Page 111 of Every Almost

It was on the floor near the mixing bowl, covered in the same batter as everything else within a six-foot radius of where she'd landed. She was already moving, dropping to her knees beside it and unzipping it before Reyna could finish her sentence.

Everything was there. Nineteen cassettes in their cases, untouched, the Walkman, even her Mom and Dad's war letters, all ten, still bound by the rubber band Charlie had wrapped around them only a few days ago. Her Dad's pin was still there, too, tucked into the inner pocket where she'd put it that morning. Was it still morning? Was it even the same day?

Charlie closed her eyes for just a moment, feeling a semblance of balance as she realized the most important items in her life had traveled with her to... wherever she was. She clutched the bag, then slung it over her shoulder, and as she did, the friendship bracelet caught on the zipper. Blue, green, gold, red. Still on her wrist, still tied with Helen's double-knot. Even the bracelet had made it. Somehow, that made it just a bit easier to accept that, whatever she was going to do next, she was prepared.

She turned back to Reyna, who was studying her.

"Sorry. I'm just glad to see what's in here is... safe."

Reyna's expression softened as she began to walk to the door, leading Charlie to the medical bay.

"By the way," Reyna said. "What is a 'Fleetwood Mac'?"

Charlie blinked. "Sorry?"

Reyna pointed at Charlie's shirt, the letters just visible beneath the light tinge of the batter and the open flannel. "I was unable to read those words earlier. Now that I can read them, I don't know what they mean."

Charlie looked down at her batteredRumourstour tee and something about it made her relax, just a bit. "They're a band. A music group, from where I'm from. Do you have music here?"

Reyna smiled. "We do."

Charlie mirrored her smile back. "Well, my Dad introduced them to me, to this music group."

"And you wear them on your clothing?"

"Huh, no one has ever asked that. I guess it's just something we do.Humansdo, I mean. When we love something, or we attend an event where something amazing happened, like this band traveling around all of Earth to perform their music for people, well, we put it on a shirt."

Reyna considered this, a small smile forming. "Humans are strange."

"You have no idea," Charlie said.

As they walked through the corridors, Charlie reached up and touched the spot behind her ear where the device had been implanted. She could barely feel it.

"What is this thing, anyway?" Charlie asked.

"It's called a Voxlink," Reyna said. "It translates in real time. Every crew member on this ship has one."

"So everything I'm hearing right now..."

"Is being translated, yes. And everything you say is being translated for us."

Charlie touched the spot again. A tiny piece of alien technology embedded in her skin, and it was doing what entire departments at the United Nations couldn't. "That's incredible," she murmured.

Kess was already waitingwhen they arrived, the Med Bay prepped with a precision that suggested she'd started setting up the moment Torvax's scan cleared. Everything was laid out with monitors, scanners, and even some instruments Charlie couldn't identify, all arranged with the exactness of someone who believed disorder was a medical risk. Charlie kept her workbench at JPL the same way with everything in its place because, when something went wrong, you didn't have time to search.

"On the bed," Kess said, by way of greeting.

"She's warm and friendly, isn't she?" Charlie murmured to Reyna.

"She grows on you," Reyna replied. "Like a fungus."

"I heard that," Kess said.

Kess moved around her with brisk efficiency, attaching small monitors to Charlie's wrist, her temple, under her arm. Each device hummed faintly when activated, and Charlie resisted the urge to examine them more closely. The engineer in her wanted to figure out how everything worked all with her own hands. The patient in her wanted to ensure she didn't antagonize the doctor currently responsible for her health.

"Hold still," Kess said.

Charlie held still. In fact, she barely breathed.