Second Contact, page 32
part #2 of Not Alone Series
“It sure as hell didn’t look like nothing!” Trey said, his voice full of concern.
Dan held a finger to his lips and pointed to the kitchen door, through which he could see that the inside light had been turned on. He couldn’t see Henry moving towards the ramp to find out what all the commotion was about, but he knew he was coming.
Dan also knew that it would be easy enough to say something like “Emma fell” — she would think of the right words, like she always did — so keeping Trey quiet was his only real challenge.
Dealing with these momentary concerns dominated Dan’s focus, but he didn’t completely lose sight of the bigger picture: the Messengers were back — again — and his all-important triangle was likely now just one news report and a few minutes away from completion.
Dan pulled Trey close and whispered in his ear to ease his mind: “This is what happens when they’re close,” he said. “It happened to us both last night when you saw them at Lolo and it happened to me when the Kerguelen bolide hit. We met them last year and they put something in our necks… something that flares up when they’re close.”
Behind Dan, Emma stretched her facial muscles and quickly wiped small tears from her eyes in preparation for Henry’s inevitably imminent questions.
There was no longer concern on Trey’s face; now, there was only full-blown fear.
“Dan… I don’t want to get involved in any of this,” he said.
“Sorry, Trey,” Emma interjected, already sounding almost fully back on top of things, “but it’s way too late for that.”
C minus 21
McCarthy Residence
Birchwood, Colorado
On their way back to the basement, with Henry’s curiosity satisfied by a simple and harmless white lie about a moment of acute light-headedness brought on by a fluctuation in Emma’s blood sugar level, the returning trio passed by the TV which was tuned to the big game.
Play was stopped as everyone, including the players, gazed eastward at an incredible fireball in the night sky. “Jeez… looks like another one,” Henry said.
Dan glanced at the screen for a second but didn’t know enough about sports to know what the abbreviations in the top corner stood for. “Where is that stadium?” he asked, longing for the answer to be either California or, less likely, North Dakota.
“San Francisco,” Henry replied.
A smile crossed Dan’s face; Henry was facing the TV, so there was no need for him to hide it.
“Bingo,” Emma whispered in Dan’s ear as they descended the stairs to reunite with the others.
As soon as the door closed tightly behind Dan, he heard Tara’s voice.
“California!” she shrieked excitedly. “Your corridor of expectation!”
“Who was calling?” Timo asked, turning to Emma.
“Jack,” she said. “Nothing to worry about, he was just desperate for some info from inside the GSC. They have nothing and they seem to think we have a lot more than we actually do on that front.”
Tara and Clark remained glued to the TV, but Dan was looking at Trey.
“Are you okay?” he asked, noticing for the first time just how scared he really looked.
Trey shook his head and handed Dan the small backpack he’d been clutching since his arrival. “This is all the footage I got, of the craft and of the satellite. Dan, thanks for everything… but I can’t be involved in any of this. I’m not running away and you know where to find me if you ever want to talk about anything, but right now I need to be home with my family. Jack Neal, those neck pains you guys felt out there… I just really, really can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologise,” Emma said. “And obviously you’re free to go whenever you want, but I need to know that you understand the importance of silence here. That’s what I meant when I said it’s too late to back out and that you’re already involved, okay? I just need to know that you’re going to keep all of this on the down-low. All of it.”
“Are you kidding me?” Trey said. “Of course I am! Like I just told you, the last thing I want in my life are threats from Jack Neal and convulsions from alien implants or whatever you guys just went through. I’m never going to speak a word of any of this to anyone. Dan, thanks again for the heads-up on the footage, but you can keep it. I know you wouldn’t bring me into anything dangerous on purpose but I don’t like the look of any of this… not for one second. I appreciate what you—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Dan interrupted, saving Trey the trouble of defending a position which Dan was delighted he had decided to take. “It’s okay. You’re not in any trouble and you don’t have to apologise for wanting out. Just as long as you really do understand how important it is that you never say a word of any of this to anyone. Ever.”
Trey held his hands up, palms out. “I wouldn’t dream of it, dude. But just between us, before I go… do you actually know what’s going on here?”
“They’re leading me to the fourth plaque,” Dan said, very simply. “I think I’ll have it in a few days and I think you’ll see what’s engraved on it before much longer. Everything should settle down after that.”
Trey’s eyes widened, his mouth almost forming a smile. “For real? And you think the message is something good?”
Dan nodded. “For real. And yeah, it’s going to be good. A big part of me thinks it’s going to show us where to find New Kerguelen.”
“Woah,” was all Trey said.
Clark approached Trey then patted him on the back and shook his hand. “Till next time, man. We’ll see you right for your help and for all the gas money. Just remember to keep everything quiet, and when this is all over, I’ll buy you a beer at the grill.”
“I think you can spot me more than one,” Trey said with a fairly relaxed laugh.
While Tara and Timo remained largely focused on the TV footage of the recent Californian incident with one ear on Trey’s departure, Emma stepped in to make sure that Trey had given them absolutely all of the footage he captured at Lolo.
“I triple-checked every camera,” he confirmed. “I didn’t record anything on my phone, and I’ve given you every second of footage from every single one.”
“And you didn’t copy anything?”
“Not a thing. Emma, seriously, I want to keep myself out of this just as much as you want me to keep quiet. In fact, I want it more.”
Emma shook Trey’s hand in acceptance of his word and there were no further drawn-out goodbyes; thirty seconds later, his presence was a memory.
“Well that was easy,” Emma said, having been prepared for what she had thought would be a difficult task in telling Trey that his craft footage could never be shared and that he couldn’t even distribute his excellent footage of the falling satellite. That satellite footage, he had told them, was significantly better than any which had been seen elsewhere given that he was fortunate enough to have had several pieces of professional recording equipment already pointing at the sky when it happened.
She had expected that Trey wouldn’t have understood why the satellite footage in particular couldn’t be used, and that she would have had to explain that computer programs and forensic analysts would almost certainly have been capable of determining his ground location — their secretly crucial spot at Lolo — based on the images of the sky he captured.
For Dan, the fact that Trey didn’t want to get involved or even ask many questions about the Messengers removed every modicum of guilt he might have felt about his earlier plan to keep the hoax part of the story from Trey while telling him the rest.
Too curious not to, Dan then began to load the footage from Trey’s primary camera onto his computer while the others crowded around the news footage from California.
More than anyone else, Tara in particular was entranced by what the anchors were already describing as “the most spectacular incident of a spectacular week.”
When Dan glanced again at the TV while the huge video files copied to his hard drive, that one glance was enough to see why.
C minus 20
GSC Headquarters
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Chaos.
There was, quite simply, no other word to describe the frenzied scenes inside the GSC’s imposing headquarters as staff members of all levels of seniority reacted to Chairman Godfrey’s demand for a tireless and immediate damage-limitation campaign in the aftermath of yet another highly visible celestial event over the mainland United States.
Only a few hours had passed since he sent President Slater the report she’d requested about the previous night’s satellite incident over Montana, but the immense visibility of the even more recent incident in California meant that the GSC was under more scrutiny than ever before.
Godfrey’s meeting room was the only scene of relative order in the building, with a select handful of analysts and advisors gathered around his long table. More seats were empty than occupied following his ruthless post-leak purge of suspected moles and saboteurs, and the GSC Chairman’s rabid intensity made many of those present wish they hadn’t survived it themselves.
“Enough is enough,” he said, slamming his fist on the table and rising to his feet. “First Kerguelen, then the junk satellite, and now this? Someone is trying to make us look weak. Someone is trying to make our people feel unsafe.”
“Sir…” one brave young advisor chimed in, “what exactly are you suggesting? Covert military engagements? Psychological warfare? We could seed those ideas in the media, but where are you pointing the finger?”
“I didn’t say anything about pointing fingers,” Godfrey snapped in response. “And what I’m ‘suggesting’ — which is a choice bloody word, I’ll tell you that! — is that you all start doing your damn jobs and find out what the hell is going on here! Why don’t you start by looking for relationships between the locations and timings of these incidents?”
“What kind of relationships?” asked a more senior data analyst, taking over from the scolded and cowering young advisor.
“I’m not here to hold your hands,” Godfrey moaned. “Use your imaginations. But for the record, in case your imaginations fail you, I’m starting to think that perhaps these Messengers of ours are trying to tell us something. If they are… whatever the message is, we need to work it out before anyone else does.”
No one chimed in this time.
“I also want a prompt strategic analysis of how this could fit into a pre-invasion distraction scenario. I don’t care who does the report — it’s on all of you to make sure that someone puts it in my hand within the next few hours.”
“Invasion? An invasion by who?” the senior analyst asked, knowing full well that he was risking a firm rebuke. “You don’t really mean… them?”
Godfrey’s volume reached new heights: “Who the hell else could I mean?! This is the GSC, not a national government or military. How could any other force invade the planet, you idiot?”
Not only did no one else address Chairman Godfrey… now, no one even risked making eye contact.
“Get to work!” he yelled, dismissing them all at once.
The stampede as Godfrey’s staff escaped as quickly as they could wasn’t quite on the level of school children running out of their classroom as the final bell of the school year signalled the beginning of summer, but it wasn’t far off.
On Monday, some of Godfrey’s staff had heard him mention the possibility of imminent alien contact. None had taken it too seriously, but his repetition of the same idea — allied to the admittedly eyebrow-raising timing of recent events in Montana and California — caused many to realise that he was serious and to wonder if he just might be right.
With his lackeys dismissed, Godfrey wasted no time in turning back to the live American news reports which had so far proven far more useful at keeping him in the loop than had his well-paid staff.
One thing Godfrey had been told by his staff was that the California Fireball, as it had already been simply christened, was very likely an Earth-grazing asteroid. Nevertheless, the word bolide — a word which hardly anyone had been familiar with until a few days earlier — was being thrown around by the media despite being obviously incorrect. This fireball certainly didn’t explode and nor did it burn up on entry in the manner of a more typical meteor; instead, it very clearly exited Earth’s atmosphere around two minutes after entering.
It came, and it went.
The fireball was less brilliant, in the most literal sense of the word, than the Kerguelen bolide. This was easily understood; early data suggested that the asteroid had passed spectacularly but relatively unscathed through Earth’s atmosphere around 55km from the surface, whereas the Kerguelen bolide had exploded with tremendous force at an altitude of just 30km.
In terms of societal impact, however, the Californian incident was on a different scale entirely. Unlike the Kerguelen bolide and Montana satellite, both of which had been observed directly by very few people, this fireball appeared to be an excellent contender for the titles of the most observed, most recorded and most discussed of all unforeseen celestial events in human history, despite being far from the most extraordinary in strictly astronomical terms.
Some ten minutes after the event, news networks were already drawing comparisons to 1972’s Great Daylight Fireball, which had also been referenced in media features in the aftermath of Kerguelen. But whereas that bygone event had been seen by thousands of eyewitnesses who took hundreds of photos, the immediate dissemination of breaking news combined with the total market penetration of smartphones ensured that the California Fireball had been seen in the flesh by millions of snap-happy eyewitnesses taking tens of millions of photos, as well as ultra-HD video footage from all conceivable ground-based locations.
As was always the case, many eyewitnesses were already exaggerating aspects of their sightings; some young observers would even later swear that the asteroid had been no higher than a helicopter, such was its stunning nature and their level of awe.
A map then appeared on Blitz News, with a rough rectangle indicating the extent of the area in which sightings had been made. It was a large area encompassing a huge population base, with the four corners taking in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Reno and Las Vegas.
A smaller red circle then appeared within the rectangle, north of Fresno and east of San Jose. The newsreader in the studio explained that the circle was an automatically generated ‘heat spot’.
“Tonight we’re lucky enough to have unprecedentedly vast swathes of live social media data to pore through,” she said, “and we’re looking at a level of data which would have been unimaginable just a decade ago. I’m reliably told that photographs which have been shared and messages which have been posted are all being fed, millions at a time, through systems which are far more complicated than anyone in this newsroom could ever hope to understand. I’m also told that this nice little heat spot corresponds to the area where unfiltered photographs show the fireball to be brighter than in photographs from elsewhere and also where the language used in related posts is more excitable than in posts from elsewhere. Like I said, folks: it’s more complicated than we can grasp, but the boffins are telling us that this circle will very probably turn out to include the precise spot where this fireball was at its closest point to our fragile planet’s surface.”
Though it was a trivial annoyance in the grand scheme of things, the unnecessary tossing in of the word “fragile” irked Godfrey, who knew that people were going to be hysterical enough without nonsense like that making it worse.
In any case, a sequence of photographs introduced as “postcard-worthy snaps” then appeared one-by-one on the right half of the screen while the map remained on the left with the exact size and position of the red heat spot changing in real time. Just like with that heat spot, Blitz News had to do no work of their own in collating this handful of viral images, all of which had already risen above the mediocre millions via the streamlined machinations of various social media platforms.
There was an unmissable flippancy to the tone of the comments attached to most of the heavily-shared photographs of the fireball, in contrast to the total fear felt by most of those who didn’t encounter it first-hand; and while many on couches around the world watched on with concern, a huge number of in-person observers had snapped pictures of themselves smiling with the fireball in the background. Godfrey internally linked this phenomenon to a video he’d seen on the news just a few weeks earlier of two rhinos charging at a safari Jeep — scared or not, modern man’s first instinct in any novel situation was evidently to reach for his phone and record whatever came next.
All of the spectacular images appearing on TV came from within the rectangular zone which had been identified minutes earlier, although the fact that many came from the extreme edges made Godfrey unhappily think that the rectangle should probably have been larger than it was. The very first of the images was beautiful in its simplicity, with a fireball streaking across the otherwise crystal clear night sky above the Sierra Nevada. The second featured the fireball framing the Golden Gate bridge, while in the third it cut an equally photogenic shooting-star pose above the Hollywood sign. The fourth and final image in this short sequence saw the fireball “outshining the Vegas Strip”, as the Blitz News anchor put it.
It was easy for Godfrey to see why these particular images had proven so popular — they were skilfully composed and made clever use of angles to show the fireball positioned in relation to certain landmarks in ways that weren’t entirely representative of what people on the ground really saw — but he knew that the sheer scale of the number of sightings was what could well ensure that this incident might prove to be a watershed moment of the worst kind for his already precarious GSC leadership.
