Ringshine

by William Petersen

  ***

  Kim answered her phone, “Well hello stranger, to what do I owe the honor of a daytime phone call from you?”

  “I need you to help me with some images from work,” Trent told her, sidestepping the jab.

  “And you don't even sound drunk... this is a special occasion!” she teased, “But I should have known, you only want to use me for my mind and my access to university resources.”

  “Don't forget drunken booty-calls,” Trent added, smiling even before he had said it.

  She laughed heartily, then said, “Yeah... how could I forget those? Alright, I'm at home, no class this morning. I'll see you when you get here.”

  “I'm turning on your street now,” he informed her.

  “Whoa, you must have something really interesting, or you're really horny,” she stated.

  “Both...” he said, then laughed, “I'll be in a just a minute.”

  Inside of the three-bedroom duplex unit Kim rented, Trent briefed her on what he had seen and showed her the images. She confirmed right away that the object, even at those distances and resolution, didn't look like any asteroid or comet she had ever seen. He gave her the thumb drive, and she began working on the raw images. Trent retreated to the living room and scoured the news stations for any sign of the incident. It was really starting to bother him that nothing was being reported. After about forty-five minutes, he was sliding down into the couch and half-napping when Kim's yelling from the computer room snapped him to attention.

  “Trent! Get in here, you have got to see this...” she called out.

  Trent briskly walked to the computer room on unsteady legs to see Kim sitting still and staring at the floor. She was facing away from the computer screen and looked up to make eye contact with him. The look in her eyes was one of wonder and excitement. “What's up?” he asked, looking around nervously.

  “Watch this...” she told him, as she turned back to the computer desk. “I've got the images blown up, and I put them into a sequential slide show, which I turned into a looped animation,” Kim revealed, as her slender fingers clicked on the keyboard. “Okay, this is at the resolution of your images,” she told him, as the computer screen came to life with movement.

  The video started with the curve of the gas giant in the lower left of the screen, with nothing but empty space, part of the ring system and the Cassini spacecraft in the background. The bright object streaked into the image in steps coinciding with the spliced sections of the sequence. It then smashed into the probe and continued on, showing no visible damage to itself from the encounter, until it was out of the image completely. “Blew right through it and kept on going,” Kim mumbled, “I wonder where it went, and what if it hits something else? Now, this is the enhanced sequence,” she said, glancing up at him briefly.

  The images were much clearer and much more detailed than the previous sequence. Trent's mouth opened, and stayed that way, as the creamy cloud tops of the giant planet bulged ever so slightly. A long, silvery object emerged, cylindrical in shape. The huge, shiny rod broke free from the tan and white cloud bands, while wispy trails curled and streamed off of it as it flew away from the planet. The detail and clarity were astounding, and he could clearly see that it was comprised of some kind of metal, just before it smashed into, and through, the Cassini craft. “What the...?” he began.

  “Why isn't this all over the news?” Kim interrupted, “Maybe they are waiting because they don't know anything yet,” she added.

  “I don't know...” Trent said quietly, “...but there is something funny going on here. I've got a bad feeling about this.”

  “You have a bad feeling about everything, you conspiracy theorist. You probably secretly believe they faked the moon landings,” she teased him.

  “Yeah...” he muttered.

  She was taken aback by his seriousness and the fact that he didn't engage in their normal banter. “Alright...” she began, rising from chair and taking him by the hand to lead him into the living room, “...let's have a few beers and try to figure this out. There has to be a logical explanation for all of it.” Kim departed to the kitchen and returned with two beers, opened Trent's and handed it to him, then sat down beside him on the couch and arranged herself to face him.

  “So, does this mean that we're not alone?” Trent ventured, staring at nothing in particular.

  “No, we don't know that,” Kim countered.

  “You saw it, that looked like...” he paused, “...like it was made by something.”

  “Yes, but that doesn't mean it was. Look at the feature on the north pole, it looks symmetrical and arranged, and straight lines like that don't appear in nature. But we can see that they are just a part of the atmosphere which we don't yet understand. There's so much going on inside these gas planets that we really don't understand, there's no way to know what it is, not without some closer study. I'm going to hit the shower, and then I'll call some people at the university. If anyone has any information on this, they will.”

  Trent's phone was vibrating on the coffee table, and he picked it up as Kim exited the room. He didn't recognize the number, and cautiously answered, “This is Trent...”

  “Hello Trent, this Donald's supervisor. I'm calling to inform you of your immediate termination. We've seen from today's information that you knowingly falsified your output for the day, and there is strong evidence that you may have copied some data. All of this, as you know, is expressly forbidden and in direct breach of your employment contract. We need you to return all of your equipment, and if you did indeed copy any information, return it as well, and no criminal charges will be brought against you.”

  Trent was in shock, but before he could muster a response, the voice on the phone continued, “Write this address down, and get your things together right now. Be there before five this evening, or the authorities will be notified.” He had barely scribbled the address down when the distinct click of the connection terminating came through the phone. He sat in silence for a few minutes, the muffled sound of running water the only thing he could hear, then got up and left with Kim still in the shower.

  He raced back to his apartment and began to get a sinking, sickening feeling that he had screwed up something really good, yet again. He looked at his make-shift office, and the feeling grew stronger as he began to disconnect cables and pack up the computer and network equipment he had been provided. He cursed under his breath the entire time, mostly at himself. He began to wonder why he was told to return the equipment to a different address than where he was hired, but quickly dismissed it to the seriousness of the events caught that morning by the probe. He then remembered the loss of communication with the probe, wondering if it too had been hit by something.

  “Damn!” he yelled into the room, “I just kicked myself out of the loop, and I'm unemployed... again.” He packed up the equipment and plugged the address into his GPS, then proceeded as the instructions were given. He had driven for some time on the interstate, when he started to notice that he was getting further from suburbia and closer to the outskirts of the city. One side of the highway was lined with industrial installations, while the other was filled with turn of the century brick buildings and dwellings, the majority of which had boards over most, if not all, of the windows.

  The GPS announced his exit approaching, and he suspected that his destination must be one of the universities or an annex, as he departed the highway and followed the directions he was being given. The road he was on abruptly came to an end, a large mound of bricks and other rubble from a recent demolition project blocking the way. The GPS unit instructed him to continue forward for one-tenth of a mile, then turn right. “Easy for you to say,” he sarcastically commented to the navigation system.

  He turned around, and after becoming hopelessly lost in a maze of connecting side streets, he stopped in an alleyway and consulted the navigation display, hoping to find his way. After scanning the map and the surrounding street names for several minutes, Trent rea
lized he was just a block away from his destination, and now wanted more than ever to drop off his gear and get out of the unfamiliar setting.

  He backed out of the alley and put the SUV in drive. As he started to release the brake, he glanced down the alleyway on the other side of the street, which led right behind the building to which he was going. He was not alarmed, at first, when he noticed the three, all black SUVs in the alley, directly behind the address he was shown on the navigation display. Only when he saw the men getting out did he realize that they must have called the cops already, or in this case, the FBI, as denoted on the rear of their jackets.

  Trent eased his foot off the brake and let the vehicle cruise along. He stared straight ahead and followed the navigation route back the same way he had come. He continuously glanced nervously at the rear-view mirror, so often in fact, that he ran two stop signs and nearly clipped a telephone pole. Once he was back on the highway, he inched the vehicle up to just over eighty miles an hour, wanting to put distance between him and whatever was going on. He also needed to get back to Kim and warn her that she may have some unwanted visitors.

  “Crap!” Trent exclaimed, smacking the steering wheel, “The pictures... I left the pictures there.” He didn't want her to get into any trouble because of him, and began dialing her number. The phone rang and rang, then her voice mail greeting played, at which point he hung up and dialed again. Giving up after several more attempts, Trent tossed the phone into the passenger seat and focused on the drive.

  He was nearly two blocks away and could see the flashing red and blue lights in the direction of Kim's house. His heart sank. Trent carefully maneuvered through the residential area until he was just two streets over, at a four-way intersection. From his vantage point, he could see relatively well and still remain unseen. There were at least four police cars at her residence and two of the same black trucks that he had seen downtown, complete with flashing lights mounted on the dash, as well as pulsating headlights and taillights.

  Something smacked the hood of his own vehicle, and he yelled out in fear. As his wide eyes regained their focus, he saw a visibly ruffled and angered Kim with her arms in air. She smacked the hood again, and while he couldn't make out exactly what she was saying, he could tell she was cursing like a sailor. She moved around to the passenger side and got in, sweeping Trent's phone onto the floorboard with no regard for its well-being. She locked eyes with him and stared hard for a moment. “You want to tell me why my house is being raided?” she asked, rather calmly.

  “It has something to do with those images,” he told her.

  “No way... ya think?” she shot back at him, “So, let me guess. You stole something from work, on you're first day at that, brought it to my place, and now I'm in just as much trouble as you are. That sound about right?” Kim wanted to know, her voice rising in volume a bit.

  “Look, there's something going on. I don't know what it is, but it's like someone is trying to hide this, or cover it up, maybe...” Trent offered.

  “I don't care what you think it is. You had better give them back whatever it is they want, and explain that I wasn't involved, so my future isn't ruined,” she told him.

  “Just come with me, let's do some research and see. If we see one single thing on the news or online mentioning anything at all about this, I'll write a confession in front of you and state that you didn't know anything about it. I'll even let you drive me to the police station. Deal?”

  “Bullcrap! You'll write your confession in front of me, or I'll kick you in the 'nads. Then we're going straight back to my house, so you can give them what they want, and then all of you can leave me alone,” she informed him.

  “Whatever you want, just give me a little bit of time here to figure out what to do,” he pleaded.

  “Get to figuring then,” she instructed Trent, as she turned to look out the window in the opposite direction of her house.