He grew more comfortable in the spacesuit as he finished the first slice.

"Don't tell your mom," Stephanie poured him a glass of wine.

He took a drink. "Didn't think you were a rule breaker."

"Yup." She twirled her glass. "The ones with power make the rules."

Whoa, that was Authoritative. He nearly choked and noted that his cheerful, easygoing teacher made the rules.

"Can I ask you something?" he said.

"Sure."

"What is dark matter? I've read about it, but I don't get it."

"It's like matter, but it doesn't interact with the electromagnetic force."

"Oh," he said, "that totally makes perfect sense."

She chuckled. "Electromagnetism is the reason you can touch something and see it. It's why you're not falling through that chair. Your matter pushes against other matter that also interacts with the electromagnetic force. As we speak, abundances of dark matter travel through you, billions and billions of particles each second. You don't feel it or see it. The Aeon Switch can turn all those particles into matter and vice versa. That's what the Aeon Switch does, the plate over there."

"Cool. Wait a minute. The meteor?"

"Yup."

"Holy... what? Why?"

"To prove a point. Next time I'll be sure to always have enough energy stored to change it back, though."

Connor nodded, dumbfounded. "Cool."

"It is cool. And don't you want to take the suit off?"

"No way," he slapped his leg like a car dealer selling a used car, "I'm breaking in this space suit. It's lucky. I couldn't have done it without it."

"Luck had nothing to do with it. You should believe in yourself more."

"I only pumped the handle four times, though. I didn't flip the switch."

"You mentioned a girl?"

"Yeah, doesn't that weird you out?" he said.

"Nah. Did you talk to her?" Stephanie carved an hourglass figure in the air. "Was she hot?"

"Yes and yes? Her purple suit didn't leave much to the imagination."

"Did you get her number?" Stephanie laughed.

"Oh my God," Connor said. "Why didn't I think about that while trying to detonate a bomb?"

"But how are you going to find out if she's awesome?"

"She was floating, maybe flying? She's pretty awesome and finished the detonation."

"I'm sure she did," Stephanie thought, looking up. "And know she still has much growing up to do."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"I also saw Teresa for a moment there. In the Lucid Passage."

"Did you now? It looks like someone's got a crush."

"Oh, God."

The room thundered, startling the two into silence. The knock continued, and Stephanie got up and hustled to the living room. Connor lumbered in the suit behind her while holding a slice of pizza.

"Crap," she peered through the window.

"What?"

He put his visor down as she opened the door, feeling as if he needed to hide. Several officers stood on her patio, and cars were parked at varying angles in the yard. She sighed and signaled for them to come in. Connor quickly stepped back and made room as someone bumped into him.

"Stephanie," the man in front stepped forward. He looked to be in his early 50s, and the way he addressed her implied he was asking for something.

"How can I help you?" she said.

"Don't." He pinched his nose between his eyes. "Just don't. You know why we're here."

"Missed me?"

"The meteor, what happened?"

"I used a bomb to stop it. I blipped in, grabbed it, and blipped back here. This astronaut here did the detonation. Connor, this is Mr. Furyk, my... former boss."

Connor waved his astronaut pizza hand up. Against someone with a wide chin, a mustache, and gray hair just above the ears, most people would had shaken his hand instead of waving a pizza.

"Yes we know what happened. But you assured me it wouldn't get near Earth," Mr. Furyk said.

"Even I make mistakes."

"Even you make mistakes?" Mr. Furyk said, "what kind of bitch are you—"

Connor pointed his pizza at him and, with a muffled astronaut voice, yelled, "Watch your mouth, you filthy piece of shi—"

"Connor," Stephanie lifted a hand, "I got this."

Mr. Furyk smirked, "That's Connor in there?"

"My employee." She walked over to her desk and took a seat. "Tell me why you're here, or get out." She started turning off computer screens and pressing keys to dim the plate.

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"We did what you asked and spent billions to stop what you created. I believe we need to keep you under more surveillance."

Connor twisted his body to look at Stephanie through the visor.

She thought about it. The reality is that there is nothing they can do to her, but she still wanted to work with some of their tech. "I'll humor you."

"That someone lives here with you."

"I choose Connor."

His pizza plopped on the floor.

Mr. Furyk inspected the plate in the middle of the room. "No, we have someone in mind."

"Did the teacher's pet already fail her assignment?"

"She will succeed."

"You won't be able to understand my tech, regardless." Stephanie wasn't guessing. She knew that they would never figure out how the Aeon Switch worked. It was a game of chess, except her every move was a winning move.

"Talking to you like this isn't easy for me. You made these decisions," Mr. Furyk said.

"You forced me to."

He sighed and paced around her room. As he approached her desk, he turned to Connor. "Connor Voll."

"Y-yes?"

He marched across the room like he owned the place, paying no attention to the cords or anything else he stepped on. "I'd be careful, Connor." He stepped onto the plate with one foot and over with the other. Everyone was tense and Stephanie readied her Aeon Switch. "She may try to make a man out of you."

He just about shat his astronaut pants.

The room felt relieved.

Connor didn't know what Mr. Furyk meant. Sex? Connor thought. No. Mr. Furyk's undertone was a warning, not something he wished for.

As he and his subordinates got into their cars, Connor closed the main door. Thuds of doors closed nearly in unison, engines turned on, and the brigade left, leaving the aisle of small ranches behind them. "Who were those guys?"

"Government officials," Stephanie said, "it's a boys' club." She picked up her glass and twirled it.

"Why didn't they arrest you?"

She began laughing. "I make the rules, and for now, I'm just indulging them. Come on. We're still celebrating."

***

The pants portion of the astronaut's suit was still on when he woke up. He stretched and bumped his hand on the glass of the helmet next to him, and his other hand bumped into something softer. Retracting it, he spotted Stephanie sleeping next to him.

Just her shoulder. He sighed with relief.

Blue light flashed across the room—no, across his vision. Fonts and text flickered around his peripheral vision. He looked around in a panic, trying to reach it with his vision, the text he could read, Moon, Optimal, Connor.

Connor? What?

And then his panic stared into her shirt. He leaned up, averted his eyes, and took deep breaths. Like getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar, except he didn't get caught, and he knew he could peek—he was too afraid to think of reaching—as much as he wanted into the cookie jar. He looked at her, curled in a ball, partially exposed midriff, and her braid uncurled onto the floor behind her.

There was no text in his vision, and he forgot all about it.

He felt sick because of the wine, ashamed for staring at Stephanie and good for staring at Stephanie.

Ding dong.

He straightened as if his mom had just caught him looking at porn. He breathed, slowly turned, and saw two small shadows through the crack beneath the door. He rechecked Stephanie—plus a few more glances—she was still sound asleep. Relieved, he stood and went to check who it might be. Expecting another suit, Mr. Furyk, or someone similar, he opened the door and instead saw Teresa.

"What?" Connor said.

She lifted one hand at shoulder height and waved the fingers. "Hi." She stepped one foot in to block the door from closing in her face. "Is Stephanie here?"

"No."

"I'm here," Stephanie groaned. "I'm here." After heavy stepping, breaking glass, and a thud, she reached the door and leaned against the frame next to Connor. "Come in, Teresa."

Teresa pranced around them while not stepping on uneaten pizza, wine bottles, and snacks littering the floor. "This isn't what I was expecting from the great Stephanie Saunders," Teresa said.

Stephanie went over to her desk and sat.

"Girl, seriously?" Teresa said.

"What?" Stephanie quirked a brow.

Teresa leaned into Stephanie quietly. "At least wear some support."

"I'll do what I want."

Connor was about to close the door but kept it open. "Should I leave?"

"No," Stephanie said,

"Yes," Teresa said.

"You don't get to tell him what to do. He can do whatever he wants."

Shocked at his freedom, his imagination, whatever I wanted, took control, and his astronaut pants dropped and banged against the floor. He bent over to pull them back up but stopped when he realized his blue jeans were still on.

"So, Connor," Stephanie said, "Teresa will live here."

"What?" Connor asked.

"Teresa will live here."

"Yeah, I heard you. But what?"

"We knew each other before. We never officially met until she walked into class. Probably to keep tabs on me."

"I don't get it."

The two girls sighed at each other. Teresa leaned on the desk and said, "We work for the government, that's all."

"You know Einstein? The smartest man in history," Stephanie didn't waste a moment.

"I don't think we should tell him this," Teresa said.

Stephanie ignored her. "E equals M C squared came out in 1905. The population was approximately one point seven billion people at the time. Following?"

"Yeah, but I still don't get it."

"So, it's been well over one hundred years since, and the population is much higher. Way higher. In theory, we should have had several people on par with Einstein since then. Can you name anyone else?"

Connor tried to find an answer. "Don't think so."

"Don't get me wrong. There have been some great public discoveries since, such as chaos theory. But Einstein's discovery led to the atomic bomb. Imagine what else a new Einstein could discover."

"Your dark matter thing. The plate."

"Aeon Switch, good. The US was the first to get the bomb and won the war. Knowledge is a resource and a powerful one. The smartest people all get... recruited to work for an organization. An organization called Optimal."

"Recruited?"

"Kidnapped."

Connor nodded with a thousand-yard stare. "For the government. You were forced to work for them. Optimal. That was your job for the government? Optimal?"

"Yup."

"Is Teresa from Optimal?"

"Yup."

Connor couldn't believe it. "No way."

Teresa tried to be cute and tapped her toes with a heel. "Ask politely, and I'll show you my awesome tech."

"Fuck you and your tech," he said. "I'm not working with her."

Stephanie noticed Teresa's defeated expression as a result of his response. "I'm sorry, but sometimes we have to work with people we don't want to. She'll be working autonomously, anyway."

Connor paced around to prevent hyperventilation. Her words at the pool pulled his thoughts apart, how friendly she was before, how she befriended Neville and Christian. And then she left him to dry.

"Why is this happening?" Connor said.

"It's happening because there's only so much I can get away with. A home, a job, working alongside Optimal instead of against. If I do this, I can slowly earn some trust back and get my hands on more of their tech that I didn't develop."

He looked at Stephanie, wanting to respond, but stopped himself instead. "I'm going to feed Joules. Let me know when I need to come back in."

"Take the weekend off."

He grabbed his shoes, walked out without putting them on his feet, and closed the door. Stomping across the field back home, he knew, given how helpful the girl in purple was, that she and Teresa weren't the same. That's what he forced himself to think.

"He hates me, doesn't he?" Teresa sighed.

"Remember the slap I gave you?" Stephanie said. Teresa looked at Stephanie. "That's your only warning. I'll show you your room."