Epilogue Day One #3
"Emma." Katie sat up further. "Your visa. If I get caught with you, they’ll deport you so fast. Don't get in trouble for me."
"Mm," Emma hummed. Then her voice brightened. "Fine, nine o'clock, then."
“Nine,” Katie replied. “How is that any better? That still doesn't sound like a good time to sneak someone into JPL."
"No, it's actually perfect. You can come here in the morning. It'll be a ghost town with the parade, I'll have no problem getting you in. Nobody watching or asking or looking too closely. My visa will be safe. Everyone wins."
Katie looked over at the clock again. "Okay, I'll be there."
"Good," Emma said. "I'll have the box in my lab."
"Emma," Katie said, her voice charged. "Emma, this is insane. What if it's...?"
"It could be," Emma said quietly. "I don't want to get your hopes up but, this is the closest we've gotten to something that could hold the answers to what happened to your sister."
Katie took a shaky breath.
"Thank you," she said at a whisper. She imagined Emma smiling through the phone.
"Don't mention it. I kind of liked having a mission to solve for the past three years."
Katie laughed, a little rough as tears formed in her eyes.
“Nine AM, Dr. Wickett," Emma said. "I'll be waiting."
“Nine AM," Katie confirmed. "I'll see you then, Dr. Holloway."
?JET PROPULSION LABORATORY, PASADENA, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES?
January 1, 1996, 09:07AM
The loading dock on the east side of JPL didn't have a camera, which was the entire reason Emma used it.
"You know the way, Katie. Just get through here. Quick." Emma held the door with her shoulder, badge already back in her pocket. "And for God’s sake don’t touch a damn thing. I mean it. Nothing."
"I touched one thing six months ago. You're still on me about it?"
"You touched a replica of Voyager 1, in front of the Deputy Administrator, with the single most insolent finger I have ever seen deployed by an adult woman.
" Emma pulled her through and let the door hush shut.
"One finger. Like God reaching for Adam.
In front of leadership. You should be happy if I stop talking about this ten years from now. "
Ten years, Katie thought. It was a pleasant thought to think that Katie would still know Emma in ten years.
"He was being condescending," Katie replied, quieting her thoughts.
"He banned you from the campus."
"And yet," Katie spread her arms in the dim corridor, backpack and all. "Here we are."
"Here we are," Emma agreed with a smirk and started walking towards her lab.
Katie followed her through corridors she'd never have found alone, and thought, not for the first time, that she wouldn’t be standing in this building at all if a bored receptionist hadn't given up on her three years ago.
Katie stood at that front desk for what had to be the fortieth time in three years.
The woman behind it, genuinely kind, had leveled with Katie that she was completely out of road.
"I'm so sorry, Katie," she'd said. "You've talked to everyone who's allowed to talk to you. I don't know who or what else there is."
A woman neither of them had originally noticed walked past with a stack of files and an intern's lanyard. She stopped and listened a second longer than she needed to.
"I can walk her back,” the woman said, in an accent that didn't belong anywhere near Pasadena but more like Buckingham Palace. "I can show her we've turned over every stone, at least."
"Fine with me if you take the fall, Ms...?"
"Doctor," the woman had said indignantly. "Doctor Holloway."
"My apologies, Doctor," the receptionist said as she printed out Katie's visitor's badge. Katie looked between the two of them like a tennis match.
Once away from the lobby and walking out onto campus, the woman, Dr. Holloway, turned to Katie and looked her straight in the eye. "Okay, since I did you a favor and got you back in, you have to do me a favor and tell me your story."
"You want to hear my story?" Katie asked, skeptical. "That's all?"
"What do you mean, 'that's all?' From the little bit I heard, it sounds compelling. Janet works for NASA. As a receptionist. She has the patience of a saint. If you made her frustrated, that says a lot."
Katie laughed.
"So, spill."
Katie raised an eyebrow at the woman. "I don't even know your name."
Emma stuck out her hand. "Dr. Emma Holloway, planetary geologist, originally from Kent and here on a visa to hopefully work in space, 25 years old and, currently, a JPL intern."
Katie let out a sound close to a muffled guffaw before taking Emma's hand and shaking it. "It's nice to meet you, Dr. Holloway."
"Emma."
Katie lingered. "Emma."
"And you are...?" Emma asked.
"Sorry," Katie shook her head. "Katherine Wickett, cultural anthropologist graduate with UCLA, originally from Shelbyville, Indiana, 26 years old and, currently, trying to find out what the hell happened to my sister."
"It's very nice to meet you, Katherine."
"Katie."
"Okay, Katie.” Emma smiled. "Now, what's the story?"
They walked the campus for two hours that day. Katie told her everything, from the voicemail and the lab, the three years of no information or leads, and the frustrating way an entire institution had covered anything regarding her sister's disappearance and didn't budge. Emma listened to all of it.
When Katie had finished, Emma stopped in the middle of the path and turned to her.