I Hope You Get This Message Read online

  Jesse barely suppressed a groan.

  “Now I’ve still got more than enough slots for any broadcasts or transmissions you need to send to your family, your friends. The sooner we swarm the ionosphere with our love”—Tom thudded his chest for emphasis—“I guarantee the sooner Alma will back off.”

  The sound of someone clearing their throat interrupted him. Ms. K pulled her fingers away from her silver moon necklace she’d been gripping and rested her hands on her thighs. “Thank you so much for that offer, Tom.” If the woman suffered from one thing, it was too much patience.

  And Tom knew it. He continued. “I’m tellin’ you, in the coming days, people will spend an arm and a leg just to get out their feelings. Just to be heard.”

  No one’s desperate enough to send a message through your dumb radio channel, Jesse wanted to say, but the last time he ran his mouth during a session, Ms. K smiled at him so menacingly, Jesse thought her eyes might actually irradiate him.

  Ms. K nodded. “Why don’t you pass out your information to those who haven’t taken you up on your offer yet, and then we can get this show on the road?”

  But when Tom had passed out cards with his “business” contact information—embossed with silver UFOs—Jesse and Ms. K were the only ones who didn’t take them.

  Mom didn’t believe the hype, either. “You wait and see, J-Bird,” she had said late last night, wrapping her Pluto’s Diner apron around her waist. “It’s five to one the president’s got some new tax up his sleeve, and all this nonsense is just meant to keep us sniffing around elsewhere. Street magicians, that’s all these politicians are. Wave a hand here and slip off your watch while you ain’t looking.”

  The truth was, Jesse and his mom were too broke to worry about aliens. Even conspiracy theory was a pay-to-play luxury these days.

  In the silence of the morning, the blood rush to Jesse’s ears was deafening. It made no sense. Why hadn’t his mom said anything about the eviction notice? Sure, he and Mom had an unspoken rule about minding each other’s business—it was why she didn’t even ask about the bruise on his jaw, or the fading hickey on his neck, and why Jesse didn’t say anything about how it killed him to see her throw her entire body at the grindstone; she wouldn’t hear any of it. And after the incident that had landed Jesse in counseling, Mom had been especially careful to give Jesse the space he said he needed.

  But this was different. They’d been a few weeks behind on rent sometimes, but never that late.

  Maybe they could get away with ignoring the notice. If half the world believed Alma was going to obliterate them, then enforcing eviction notices would be the last of anyone’s worries.

  But then what about the inevitable after? What would they do when everyone crawled out from their fallout shelters and realized the world still spun on its axis, like it always did?

  Life never gave out free passes. Their landlord, Mr. Donovan, wouldn’t, either.

  Where the hell would they get that kind of money in a week?

  Despite the cool, early morning weather, he was sweating. Anger left a tight ball of heat in his chest. It was all Dad’s fault—for leaving them nothing but ratty clothes, a stack of debts, and empty promises.

  Jesse sighed and wandered around the side of the house to find the decaying work shed in the backyard, filled with useless machines built from scrap metal and other crap pilfered from the nearby junkyard—towering sculptures of trash.

  If they really were forced out of this place, would he have to clean out that dump, too?

  As he stared at the crooked shed, slumped like a wooden giant that had fallen asleep, a weird thought tickled at the back of Jesse’s head. He swiveled and grabbed a hammer from the toolbox rusting underneath the front porch. A dirt path lined in runty cacti led him through the dusty backyard and straight to the shed’s entrance. The dark green paint on its planks of cracked wood had long begun to curl and peel. Even nature seemed to reject it; thistle and cheatgrass waged war at the shed’s edges, reclaiming the wood for its own. The shed was a small gust of wind away from falling apart.

  When he was a kid, Jesse was convinced that his dad was a wizard, not only because his dad had a habit of pulling disappearing acts to California, but also because his dad had magic hands: hands that could make ordinary playing cards come to life, hands that could make a piano sing, hands that could tinker with metal and make it bend. Half of his childhood, it seemed, Jesse had spent peeking through the cracks in the plywood, wishing so hard to be allowed inside, to be trusted with his dad’s secrets. One night, when Jesse was maybe six years old, his dad caught him. Jesse stood frozen as the sound of his dad’s boots came closer and closer, banging against the floor like a war drum.

  His dad had only grinned.

  “Well, well, well. What’s this? A little bird seems to have lost his way.” Dad bent down and ruffled Jesse’s already floppy hair. Jesse had tried not to flinch; only a few days prior, he’d made the mistake of showing his dad a baby grackle he’d found on the road, fluttering warmly, like a small flame in his palms. But Dad made him throw it back in the cold, said it was the only way it’d ever learn to survive. Since then, his dad had begun calling him J-Bird. Like a cruel joke.

  “I’ve been thinking. You should come see this. It’ll be good for you.”

  His dad set Jesse down right in the middle of the surrounding chaos: tools—hammers and saws and other thingamajigs Jesse didn’t know the names of—were strewn about, and nearly every square inch of space had been overtaken by strange tubes and wires. His dad opened his arms wide, dramatically, like a circus ringmaster. “Well? What do you think of my palace?” He chucked Jesse on the chin. “Soon everyone will know the name Hewitt, J-Bird. We dream big here. What do you think of that? Are you ready to be famous?”

  Jesse could feel all his nerves catching fire. He was ready, for sure.

  But over time, the machines grew bigger, and his dad grew more and more obsessed. Increasingly, Jesse found the shed locked. Jesse’s father stopped showing up for work. He stopped sleeping. He even stopped eating, no matter how much Mom knocked on the shed door and begged him to come out.

  And then he died—drunk off his face in the middle of the night, going 100 mph on I-285 on his way to God knows where. Maybe, Jesse thought, he was trying to die.

  Maybe those memories were better off dead, too.

  The sun was beginning to rise. He gripped the hammer in his hand, anger distilling to heat and sweat at his fingertips.

  He lifted the hammer and took the first swing at the padlock.

  Ten years had really done their damage. Cobwebs had claimed the corners of the shed, their white gossamers glowing like filaments under the beams of early morning light that now punctured the shed’s suffocating darkness. Rusted gears and pipes, and lines of colored wires intertwined and wove between them all like Christmas garlands hung on the rotting wall. The tiny, lone window had been left shuttered; corpses of dead flies littered the sill.

  Dusty tarps concealed his dad’s machines. He lifted one, using a hand to cover his mouth from the cloud of dust. A rusty metal box with an old green computer monitor for a face stared back at him. Worthless.

  He straightened up. As he pivoted, he bumped into something hard and angular—the old worktable.

  Stuffed in the drawers were stacks and stacks of blueprints: ideas that had come to his dad as easily as breathing. Well, no wonder they had—they were all useless. They weren’t inventions. They were delusions.

  His hand grazed the surface of the worktable, leaving fingerprints in the dust. He remembered the drawer that had once contained all of his dad’s old lottery tickets, all that unused luck. But the drawer was unlocked. Jesse’s hands trembled. Relief and hope swept through him. This is what his dad meant by a rainy day. There must have been thousands, roped together with elastic—at least one of them had to be a winner.

  He seized the pile and his heart sank. Of course. All of them had been scratched.

 
Not one of them a winner.

  Mom. It had to be her. Recently, maybe. She must have been desperate to save what was left of their home, crouching in the shadows of Dad’s memories, frantically scratching every single ticket. Still hoping, despite everything, Dad had left them a chance.

  He could hardly breathe. The atmosphere was suffocating him. With a few hard tugs—maybe harder than necessary—he pried open the shutters. As harsh light flooded the shed, he noticed something enormous—far bigger than all the other machines—lumped in one corner beneath a black tarp. Beside it lay a metal toolbox; his dad hadn’t even put the wrench back inside.

  Jesse peeled back the tarp. The giant machine rested on its side, parts exposed, unfinished. Its rusted, rounded frame was massive—maybe six feet tall if it were standing upright. Maybe it once had a crisp white body, shiny from some acrylic paint, but it had long been chipped away at by time, coated with unsightly cracks like the shell of an egg. Embedded in its face were several damaged LED displays, surrounded by thick square buttons. Red, blue, and yellow wires, some of them ripped, had been woven between the screens, and they disappeared into various ports to create little ringlets. Other wires simply flowed down the machine and pooled next to it on the floor.

  Jesse’s heart began to beat faster. He was still gripping that hammer.

  His father had believed that his machines would transform Roswell, turn it once again into a hub for extraterrestrial intelligence.

  A crazy thought came to him: What if he could convince everyone to believe the same thing?

  The idea spread through him like a glorious flame. He, the one and only Jesse Hewitt, could offer them a kind of salvation that no one else could offer. He’d give the people what they wanted. Yeah, that’s what he could offer: a chance for people to send out a message in a bottle. Into the ionosphere, into space. To beg for forgiveness, pardon, whatever.

  Tom had said it himself. I’m tellin’ you, in the coming days, people will spend an arm and a leg just to get out their feelings.

  Jesse slowly let the hammer drop to the floor by his side. He’d come in here . . . who knew why. To gawk, maybe. To satisfy some sick curiosity. To say goodbye.

  Maybe to bash all of it to pieces, one last “eff-off” to his dad.

  But now, he saw, he’d come in here for a reason. A calling. He stared at the massive machine, his mind spinning faster than electricity.

  All he had to do was clean it up a little, right?

  Maybe repurpose some of the junk in Dad’s shed to make it look legit. He knew how to sound convincing. He could build it up a little taller. Jesse had spent enough time in here growing up that he thought he could do it. He had everything he needed right here.

  He knew people would fall for it. People always looked for something to do, something that made them feel like they were in control somehow. It’s why locals hunkered down in homemade fallout shelters made with stolen mattresses and metal siding panels, and wore tin hats. Roswell was once holy ground for people like that, before the real aliens showed up and the exodus of tourists began. Maybe he and Mom only had a week to pay off their landlord, but what better week than this, when the whole world would be desperate to throw their money away for a chance to be saved?

  If he could get the word out, if he could lure enough people here for twenty bucks a pop, they’d be rich. The world was supposedly going to end in a little less than a week. He’d have less than a week to get more tourists, bring a little life into this godforsaken town. But that was enough. If he played his cards right, he’d not only have enough money to save the house but maybe take Mom somewhere warm, like a California beach. Give her the vacation Dad never could.

  Mom would finally feel taken care of. Lucky, even.

  Impulsive, he heard Ms. K say in his mind. But what was that saying about desperate times?

  Already, the plan was forming. First, he’d take the machine out of this wooden prison and let it breathe. Let the neighbors see it; let them do the marketing for him. He’d turn the whole Alma thing on its head.

  It was like he’d heard that kid say back at the convenience store: Can’t put a price on hope.

  But Jesse sure as hell could try.

  Six Days Until the End of Deliberations

  TRANSCRIPT

  EXCERPT FROM TRIAL

  ARBITER: Silence. The local population is aware of our existence, yes, but this should not distract us. Their knowledge of us is irrelevant to our decision.

  SCION 2: Apologies, Arbiter, but I must disagree. The reports show that the message was sent just before this trial began, which means that whoever sent it was trying to influence our decision, make it harder for us to choose. It’s a mockery of this entire process. For all we know, one of the members of this jury is a biased Epoch sympathizer, which means we simply cannot move forward until they are rooted out.

  SCION 4: Our sensors have determined the leak has caused a planetwide frenzied search for a potential weapon from an exo-civilization. The Anathogen diffuser could now be at risk.

  SCION 7: No one here will admit to being the traitor. Perhaps the trial itself will force them to reveal themselves.

  ARBITER: It must. We have no time to perform a full-scale investigation.

  SCION 11: My intent is not to condone the traitor’s actions, but this gives us a clean slate. Epoch now knows it is being watched and judged. Maybe it will change for the better.

  SCION 9: Morality should exist whether or not you are being watched. The population of Project Epoch has no excuse for its actions of the past.

  SCION 13: You speak of morality, and yet, is it moral to exterminate an entire species from afar?

  SCION 9: Humans are responsible for the extermination of 150 species on their own planet every day. Our scientists designed the Anathogen to render human termination painless and nearly instant, which is far more than they deserve.

  ARBITER: May I remind you that our primary function is not moral or ideological? We must solely focus on whether the humans of Planet Epoch have exhausted their purpose. Can they teach us anything new? Or have we simply seen everything of them, every dimension and facet of human life that there is to see? I ask that you now turn your attention to our focus group, a random selection of humans whose behaviors may further elucidate these discussions.

  8

  Cate

  “Are you sure this is it?” Ivy squinted through the windshield at the chipped gold 4C lettering nailed on the apartment door.

  Despite the warm weather, Cate’s skin prickled. The doors leading to other apartments were all in various states of decay: peeling blood-orange paint, streaked and uneven, and mismatching doorknobs and knockers. A man in stained shorts, leaning against his balcony railing, scratched his swollen belly as he leered at the girls in their car.

  Was this really where her dad lived? Suddenly, she wished she hadn’t come.

  The one other time Cate had tried to find her dad had been when she was twelve. She had tracked down her aunt Lily—Mom’s younger sister—despite the fact that she’d seen Lily only once or twice before in her life. Cate wasn’t sure what had happened between her aunt and her mom, but Lily had just made a face and packed Cate back onto the bus that would take her home. Your mother made her bed, Lily said, and she sure as shit got to lie in it. Lily didn’t seem to realize that she’d forced Cate to lie in it, too.

  The blaring honk of an eighteen-wheeler made Cate jump in her car seat.

  Ivy gently elbowed her. “Why do you look so nervous? He’s not going to eat you.” Then, “I didn’t crawl through apocalyptic traffic for you to punk out now, girl.”

  This morning, they’d told Ivy’s parents that they were going to the hospital so that Cate could visit her mom—which in all fairness had been the plan, at least until Cate called the inpatient psychiatric unit at the hospital, and a nurse abruptly explained her mom was in no condition to take visitors yet. Mrs. Huang, distracted by her phone, didn’t question their lie. They had their own pro
blems to deal with. Ever since the news of Alma broke, the Huangs stopped fighting long enough to agree to hide out in a safe house in Arizona owned by Mrs. Huang’s law firm partner. But then the safe house had gotten overrun with seven other families looking for shelter, leaving the Huangs scrambling to find potential alternatives nearby. Cate tried to ignore the pang of guilt in her chest as she’d watched Ivy sneak her little brother, Ethan, a quick hug before leading Cate to the garage. She hated having to rely on Ivy like this, but Ivy was the only one she knew with a license and a car, and the only friend she’d ever trust with bucket list goals. Plus, the drive to the address in Reno she’d found on Mom’s letter was only four hours from San Fran. She told herself they’d be back before nightfall.

  At least, it should have only been a four-hour drive, but even Google Maps couldn’t predict just how bad traffic on the interstate would be—they’d been bumper-to-bumper for most of it. Every time Cate thanked her—almost every thirty minutes—Ivy assured her it was fine, that “this is just what best friends do.”

  Cate knew, however, that this wasn’t a best friend thing to do. This was an Ivy thing to do.

  Now, as they hopped out of Ivy’s bright blue Miata—Mrs. Huang’s gift to her daughter when she’d gotten her Stanford acceptance letter—Cate almost wished that Ivy had refused, that she had tried to talk Cate out of this idiotic idea, that they had gotten stuck in traffic and been forced to turn around. Then Cate wouldn’t feel so guilty.

  “Want me to come to the door with you?” Ivy asked, and Cate shook her head.

  “Definitely not.” What if her dad wanted nothing to do with her? She knew she wouldn’t be able to stand it if Ivy was next to her to see the whole thing. She forced a smile. “I’ll be fine.” An army-green helicopter flew just above them, almost too close; the wind whipped Cate’s hair as she got out of the car. The smell of fire burned her nose. Apparently, Reno wasn’t safe from the riots and looting, either. They’d heard about it on the radio, until Ivy had insisted on plugging in their phones to play music instead.