by Mark Wandrey
“Does it really say that in there?” the man asked.
Victor found the verse. “Psalms 82,” he said. “I bet you’ve seen people beat up in here before.”
“Couple dozen times in the week I’ve been waiting for arraignment.”
“But you came to my aid. Why? You don’t know me, don’t care about me.”
“No,” he agreed.
“Then why?”
“Because you were just wanting a place to read, and…and something in my head said to help you.”
Victor put a hand on his shoulder. The man visibly stiffened and started to turn away.
“Come read this book with me,” Victor said, “I’ve seen angels in the city. You’ve been chosen.”
“I can’t,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because I’ve done bad things. Because I’m a bad person.” On the floor, the kid’s eyes fluttered open. He looked around and up at his attacker. Rage began to appear on his face and Victor’s savior took a step toward him. Victor’s fingers tightened, and he held back. The kid half crawled away, shaking his head and mumbling about bitches.
“Yet, in your heart, you know good,” Victor said. “You can still do good.” The man turned toward him, and there were tears shining in his eyes.
“You really think God chose me?”
Victor looked at the other man. Really looked. He was huge, tough, and had probably been a soldier at some point.
“God doesn’t do things by accident,” he told the man, “the Bible is full of divine moments where God puts people in others’ paths so they can do His will. I needed help, and there you were.” He reached out and put a hand on the other man’s shoulder. The man jumped a little, as if Victor’s touch was electric. “I know you’ve been chosen,” Victor said and stared at him…hard. The man’s eyes widened at the inner strength he saw, then Victor stepped forward and hugged him. He felt tears on his shoulder. Victor reached up and patted his head. “We’re all bad people in the beginning,” he said. “And I think we’re being offered a new path.”
“Then I am yours,” the man said and stepped back, offering his hand. “Prophet, I’ve followed stupid officers’ and dangerous politicians’ orders to kill. It’s high time I listen to someone I believe in.”
“My name is Victor,” he said and shook it.
“My name is Trayfonn,” the man said, “but my homies call me Duke.”
They walked over to the former seat of the now-defeated cell warlord and sat. Everyone who’d gathered to watch the drama moved out of their way. No sooner had Victor opened the book, taking advantage of the better light, than several people approached.
“Can I learn about these angels?” one man asked.
“Me, too,” another said. In minutes, 20 men were sitting on the floor in a semi-circle, looking at Victor expectantly.
“I’m not much of a teacher,” he complained.
“You seem fine to me,” Duke said and patted him affectionately on the shoulder. Victor sighed, nodded, and began reading aloud from Psalms, right where he’d left off reading the verse to Duke. “They do not know, nor do they understand; they walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the Earth are unstable.”
He glanced up to see the men watching him with wide eyes. Many more in the cell were listening too, but not approaching. Not yet, anyway.
“I said,” he continued reading, “you are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High.” The words tore through him like a lightning bolt.
* * * * *
Chapter Three
March 17
Mindy tried not to yawn as she took another bite of her sandwich. The view out the window was the same as always. Nice, but not what she’d prefer. The stars were far more interesting than the mountains to her. Being a customs broker offered a small mental challenge. She’d lucked into the career trying to survive after her previous one imploded. Then she’d met Jake while studying for the federal exam a little over a year ago.
She set the half-finished sandwich down and wished Jake wasn’t in Seattle on business so they could have lunch together. It helped the day pass quickly when she had some time with him. Without even realizing it, she found herself trolling the message boards of the World Astronomy Association.
She was still a member in good standing, despite her little problem. Not that it was rarified company. Send in a check for $25 a year, and anyone could be a member. In the members’ section, there were no links next to her name. Even most of the hobbyists had some links. She felt her mood darkening, so she navigated away.
SETI was her next stop. There she was, in the gallery of past associates. “Mindy Patoy—Radio Astronomer.” SETI had lost all government funding several years ago. Despite that, there were still links by her name. Even with the loss of fortune, she still had friends at SETI. Mindy followed one of the links by her name. The speech was still there. She clicked it.
There she was, a few years younger, standing at a podium with several other members of SETI. They looked excited, almost jittery. The podium had a dozen microphones and a few digital recorders sitting on it. All the major news agencies were present and many of the small ones, as well.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the press,” she said, “SETI wishes to announce that we have isolated the first signal of extra-terrestrial origin.” The press exploded for several seconds, and they tried to get them to quiet down. “We received the signal at 19:34 hours two nights ago at the Arecibo Radio Observatory. It was 28 seconds in length, and it hasn’t repeated at this point. Signal analysis has confirmed the signal is non-terrestrial and contains structure…” the rest was drowned out by demanding questions from the press. The recording ended, and there was a link to further details about the story.
“Stupid move,” Mindy grumbled. She’d watched it at least a thousand times, and it got stupider every time. What were they thinking? There was only one radioscope monitoring that section of the sky, so there’d been no corroboration. Furthermore, one of the two hard drives tasked with recording the data had failed, so there was only one original copy. The final nail in the coffin was that the signal was a partial. It started in the middle of a repeating sequence, and when that sequence began again, it never reached the same spot. Or, it was two separate incomplete batches of data. She never found out.
The signal should have led to a major effort to find the exact origin. They should have received research grants and international attention. Instead, they’d jumped the shark. The international astronomy community lambasted them. SETI’s reputation, already considered by many to be the laughing stock of astronomy, was murdered. There had never been a lot of federal money, but there had been enough to keep them alive. That went away almost overnight when SETI was accused of trying to create public hysteria and defraud the taxpayers.
She was about to close the browser and return to her life when the background instant messenger pinged. The name made her roll her eyes and laugh. Timing was everything. She clicked, and a window popped up.
“Hi stranger.”
“Been a while,” she typed.
“Still moving freight?”
“Yep. Still making pizzas?” she asked.
“Lol, yeah. Pays the bills and keeps me listening for ET.”
“How’s that going?” she asked.
“Slow, real slow. You been walking down memory lane again? Saw your IP address pop up on the server just now.”
“Spy,” she accused. “I saw a used blade server on eBay yesterday. Got a bonus coming in, and was going to send it to you.”
“I saw that too, but tips are down. We’d appreciate it.”
She nodded and thought. “No problem.”
“Not going to spend it getting married to that guy?”
“Fishing?” she wondered aloud. “Just a boyfriend,” she typed.
“We miss you,” the words appeared.
“I fucked the whole program up.”
“You heard the call. You were in t
he chair when it came in. We haven’t forgotten that.”
“I should have slowed it down. The press conference was a mistake,” she typed.
“We all decided it was a good idea after we drank that bar dry the night before.” The screen was quiet for a minute, and Mindy considered saying she had to get back to work, when her old friend typed again.
“You know we’ve never stopped working that signal.”
“We chewed it up one side and down the other,” Mindy wrote.
“Couple of the guys got some supercomputer cycles. Guys at DARPA lost a bet, lol.” Mindy sat up in her chair.
“Did you find something?”
“Nineteen seconds of signal, seamless data stream up until it suddenly stopped.”
“Come on man,” she typed furiously.
“I wouldn’t call it a breakthrough,” he typed, “but we’re now sure there is more than one level to the signal.” Her hands were shaking as another line came in. “There’s a terminator at segments.”
“Then it was repeating?”
“We think it was,” the answer came. “It’s so fucking complex, we’d probably have spent a decade chewing it with PCs if we hadn’t got those supercomputer cycles. Even with that, we’ve only just scratched the surface.”
“Anything else?”
“Once we had the terminators, we isolated five-second blocks.”
“Is there commonality?”
“Not at all,” the answer came.
“Fuck,” Mindy typed, then said it aloud. Someone across the office looked at her, and she lowered her head in embarrassment.
“Our thoughts exactly,” the screen displayed. “There’s more there, but we need more supercomputer time.”
“But we’re missing part of the signal.”
“If we find enough key points, maybe we can figure out the Rosetta Stone.” Mindy considered and shrugged. It was possible.
“With only a partial signal?”
“There are three complete packets,” the reply said. “Only time will tell.”
“Thanks for catching me up,” she typed. “I have to get back to work now.”
“Sure, but I thought you’d also like to know that WAA has another witch hunt underway.”
“Who is it this time?”
“British amateur, Alicia Benjamin. She calls her place Worth Hill Observatory in southern England. A month ago, she said she saw one of the bigger NEO asteroids pushed out of its orbit by…something.”
“Something?”
“The video is fascinating. Looks like an explosion. Anyway, the powers that be have dubbed it a hoax and are out to crucify her.”
“I’m really starting to hate the WAA again,” she typed. “Is the rock moved?”
“Yes, it is. Orbit is changed, but not what you would call radically.”
“Evidence of an impact?” she asked.
“No one else was watching.”
“Which asteroid?” she asked.
“LM-245. It’s about 12 miles long and doesn’t orbit closer than 0.5 AU for another 50,000 years. The community is still trying to analyze its new orbit.” Mindy already had the data up on her internet browser. Aside from its size, there wasn’t much interesting about LM-245. It was believed to be carbonaceous and in a relatively stable orbit. “It’s behind the sun now. Should come out in 30 days.”
“I’ll keep an eye on the story,” she typed. “Thanks for letting me know. Do you know anything about what’s going on in Central Park?”
“NYC?” came the reply. “No, why?”
“Nothing, I guess.”
“Good to chat with you, Mindy.”
“You too, Harold.”
* * *
Lt. Harper managed to find an excuse to swing by Central Park. The changes in just one day were profound. Concrete barriers now surrounded the park from 79th Street up to 97th, and along 5th Avenue and Central Park West. It was a complete cordon with a no-fly zone overhead. He hadn’t seen this much of a federal presence since 9/11. NYPD seemed relegated to traffic control, and there was no sign of the FBI.
He couldn’t even see the concrete barricades in the center of the meadow, just visible from West Drive. Another wall had been put up, this one even higher. He knew from newscasts that a camouflage net covered the center of activity. With nothing new to learn, he moved on.
He’d gotten scant sleep the night before. After leaving Victor in the lockup, Billy spent the remainder of his shift finishing paperwork and working his contacts. In the 16 years he’d been on the force, he’d made a lot of them. He touched base with most of them, trying to figure out what was going on in the park. He didn’t find out shit. It wasn’t that they wouldn’t talk, it was that they didn’t know anything.
He worked a case for two hours, a snatch and grab at a Park Avenue jewelry store, then signed off and went home. One of the advantages of working the early shift was that a parking space was usually open, and today was no different.
Billy waved to Mr. Nebowitz who was taking out his recycling. He climbed the stairs and went through the door, locking it behind him, and took off his holster with the gun still in it and set it on the hall table, as usual. Then he added his phone and keys to the pile.
He turned the TV on and walked into the kitchen for microwave goodness. He wasn’t proud of his bachelor life. Truth was, he couldn’t quite remember the last time a lady had graced his doorstep. He thought it was three years, but when he tried to nail it down he got depressed and stopped trying to remember. Five minutes in the microwave, and dinner was served.
He carried his steaming meal into the main room of his studio apartment and sat at the coffee table to watch the news while eating. Just like every other day.
A typhoon was raging in the South Pacific. In Northern Africa, the Four Horsemen continued to wage their never-ending competition for supremacy. Currently, War had a slight edge over Pestilence, but Famine was gaining quickly. Death was satisfied with playing cleanup.
Dueling groups of scientists continued to study the environment. One group was insisting the world was getting hotter, the other argued it was getting colder. Tax Day in the USA was approaching and a march of one million people protesting the increase of the flat tax from 25% to 29% was planned for April 15th. Representatives from the controlling Democratic Party scoffed at the tax protestors, calling them government-hating racists opposed to helping the poor. The former president was unavailable for comment.
Billy tossed his empty food tray into the garbage, grabbed a random import beer, and went back to watch more of the ageless decay of society.
A couple of hours went by where he progressed from the sex and depravity of the news to the ever-boring and pointless humor of network late night television. It was nearly midnight and he was beginning to fade. The national late news was back on, with no mention of Central Park and the massive federal involvement.
Just before he pressed the off button, an international news segment came on.
“Tonight, we have a developing story in China’s infamous Tiananmen Square, in the northern city of Beijing. Thanks to a heavy government presence it’s been a largely peaceful place. After the 1989 student protests, the government carefully controlled access to reduce the possibility of a duplicate protest.
“Even through revolutionary periods that involved other city landmarks, the Vault of Heaven remained free from demonstrations. Best known as a place to find hundreds practicing the ancient art of Tai-chi in the mornings, it is now the site of a new protest.
“Thousands of people have arrived, seemingly overnight. In a gathering reminiscent of the ‘Occupy’ movement made famous in various United States cities years ago, the Vault of Heaven has been completely taken over. Some estimates place the number of occupiers at more than 1,000, while official Chinese government statements say less than 200.”
The image cut from a stock photo of the Vault of Heaven with its ancient columns and gold inlaid crimson beams and steps, to a long lens shot s
howing cheap tents and people holding signs. Most were in Chinese, but Billy could see a few in English. One said “Heaven’s Gate!” and another said “The 7 Heavens.” The military cordon was obvious but subdued, with barriers and a few soldiers keeping anyone from going in or out.
“Officially the Beijing government has taken a hands-off position, preferring to let the people inside become bored or hungry and leave of their own accord. However, sources within the government have stated, off the record, that this event will not be allowed to grow into any kind of national statement.
“Already the government has exercised its often-controversial control to cut off social media sites from the inside, though a few images did make it onto Instagram.” Now it showed those images. Some were like the pictures outside, but with people who apparently were the leaders; some were of camping equipment, and one was of the police. The last one made him sit up suddenly.
It was a picture of a low, milky-white stage. The stage was round, about 20 feet across. Several people were standing on the lowest steps, hands raised toward the center where a circular ring was suspended in the air. It was spring in Beijing, the same as in NYC. But through the ring Billy could see a field covered in snow!
“Oh my God,” Billy said. The scene ended. He snatched up the cable controller and backed up the live-replay DVR, freezing it on the dais and ring. There was the portal to heaven, just as Victor described, and the sketch artist drew.
Billy almost fell on his face scrambling to retrieve his phone. The email from Jennifer, the sketch artist, was there but the phone wouldn’t open it.
“Son of a bitch,” he cursed and spent a minute forwarding it to his private email (despite it being a violation of department regulations), then another minute finding his seldom-used tablet. The tablet was a gift from his sister years before, and he thanked his forethought in leaving it plugged in. He activated it and signed into his email, found the message (I have 12,882 unread emails?), and opened the picture attachments.