Startled, DJ turned around so quickly that he lost his balance. “Noa? Where’d you come from?”
“Seattle,” I said. “Didn’t we go over this already?”
“I meant—”
I rolled my eyes before I thought better of it. “I know what you meant. I came looking for you so we could talk.”
DJ hung his head like he expected me to yell at him. “I don’t want to fight, Noa.”
“Neither do I.” There was nowhere to sit in the reactor room, so I flopped down on the floor and leaned against the wall. DJ shrugged and joined me. “Can we just discuss our options?”
“Of course.”
I held up a finger. “Okay, if we do nothing, you think that someone will rescue us in a few months.”
“Right,” DJ said.
“Why?” I asked. “Because a hologram told you? We don’t actually know if an emergency signal was sent.”
To his credit, DJ listened to my questions and seemed to consider them before replying. It probably helped that I wasn’t shouting at him. “Okay.”
“Jenny Perez said our batteries will last about a year. If the signal didn’t go out, it might be too late by the time we realize help isn’t coming.” While I’d been searching the ship for DJ, I’d spent my time working out what I’d say to him.
“That’s true too,” DJ said.
“Additionally, who’s coming for us? NASA? NASA doesn’t have ships like this. The truth is that we don’t know if rescue is ever going to arrive and, if it does, we don’t know who they’ll be or whether we’ll want their help.”
DJ nodded slowly. I didn’t know if he was coming around, but he hadn’t dismissed my argument either. I didn’t want to admit it out loud, but DJ probably was smarter than me when it came to science stuff. “What about our other option?”
“Reboot the computer,” I said. “Crank the ship back to life and use it to get ourselves home.”
“Then you know how to fly a spaceship?”
His question caught me off guard. “Well… no, but—”
“Because I’ve got no clue how to fly one, and I’m betting Jenny doesn’t either.” DJ gained no obvious satisfaction at pointing out a detail I hadn’t considered, which made him a better person than me.
“Fair point,” I said. “Maybe we can learn, though. And the worst-case scenario is that we have real food and hot water while we’re waiting for rescue to arrive.”
DJ shook his head. “The worst-case scenario’s that we die, Noa. That’s what I keep trying to get you to understand.”
“Then we die!” I said. “But we can’t just do nothing!” I was losing my hold on my temper. I stood and paced the room. “We were kidnapped, DJ. You get that, right? Someone or something stole us from our lives and is holding us against our will.”
“I do understand—”
“Do you?” I asked. “This isn’t a spaceship; it’s a prison. I don’t know why we’re here or what they want from us, but I can’t do nothing!” I was having difficulty breathing. I pressed my hand to my chest. “I can’t just be a victim!” My knees gave out. The bones in my legs vanished. I hit the deck. Pain radiated up through my thighs.
And then DJ was there. He wrapped his arms around me and whispered, “It’s going to be okay,” over and over until my heart slowed and my jelly legs felt strong enough to support me again.
“Sorry,” I said, feeling foolish. At the same time, I felt safe in a way I hadn’t since waking up in this nightmare. I wanted to lean into him, dissolve into DJ’s chest. But his closeness threatened to suffocate me, and the warmth of his body grew stifling.
“Okay,” DJ said.
I disentangled myself from him, trying not to seem ungrateful for his help. “Seriously. I didn’t mean to lose it like that.”
“Okay,” he said again. “Let’s do it.”
I backed away. “Do what?”
DJ took a deep breath. “Reboot the computer.” He motioned at the console he’d been working at when I arrived. “I was considering doing it anyway. Thinking it was wrong to stand in your way of going home.” He shrugged. “Anyway, all we have to do is hit that button, and it’ll restart everything.”
I punched DJ in the arm, and I wasn’t sure which of us it hurt more. “Why didn’t you tell me straightaway instead of letting me ramble like that?”
“Figured it couldn’t hurt to talk it out one last time.” DJ moved toward the console. “So are we gonna do this or what?”
A large button labeled “Reboot?” on the touchscreen blinked from a neon yellow to a dull mustard. I reached for it and hesitated. I wasn’t having second thoughts, but now that we were going to do it, I felt the weight of the decision.
DJ stood beside me, waiting. I gave him a terse nod, and we pressed the button together.
The screen went blank.
I counted the seconds, hoping for the best. I hit twenty and was going to ask DJ if we’d made a mistake, fearing that our worst-case scenario had come to pass, when a steady vibration ran through the floor. Consoles around the room flickered to life. A light from within the cylinder in the center of the room began to glow and swirl. It looked like it was filled with bioluminescent jellyfish swimming madly, faster and faster until they were nothing but a polychromatic blur.
Eventually, the shaking settled into a low, steady thrum that I could hardly feel.
DJ smiled at me, flashing those dimples. “Looks like we did it.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. The screen on our console showed graphs and readouts far more complicated than what had been inside my hud. I couldn’t make sense of any of it, but it did seem like we had restarted the reactor.
“We didn’t blow up.”
“Yet,” I said, smiling cautiously. “Thanks for not being the kind of person who was too stubborn to change his mind and admit he was wrong.”
“I mean, I wasn’t wrong to be cautious.”
I patted his shoulder. “Everyone makes mistakes, DJ. It’s not your fault you’re not as smart as me. Few people are.”
DJ laughed, and I thought everything was going to be okay. Even if we couldn’t figure out how to fly the ship right away, we’d work it out eventually. Together.
“Warning!” shouted the ship over the speakers. “Trinity Labs Quantum Fold Drive will initialize spatial tear in five minutes. Warning!”
And then that happened.
The blood drained from DJ’s face.
“That sounds bad,” I said. “What does it mean? DJ?”
“I think we need to go to Ops.” I barely had time to register his reply before he sprinted out of the room.
I chased DJ through the ship to Ops and was out of breath by the time I caught up. He was standing at one of the stations, staring at the viewport, at a pulsating fissure in space where there had been nothing but stars before. The rip crackled with energy, and it made me feel dizzy.
Jenny was already there, standing in front of the viewport. “What is happening?” she yelled over the sound of the alarm.