“Lauren.”

My roommate was standing in the doorway.

“There’s a crowd gathered outside the front door,” she said.

“Mmmmph,” I said, shifting in my bunk.

“There’s a crowd. Lots of people. They’re all waiting. I don’t know them.”

“Ahhhh,” I yawned.

“Were you expecting a crowd?”

I made my brain think about it. “No?”

“Well they seem to be expecting something. I guess I’ll open the door and ask them.”

“Suuuuure.”

Rebecca disappeared into the hallway and I slunk my head back into the space between my pillows. I’d had an exhausting day yesterday, my dry-cleaned dresses still slumped awkwardly over the back of my desk-chair, and it was way too early in the morning for anything interesting to happen. She came back.

“Okay they say they’re NASA.”

“NASA?”

“Yeah. They’re standing in some kind of formation. There are like thousands of them. They say they want to speak to you.”

“Tell NASA go away.”

“I’m … not sure if they’ll do that. I’ll try.”

She left again, but when she reappeared she was not alone. A lot of people spilled past her into our bedroom, filling the space in a way that would horrify a fire marshal. Crowds of government types, engineer-y people, all in identical T-shirts with the NASA meatball logo on them.

Former senator Bill Nelson, now the administrator of NASA, stood by my bedside, flanked by a cadre of senior NASA officials. When Administrator Nelson spoke, everybody spoke with him in one voice.

“Lauren, this is NASA.”

“NASA go away.”

“No.”

“Don’t want any NASA.”

“Three days ago you took something that belonged to us. Do you know what you took?”

“Didn’t take anything.”

“Open your mouth, Lauren.”

“Mmm mmm.”

“You give us no choice.” And then they were upon me.