Chapter Fifteen
I tried calling Kevin in Miami when we landed for the connection to Puerto Rico - but he didn't answer. Despite my persistence that he hadn't been Keplar in the airport in Nashville, I was beginning to wonder. At one point during the sixty minute layover I almost had worked up the guts to ask Gliese if Keplars could only use the DNA of dead people and what the Kevin Keplar meant about the real Kevin but I didn't think I could stomach the answer if it wasn't what I wanted. So I channeled my anxiety into calling Kevin over and over and over again, desperate for him to pick up and confirm that it'd been him.
When we landed in Puerto Rico, my cell reception was kinda crappy. I muttered to my phone the entire time we were waiting in line for a rental car and connected it to the cigarette lighter immediately to charge with the ringer turned all the way up. There was no way in hell I was gonna miss the call when Kevin answered all the myriad of voice mails I'd left him. No way in hell.
"I'm just saying that if your friend in the airport was Keplar, then we only have a short time at best to cease the Whitenoise signal," Gliese was saying, her voice nervous. "If Barucki finds out we're taking away his opportunity to detonate, he's gonna be pissed."
"I'm getting us there as fast as I could," I replied, navigating the car along the GPS-dictated route to the place that Fabritz had requested we meet him. Gliese shifted nervously in her seat, her palms pressed together, picking at her fingernails with her teeth.
Finally, we arrived in the little town that he'd described that was a short three-mile ride from the Aricebo satellite, and we parked in front of the bar he'd described. Gliese climbed out of the car, her eyes scanning the brilliantly blue skies. The entire area smelled like tequila and cigars. "I can't believe we're here," she said in awe.
"I can't either," I muttered, stepping over some trash onto the crumbing old sidewalk that ran along side the graffiti covered bar front.
Seedy wasn't even the word for this place.
We went inside and my naustrils were assaulted with the stench of a hundred mens' body odor. "Christ..." I muttered, covering my nose. I glanced around the room. It was dark. "Could he have picked a shittier place? If he tried I don't think he could've."
"There he is," Gliese said, pointing.
I turned and sure enough, she was right. Fabritz was sitting in a corner booth, his eyes turned down on some paperwork before him, a serious expression of concentration in his eyes. I cleared my throat, and walked toward him, my hand instinctively reaching for Gliese's and squeezing, holding her hand protectively, tucking her behind me.
Fabritz looked up as we approached. He saw me first, tucked his papers into his messanger bag and stood up to greet me. His eyes landed on Gliese. His jaw dropped.
"Hey," I said, stepping up. "We need to talk."
He stared at her, "We certainly do," he agreed. He grabbed his bag, downed the last gulp of the tequila in his glass, and waved toward the door, wiping his mouth, "C'mon. Here, even the walls have ears," he muttered. He led the way back out onto the street.
Gliese stayed close to me, her fingers tight around mine. Fabritz led the way past our rental car to a large white and blue van with the NASA logo on the doors. "We'll go to my ofice," he suggested, and he held open the passanger door for us. I helped Gliese into the door and followed after myself.
He didn't speak a word until we were off the main road by the seedy bar, the van's wheels thumping over exposed roots on a dirt road. Finally, he said, "How is this possible?"
"I only appear to be your colleague," Gliese offered up. "I've assumed Bellatrix's DNA, but I am not in fact Bellatrix."
Fabritz was squinting between the road and us, his knuckles white on the wheel.
"I'm a Keplar."
"But --"
"And I'm here on the orders of Queen Lyra to request that you cease and desist the Whitenoise Signal," Gliese added.
Fabritz's eyebrows went up. "Keplar... As in Keplar 62-E."
"Yes," Gliese answered, "Exactly." She looked at me, "It's about time there's a human that knows what Keplar 62-E is," she said haughtily.
"Of course I know what it is," Fabritz replied, "We discovered it. Well I discovered it and you - Bellatrix - you decided to aim the signal there. Last December. Just before ---" he paused, shook his head, then said. "Gliese, right?"
She looked at him in surprise, then her eyebrows, which had been furrowed, relaxed and a look of calm understanding took over. "Not you, too," she whispered.
I glanced at Fabritz, then at Gliese, "What?"
"Keplar," hissed Gliese.
Fabritz raised his eyebrow, "Excuse me?"
"He's Keplar," Gliese said, her eyes desperate, "In disguise. He's probably reporting directly to ---"
"Borucki?" Fabritz ventured.
Gliese turned to look at him.
"Yeah that's right, sweetheart, I talked to your dad," Fabritz said. "He told me all about it."
"All about what?" I asked.
Gliese turned to me, "He is going to LIE to you. He'll say anything to get you on his side, Nick. Anything."
"That's not true, Bellatrix," Fabritz said pointedly, "Only the truth." He was navigating the car through a series of security gates, slowing down for electronic sensors to read an ID box that he put up on the dashboard. "Ralph called me," he said, his eyes shifting to meet mine, "Bellatrix didn't die that night, after the accident. She was permanently brain damaged, but she didn't die. This -- this is the remains of her mind at work, Nick. She didn't die, she just went insane."
"THAT'S A LIE!" she yelled.
"But --"
"The story she's spouting? There's only just enough truth to it to make an uninformed person believe she's telling the truth. Keplar 62 is a star approximately 1,200 lightyears away, and around that star rotates a series of planets - the fifth and sixth, E and F - are of make up similar to Earth. We were among the scientists who contributed to the galaxy's discovery with the Whitenoise Project and we retrained the signal to attempt a communication impact within the next 1,200 years. The signal hasn't even reached the Keplar galaxy yet."
"LYING!" shrieked Gliese.
"Keplar is in the constellation Lyra," Fabritz continued, "Which is why she's named her so-called queen Lyra in her mind --"
"How dare you disrespect the queen!"
"Even her supposed name, even Gliese is connected: It's the name of another star which contributed to the discovery of Keplar 62, another planetary system that once was believed to contain inhabitable planets..."
"LET ME OUT OF THIS VEHICLE!" shrieked Gliese.
"And this Borucki?" Fabritz laughed, "As in William J. Borucki, was the lead scientist on the Keplar project. We reported directly to him the night of the accident." He waved his hand at my phone, "A quick Google search will confirm any of the information I've just given you."
"LET ME OUT OF HERE! NOW!" she screamed.
Fabritz parked in a space near an extremely large building. "By all means," he replied, and the doors unlocked.
Gliese launched herself over me, and threw the door open, her feet hitting the pavement beside the van with a thwack sound and her eyes rimmed with the threat of tears. "I am not a crazy person," she shouted, "I am a Keplar."
Fabritz shrugged.
"Why didn't I know about this," I asked, "If it was true?"
Fabritz looked at me with sadness in his eyes, "Because... you didn't stick around to find out."
Whitenoise by Pengi
