The Final Six (The Final Six #1) - Alexandra Monir Page 0,13

were revealed this morning, we had a chance to do some research on these two exemplary teens. Take a look.”

The images on the TV scroll back in time, back to the last Wagner World Science Fair. I’m caught off guard by the sight of my fifteen-year-old self. I look different . . . I look happy.

My idol, Dr. Greta Wagner, enters the frame and hands me a gilded trophy. It’s the moment forever memorialized in the framed photo on my desk, reminding me every day to work harder, to think big, like Wagner.

“Last year, Naomi blew us away with her DNA editing solution, an experimental method of hacking into and correcting a patient’s genomes. This year, she brings us another work of true ingenuity: the Ardalan radio telescope model, with its unique antenna and receiver design that would allow us to capture a clearer signal from other planets in our solar system.”

As Dr. Wagner unveils my blueprints on the screen, my parents and Sam cheer in real time, right along with their younger selves in the footage. I smile with them, though my pride is dampened by the fact that the telescope was never built. Same with my DNA editing solution, which I dreamed up for Sam. Once Earth entered the state of climate destruction, there were no more grants or funds left for anything that didn’t relate to our immediate survival.

“In fact,” Dr. Wagner continues in the footage, “this is the kind of invention the folks at SETI would have jumped over themselves to use.”

The great inventor and engineer purses her lips, her eyes darkening, and I know the reason for her soured expression. SETI—the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute—was defunded three months before the Wagner Science Fair. The scientific community protested the loss, but there was no way around it: NASA and the government had deemed the search for extraterrestrial life “nonessential” in these desperate times. And that’s precisely why the Final Six will be walking blindly into whatever is waiting on Europa—because unlike every previous space mission, there is no SETI to rule out the possibility of life.

My head snaps up.

I’ve just given myself an idea.

After saying goodnight to our parents, I grab my tablet and cross the hall from my pocket-size bedroom into Sam’s. I find him staring at a screen of his own, his brow furrowed with worry.

“What’s wrong? What are you looking at?”

I pull up a chair beside him at the desk, and he slides his laptop toward me. An article fills the screen, with the headline reading: “Athena Backup Crew Warns of Europa Risks.” At the center of the page is a photo of the surviving astronauts, hugging through their tears at the memorial for the doomed Athena crew five years ago. A chill creeps up my spine, and I quickly close the page.

“I know. I tried asking the NASA rep about it today, and she fed me the company line about how this mission will be completely different . . . but we have even more important things to talk about. Have you been on Space Conspirator today?”

Sam shakes his head and I log on to the site, which has a brand-new landing page since this morning’s announcement. Underneath the Conspirator logo is an artist’s sketch of six shadowy puppets, staring at a faceless creature rising up from the ocean—while a caricature of a man and woman, meant to represent the Europa Mission leaders, pull the puppet strings. As Sam shudders, I click on the website’s News tab and scroll, hunting for a certain article.

“That footage on TV gave me an idea—the part where Dr. Wagner mentioned SETI,” I tell him. “If I could prove it, if I could show the world that the Space Conspirator’s claims aren’t just the ravings of some renegade scientists, but the truth . . . well, that would change everything. It would bring me home.”

My cursor lands on the article I was looking for: “Scientific Probabilities of Life in Europa’s Oceans.” The Conspirator was right when it predicted the outcome of the Athena mission years ago. Why shouldn’t it be right this time, too—especially when science supports the theory? As my brother starts to read, I jump out of my chair, too fired up to sit still.

“I’ll go to Space Training Camp under the pretense of preparing for the Europa Mission—but in reality, I’ll be on a whole other mission of my own. I can use the Johnson Space Center tools at my disposal to finish