6 - Nico
T HE GLEAMING WHITE K ECK I corridor felt space-age as Nico followed Eliot into the observatory. The massive mirrored telescope on its scaffolding tower and the interior of the dome rose eight stories above them. Eliot led them to a control room on the side.
To Nico’s surprise, the three chairs by the control console were empty.
“Where is everyone?” Nico asked.
“The astronomers are all remote—just us observing assistants and tech crew. I called in emergency maintenance,” Eliot said. “Anyway, no one’s losing much research time with a waxing gibbus.”
Nico tried to not give away that he had no idea what a waxing gibbus was. And he’d checked earlier—there was no cell reception for him to look it up.
Sitting in the center old-school office chair, Eliot spun in a circle like a little kid. It made him really likeable, like he was an adult who’d held on to his kid sense of joy. Someone Nico would want to hang out with, if he didn’t have to worry about the possible end of the world.
“So where are we looking?” Eliot asked.
Nico felt in the watch pocket of his jeans, past his wedding ring, for the tiny thumb drive with the coordinates. Was liking this guy somehow disloyal to Sam? Nico focused on the task at hand. “We need to keep this quiet. Off any network.” He handed the drive over.
Eliot inserted it into a port on his laptop. He studied the stream of numbers. “That’s pretty close in. An Apollo, huh? Near-Earth object crossing our orbit?”
“Maybe.” Nico wasn’t supposed to say too much.
“Let me fire it up,” Eliot said, transferring the coordinates over to the main telescope computer and working the controls.
Nico heard the dome bay open, and moved to the doorway to watch the telescope in its scaffolding pivot, aiming its honeycomb of thirty-six mirrors just 28 million kilometers ahead of Earth’s path.
A bright yellow laser beam shot out from the telescope into the sky. “What the hell?” Nico ran over to Eliot. “Turn it off!”
“Dude, chill. It’s the guide star,” Eliot said. “We use it all the time.”
“Turn it off!” Nico shouted. “They’re going to think we’re firing at them!”
Eliot hit the switch, and Nico checked to make sure the laser was gone. He wanted to sigh in relief, but the air was too thin, and it just left him gasping.
When he turned back, Eliot had pushed his chair away from the console and put his palms up. “That was our sodium laser guide star. The computer uses it to compensate for atmospheric turbulence, so what we do see is sharp.”
“You can’t use it,” Nico said.
“What the hell’s going on, Corey? I know work for the Director is classified, but at this point I need to know. Who is going to think we’re firing at them?”
Nico couldn’t see a way around it. He needed Eliot’s help, so he had to spill. “We don’t know.” Nico shrugged. “We’re not even sure something’s there. That’s why we need to verify if it’s there or not with an optical telescope.”
“And Keck’s one of the biggest,” Eliot said, and oddly it felt like he was flirting. No. Nico told himself he was imagining things.
“Every scientist working in space exploration knows about laser guides, even if they’re from other countries…” Eliot’s eyes went wide as the realization struck him, and he looked directly at Nico. “You don’t think they’re human!”
Nico told himself to not react.
Eliot chuckled, but there was no humor to it. “You’re not denying that.”
“We need to keep this quiet,” Nico said.
“Fuck me,” Eliot said.
Nico almost said yeah .
Eliot rolled back to the control panel, fingers flying across the keyboard. “No laser, we’ll do our best. We’ll fool it. Have the telescope aim for stars in that path, and then subtract out the stars to see close. Anything else I need to know?”
“The math on that drive shows the object isn’t moving.”
Eliot looked over, alarmed. “Everything’s moving in space. Or should be.”
Nico agreed. “That’s kind of the problem.”
0548
“The numbers say it should be here.” Eliot pointed to a black-and-white view of stars on the main computer screen as he stepped the image in, and in again. “But we don’t see anything with the optical lens.”
“What about infrared?” Nico asked.
Eliot punched some keys and an orange filter popped onto the starscape, changing the view and revealing many more stars. He studied the screen, zooming in. “I don’t see anything, or anything missing, but I’ll have the computer double-check.”
Numbers flew by on the auxiliary computer screens, and a minute later stopped. Eliot translated the results. “No. Nothing in infrared either.”
Nico thought about the adaptive camouflage on Bond’s car in Die Another Day .
Some luxury sports car that Sam would be all over, set up with tiny cameras projecting what they saw onto the car’s “polymer skin” on the other side—making it invisible.
The question needled at him and he had to ask: “What if it’s invisible on purpose? ”
Eliot considered it. “I can run this through a program to see if it’s bending or otherwise changing the light of any of the stars around it. That might let us know.”
“Do it,” Nico agreed.
“It’ll take a few hours.” After setting the program, Eliot pushed away from the console, and handed Nico back his thumb drive.
Nico pocketed it.
Eliot packed up his laptop. “Come on, with Earth’s rotation, we can’t see ahead on our orbital path anymore. Wanna get a drink?”
“It’s not even six in the morning.”
“I’m just getting off work,” Eliot said. “You coming? It’ll send me an alert when it has an answer.”
“Are we going somewhere I can get on Wi-Fi?
“There’s Wi-Fi at my place.”
0632
Nearly back to the visitor center at ninety-six hundred feet, Eliot turned the electric-powered SUV onto an E MPLOYEES O NLY road. They passed the main stone dormitory and headed to a cluster of small one-story houses. Eliot pulled up to the one at the end of the dirt road.
Their shoes crunched across the thin layer of snow. Nico noticed there was no lock on the door—they just walked in. So different from Sam’s place in New York, with the lock, the deadbolt, and the security latch. And that was after the 24/7 doormen downstairs.
Inside Eliot’s place were two rooms, the kitchenette/dining/living room they were in, and a bedroom with bathroom beyond.
“Sorry it’s not fancy,” Eliot said, walking through to the bedroom to throw the comforter over the unmade bed.
“I’m not much for fancy,” Nico admitted, blowing onto his cold fingers. He should really call Sam. “Wi-Fi?”
Eliot leaned against his bedroom doorway and sent the access from his phone to Nico’s. “I’ll go check on our invisible object. And then how about we warm you up?
“Okay,” Nico agreed. Hot chocolate, or even coffee, sounded good.
Nico walked back over to the entrance for some privacy and texted Sam.
Good time for a call? No cell service but I have Wi-Fi—we can use the app Ari gave us
Sam called him right away. “Hey! How’s it going?”
“Good.” Nico hadn’t planned a cover story and couldn’t reveal he was in Hawaii, so he changed the subject. “I’m sorry I had to leave.”
“I get it. It’s a new job, hard to say no to them,” Sam said.
Relieved, Nico asked, “How’s everything going for you?”
“Fine. Nothing special,” Sam said, which was weird. Usually Sam had so much to share.
Nico searched for something to say. Was Sam still upset with him? “Frida feeling good about the vote tomorrow? I’m sure she’s gonna win.”
“She’s good, but she’ll be better when she does win,” Sam said. “You’ll be back for Valentine’s Day, right?”
“Corey?” Eliot called from the other room. “You should come check this out.”
Nico covered the microphone and made a face. He hoped Sam hadn’t heard that.
“Yeah, sure,” Nico said. “Look, I’m sorry, I gotta go.”
“Okay, love you,” Sam said.
“Bye,” Nico said as he pressed E ND C ALL . He wondered if love was invisible on purpose too, like the aliens might be. Sam said he loved him, and he loved Sam, but how did they really know it was there?
“Come on!” Eliot called. “You don’t want to miss this.”
Nico walked into the bedroom, noting a glass door to the back patio was propped open, letting all the warm air out. That’s why it was so cold in here!
He got to the doorway and clocked it all instantly:
Dawn painting the mountain’s snow cover and sky beyond it with orange and pink.
Private hot tub, steaming.
Eliot staring at him from inside the hot tub, his gymnast-perfect chest and abs shining.
Water just low enough under his belly button for Nico to tell Eliot was naked in there.
Ridiculously sexy. And not straight!
“Let’s warm you up.” Eliot was all seduction as he let a hand skim the water next to him—like he’d gotten the spot ready just for Nico. “After all, if there are aliens, shouldn’t we make every minute count?”