Learning to Swear in America by Katie Kennedy Read Free Book Online Page B

and pulled up airline flight schedules. It was late May. The asteroid would hit Earth’s atmosphere on June 9, which stunk because he was going to miss the hockey playoffs by working sixteen-hour days, and Team Dynamo would be out early.
    He needed to persuade Simons and Pirkola to his view as soon as possible. Yuri tapped on his keyboard, clicking “print” repeatedly. Giving himself hard copies of flight schedules for the next couple of weeks. If he could get his teammates to accept his approach, he could slip out early. Take a cab to the airport in the middle of the night, maybe, and be in Tokyo by the time he was missed. But if Simons was sticking with his own approach, Yuri had to be here, at the Jet Propulsion Lab, being very, very persuasive.
    He folded the printouts and stuck them in the bottom of his book bag. Something to look at before bed.
    A few minutes later, Karl Fletcher rapped on his door, opening it as he knocked. Yuri had a pencil sticking out of his mouth and looked up blankly, his mind still lost in his calculations.
    “How you doing?” Fletcher said.
    “Um, okay.”
    “You printed off some flight schedules.”
    Yuri stared at him. Were there cameras? Fletcher smiled.
    “The computers are all connected, so we can troubleshoot.”
    “Oh.”
    “Why the flight schedules?”
    Yuri flushed.
    “Um … my flight home. I thought I should look. Like good luck, you know?”
    “Ah. The airports will still be here, huh? Well, don’t worry now about your flight. We’ll take care of all that when the time comes.”
    “Okay.” Yuri flushed again and wished his circulatory system had voluntary muscle control.
    Fletcher pulled Yuri’s cell phone out of his pocket and handed it to him.
    “Don’t make any calls in the US,” he said. “It’ll cost you an arm and a leg.” He looked at Yuri for a moment, then left his office, hitting the doorframe with the side of his fist as he went by.
    Yuri had trouble focusing the rest of the morning. He looked around casually, trying to locate cameras. He didn’t think there’d be any—he didn’t see the point in them—but once it occurred to him, the skin on his neck crawled. He tried to think what disgusting personal habits he might have displayed, and wondered if he’d given the Americans access to his e-mail by opening it on this computer. He’d have to be sure not to open it on his cell phone—no way they hadn’t put some kind of spyware on it.
    When his office phone rang a half hour later, he jumped. Hehit a button to answer on speaker so his hands were free to keep working, finishing his thought. Simons’s voice echoed.
    “Yuri? Let’s meet in the cafeteria for lunch. I’m having dinner with Karl Fletcher tonight. Bring any notes you want to go over and we’ll touch base, okay?” He went on without waiting for a response. “Noon.”
    “Um, okay.” Touch base? Was this a baseball reference? Surely they wouldn’t make him play.
    Yuri opened a new tab. If the asteroid hit, there was a good chance it was because he’d spent too much time looking up American idioms.
    He lost himself in work again, and it was already twelve when he glanced at the clock.
    He hurried down to the cafeteria and lifted a hand to Simons and Pirkola as he got in the food line. It was a decent place, with tables big enough to accommodate laptops. It was almost full.
    “Sorry I’m late.”
    “I just got here, too,” Simons said, then went back to talking with Pirkola about some point in their work. Yuri made minimal eye contact, chewed on a leathery Salisbury steak, and thought that if an asteroid had to hit Earth, Salisbury might be a good spot to take out.
    “You think about what we talked about the other night? About sticking with established work?” Simons said.
    “Yeah, it’s stupid.”
    Simons and Pirkola both moved their heads back slightly, as though an axle connected them at the neck.
    Yuri leaned forward. “This is desperate situation, right?”
    “We