AmEarth

On that same day, Ted Landon was preparing to leave the school, but he was frustrated by the traffic and the pandemonium. Being a bachelor and not having to get home in a hurry, he decided to go back to the teachers’ lounge and wait out the situation. He took out his old laptop computer and made a call to his mother. She didn’t answer, so he left a video message.

“Mom, I hope you get this soon. I want you to know that I’m fine. You probably heard all about the alien invasion and the escalation of the situation on the news. Please don’t worry, okay? There is not a real threat. Call me whenever you can and I’ll explain what I can. I love you.”

Mr. Landon clicked the laptop off and the connection was terminated. Then he entered the information to contact Pat and find out what was happening in New Zealand. For some reason, the program was no longer functioning properly. It seemed like it was going to work, but then the image began to blur.

Meanwhile, Scott and Bri were sitting in the parking lot waiting to exit the school. They found themselves frozen in place, not going anywhere. They were not even able to pull out of the parking space they occupied. Bri was texting away to her friends about the bubbling fear of an alien attack. Scott was beginning to get anxious and looked nervously at all the other parents and students in their cars, panicking. He turned the car off and texted his mom.

Still at school. Too much traffic—will be home later—one hour.

Then he unlocked his door and looked at Brianna.

“Bri, we’re getting out,” he stated calmly.

“Why?”

“Because.”

He exited the car and waited for Bri to do the same. She took longer than he expected and he had to practically coax her out. Once she was out, he locked the car and began heading back toward the campus.

“Where are we going?” Bri asked.

“Follow me. It’s pointless to sit in the car,” Scott said.

Scott walked in the opposite direction of the flow of students leaving Darien Country Day, the K-12 school everyone in Darien went to. He went to the teachers’ lounge, hoping to find Mr. Landon; he figured that if that failed, he could wait there with a cup of coffee. On the way, he saw throngs of hysterical parents picking up their middle-school wards and treating them like babies. Scott thought to himself that people were so strange—always showing their affection at the wrong time.

“Scott, I’m scared. What’s happening?”

“Bri, please don’t worry. I don’t think there’s any sort of threat. I have a feeling that we are all going to be fine.”

“Okay.”

Scott said this while looking straight into her eyes. His words rang true to Brianna and she felt reassured, but he wasn’t sure if he felt the same. Scott led the way through the high school commons to the teachers’ lounge. Inside, he found what he was looking for.

“Scott, you can’t bring her in here,” Mr. Landon said.

“But Mr. L, I need to watch over her. This is my sister. Anyway, she’s cool,” Scott vouched.

“Yeah, I’m cool!” Bri chimed in.

“Listen, Bri, please just sit over there and stay quiet,” Scott directed.

Scott pointed to a chair far from where Mr. Landon was sitting.

“Scott. You need to come see this,” his teacher said.

“What is it?”

“It’s some sort of bug. I can’t get this to work.”

Scott saw that Mr. Landon’s computer was showing all sorts of visuals that seemed wrong, like something was corrupting the processor. It was making the screen look like a green and black mess of gibberish. This was one virus that Scott had never seen before.

“Has this ever happened to this computer before?” Scott asked.

“No.”

“That’s a weird one. I think your computer is fried. Try to restart it.”

“Okay.”

Mr. Landon pushed the “Off” button, but the computer did not turn off; the screen maintained its crazy mess of colors and error boxes. Scott held down the “Off” button for nearly a minute, attempting to force a restart, but nothing happened.

“Were you trying to call Pat?” Scott asked.

“Yes. I wanted to see what the reaction was to the latest news down there,” Mr. L said.

“Let’s use mine, instead.”

“Scott, this one is special. It’s old as dust and there is no serial number that can be traced back to me.”

“But mine is…well…it’s mine. I’m just a student and my dad has some important job in the ACA.”

“He’s a minister now, Scott!” Brianna said, her tone a bit sassy.

“I told you to stay out of this, Bri. Yes, he’s a minister now. So this is the computer of the son of a minister.”

Mr. Landon knew that this might all be ill-advised, but his curiosity outweighed the safety issue for the moment.

“Okay, but only for a few minutes.”

The laptop that Scott owned was ten times faster than the antique relic that Mr. Landon had been using. In under a minute, the screen was ringing, connecting to Pat.

“Pat! How are you guys holding up?” Mr. Landon said, having no time for small talk.

“New Zealand conceded, Ted. People got scared. We joined AmEarth. It’s unbelievable! Fucking unbelievable,” Pat responded, his voice annoyed.

“No, no…” Ted said, disbelieving what he was hearing.

“Yes, my friend, it’s already done. The news broke as the AmEarth Navy began docking in Christchurch. It was planned perfectly.”

“You were the last hope. Now AmEarth has control over a hundred percent of the planet. This is the first day of a single world, single government. There’s no escape.” Landon’s voice began to crack, as though some great resolve had finally been broken.

“Now there is nothing to stop them from abusing their power! All in the name of unity and defense! Unbelievable! Un-fucking-believable! Ted, this is madness, but before anything else happens, I need you to download a file. It’s some of the evidence that we have already and it’s damning. If something happens to me, I need you to show it to the world. Okay?”

“What is it?”

“It’s scientific information on Kepler 3763. Astronomers and physicists can certify the findings. If you can get it into the right hands, it is priceless!”

“I can’t have you send it.”

“Why not?”

Scott gestured to Mr. Landon that sending the information should be fine. This might be the only chance to get the download; he didn’t understand Mr. L’s hesitance.

“No, nothing, it’s okay. Go ahead and send. We need to do this now…and fast. Pat, good luck and good-bye; we’ll need to disconnect as soon as it finishes downloading.”

“Okay, good-bye Ted.” Pat signed off with a grin.

The file-sharing between the two computers began. Scott looked on and Bri pretended to understand, but was mostly awed that Scott was friends with adults. Maybe Scott is actually cool, she thought.

“Finished. Now what?” Scott snapped.

“You can’t have anyone find this. I think that you should make a copy to a USB and then delete it from your computer,” Mr. Landon advised.

“What? Why? This might be something that my dad can use. He’s in the administration now, so he could use it to show them that NASA was wrong or something…” Scott’s idea petered out before it could ever properly develop.

“Are you out of your mind? If your father gets this, both of us will go down! The government is not in the business of proving itself wrong. The government would just condemn it and get to the bottom of how you found all of this out,” Mr. Landon whispered. “Not a good plan.”

“Maybe.”

“Just get it off your computer.”

Barbara Johansen entered the teachers’ lounge. She had an app on her wafer that allowed her to locate her children.

“Mom!” Bri shouted when her mother’s face appeared at the door.

Brianna ran into her mother’s arms and hugged her for what seemed like an eternity. Then she looked at Mr. Landon from over her mother’s shoulder and winked at him, too—an exchange that meant that she understood not to talk about what she had seen. Brianna felt cool, and keeping her parents out of that particular loop made her feel rebellious, even though she didn’t understand everything that was happening.

Scott closed the laptop with a decisive slam.

“I’ll send you a copy via email,” he said.

“No. The file is too large. Just put it here.”

Landon handed Scott a USB drive.

“Okay, you’ll have it tomorrow morning,” Scott said, without a hint of doubt.

“What, honey?” Barbara asked.

“Homework, Mom. You remember Mr. L, right?” Scott said.

“Mr. L also has a real name, Scott,” Barbara chastised.

“Mr. Landon,” Scott said.

“Yes, of course, I remember you. History, right?” Barbara said.

“Yes, that’s right,” Mr. Landon replied with a grin.

“Well, I think we’ll be going now,” Barbara said, cutting off the conversation awkwardly.

She embraced her offspring, locking one hand across each of their necks and shoulders as she walked down the school commons at a rapid pace. Scott carried his computer in his backpack.

Scott arrived home from school after following his mom’s car down Norton Avenue and immediately went upstairs to his room. He called Brianna on the house intercom, summoning her to his room. He sat her down on his bed and took a spot next to her. He leaned back and looked at the flat white ceiling of his bedroom. She copied his pose.

“That was strange,” Scott said.

“Yep,” Bri agreed.

“I think we need to keep this whole Kepler 3763 business quiet.”

“What Kepler 3763 business? What are you talking about?”

“Nothing…I just mean the stuff that went on with Mr. Landon. We should keep it a secret until I say so, okay? Please, Bri.”

“Absolutely, you can count on me.” She was forever trying to prove herself in the eyes of her brother.

“I mean it, Bri…I won’t talk to you for like…ever if you say a word about that to anyone. Swear it.”

“I swear!”

With that, Bri left Scott’s room and went to her own little bedroom, where she used her wafer to text her best friend Camilla.

Met Mr. L with Scott—super hottie—call me

Bri would tell everything to Camilla, as best friends do, but she focused on Mr. Landon’s good looks and how Scott had been super cool about fixing computers and communicating. None of the information that had been exchanged interested her in the least.

Meanwhile, Scott called his best friend.

“Cate? I need you to come over.”

“I can’t. My mom is freaking out. If I leave she’ll go berserk!”

“So is mine, but you won’t believe what happened!”

“What?”

“Not on the phone.”

“What? Who are you, James Bond?”

“Seriously. Come over as soon as you can.”

“You’re scaring me, Scott.”

“Baby, come over. Please.”

“Okay, as soon as she lets me.”

“Thanks!”

Scott sat at his desk chair and opened his laptop. He opened the downloaded file, which was on the stationery of Mount John University Observatory, New Zealand, and was titled:

Preliminary findings on the composition of Kepler 3763, taken over a period of 17 years.

Researched and Published by Oliver Cook

A chart with headings and check boxes followed. Above it, the titles were labeled clearly: Mass, Orbital, Flicker, Density, Color, Luminescence, Position, Date, Time. Sometimes, tiny handwriting was visible in the boxes. It was mall, meticulous, and quite hard to read.

It seemed complicated to decipher, but the title suggested that it contained details over a period of seventeen years, which explained why there were so many pages with categories checked and unchecked in boxes, as per the observations and the evidence. It contained at least a hundred pages; the first few were scanned versions of written papers, and then hundreds more that had been typed. Scott didn’t know what to make of it until he scrolled all the way down to the final pages. It was the final statistical compilation and conclusion that actually mattered most. He read page 111 of the report.

Conclusion

Kepler 3763 is a nondistinct planet of class C. It is approximately 23.5 light years away. It is nonterrestrial and has a probability of holding H2O. The surface temperature has an average of 300 Kelvin putting it in the “goldilocks” temperature range due to its distance to the nascent red dwarf star at the center of its system. However the analysis of shape taken over seventeen years concludes that it is stationary. This fact rules out the possibility of life. The dark half of the planet has temperatures of 10 Kelvin.K adult star, Kep

Scott went online and looked to see why other astronomers had not picked up on the Kepler issue in the past. He read and discovered that the cosmos is so large that astronomers across the world actually vie for time to observe minute slices of the sky. But Kepler 3763 was in the news since the Trump state of the union in 2025, so many would have flocked to see Kepler 3763. Of course a quick look would seem like it was in the perfect zone, and few would have the time needed to study it in detail. On top of that AmEarth controlled most the worlds telescopes. The mere immensity of the unonlye of a select few astronomers actively studying thsast two deades. This information proving Kepler uninhabitable had not been dissemins.

That morning, Peter had driven to work along a new route. He took the ferry in Darien across the Long Island Sound and drove from there down to Brooklyn. He loved that drive, since it involved no entry into Manhattan, which was basically an impossible city for cars. Throughout the drive, he allowed his mind to fantasize over his new job and what it meant to be a minister. He had now been given the proverbial bucket of water to the face. On arrival, he sat behind his desk and kept replaying the way he had released the information to the public. He wondered if he could have done things differently. All of those facts were already known by Parliament members and ministers in a top-secret setting, but that was quite different from what the common man was led to believe.

His new clearance level had allowed him to read about the details, and President Chen had sent him various files that made plenty of references to the subject. It was a bold move by AmEarth to allow the whole world to receive this information, as it damned the United States and its past choices. So why had they done it? As far as Peter could see, President Chen was happy if the vast majority of the world was worried about an alien attack. But why?

“Mr. Johansen?” his secretary said through the intercom.

“Yes?” Peter replied.

“It’s your son on line one.”

“Thanks, Mary…Scott?”

“Dad, I need to talk to you. It’s important.”

“What is it?”

“Not on the phone. When are you coming home?”

“Tonight. Scott, what is this about?”

“Not on this line.”

“Scott!”

Scott hung up. His teenage kid had enraged Peter yet again. Scott could push him into a rage zone so easily that it often scared him. Things had gotten better in recent years, but even lately, Scott could make his blood boil up over the stupidest things.

Cate stepped into Scott’s room looking frazzled. The events of that afternoon had impacted everyone, but some more than others. Her mother had driven Cate the short ten blocks to Scott’s house and was in the living room with Scott’s mom. They didn’t like each other, but the day had caused people to flock to one another.

“My mom is here, with your mom,” Cate said ominously.

“Oh my god! Why?” Scott asked.

“She didn’t want me to walk here, and she needed to talk to somebody. She’s going nuts. She’s terrified.”

“So is mine. Things are getting out of control!”

Scott pulled up a chair next to him at his desk, but she did not sit.

“I don’t think there’s any danger. Actually, I’m pretty sure it’s all a lie,” Scott said.

“Scott, please don’t start again with your crazy theories.”

“But Cate, just listen. I have proof that there is no alien attack!”

“I don’t want to hear about your proof. My dad said that we’re in imminent danger and that the whole world has finally united to stop the attack. You’re not in a position to make me believe otherwise. Please, Scott.”

“Okay, okay…just relax, I’ll just keep what I know to myself.”

“What do you think you know?”

“I thought that you didn’t want to know.”

He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer to him. They kissed deeply, and he tried to comfort her with that simple gesture. In his mind, Scott was torn between trusting Cate and leaving her out of this altogether. He weighed the options and chose the latter, which would ultimately be for the best.

“You know something, Cate?” Scott said.

“What?”

“I don’t think I’m going to convince you of anything. I just want you to remember something that I said to you once in the past.”

“And what was that?”

“People high up in the ACA aren’t worried. Just keep your eye on your dad, okay? If he starts seeming panicked, let me know.”

“Are you really not afraid?”

“No. Not in the least.”