An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (An Absolutely Remarkable Thing #1)(20)

Option 1 (the sane option): I could detach from all this as much as possible. Stop doing TV things, definitely do not meet a strange science girl at a Walmart in Southern California to buy smoke detectors, never do anything on the internet ever again, pay off my loans. Buy a big house with a gate with the licensing revenue that would, no doubt, if this were real, keep flowing for the entire rest of my life, and have dinner parties with clever people until I died.

Option 2 (the not-sane option): Keep doing TV, spice up my Twitter and my Instagram and have opinions. Basically, use the platform that I was given by random chance to have a voice and maybe make a difference. What kind of difference? I had no idea, but I did know another chance like this wasn’t going to come along . . . ever.

Given the laundry list of other potential culprits, it was difficult to realize that this was the thing that was freaking me out. But once I knew it, I figured the only thing to do was to make the decision, which would then maybe allow me to sleep in that mountain of pillows.

With my brain full of fear and fog and excitement (and far too impressed with itself), I made my decision. As is often the case, it was the easier choice to make and the more difficult choice to live with.

Having made that choice, I immediately wanted someone to talk me out of it, so I called Maya.

She didn’t answer the phone.

It’s weird looking back on the little insignificant moments that completely change your life and maybe all of human history. There’s one, right there: Maya Didn’t Answer Her Phone That Night. It didn’t go straight to voicemail, so her phone was on—she just didn’t pick up.

I texted her, I need to talk about some stuff, and then, with one last look at that magnificent bed, I grabbed my laptop, walked out of my room and down the hall, and knocked on Andy’s door. And then I knocked again. The third time, the door opened and Andy stood there looking like I had just taken away the most beautiful thing in his life, which I pretty much had.

“I have news,” I said.

“This is reminding me very specifically of another time you woke me up with news.”

“And that turned out OK, right?”

“You may be convincing me right now that it didn’t. Please, whatever is happening, can it please, please wait for six hours and twenty-three minutes?”

“No.” I pushed past him, turned on all the lights, and walked into his hotel room, which, despite Andy having only been in it for a few hours, was a complete mess. “Whoa, was there a bomb in your bag?”

“I couldn’t find my toothbrush,” he moaned.

“OK, I need to tell you a few things.”

We sat on his bed, and I pulled out my phone and read him the email exchange with Miranda.

He was very quiet after I finished before finally saying, “Carl is an alien?”

“I know, I realize it sounds absurd, and, look, it’s probably not aliens. I mean, ALIENS! It’s not a real thing that happens.”

“Yeah, well, there are obviously aliens. The only question is whether they have the technology and desire to visit.”

“There are obviously aliens?!” I said, a little perplexed.

“Yeah, I mean, April, do you have any idea how many planets there are in the universe? Literally more than the number of snowflakes that have ever fallen on earth! Or something. I don’t know, it’s a really impressive number. The point is that the odds that intelligent life happened just one time are basically zero.”

“Oh, so this isn’t such a big deal then?” I ventured.

“ARE YOU KIDDING? If this is real, it’s the biggest deal in the history of big deals!” He actually yelled at me.

“Whoa, OK, yes, OK, yes. Yes.” I almost said “OK” again, but I realized I was starting to sound like my brain had broken. So instead I said, “I know this seems unlikely, but I have more news.”

“You’re right, it seems unlikely that any other news matters much right now.”

“I Skyped with Miranda and told her about the Freddie Mercury Sequence and she figured it out.”

“WHAT?! GODDAMN IT, APRIL!”

“Why are you mad at me?!”

“I don’t know! I don’t think I’m mad! I think I’m having a weird and unpleasant dream. Or, if I’m not, then I’m just overwhelmed and tired. This is allowed to be overwhelming, right?”

“Yes, absolutely. So do you want to know, though?”

“I mean, yeah.” But he didn’t sound so sure.

I walked him through Miranda’s thoughts, her discovery in the citations, and that you can apparently buy uranium on Amazon.

And then I said, “Which is all to say that if you thought we had a scoop before, we now have a very different opportunity and I would like to suggest that we take it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, if I made First Contact with an alien life-form, that’s a bigger deal than me making a viral YouTube video,” I said, using Miranda’s term.

“And?”

“And so people are going to talk about this for the rest of time. Maybe we can be a bigger part of the narrative.”

“We?”

“Yeah. We.”

“April, if, if, IF—and it’s a big, huge, Jupiter-sized if—if this is real, it’s going to be way bigger than us. Every world leader is going to be on the news the moment it breaks. No one’s going to listen to you.”