《The Signal》 The Call Harlow Benett¡¯s phone rang and woke him up. Amber sunlight peaked over the horizon, dimly lighting the living room. Heavy half-asleep hands grasped blindly for the source of the noise. Once the phone was in hand, Harlow needed a moment of deep thought to decide whether to answer it or turn it off. With a long yawn, he answered. Morgan Saddler, his department head, was at the other end of the line. Harlow was on the verge of telling him to call back later, but there was an edge to his friend¡¯s voice that demanded alertness. ¡°What do you mean you can¡¯t tell me what this is for over the phone?¡± Said Harlow, furrowing his already creased forehead. ¡°The only thing I¡¯m allowed to tell you is NASA asked us to wake you up. Well, they asked. The black suit with them didn¡¯t sound like he was asking.¡± ¡°You¡¯re playing me. This would¡¯ve been a classic movie intro, but you should¡¯ve said it was the CIA instead of NASA. We¡¯ve been friends for how long? How do you not know the spy movie setup by now?¡± Harlow yawned; the other end of the line stayed silent. Morgan kept quiet until Harlow broke the silence again. ¡°You¡¯re serious.¡± ¡°Serious like a heart-attack, Benett. I¡¯ve got a dozen men-in-black taking over the department. Can¡¯t tell you anymore until you get here. Shouldn¡¯t even have told you that.¡± Harlow agreed to come, and they exchanged a ¡°see you in a bit.¡± Every joint on Harlow¡¯s tall, bony frame creaked as he got up from the sofa he slept on. Silently, he crept towards his bedroom in search of a clean shirt and slacks. Dressed, he brushed his teeth with one hand and wrote a note for his wife and son with the other. As usual, he didn¡¯t bother doing anything with his greying black hair before leaving. A short drive later, he pulled into the already busy parking lot alongside a dozen other cars. Harlow recognized many of his colleagues, though only about one in four was from his department. A line of cookie-cutter federal agents in black suits, black ties, and black sunglasses waited for them at the doors. Harlow¡¯s eyebrows shot up when he noticed, and many of the others did a double-take, stopped mid-step, or took a moment to consider going back to their car. Before being let in, everyone¡¯s university id was matched to their driver¡¯s license and every other piece identification they happened to have with them at the time. Harlow wasn¡¯t let inside until the man was happy he was the same Harlow Benett who¡¯d worked on an NSA project last year. The whole process was repeated inside, at the university¡¯s normal security checkpoint, with the added condition that everyone had to leave their cellphones there. This took more time than the first screening as a lot of the gathered professors loudly objected to being patted down. Harlow and the others couldn¡¯t make their own way in the university after all that. The agents escorted them to an auditorium where fresh pots of coffee and the various department heads waited. If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. The ones that knew each other talked¡ªor rather, speculated¡ªabout what on Earth they were called here for. Others loudly begrudged the current situation or the hours of sleep they missed. If NASA needed astrophysicists or engineers from MIT, Harlow was sure they had a direct line to them already. He was a mathematician, though, specialized in cryptography. A specialization he shared with many here. He thought federal agents were par for the course if you were a cryptographer called in for an urgent matter. Not that it had ever happened to him, but he could dream. Still, he had worked with the government on occasions and earned a security clearance. If his hadn¡¯t lapsed, that might be what they all had in common. Two more waves of Harlow¡¯s colleagues entered the auditorium while he was pondering the situation. On their heels followed a balding, bespectacled man with a NASA SETI jacket. He took position at the lectern, adjusted the microphone, and cleared his throat. ¡°Good morning everyone. I am John Cavanaugh from NASA¡¯s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence program. You¡¯ve all been gathered here at my and the government of the United States¡¯ request to assist with some sensitive research.¡± John paused for water and scratched his thick moustache. ¡°As of 196 hours ago, the Very Large Array Radio Telescope Observatory picked up a repeating tight beam radio transmission aimed at the inner solar system from TRAPPIST-1. The signal repeated 17 times over the course of 26 hours. Automated pattern recognition software flagged it as urgent, and human analysis during the last 185 hours suggests the signal is likely to be artificial in nature.¡± ¡°As only some of you are aware, SETI uses the Rio scale to gauge the plausibility and significance of perceived extraterrestrial contact. After consideration, we estimate this event to be an eight out of ten on this scale.¡± Murmurs of surprise, disbelief, and the sound of Harlow burning his tongue on his coffee filled the auditorium. He didn¡¯t know the inner workings of the Rio Scale, but Cavanaugh¡¯s level stare made him think eights didn¡¯t happen every day. ¡°Your group at MIT will work behind closed doors alongside other universities, agencies, and corporations across the country to further confirm the nature of the transmission, identify any intelligent pattern in its make-up, and decrypt its probable contents.¡± The gathered professors and engineers exchanged uncertain glances hearing the inflexion the man put on ¡°will¡±. Harlow knew consent was optional in spy movies, but a brave woman in the front row stood up to ask a question or protest. ¡°I will not be taking questions at this time,¡± John stopped her before she could begin. ¡°Anyone who wishes to leave the room now is free to do so. But before anyone leaves, I would like to remind you all of the legal obligations you accepted with your security clearance.¡± John motioned to one of the government agents in the room. ¡°The FBI will assist all of us in this endeavour. Due to how sensitive this project is, these brave men and women will provide discreet security assistance. Both on campus and at your homes. This provision also extends to anyone here that does not want to work on this project.¡± What a way to phrase that! They would be under surveillance, is what he meant, and they¡¯d spin it as being for their own good. Harlow knew there was no chance in hell they could stop any information from coming out if anyone here had a mind to share it. But retribution would also be swift and equally inevitable. He didn¡¯t think anything was worth a permanent end to his academic career. The audience teetered between tight-lipped silence and discontent whispers. John took that as his cue to soften his expression. ¡°Should any of you feel uncomfortable keeping secrets from your loved ones, the Air Force offers facilities for you to work in their Cheyenne Mountain deep-space radar telemetry facilities. To make it clear none of this is an attempt at coercion, the government is extending a pay increase to everyone here for as long as the project lasts. Time-and-a-half for anyone that leaves, double-time for anyone that works here, and triple-time for anyone that moves to Cheyenne.¡± Having offered a stick and a carrot, he concluded the presentation. Cavanaugh left in a hurry, surrounded by a security detail. The Problem The head of astrophysics took the lectern and told everyone to go to their respective wing of the building. Each head then took charge of their own people and marched them along with men-in-black. The mathematicians settled in an empty classroom and Morgan Saddler took charge of the whiteboard. The building¡¯s usual security guard entered the room, accompanied by one of the federal agents carrying an equipment case. Harlow discreetly let out a sigh when it turned out the case wasn¡¯t a computer, it just carried one. A manilla folder accompanied the rugged laptop. Inside were paper documents related to their task: Instructions from NASA, a letter from the President¡¯s office swearing them to secrecy, a second offering vague encouragement, and some paper printouts and miscellanea. The laptop was juicier. It had full copies of each repetition of the signal, all the analysis that had been done so far, and the means to contact anyone else working on this project securely. Harlow would have to check exactly what kind of encryption was at play when he had the time. If only so none of them could be blamed for a security breach. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Goddard Space Flight Center, Los Alamos, Harlow¡¯s very own MIT, Caltech, Stanford, both the Air Force and the Naval Research Laboratories, the NSA, even Google and IBM. If you named a big player that was related to either space or data analysis, they had a team on this project or they would soon have one. And Cheyenne Mountain would be at the centre of everything. Roskosmos and the CNSA¡¯s absence didn¡¯t surprise Harlow one bit. Rather, it was all the other missing international organizations that piqued his interest. Europe, the United Kingdom, India, Japan, even Canada. None of their national agencies or their private corporations were on this list. He could probably find out why if he looked into the legalese stacked inside the manilla folder, but that was too far out of his area of expertise. ¡°Okay everyone,¡± said Morgan, ¡°let¡¯s start by making sure we¡¯re all on the same page here. NASA and the FBI are asking us to cooperate with them in analysing a potentially extraterrestrial signal they have deemed highly likely to be real. Show of hands. Who wants to leave, and who wants to move to Colorado?¡± Half-a-dozen put their hand up for the first option. Reasons ranged from taking a stand against coercion to never growing out of their hippie phase. Two took the second option, one to help pay his mortgage, the other knew themselves as a rumour-mill. Morgan thanked all of them as they left the room. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. ¡°And thank you to everybody else for staying,¡± he said to the rest. ¡°That¡¯s out of the way. Harlow, get what we have on the projector.¡± Harlow plugged the laptop. The projector came to life and displayed a waveform¡ªor rather, 17 identical waveforms. Each of them stayed on the same frequency throughout: exactly 2¡¯718¡¯281¡¯828 Hz. Harlow recognized Euler¡¯s number¡ªwithout the decimal point¡ªimmediately; logarithms were often very useful in his field. It would have to be a grand cosmic coincidence for a natural phenomenon to emit on that exact frequency. ¡°The frequency isn¡¯t the only part that stands out,¡± Morgan continued. ¡°The signal density is comparable to what we¡¯d expect out of communications from inside the solar system. It¡¯s two decimal places above background radiation.¡± Harlow thought about what that meant. How strong would the original signal have to be to keep that much strength after travelling 40 light years? If attenuation is proportional to the square of the distance, and the distance is astronomical, then¡­ The waveform also showed there was some form of complex amplitude modulation or digital modulation at play here. The latter seemed more likely for an advanced alien species. Harlow spotted something else that stood out. ¡°Is that section in the middle correct? The signal is supposed to fade out?¡± ¡°Unless SETI is specifically giving us faulty info, then no¡­¡± Morgan said, squinting at the board. Harlow searched for annotations and put them on the projector. ¡°Looks like SETI¡¯s analysts think it¡¯s meant to be there. Other teams are working on re-confirming that.¡± Morgan nodded. ¡°Then we proceed with the assumption it belongs there. Let¡¯s split up. Statistical analysis, differential analysis, correlation analysis, machine learning. Lawrence is head of statistical. DesMarais has differential. Benett is on correlation. I¡¯m taking charge of machine learning. The rest of you know your own fields. I trust you to put yourself where you belong.¡± Shortly after figuring out who was working with who, a security guard came around and distributed NDAs for everyone to sign. On his heels, a woman in a NASA jacket delivered five more laptops and promised everyone would get one eventually. Morgan took ownership of the original and distributed the new ones. Harlow now had to figure out how his team was going to tackle this problem. He would¡¯ve liked to work on the machine learning team more¡ªnewer field meant more interesting opportunities¡ªbut finding patterns through correlation was more his thing. This situation needed someone familiar with the whole bag of tricks. The Number Nobody made much progress in the first three days. Everything was still just beginning. The FBI had handed out cover stories to him and his team. The fabricated details gave him enough excuses to stay on campus and keep working. For those three days at least. But covers were made to avoid attention. Harlow knew he didn¡¯t have an infinite well of urgency to exploit. So, on that third day, he went home. Besides, he only had so much energy to pour into the project himself. A quick shower rid him of the dust and sweat that clung to him, and then a nice dinner with his family reinvigorated him. Annabelle and Sean were curious about what he was doing, but they were used to not getting the details. Harlow was happy to explain his work in-depth to anyone who would listen. He didn¡¯t always have the luxury of being allowed to, however. Harlow said what he could, and he felt that much satisfied them. After dinner, they moved to the couch and watched a movie. An old school spy flick. They¡¯d seen that one a million times, and the three of them likely knew the plot by heart. It was the time together that mattered to Harlow. And maybe a movie would bring some sort of epiphany. He welcomed the clich¨¦ right now. But it didn¡¯t come. After the movie ended, he happened to look out the window into the street. An unmarked black car was parked across from his house, and he had the distinct feeling it had followed him here from the university. He wasn¡¯t a fan of being watched, but what Cavanaugh had said turned out to be at least partially true. The FBI was helping them, not just watching them. Harlow had reconsidered his opinion. Sure, there was a part of the surveillance meant to keep word of the project from spreading. Which was close to impossible, given how leaky civilians could be. That same reason also meant it was very easy for other interested parties to spy on them. He¡¯d seen that script a thousand times already. Harlow¡¯s interests probably made him more tolerant to this situation than others. But knowing someone kept an eye out for the real bad actors helped. * The days and the hours melted together in an unrecognizable mush of passing time. Phasing, correlating, tuning, referencing, distorting, analysing. Harlow and his team spent every waking hour working. Those on his team that were also teachers had a reduced lecture load. Those that had chosen to step down from the project took over much of that work and maintained an air of normalcy in the department. Every shred of data the team uncovered was documented meticulously. That data was passed on to other researchers around the US through the secure network¡ªor the very-much-less-than-secure-network, as Harlow thought of it after he took the time to check the specific security measures in place. Everything passed around would be double and triple-checked. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Slowly, very slowly, but surely, a pile of evidence was being built. And, so far, everything pointed to the same conclusion. As days passed, the chances for the transmission¡ªbecause nobody called it an emission anymore¡ªto be natural decreased, decimal point by decimal point. Likewise, the certainty that this was a message with an intelligent design grew ever more certain. Work he did also became more training data for the machine learning crew. The neural network then fed results back to his team, which led to more rounds of analysis and correlation, and then back into the machine in an infinite loop. Round and round the information went, until, in the dark hours of an unidentified night, a proverbial ding rang out through the lab. Harlow looked up from his third cup of coffee. There it was, just sitting on the screen: a pattern identified with an infinitesimal margin of error. He took a moment to clean his glasses, to make sure what he was looking at was real. He approached the keyboard cautiously, as if any sudden movement could make the result disappear into mist. Gingerly, he double-checked the results, and everything came back the same. He woke up one of his colleagues and urged them to do the same. The same pattern appeared. Word spread around the room, then around the department, then around the building. One by one, the researchers repeated the calculations, tried to poke holes in the method. Every time, the same pattern. Convinced, they passed it on to the SETI network. Through the night and the morning, every other institution came up with the same pattern. Everyone patted everyone else on the back, but a single pattern did not make a full message. Or so they thought: By the end of the day, Caltech uploaded another piece of the puzzle. As it turned out, every part between repetitions of the first pattern simply made up a second pattern. And that was it. The transmission was only two patterns; it encoded information using only two symbols. Plain binary or was some deeper modulation at play here? New orders soon came through from NASA and Cheyenne Mountain. They would divert most of their resources into pursuing the binary lead, whilst keeping a minimum on confirmation and pattern finding still. Of course, congratulations also came through, if somewhat more muted than the new orders. MIT and Caltech came to an agreement: MIT would go forward assuming the MIT Pattern was the binary One, and Caltech would assume the Caltech Pattern was the binary One. Everybody else chose a side, shook hands, and raced to the finish line. * There were two issues to overcome in this race: The problem of bit groupings, and the problem of ambiguous bits. Human binary relied on everyone following the same rules for both of those problems. Harlow didn¡¯t think they were likely to make the first decryption if they just blindly followed human rules. But with enough coordination, they could probably brute force their way through the permutations in a timely manner. ¡°Why don¡¯t we pick a bit grouping at random, tell everyone that¡¯s on our side of the race to pick different groupings, and just have the supercomputer do the rest?¡± He asked Morgan. ¡°It¡¯s the beginning of an idea,¡± answered his department head. ¡°But we don¡¯t know what we¡¯re looking for. The binary could express language or numbers, and¡ª¡° Harlow interrupted him. ¡°Euler¡¯s number. The frequency of the signal is exactly Euler¡¯s number. They¡¯ve used it once to make us notice this message. Wouldn¡¯t it make sense for them to use it again? And if it¡¯s not that, then it¡¯ll be something equally attention grabbing.¡± ¡°Huh. That¡¯s sensible. Even brilliant, maybe. Just for that, you get to choose our grouping.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s go with¡­ six?¡± Harlow chose at random. The Result A week after the race for the decryption started, the NSA uploaded some new information to the network. Their neural networks determined what was likely to be the modulating signal used by the transmission. With it, they could unpack the signal into its raw components. Unsurprisingly, two symbols turned out to still be just two symbols underneath. Still, it hadn¡¯t been a guarantee, so it was interesting to note. No one would have to change their approach to the race. There was a burst of interest from the physicists in the network concerning the raw form of the Caltech Pattern. But nothing groundbreaking there either. It was two-days later that the real news came in. NASA, for once, gave out new information: the raw form of the MIT Pattern was a carbon copy of a retired radar search pattern. Everyone would have a field day picking at the meaning behind that! * Brute forcing a decryption meant the supercomputer got to do all the work. Balancing his family with the project had been hard on Harlow. Now he had time to spare. He repainted his home office, visited his dad in Providence, and went to a baseball game with Sean. And he still had more time. So much so he watched re-runs on a Monday afternoon. He had had the house to himself all day; Sean was due back from school soon. That¡¯s when Morgan called. ¡°Have you looked at the network today?¡± he asked without any greeting. ¡°I haven¡¯t checked it all week,¡± answered Harlow. ¡°The Naval Research Laboratory made a breakthrough. The President is going live in 10 minutes to make the whole thing public.¡± ¡°You¡¯re joking!? The Pres¡ªWait, the navy was on our side of the race, weren¡¯t they? What grouping?¡± ¡°Twelve bits. Check the network for details. After the speech, we¡¯re allowed to discuss everything that¡¯s made it to the press, but we can¡¯t volunteer anything new.¡± Harlow took in the information and switched tracks. ¡°Morgan? You know we weren¡¯t working with the rest of the world on this, right? I think we didn¡¯t just win the race at home. I think we¡¯re breaking the news worldwide.¡± ¡°America wins another space race.¡± Morgan said in a flat tone. ¡°The international reaction is the least of our worries. There are enough nuts at home that are gonna crack and maybe do something crazy when they hear we have proof we aren¡¯t alone in the universe. Not to mention the waves it¡¯ll make on the stock market.¡± This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. ¡°I¡¯ll start worrying about that when I¡¯m actually starring in my own movie. My son just got here; I¡¯ll call you back after the conference.¡± Sean entered the house and Harlow switched channels to national news. Right on time, the anchor announced an urgent live conference from the President¡¯s office. Harlow motioned for his son to come and take a seat. ¡°My fellow Americans,¡± the president began, sitting at his desk. ¡°In the pursuit of knowledge and truth, humanity has encountered moments that redefine our collective understanding. Today, we are faced with one such moment.¡± ¡°We¡¯ve always been a nation that reaches for the stars, and today, it seems the stars have reached back. I come to you with news that reminds us of the limitless possibilities of human endeavour.¡± ¡°Thirty minutes ago, I was informed that the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence program at NASA, in partnership with Caltech, the MIT, the NSA, the Naval Research Laboratory, and all the other great thinkers of our nation, has decrypted a communication they believe to be of extraterrestrial origins.¡± He paused. ¡°The message was captured a month and a half ago by the VLA Radio Telescope Observatory in New Mexico. Its origin has been identified as the star TRAPPIST-1 40 light years away, in the constellation Aquarius.¡± ¡°Since reception, America¡¯s greatest and finest have toiled to unlock its content. And they have achieved this on this very day.¡± ¡°Though the message has been decrypted, it¡¯s still too early to tell what the exact meaning is. Be assured that there will be no rest while this message remains meaningless.¡± ¡°As we move forward, I urge each and every one of you to consider this groundbreaking discovery with the thoughtful reflection it deserves. As we stand on this new frontier, let us face the unknown with the same courage, curiosity, and unity that have always defined us as a nation, and as a species.¡± ¡°Thank you. God bless you, and may God bless these United States of America.¡± The news returned, but Harlow turned the TV off. He could see that some mental calculation was going on in his son¡¯s head. Sean looked confused. Not the kind of confused that comes from not understanding something, but the kind that comes when you don¡¯t know how you should feel about it. ¡°What¡­¡± Sean felt his way to a question. ¡°What would aliens want to tell us?¡± ¡°Well,¡± Harlow started, not having considered the question in depth before. ¡°They could just be doing what we¡¯ve done in the past. They could be saying ¡®Hello Earth. We are intelligent and we know about space. Are you intelligent? Do you know about space?¡¯ Or it could be something else. The first thing that comes to my mind isn¡¯t necessarily the first thing that will come to their mind.¡± ¡°They¡¯re¡­ calling ahead to see if anyone¡¯s home before they come visit, then?¡± That was certainly a possibility. The message itself showed some advanced technical capabilities, so coming to visit could be in the cards. That would also feed into why the government wanted to keep things secret. Is the message a friendly greeting, telling us we should tidy up the place for visitors? Or, is it a threat, terms for our surrender before the invasion fleet gets here? If these aliens were anything like humans, then Harlow thought both were actual possibilities. And evidently, so did the US government. ¡°I hadn¡¯t thought of that, kiddo. Keep being ahead of me and you¡¯ll be doing great things in no time.¡± Harlow hoped the praise was enough to deflect the question. He didn¡¯t know how he could word it in a way that wouldn¡¯t scare Sean. The ...//Signal One. Zero. Euler¡¯s Number. A sequence of prime numbers in ascending order. One. A sequence of eleven primes. The same eleven primes, but fading out to two-thirds amplitude. The same eleven primes, but even fainter at one-third power. Thirty-four Zeroes. One. Zero. The same eleven primes, three times again, but not fading out. Eighty-four zeroes. The sequence of prime numbers from the beginning, but in descending order. Euler¡¯s number. Zero. Zero. The decrypted contents of the signal were laid out on a dry-erase board in the classroom the mathematics department appropriated to work on the project. ¡°That¡¯s¡­it?¡± Harlow could not decide if he was impressed or underwhelmed. Well, he felt proud that his idea of Euler¡¯s number being a decryption key worked out so well. Still, the contents of the message were vaguer than what the president suggested in his address. ¡°That¡¯s the whole thing,¡± replied Morgan. ¡°Cheyenne¡¯s brought a team of linguist, zoologist, and psychologists on board, but we get to keep working on this because, as you can see, the aliens didn¡¯t really give us anything to work with besides numbers.¡± ¡°Okay then, let¡¯s work through some patterns. One-Zero, Zero-Zero. Hello, goodbye.¡± ¡°That would be fair, if a little colloquial. Those, with or without Euler¡¯s number, could be standard data headers for the species.¡± ¡°Bah, the difference isn¡¯t relevant to me; the meaning¡¯s the same either way.¡± Harlow thought there could be layers and layers of hidden meaning behind just the use of One-Zero and Zero-Zero. But he was wise enough to know these types of speculations were best left for someone else. Harlow thought finding patterns and giving them utilitarian meaning would be more productive. ¡°Primes in ascending, then descending order,¡± Morgan continued. ¡°That could mean ¡®we are intelligent enough to know what this is.¡¯ Just a marker there to tell they aren¡¯t sending this at random.¡± ¡°Could be,¡± Harlow agreed, ¡°but it could also be a title. ¡®Here, we are talking about primes.¡¯ And then they follow it up with very specific primes from that sequence. Are those supposed to have meaning on their own?¡± ¡°One hypothesis out there is that they¡¯ve assigned a prime to each letter of their alphabet, or syllable of their syllabary, whatever the case may be. So those five specific primes would make up one word.¡± That could make some sense culturally. Assigning a number to each letter of the alphabet is one of the simplest cyphers humans have come up with. It could also be their equivalent of ASCII values. But¡­ ¡°How long would it take for someone with absolutely no knowledge of computers or programming to figure out that the ASCII value 65 is a cypher for a capital ¡®A¡¯?¡± Asked Harlow. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°I¡¯d bet on it being nearly impossible without any documentation,¡± answered Morgan. ¡°So, if you were an alien, and you wanted your message to be understood¡ªbecause why send a message if you don¡¯t want it to be understood¡ªthen using this sort of encoding wouldn¡¯t make any logical sense, right?¡± ¡°Is this sort of message sending something I, the alien, am experienced with then? What if this is my first ever message out and I don¡¯t realize what I¡¯ve done?¡± ¡°The evidence so far suggests the opposite. You¡¯ve used a copy of an Earth signal. You¡¯ve used Euler¡¯s number to give us both a key and make sure we realized this wasn¡¯t a natural phenomenon. No, no, no. Up to this point, everything about this message has been orchestrated with intent, and I believe that means experience.¡± ¡°Therefore, it¡¯s likely that a simple, utilitarian solution is correct over any other,¡± concluded Morgan in agreement. ¡°The simplest solution I can think of right now is that these primes mean something on their own or as a group. For example, if I gave you 9-16-25 as a sequence. It¡¯s one level removed from what I actually want to say, but you could figure out that this is just 32-42-55. It¡¯s a Pythagorean triple, which tells you that my message is probably about triangles or trigonometry.¡± By now, the other professors in the room gathered around Harlow and Morgan to listen in on their discussion, and hopefully contribute something. ¡°There¡¯s no logical order to their sequence,¡± one put in. ¡°The only thing they have in common is they¡¯re non-negative prime integers,¡± added another in support. ¡°Maybe then they aren¡¯t referring to a mathematical theorem, but a practical application,¡± posited a third. That one made the most sense to Harlow. ¡°Radio frequencies, then? They reached out to us on this specific frequency because we would notice it, but really they want us to be listening on these bands for more complex communications? Or they expect an answer on these bands, maybe?¡± Proposed yet another team member. ¡°That makes sense to me,¡± replied Morgan. ¡°I¡¯ll put our hypothesis on the network, and I¡¯ll forward it to Cavanaugh so NASA can investigate it.¡± That was a sensible deduction for Harlow too, but it felt incomplete. There was something in the message that made him think this was a red herring. What was it? ¡°The fade out¡­¡± he began. ¡°Pardon?¡± ¡°The fade out in the middle. They present the primes at full power, then at two-thirds power, and then at one-third power. But for the second set, they do it three times at full power.¡± ¡°If it¡¯s an orchestrated message from someone with experience, then that¡¯s purposeful.¡± Morgan considered for a moment. ¡°If it follows the numbers themselves have a practical use, then the fade out is what¡¯s meant to impart meaning to them.¡± ¡°That much is sensible¡­¡± ¡°But we can¡¯t know the meaning behind it until we know what the application is. Or can we?¡± Harlow didn¡¯t have the answer. ¡°I¡­ I don¡¯t know. I need to consider it further. I don¡¯t have a better idea than what you proposed. But there¡¯s¡­ something I can¡¯t put my finger on that¡¯s bugging me.¡± The Solution ¡°What do we know about aliens?¡± asked Harlow to a lecture hall packed to the walls with students from every program MIT offered. Harlow wasn¡¯t a professor himself. He was a researcher and an occasional guest speaker in some small classes, but not a teacher. In fact, he didn¡¯t like public speaking one bit; standing in front of such a large crowd turned his stomach and shook his knees. But he knew some of these students could have brilliant ideas at times. He also knew the signal was a hotly discussed subject ever since the president broke the news. Despite his aversion to the task, Harlow was the first one to propose involving the students a bit. That¡¯s how he found himself in front of the whiteboard in the same auditorium he¡¯d first learned about the message. John Cavanaugh stood at the far back, by the exit, and looked down at him. The man of ambiguous role in the project had approved the information that would be given to the students; Harlow was certain he was here to keep him in line. A screen showed both symbols the message used, and the deciphered message was displayed on the whiteboard. A student in the font row raised their hand. ¡°They¡¯re from TRAPPIST-1 and they use radio for communication.¡± ¡°Good starting point. But the message originating from TRAPPIST-1 doesn¡¯t mean that these aliens evolved there. Our friends at NASA tell me the star experiences frequent violent flares. There are several planets in the habitable zone, so life could¡¯ve evolved there, but there¡¯s a lot of room for uncertainty.¡± Harlow continued. ¡°So what about their use of radio communication? Well, we can be certain they have the means to detect radio waves. It looks like they understood what came their way. So they probably use radio in some form or another. Or maybe they surpassed it and took old equipment out of storage just to talk to us.¡± ¡°So that¡¯s two things we might know about them.¡± Harlow counted on his fingers for the whole class to see. ¡°They were in TRAPPIST-1 when they sent a message towards us, and they can use radio for communication. We know both of these things because, well, they told us. Anything else?¡± ¡°They know prime numbers, Euler¡¯s number, and binary,¡± came from different sections of the hall. ¡°All true. We get a glimpse at what their mathematical knowhow is.¡± ¡°Or they¡¯re showing what they think we know,¡± added a student in the third row. ¡°That could also be true. Which leads us to a possibly better question: what do these aliens know about us? It¡¯s likely they know we make extensive use of radio just because of what we sent their way. They don¡¯t know we make bytes with eight bits and not twelve. Because, otherwise, wouldn¡¯t they have formatted their message correctly? What else?¡± Harlow¡¯s question brought out a moment of quiet reflection from the hall. No answer came from the students. ¡°They assume we¡¯re stuck on this rock,¡± came the voice of Cavanaugh. ¡°They didn¡¯t catch the whole solar system. The signal was beamed towards the inner solar system, specifically. They either took their chances with the unreliable assumption we started with. Or they can tell for sure.¡± Before Harlow could answer, the same third row student spoke. ¡°Their signal was magnitudes stronger than what ours would¡¯ve been when it got to them. That could be proof to them we only live here.¡± ¡°And we can already spot exoplanets and capture details on our current level of technology,¡± followed John. ¡°If they are more advanced, they probably have a clearer picture of our solar system than we do of theirs.¡± The two of them combined into a well thought out argument. Harlow couldn¡¯t deny the logic there. But even knowing that much didn¡¯t help Harlow give meaning to the message. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. ¡°How, then, can we apply what we think we know of them and what we think they know of us to give meaning to the message?¡± He threw the question to the hall. Harlow listened to the answers that washed over him. The simplest feature of the message was the only part where the students could come to an agreement. The message was wrapped in a start-end package. For everything else, the hall alternated between pragmatic and culturally influenced answers like a metronome. Students that had been firm in their position switched sides as discussion went around. In the end, they didn¡¯t reach a consensus. Best guesses were all anyone could offer on the ascending and descending orders of primes. But no one was ever certain as to the nature of the five primes, why the signal faded out, or the meaning of the long sequences of zeroes. ¡°We know the Ones are just copies of a pattern we sent them,¡± said the third-row student. ¡°But the Zeroes are still unsourced. Maybe bringing attention to that fact is the meaning behind the long sequences.¡± Harlow turned to look at the patterns on the screen. There was a certain familiarity to it that had piqued the interest of physicists before. A deeper encoding? Maybe. He could almost picture a transformation of the pattern in his head, like he knew the answer, but not the formula¡­ * Days turned to weeks and turned to months. Logic and number-based solutions to the message turned to biologically focused ones and then turned into sociology and culturally oriented solutions, which looped back to logic and numbers. Every step forward had to be accompanied by two to the side, like a chess knight revisiting the same squares over and over again. Harlow kept up his meetings with the students, though the attendance gradually decreased. He had regular discussions with Morgan and the other scholars of the university. Once a month, he had those talks with experts in social sciences instead. He even branched out of the United States to hear ideas from experts abroad. But he was still spinning in circles like everyone else. As time went on, he thought of the enigmatic second symbol more and more instead of continuing his search for meaning. He couldn¡¯t shake off that sense of familiarity. He¡¯d remarked on it to several of his colleagues, but only a few experts in radio physics had the same gut feeling. That gave him at least a shadow of a starting point. Potentially, he could¡ª ¡°Hey dad, I think there¡¯s a piece missing,¡± called Sean from across the dining table. He was busy building a new Lego set his grandparents had gifted him for his birthday, and Harlow was meant to help. ¡°Hmmm? Did you drop it?¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t hear any piece drop.¡± ¡°Neither did I, but look for it anyway. It might¡¯ve bounced away or out of sight.¡± While his son searched, Harlow took the instructions and took count of the pieces. Geometry and 3D spaces had never been his forte as a kid, but he liked how the more or less abstract shapes in the instructions would all come together to make a recognizable final design. Quickly paging through, he noticed the patterns more than the actual shapes. Often, the large scale would mirror the techniques used at the brick scale. Every piece was well identified, and you could easily tell if something was missing just by the way they fit together. ¡°It¡¯s under the fridge,¡± groaned Sean, trying to reach the missing brick. Repeated patterns and intuitive building methods let even children build something large on their own. ¡°I got it!¡± cried Sean triumphantly. Every piece in the pattern not only has meaning in the final product, but can also serve as a means of figuring out more information. Of course it does! Euler¡¯s number served as a key to dig deeper into the message this entire time, but it might¡¯ve just unlocked another set of keys. So what was his new key, and did he have a starting point or a result to work with? Numbers and equations raced in Harlow¡¯s mind as he reached for a marker in his work bag and started scribbling on the fridge. His son watched the manifestation of his epiphany whilst Harlow scratched out parts, rewrote them, and continued his hypothesis. He spent all evening and all night working, eating the bites and drinking the glasses that were handed to him. By morning, he was convinced of the plausibility of his idea. He realized now that he would have to clean the fridge, but it didn¡¯t matter to him just yet. He had a hypothesis that worked: the five primes would be his key, and the second symbol would be his end result. Right here in his kitchen, he didn¡¯t have the means to prove himself right or wrong. For that, he would need computing power. A lot of computing power. The Discovery Harlow¡¯s plane touched down in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He had presented his hypothesis to Morgan the morning he¡¯d conceived it. Equally convinced, his friend passed it on to NASA and Cavanaugh. A mere half an hour later, an Air Force officer picked him up from MIT and took him to the nearest base. There, he was strapped into a two-seater fighter jet and flown straight to Houston. He presented his calculations and ideas to a committee. Somehow, the boardroom was a more challenging speaking environment than the lecture hall. It reminded him of when he had to defend his doctorate thesis all these years ago. Harlow must¡¯ve made a good impression there, too. Because, two hours after he was done, he boarded another plane with Cavanaugh. And that¡¯s how he ended up in Oak Ridge. This town hosted the most powerful supercomputer in the United States. Frontier could perform a magnitude more operations per second than its predecessor, which is why it was now instrumental in proving¡ªor disproving¡ªHarlow¡¯s theory. Over 14 days, Harlow worked with Frontier¡¯s crew to do just that. The science was intricate and incomplete. Test runs took between hours and days to complete. He needed a handful to feel his way towards the correct solution, and then even more runs to perfect it. These were long days of work, starting before sunrise and ending after sunset. The only light he saw for those two weeks was the white neon illumination of the lab and the dull orange glow of his motel room lamp. When he closed his eyes to go to sleep, he could see the numbers he was working on and he could hear the whir of computer fans. Keeping in touch with Anabelle and Sean kept him sane. But at the end of those 14 days, Harlow¡¯s hypothesis came out triumphant: there was a precise logarithmic equation that could be applied to the message¡¯s first symbol, the copy of the Earth signal. When using the sequence of five primes that stood out in the message¡ªand no other prime or number would work in the equation¡ªthe first symbol would be transformed into the second symbol. The symbol that had nagged at the corner of Harlow¡¯s mind was a complex transformation of the first. Every piece fits together. But that¡¯s not the only thing Frontier found out. Beyond its use as a puzzle mechanic, this equation had far-reaching potential. Quite literally, as it turned out. If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. A radio wave transformed by this process seemed to glide through space rather than force its way through. Simulations showed long distances had minimal effect on signal strength, and neither did dense materials or magnetic fields. On top of that, the formula allowed huge gains in terms of power conservation. A typical local FM radio station used about 100 watts to broadcast over a radius of 20 miles. Frontier thought this new type of signal could cover that distance on as little as one watt and still be recognizable by cheap homemade receivers. And with just enough power, you could maintain high signal density over astronomical distances. When the results came in, the lab exploded into cheers and celebration. Cavanaugh was especially enthusiastic about how NASA could benefit from what he coined the ¡°Benett Radio Process¡±. Harlow wasn¡¯t sure how happy he was. Oh sure, it was a discovery that would put his name in textbooks and maybe in the public eye. But how did that help him put meaning to the message? The long sequences of zeroes and the fade out were still unknowns. Lost in thought, he hadn¡¯t realized the laboratory director brough in champagne and was finishing an impromptu speech to the team. ¡°¡­We truly stand on the shoulders of giants. Let¡¯s toast these aliens, whoever they are, for their generous gift.¡± The closing statement struck Harlow. And not with the sense of awe and grandeur it was probably meant to inspire. Apprehension was what came to him instead. Is this a gift? Or rather, was it intended to be a gift? Harlow and Cavanaugh exchanged a knowing look. The two of them seemingly communicated the idea to one another without speaking a word and picked it back up in Cavanaugh¡¯s motel room that evening. ¡°They sent us a gift, Harlow. I don¡¯t see how it could be anything but generous.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think that¡¯s the case,¡± replied Harlow. ¡°Remember the lecture I gave? What we know about them is just as limited as what they know about us. At multiple points, we had to sit down and make assumptions, or brute force a piece into place.¡± ¡°What are you assuming they¡¯re assuming, then?¡± Asked Cavanaugh. ¡°We never showed them we can use this process. What we showed them is we could use a specific type of radio patterns. It took 40 years for that proof to get to them. Without considering the time it took them to create the message, then it¡¯s another 40 years on top of that to get back to us. Because I see meticulousness in them, I think they expected us to be past this point after 80 years.¡± ¡°Isn¡¯t that a bridge too far?¡± Questioned Cavanaugh. ¡°None of our physicists predicted something like this could be out there. Not 80 years ago, not 40, not last week. This is new territory. We¡¯ll have to change our models to account for this. Can you assume a breakthrough like this if you¡¯re being meticulous?¡± ¡°They could¡¯ve misjudged based on their own history.¡± ¡°We¡¯d have to assume that. So far, you¡¯ve done all the work showing us this is a basic message anyone is meant to understand. The way I see it, they just handed us a phone so we could stop using snail mail.¡± Harlow let out a tired sigh. ¡°I don¡¯t know. I¡¯m just worried that¡­ under all the gift wrap, what we¡¯ve just opened is actually Pandora¡¯s box.¡± RE: The Signal It had been months since the government presented the message to the public. Lack of news had made the movers and shakers worried some other country was getting the upper hand. The UN had organized an international commission to continue the research. Russia and China followed the American example, alternating between helping everyone else and working on their own private project. News of the Benett Radio Process made waves around the globe. Along with it, the idea that this was a generous gift also spread like wildfire. A large part of the scientific community, both in the States and around the world, agreed with Harlow that this wasn¡¯t the end of the puzzle. The public, the military, and those less in the know rather liked the positive spin the news put on it, however. Most of them couldn¡¯t be blamed; the news of intelligent alien life had upset the stock market and angered many fundamentalist communities around the globe. Bombs had blown up over the matter. Promises of a friendly first contact could help smooth things over. But others, the military in particular, were just burying their heads in the sand. Easier to go on with things as they were before the signal arrived. Once the gift was out of the box, it didn¡¯t take long for some people to start talking about a response. At the very least, shouldn¡¯t we send them a thank-you card? It would only be polite since they gave us the means to do it. Someone at the UN was ready, because when the idea was proposed, Russia and China were sitting at the same table as the US. Neither of them wanted the West to control the narrative of what was being sent to these aliens, and the US didn¡¯t want either of them sending clandestine messages. With a Benett Radio Transmitter, every country and a lot of private corporations would have the ability to send their own reply. They could undermine one another, throw chaos and confusion into a very delicate political situation. It didn¡¯t take much for every UN member nation to agree to a very strict communication protocol on this matter. As the inventor of this new means of communication, Harlow was invited to talk at the UN general assembly on the matter. He nearly refused because he didn¡¯t believe in the benevolent gift narrative, but Morgan convinced him it might be better to voice that sentiment directly. And so he did, even if it didn¡¯t change the course of events in the end. Since a response seemed inevitable to him, he involved himself in the process to make sure humanity wasn¡¯t shooting itself in the foot. Maybe it was the mild paranoia that came with being well-versed in encryption. Maybe it was the spy movies finally rotting his brain. But Harlow was convinced that a response was the opposite of what humanity should do right now. He had mentioned Pandora¡¯s Box to Cavanaugh, and he thought the analogy was fitting. Who knew what could happen once they shouted ¡°We¡¯re here!¡± across the void? And if these aliens wouldn¡¯t be the ones that sealed humanity¡¯s fate, chances were they weren¡¯t alone in that dark jungle. Harlow refused to do nothing about it. After more months than it had taken his team to decipher the message, the response was ready. He crafted his message in the same style as the signal: he used the same two symbols to act as ones and zeroes, modulated it to a constant frequency equal to Euler¡¯s number, grouped everything in 12-bit groupings, started with a one-zero, and ended with a zero-zero. Instead of using the same ascending and descending orders of primes, he chose the next progression. Harlow thought this would conclusively show them humans had the brains to understand them. The meaningful contents of the message were harder to figure out. They couldn¡¯t just send a plain English ¡°Thank You¡±. And not just because the French would insist on a ¡°Merci¡± and the Russians on a ¡°§³§á§Ñ§ã§Ú§Ò§à¡± to go along with it. The aliens at the other end of the line would likely have as much trouble understanding Harlow as he had understanding them. So it had to be something more symbolic, yet simple. There were a couple of options, but Harlow steered the project towards something that had been done before: the atoms and molecules that made up human DNA had been encoded in the Arecibo Message in the past. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Everyone could put their reason as to why this would be the reply, which made objections few and far between. To Harlow though, the best reason was prudence. The information was already out in the void; better to not send anything new. * ¡°C¡¯mon Harlow,¡± said Morgan, standing in the lit doorway of the cryptographer¡¯s dark office. ¡°It¡¯s late. You keep going home late. And you¡¯re not even working on what you¡¯re supposed to.¡± Harlow hadn¡¯t realized how late it was already. He didn¡¯t get up and put on his coat. Instead, he just leaned over and turned on his desk lamp. ¡°Benett,¡± Morgan the friend was now Morgan the department head. ¡°You can¡¯t think straight and you¡¯re clearly not getting enough sleep. Give yourself a little rest. Go on vacation somewhere quiet, like¡ª¡± ¡°Quiet. That¡¯s what I think too. Shut off your radios. Be quiet. If you¡¯re quiet, and stay quiet, things will turn out good. Things will turn out One-Zero, you get me?¡± ¡°Harlow¡­ Are you okay, pal?¡± ¡°I keep coming back to the same idea.¡± He turned to his friend. ¡°All I have are assumptions based on a tenuous possibility we might share a meaning for zero. I don¡¯t have any proof, but I also can¡¯t give it up.¡± In the light of his desk lamp and the glow of his computer monitor, Harlow looked aged and ragged. Some of that would still be there in daylight, too. Despite that, Harlow¡¯s eyes were still sharp, with a solid mind behind them. There was nothing wrong with him, but just like the spies in the movies he watched, Harlow couldn¡¯t just let go when he still had pieces to fit into the puzzle. Morgan turned on the lights and took off his coat. ¡°There¡¯s been similar ideas floated around the project in the past. If you don¡¯t have any proof, what do you have to make it likely?¡± He asked, taking a seat opposite him. ¡°Why use an active symbol for a zero instead of just transmitting nothing? It¡¯s what we do, after all. But we also have problems with that in high noise environments.¡± ¡°Right,¡± Morgan followed his friend¡¯s thought. ¡°It would just pick up background radiation and that¡¯d make the message harder to detect and decipher. Sure.¡± Harlow let out a laugh that turned into a cough. ¡°We¡¯d be ripping our hair out trying to come up with what could¡¯ve been there but was lost or filtered out. And that makes me think they really want us to see those Zeroes, that it¡¯s an important part of the meaning.¡± ¡°The fade out isn¡¯t immediately followed by a One-Zero,¡± Harlow continued. ¡°There¡¯s thirty-four Zeroes before it. Emphasis? Logical pattern? Doesn¡¯t matter, they just didn¡¯t want us to miss it or misinterpret it. My hypothesis is it should be read as: full power, two-thirds, one-third, no power, no power, no power.¡± ¡°And the One-Zero?¡± Asked Morgan. ¡°It could mean ¡®positive¡¯. It could mean they¡¯ll send another message if we comply. It could mean we just hear something. The precise meaning is likely lost to us, but it breaks up the sequence with their message opener, so I think it¡¯s meant to be positive.¡± ¡°That¡¯s in the realm of sociology. There¡¯s no convincing evidence that One-Zero is positive, neutral, or negative. How are you so convinced, Harlow?¡± Harlow took a moment to gather his thoughts. Half his process had been intuition, and he needed to get his thoughts into words. ¡°Because One is our signal,¡± he said. ¡°The proof we exist. Zero isn¡¯t even theirs, it¡¯s just a contrast to what they chose to use for One. Maybe ¡®positive¡¯ is a little far-fetched, but I think you could read it as something like ¡®In the silence, You remain.¡¯ As in us, humanity, Earth.¡± It was Morgan¡¯s turn to be quiet for a beat. ¡°Before we move on to the second series of Zeroes, what did you mean earlier by ¡®comply¡¯?¡± ¡°I¡ªI¡¯ve said it before. I don¡¯t think this message is a benevolent gift. That we didn¡¯t have this technology before was either chance, or a miscalculation on their part, or divergent evolution. The reason¡¯s not really important in the end.¡± Harlow paused. ¡°The five primes that led me to this technology could be interpreted as a symbol meaning radio or this specific type of radio. In which case, they¡¯re asking for or demanding radio silence, under the promise we¡¯ll remain¡ª.¡± ¡°Or the threat we won¡¯t,¡± Morgan concluded. ¡°I got to that interpretation with the help of the other series,¡± Harlow went on. ¡°Symbolic radio. No drop in power. A silence that is never broken by One-Zero.¡± ¡°I think you¡¯ve thought things through. I also think it¡¯s as pessimistic as it gets. You¡¯ll have a hard time convincing anyone important that not only we can¡¯t use this fantastic new technology, but we might also have to turn off every form of radio communication we have.¡± ¡°And guess what?¡± Asked Harlow with a wry smile. ¡°We just shouted back across the interstellar void at a group of people who just told us to ¡®keep quiet, or else¡¯.¡± Morgan sucked in air through clenched teeth. ¡°That¡¯s not a good first impression.¡± ¡°It¡¯s really not.¡± Harlow nodded empathically. ¡°We¡¯re both pretty old. What would your parents do if you shouted back at them after they told you to keep quiet?¡± The Son鈥擣inale Sean Benett aimed his rifle at the once-human creature that shambled towards him. The wind picked up the dust of the ruined city around him and scratched at the grotesque amalgamation of flesh and metal. His hands had stopped shaking a long time ago. This creature would try to immobilize him, but it wasn¡¯t particularly strong or agile. Its main purpose was to act as a sentinel, a surveillance drone. It had relayed Sean¡¯s position to a ship in orbit the moment it saw him. Killing the creature was of little consequence. He pulled the trigger and the organic side of the cyborg¡¯s skull exploded. The gunshot was still ringing, but Sean was already running for the first open doorway he saw. He needed a basement or a dark corner to hide in, but the destroyed building offered neither. Out the backdoor and into a taller and less stable building he went. Sean dashed to the elevator door at the end of the hall and pried it open. His luck hadn¡¯t fully abandoned him; the cables were still there, and he rode them down. A faint buzzing appeared in the lobby above him, almost like the sound of high-tension power lines or neon lights. It was barely audible above the sound of his pounding heart. But the survivor had heard it before. He loosened his grip on the cables to fall faster. More importantly, he kept his eyes down. He didn¡¯t look up at the iridescent light that slithered in through the opening above him. It went up instead of down, and coiled electromagnetic tendrils around the elevator cabin. The error created enough time for Sean to land at the bottom of the shaft and open a door to an underground car park. He ran to the closest car and smashed open a window. The thought of driving out never crossed his mind: it was impractical in a city and attracted too much attention. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. No, he just turned on the radio. It was a fairly recent model, an ultra-low power one that used Benett Radio Waves. As soon as it was on, he dashed over to the next vehicle. And the next. And the next one after that. He didn¡¯t stop to see whether the radios even turned on. He just moved as quickly as he could. When the buzzing became a deafening ringing in his skull, he changed course and headed for the mechanical room instead. He locked the door behind him, but he could see blinding light pierce the edges. A moment later, and he could see the light¡¯s source through the door. As blinding as the light was, he could make out the three-metre-long seed-shaped object at its centre. It sent out ripples as it glided through the air the same way a cube would leave a large wake moving through water. Light reached out from the metallic carapace towards the first car¡¯s radio. Sean couldn¡¯t blink, not that his eyelids would hide him from the creature at this stage. His neck strained to turn away, but, in a moment, the back of his skull wouldn¡¯t hide him either. He could still move his arms, though. Putting his hands over his eyes would work just as well as his eyelids. So he only had one option. He hit himself hard on the back of the head. His vision went black for a brief moment; his eyes lost focus. The door was opaque again. There was no time for celebration. Sean was still in danger; the light could still seep in. So, he made his way deeper into the dark room. His hands blindly searched for a better hiding spot. After a silent minute, he stumbled on a vent entrance close to the floor. He put a dust mask on and climbed in. Then he sealed the vent with his coat as best he could. When he had been in here for what felt like an eternity and his eyes didn¡¯t adjust to the dark, Sean finally let himself relax. The sound of his frantic heart cleared from his skull, and he could feel dried blood around his eyes and ears. The quiet gave him space to regret. Time and again he¡¯d told himself the city wasn¡¯t safe, that there wasn¡¯t anything here important enough to risk it. But he still let himself be convinced to hike from the mountains of Colorado to the Gulf of Mexico. John Cavanaugh had a bunker here. For what? Just because a ghost suddenly started broadcasting pure static¡­