Page 31 of Last Chance to Save the World

The doors slide open.

Rian steps out first.

We’re in a glass-covered walkway, and while the floor beneath our feet is covered in lush carpet, beyond the clear tube there’s just cement and the rest of the roof. The path takes us directly to a large building that takes up about a quarter of the space, on the eastern side, closest to Triumph Square. The rest of the roof is littered with poles and towers; when I crane my neck up, I can almost see the tips of the various satellites and receivers the communication system uses.

“Focus,” Rian says, grabbing my arm and dragging me toward the offices. At the door, he has to do another security check—PIN pad, face and hand scans—but when the doors glide open, I just step in with him, basically cramming through the till. It’s inelegant but effective.

We’re in.

For one breathless moment, I wait to see if there’s a secondary scan to stop us from doing just this. But no computerized voice pipes up. None of the workers even glance our way. I was right. This is a place of work, and everyone’s too focused on their own high-stakes job to notice anyone else’s arrival.

Rian’s still tense, his eyes scanning the room at large, trying to see where the nanobots have been placed.

But my eyes are on the pedestal right in the center of the room.

And the red telephone perched atop it in place of honor.

At the gala on Rigel-Earth, my main goal was acquiring Rian and convincing him that the nanobots had been infected with malware and we needed to do this whole subterfuge.

But I had a personal, secondary goal.

The Museum of Intergalactic History houses a lot of artifacts linked to the development of intergalactic travel. Including, formerly, this red telephone, the same one that was used during the Apollo launches and was once housed at the Mission Control Room in the Houston Space Center way back in the twentieth century. It’s an iconic object that was witness to the first steps of humanity in space.

It shouldn’t behere, in the private collection of the galaxy’s richest dumbass, but I suppose that’s my fault. I did sort of convince Strom Fetor that he needed the telephone and that it should be right here, and then I maybe manipulated the museum to give it to him after averting a terrorist attack that was actually, for once, not my fault at all. I really didn’t get enough credit for that.

Before, I told Rian I don’t like strings, but they’re not so bad when I’m the one pulling them.

Gotta work quick now.

While Rian’s on high alert, looking for the nanobots, my hand snakes out to the telephone on display. I’m a little shocked it’s just sitting there. I mean, I did absolutely suggest this very location and rolled the dice that Fetor would obey, but still. If this phone were mine, I’d...I don’t know, but I wouldn’t just put it on a little pedestal in the middle of a room where it’s mostly being ignored and not appreciated and where anyone—like me, for example, can pick it up.

“Ada!” Rian hisses when he finally notices what I’m doing. The red receiver is still in my hand. My god, I didnotexpect it to be that easy.

“What?” I ask Rian innocently, tossing the receiver into my other hand, watching the way the coiled cord wiggles.

“Put that back,” he says. “We need to find—”

His eyes widen.

I feel the presence of someone behind me.

I set the receiver down slowly, then turn to face Strom Fetor himself.

“Houston,” he says, looking down at us, “we have a problem.”

12

Strom!” Rian says, attempting to speak with a warm voice that doesn’t imply we are absolutely not where we belong.

Fetor only has eyes for me, his face carefully schooled. His gaze slides from me to the red phone and back again.

This is the second time he’s caught me touching this phone.

And the second time he’s been just a few moments too late to catch what I wasreallydoing.

I check my earring, making sure it’s secure in my right ear.

It’s fine,I hum into the subvocal transmitter. I don’t look back at Rian as I take a step closer to Fetor, raising both my hands in the air. “Caught me,” I say. I let a saucy smile slip over my face, noting the way Fetor’s eyes drop to my lips.

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