Transmission (The Invasion Chronicles, #1)

by Morgan Rice

maybe Dr. Markham liked to be reminded that there was life that didn’t include telling people they were dying.

“23h 06m 29.283s, −05° 02′ 28.59,” he said. “It must mean something. It has to.”

how long until I… die?” That was still a hard word to believe.

23h 06m 29.283s, −05° 02′ 28.59.

It was as if both of them were playing roles because they were afraid of the truth underneath them.

It was easier to be fine than to try to explain the truth:

“Well, just let us know if you need anything,” the teacher said. Kevin still wasn’t sure how to reply to that. It was one of those kind things that people said that was kind of useless at the same time.

Kevin generally liked Ms. Kapinski’s classes, because she wasn’t afraid to wander off the point and tell them about whatever fragments of the past entered her head. It was a reminder of just how much there had been in the world before any of them.

He said it without looking at Kevin. There was a decision being made there, and although Kevin was at the heart of it, it was clear he didn’t actually get a say.

“If you work with people who are dying a lot,” he said, “why do you have pictures of places you always wanted to go? Why put it off, when you’ve seen…” “When I’ve seen how quickly it can all end?” Dr. Yalestrom asked, gently. Kevin nodded. “Maybe because of the wonderful human ability to know that and still procrastinate. Or maybe I have been to some of these places, and the reason I’m not in the pictures is just that I think one of me staring down at people is quite enough.”

“It isn’t healthy to push away your friends when things get bad, Kevin. Not even to protect them.”

“There’s nothing wrong with sounding stupid,” Dr. Yalestrom assured him. “I’ll tell you a secret. People often think that everyone else but them is special. They think that other people must be cleverer, or braver, or better, because only they can see the parts of themselves that aren’t those things. They worry that everyone else says the right thing, and they sound stupid. It’s not true though.”

Dr. Yalestrom was silent while he did it; the kind of silence that felt as though it was sucking words up out of him, giving them a space to fall into.

often, the behavior that we label crazy is there for a good reason. It’s just that often, those reasons only make sense to the person concerned. People will do things to protect themselves from situations that are too difficult to handle, which seem to be… unusual.”

When adults had decided what the truth of something was, he wasn’t going to be able to change their minds.

she fell silent for a few seconds. There was something fragile about that silence, as if both of them were tiptoeing to avoid breaking it.

“Hey, all of you, you have to stop! My friend is dying, and I demand that you stop having fun at once!”

“Everyone else is stupid,” Luna declared, although, to be fair, that seemed to be her default setting for life. To her, everyone was stupid until proven otherwise.

If Luna ever acquired a superpower, it would probably be the ability to leap tall conclusions in a single bound.

Trappist 1 star system.”

He knew she didn’t really believe him, but in a way, that made the show of love even more impressive.

He knew it was childish, but the way he saw it, he was thirteen, and he was allowed.

the careful tones of someone trying to make sure she hadn’t gone crazy,

The next few hours were among the most boring of Kevin’s life, and that included the time he’d spent in math class.

Trust scientists

to find a way to make something like this feel like homework.

Seriously, why didn’t people say what they meant?

Adults, he decided, were far too complicated.

You’re at the heart of something big, but you need to tell the truth, do your best with it. It’s all any of us can hope to do right now.”

You’re a scientist. You don’t believe in hiding things away.”

she set off with the determined look of someone who needed to get angry about something before she started crying.

Sometimes you work with people and you don’t know what they’re going to do down the road.

hope for the best, prepare for the worst.”

“Always work in pairs, so that if anything happens, the other one can get help. Stay close to camp, and stay in contact. The jungle will try to get you lost. Watch out for the wildlife, and don’t go into any watercourses. There are caiman and snakes in this area.”

Kevin had seen kids at school when they’d gone past insulting one another, and they didn’t want to back down because they thought it would make them look stupid. They always had that sense that they didn’t want to fight, that they were scared and the whole thing was stupid, but they were going to anyway.

Why did adults always think that they were the only ones who understood things?

“You don’t want a bunch of people from outside Colombia coming in to take what’s yours, or to tell you what to do,” Kevin said, “because you think it’s like them saying that they’re better than you. And Ted doesn’t want to give up the capsule partly because he thinks that we’ve done most of the work of finding it, partly because he thinks it will make us look weak if we let it go, and partly because he has orders and he’s the kind of person who will follow them no matter what. It’s all stupid.”

This was sent to Earth, not to one specific country. It’s for everyone. It’s not something that anyone can own.”

I’d like this to be kind of a new start for people. If we know that there are aliens out there, I guess we’ll have to think about who we are.”

“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.”

That was one of the hardest parts about having such a rare illness: it meant there weren’t really the words to describe everything that was happening.

That was a thought he didn’t want, but it crept in when he wasn’t looking, sitting down in his mind and refusing to budge, no matter how he pushed at it.

“If you don’t believe the evidence in front of you, then what’s science for?”

If his disease had taught him anything, it was that there were some things it was impossible to do anything about.