“So, you’re saying for every Higgens, there’s a Giomatti.”
“I guess so.”
“That’s…terrifying.”
I paused, surprised by her reaction, but then I thought it through. It was pretty daunting to think that for every single selfless, helpful person in the world that there was a person waiting in the wings to take advantage. But then again, for every person who would hurt another for gain, there was someone who wouldn’t stand for injustice right behind them. It was like a cosmic scale of checks and balances.
“I guess it all depends on how you look at it.”
“Or who you choose to surround yourself with,” she countered. “I think I just happen to have lucked out to have run into four very good people.”
I blushed again. “Well, good is subjective, but thank you.”
“Of course, Higgens. You are my friend. I have read that lavishing compliments about positive traits is productive to keeping friends both happy and healthy.”
“Well, it’s safe to say that being your friend makes me very happy.”
“Excellent. Now for the next wire, are you removing it, splicing it, or repurposing?”
“Splicing.”
She nodded and reached to the tray next to her, handing me an ionic welder and then a simple pair of wire-snippers. “Splice away, then.”
“Do you think we did it?”
“I don’t know. You guys are the experts. Do you think we did it?”
“I don’t want to jinx us.”
“Human friends, it has been just over a month since our escape from Giomatti. I think perhaps the best way to find out if we have indeed done it is to power up the scanner and see if it works.”
The four of us looked at Mimic, who was standing to the side and watching us intently. I had to hand it to her, she certainly was keeping her calm for someone who might or might not be on the edge of being reunited with her people.
“Right. Starting it up. That would be a good way to get this going.” Ciangi took a deep breath. “Bahn, do you have the algorithms loaded?”
“I do.”
“Gonzales, you said the initial power tests went well?”
“Check, my friend.”
“Higgens, you loaded all of the samples into the analyzer?”
“Just like you showed me.”
Ciangi nodded, her small mouth pursing as she went through another mental checklist. It was funny how she had seemed to have taken over as the de facto leader of their little scanner project, as Gonzales had taken over during the planet-hopping section of our journey.
“Okay. Got it. I…I think we’re ready. Bahn, add the power.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The taller of the coin twins reached over to the console and punched in four simple digits that would reveal if all the work we had put in was fruitful or a complete waste of time.
The room filled with whirring and popping as our machine came to life. We all held our collective breaths as we waited to see if it would all end in a fiery explosion.
But it didn’t.
Things lit up and the scanner menu booted just fine on the console, with the loading bar proceeding right on task. It was a tense five minutes, but then, finally, the computer let out a ding.
Calculations Completed.
Then, in a glorious moment of relief, a map of the system we were in projected itself into the center of the room.
Possible matches found within one thousand clicks. Estimated arrival time: nine hours.
“Oh my gosh!” Ciangi cried. “We did it! We actually did it!”
“We…” Mimic’s voice cracked a bit. “We found my people?”
All of our smiles were ridiculously large as I pulled my friend into a hug. “Yeah, Mimi. We did. You ready to go home?”
She let out a long, shuddering sigh and I was pretty sure it was the first time I had seen her show such emotional vulnerability. Or perhaps she was just learning to show her emotions as we did. “Yes, more than anything else.”
“Then let’s take you home, friend.”
Over-hyping the Finale
I had a strange combination of emotions as we flew in a beeline right toward the scanner’s destination. A bit of it was a surreal level of accomplishment. After everything that we had been through, some dumb janitor who was born on a backwater colony had managed to not only discover our first definitive proof of alien life, but to reunite her with her people after wrongfully destroying her home.
But at the same time… I was realizing that we were about to drop my best friend on a planet that might not support human life. After all, we weren’t nearly close enough to get an actual reading on its atmosphere. I couldn’t go home either, so was I just going to be stuck in an orbit life, only to occasionally drop down to visit Mimic planet-side with all of her shifter friends? Would she even want to be friends when she was with her people again?
The knot in my stomach only grew as we navigated closer, with more and more worrisome thoughts cropping up. Such as, what was I going to do with my life, would there be room for us on Mimic’s new planet, and what would we do if the scanner turned out to be incorrect and we had to recalibrate?
When it was time to sleep that night, Mimic and I both curled up in my bed, me cocooned in blankets and her just lying there, completely motionless as she always was when she rested. She was looking a little softer these days, less whittled down by the unforgiving clutches of starvation. I found myself staring at her, taking in each and every feature. It was probably a silly thing to do considering her face could change into whatever she wanted at any time, but it didn’t matter. Mimic had changed my life. In no small way either. And now that we could possibly be parting ways, I found myself worrying that I would never see that face again.
But still… I was supposed to be happy for her, right? And I guessed I was, but that happiness was having a hard time keeping up with all the worry and fears. I had spent so much of my life being friendless, and now that I had stalwart companions, I didn’t want to let a single one of them go.
Oh well. It wasn’t like I was going to come to any sort of definitive conclusion before our sleep cycle. We would be arriving at the planet in another four hours, and then the short-range, planetary scanner would find us a landing spot and any preliminary information about the environment that we might need to know.
Once we woke up, it would be the grand finale of our little journey.
…but what if I didn’t want it to end?
“Everyone ready?” Gonzales asked, her fingers hovering over the controls of the landing ship. It was just different enough from the other vessel we had been stranded on for a week for everything to be uncomfortable, like someone had come into my room and moved everything an inch to the left.
“Ready,” Mimic said, practically bouncing in her seat. At least she was happy, and her obvious excitement made me smile as well.
“Alright, shape-shifty-Mcgee, let’s go say hi to your people.”
The engines hummed and then we were gently flying out of the hangar bay. It was certainly much different than our last frantic escape from the ship, but my heart wasn’t beating any less hard. What was waiting for us on this strange new planet?
I supposed I was going to find out very soon.
For the first time since we had met, our flight was neither hurried, tense or fraught with danger. We descended through the atmosphere without trouble and landed right where the nav had set out for us.
Once the ship was settled, Gonzales hit the proper sequence for a landing rest and then we were all suiting up for our exit.