Category: Writing

Ceiling lights rocked and swayed with each concussive blast, fine dust raining down from above. Neal compiled the final module, watching the indicator reach 100% in short jerky bursts. This was it then. Sharp notes of ozone drifted from the insulated pylons in the center of the room.

They were on build-up to the final event, driven by Neal’s discoveries and hastily-coded plan. The radius of 100 kilometers should be sufficient, even swallowing the Parkes dish in the process. No trace could be left behind. The math behind the cascade was complex, but the results were simple.

Reed burst back into the room, gun drawn.

“You’re out of time, cowboy. Where is the decode? We need it, NOW!”

Neal stood slowly, one hand positioned near the keyboard.

“Your lies are over. I know everything.”

“The infection will continue to spread unless you have that decode, so stop giving me a bunch of—“

“There IS NO INFECTION!”, Neal shouted, at his limit. “There never WAS one! You roped me into this godforsaken business, and everything you’ve said is complete bullshit!”

“So what if it was? It isn’t about the process, its all about results. You better have some, or you’re going to take a dirtnap.”, Reed’s grip tightened on the pistol.

“Maybe so, but not before I stop you from destroying entire countries.”, Neal punched the < Enter > key, invoking the final countdown.

Reed’s eyes went wide, large red digits displayed on every screen, counting down to oblivion.

“What the hell did you do?”, Reed’s voice crept up a register, dark tendrils of panic taking hold.

“You and other people like you are trying to use this effect to conquer each other, but you don’t understand what you are doing. Like children playing with fire, you’d burn the entire forest just to get at each other.”, Neal took off his glasses and cleaned them as he spoke.

“The first accident created its own microcosm, budded off from this one. The ‘Bootstrap’ protocol, as you came to call it. The signal was sent from the edges of the universe, leaking from what I believe to be black holes, slowly over the eons. The code is nothing less than genesis, the creation of another Brane, if you understand multiverse theory.”

Reed couldn’t believe this. He was losing control, just like the botched drop in the jungle. Rage grew in the pit of his stomach, surging through his limbs.

“You’re not the only one with a plan, you smug bastard. On my say so, this entire base is set to go up like the world’s largest firework — including you. Stop this countdown and help me, dammit!”, Reed’s voice cracked, veins standing out on his neck.

“I am helping. The world, not you.”, Neal sat back down, countdown stopping on zero.

On every screen, the numbers were replaced by a single message – “Bootstrap : Initiated”.

Flying arcs of electric/quantum flux spewed from the pylons, engulfing Neal, and then Reed. Expanding at luminal speeds, the sphere resonated with unworldly harmonics as every node across the world sang with the same deadly song.

Neal had chained them all together, linked through quantum effects and higher dimensions. Each sphere rose into the atmosphere, borders crackling with dark energies and negative discharges. The surface roiled like a soap bubble, diffracted rainbow patterns surging across the surface.

The earth grew a tangled necklace of shining spheres, simultaneously imploding from sight, sun casting shadows from the edges of perfect circles cut into the crust.

At the edge of the Parkes crater, birds began to sing.

A tabbed terminal window began pulsing on screen, highlighting search results. Neal glanced over at the bored soldier on duty near the door. The guard was focused on a small display in the corner of the room, tuned to a cable news channel.

Neal clicked on the tab and reviewed the results. Paydirt. The scanner had found a vulnerable service and exploited it, gaining full access. Scrolling through the directories, he stopped at a recent entry labeled “Parkes”. Expanding the folder, Neal began reading the documents within.

It had all been a lie.

As Neal suspected, the “infection” was the cover story. The truth was even more horrifying, laid out in bullet-pointed paragraphs. A remote station had intercepted a signal and it was decoded, using similar techniques to Neal’s parser. An experiment based on the output had resulted in the complete destruction of their lab, nothing remaining except a 100 kilometer crater scooped out of the Earth’s crust.

A satellite photograph showed a perfect circle cut into the dirt, like a giant ice cream scoop had scraped the surface. The sky above had no clouds. None. Surrounding the crater, there was a secondary larger circle in the atmosphere where wispy cirrus clouds had been neatly bisected at the edges.

Neal looked over at the heavy insulators and coils near the center of the room. They were going to try to recreate this experiment here, but at a much larger scale. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled, a white-hot jolt of adrenaline and fear rocketing up his spine.

Reading further, it became obvious that other countries were working on the same kind of device, all focused on eliminating key targets in locations around the globe. This had nothing to do with scientific discovery, it was a race to cripple entire nations.

The Chinese seemed closest, followed closely by the Russians and the Japanese. Neal scrolled further down the document, reading the tactical review and strategy summaries.

The camp they escaped from had been attacked by an outside military. They failed, thank goodness. Neal was sure there were other counter-offensives rippling across the globe, as each country fought to be the first to perfect this terrifying new weapon.

Reading further, multiple references to “Bootstrap” puzzled Neal. Frowning, he did a specific search for the same term. One hit. Clicking to the output, Neal began to read with rising horror. It all made sense now. The only question was, what he was he going to do about it.

---

Bifurcation

A soft ping sounded in Reed’s ear, alerting him to an incoming message. Tapping his comm unit, he silently acknowledged the command. The foot-dragging astronomer was getting ideas. The countermeasures team had detected a network intrusion, origin traced back to Neal’s workstation.

Enough. This had to be stopped, now.

Reed unholstered his sidearm, running down the curved hallway. The base was already evacuating in anticipation of the next bombardment. They were protected under reinforced concrete and layers of soil, but it wouldn’t last forever. Neal had to deliver or they were all doomed.

Slamming open the door, Reed waved off the guard, walking briskly towards Neal, weapon drawn.

“Stop typing. Now. Hands where I can see them.”

Neal slowly put his hands up. Looking at Reed, eyes wide with shock.

“Are you going to shoot me?”

Reed pushed Neal aside, looking at the screen. There was one browser window open to a web search engine, articles listed in blue links.

“You have ten seconds to tell me exactly what you were doing.”, Reed tightened his grip, lowering the sights to Neal’s forehead.

“I was looking for resources to do my job. Did I set off something?”

“Have you figured out the R-Wave?”, Reed snapped.

“I’ve made some progress, but I needed some utilities that I didn’t have here. I’m sorry if I caused any alarm.”

Reed glared at Neal, slowly lowering his gun. No more fooling around. Time to get things in gear.

“Listen and listen good. I need you to give me something more than ‘I am working on it’ in very short order, or your next stop is going to be a hole six feet underground. Get me?”

Neal swallowed and nodded.

“Good. Now get to work, and if you need something – clear it through me first.”, Reed stomped over to the guard pointing back at Neal.

“If he so much as moves in the wrong direction, you have permission to shoot him between the eyes.”

Reed holstered his sidearm and exited into the hallway. Bombardment was incoming, estimated time winding down in precise digits on his watch. He had one more job to do before it all came down. Reed felt like he was back in the jungle, bleeding and alone.

Not this time. Not if he could help it.

Striding down the hall, Reed broke into a run as red lights strobed and sirens began wailing.

The ceiling shook, fine grit cascading from newly formed fissures.

(To be continued.)

Neal hammered on the keyboard, fingers dancing in complex rhythms as he cornered a solution. It was simpler than he thought, the origin signal, that is. Once he partitioned the problem into logical chunks, it all started to unveil itself before his eyes. He had journal-worthy discoveries here, if he were ever allowed to share them.

The din of the diesel engine shifted down a level, as the personnel carrier crested a hill. Reed had barked out “half-click” a short time ago, so they were probably close. Neal closed his eyes and concentrated, letting the visualization he had been working on lock into place in his mind’s eye.

Like most problems, he had been working it from the wrong direction. It was all pretty simple really. Neal had built a parser for the recursively-compressed “R-Wave”, and was ready to execute it. He glanced down at the keychain USB plugged into the main unit below his knees.

Reed hadn’t noticed it was there, and in the low tactical lighting, it would be hard to pick out unless you were right in front of it. Typing a series of commands, Neal backed up his data into the encrypted partition on the USB drive. Old habits die hard, Neal always had viable backups whether they were physical or virtual.

Neal deftly removed the USB drive and buried it deep in his right pocket. Now all he had to do was execute the program. Turning his seat towards the front, Neal thumbed the < Enter > key.

The red lights flickered, and all the displays blanked. In the center of each, a small pixel lit up, edges boiling outward in ragged recursive patterns. It reminded Neal of crystals growing in solution, expanding until it reached the edges of its container. It was beautiful.

Reed rushed to his seat, pointing at the center console display – which also had become a sea of pixels – “See? The damn thing has reached us in here somehow!”

Neal shrugged. He didn’t buy the “infection” story, but playing along seemed to be the safest bet right now.

“How far along were you?”

“I was making progress until the system crashed.”, Neal removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. It had been a grueling session at the terminal, especially under these conditions.

“Keep it fresh in your mind, we’ll have to recreate it in our lab setup.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Neal wondered what paranoid scenario Reed was entertaining now. With countries trying to hack their systems, it was probably only a matter of time before he accused Neal of either stalling on purpose, or working with the enemy. There had to be a way out of this.

The engine noise, a constant bone-jarring undertone to their haphazard escape, wound down to a soft idle. They were at the gates, glaring lights providing sharp contrast to the red-lit shadows inside.

Approval granted, they drove into an access tunnel dotted with high-security lights. Signs reminded of dire consequences if unauthorized access was attempted. Pulling into the depot, the back ramp swung open revealing a complement of soldiers ready to escort them into the base.

Survival

A few twisting corridors and keypad-codes later, Neal and Reed were in the main lab. It was well appointed, equipment of all types lined the wall with a symmetric array of electrical devices near the center. They looked like a hybrid of a Tesla Coil and high-tension insulators. The focal point had a small yellow-taped “X” on the concrete floor.

Neal sat down in front of the large display, stainless steel desk sapping the warmth from his arms as he accessed the command menus.

“I’ll be just a moment, I have something to attend to.”, Reed whispered to the soldier standing guard, who stepped forward with a hand on his sidearm. As Neal expected, Reed wasn’t taking any chances. Reed pushed through the side door into the grey hallway, door closing with a muted click.

“Hey, can I get something to eat and some water? I’m dying over here.”

The guard pressed a button on the intercom, asking for confirmation. It was long enough for Neal to reinsert his USB drive into the central unit below.

Neal not only had his personal work on the drive, but a few useful utilities as well. Invoking a command, he began an exploration of the internal network. It was like trying all the knobs on all the doors in a building at once. There had to be a door he could open and walk through.

Typing in another window to look busy, Neal waited for the search prompt to turn up a result.

---

Reed was under a specific timetable. One that didn’t allow for moody astronomers and foreign agents trying to compromise his mission. It had to be the damn Chinese. They gained a foothold in the network at Parkes, and somehow managed to infect the APC’s systems as well.

Things were going south. Reed had the same feeling he had when he was dangling from the trees in that godforsaken jungle. Exposed and vulnerable. He rested his hand on his sidearm. Solid and comforting. If it were up to him he would have taken all the machines and shot Neal on the spot.

His team were more than capable of handling this, even if it meant recreating a majority of Neal’s work. That man was a liability anyway, with no sense of duty or purpose.

His earpiece squawked, finally able to receive a signal outside the shielded lab.

“Sitrep, advise on the asset.”

Reed considered his response. He didn’t have much to show for his efforts, as the computer Neal was working on crashed on the way over here, wiping out all the data. It was best to rip the bandage off, then offer a solution.

“Asset secured. Decode ongoing, anticipate results promptly. Confident backup team can handle decode.”

The signal bounced through several secured networks, encrypted to a satellite and beamed back to central command. While secure, latency always made conversations an exercise in timing and patience.

“Acknowledged. Burn site and evac in event of failure.”

It was settled then. If Neal couldn’t get things working here, Reed would have to neutralize him and evacuate to their fallback position.

Reed paced down the hallway, mentally running scenarios.

They were running out of time.

(To be continued.)

Neal’s back ached. The console seating was meant for fully deployed troops loaded with gear, not a tired astronomer being carted around the back country like a confused tourist. The workstation window was cluttered with various terminal windows and utility screens.

He had been at this for what seemed like hours. The red tactical lighting was starting to get to him, every time Neal glanced down at his hands he had the distinct impression that they were a bloody mess. It was enough to halt his train of thought and impede his progress.

What Neal had discovered so far, was absolutely counter to everything Agent Reed had said.

The “R-Wave”, as Reed had put it, was a fiendishly recursive and complex encoding scheme. It reminded Neal of cellular automata, simple rules that create amazingly complex results. Neal had built a simple parser, but the details were still elusive. While Reed was busy talking to the driver up front, Neal had quietly inserted his keychain USB drive.

He wasn’t about to hand over his work to Reed, not without a fight. Neal was on the verge of understanding, that annoying itch in his mind he couldn’t help but rub and scratch. Encrypting his results and utilities, Neal closed the terminal windows and leaned back, taking off his glasses to rub his eyes.

Neal had the feeling he had seen this kind of thing before. He just couldn’t place it at the moment.

Reed made his way back to the seat opposite, hunched over in the cramped interior.

“Progress?”

“You know, I’d probably be able to function more effectively if you could tell me more.”, Neal wanted to see how far Reed would go with the infection scare, now that he knew it was a complete lie.

“You’ve been briefed on what I can tell you.”

“Somehow, I doubt that’s the truth.”, Neal surprised himself, but kept going,”What I really want to know is why you’re not giving the the whole picture.”

Reed stared at Neal, like a predator realizing its prey now had claws.

“As I said, the infection is proceeding faster than anticipated. We’re headed to our field station near Red Hill. It was one of the few facilities isolated from the event.”

Neal stared back, frustration boiling in his veins. The absolute gall of this guy. This wasn’t a goddamned infection, and he knew it. Neal wanted to spill everything he had learned, just to put Reed in his place, but he restrained himself. He might learn more at the station.

Neal’s anger ebbed as he forced himself into clinical observer mode. Absorb everything, formulate a plan. That’s the only way you’re getting out of this alive, he reminded himself. Neal’s stomach rumbled. He hadn’t had anything to eat for hours. He thought of the vending machine at the office, what he wouldn’t give for a packet of crisps right now.

“We’re just a few clicks out. I suggest you continue working, this thing is taking over – and we need to stop it.”, Reed made his way back to the front, casting a backwards glare. Neal’s time was running out. He’d better get this solved or there may not be much of a future. Sighing, Neal invoked the analyzer and loaded his saved files.

The APC was a custom job, slanted windows with periscope-like attachments pushed out of the way, used when night-vision driving was required. Reed crouched near the driver’s seat, looking at the tactical display on the console. They were less than 2 kilometers away from their objective, and Neal was clearly dragging his feet.

“Give me comms.”, Reed grabbed the mic dangling from the center console. The driver twisted a switch and punched in the frequency for Red Hill Operations.

“Red Hen, Papa Bear, inbound with the package. Advise status.”

Squawk of static and the rumble of the diesel filled the cockpit, red-lit dials and knobs the only light source. Reed cradled the mic, staring out at the dusty road, scrub brush dotting the shoulders.

“Copy that, Papa Bear. Setup Green. Best speed, lights are on.”

“Wilco Red Hen. Out.”, Reed slotted the mic and reviewed the plan.

Red Hill base confirmed they had the apparatus set, now all he needed was a reluctant astronomer to produce the goods. Too bad he didn’t have any immediate family to lean on. This whole operation would have been that much easier.

Reed was getting sick of this transport.

“Best speed, lets put the coals in the fire.”, he clapped his hand on the driver’s shoulder, who grunted and pushed down on the accelerator. The din increased, vibrations rattling Reed to his bones. They didn’t have much time. It was going to be tight as it is.

The red digits on the tactical display whirled down with renewed vigor, as Reed hunch-walked back to his seat. Neal was typing away, brackets and semicolons expressing in logical ciphers a new program to be executed.

That’s the real problem, Reed thought. Abstractions become reality faster than we can realize the implications. He suspected it would only increase as time wore on. Back to the task at hand. Reed checked his sidearm, sliding it slowly out of its holster.

Red highlights glinted off the metal, as Reed checked the chamber and worked the slide. You never know. It might just come down to this, in the end.

Neal kept typing, blissfully unaware of the pistol in Reed’s grip.

Abstractions to reality. Like a bullet in a gun, hammer cocked and ready.

(To be continued.)

Decode

The diesel engine coughed and rumbled as they took a sharp turn, kicking up dust in the headlights. Up ahead, two sentries stood watch at the entrance, portable fencing anchored with large cement blocks.

Reed flashed his ID, guard checking a printed list. They passed, waved on as the following trucks idled behind them. Neal looked in the rear view, as the gates closed. Soldiers were checking each vehicle, probing with flashlights. The sky was beautiful out here, stars wavering in the distance.

A short time later Neal and Reed were hustled into a squat trailer draped with camo-netting. They were afraid of being spotted from the air? Out here? Neal wondered what that was about. There was a tension growing in his mind, the kind of itch that he usually got when trying to solve a difficult problem.

Something didn’t add up here.

Reed gestured for Neal to sit as he opened up his laptop and began typing furiously. The interior was utilitarian and decidedly military. No frills, just textured floor panels and two ugly warts in the ceiling casting off a harsh blue-white light.

A deep thudding sound, then another. Outside, soldiers began running and shouting. Reed dashed to the door, shouting behind him “Stay right there!”. Neal could hear more sounds, like fireworks, small “pop” noises that seemed to be getting closer. Were they under attack? Neal’s mind raced, could he take cover under the table? Would it matter?

Reeds laptop vibrated with the concussions, chattering on the metal surface. Curious, Neal turned the laptop to read the display. The screen was blank save an agency logo in the background. In the lower right corner, an icon was glowing, demanding attention. He may not get another chance. Better risk it, better than cowering under a table.

Neal tapped on the keyboard, glowing icon expanding into a chat window.

R: Confirm cyber on parkes asset?

CC: Confirmed, move asset and perform scrub. Relocate to mobile HQ ASAP.

R: Chinese decode success? Asset in possession, not translated.

CC: Decode not confirmed. Expect further interference. Will advise.

Neal closed the window and turned the laptop back around. This wasn’t good. He assumed “cyber” was short hand for “cyber attack”, clunky government shorthand for external forces attempting to hack his network. They must have been successful, triggering the fire alarms and getting the servers to shut down.

That would put a major spanner into the “infection” narrative. Neal didn’t trust Reed to begin with, but this didn’t help any. If there wasn’t a space-borne organism attacking, then what else was it? Neal suspected a major smokescreen designed to keep him in the dark. Willing and compliant in the face of an unknown enemy.

Or a manufactured one.

Reed rushed back into the room, scooping up the laptop and gesturing to Neal. “Lets go, its getting too hot out here. Time for a change of locale.”

A large armored transport idled outside, back ramp extended. They both ran up the ramp, back hatch closing as the engine roared. Mobile once again. The cramped interior was lit in shades of red, tactical lighting casting a bloody pall across grim faces.

Several seats faced the wall, where various displays and equipment were mounted. Reed sat on the left side, Neal to the opposite on the right. Reed took a headset from the side rack and gestured for Neal to do the same. The whine of the diesel set Neal’s teeth on edge.

Donning the headset, noise-cancelling bliss filled the space between his ears.

“Our timetable has advanced. The infection is more aggressive than we gave it credit for.”, Reed’s voice sounded like they were under water, dampened and compressed.

“So where are we going?”

“Let me worry about that. What I need you to do is take a look at some data we retrieved from your servers before they shut down. The console in front of you has your setup mirrored – at least the tools and local data should work.”, Reed flashed a wry grin.

Neal turned, looking closer at the display. His desktop was here all right, right down to the arrangement of icons. They must have copied it while he was in the conference room back at the observatory. Might as well get started, Neal thought. Its either that or stare at the bulkhead.

Neal opened the file containing the signal. Invoking his analyzer, Neal peered deeply into the waves, oscillating traces filling the screen. There had to be a clue here, something that Neal couldn’t see on the surface. Scrubbing the cursor, Neal relaxed into the flow, letting the answers come.

(To be continued.)

Neal’s office was nearly bare. Desks had been moved and equipment carried out, impressions from the furniture still marking the carpet in perpendicular lines. His workstation was the only connected machine left.

Agent Reed pulled out the chair and motioned for Neal to sit.

“You’ll stop wasting my time and show me the logs.”

Neal swallowed, hesitantly invoking commands to bring up the browsing utility. Scanning the list, Reed stopped and pointed at the file Neal had printed out, hours ago.

“That one has a timestamp that is different from the others. You were studying this entry, weren’t you?”

Damn it all, this guy knew his stuff. Time to half-confess, at least to find out more.

“Yes, I was. I tend to randomly select files to see if the algorithms have missed anything.”

“And you found the R-Wave.”

“The what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Mr. Watkins, or should I say doctor Watkins, you know perfectly well what I’m talking about. We don’t have time for this. Right now, teams are spreading out to contain this –“, Reed’s finger stabbed at the monitor, “–infection, whatever it is.”

Neal sat in stunned silence.

“You’d better come up with something better than ‘I don’t know’, or so help me I will throw you into a hole so deep, no one will hear your screams.”, Reed slammed down on the desk with a clenched fist, scattering notes on to the floor.

“Maybe you should tell me what you mean by infection.”, Neal reverted to his soothing voice, the one he used when Directors were fuming about funding and lack of published results. It worked.

Reed placed his laptop on the desk, turning the narrow-field display so Neal could read what was on the screen.

“There. Suffice to say if you breathe a word about this you’ll become ‘missing’ in a heartbeat.”

Leaning forward, Neal began reading.

Field Briefing: R-WAVE

SigOP: TERS-OEC-SIGINT

[Redacted] studying incoming signal from distant group, SATCOMMS [Redacted], main memory began to fail, backup systems inoperative. Attempted downstream command to reset, was given error but retrieved sample of wave. Not full package, as transmission failed and asset began to de-orbit. Monitoring device was frozen, obtained hardcopy before machine crashed in non-recoverable loop.

Recommend containment procedure ASAP, do not load sample on to sensitive equipment or networks. Unknown mechanism of infection, assumed to be some analog to malware or computer type virus. INFECTION VECTOR NOT UNDERSTOOD. Extreme caution is advised.

“So, it crashes computers? Why does that matter?”, Neal sat back in the chair, springs squeaking.

“It matters, because it seems to adapt to whatever environment it finds itself in. It took out an entire base of networked machines. If we hadn’t been isolated for security, it would’ve hopped out to the internet.”

“Then why is my machine still working?”

“This thing is smart, the onset of symptoms varies with efforts made to contain it. When it determines there’s no escape from your network, all of your machines will go down.”

Just then, alarms buzzed and red lights began pulsing. The servers downstairs were being powered down, reaction to the false fire alarm signal lighting up the building.

“Its begun. You’d better come with me.”, Reed grabbed Neal by the arm, lifting him out of his chair. Neal’s screen blanked, then went into random pixel patterns. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

“Don’t look, we have to get out of here!”, Reed hustled Neal out the door into the cool evening air. Jumping into a large truck, they rolled out of the parking lot towards the main access road.

The silhouette of the building behind them cast in red flashing lights, an angry giant with dark window-framed eyes.

If this was an infectious organism, then Neal had a biohazard stowed in the utility box.

Grimly watching scrub brush disappear in the headlights, Neal wondered if his caution had doomed them all. He had to learn more, this secrecy bullshit was starting to wear at his soul.

“We’re going to a secure facility, we can’t risk contamination scenarios. If you have a cell phone on you, I suggest you turn it in before we arrive.”

Neal produced his phone, glancing at the pixelated display. Hypnotic patterns were dancing at the periphery, like one of those optical illusions that produce movement when you almost look away.

Reed snatched the phone out of his hand and sealed it in a mesh envelope. Faraday cage. Designed to block signals coming in, and out.

Staring out the windshield in silence, they rumbled on the rough backroad towards the horizon, stars blinking in the darkening skies overhead.

(To be continued.)

Neal was sitting at his workstation when the door slammed open, knocking over the remaining pile of printouts stacked on the cabinet against the concrete wall. A group of soldiers flooded the room, parting to allow a tall man wearing a dark suit. His demeanor suggested any resistance would be met with swift reprisal.

“Agent Reed. You’re Mr. Watkins, I presume?”, Reed snapped shut his identification, reflecting gold highlight from the badge briefly blinding Neal’s eyes.

Neal blinked. He slowly straightened in his chair and folded his hands.

“Yes, I’m Neal Watkins.”

“We’re taking control of this facility. You are to turn over any materials that you’ve collected in the last week.”

It wasn’t a suggestion, it was a command. Neal looked downward at the keyboard and smiled.

“Something funny about that?”, Reed’s voice crept up a register, daring Neal to break into a laugh.

“No, nothing funny. Just that it would’ve taken a polite request instead of bulling in here with an armed squad.”, Neal pushed up his glasses, gesturing to the workstation in front of him.

“If you need it, its here. I can’t vouch for whether its been sent upstream to the project archives. I don’t monitor the backup schedules or the servers that contain them.”

Reed stood motionless, as if considering several responses.

“Good. We’ll begin securing the site now. Please step away from the machine.”, Agent Reed motioned to the men stationed in the room. They began pulling connections and stacking printouts. Neal backed away from the machine, standing near the coffee machine as Reed directed with curt commands.

Neal was completely outnumbered. He briefly entertained dashing for the door and jumping into his car, but they were fully armed and from the sound of their arrival, had full air support as well. He wasn’t going anywhere.

The soldiers methodically boxed and carted out the contents of the office, leaving the filing cabinet drawers pulled open, like burglars with no fear of being caught. Outside, a loud diesel engine roared into the parking lot. So there had been a convoy on the way after all, Neal mused.

Neal watched as most of his life started walking out the door in rectangular storage bins, each marked with a barcode. It felt a little like dying, inside.

“So, what exactly are you looking for?”, it sounded amateurish as soon as it left his mouth, but Neal’s curiosity wouldn’t let him stay silent.

“You’ll be debriefed when I see fit. Sergeant, please escort Mr. Watkins to the conference room.”

The soldier gestured to Neal, following behind him as Neal exited the room.

Agent Reed touched his earpiece. An incoming transmission squawked in his ear, updates from central control. Nodding, Reed sat down, putting his feet up on Neal’s desk.

---

The conference room was the least used space at the facility. Dust covers were on most of the chairs except for the few clustered near the entrance. The large projection screen had been lowered into place. Neal glanced upward at the Sergeant standing guard at the door.

Not a chance of getting out of here.

Neal sat at the closest seat to the exit, sweaty palms on the burled walnut table. Hadn’t there been a speakerphone? Neal scanned the room, spotting the tri-lobed grey pod hurled into a corner, cord hastily wrapped and cut at an oblique angle.

“Thank you Sergeant, that will be all.”, Reed entered the room carrying a laptop, which he plugged into the projector patch cord. The soldier exited the frosted glass door, closing it silently behind him.

“You’ll have to excuse our methods, but this is of utmost importance.”, Reed sat down in the opposite chair, regarding Neal with a grim stare.

“So important that I have no rights? So important that you couldn’t describe what was going on when you called?”, Neal was boiling mad, some part of him pleaded restraint, but damn it, he was at his limit.

Reed shifted, leaning back in the chair.

“Mr. Watkins, I understand the frustration. What I’m going to tell you may answer some of your questions, but do not press me further than necessary. I’m not a patient man.”

Neal nodded, heartbeat slamming in his throat. Don’t let him get to you. Just act like a rational scientist and hear him out.

“Good. What you are about to see is restricted material, but given how you are involved already, I’ll just have to risk it.”, Reed invoked the projector output, lights dimming in response.

A grainy photo flipped up on the screen, a string of numbers on the left hand edge. It was an enhanced photo, spindly panels extending from a smaller cylindrical mass.

“This is — or rather was, one of our birds up in low-earth orbit. It was taken a few weeks ago.”, Reed advanced to the next slide.

“This is what is left of it now. We are sure that it wasn’t sabotage, at least not terrestrial based.”

The next shot was a jumble of debri and scattered shapes, the largest of which still centered around where the satellite had been.

“What does that have to do with me?”, Neal pushed up his glasses, squinting at the screen.

“Depends. You intercept anything interesting in the last week?”

“Define ‘interesting’.”

Agent Reed sighed, like he had caught Neal in the cookie jar.

“I really was hoping you’d be more cooperative. I’m going to ask you one more time. Have you intercepted anything non-terrestrial of interest?”

Neal took off his glasses, cleaning the lenses with his t-shirt. Reed had to know, but Neal wasn’t about to hand it over on a silver platter.

“The algorithms tag my observations, if there’s anything to find it will be in the logfiles.”

Agent Reed stood, summoning the Sergeant outside.

“Well then, lets both have a look, shall we?”

Neal rose, marching back to the office like a man condemned. He had to stall them. Just long enough to find out what the hell it was they were looking for. He thought about his log book, safely hidden in the weather-proofed junction box.

Neal wished he could’ve hidden there too, amongst the cables and wires.

(To be continued.)

The conversation was brief and evasive. Neal hung up the phone, residual impact resonating the ringing mechanism in tinny aftertones. They were coming here. What they wanted wasn’t exactly clear, but Neal had a bad feeling growing in the pit of his stomach. He had to prepare.

Sitting in front of the constellation of monitors, he began to formulate a plan.

---

Incursion

Agent Harrison Reed had a problem. It wasn’t the kind of situation where you sent in fresh meat from the academy. This had to be handled by seasoned field agents with extreme discretion. Agency business was always a hush-hush affair, but this was something on an entirely different scale.

Agent Reed, or “Harry” to his closest friends, was being flown directly from the deck of an aircraft carrier group to the Australian outback town of Parkes, New South Wales. It was fortunate that the local government was so accommodating. Normally relocating fifteen thousand people would be more of a chore. Nothing could be left to chance.

Even now, as he was choppered over the sparse landscape, multiple teams were visiting other facilities where the signal could have been intercepted. Another break — the equipment needed had to be very sensitive, or the Agency would have had its hands full mitigating a “vectored containment” scenario.

He was to meet with the local astronomer Watkins, immediately after touchdown. Their conversation had been clipped and awkward, driven by the need to release as little information as possible, and to prevent Mr. Watkins from tampering with the logs and archive data in the facility.

If he even knew what they were looking for. There was a good chance that the hapless scientist didn’t even have a clue as to what was going on. If they were that lucky. In Agent Reed’s experience, that was so seldom as to be almost impossible.

“ETA 25 minutes”, the pilots voice crackled in his headset as Agent Reed scanned the barren countryside below.

What a shit-hole. Still, better than some of the other deployments he’d had. Barely healed scars ached on his shoulder and and back, the remnant of a rough drop into dense jungle. His chute had tangled and nearly cost him his life. Hanging from the straps in the tall trees, he managed to cut himself down without breaking his neck.

In a way, this was a similar mission. Locate the intel, scrub the site and contain any leaks. Reed sincerely hoped they didn’t have to call in a code black. That would not be an optimal outcome, to say the least.

His scowl deepened as the engine pitch changed. They were descending from cruising altitude to better blend into the landscape on approach, full tilt as their target grew closer on the tactical display.

The pilot activated stealth mode, cutting engine noise to nearly nothing. Running silent was standard protocol when the stakes were high. Agent Reed steeled himself. He wasn’t going to be caught off guard like last mission. Second chances were rare events in his line of work.

Mistakes meant severe consequences.

---

Neal climbed up the main access stairway to the dish above. He didn’t like it, not at all. The Agent on the phone, Harrod, Harrison, whatever – was coming and he didn’t trust him a single bit. Something in the tone of his voice. Like he had done all kinds of horrible things before breakfast and Neal was going to be the dessert.

Wrenching open the utility box, Neal gingerly placed his logbook behind the braided wires and sensor leads. There would be no reason for them to check here, and even if they tried searching every square centimeter, there were hundreds of these junction boxes all over the facility.

Security by obscurity may be pointless in the digital age, but in the real world it was often enough to get by. Neal shut the box and secured the cover in place, careful to not scratch the paint. No point in making the search easy by leaving tell-tale marks that it had been opened recently.

He had no concrete evidence that the signal and the phone call were correlated, but the coincidence was too strong to ignore. It was best to be prepared for the worst instead of being caught out in the rain. Neal scanned the sky, afternoon sun glaring overhead.

Nothing yet.

He doubted they’d show up in a convoy of trucks. There were not many routes out here, and the plume of dust would give them away. No, they’d have to be flying in. It was the only way to get here with any speed that didn’t involve dealing with the pockmarked highways.

Neal briefly thought about taking the log book and driving off, but shook his head. It wouldn’t do any good, besides if they wanted to talk to him that badly they wouldn’t just knock on the door and give up if no one was home. He had to stay put and see this through.

Descending the staircase, Neal walked slowly back to the observatory office, wheels turning in his mind.

(To be continued.)

Slow waves broke over the pier, vanishing into the grey mists beyond. Neal looked over the edge into the water, past his reflection into the shadowy depths. A white shape, flowing and moving. Arms reaching out, impossibly long. Tendrils of fingers breaking the surface, curling around his face smothering his breath. Gasping and choking, he pulled back sharply as the —

CRASH

Neal snapped awake at his desk, toolbox in disarray next to his chair. As comfortable as his chair was, it made for a lousy bed. His neck and lower back ached. His hand still curled around the mouse. Neal’s workstation hummed softly, hard drive burbling to itself as he leaned back and rubbed his eyes.

What a strange dream.

Standing slowly, Neal made his way to the industrial coffee machine on the counter. It had seen better days, but the scratched and worn surface had a sort of character that Neal liked. “You and me buddy, until something interesting happens.”, Neal took the empty pot out and gave it a rinse. Something about regular routines that allowed his brain to roam free.

Discrete steps. Locate coffee pouch. Tear open, taking care not to apply too much pressure. Scattered grounds were the last thing Neal wanted to deal with. Besides, it would be a terrible waste of delicious brew. Filter, grounds, reinsert and lock. Filling the pot with water and dumping it into the machine, Neal slotted the pot and pressed the large amber “Start” button.

All sorted. Neal would complain about someone leaving the pot empty for the next person, but that someone had been himself. Not many visitors out here, aside from the occasional tour and official review. But Neal liked it this way. Coffee smells filled the room as he sat back down at his desk.

Neal’s monitor was decorated with various notes and reminders. Even in the digital age, Neal wasn’t comfortable with being fully virtual. He knew the fragility of whirling electrons on spinning platters, having lost a portion of work in a drive crash a few years ago. Backups were only as good as the last time they were refreshed.

Neal preferred to write his more promising findings on paper, in a log book decorated with a “I want to believe” sticker, replete with a blurry photo of a saucer-like object. It was Neal’s inside joke, as he was increasingly convinced that Fermi’s Paradox meant we were in the wrong period of history, all prior civilizations having gone extinct on remote planets we’d never see.

Still, it didn’t stop him from looking.

Sitting down, he scooted closer to the desk. Neal tapped the keyboard, awakening his desktop display. Neal had four screens, but when working with data he used the largest one in the center. The others were tasked to observatory data feeds and general communications with observers all across the globe.

He had left off near the end of his captured files. The algorithms hadn’t flagged any of the files for further study, but Neal liked to check to be sure.

Clicking on the next to last file, Neal invoked a utility that allowed him to see the spectrum data, in addition to a raw dump of sensor data for good measure. Waves wound up and down on a long horizontal axis, mostly sticking with the baseline drawn through its mean. The observatory was located in the outback of Australia for a reason, isolation from all kinds of signal interference.

It meant a few inconveniences, like the heavily shielded office that had no outside comms save the internet chat windows on his machine. Cell phones were prohibited, along with all their noisy bluetooth-enabled cousins. This allowed for sensitive equipment to receive faint signals from space, amplifying the output into a readable format for human and machine alike.

“Oh ho, what is this?”, Neal highlighted a segment of the display, routing the output to a smaller pop-out window that allowed for more detailed examination. A small waveform poked above the noise floor, like a curious porpoise peeking at a ship passing by. The algos had missed it, since the report threshold was slightly above the peak.

This deserved further study. Neal wrote down the file name and timestamp in his log book, tracing out an approximate profile of the wave. Printing out a screenshot, he attached it to the page as a reminder and bookmark. The shape itself was odd, smaller peaks-within-peaks that suggested something more complex.

It could be nothing.

Neal sighed, leaning back. How many years had it been, out here? He had a hard time recalling. Sunrise into sunset, short trips into town to get supplies. It stretched on like long shadows in a forest, blending together into a pattern of grey and black, until night fell and there was nothing but the rustle of leaves and creaking of branches.

Neal stared at this ceiling tiles, dotted pits like an inverted star field. He wanted to go out into space, but he wasn’t astronaut material. “Those also serve who only stand and wait”, Milton’s words rang true, even centuries later. In the corner of the room, a phone started to ring.

A call? Out here? How unexpected. Neal rushed to the wall-mounted receiver, knocking over a pile of old printouts.

“Hello?”, Neal paused, only hearing the hiss of static.

“Mr. Watkins. We need to talk.”

Neal nodded and listened, breaking dawn casting a dim orange light as the voice began to speak.

(To be continued.)

Discovery

Neal Watkins mopped his brow, adjusting his wide-brim hat in the New South Wales heat. “Sub-tropical my arse.”, he muttered, remembering the job posting. His main job title was “Radio Astronomer”. His secondary job was fixing and maintaining the large radio dish, including rousting any local wildlife.

He had responded to the job listing enthusiastically, not knowing that the majority of his time would be spent coaxing the ageing dish into producing useful data. Winters weren’t so bad, with moderate temps and rare precipitation events. But summers were on the uncomfortable side with muggy humidity and potential storms blowing in from the Pacific.

No clouds today.

Brilliant sapphire skies all the way out to the horizon, noon-day sun beating down on his neck. Nothing but the blowing wind and the metallic clink of his tools. You could hold a concert here, and no one outside the immediate area would have any idea.

Neal missed the city. Sometimes. It was enough to do some scientific work out here in the wilderness.

He detected and classified FRBs – Fast Radio Bursts, recording and analyzing short signal spikes above the ambient noise of the cosmos. It was painstaking work that involved isolating microsecond events against a large expanse of chaotic signals.

Neal didn’t mind. It was just like sailing. Pushing out the boat, tacking into a good breeze and letting the momentum build into a smooth glide over calm water. It took focus and attention to detail. Sometimes Neal would find himself adjusting and selecting signals on the workstation almost subconsciously.

Fingers stroking the keyboard, targeting waveforms, scrubbing the spectrum for small blips of interest. It was the “flow” feeling that he liked best. Select file, scan, scrub and notate. Neal often would work long shifts in the observatory office, sometimes falling asleep at his desk.

Neal finished splicing in the new control feeds, wrenching closed the all-weather utility box with a few twists. Time for some lunch. The sun was high in the sky and small dust-devils were swirling outside the yellowed grass border near the tall fence.

The dish was a beauty, 64 meters of graceful steel and reflecting mesh panels. At night, you could see the stars through the dish, twinkling and wavering in the darkening sky. Red warning lights pulsing at the receiver, tripod of struts suspended over the locus. Solitary cyclops, staring at the sky with an unblinking eye.

Arriving in the lab, Neal relaxed in his duct-taped chair. He had to hide it when the higher-ups came to tour the facility. It was too “lived in” to be on display. Duct taped with worn depressions from his elbows in the arm rests, it was the most comfortable thing in this office – besides his sheepskin footstool.

Neal logged in, scanning the most recent captures. Algorithms did a majority of the grunt work, but Neal still preferred to scroll though the list himself. There was always a small chance the rigid logic of the filters could have missed something promising.

Neal opened the first file and began scanning. It was going to be another long night.

(To be continued.)