“It kind of freaks me out how much faster they’re moving this time,” Alex says. You’re still sitting in their office – they’re working on the most recent puzzle, and you’re half-heartedly trying to study for your big OChem quiz tomorrow.

“Like, Dr. Valentina was receiving coded messages and puzzles from them for more than four months, whereas we got the first message when?”

You glance at the NASA calendar pinned to the corkboard on the wall. “Uh, Sunday night. The 25th.”

“Exactly. It hasn’t even been a week.”

“What do you think it means?” you ask.

“I don’t know,” they said. “But it feels more urgent. Like they’re running out of time.”

You shudder. “I don’t like the sound of that,” you say, then try to return to your chemistry notes. Your attention keeps drifting over to the small leatherbound volume that had appeared without fanfare on Alex’s desk while you had stepped out for coffee earlier that day. It was dusty, covered in cobwebs, and at first you had wrinkled your nose. Where had they been keeping this thing that it had gotten so decrepit?

But now, looking closer, you begin to laugh. “What’s so funny?” Alex asks suspiciously.

“Webs!” you say between snorts. “It’s covered in webs!”

“And…?”

“It’s been right in front of us the whole time!” you say, grabbing Ellen’s journal and waving it in front of Alex’s face. “Don’t you see? She didn’t call them Spinners because of the rotation of their ship! She called them Spinners because they’re, well, spiders!”