“Secondary? What secondary? Are you sure?” Smith asked, audibly flustered.
“Source unknown. Type unknown. Signal strength one-point-two gigawatts. Frequency range covers the entire RF spectrum from three hertz to over three hundred gigahertz,” Rock said.
He could see Marge shaking her head as she sat down in her chair and turned to face her monitors. She was perhaps the only team member close enough to his console who could hear him well enough to know what he was doing. Rock often resorted to scientific jargon when he was frustrated with Smith, and it was a surefire way of getting the man to back down during showdowns similar to this one.
Smith sighed. “Can you put that in layman’s terms, Crandon?” This was Smith’s way of giving in and allowing Rock to do his job.
“Chief!” Lisa exclaimed, almost shouting. “Listen to this!” She leaned over and raised the volume on her external speaker while unplugging her earphones so that the radio signal reverberated off the large control center walls, despite their sound-dampening materials.
A loud series of beeps were coming through her speaker in a repetitious manner, clearly audible and clearly understood, much like Morse code. First three quick beeps and then a pause followed by four beeps, another pause, and then five beeps.
“Is that what I think it is?” Rock asked, ignoring Smith who was practically yelling into the phone, upset at being ignored.
“Yes, Richard, I listened to it completely at first. It will go to ten tones and then a triple pause with some sort of data spurt and then it starts over at one,” Lisa said, excitement in her voice.
“So what? The Chinese equipment rebooted to fail safe?” Jack asked, looking at Lisa.
“Oh my God…” Marge said, standing without ever removing her eyes from her monitor. She looked pale, and she had brought her hands to her face, covering her mouth, drawing her elbows in tight against her side. She seemed shaken.
“Marge, are you all right?” Rock asked, about ready to step around his own console to approach her.
Marge was galvanized into action, suddenly typing commands into her keyboard and then finally motioning to Rock. “Check the new data feed from console eighteen.” She never took her eyes off her monitor.
Rock refreshed his screen, replacing the prior RF feed from Lisa with the unmanned console information Marge had streamed his way. A blank screen appeared, and each time a tone was heard, the screen dazzled in light as if a thousand tiny sparks were lit and then died in a millisecond. The display kept pace with the repeating tone, constantly lighting up in cadence with each audible occurrence. At the top of the screen, Rock could see the display subject NEUTRINO looking at him in mock shock, daring him to believe.
“Marge… You fed me the stream from the New Mexico neutrino detector?” Rock asked, dropping the phone to the ground and placing both hands on his console counter, steadying himself as he felt his head getting lighter, the feeling of dizziness now pervading his senses.
“Ah huh,” Marge responded, also leaning now on her console.
“What the hell?” Jack said, but his words fell silent.
“Not possible.” Rock heard himself, so softly he could barely hear his own words.
Marge stood upright, gaining her composure, and finally tore her gaze away from her monitor to look at her colleagues. No need to look at Rock, he knew what the streaming feed of neutrinos meant.
“Source of the secondary signal is designated extra-terrestrial,” Marge said, her voice firm and her findings undeniable. The scientific part of her mind was finally grasping the significance of the data.
“Oh bloody hell,” Tom said.
Chapter 2
Executive Decisions
White House
Washington D.C.
In the near future, Day 2
Richard “Rock” Crandon stood in the hallway outside the large conference room located in the main building of the White House. He knew that passing through TSA security lines at the nation’s airports could be challenging, not to mention time-consuming, but his ordeal this morning made those security checks pale by comparison.
“Don’t use all that techno-jargon talk you’re so fond of,” Mr. Smith said, grabbing his suitcase from the conveyer belt and straightening his tie.
“Rock will be just fine, Mr. Smith. Try being a bit more diplomatic when you discuss our team’s findings,” Director John Lui said, stuffing a few more personal items into his pockets from the small white tray nearby.
Mr. Smith looked at Lui sideways but kept quiet. NASA was one of the few agencies that reported directly to the White House, not subject to a cabinet-level position or other bureaucratic department.
“Come with me, gentlemen,” a nameless administrator said, motioning for them to follow him into a nearby conference room. The room was larger than most that Rock had seen, and several people were already inside waiting for the president and staff to arrive. Rock checked his temporary identification badge, making sure it was secured and displayed properly. He didn’t fancy a misunderstanding with the Secret Service only a few months after the assassination attempt on the president’s life.
Another aide swung his hand, waving them to be seated at a rectangular table. Each of their names were stenciled in the finest calligraphic font by hand on cards placed in front of each seat on the table, indicating their assigned seats. The mere act of preparing for a presidential meeting was well orchestrated, and Rock thought this was very similar to a NASA operation.
Within seconds of sitting, several Secret Service agents entered the room from a different door and the president’s chief administrative aide called for everyone to rise. Rock stood and watched as the madam president entered, taking her seat at the center of a very long, wooden conference table.
“You may be seated,” the man said.
“This meeting is called to order. Let the minutes reflect the security level at Alpha-One.” Rock noticed a transcriber stationed in the far corner typing at a steno machine furiously, recording the meeting in distinct detail. The president swung her head to look at everyone seated at the table, even looking at Rock before finishing her sweep. Rock thought this was a formal courtesy until the president returned her gaze to look directly at him.
He felt a nudge under the table from Mr. Smith and then heard a slight whisper in his ear as the unruly man leaned closer to him. “No techno-babble.”
Rock felt anger again, but it was tempered by the fact that he was more than a little uncomfortable with the gaze of the president upon him. In fact, her gaze was quickly turning into a stare, and he wasn’t the only one to recognize this. He quickly forgot about his pesky, over-controlling handler as the president continued to look at him.
The woman was slight in stature, but her stern countenance commanded respect. Rock barely noticed the scars of surgery behind her left eye and above her left ear. He was sure the president would have received the highest level of medical care, to include plastic surgery, but there is only so much a skilled surgeon can do when a nine millimeter ricochets off of someone’s skull.
One Secret Service agent had died in the attack, and another was wounded. Rock remembered it well, and the anxious hours afterward as an entire nation, indeed the entire world, waited until news broke that the president was still alive and had suffered a fractured skull instead of the intrusion of a bullet into her cranial cavity. News reports had the would-be assassin as a Jihadist, but enough conspiracy theories circulated to cloud the facts of the attempt. What was important now was that she was alive and fully in command of the United States of America. Given the vice president’s track record, this was an actual relief to more than just the members of her own political party.