It Takes a Lot of Math
3
Apollo
Connor and Brady burst into their room, high from the adrenaline of what they had just uncovered, and out of breath from the bike ride. They had taken every shortcut they knew of to get from the library to their house.
At their desk, they threw down their backpacks, slid into the chairs, and Brady opened his laptop while Connor plugged the flash drive into it. The anticipation of waiting for the machine to recognize the drive was crushing.
Finally, on the desktop, an icon appeared, labelled “Apollo.” Brady moved his cursor to it and double clicked. Their eyes were glued to the screen, still breathless.
On the drive was a single folder. It was titled “Instructions.” Inside, they found a simple document, and opened it up. They skimmed over it, and then anxiously tried to figure out what it meant.
The note explained how flights to Apollo happened every 4 weeks, starting from the first of the year.
Connor looked confused. “Wait, so when would the next one be? It’s September.”
“Uhh, let me open my calculator.” Brady replied. In the calculator app, he typed in “9x4.”
“Wait, why did you type that in?”
“I don’t know! I’m just freaking out, what am I supposed to type in?!”
At this, their parents opened the bedroom door. Brady immediately slammed his laptop lid closed. He quickly realized how suspicious that made him look. This was becoming a troubling trend.
“Everything okay in here?” their mom asked.
“Oh, yeah, we were just working on homework,” Connor replied.
“Okay, well, you two just rushed past us earlier, just wanted to make sure you were alright.”
Their dad was hovering near Brady now. “Would you mind if I just check what’s on here?” he asked, lifting the lid without waiting for a reply.
Connor and Brady grimaced as they waited to be found out. Neither of them knew how they were going to explain the document.
As the screen came into view, they were confused to find that an algebra worksheet was open instead. They looked over innocently at their dad, thankful that their secret was, somehow, still safe.
Their dad looked at the document for a moment, looking puzzled. “Not sure why you needed to slam that closed when we came in, but I’m sorry I doubted you.”
“Okay, well, we’ll let you two get back to it,” their mom said, and she left with their dad.
As soon as the door was closed, Connor and Brady looked at each other and each let out a sigh of relief.
“Phew, that was close,” Connor said.
“You’re telling me. How did that even happen? I’m not even in an Algebra class right now.”
“Haha, oh yeah, and Dad didn’t even notice.”
“Yeah, so much for being an observant parent.” Brady made air quotes, their dad prided himself on being attentive, or so he said.
They turned back to the laptop and closed out of the algebra worksheet.
“Okay, we have to figure out how many weeks there have been in the year so far,” Connor said.
“Hm. Okay, let me look it up.” Brady opened a search engine, and then sat staring at the empty input, his cursor blinking.
“Aren’t you going to type something?”
“Yeah. Obviously. I’m trying to figure out what to type!”
“Look up how many weeks into the year we are.”
“Okay. Yes. That’s good.” Brady typed in a query. “It says 35 weeks.”
“Exactly? That’s funny. And now divide that by 4.”
Brady switched back to the calculator and typed in the equation. “8.75”
“Whoa, that means that another flight is next week.”
“How do you know that?”
“Uh, one divided by four? 0.25. Duh.”
“Yeah, but what does that even mean?!” Brady was exasperated, he hated math.
“It means that next week is week 36, which, divided by four, is 9! It’s a flight week.”
“Oh. Whoa.”
They looked at each other. The gravity was sinking in. Were they really going to do this? They didn’t have much time to prepare.
Connor sat back in his chair. “Would we really just leave here? Could we ever come back?”
“I don’t know. This all sounds so crazy.” Brady lowered his eyes, letting it settle in. “This place does kind of suck though, maybe this could be a really, really good thing.” He looked more hopeful than usual.
“Do you think they have any bullies on Apollo?”
Brady laughed. “Yeah, probably. But at least they would be different bullies.”
Connor snorted. “Well, that’s something.” He paused for a moment, then realized, “Wait, how did it say we get there?”
“Oh, right.” Brady opened the note again. He scanned down to the end, and read out the instructions. “Take the 19 train to the Atlanta airport, then look for gate 91.”
“Gate 91? That can’t be right, I don’t think there are even that many gates at Atlanta.”
“Maybe it’s a clue or something? Everything else has been a puzzle. I just hope I don’t have to do any more math.”
Connor patted Brady on the shoulder as he said, “I also hope that.”
The next morning, Connor and Brady went to school. It was a Tuesday, like any other Tuesday, and they went about it as normally as they could. They sat through history and science, and then finally it was time for lunch. They raced to the lunch room, went through the line as quickly as possible, and plopped down in their usual spots.
“My mind has been spinning all morning! I’ve barely been able to concentrate,” Brady said.
“Me too!” Connor replied. “It feels like last night was a dream or something, I can’t even believe that it’s real.”
“Yeah, is this really happening?”
Connor took a scoop of his mashed potatoes, and paused before putting it in his mouth. “I sure hope so. I can’t wait to get out of this dump.” He looked down at his spoon. “These aren’t even real potatoes.”
Brady gave a disapproving look. “Yes they are, don’t be silly.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Ignoring the question, Brady continued, “I want to know how someone goes about packing for a trip to another planet. Like, what do I even pack? Do I need body wash? My toothbrush?”
Connor looked stumped. He hadn’t thought about packing yet. “I’m going to say no. To everything.”
“Why is that?” Brady took a bite of the mashed potatoes. Maybe they weren’t real, he thought.
“Well, it’s a rocket. It’s a pretty quick trip. Plus, we probably can’t take more than 3 ounces anyway.”
The emotion left Brady’s face. “I don’t think that they have the TSA on a rocket.”
“Okay, but hear me out, you’ve never been on a rocket before, how would you know?”
Brady considered this for a moment. “I think I’ll just leave my body wash here.”
That night, their parents insisted on watching a movie together as a family. After dinner, they gathered in front of the TV in the living room. Connor and Brady badly wanted to talk more about their trip, but reluctantly sat down on the loveseat.
“You guys want popcorn?” their dad asked, a little too enthusiastically.
“Sure,” Connor replied.
While their dad was in the kitchen, Connor got out his phone and sent a text to Brady. We never figured out what day it leaves
Brady’s phone loudly announced the arrival of the message. He pulled his phone from his pocket, and then looked at Connor. “Why did you text me?”
Connor, normally keeping his cool, looked back and opened his eyes wide. He gestured towards Brady’s phone. Their mom continued to stare at the TV, clueless.
Brady looked down and read the message. He realized why Connor was trying to keep a low profile. He messaged back, You’re right, figure it out later?
Connor replied immediately, Yeah, maybe after mom and dad go to bed
We still need to figure out what to pack too, came Brady’s reply.
Their dad returned with a bowl of popcorn and set it down on the coffee table. He looked over at Connor and Brady, both still staring at their phones. “You guys can’t be texting the whole movie now,” he joked.
They stuck their phones into the cushion and mumbled replies. Their dad pressed play on the movie, and they endured the 2 hour and 15 minute runtime.
Later, they got ready for bed, and their parents went to bed as well. In Connor and Brady’s room, they huddled under a blanket on Brady’s bed. Connor flicked on a flashlight and pointed it straight up.
“Okay, so we know that the rocket is leaving next week, how do we figure out what day it leaves on? The instructions didn’t say anything about it,” Brady said.
“What did it say again? It leaves every 4 weeks? So we’d need to know when the last rocket left?”
“How do we figure that out? We didn’t even know about this rocket until yesterday.”
“Wait, didn’t it also say something about the first of the year?” Connor was lighting up.
“Oh yeah, that sounds right. Does that mean the first one leaves on January 1st?”
“Probably. Probably, right? Could it be that simple? They always launch a rocket on New Years Day?”
“Okay, so that means that we just need to figure out what day of the week January 1st was this year.” Brady reached for his phone. “Wait, crap, we don’t have our phones. Where can we find a calendar?”
“Maybe in our school planner? Does it go back that far?”
They escaped the blanket tent and looked for their backpacks. Connor found his planner first, and flipped it open to the inside of the front cover. There, an entire calendar was displayed. “It was on a Tuesday!”
“Tuesday? That means the rocket leaves in 4 days.” They stared at each other, the reality of what was coming hitting them even harder.
After a moment, Connor spoke up. “This is crazy. And now I’m realizing that we also need to figure out what time of day it leaves.”
“Oh yeah, right. I haven’t seen anything about that anywhere either. I wonder how we figure that part out?”
“Well, there’s only so many rockets that leave Atlanta, maybe we can find a schedule?”
Brady smiled. “That’s so smart. Of course, we can just look up the public launch schedule. It’s not like they can hide a whole rocket launch.”
Brady climbed out of the bed again and grabbed his laptop. Back under the blanket, he opened it up and opened a web browser. “Okay, where do I look?”
“Why are you asking me?” Connor replied, defensively.
“You’re the space nerd! I thought you knew these things!”
“Ugh. Fine. Give it here.” He took the laptop and typed in an address for a space flight tracker. He updated the date and location, and it displayed a table with a single rocket launch.
Brady looked at the screen. “1:19pm. What a random time.”
“It’s a bunch of ones and nines, just like the gate,” Connor replied.
“Oh yeah, you’re right. I guess it’s not so random after all.”