Cut Remnant: Apollo 11

I settle into a seat in the Georgetown University computer lab while Vic slides into the one beside me. While the computer is powering up, I turn to him.

"Thanks again for your help, Vic. I don't know what I would have done without you."

"Anytime," he replies. "Besides, I've only asked you out, what, six times now? Figured this might be the only way to get you to agree. You don't mind if I call this a date, do you?" he asks teasingly.

I smile coyly. "I thought for sure you would have given up by now. You could have any girl you want."

He leans back in his chair, sticking a pencil behind his ear. "What can I say? You intrigue me."

I don't say anything back, but internally I'm preening. You intrigue me, too.

"Victor dot Roberts at Georgetown dot edu," Vic speaks aloud as he types in his username.

I open my mouth to warn him not to say his password, but thankfully he types that in silently.

After that beat, he continues, "Internet Explorer, double click. Gallup dot com, loading."

I hide my face to conceal a smile. Is it weird that I'm finding him saying everything he's doing adorable?

"Okay," he says, turning to me. "What did you have to look for now?"

"I just have to find a poll, any poll, and follow up with Gallup about it."

"Any poll?" he confirms, and I nod. He turns back to the screen. "How about this one? It was taken last summer, for the 30th anniversary of the moon landing." He reads silently for a few moments. "Indi, take a look at this."

I move my chair closer to his, catching a whiff of his cologne. Mmm, he smells amazing. I always did love a man in Cool Water.

When I can see the screen, he points to a few things. "Can you believe this? Six percent of Americans think the moon landing was a hoax. As if it wouldn't have been just as much effort to fake it. Not to mention keeping thousands of people quiet." He scrolls to another section, his tone growing more incredulous. "Only half of people know who Neil Armstrong is? That's truly sad, what's our education system becoming? There's no way they know who Buzz Aldrin is, or even Michael Collins, for that matter."

"Michael Collins?" I wonder aloud, just as the familiar feeling of a remnant washes over me. Before I can say anything else, the library disappears.

* * *

Looking around, I realize I'm in what looks like a spacecraft, the area far smaller than I would have expected. I spot a man near the small porthole-style window, strapped in to keep from floating away.

Right. No gravity up here. I'm a little bummed I can't feel the weightlessness.

I move over to the window, squeezing in to see what he's watching. The Moon fills most of the glass. It's jagged edges and torn‑up ground are a dull gray color that somehow looks less luminescent than it does from the ground.

But wow, that's the friggin' moon. Up close and personal.

Slowly, a bright half-moon shape that's blue with swirls of white lifts over the curve of the desolate sphere, suspended in the inky black.

Earth.

"Now that is something else," the man says aloud, sounding quietly pleased.

Not moving from the window, he watches it for a while, one hand hooked in a strap, the other resting loosely on his knee.

"Home looks better from out here than it does from there," he adds. "From here it looks... alive."

Eventually, he pushes off gently and twists in the air, bringing the front of his spacesuit into my line of vision. The name patch across the front reads COLLINS.

Michael Collins. Of course. Vic was just mentioning him before I went into this remnant. This must be the Apollo 11 mission. But where are Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin?

Michael catches a fat white binder that's nudged itself away from the wall.

"Come here, troublemaker," he says. "Let's see what fresh hell you've got for me."

I look around, expecting to see someone else, but not a single other human is in sight. Then I realize he's talking to the binder, as he was talking to himself earlier. He must be the loneliest man in existence, orbiting the moon by his lonesome.

Michael opens the binder. Its plastic pages swell out, trying to float. He keeps a hand on the spine and skims the first sheet, lips moving.

"Plan one," he says. "You go down, you come back up, we meet where we said we would. Everyone writes happy memoirs." He lets out a small snort. "Strong preference for plan one."

Turning the page with one finger, Michael continues. "Plan two: You come up low and slow, I come down and scoop you. No thank you."

Another page.

"Three: You overshoot, I chase. Four: You can't see, I can, I do the seeing for you." He pauses. "Eighteen of these contingency plans, all of them assuming you actually get off the ground. Let's just remember that part."

The radio crackles. The sound is faint at first, then clearing as the moments go by. "Eagle, you're a go for powered descent," a voice says.

Michael's head turns toward the radio, listening in.

"Roger, go for powered descent," another voice answers.

"You got it, Neil. We've trained this a thousand times," Michael says, even though Armstrong can't hear him.

When the voices return to the radio, there's a different tone to them, a mix of forced calm and agitation. "Program alarm. Twelve‑oh‑two," Armstrong says, his voice clipped.

Michael's expression changes, a small tightening around the mouth. An extended silence follows the announcement, and I find myself holding my breath. I don't know what Alarm 1202 is, but it's not like an alarm is ever a good thing.

After several tense moments, Houston finally answers. "Eagle, Houston. We're a go on that alarm."

Michael leans a little closer to the speaker.

"Thirty seconds," Houston says.

"Thirty seconds of fuel left," Michael says, his jaw clenching and unclenching. "You're at the point where you should give up and blast back up, if you're going to. We can still orbit the moon and return home, not a complete failure."

His gaze shifts to the binder again. "Just don't make me return home without you. We all agreed that wasn't an option."

Fragments of speech drift from the radio, too fast for me to catch who's speaking when.

"... forward..."

"... down a half..."

"... picking up dust..."

There's a short gap in the audio when the entire universe seems to be waiting with bated breath.

Then I hear Armstrong's steady voice again.

"Engine stop." Another silence, and then, "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."

A loud cheer sounds over the radio, several people in Houston celebrating the successful moon landing.

I look away from the radio to discover Michael and I are once again traveling around the dark side of the moon. For a while, there's no radio at all, just the soft background noise of pumps and fans. Michael goes back to reviewing his contingency binder. When we clear the bright side, the radio crackles again.

"Columbia, Houston. How do you read?"

Michael thumbs the switch. "Loud and clear," he says. "Just having a quiet little book club up here."

I hear a light chuckle from the other side of the radio. "Roger, Columbia," Armstrong says. "We'll let you know when the next chapter starts."

Michael lets go of the switch and the silence descends once again. His circuitous route around the moon continues as new craters drift into view and the Earth slips in and out of sight.

Michael floats the binder closer again. The pen near the panel works loose, floating alongside him. He catches it and looks at it for a second.

"You behave too," he tells it, and parks it more firmly on the Velcro strip.

This time when the radio comes back, it comes in mid‑sentence. The voices are a little flatter now, sounding exhausted with just a tinge of anxiety.

Michael drifts closer to the panel, listening.

"Been on that rock for over a day, boys," he says quietly, not pressing the switch on the radio. "Time to come home."

I tilt my head to the side, thinking. Over a day? As in, more than 24 hours? I thought the moon landing mission took maybe two hours, three tops.

Michael flips the binder closed and lets it float, then pushes himself back toward the window. The spacecraft once again ventures out from the dark side of the moon into brightness. At the edge of the frame, Earth peeks up, though I've lost count of which time this is. The planet is higher, and turned a little more than it was before.

Michael watches in silence like the view never gets old, then huffs a small laugh.

"Somewhere down there," he says, "people are arguing about which channel to watch. If only they knew."

Suddenly, he shifts his head back and forth like he's looking for something.

"Wonder if I can see that Soviet rocket. Uhh... Luna 15, that's what it's called." His head switches back and forth again. "Probably not. Wrong game of hide and seek."

Soviet rocket? Is there one on the moon at the same time as Apollo 11? How have I never heard that before?

Crossing the invisible line from 'silence' to 'hearing people on the radio' brings with it voices that sound far less relaxed.

"... got a problem with a breaker here..."

Michael goes still, his head tilting toward the sound.

"Say again?" he whispers to the empty air.

Of course, they don't answer him while they continue to communicate with Houston. One of them, I can't say which, describes a snapped‑off stub where a proper switch should be. He says the ascent engine can't power up without it. The voice doesn't sound like Armstrong, so I assume it's Aldrin.

"No, not that one," Michael says. "Tell me it's any other one."

The grave tone in his voice gives me a sinking feeling. The feeling that whatever is broken is the single most important thing to Armstrong and Aldrin making it off the moon.

Michael reaches for the edge of the control panel, gripping it tightly. The expression on his face reads like helplessness, like he knows there's nothing he can do from up here.

"You'll think of something," he says, though they can't hear him. "You always do."

The voices on the radio, growing a bit more frantic in thinly-veiled versions of that 'always-calm pilot' demeanor, suggest and toss out options with dizzying speed. Finally, someone recommends pushing what's left of the breaker with a non‑metal object, followed by a forced joke about not using a fingertip. The laugh that answers is thin and uneven.

Michael's eyes shift to the Velcroed pen on the wall.

"Use something like that," he says. "A pen or a stick, whatever you have. Just make it work."

He rests his hand near the talk switch, still not pressing it, and stays very close to the speaker, quietly witnessing the exchange. "Engine's going to light," he tells the Moon, almost like a prayer.

Eventually the voices fade into a more-routine tone as one of the astronauts on the moon announce they are leaving the surface. Michael breathes a sigh of relief, one I feel myself breathing with him.

This moon landing is far more dramatic than it's taught in school. I wonder if people would be less likely to think it was faked if they knew about all of this.