“I think he and I could have made it. You would have lived on in our memory.”

Coop took a small black box just a little bigger than a cell phone and attached it with magnets over the safe’s keypad. “Okay,” he said. “Time to see if Peculiar Science lives up to its name.”

“What is that?” said Phil.

“Living numbers. Sort of like ants, ghosts, and binary code all rolled into one weird organism. If they can’t open the safe I’ll have to do it by hand.”

“Ten seconds ago you said you were a wiz at that.”

“I am, but not if the Missile’s going to blow up in two hours. We need it to work fast.”

“Yes. No blowing up. Good plan.”

Lights played across the outside of the box for several minutes. At first, they were all red. Then slowly, one by one, each light turned green. When the last one flashed, the box beeped and Coop pulled it off, stuffing it back in his pack.

“Come on, Tom Swift. Grab the goods and let’s blow this place,” said Phil.

“We’re almost there,” said Coop. When he pulled open the safe door, Phil began to scream again. Even Coop made a few funny noises he was glad no one else could hear.

Hundreds of spiders, large and small, hairy and sleek, poured from the open safe door, moving out in every direction—including up Coop’s arm.

“Abort! Abort!” screamed Phil. Coop tried brushing the spiders off, but they just kept coming. It wasn’t that Coop was particularly arachnophobic, but what he discovered at that moment was that he wasn’t not arachnophobic when covered by a whole army of multilegged, too-many-eyed, alien organisms, some of which he was pretty sure were viewing him as lunch. The only reason he didn’t jump off the safe, besides the dive to the bottomless pit and his inevitable, horrible death, was the tiny fraction of his brain that was still capable of rational thought reminding him that he was still in his protective suit, with both eye and face protection. This was just barely reassuring enough to push suicide to second place on his option list.

“What do we do now?” screamed Phil.

“You know the answer to that question.”

“Please. I’m asking you as a friend and colleague and complete and utter coward, don’t do it.”