“You can’t give up, Austin. You have to find a solution.”
Austin shrugs. “We’ve tried. We’ll need a gamma-ray gun to heat the zirconium shield to 100 million degrees, but that kind of power source doesn’t exist.”
Beth grimaces and paces the room. “This isn’t the Austin Sanders I know. What happened to the guy who solved Project Bodi and designed the world’s first Augmented Reality smartglasses?”
“That was forty years ago… I forgot about that—”
“You were once a pioneer. What happened to you?”
He looks down. “I’m not sure.”
“You can’t seem to innovate anymore.”
He closes his eyes. “You’re right. I used to be a genius and I feel like a shadow of my former self.”
She stares callously. “You should retire, Austin.”
“What? No way!” He looks up with an irritated expression. “Beth, this isn’t our first failed investment. You can’t blame me for Project Titan.”
“Don’t you see the big picture? Without clean energy, nothing will stop the climate crisis. Fusion is our last hope. In a few years, most life on Earth will be gone. Just my luck to be at the helm of the world’s biggest company during Earth’s sixth mass extinction.”
2:32, 2:31, 2:30…
She shakes her head in defeat. “We should have stopped oil drilling decades ago, but human greed made it impossible to break our addiction. Now it’s too late. As methane levels climb, global warming will accelerate and collapse the planet’s ecosystem. By 2100, San Francisco will be completely under water…”
They stare at the television.
1:59, 1:58, 1:57…
The sounds of gunshots reverberate off the wall. Beth and Austin drop to the floor in panic. The screams outside intensify as protestors race through a cloud of tear gas and disperse from the area.
“This is insane,” Austin whispers as he points to the screen. “People have lost their minds.”
She turns up the volume. “Violence is escalating in major cities across North America as the countdown enters its final minute…”
24, 23, 22…
They sit in terror as the timer ticks away.
4, 3, 2…
Silence.
Beth and Austin stare at each other as protests die down. On television, the shouting gives way to an eerie stillness. Doomsdayers discard their placards and head back to their homes.
Through his smartglasses, Austin scans his social media feeds. “What happened?”
Beth stands. “We’re still here. So much for the end times.”
“Protestors are leaving the area,” the reporter on television says. “The countdown appears to be a hoax.”
Beth turns off the screen. “So much for your message from space. Looks like you misinterpreted the radio signal.”
Austin heaves a sigh. “This is so embarrassing. Everyone knows it came from my department.”
“The scenario seemed implausible from the outset. An encrypted song from Barnard’s Star? Sounds like science fiction to me.”
Austin chuckles nervously. “You’re right. Well, it’s back to Monday as usual.” He grabs his belongings and heads for the exit when suddenly his smartglasses buzz with an incoming call. He accepts.
His junior programmer appears in his view. “Dr. Sanders, this is Anil Anaya.”
Austin stops walking. “Beth, it’s my associate. He’s the one who decrypted the radio signal.”
“Put him on conference call. I’d like to talk with him.”
Austin beams the video call to the speakers in the office. “Good morning, Anil, you’re on with Beth and me.”
Anil hesitates. “…Dr. Andrews, it’s an honor to meet you…”
“Likewise.”
“Do you have a minute?” Anil pleads. “I wanted to share some findings we made.”
Austin’s eyes widen. “What have you found?”
Anil raises his fingers. “Three strange things happened a minute ago. I tracked the ‘Johnny B. Goode’ message from Barnard’s Star and it stopped playing.”
“The signal disappeared?” Austin asks.
“Yes, precisely at time zero.”
“What does that mean?”
“We don’t know, but there’s more. We just detected an enormous cosmic event from somewhere in the universe.”
Beth jolts upright. “What kind of event?”
“My wife will describe it better than I can. I’ll let her explain.”
A female voice comes on the line. “Hello, I’m Prisha Anaya, a senior scientist from JPL. I’ve been following the radio signal and found something interesting.”
“What have you discovered?” Austin asks.
“I built a real-time stream of all electromagnetic events coming from Barnard’s Star—gamma-ray bursts, cosmic rays, radio waves. When the countdown ended, nothing appeared from these sources. But then I noticed something unusual from the LIGO interferometer in Livingston, Louisiana.”
“LIGO?” Beth asks.
Prisha nods. “Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory. We just detected a massive gravity wave that spread through Earth. It’s the largest event ever recorded.”
Austin rubs his chin. “What’s a gravity wave?”
“It’s a form of energy originating from cosmic explosions like the collision of black holes. It travels across the universe as waves.”
“Waves of gravity?”
“Yes.”
Beth interrupts. “So let me get this straight. The message from Barnard’s Star ended with a historic event in space? That seems important.”
“Yes,” Prisha replies. “There’s no way it happened by chance.”
“What does it mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Beth paces the room. “What else did you find? You said there were three updates for us.”
Anil comes back on the line. “Yes, Dr. Andrews. About a minute after the gravity wave, something else happened…”
“What is it, Anil?” Austin asks.
“There’s a new countdown.”
“Another one?”
“Yes. This time it ends two weeks from now.”
Beth stares up at the sky. “Incredible.”
Austin tenses. “What’s going on?”
She looks at him. “Don’t you see? They’re trying to communicate with us.”
“What are they trying to tell us?”
“I think they want to help us.”
PART 2
9.
GARETH ALLEN adjusts the American flag pin on his lapel and stands tall in the White House Oval Office, staring into a row of cameras. Reporters line up as crews position microphones and test equipment.
The President’s spokesman enters the room. “Ten minutes till we go live.”
Gareth relaxes and glances around, noticing a portrait of the Statue of Liberty. He walks across the blue carpet and stares from a window at the Lincoln Memorial. In the distance, levees surround the nation’s capital, protecting it from the flooded Potomac River.
Someone taps his shoulder. “Gareth, debrief me.”
He turns and looks up at his boss, Stan Klein, director of the CIA. At 7’1”, Stan commands the room with broad shoulders and a shiny forehead that reflects the camera floodlights. His Adam’s apple protrudes as he talks. “What’s new on the northern front?”
Gareth spots the reporters and whispers. “The Russians abandoned four more oil platforms.”
“Where?”
“In Central Greenland behind the fortified line. Our forces are advancing north into the enemy’s territory.”
“Good.” Stan is expressionless. “Have the Marines seized the wells?”
Gareth leans closer. “Not yet. The operation is still underway. They’re approaching the factories cautiously in case they’re sabotaged.”