Echo's Arc

Chapter 10 of 10

Echo carried the ship fragment back toward the buildings. His communicator buzzed in his pocket. It buzzed again. By the time he reached the path, it was buzzing without pause. He pulled it out. The screen showed a news story with his photograph, taken through a long lens. The headline said ALIEN AT SPACE HAVEN: PROOF. Below it, a number climbed. Shares. Comments. The number doubled while he watched. Astrid was already outside the planetarium dome, tablet in hand, reading. She did not look up when he approached. She scrolled once, then set the tablet flat on the low wall. The Canadian flag on her shoulder caught the gray light. She had the stillness of someone who had already decided something. "They know," Echo said. He held out the fragment. "Before I meet them. They know." "Two hundred tickets sold," Astrid said. "Six thousand people are driving here now." She tilted the tablet so he could see the map. Red dots crawled along every road toward Space Haven. "The gates open in ten hours. We cannot hold six thousand." Echo's throat felt tight. "I ruin it." "No." She looked at him then. "You told the truth. That is not ruin. That is a different event." Above them, high and small, the surveillance sphere hovered where it always hovered. Its antennas caught the light. Echo felt his teacher watching through it. He felt his whole planet watching. His hands shook around the fragment. "I planned to scare them," he said. "One at a time. Quiet. Now they come already knowing." "Then scaring is finished," Astrid said. Plain. No softness added. "They are not coming to be scared. They are coming to see if you are real." Echo lowered the fragment to the wall. He thought of the journalist stepping back, hands shaking. He thought of the child who called him funny costume man. He thought of six thousand faces arriving with the answer already in their pockets. "I cannot give them fear," he said. "I can give them me." Astrid nodded once. She picked up her tablet. "Then we change the event. Close the parking to cars. Move people through the dome in groups of fifty. You stand at the door. They walk past. They look at you. You look at them." "No hiding." "No hiding." Echo took off his straw hat and set it on the wall beside the fragment. He took off his sunglasses. The gray sky pressed against his black eyes and did not hurt. He was already exposed to the whole world. The hat and glasses were only for himself now. "I will stand at the door," he said. Astrid tapped her tablet and began making calls. The number on the news story kept climbing. Somewhere on the road, the first car turned onto the long drive toward Space Haven. Echo watched it come.