The House Next Door

by James Patterson

  I’ve also been regularly sending outbound messages of my own. Digital photographs, to be exact. Communication is a two-way street, after all, even with aliens. I’d been struggling to come up with that perfect peaceful greeting when I realized: a picture is worth a thousand words, right? And what better pictures are there in the world—or that better illustrate what it means to be human—than ones of my kids? Claire and Ellie, my two little girls, who I love desperately, who I don’t see nearly as much as I want to…

  Ever since they were babies, I’d take snapshots of them all the time, then compress the files into quantum binary code and beam them out into space. It was like marking their heights on a wall, except for the entire universe to see.

  After their mother and I divorced, she’d send me new pictures once or twice a month, and I kept on doing it. A couple years ago, my system started picking up photos of other people’s kids being sent back. It was a nice gesture from some anonymous fellow amateur radio astronomers, no doubt—and fellow parents—who’d picked up and decoded my errant signals and wanted to participate, too. I never heard from any little green men, though…

  Until…today!

  Years ago, I set an audio alert to go off if my system ever detected data bitmaps from outer space that weren’t human photos, but weren’t just random “cosmic noise,” either. Messages that contained some kind of pattern. Actual meaning.

  …feep…feep…feep…

  That’s the sound I’m hearing now!

  “Yes!” I howl. “Yes!!! Yesssss!!!!!”

  “Yes, yes,” Alien squawks again. That dude always has my back.

  My mind shifts into overdrive as the reality of what I’m dealing with begins to sink in. It feels like the walls of my messy LA apartment are starting to spin. I grab the edge of my computer console to steady myself.

  Take it easy, Rob, I tell myself. Get a grip. And think.

  I’ve dreamed about this moment for so long—but I’ve never actually made a game plan for when it happened.

  Okay. Step one. Figure out what the hell this cascade of digital gibberish actually means. Is it some kind of greeting? A declaration of war? Or maybe I’ve just galactically eavesdropped by accident, and this message isn’t directed at Earth at all.

  Step two. Figure out where this thing is coming from, who it’s coming from, and why it’s coming now.

  Step three. Tell the world! Change the course of human history—and go down in history! Redeem my reputation in the eyes of all my former colleagues. Win every scientific award and honorary degree there is! Become rich and famous! I can see the headlines now: Aging, Washed-Up Astrophysicist Dr. Robert Barnett First to Prove Alien Life Exists. Former Colleagues Who Doubted Him Sing His Praises, Kiss His Ass!

  Wait. Hang on. Don’t get ahead of yourself here, Rob. One thing at a time.

  Speaking of which, what time is it?

  I glance at the clock: four forty-three a.m. I realize it’s still dark out. No wonder. Did I just wake up the entire building with my yelling? I hope not.

  Now that I’m quiet, I suddenly hear something right outside—and it makes me jump out of my skin. Is somebody out there? I quickly look out the front window, up and down the street. But I can’t see a soul, human or canine.

  Great. After all these years of disciplined, pioneering diligence, I finally might be onto something…and I start losing my mind?

  Deep breaths, Rob. Stay calm.

  But how can I?

  What’s flickering across my computer screens is mindboggling. It’s otherworldly—literally.

  Still too early to tell, but it sure looks like, yes…this could be the big one!

  We.

  Are.

  Not.

  Alone.

  Like I said earlier: “Holy shit!”

  But now what?

  Chapter 2

  Oh, man. I can’t think straight. Gotta clear my head.

  Take a walk.

  Yeah, that’s it. Step away for a bit. Get some air. A change of scenery. A coffee.

  And I know just the spot. JP’s, a grungy little coffee shop down the street that opens at five. Perfect.

  I head for the door…when I realize I’m still in my underwear.

  Come on, Rob, pull it together!

  That’s when I catch a look at myself in the full-length mirror. Hoo, boy. Not pretty. What happened to me? Seems like only yesterday I was a reasonably fit young man. Slim, bright-eyed. Even had a little muscle tone here and there. But now, with a growing gut hanging over two-day-old boxers, with bags under my eyes, what I see is a wrung-out, middle-aged man…and I ain’t even forty!

  Not only that, my apartment’s a disaster—a lot like me and my life. Dirty laundry piled on my bed, which I haven’t slept in for days. Unread newspapers and magazines scattered all over. And my kitchen? It’s littered with so many empty pizza boxes and old In-N-Out Burger wrappers, it’s practically a biohazard zone.

  The whole place looks like the lair of a mad scientist—which isn’t too far from the truth. If I’m being honest, my hunt for extraterrestrial life these past way-too-many years has, well, kind of taken over my own life. It cost me my job, my marriage, my kids…

  I tug on a pair of old jeans and a wrinkled T-shirt I pull from a mountain of clothes on the floor and stuff my wallet and keys into my pocket. I change my computer access password to a new twenty-digit random code, then I go—dead-bolting the apartment door behind me with a pair of brand-new, guaranteed-impenetrable smart locks. (One of them won’t be available on the market for another six months. Don’t ask…)

  Once outside, I brush my thinning, unkempt hair out of my eyes and draw a long, slow breath. The early-morning Southern California air is surprisingly crisp. And thanks to the burnt-out streetlight on my grungy block, the sky looks unusually vivid.

  I gaze up, and can immediately identify dozens of stars and constellations. Even Mars and Jupiter are out tonight, faintly twinkling. How amazing is it, I think, that humans have figured out how to send probes to those distant planets.

  If they only knew.

  But now, on to the next step. Figuring out the meaning of the alien communication I’ve captured, currently stored on my home computer’s hard drive!

  The burden is beginning to suck the breath right out of me. I start to walk but can barely stay steady. My knees are actually feeling weak. Maybe I should drive to JP’s? My car is just parked at the end of the block. But no. Wobbly as my legs are, I think I’ll stay on foot. At least for now.

  Suddenly, I hear more barking, and I flinch as a white German shepherd rounds the corner and takes a friendly lunge at me before its owner yanks it by the leash.

  “Down, girl! No! Sorry about that, sir…”

  The man is younger than me, neatly dressed in khakis and a navy-blue windbreaker. I’ve never seen him or his dog.

  “No problem,” I say, offering the back of my hand to this beautiful dog. She raises her head for a scratch. “Are you…new to the area?”

  “Sure am. Wife and I just moved in around the corner. I’m Joe. This is Lacy.”

  “I’m…uh, Hank,” I say, awkwardly shaking his outstretched hand. I’m not exactly sure what compelled me to lie about my name. Just an instinct, I guess.

  Joe looks like he wants to keep chatting, but I don’t. “Nice to meet you,” I say, and head on down the street.

  Was that a little rude? Oh, well. Sorry, Joe. Your new neighbor is a little distracted right now.

  Chapter 3

  It’s crazy how your whole life can turn on a dime.

  Only a few years ago I was in Pasadena, wrapping up a doctorate in astrophysics at Caltech. At least I thought I was.

  My subject? Aliens. My thesis? They’re out there.

  I took a novel approach to the issue of extraterrestrial life, arguing that their mathematical likelihood was too great not to expend every resource we have to find them and make contact. And instead of trying to make contact using mathematical proofs or
the table of the elements—the data we’d been transmitting into the universe for decades—we should send digital images of ourselves, and our culture. But those Caltech assholes looked at me cockeyed from day one. They said my idea “lacked empirical viability,” and invited me to take it in another direction. Which I did.

  I left. And never looked back.

  If they didn’t get it, I thought, screw ’em! It took half a century for mainstream science to agree with Einstein’s general theory of relativity. What’s a couple years for Barnett’s general theory of alien life?

  I arrive at JP’s and push open its heavy glass door, taking comfort in the familiar jingle of the old sleigh bells hung on the inside handle. The coffee shop has just opened for the day. Inside it’s still empty.

  “Hey, Professor!” JP yells to me as I enter. Professor. That’s what he always calls me, and I don’t correct him. “Whatcha doin’ here so early, man?”

  “I had to, uh, stretch my legs. Stretch my brain. Just to see if it’s working right.”

  Juan Pablo flashes me a goofy grin. He opened this place soon after he arrived from Mexico at the ripe old age of twenty-one. Today, both it and he are cornerstones of the neighborhood. And after all the years I’ve been coming in, JP knows me. The real me.

  I’ve barely sat down on the sticky red vinyl seat of my usual booth when he sets a steaming cup of coffee down in front of me.

  “You okay, man?” JP asks. “Looks like you’ve seen a freakin’ ghost.”

  In a way, I guess I have.

  But it might also be a nice way of saying I look like shit. The last couple days in particular, I’ve barely slept a wink, downing about a case of Red Bull.

  “I’m fine, JP, thanks,” I answer, taking a sip of the thick, heavenly java he brews so well. But it’s pretty obvious I’m hiding something, and he can see it right away.

  “Wanna talk about it?”

  “Yeah. I mean, no. I wish I could, but…”

  “What’s up, my friend? It’s something big. I can tell. Spill it.”

  See? I told you this guy knows me well.

  He’s heard my whole life story a million times. How after I dropped out of Caltech, I joined the Air Force. How they stationed me at Edwards Air Force Base in the middle of the Mojave Desert. How within a few months, they’d accused me of “committing acts that endanger the security of the United States,” all because I’d used a few military satellites and computer systems in my downtime to search for rogue extraterrestrial signals. How after my “Other Than Honorable” discharge, Marty, my brilliant, gorgeous wife, finally divorced me and moved with the kids to a nice suburban house over in Glendale. How I’ve been holed up ever since in my suck-ass little apartment in East Hollywood, glued to my many computer screens. No job, no friends, no women, no life. Just me and my workstation and my search for ETs.

  “Well, it’s hard to explain,” I tell JP. “I know you think I’m a little crazy…”

  “You are wrong, Professor. I think you are really crazy,” he says with a laugh.

  I nod. Maybe I am.

  “Earlier this morning, I think I might have finally discovered something. Something huge. But I don’t know what it means. Or what I’m supposed to do next. I just know that, for now, I have to keep my mouth shut. Which is driving me even more freakin’ crazy!”

  JP wipes his hands on his apron. He nods, almost philosophically.

  “You might not want to talk about it. But it sounds like you have to. To someone who knows about these things. Someone you trust.”

  I take another deep gulp of joe, this time almost burning my tongue.

  “Good point. Because if someone I didn’t trust found out about this…”

  Oh, shit! It suddenly dawns on me.

  “I gotta go!” I erupt, slamming my mug down, sloshing half the coffee onto the table. “Pay you next time!” I shout as I bolt out the door.

  By now, dawn has arrived, casting an eerie glow up and down the street. Already short of breath, I’m hurrying back to my apartment…because I have a growing suspicion that someone might be following me. How could I have been so dumb?

  What’s sitting on my home computer isn’t just a cryptic cosmic message.

  It’s the biggest national security threat in American history.

  And I’ve got to get back to it before someone else—like the military, the feds, the president himself—does first.

  Chapter 4

  In a windowless room deep inside FBI headquarters, blocks from the White House, a veteran agent is staring at a massive wall of quantum computer monitors, each one pulsing with electromagnetic bursts.

  The agent reeks of confidence, self-assurance. And with good reason. Having spent years working his way up the ranks to reach this demanding, high-level position, he’s one of the most experienced people in the entire unit.

  He is a member of one of the least visible but most critical divisions within the FBI: the Cyber Task Force. He and his colleagues spend countless hours scouring the deepest corners of the dark web to root out hackers, cyberterrorists. and other digital-driven threats. Their worst fear, or hope, or both, is uncovering what they call “left of boom”—a clue or tip in cyberspace preceding a threat or attack in the real world that could help save lives.

  The CTF’s secret weapon is known as Pleiades. Employing state-of-the-art technology, it’s one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. Its 163 racks—two-thirds of which are enhanced with NVIDIA graphics processing units—have a storage capacity of 724 petabytes. There’s virtually no digital system on the planet that Pleiades cannot track, monitor, or hack into.

  The agent’s eyes are currently scanning the trillions of bits of data flashing before him. His fingers dance across his keyboard as he runs a series of complex algorithmic programs, searching for anything unusual or suspicious. So far, so good.

  Until suddenly, he gets a hit—like none he’s ever encountered before.

  By reflex, he’s reaching for an encrypted emergency landline. Ignoring the early-morning hour, he dials his boss, still sound asleep at home.

  “Chief? You need to come look at what I’m seeing here.”

  Within fifteen minutes, more than a dozen FBI special agents, cyber intelligence officers, and interdepartment liaisons from NASA and the armed forces have convened. Most have served in highly confidential astrophysical sciences or counterterrorism cyberespionage units. They’re perched around a giant oval table covered with laptops, files, and cups of coffee in various stages of consumption. All are staring at the bank of monitors in total shock.

  The previously quiet room has taken on the tense feel of a military bunker on the eve of an enemy assault.

  “Barnett, Robert James,” the agent explains, pulling up a dossier of the man in question on one of the screens. “Former Caltech PhD candidate. Former Air Force cyber analyst. Current alien life theorist and amateur radio astronomer.”

  “This guy’s been on our radar for years,” he continues. “Built himself a pretty impressive home computer system, but all it’s done is send and receive some random family photos…until tonight.”

  Murmurs of disbelief ripple around the table as the agent shows them what’s flowing through the suspect’s servers that the FBI recently intercepted: reams of quantum data arranged in various highly complex configurations. Even the CTF commander—despite his twenty-six-year government career on the cutting edge of science and technology—is in absolute awe. His hand begins to tremble…before he slams it down hard on the table.

  “Get this walled off immediately!” he booms. “Highest share level, top secret! And get a goddamn CAT team to Barnett’s apartment. Now!”

  Chapter 5

  Within minutes, a sixteen-man Cyber Action Team based out of the FBI’s LA field office screeches up to the scene. An eight-car convoy, lights flashing, forms a crude perimeter around Rob Barnett’s apartment building.

  Because national security is at stake, the agents haven’t yet
been told the real purpose or reasons behind their mission. All they know is they are to detain one Robert James Barnett and seize all of his electronic and digital equipment—by any means necessary, including force.

  The agents draw their weapons and enter the target building. With practiced haste, they head up the stairs to the suspect’s third-floor apartment. To provide a perimeter, some of them stop at the second-floor landing. Others take positions inside the exit door on the floor above. The rest continue down the hall, getting closer.

  Outside the apartment, an agent places an ultrasonic listening device the size of a deck of cards against the door to hear inside. He listens, but there’s only silence.

  Another agent has already gotten to work cracking the pair of smart locks securing the door. Opening such sophisticated wireless devices typically requires a Bluetooth-enabled smartphone with an embedded password, or an invitation from the owner. But the tech wizards of the CAT team have a workaround, and are able to gain access in twenty seconds with a password-cracking algorithm. With Barnett none the wiser, the agent now simply taps his phone’s screen, and the circular LED lights on both smart locks blink from red to green and the two dead bolts recede.

  The agents ready their weapons—then burst inside.

  The local Los Angeles branch of the FBI’s Cyber Task Force had been keeping an eye on Barnett for about six months, ever since they noticed the unusually high amount of electricity and internet bandwidth his apartment was drawing. Much like their counterparts in DC, they considered him a little intense, sure, but harmless.

  As soon as they enter this mess of an apartment, however, the agents realize they have seriously underestimated this man.

  It’s a wreck, a sure sign of a guy without a real life. But a quick glance at the banks of high-definition monitors, rows of blinking server racks, and stacks of parallel high-powered CPUs tells them this is one of the most elaborate homemade computer setups they’ve ever encountered. Flanking the couch are two large vintage speakers connected to a set of amplifiers and a CD player. And over in the corner, in a cage hanging from the ceiling, perches a large parrot, bright green, eyeing them with curiosity.