that Kevin could hope for. She kept thinking, her hand drumming on the kitchen counter, marking time as she made up her mind.
Kevin heard his mother’s sigh.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll do it. I’ll take you, but only because I suspect that, if I don’t, I’ll be getting a call from the police to tell me that my son has collapsed on a bus somewhere.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Kevin said, moving forward to hug her.
He knew she didn’t really believe him, but in a way, that made the show of love even more impressive.
CHAPTER FIVE
It took around an hour to drive from Walnut Creek down to the SETI Institute in Mountain View, but to Kevin, it felt like a lifetime. It wasn’t just that traffic into the city crawled its way through road closures; every moment was something wasted when he could be there, could be finding out what was going on with him. They would know, he was certain of it.
“Try not to get too excited,” his mother warned him, for what seemed like the twentieth time. Kevin knew she was just trying to protect him, but even so, he didn’t want his excitement dampened. He was sure that this would be the place where he found out what was going on. They were scientists who studied aliens. Surely they would know everything?
When they got there, though, the institute wasn’t what he was expecting. 189 Bernardo Avenue looked more like an art gallery or a part of a university than the kind of ultra-high-tech buildings Kevin’s imagination had conjured up. He’d been expecting buildings that looked as though they might be from outer space, but instead, they looked a little like expensive versions of the kind of buildings his school had.
They drove up and parked in front of the buildings. Kevin took a breath. This was it. They walked into a lobby, where a woman smiled over at them, managing to turn that into a question even before she spoke.
“Hello, are you sure that you’re in the right place?”
“I need to talk to someone about alien signals,” Kevin said, before his mother could try to explain.
“I’m sorry,” the woman said. “We don’t really have public tours.”
Kevin shook his head. He knew he needed to get her to understand. “I’m not here for a tour,” he said. “I think… I think I’m receiving some kind of alien signal.”
The woman didn’t look at him with the kind of shock and disbelief that most other people might have, or even with the surprise his mother had at him coming out with it like that. This was more a look of resignation, as if she had to put up with this kind of thing more often than she would like.
“I see,” she said. “Unfortunately, we’re not in a position to talk to people who walk in off the street. If you want to send a message to us through our contact email, we’d be happy to consider it, but for the moment…”
“Come on, Kevin,” his mother said. “We tried.”
To his own surprise as much as anyone’s. Kevin shook his head. “No, I’m not going.”
“Kevin, you have to,” his mother said.
Kevin sat down, right there in the middle of the lobby. The carpet wasn’t very comfortable, but he didn’t care. “I’m not going anywhere until I speak to someone about this.”
“Wait, you can’t do that,” the receptionist said.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Kevin said.
“Kevin…” his mother began.
Kevin shook his head. He knew it was childish, but the way he saw it, he was thirteen, and he was allowed. Besides, this was important. If he walked out and left now, this was over. He couldn’t let it be over.
“Get up, or I’ll have to call security,” the receptionist said. She walked to him and took hold of Kevin’s arm in a firm grip.
Instantly, Kevin’s mother switched her attention from him to the receptionist, her eyes narrowing.
“Take your hands off my son, right now.”
“Then make your son get up and leave before I have to get the police involved.” The receptionist let go anyway, although that might have had something to do with the look his mother gave her. Kevin had the feeling that, now that there was one way she could protect her son, his mother was going to do it, whatever it took.
“Don’t you threaten us with the police. Kevin isn’t doing anyone any harm.”
“You think we don’t get crazies here on a regular basis?”
“Kevin is not crazy!” his mother shouted, at a volume she normally reserved for when Kevin had done something really wrong.
The next couple of minutes featured more arguing than Kevin was happy with. His mother shouted at him to get up. The receptionist shouted that she would call security. They shouted at each other, as Kevin’s mother decided that she didn’t want anyone threatening her son with security, and the woman seemed to assume that his mother would be able to move Kevin. Kevin sat through it all with surprising serenity.
It lulled him down, and in those depths, he saw something…
The cold darkness of space stood around him, stars flickering, with the Earth looking so different from above that it almost took Kevin’s breath away. There was a silvery object floating there in space, just one of so many others hanging in orbit. The words Pioneer 11 were stenciled on the side…
Then he was lying on the SETI Institute’s floor, his mother helping him up, along with the receptionist.
“Is he okay?” the receptionist asked. “Do you need me to call an ambulance?”
“No, I’m fine,” Kevin insisted.
His mother shook her head. “We know what’s wrong. My son is dying. All of this… I thought it would help him to come to terms with the fact that what he was seeing wasn’t real, that it was the illness.”
Put like that, it felt like a betrayal, as if Kevin’s mother had been planning for his dreams to be crushed all along.
“I understand,” the receptionist said. “Okay, let’s get you up, Kevin. Can I get you both anything?”
“I just want to talk to someone,” Kevin said.
The receptionist bit her lip, then nodded. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do.”
Just like that, her whole attitude seemed to have changed.
“Wait here. Take a seat. I’ll go and see if there’s anyone around who can at least talk to you, maybe show you around. Although there really isn’t much to see.”
Kevin sat down with his mother. He wanted to tell her about everything he’d just seen, but he could see from her face that it would only hurt her. He waited in silence instead.
Finally, a woman came out. She was in her early fifties, dressed in a dark suit that suggested she had the kind of meetings where more casual clothes wouldn’t work. There was something about her that said she was an academic—maybe something
