Chapter 14: "In forms both big and small."

"Professor Chenoa!" Oh man, I was in a heap of trouble. Quickly sitting up, I crossed my legs and put my hands in my lap. "All right, I'm ready for you to yell at me."

Professor Chenoa wore her lab coat, and her hair was up in a ponytail. She had my hoverscooter under her arm. She adjusted her glasses and asked, "Did you not just hear me? I said you passed."

"Passed?" I said.

"PPMC was testing you, kid. We talked about it when Professor Julian took you and your dad to your quarters."

My gauntlet beeped, and PPMC spoke up. "We wanted to make sure your dad didn't make a mistake for who the guinea pig should be. I think we did rather well. What do you think, Chenoa?"

Chenoa kneeled next to me. She held a thumb's up to the gauntlet's screen. "I've got to tell you, PPMC, we make a darn good team."

"You can talk to her? But she's a robot," I argued.

Chenoa stood back up. "Well, of course I can, Dan. After all, I'm the head of the project, right?" She offered me her hand, and I took it. Chenoa lugged me to my feet. She almost knocked me back to the ground in the process. She was actually very strong. Chenoa gave me my hoverscooter and said, "Come on, Dan. I want to introduce you to PPMC."

"But, but–"

"Don't be scared. She's not going to hurt you. Now, come on." Professor Chenoa headed over to the teleportation cubicle. She smiled at me and waved before she hopped into it. Right when she did, she vaporized into energy and vanished. There was no more Professor Chenoa.

What happened? Where did you go? I asked myself. Rubbing my forehead, I muffled another cough into my arm.

From my gauntlet, PPMC said, "It's okay, Dan. It's perfectly safe."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Positive. This is a shortcut to the launch pad. Unless you'd rather run away with your tail between your legs on your hoverscooter."

"I'm no scaredy-cat!" I snapped.

"Then prove it."

Oh gosh, what a brat. Last time I listened to her, she gave me an unnecessary test, but whatever. First, I waited until the mechanical hands that dressed me in the astronaut outfit took it off. I then tucked my hoverscooter under my arm and ducked into the teleportation cubicle. My body tingled and cooled down. At the sight of my legs vaporizing, I yelped and held my hands up to my face.

Only a split second later, everything returned to normal. An invisible force of some sort pushed me out of the cubicle, and I ended up falling into Professor Chenoa's arms. Chuckling nervously, I blushed.

She just scoffed and pushed me off.

It turned out we were back in the lobby of the space center. I'll admit, it was a little spooky at night. The spaceships hanging from the ceiling seemed to stare into my soul, like how a black cat tormented someone with its big, yellow eyes. Weird whining sounds came from the moonwalk simulator, as well as the model of PPMC. At the back of the lobby, Professor Chenoa and I stood next to another door that had Employees Only on it. That one did not have a password keypad.

Chenoa just waved her hand across the door, and it opened for us.

***

We were outside, directly behind the space center's launch pad. There was PPMC, looking elegant as ever.

The night brought a chill, and I shivered.

PPMC's launch pad was lit up with hundreds of orange-yellowish lights, so it was not pitch black. On one side of PPMC's gantry was an elevator, but on the other side was a small white building.

Professor Chenoa took me there. It did not take us long to reach it. We looked up to PPMC, and Chenoa asked me, "Well, Dan? What are you waiting for?"

I glanced at her. "Who?"

Chenoa gestured at the starship. "Why do you think I gave you your hoverscooter? Fly up there and introduce yourself. Or do you want to fly home instead?"

Wait, was she actually giving me the option to run away? "Wait, do you mean–?" I stuttered.

"Yes, Dan. You can run away if you want to, but you don't know what you'll be missing."

"Are you serious?" I was free! I didn't have to do the space exploration after all!

"But, before you leave, can you at least tell PPMC goodbye? And then return the gauntlet when you're done?" Chenoa said.

"Yes, of course. I'm free! I'm free!" Whooping, I jumped ten feet in the air.

Chenoa moved off to the side to give me room.

I turned on my hoverboard and jumped onto it. "So long, sucker! Daniel Matton, you're going home!" I yelled.

I steered Hoverscooter 22 all the way up the length of PPMC and stopped at her cockpit. Chenoa was nothing more than a speck on the ground. How much I wanted to fly away, but something kept pulling me back to PPMC. I crept closer to her cockpit, hoping that I could sneak a peek inside. I was only inches away when the space shuttle herself spoke.

"What's the hold up, Dan? Cat got your tongue?"

"Ahh!" Without warning, my foot slipped off Hoverscooter 22. I closed my eyes and wrapped my arms around her, but my weight caused her to drop altitude.

PPMC came to my rescue. A hatch opened at her jawline, and a robotic hand flew out of it. It caught me, but not my hoverscooter.

"My hoverscooter!" I yelled.

PPMC dropped me onto her windshield. The same robotic hand grabbed my hoverscooter. She held onto it, because it could not fit with me on the windshield.

Terrified, I peeped over her windshield to the long drop below. My head spun, and I quickly backed away. "PPMC, get me down!" I shouted.

PPMC totally ignored my panic. "Dan, aren't the stars beautiful tonight?"

"I don't care about the stupid stars! Get me down!"

"But they're so pretty. That cluster looks like a flower."

I ducked under a second robotic hand that emerged from the other side of PPMC's jawline.

All at once, the lights on the launch pad shut off. Now in pitch blackness, I yelled, "Ah! What's happening?"

PPMC used her free hand to tilt my chin up to the sky. "Look, Dan."

My eyes widened. "Whoa!"

Billions and billions of stars covered the length of the sky. Downtown Greenville tried not to keep too many lights on at night. There was the Milky Way–a white blanket filled full of stars and planets. I rose to my feet and reached my hand up to it.

PPMC joined me. She put her free hand up to mine. It was five times my size, but unlike Geico, it had five fingers.

That moment reminded me of the picture I found in my room back home, where Mom and I compared hand sizes. "I never knew how beautiful Downtown Greenville was," I muttered.

PPMC corrected me. "It's not the beauty of Downtown Greenville, Dan. It's the beauty of Earth. Just think about it. At one point, volcanoes, coal swamps, dinosaurs, and saber-toothed cats flourished here. And now look where we are, 4.5 billion years later. Have you ever wanted to see where life first began, and how it changed over time?"

"Oh, always!"

"And now you have that opportunity, and you just want to throw it in the trash?" asked PPMC.

Lowering my hand, I clenched it into a fist. "But the black hole."

PPMC let her own hand drop. "You can do it. That test Chenoa and I gave you in the Simulation Room proved it. The PPMC Project is made for you. Trust me, Dan." She gently put her hand on my head and ruffled my hair. "I will be with you for the whole journey, in forms both big and small."

"'In forms both big and small'." Those were Mother's words.

My nose twitched. I could feel the tears coming. Another flashback played in my head.

***

I was twelve years old, and I just learned Mother had been hospitalized for pneumonia. Dada and I visited her one day after school.

The hospital gave Mom the best room in the ward. It was in Downtown Greenville. Her bed was right up against the window, and it overlooked the lake and space center. It had a floral bedsheet and silky pillows. Her curtains were coral, because that was her favorite color.

Dada took a moment to speak with the doctor outside her room, so that gave us time to talk to one another.

Mother could hardly breathe; she had such terrible coughing fits, but she took my hand and rubbed her thumb up against the back of it. "Dan, I want you to promise me something. I want you to promise that no matter the risks and no matter the impossibilities, at the end of the day, you will not succumb to your grief. That you will find that Quetzalcoatlus." Mother knew she was dying.

I think I did, too. I could tell she was scared. I squeezed her soft hand and gave it a gentle peck. "I promise, Mother," I said in a choked voice.

"Good boy." Mother gave my hand a gentle shake. She lifted her free one and put it up against the side of my cheek. "You're going to grow up to do amazing things. I know you, Dan. I've never doubted you before, and I'm not going to start now."

"Mother." I threw myself on top of her and gave her the largest bear hug I could.

I will never forget that hug.

Dada came back into the room with the doctor, who said, "I'm sorry."

That was the last time I talked to Mother. Only two days after being admitted, she lapsed into a coma and never woke up. She died three days later, with Dada and I by her side.

***

I did not realize how much I was crying until PPMC gave me a gentle hug with her free hand. She helped me down onto her windshield and let me sob into my arm. Between sobs, I coughed, and my chest burned. However, I stayed strong.

"I have to do this, PPMC. I have to," I whispered.

"Your mother is here, Dan. You just have to listen for her whispers. She will never leave you. Her death was not your fault," PPMC explained.

I only cried harder, because I believed it was my fault. I wasn't strong enough to save her. I had to prove to her I was the Dan she wanted me to be, and the only way to do that was for me to travel through the wormhole.

PPMC comforted me for a long while. The launch pad's lights stayed off. It turned out Chenoa was the one who cut them. She did it from the spare building.

I ended up dozing off up on PPMC's cockpit, reassured not only by her gentle hands holding me tight, but also Mother's words:

"'You're going to grow up to do amazing things."