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was changing as he got more wound up. But instead of yelling, he dropped his voice almost to a hiss. Low. Spooky.
    â€œHe’s so useless,” he spat, his fists clenching. “You know something? When my mom got…sick, before she did it, you know what my dad did?” A vein throbbed near Kieran’s temple as he spoke. “He worked more. Longer hours, always at the lab. Every night. He couldn’t face her. Or me.” His voice shook. “When things got tough, he made my mom disappear.”
    He looked out the window. It was like he was trying to get ahold of himself.
    I waited.
    â€œAnd after Mom died,” he continued, “he tried to do the same thing to me. After she killed herself, I was pissed off at everyone. The fake smiles, the pretend friends. I mean, what’s the point?” He shook his head. “I wasn’t going to play along with it. My father thought he solved the problem when he found a therapist who would put me on a bunch of drugs.”
    â€œSeriously?”
    â€œCheck it out.” Kieran pulled out a desk drawer. He held up a half-empty pill bottle. “Antidepressants,” he said. Another bottle: “Anti-anxiety meds.”
    I shuddered. Who’d want to drug their own kid to keep them from grieving their mom’s death?
    â€œAnyway,” Kieran said, “we finally moved when I got busted for starting a fire in one of the chem labs.” He shrugged. “Maybe I did it. Maybe not. Didn’t matter. It was enough to convince my dad that a change of scene would make me forget my problems.”
    â€œDid it?” I said. He shook his head.
    â€œThat’s the problem,” he said. “My dad wants to forget her. Forget me. Make us go away.”
    Kieran seemed to pull himself together a little. Maybe he saw the stunned expression on my face. There was way more going on here than I thought.
    â€œLook, uh,” I said, “the idea of sneaking into the DMA site is awesome. But I can’t—I don’t want to get into something between you and your dad.”
    â€œIt’s not like that,” said Kieran, shaking his head. “You just help me figure out how to get in there, it’ll be an awesome run. And as a bonus we’ll make some money. Plus, I’ll be able to do something that really gets my dad’s attention, you know? No skin off your back.”
    This was messed up. Part of me wanted to get up and leave right away, walk away from the whole complicated scene. I didn’t want Kieran’s problems. But I felt bad for him. I knew he didn’t have any friends at school to talk to. Despite his strangeness, I liked him. Especially now that I knew what he’d gone through.
    And I wish I didn’t care about the money, but I did. The chance to fix things with Asha was too big to pass up.
    I swallowed my unease.
    â€œMaybe there’s something here,” I said. I pointed at a blocky map on the laptop screen. “This is where they used to rig up the rocket engines for testing.” I flipped to an old black-and-white picture of huge concrete pillars and iron girders. A massive rocket nozzle was strapped to the top. I’d read about something similar at an old NASA lab in California on the urban exploration websites.
    â€œUnderneath those big platforms, they built tunnels and filled them with water,” I said. “The water would help keep the noise of the rockets down. Kept things from catching on fire too.” I explained that the blast from the rockets would turn the water in the tunnels to steam. The tunnels vented the steam out, safely away from the testing area. I tapped the screen to show a point well away from the fence line of the DMA site.
    â€œSee these marks on the map? I think this is where the old tunnels ended. That’s our way in.”

Chapter Eight
    We decided that we needed to scout the entrance to the tunnels before going any further. Hopefully,