Ivan furrowed his brow. “It looks like encoded parts of our human DNA, but somehow modified.” He zoomed in on the section Eva indicated, running it through his reverse analyzer programs. “That’s very strange. It’s female, or rather I’d say it’s based on the genes of a female human being, but there are also some strains of animal DNA included. This part looks like it’s derived from a vampire bat and this one from a serpent.” He looked up, confused. “It doesn’t make any sense. Why would you broadcast a highly complex signal like that only to fill it with junk that seems to describe a strange fairy tale creature?” While Ivan mumbled to himself Eva zoomed in even deeper to have a closer look at basic genetic details, specifically their reproductive functionality.
“Ivan, have a look at this. You know when a cell divides and thus reproduces, it first copies its DNA and only then will it start mitosis. The information here is completely different, it suggests a much faster, seemingly immediate materializing of the complete organism.”
Ivan looked at the piece of information as if hypnotized. “This is very similar to what we computer geeks call object-oriented programming. You define a class of objects, basically an empty hull, a structure that can later on be populated with information and behavioral patterns. This suggests that a living creature can be conjured up out of thin air simply by… let’s say, energizing the class structure with the life force inherent in the signal itself. It looks like a magic trick making something appear out of nothing.”
Eva nodded. “And this also makes perfect sense. The signal itself is simply energy. It doesn’t have the burden of a physical cell structure encapsulating it. It doesn’t have to reproduce a physical body to grow, it simply appears as its fully grown form whenever… I don’t know… whenever it likes, I guess. I can’t see anything triggering it. It must have its own way of deciding when it’s time to materialize.”
Ivan was back on his holo screen calculating. “Considering the time between signal spikes we have to deal with some one hundred eleven signals per day. It might be quite difficult to track all these ghosts even after only a few days.”
Eva stared at Ivan’s screen, her troubled thoughts escaping her lips. “We’ll have to find a way to detect when one of the ghosts materializes. It doesn’t seem to be dangerous as long as it is in its pure, energetic, ghostlike form. But if it really was one of the ghosts materializing here as well as in Moscow then we can be sure that its physical form is pretty deadly.”
Ivan went back to work on his program as Eva drifted off in thought. After a brief moment she looked up, eyes sparkling as she continued, “There would have to be a certain spike of energy when one of the empty vessels is filled with life. Where does this energy come from? The signal obviously only carries as much information as it requires to keep its own information alive, but summoning the physical form would require a certain external power source.”
Ivan nodded. “The attacks have so far only happened in densely populated areas, areas with a lot of power consumption and all other kinds of electromagnetic signals in the air. Maybe it requires free electrons or ions to charge itself before it can materialize.”
Eva now looked very confident. “I think we have a solid theory. Once we gain access to the Ring we should be able to run a program scanning the globe for unusual power spikes. We’ll have to find the identifying pattern so we can distinguish these spikes from all other man-made and also natural sources of electrical discharges.”
Ivan agreed. “We need to get online. Let’s hope Mov comes back to us soon.” He felt a lot better now. Eva’s bluff had developed into a solid theory that could be backed up by hard evidence.
“It’s getting late. I think we should go and get some rest. If Mov is as powerful as he thinks he is, he might come back with positive news as early as tomorrow morning.”
* * *
“Eva, wake up!” It was Ivan’s voice drifting out of her intercom. “Mov was successful. We have a green light.”
Eva nearly fell out of bed when she heard the good news. When she entered the lab a few minutes later Ivan was already sitting in front of his holo display smiling happily.
“How much time will they give us?” Eva was excited about this opportunity. She had never had access to the processing power of the Orbital Ring, which was reserved only for the top hundred most pressing endeavors of mankind, most of them of a commercial nature and only a handful reserved for scientific agendas.
“We’re not allowed to access any of the commercial slots, which take up ninety-seven percent of the bandwidth, but Mov was able to reserve half a percent for a limited time of two weeks.”
Eva slumped back in her seat. “That’s disappointing.”
Ivan seemed to be in good spirits. “It’s not too bad. The Ring’s very powerful. It should be more than enough processing power to track and identify… I’d say some ten thousand signals globally on a 24/7 basis.”
Eva’s face lit up. “That sounds pretty good. Now it’s really more about proving that we can do it. Once we can show Mov that it’s working we’ll get more bandwidth. Do you have any proposals for how to scan the atmosphere for the power spikes?”
Ivan smirked. “In fact I have. While you were having your beauty sleep I was working.”
Eva realized how tired Ivan looked. He must have been up all night, but considering he was carrying alien DNA inside his bloodstream it seemed the right thing to do. Who would be able to sleep not knowing if he might be sprouting insect legs and wings while he was fast asleep?
“I was thinking that the energetic pattern emitted during the manifestation should reflect the basic structure that the pattern is built upon. Again this is based on the idea of object-oriented programming, as the active object obviously has to be a perfect copy of the inactive class structure. I’ve been collecting every single spike that has been emitted by the Green Egg so far and I’m continuing to do so. Every signal spike has a specific energetic pattern; they all seem to be slightly different. Don’t ask me why, but our ghosts like to stand out as individuals.”
Eva laughed. “It seems they’re just as vain as us humans. How long until you can upload the program for a first test run?”
Ivan grinned. “I’ve done that already, but I haven’t started it yet, I wanted you to be here first.”
Eva felt a contraction in her chest as if someone were pressing most of the air out of her lungs. This was a very important moment. “Well, I guess there’s no reason to wait any longer. Go!”
Ivan started the program, which brought up a holographic representation of the world, slowly spinning in front of their eyes. Suddenly a red dot appeared somewhere in Eastern Europe. A little text box materialized a few inches above it stating “Krakow, Poland.” Eva looked at Ivan who was just as surprised at how fast the first signal had been detected.
“Can you magnify that?” she asked.
Ivan grabbed his touchscreen to zoom in on the Polish city. The text above the city now read “Krakow, Poland, The Barbican, Ul. Basztowa; Detected: 68% Human, 25% Toxicofera, 7% Arachnoid; Materialized: 6:13 a.m. local time.”
Eva stared at the blinking red dot, imagining what kind of creature would now be lurking inside the walls of this ancient building that once was part of the city’s defense systems. Ivan was equally hypnotized by the unexpected success when the red dot including the write-up suddenly vanished.
Eva was puzzled. “What’s wrong?”
Ivan’s face went red. “I don’t know. It has vanished, dissolved. It’s not there anymore or… at least I can’t detect it any longer.” Ivan was about to check his program when another red dot emerged. “St. Petersburg, Russia.”
He jumped up from his seat nearly dropping his touchscreen while Eva instinctively turned around checking if everything was still peaceful in the room behind them. “Zoom in on that, quickly.”
Eva was on the edge of her seat as Ivan brought the city into focus. “St. Petersburg, Russia, Russian Institute for Supernatural Artifacts
(RISA); Detected: 71% Human, 19% Toxicofera, 10% Diptera; Materialized: 8:21a.m. local time.”
Eva tried to merge the information presented to her into a picture of the attacker. “Ivan, please help me out, what is a toxicofera and a diptera?”
Ivan replied as if someone had put a coin into an automatic answering machine. “Toxicofera stands for all toxic reptiles, while all flies are of the order diptera.”
Eva felt sick. “So your program states that a mostly human, possibly winged snake creature is stalking our compound?”
Ivan appeared to be deciding how to respond when a bright orange “1” appeared next to the name of the place.
“Well I hope there’s only one of these creatures around.” Eva noticed how Ivan’s face turned white as snow. “What’s wrong? What does 1 stand for?”
Ivan had to take a sip of water. His throat had suddenly gone dry as sandpaper “It means… that one person has been killed by the organism. I thought that I could potentially catch the energy burst that would occur when the organism attacks. I very much hope I was wrong and that all of this…”
Sirens going off, red lights starting to flash, and automatic safety doors sliding out of concealed wall pockets interrupted Ivan.
Mov was running down a corridor pressing his intercom device to his ear. “Eva, Ivan, are you OK?”
“We’re OK. What’s going on?” Eva looked up in horror as Ivan’s holo display now showed a mortality rate of three.
“There seems to be an attack in one of the biochemical labs. It has been sealed off, but I believe there are still two people inside.”
Eva looked at Ivan and back to the holo display. “I think there were three people inside, Mov, three. And it seems they’re all dead.”
Mov stopped in his tracks. “What? How do you know?”
Eva slumped back in her seat. “Let’s have a look at the bio-lab first. Maybe there’s still somebody alive. I’ll explain later.”
A few seconds later the red dot vanished from Ivan’s display as if nothing had ever happened. “I think we should be safe now, open the doors.”
“You’re right,” Mov announced when Eva and Ivan arrived at the bio-lab. “There were three people inside and they’re all…”
Eva looked down at her shoes. “Dead, I guess… Can we have a look? We need to see how it all happened.”
Ivan was busy taking samples of the bodies that were sprawled on the floor and that were decaying at an alarmingly fast rate.
“It looks like some kind of animal has attacked and killed them,” muttered Ivan.
Eva nodded, unsure how an animal of a size that could be dangerous to a human being could get into the hermetically sealed compound. “Can we have a look at the security cameras?” She looked up at the round glass coverings that she knew concealed half a dozen cameras. “If something was in here then we should be able to find it on one of the CCTV recordings.”
Mov nodded and held his touch pad in front of his face, allowing it to perform a biometric scan, which was required to gain access to the security files. “Here we go… 8:20 a.m.” Mov held up the display so Eva could have a good view of the screen.
“There! Alina has noticed something. She has just dropped her protective glasses and… I can’t see what she’s moving away from. Ohh….”
The screen nearly slid out of Mov’s hands, as Alina was thrown against the opposite wall. She was bleeding profusely from her neck, which was now turning black and blue. The two men who were left in the lab did not fare any better. They both seemed to be bitten by an invisible, very poisonous attacker and left for dead seconds later.
Eva’s voice trembled. “We have to analyze the infrared and electromagnetic tracks. It seems the attacker is only visible to the person it’s attacking.”
Eva remembered Ivan talking about the alien signals resembling energetic patterns found in the human brain’s centers of perception. It all seemed to make sense in a way she could not yet explain.
Mov seemed to sense that Eva was on the verge of a breakthrough. “I’ll meet you in your lab in an hour. You better tell me everything you know about what’s happening here. The time for secrets has passed.”
Sixteen
Chris
Ezrah had become a bit of a regular at The Shot. He had to admit that Chris was right about the coffee he was drinking at the police station. It was far removed from the fragrant, aromatic, and well-balanced beverage that Chris was able to produce out of his vintage Marzocco Strada espresso machine.
“Hi, Ezrah. Any more alien attacks happening?”
Ezrah moved closer and lowered his voice. “It’s happening all the time. Everywhere. The government is keeping a lid on it as much as possible, but it’s only a matter of time until mass panic will break out. I’ve something to discuss with you when you knock off, but for now I’ll have an espresso, double shot.”
Chris didn’t look surprised, steering the conversation back to coffee. “Do you want to try this one? It arrived today. It’s an organic single origin sourced from a small cooperative in Western Ethiopia.”
Ezrah just nodded and went over to the chair he preferred to sit in. He had his back against the rear wall with a good view over the whole café as well as out the window to the right. Ezrah smiled at his paranoia. Must be the military training I had to put up with, he thought as he tapped on the newspaper icon on the table’s glass surface. Another five thousand people dead. Ezrah shook his head at the global death toll that had been broadcast on a daily basis for some time. It was not a bad day, by comparison; the death toll had been much worse the previous few days. Ezrah was actually surprised that he classified this horrible news as good news. How fast human beings are able to adapt, he thought to himself.
“Double espresso, single origin. Enjoy and let me know what you think.” Chris smiled at Ezrah and went over to the only other table that was still occupied, by Ilvy, the professor’s daughter. “Would you like anything else?”
Ilvy started frequenting The Shot soon after it reopened following her father’s violent death a few weeks ago. She didn’t talk much, but Chris was sure she was still looking for clues that would explain her father’s untimely death. She had pestered him with questions about her father for days until Chris finally gave in and told her what he had seen. Ilvy initially didn’t take his story well. She looked at him in disgust, called him a bloody liar, and left the café only to return a few days later, sitting quietly at her table, sipping her chai latte. Chris was not sure if she expected him to tell her another version of his story, something that sounded more like it could be true, something that would render her father’s death meaningful, or if she simply had nothing else better to do. Anyway, she was here nearly every day and he felt really sorry for her.
“I have to go.” Ilvy got up, took her bag, and hurried outside.
Chris shook his head as he wiped the table, glancing at the Internet browser Ilvy had left open. It still displayed the web content she had been studying.
Looks like she’s addicted to stories published by World Analytics, thought Chris. He had read multiple articles accusing WA of destabilizing the country, if not the world, by publishing manufactured content disguised as factual news. The organization was elusive to say the least. They had no offices and no employees, yet they somehow managed not only to infiltrate social media sites, but disrupt global TV streams, broadcasting their messages at prime time, confronting hundreds of millions of people with their version of the truth. “I’m not sure if real news is more truthful either…” muttered Chris, scanning through a list of videos that Ilvy had been watching.
“I don’t think we’ll ever find out,” said Ezrah.
Chris jumped. He hadn’t noticed Ezrah standing next to him. “Don’t ever do that again,” he said before heading back to the bar where he started cleaning his equipment.
“What do you think about this?” Ezrah started a video that had been published a few days ago. The uncomfortably real-looking face of an art
ificial, computer-generated woman appeared on the holo display, floating above the table, staring at him with intense green eyes.
“Russian officials have confirmed that the brutal attacks have their roots in the biochemical laboratories of ARC, the American Research Center. ARC, a governmental institution answering directly to the White House, has been conducting secret experiments for years. A program aimed at creating an army of mutant super-soldiers has recently been concluded. Final tests unearthed serious security shortcomings. ARC has failed to contain the aggressive life form it has created. Russian as well as Chinese intelligence agencies confirm that ARC supersoldiers are responsible for the attacks on innocent people on a global scale. ARC has lost control of its creation. Monsters roam our planet, killing whatever stands in their way. Russia has called for an emergency meeting with China to discuss further steps. Global calls for retribution seem justified considering…”
Chris stopped polishing his coffee machine and switched off the customer displays. “Do you want to tell me what you have to discuss? We’re alone now.”
Ezrah went over to the bar Chris was working at. “I received a request from CATI today. I believe they’re looking for you.”
Chris’s hair stood up on the back of his neck. “What do they want?” Chris tried to project a calm attitude, but Ezrah didn’t appear to be fooled.
“It seems they know that there’s someone out there that has survived an attack. They’re having trouble finding this person, but they’re asking for help. They say they guarantee this person’s safety. Actually… I’ve never received a request from CATI before that was phrased like this message. It’s more of a plea for help than a request. I think they’re in deep shit and they’re looking for the needle in the haystack.”
“What do you think I should do?”
Chris knew that he could trust Ezrah. He wouldn’t lie to him solely for personal gain.
Humans and other Aliens: Book 1 Page 9