother were trying to excuse him doing something wrong, rather than standing up for him as she had been.

She had been, hadn’t she?

“You should turn that off,” his mother said. She stepped past Kevin, doing exactly that, sending the screen into darkness. “It won’t do any good watching them saying all this about you.”

“Mom,” Kevin said, “what they’re saying… They’re making it sound like you don’t really believe me. Like you think I’m making things up because I’m ill.”

His mother didn’t answer for a moment or two.

“You do think that,” Kevin said. He couldn’t believe it. He’d thought that his mother, of all people, would believe him at this point.

“I don’t know what to think, Kevin,” his mother said. She sounded so tired then. “I know that you believe all this.”

“We found the signal,” Kevin insisted. “You defended me to Professor Brewster.”

“You’re my son,” his mother said. “I won’t let them say bad things about you, no matter what happens. Whether it’s true or not… I don’t know. I was convinced, but everything with the rock…”

Kevin felt sick inside. He felt as though things were back to where they had been when his mother had first taken him to SETI, doing it only because she thought it was something Kevin needed to do. He didn’t want her to do things because she was his mother and she felt she had to. He wanted her to believe him.

“They’ll go away eventually,” his mother said. “They’ll forget about all of this. We can get on with our lives without them, without aliens, without any of it.”

She sounded as though she was trying to reassure Kevin, but Kevin wasn’t sure that it was all that reassuring.

He might have said just that, but his mother’s phone rang then.

“Hello,” she said. “Who is… No, I don’t have anything to say to you or any other reporter.”

She’d barely hung up before there was another call, and another. Each time, she hung up after only a few seconds of conversation. When the phone rang again, Kevin thought that his mother might throw her phone across the room. She paused as she held it up though, looking at the screen with a worried expression.

“What is it, Mom?” Kevin asked.

“It’s work,” his mother said, and something about the way she said that told Kevin just how scared she was. She took the call, gesturing for Kevin to be quiet. “Hello, Mr. Banks. Yes, it is pretty bad. Yes, I know I’ve been off, but my son… yes, I know. No, I understand that, but… You can’t do that. I know it’s bad publicity, but you can’t…” She fell silent, listening for several seconds. “No, I understand.”

She finished the call, and this time she did throw her phone, sitting down on the edge of the sofa, her head in her hands.

“Mom?” Kevin said, reaching out for her. “What happened?”

“That was my work,” she said, without looking up. “They… they fired me. They said that they don’t want the negative publicity that might come from employing someone linked to all this.”

“Can they do that?” Kevin asked. It didn’t sound like the kind of thing people should be allowed to do, especially when they’d done nothing wrong.

“They say they can,” his mother said, “and if I fight it, well, I’m pretty sure that they’d make it so expensive I couldn’t do anything, and maybe a judge would agree that I’m causing their business problems by being there anyway.”

It didn’t sound fair to Kevin. It didn’t sound right. Worse, it didn’t sound as though there was anything they could do about it.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” he said. “If I’d just kept all this to myself…”

“It isn’t your fault,” his mother said.

Kevin knew that wasn’t true, though. Thanks to the TV, he knew his mother didn’t even think that. He’d gone to NASA talking about aliens, and now his mom was getting fired, while no one even believed him about what he’d heard.

“It will be okay,” his mother said. She didn’t sound as though she believed it. “We’ll find a way to make all of this right.”

She sat there on the sofa, not putting the TV on, neither of them daring to open the curtains. Eventually, Kevin went up to his room, sitting there in the dark so his mother wouldn’t worry about him quite as much.

After a while, he took out the headphones that Ted had given him before he left the institute, putting them on more to shut out the sounds of the reporters outside than because he truly thought something would happen. Maybe he did hope for it. If he could get another message that would help to make sense of all this, maybe he could go out to the reporters there and explain it all. Maybe he could make people understand again that it was real, and that he hadn’t been lying.

There was only silence, though. No signal, no words in his head, no sign of anything that would help. Taking off the headphones, Kevin threw them aside and settled down to sleep. Maybe in the morning, things would look better.

***

Kevin went over to his bedroom window, looking out the way he might have if he’d been looking for snow anywhere other than California. He was looking for journalists, hoping that by now, several days later, they would have gotten bored with waiting around the house and gone home.

They hadn’t. There were still cameras out there in front of the house, still reporters with microphones waiting for whatever the next step would be in their story. Kevin wished that they would go away, and thought for the hundredth time about going down there to tell them to do just that, but he didn’t. It wasn’t the same thing as translating the messages while people watched in a press conference, and anyway, Kevin suspected that was just what they were waiting for.

Instead, he went to get dressed, and staggered slightly as a wave of dizziness hit him. Pain followed, flaring through his skull, and Kevin felt wetness against his lips. When he put his hand to his nose, it came away red with blood. He even felt sicker today, the effort of going to the bathroom and cleaning up almost exhausting him.

He still did it though. He didn’t want to worry his mother. He made sure that he looked okay when he went downstairs, and tried to hide the faint tremor in his hands that wouldn’t go away now.

He hadn’t realized until then just how much care he’d been getting in the research institute. He’d complained about all the tests and the scans and the rest, but maybe somewhere in all of that there had been something that had been slowing down his illness. Or maybe he’d just been so busy he hadn’t noticed its progression.

“I can’t worry Mom,” he told himself.

When he went downstairs, he could hear voices.

“I’m sorry, Ms. McKenzie, but this is not a joke. Proceedings are being brought against you for using your son to defraud people, and we need to take them seriously.”

Kevin hurried down there, and saw a couple of people in suits talking to his mother. She looked as though she hadn’t slept at all, and when she looked over at Kevin, he could see the purple shadows around her eyes.

“Ah, here’s your son now,” one of the men said. “Maybe we could take a statement from him now, and that might help.”

“No,” his mother said, “not now, not like this. I just want people to leave my son alone.”

“I don’t mind, Mom,” Kevin said.

“Well, I do,” his mother said. “Go into the kitchen, Kevin. I need to talk to these people.”

If she’d shouted, Kevin might have argued. Instead, she just sounded incredibly sad, and Kevin did as she asked, going through to the kitchen and sitting there at the kitchen table. All the time, he tried to listen to what was happening through the walls.

“I’ll have to sell the house,” his mother said. “What this will cost… I can’t think of another way.”

“I understand that this is difficult, Ms. McKenzie, but it is important that we deal with it. The alternative could involve imprisonment, for you, or for your son.”

Kevin’s fingers gripped the edge of the kitchen table hard enough that it hurt. They couldn’t do it, could they? They couldn’t throw his mother in jail, when he’d been telling the truth. He sat there, part of him wanting to burst in there, part of him knowing that it was all far too important to do that.

He was still sitting there when he saw the figure sneaking into their backyard, a beanie hat covering their head, a thick coat pulled up to obscure their features. They leapt over with the grace of someone who had done that kind of thing plenty of times before, landing neatly in the yard.

If it had been a reporter or some stranger clambering over the fence, he didn’t know what he would have done. Called for help, probably. Interrupted his mother in spite of the seriousness of what was happening. Instead, he unlocked the back door, letting Luna into the house as she hurried over.

“Hey,” she said, hugging him so suddenly that it almost took Kevin by surprise.

“Hey,” Kevin replied. “I’m guessing you couldn’t get here the front way?”

“Too many reporters,” Luna agreed, stepping back. She pulled away the beanie cap. “Like my disguise?”

“It’s great,” Kevin said, but he couldn’t bring himself to smile.

“What’s wrong?” Luna asked. She shook her head. “Stupid question.”

Kevin went to sit back down, Luna joining him. How many times had they done their homework like that? This felt different, though, more serious.

“There are lawyers in the other room,” he said. “They’re saying that my mom might go to jail, and that we might have to sell the house.”

“What for?” Luna demanded, in the kind of indignant tone that said she was ready to fight them off, lawyers or not. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“They think I did,” Kevin said. “They think… I guess they think that I made all of this up to get attention, or to con them into giving me medical treatment, or something.”

“Then they’re idiots,” Luna declared, with the kind of iron-hard certainty that no one else around him seemed to have. “You gave them messages from another world. You told them all about a planet they would barely know anything about otherwise. You helped them find the meteorite thing, even if it was empty. It isn’t your fault that aliens are weird and send rocks to people as presents.”

That was a way of looking at it Kevin suspected that nobody other than Luna could manage. Even so, it felt good.

“So, you believe me?” he asked.

She nodded. “I believe you. I believe in you too. You’ll find a way to deal with this.”

“And you climbed over my fence just to tell me that?” Kevin asked.

Luna put a hand on his shoulder. “What are friends for? I like sneaking in. It’s fun. Besides, I need to take you somewhere.”

Kevin looked back at her in surprise.

“Where?” he asked.

She smiled wide.

“It’s a surprise.”