“Dunno what the fuck you’re talking about, mate.” The gnome looked terrified. He was wriggling around two inches off the ground, trying desperately to escape Drew’s grip. His bulging brown eyes were doing their best to pop out of their sockets.
“Take a look and I’ll show you,” said Drew, dragging the gnome out of his office, and back over to where the laptop was sitting.
“What are you going on about? I haven’t done a thing,” Gary said, his arms flying around like an acrobat on a trampoline.
“Someone’s been screwing around with it, and with your history, you’re the prime suspect.”
“Hey, I swear, I haven’t done anything. Put me down!”
Drew caught a glimpse of himself in the reflection of the glass opposite him. It was a pathetic sight to behold, and he felt a pang of guilt course through his body. He imagined what the scene would look like to an observer. Big guy bullying the little guy, and he felt instantly ashamed. He of all people should know better. He quickly released him. Gary straightened up his shirt and collar, cleared his throat and then struck back. “Although I think that piece of junk is way overdue for the trash can.”
Drew chose to ignore the comment, even though it was completely uncalled for.
They both stared at the laptop monitor. Every now and then an image, albeit a distorted one, began to appear and disappear. For a brief second, it looked like a page had popped up with some strange symbols and blurry images.
Drew scratched his bald head, grabbed his soda and took another swig of it.
He glared at Gary, who was frowning, looking truly surprised. His eyes were back in their sockets, his shirt once again tucked into his trousers. Perhaps the man was telling the truth. There was no immature chuckling, no smile or anything else to make Drew think otherwise.
He was intrigued enough that he decided to call his colleagues at NASA. As he reached for the phone, the wireless LED light on the side of the keyboard began to flicker on and off. Had he seen it, he may have worked out its incredible significance. Unfortunately, it went unnoticed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“Sabrina. Sabrina. Where are you, girl?” yelled Janine, as the automatic sensors activated the lighting to her penthouse apartment. She was exhausted, and the short delay with her flight back to San Antonia had only served to aggravate her more.
The apartment by anyone’s standards was spectacular, and Janine took delight in the thought that Adam had ended up paying for most of it. It was the least he could have done for ruining her life and stalling her career. It extended over two floors and was ultra-modern in design, sporting a marble tiled floor, a gourmet kitchen, state-of-the-art audio-visual system and windows that tinted automatically depending on the time of day. Now, at night, the windows had darkened to a deep shade of gray, banishing any stray light trying to penetrate through from outside. The walls were bedecked with holographic images of faraway tropical beach scenes from islands across the globe, giving her apartment a relaxed holiday feel, although her sister, Kath, thought they were kitsch. All her furnishings, apart from the couches, were constructed of glass, including the kitchen cabinets, although they were opaque. Janine loathed wood, and there wasn’t a scrap of it to be found. Perhaps that had something to do with her stepfather, who happened to have once been a carpenter.
As she stepped into the kitchen, she met the gaze of a pair of cobalt-blue eyes staring back at her. They belonged to Sabrina, her three-year-old Siamese cat.
“There you are, honey. What have you been up to while Mommy’s been away?” she asked, opening the refrigerator.
“Come to Mommy,” she pleaded with the feline.
Sabrina was not up for company, and just as Janine reached for her, she darted past toward the living room, settling on the buffalo-leather couch.
“Okay, suit yourself. I guess you’re not hungry, then. Had some smoked salmon for you, but I guess I’ll just have to eat it.”
The feline glared back at Janine, then licked her gray coat, curled up into a tight furry ball and closed her eyes.
Janine opened her freezer and retrieved a prepacked frozen dinner. Cooking wasn’t her style. It meant wasted time, and once the meal was consumed there was nothing left to show for the hours spent preparing it. She nuked the carton, and a couple of minutes later was gorging herself while seated on the couch adjacent to Sabrina, gently stroking her soft fur. She turned the giant holographic television on.
“Well, Sabrina, let’s see if my brilliant experiment worked.”
She switched on her voice-controlled remote and could barely contain her excitement as her webpage came to life on the screen.
* * * *
Midnight
Alistair scratched his head. He looked at his watch and worked out the time in Scotland. It was too early in the morning to call his wife and grandson. He rubbed his aching knees. Damn. In the haste of leaving home, he had forgotten his painkillers. He would have to send for some in the morning. In the meantime, there were other methods of relieving his pain, both physical and emotional. He removed his spectacles, rubbed his eyes and thought.
What am I missing? It seemed like there was something simple about this code, yet despite the simplicity, he couldn’t break it. Frustration was setting in. He was about to reach for some liquid relief, when he was startled by sudden company.
“So, Professor, any luck yet?” It was Sheri. She sat down at the console next to him.
“You’re up late, Missy,” he said, grinning sheepishly, like a child who had almost been caught stealing a piece of chocolate cake before dinnertime.
“Couldn’t sleep, I kept thinking about that magnetic field reversal and its significance.”
“Where’s Zoe? Who’s minding her?”
“Zoe?” asked Sheri, a puzzled look etched on her face.
“Your daughter?” He smiled, his white dental implants glistening.
“Oh you mean Chloe? She’s fast asleep. Steve stayed the night, even though he has his own unit here. So, back to my original question. Any luck yet?”
“Not really, my dear. There is a pattern, and I do feel it’s on the tip of my tongue, but it just won’t come to me.”
“Have you tried radio or television decoding?” she asked, turning on her own monitor.
“Actually, that was the first thing I attempted, but the signal failed to translate. I’m starting to wonder if it’s an alien signal after all.”
“It certainly has all the characteristics of one.”
“Yes it certainly does,” he said, dabbing his sweaty brow with his handkerchief. His throat was parched.
“Perhaps it’s some advanced form of communication that we as a species are not yet technologically progressive enough to understand?”
“I can’t put my finger on it, but there is something extremely familiar about this signal,” he said.
“Professor …?”
“Yes, dear, what is it? You seem rather concerned about something.”
“It just doesn’t make sense.”
“What do you mean?”
“This signal’s origin is from the time of the Big Bang. A time when there weren’t even stars or planets formed yet, and certainly no advanced civilizations.”
The professor slumped back in his chair and clasped his hands together. “Hmmm, yes I see your point.” He stood up and stretched his aching knees. It was on days like this that he cursed the decision to hold off on knee-replacement surgery, even though he knew they were literally days away from a radical new stem cell treatment that would deem surgery totally obsolete. “Unless of course …”
“Unless what, Professor?” asked Sheri, her eyes widening.
“Unless the signal is not from that time at all.”
“What do you mean? It has to be. EMB is extremely accurate with temporal summation.”
“I’m not disputing that. What we’re not sure of is what the machine has done to space time. We cannot perceive, in going so far back in the past, wh
at the laws of physics were like. Perhaps they were different. Perhaps we distorted space time more than we ever thought possible.” He cleared his throat. “What I’m trying to say is that we have no idea of what came before the Big Bang, or even what happened exactly at the moment of the Big Bang.”
“Are you suggesting that we’ve done something to space time that may have allowed an aberration to occur?”
The professor shrugged his narrow shoulders.
“So what you’re saying then, is that the signal may not be originating from just after the Big Bang at all, but rather from-”
A holographic image materialized above them.
“G’day, all. Who’s the Santa Claus?” the man asked.
Sheri was quick to respond. “Hi, Drew, this is Professor Hart. He’s the latest addition to our team and is an expert in deciphering codes. In fact, he’s working on the signal as we speak. Professor, this is Drew Murrey.”
“Any luck yet, Prof?” Drew asked.
“Afraid not. Close I feel, but something is eluding me,” he answered, stroking his thick snow-white beard with his left hand.
“Well then, you might be interested to know that something strange has just happened here. I’m not sure if it has anything to do with the signal or not, but I thought it best you know.”
“Get on with it, lad. We don’t have all day,” growled the professor, irritated that he was now well overdue for his schnapps, and concerned that the time between necessary alcohol consumption for him was getting shorter, and with it, his temper.
“I had a vintage laptop with me today, and I moved it from my office, where it was working perfectly, and into the main auditorium, which is in the Wi-Fi zone and …”
“And what?” asked Sheri.
“And the damn bugger went berserk. At first I thought my colleague was playing a dirty trick on me, but then I noticed these strange pages flashing on and off, with some odd writing that I’d never seen before. I reckon it’s probably just interference from our Wi-Fi, but thought you should know about it anyhow.”
The professor went quiet and once again slumped back into his chair. The excitement inside him was growing. Could it be possible? “Mr. Murrey, would that laptop have been purchased around the year 2020, by any chance?”
“Hmmm, let me think. Dad started his business up in … well yes, it could’ve been 2020. How did you know that, Professor?”
“Let’s just say that I took a wild guess and it paid off.” His excitement was reaching a crescendo. He was definitely onto something, and for a moment the schnapps didn’t seem so important.
“Professor, are you okay?” asked Sheri.
“I’m not okay. I’m far better than okay. We need a drink to celebrate. Thank you very much indeed, Mr. Murrey. You’ve just given me the missing piece of the puzzle.”
“Professor, what is it?” pleaded Sheri, her eyes growing wider.
“Not yet, Missy.” He now had an excuse to consume alcohol. “First we get ourselves a nice stiff drink and then I’ll tell you all about it. What’s the chance of finding something stronger than a soda at this late hour?”
“Not too bad actually. The cafeteria has a small alcoholic-beverage section.”
“What’s your favorite poison? I have the distinct impression this is going to turn out to be one extraordinary day to remember!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Janine had fallen asleep watching the live feed from NASA headquarters, shattered after an arduous day of espionage. She felt something licking her face. The licking intensified, followed by a slight scratch to her nose.
“For god’s sake, Sabrina.” Janine groaned, pushing the cat away. “What now? Can’t a girl get any sleep? Lights on!” she yelled and the apartment began to slowly brighten.
“What time is it?” she asked the apartment’s intelligence server.
“The time is 1:02 am,” responded the machine with a deep masculine voice.
Janine squinted her eyes, wiped the sleep from them, and then gently lifted Sabrina off her lap, who had begun to meow.
“You had your chance earlier. We don’t eat dinner at one am.”
Sabrina glared at Janine with her cobalt-blue eyes, almost as if she had understood the rebuke and immediately ceased crying, but then darted off. Janine recalled the day she had brought the kitten home, emaciated and infested with parasites, after rescuing her from an abusive household while doing a story on animal cruelty. At some level she felt that the two of them shared a dark, similar past.
Janine rubbed her sore eyes, and for the first time became aware of the live feed on the monitor. There were four rooms being monitored, but surprisingly it was not the control room, but the cafeteria that caught her interest. She was glad that NASA took its security so seriously. She certainly would never have thought to bug the cafeteria. She saw a couple of people engaged in a conversation around a table. The voices were muffled, and it was difficult to make out detail, but it was clear that one was a stout, portly male who resembled Santa Claus, and the other a petite female.
“Now, now. What have we here?” she asked, intrigued by the late-night meeting.
“Zoom in, focus and increase audio,” she demanded from the apartment’s intelligence server.
“Compliance.”
The image improved and brightened. She could make out enough detail to recognize the female. It was Sheri Johnson. She didn’t know the man though. The audio was substantially better, too. Janine sat bolt upright and listened avidly.
“Sabrina, I have a feeling this is going to get interesting!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“So, Missy, do you have any idea yet of the significance of the laptop?”
Sheri sipped at her cabernet. She didn’t like alcohol. It had indirectly ruined her life once, and so she was wary of it. Nevertheless, this was a special occasion, and the professor had insisted. “No, Professor, not a clue. Does it have something to do with the Wi-Fi signal perhaps?”
The professor, who by now had drained almost half the whiskey bottle, was quick to reply. “Exactly! It has everything to do with the Wi-Fi signal.”
“How’s that? I thought everything Drew said was just probably interference from the Wi-Fi in the building, relaying bits of data from the computers in the basement and the mainframes?”
“That’s absolutely correct. That’s exactly what the Wi-Fi signal is doing. That’s normally what the Wi-Fi signal does, except there is one important fact that both you and Crocodile Dundee have overlooked.”
The professor paused, took a giant swig of the whiskey and emptied his glass. His cheeks were now glowing a bright cherry red. Sheri easily imagined him throwing on a red suit, slinging a bag of toys behind him and jumping onto a sleigh, but doubted Santa himself would drive drunk!
“The laptop computer from 2020, although being ancient in terms of computer power, had something else fundamentally different about it compared to the computers of today.”
“What? Memory? Voice recognition?” asked Sheri, intrigued where this was going.
“Yes, but that’s a given. Tell me, my dear, what happened to computers, or should I say the internet in 2020?”
Sheri thought back. What was she doing in 2020?
“I was four years old, but that was the year we successfully sent the Juno probe down through the Jovian atmosphere.”
“That was also the year of the amplitude booster, as I remember having to change my computer over to 1530 megahertz in response to worldwide environmentalist pressure.”
Sheri sat back and thought desperately hard, but was still unable to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. “I don’t understand though. What does that have to do with the laptop?” she finished.
“Very simple, my dear. What the laptop was picking up had nothing to do with the Wi-Fi in the building, which as you know runs at 50 kilohertz. The settings on the laptop were geared to the brief period when we had the service providers transmitting on a 1530 megahertz
signal. We didn’t last long on 1530 megahertz because of a mass of radio interference that the scientific community had warned the panel about, but who nevertheless failed to take note of. So in 2021, we moved to 50 kilohertz.”
“But if that’s true, then that laptop shouldn’t have picked up anything at all?”
“You’ve hit the nail on the head, my dear. It shouldn’t have elicited anything. No signal, no interference, nothing!”
“But it did. Drew said there was some vague writing on it. Didn’t he? So if that’s the case and it’s not the Wi-Fi in the building, then what is it?” As she said it, the mist in her head cleared, and for the first time, she saw what the professor saw.
“What it is, my dear is something unbelievably extraordinary! That laptop has picked up a direct feed from the EMB receiver due to its close proximity to it, even before the signal had been processed and interpreted by the computers in the building. That laptop is picking up the raw signature of an internet from a distant, ancient or depending on what we might have done to physics, possibly even extinct civilization.”
The professor slammed his glass down on the table, stood up and said quite calmly, “Ever been to Australia, my dear?”
* * * *
September 15, 07:55 Pacific Daylight Time
“That was pretty darn good, my sexy poodle,” grunted Denny, his loins satisfied.
“Not too bad yourself, Mr. Rottweiler. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr,” growled Jess into Denny’s ear. These sexual games always excited Denny. They were not something he could ever suggest or contemplate with his wife, but Jess had no problem with them. In fact she encouraged them.
Denny pulled Jess’s face toward his and began to kiss her passionately when his phone rang. He cursed and grabbed the phone from the bedside table, saw that it was his wife and sighed deeply.
“What is it, honey?” he answered. “You know I’m doing surveillance this weekend at NASA.” He looked over at Jess, who was rolling her eyes at him.
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