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Solus

The first wave of a rising tide

By JC BrownePublished 2 years ago Updated 2 years ago 5 min read
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Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. They didn't mention that a scream is only meant to convey danger – an acute warning: something is amiss, something is wrong, caution – and a scream can take many forms.

The scream from CL J1001 came in as multiple neatly spaced and tightly bound spikes, dotted along a thin line of silence. First captured by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory VLA radio telescopes, and later dismissed as gaseous interference by the supervising astronomer – the scream was regarded as an insignificant glitch captured by overly sensitive machinery.

The glitch theory was introduced to the Committee on Space Research in a hastily drafted memo, before firmly being rebuked by Dr. Viktor Tian who programmed the surveillance instrument. “All instruments are calibrated correctly – this is not an error,” was the last thing he said. The following morning, he was found dead in his bedroom closet. Cyanide tablets – quick, but far from painless.

Three months after the death of Dr. Tian – it was confirmed that the radio telescopes were, in fact, calibrated correctly and all signal data was evaluated as factual. Redacted data was stealthily shared between select agencies and a small, hand-selected team of analysts was tasked with making sense of the noise. The CL J-9 analytic team was comprised of three radio astronomers, including the leading expert in aperture synthesis, two theoretical physicists, and one astrobiologist – all pulled from different nations. They were given 10 days to brief the Committee on their preliminary findings. Instead, 14 hours after their first meeting, they called for an emergency international conference.

The Innovation in Relativistic Astrophysics Symposium was held a month later in a moderate conference hotel in Copenhagen. A fallacious theme for the event – “Deeping the Cosmic Discourse: Open Access Communication as a Dissemination Tool for Recent Findings in Primary Research”, was introduced to entice curiosity in those chosen to attend. Attendees were manually selected and discreetly invited to the event only days before the start. Puzzled by the unexpected invite, several invitees emailed the conference organizer demanding more information. All received the same automatic reply: Thank you for contacting the Innovation in Relativistic Astrophysics (IRA) Symposium helpline. Detailed itineraries will be provided to all attendees during the Welcome Reception on September 18. We look forward to seeing you soon.

The seven o’clock Welcome Reception on day one was used as a filtering tool to ensure only confirmed invitees were in attendance. The greatest minds in cosmology crowded around cocktail tables mingling in hushed voices about the suspected purpose of this impromptu meeting. When the doors of the meeting room opened – each seat was labeled with the name of each attendant – again, to ensure only the intended audience would have a space in the room. The opening presentation purposely took the remainder of the morning. The time was filled with discussion of historically significant achievements in astrophysics, all of which the audience already knew being experts in their respective fields.

Lunch was seated and disguised as an ice-breaker session. Each attendee was assigned to a specific table and provided a list of probing questions to ask their colleagues. All questions were intended to identify the scientists who held questionable morals in the face of extreme duress. A mole, discreetly seated at each table, took feverish notes while keeping the conversation flowing from person to person.

The remainder of the afternoon included a drawn-out panel discussion on the ethics of quality research – completely devoid of novel information – but an adequate means to put the room to sleep after the heavy lunch. By the end of the first day, most attendees were exhausted from the long morning and dull afternoon and quietly retreated to their hotel rooms for an early evening, as intended.

Notes were shared, decisions were made, and more than a handful of attendees were not invited back for day two. Reasons varied from fabricated personal emergencies in their home country to sudden allegations of plagiarism, which invalidated their conference invitation. Seating arrangements shifted to disguise the sudden littering of empty chairs.

Day two started with light breakfast fare and several heated carafes of robust coffee; there would be no dozing on day two. After a brief introduction from the Institute for Global Strategies on Cosmic Proliferation Director, the analysts took the stage. Their names, education, and affiliations were purposefully omitted from the agenda, and they were exclusively referred to as the CL J-9 analytic team. Hotel workers were hastily removed from the room, all doors were closed and locked, and the presentation began.

It lasted six full hours without a single break. The presentation was meant to initiate a week-long discussion on the findings from the CL J-9 team with leaders in the field, but the entire conference was over the minute the analysts stepped off the stage. As the doors opened, attendees dizzily spilled into the hotel lobby wearing languid expressions, unsure of where to go next. Airport transportation was quickly arranged, and several attendees left without first returning to their hotel room for their belongings. Personal computers, cell phones, and wallets were left behind in the conference room. Hotel management stored the abandoned items for several weeks, but no one ever returned to claim anything. The content of the presentation was never made publicly available. Hardcopy materials were never distributed, and all corresponding data was aggressively encrypted. No one outside of the conference room knew what had been shared.

Until now.

My name is Mara. I was the leading analyst on the CL J-9 team and as of this morning, I am the only member of my team still alive. I don’t know how much time I have left – but I refuse to spend whatever time is remaining concealing the information we have gathered. I do not want to die with this secret, but I cannot continue this work alone.

For legal purposes and the silencing of conspiracy fodder, officially – I, Mara Astok, being of sound body and mind, willfully and voluntarily make this declaration to be followed if I become incapacitated. This declaration reflects my firm and settled commitment to publicly distribute all known information and data pertaining to the transmission VLA 2031-100949-Xi (hereafter referred to as “the Scream”) without coercion.

I guess I should start at the beginning.

Sci Fi
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About the Creator

JC Browne

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