“Does that sound like a water-based lifeform to you?”
The strange woman—Eva Stratt—is waiting for an answer. Inviting him, apparently, to… Be the first person to look at the Arclight sample from the Petrova line—to take the first human glimpse of the space dots that everyone had seen broadcast worldwide.
Grace has to admit… He is tempted. Proving that the space dots are not water-based lifeforms—that he was right? That is catnip to the bitter animal that still lives in Denmark, circa 2018.
But that is the problem, isn’t it? Grace isn’t that person anymore.
After a minute more of hesitation, he sighs. “No,” he says, finally. “I—Look, I don’t—I’m not the right person for this. Get someone more qualified to make first contact.”
He unlocks his bike. Stratt looks at it, then looks back at him
“I’m sorry, Dr. Grace,” she says, in a way that makes him feel like maybe she isn’t sorry at all, actually. “I wasn’t… Really asking.”
It is that moment that Grace’s situational awareness finally kicks in. Boy, there’s a lot of black SUVs in the school parking lot today! Idiot. He turns and realizes that there are big guys in suits—he knows Secret Service when he sees them—and uniformed Marines standing at his back, and at every nearby door. There’s the gleam of a sniper on the roof.
Grace turns back slowly to look at Stratt. She shrugs, half-smiles. “I need you to come with us.”
“Who are you, anyway?” Grace says from the backseat of the SUV he was ever-so-politely herded into. Stratt is sitting in the front passenger seat—from what he can tell, she is on a laptop. Ain’t no rest for the wicked, he supposes, but come on. If she’s going to kidnap him, she may as well pay some attention to him.
She turns slightly to look at him. “Eva Stratt,” she says, lifting her tone a little at the end like he is asking a question so stupid she doesn’t even know how to respond. “I’m with the Petrova Taskforce?”
Great. Thanks for the new information.
Grace sighs dramatically and pulls his phone out of his pocket. The agent sitting next to him doesn’t seem bothered by it, so he keeps going. Awesome. He has enough autonomy still to use Google.
“Eva… Stratt…” he says aloud as he types. Stratt stays turned around enough to watch him. He thinks she might be… Bemused? Her expression doesn’t really give much away. “Aaand… Search.”
“Are you googling me?” Stratt lifts one thin eyebrow. Grace decides that if she won’t answer his questions, he doesn’t have to answer hers.
The very first result is an article from The Atlantic, nine days old. Grace reads its title aloud. “Who is Eva Stratt, the newly announced…” He looks up at her, both of his own eyebrows comically raised, then holds his phone up to show her. “Who is Eva Stratt? Let’s find out!”
Stratt rolls her eyes and turns back to her laptop. Grace turns his phone back to himself.
“Look,” he says. “If you’re going to sweep me off in a car to the middle of nowhere, California, then I’m going to entertain myself on this—what, two hour car ride?”
“Do whatever you want,” Stratt says, unbothered. Grace frowns and looks down at the article.
“Chair of the Petrova Taskforce,” he says aloud. “Wow, you really undersold that. With, Eva?” Stratt says nothing. Grace keeps reading. “Former Director-general of the European Space Agency, that’s pretty cool. Architect of the Arclight probe…” He trails off.
His eyes jumped ahead too far. The next paragraph helpfully informs him that Eva Stratt and Eva Stratt alone commands a level of global authority never seen before in human history—the military might (and budgets) of at least 27 nations, including the U.S., China, and Russia—and full legal authority and immunity of the United Nations.
“Wow,” he says faintly. “You’re, uh, pretty powerful, huh?” He laughs, and she does not. She doesn’t answer him, either. For goodness sakes, he made a knock-knock joke at her. “Elected by secret vote… Uh. Wow.”
“Are you done?” Stratt says suddenly, not quite sharp. When he looks up again, she is shutting her laptop and turning to look at him. He nods mutely. “Good. Tell me about these dots.”
