Chapter Text
Dr Scyther was a man who knew what he did and didn’t know. Astrobiology as a field was yet to develop beyond their current constraints due to a lack of suitable technology, planets with conditions suitable to sustain life to study, and minds willing to dedicate themselves to the field within reason.
And then, the Arclight probe results came back.
Now any scientist with a modicum of experience in biology wouldn’t jump to conclusions. There were countless reasons that those ‘black dots’ were moving in the scans. Reactivity was not the primary sign of life, the answer could even be as subtle as a reaction to the sun’s magnetic field.
The entire world believed they already knew the answer.
A single celled alien lifeform. One that lived on the surface of the sun, travelling near-exclusively between their star and Venus. Consuming or otherwise utilising the sun’s energy and reducing the amount approaching Earth. A lifeform that lived in temperatures that would cause water to instantly evaporate, disassociate, and cease to exist in any usable form. Something that lived comfortably outside of what any accredited scientist would call the ‘Goldilocks zone’.
The text on his monitor was mocking him.
Because for the first time in a decade, he was right.
The light on his desk went red. He put the call on speaker-phone. “Sir there is someone here to see you,” Michelle’s voice crackled through. She sounded frazzled, unprepared for their visitor.
“Send her up,” he answered the unasked question.
“Sir she is already in the elevator.” Michelle replied and Scyther wanted to sigh. Of course she was. Three days in power and already bulldozing her way through any semblance of manners. Although that was to be expected for someone in her position. With the entire world on her shoulders and a timer that by all estimations, was running out far faster than a solution would be found, there wasn’t time for niceties when everything was at stake.
The door opened without even a knock. There she was.
The fledgling Dictator of the World, Eva Stratt.
“I presume you know why I am here.” she said, wasting not even a minute for introductions. It wasn’t necessary. By the end of the week the entire world would know who she was. The science community just had a head start when she started headhunting.
“My colleagues were rather descriptive with their complaints,” Scyther replied.
If Stratt cared that he’d been warned of her arrival, she didn’t show it. “They told me you could do it.”
Really? He’d heard quite the opposite. Warnings that she would come to him, to ask about a certain disgraced molecular biologist. To be honest about what he really thought about that boy. “That’s not what I heard.”
“You’re my first choice,” She met his eyes.
“We both know that isn’t true.” She didn’t even believe her own lies.
Now she looked irritated, like she both didn’t expect and didn’t like being called out for what she was doing. “I wouldn’t have thought The Dr Scyther would claim a middle school teacher to be a better scientist than an industry professional.”
He felt that familiar pit of irritation burn in his chest, one that had welled up three days ago and refused to leave. Still, he pushed it down, it didn’t matter right now. What did, was this impromptu meeting. “You looked into him,” Scyther pointed out instead. No one knew where that upstart had gone after his pseudo-exile from academia. Teaching middle schoolers… it was demeaning, but one couldn’t help but wonder how that boy had the patience for it.
She’d been caught and they both knew it. “I did.”
He glanced back at his monitor, at that stupid paper that was being proven right in real time all around them. At the thesis that was actively defining the future of their entire planet. “No matter my… personal opinions on Dr Grace’s character, I cannot deny that he is a good scientist. His methodology is sound, his attention to detail commendable, and his drive in proving his theories - however inane they are - is at least partially admirable.” It grated at him to say these words, but they needed to be said. His pride was not worth the entire human race.
“Miss Stratt, I am not sure where your particular grudge against Dr Grace is from, but look me in the eyes and tell me, truthfully, that you think I am better suited to study the Arclight sample than Dr Grace,” he challenged her.
Neither of them spoke for a long moment.
That answered that.
“I will see you after Dr Grace looks at the sample and comes back to you with his preliminary findings, and not a minute before that. If you want your taskforce to succeed, you will let the expert do his job.” He gave her one final warning, and watched as she came ot her decision in only a couple moments more.
She didn’t offer a goodbye before she was already out the door, her phone in hand and likely a plane to catch.
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He was right there.
She could see him through the window, staring up at the model solar system as if it was a puzzle he was picking apart in his mind. At a line of red tape stretching between the sun and its closest CO2 filled companion, Venus.
The Petrova Line. Even before they met, he was already looking to the stars for their answers.
His classroom was decorated to the brim with trinkets that Redell would be quick to bet money were handmade. A teacher’s salary was barely enough to provide oneself with basic necessities, let alone fund a classroom filled with craft projects and supplies designed to elicit joy and creativity from students. She new just how little he spent on himself in favour of putting everything he could into his classroom. The last time, she’d had the IRS comb through his finances and expenditure as part of his extensive background check. classroom.
This time no one knew why she was here, at a random school in the middle of San Francisco. There were no background checks, no observation period, no reconnaissance. There was no need for it, not when she knew Dr Ryland Grace like the tattoo that once marred her own neck.
Right from the start, he was a fundamentally good man.
“Easy for you to say when you’re not the one being murdered!”
She flinched back from the door at the memory, his scream ringing in her ears. If she went back to Scyther, gave him no choice, she could take him and make him analyse the astrophage. She could slip some hints to another team, convince them to investigate Venus and find out how they breed. It’d be someone else who became the worlds leading expert on astrophage - It would always be astrophage, she would pass no other name to the world leaders - and Dr Grace would be none the wiser. He would just be another face in the crowd. He’d be one out of a million, but he’d be safe.
“Should I really do this?” she asked the empty air.
The air chuckled, wheat-gold hair and sky blue eyes crinkled in amusement. “You already know the answer, you always have. You never needed my advice,” he teased, voice lilting in the same musical tones that underpinned the words of an alien friend.
If she left now, they wouldn’t have an astrophage specialist who snuck treats into every lab and meeting, and tossed snacks at anyone who looked vaguely hungry. They wouldn’t have a lead researcher whose awkward yet endearing attitude lightened up what would otherwise be a dour room. They wouldn’t have a first officer who drove every astrophage innovation over the line through pure passion for his work, and love for his team.
They wouldn’t have a scientist who met his best friend on a mission to save the stars, and leave them all behind for a chance that his friend would survive.
“You were right about me. You always were.”
She turned the handle.