They stare at each other. Prisha runs her fingers through her hair. “So let me get this straight. Voyager 1 is flying through space with a record album containing ‘Johnny B. Goode.’ The last time it communicated with us was six years ago. Now the song is being sent from Barnard’s Star six light-years away?”
Anil locks eyes with her. “You think there’s a connection?”
“Maybe someone found Voyager 1.”
“Intelligent beings?”
They sit silently.
Prisha gestures. “There must be an advanced civilization near Barnard’s Star. Are they trying to contact us?”
“What if six years ago, an extraterrestrial species discovered Voyager 1 and its golden disc. They cast a message to us and it’s taken six years for that signal to arrive here on Earth.”
“But why?”
He rubs his temples in frustration. The answers do not arrive. He goes back and streams the live transmission from Barnard’s Star. “Go, go, Go Johnny Go, Go, Go, Johnny, Go, Go, Go, Johnny B. Goode.” The track repeats on a loop every ninety seconds.
Prisha rubs her belly. “If someone out there discovered the golden disc, why did they pick this song? And why is it repeating?”
“Maybe it’s an acknowledgment that they found Voyager 1?”
“That’s a strange thing to send across the galaxy.”
“You think there’s more to the message?”
Prisha nods. “Yes. There has to be.”
Anil’s eyes widen. “Maybe they embedded something in the song?”
“You think so? How can you prove it?”
“I have an idea.” He opens an audio analyzer software and loads the radio signal. As “Johnny B. Goode” plays, the sound converts to spikes and waves on the screen.
Prisha shakes her head. “That looks like random noise. How can you possibly work with that?”
Anil stares at the data and sees a pattern with each repetition of the track. He hits “record” and saves the waveform as it plays.
Prisha points. “I wonder how that compares to the actual ‘Johnny B. Goode’?”
“Good question.” He downloads the original version and loads it into the audio analyzer, converting the music into lines and waves. He places the images of the songs next to each other.
“They look the same,” she says.
“By eye they do. Let’s see if the A.I. thinks so.” He runs an analysis. “I can subtract one wave from the other. If they’re identical, the result should be a flat line.” He loads the files into the tool and runs a function. The waves suddenly disappear and three spikes show up on the screen.
She leans forward. “What is that?”
“Whoa…” Anil looks closely. “It looks like the song from space is different from the Earth version.”
“You think there’s a message in those blips?”
Anil peers at the screen. “It seems unlikely.”
“Maybe it’s an error in your software.”
“There’s one way to find out. Bear with me.” He runs the live radio transmission from Barnard’s Star and records twenty plays of “Johnny B. Goode,” saving separate wave files and loading them in the spectrum analyzer. He then compares each audio file to the original one from Earth.
A pattern of spikes emerges.
Prisha’s jaw drops. “Wow, look at that!”
He points. “These three nodes show up at the same position in the track.”
“But they’re different from loop to loop…”
He gasps. “You’re right, Prisha. Good eye! The blips get smaller with each transmission.”
“…there’s a code in there.”
“You think so?” He stares. “It almost looks like there’s a unique three-letter signature in each cycle. If you look at the first 14 files, the first two blips remain constant but the third one changes.”
“I see,” Prisha says. “But look at the 15th file. Suddenly the second blip changes and remains the same for the rest of the sequence.”
“What does it mean?” Anil asks.
“Why don’t you create a letter for each blip?”
Anil’s brow relaxes. “Great idea.” He finds fourteen distinct spikes differing in size and ranks them from largest to smallest, designating them with a letter from A to N. He then writes out the code for the twenty consecutive loops.
ACA
ACB
ACC
ACD
ACE
ACF
ACG
ACH
ACI
ACJ
ACK
ACL
ACM
ACN
ADA
ADB
ADC
ADD
ADE
ADF
Shivers run down Anil’s back. “There’s a pattern in the noise.”
Prisha gasps. “Oh my God…”
“This is a countdown!”
“For what?”
“I don’t know, but I have to tell Dr. Sanders.”
6.
AUSTIN EXITS the Nob Hill Hyperloop station and shields himself from a strong wind. He paces down an outdoor walkway anchored to forty-fifth floor of the St. Francis skyscraper. As he walks, messages stream into his smartglasses.
“Austin, your Project Titan meeting is in ten minutes.”
“Cancel it, Isaac. I don’t feel like working.”
“Are you depressed? Your psychiatrist appointment is overdue.”
“Leave me alone.”
“There are other remedies for depression.”
“Be quiet! Disable my notifications for the rest of the day.”
A seagull glides overhead and dives below the overpass. Austin peers over the ledge and spots the streets of Nob Hill, a ten-block island district surrounded by the San Francisco Bay.
“Zoom in,” he tells his A.I. In his magnified view, he sees tents up and down California Street. A police drone hovers above a group of wandering vagrants and a pack of dogs scavenges in the distance.
“Isaac, navigate to 111 Polk Street.”
“Where are you going, Austin?”
“Never mind. Just take me there.”
A blue line appears in his field of view and highlights the passage, guiding him to his destination. He follows it into an elevator and takes it to the ground floor.
I need to escape.
A foul stench greets him in the lobby, growing as he walks toward the street. Outside, throngs of homeless people idle in encampments spanning the island. Needles and drug paraphernalia cover the sidewalk.
He follows the route past a pile of garbage and across a fractured concrete road, once a thoroughfare for motorized vehicles. He pauses in front of the Mark Hopkins hotel and glances at the remnants of a top-floor restaurant.
I had dinner with Olivia there years ago.
A police drone flies overhead. He lowers his head and walks a few blocks towards San Francisco Bay. Trash stretches from the shore to the neighboring island of Russian Hill. As winds pick up, he covers his nose with his sleeve and paces briskly along Polk Street, where he sees his destination—an abandoned three-story building.
Is that the pharmacy?
He approaches the complex; a homeless man sleeps near its entrance. A rat crawls from the rain gutter and darts into a wild lawn. Austin sneaks past the man to the front gate and finds it open.
Then he receives a phone call from unknown. “Reject the call,” Austin whispers, looking back to see if he awoke the homeless man. Seconds later, another call arrives.
It must be the CIA.
He switches his smartglasses to “do not disturb” mode. Immediately, a text message flashes in his field of view. “Dr. Sanders, it has been five days. We need the communications decoded ASAP.”