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 in the curiosity with which she looked at Kevin. She offered his mother her hand, and then Kevin.
"Hello, Kevin," she said. "I'm Dr. Elise Levin. I'm the director here at the institute."
"You're in charge?" Kevin asked, hope rising in him. "Of all the alien stuff?"
She smiled with amusement. "I think that's putting it a bit strongly. A lot of the search for extraterrestrial life happens elsewhere. NASA provides data, some universities get involved, and we often borrow time on other people's telescopes where we can. But yes, I'm in charge of this institute and the things that go on here."
"Then I need to tell you," Kevin said. He was speaking quicker than he wanted to, trying to get the words out before this adult had time to disbelieve him. "There's something happening. I know how strange it sounds, but I've been seeing things, there's a kind of countdown…"
How could he explain the countdown? It wasn't like numbers, there wasn't an obvious point he could say marked its end. There was just a faint pulse that came with the signal in his brain, getting steadily, almost imperceptibly faster as it worked its way toward something that Kevin couldn't guess at.
"Why don't you tell me about it while we take a look around?" Dr. Levin suggested. "I'll show you some of what we do here."
She led Kevin and his mother through the institute's corridors, and to be honest, Kevin had thought that it would be more exciting. He'd thought it would look less like an office block.
"I thought there would be big telescopes here, or labs full of equipment for testing things from space," Kevin said.
Dr. Levin shrugged. "We have some laboratories, and we do test materials occasionally, but we don't have any telescopes. We are working with Berkeley to build a dedicated radio telescope array though."
"Then how do you look for aliens?" Kevin's mother said. It seemed that she was as surprised by the lack of giant telescopes and listening equipment as Kevin was.
"We work with other people," Dr. Levin said. "We ask for, or hire, time on telescopes and sensor arrays. We work with data from NASA. We put in suggestions to them about places they might want to look, or kinds of data they might want to try to gather. I'm sorry, I know it isn't as exciting as people sometimes think. Here, come with me."
She led the way to an office that at least looked a bit more interesting than some of the other spaces. It held a couple of computers, a lot of posters relating to the solar system, a few magazines that had mentioned SETI's work, and some furniture that looked as though it had been especially designed to be ergonomic, stylish, and about as comfortable as a brick.
"Let me show you some of the things we've been working on," Dr. Levin said, calling up images of large telescope arrays in the process of being built. "We're looking at developing radio telescope arrays that might be powerful enough to pick up ambient radio frequencies rather than just waiting for someone to target us with a signal."
"But I think someone is signaling to us," Kevin said. He needed to get her to understand.
Dr. Levin paused. "I was going to ask if you're referring to the theory that what some people think are high-frequency radio bursts from a pulsar might be intelligible signals, but you're not, are you?"
"I've been seeing things," Kevin said. He tried to explain about the visions. He told her about the landscape he'd seen, and about the countdown.
"I see," Dr. Levin said. "But I have to ask something, Kevin. You understand that SETI is about exploring this issue with science, seeking real proof? It's the only way that we can do this and know that anything we find is real. So, I have to ask you, Kevin, how do you know what you're seeing is real?"
Kevin had already managed to answer that with Luna. "I saw some numbers. When I looked them up, it turned out that they were the location for something called the Trappist 1 system."
"One of the more promising candidates for alien life," Dr. Levin said. "Even so, Kevin, do you understand my problem now? You say you saw these numbers, and I believe you, but maybe you saw them because you'd read them somewhere. I can't redirect SETI's resources based on that, and in any case, I'm not sure what else we could do when it comes to the Trappist 1 system. For something like that, I would need something new. Something you couldn't have gotten another way."
Kevin could tell that she was trying to let him down as gently as possible, but even so, it hurt. How could he provide them with that? Then he thought about what he'd seen in the lobby. He had to have seen that for a reason, didn't he?
"I think…" He wasn't sure whether to say it or not, but he knew he had to. "I think you're going to get a signal from something called Pioneer 11."
Dr. Levin looked at him for a couple of seconds. "I'm sorry, Kevin, but that doesn't seem very likely."
Kevin saw his mother frown. "What's Pioneer 11?"
"It's one of the deep space probes NASA has sent out," Dr. Levin explained. "It flew through our solar system, sending back data, and had enough velocity to send it out past the limits of the solar system. Unfortunately, the last contact that we had with it was in 1995, so I really don't think that-"
She stopped as her phone started to ring, taking it out as if to ignore the call. Kevin saw the moment when she stopped and stared.
"I'm sorry, I have to take this," she said. "Yes, hello, what is it? Can it wait a moment, I'm in the middle of…okay, if it's that urgent. A signal? You're calling me because NASA has data coming in? But NASA always has…" She paused again, looking over at Kevin, the disbelief obvious on her face. Even so, she said it. "Can I take a guess?" she said into the phone. "You've just had a signal of some kind from Pioneer 11? You have? No, I can't tell you. I'm not sure you would believe me if I did."
She put the phone down, staring at Kevin as if seeing him for the first time in that moment.
"How did you do that?" she asked.
Kevin shrugged. "I saw it when I was waiting in the lobby."
"You saw it? The same way that you 'saw' this alien landscape?" Dr. Levin stared at him, and Kevin had the sense she was trying to work something out. Probably trying to work out any way he could have cheated this, or made it happen.
It was almost a minute before she came to a decision.
"I think," Dr. Levin said, in the careful tones of someone trying to make sure she hadn't gone crazy, "that you had better come with me."