Granted a one-week extension by Professor Raymond, Jenny rushes off to tell Kate the good news and to get to work on decoding the signal.
University of Arizona, Tucson
September 2022
Dashing across campus, I rushed into the lab, slamming the door back on its hinges with a bang. My entrance startled Kate awake from dozing with her head-down on the desk, and she knocked over a small herd of almost empty Starbucks Americanos. She’d been living on cigarettes and caffeine for a couple of days—and nights—and I guess it had caught up with her.
“We got the extension. One extra week to wrap this up. I can’t believe he went for it. I suppose he’s not that hard-nosed after all.”
Kate rubbed her eyes to life and brushed her hair out of her face, pulling damp blonde strands out of her mouth. At the sight of the spilled coffee, she just waved her hands in confusion and spun her chair around.
“What did you say?”
“I said we got our extension. One extra week to figure this out.”
“Thank God. Finally, I can get some sleep.” Kate spun around and put her head back down on the desk.
I went over and lightly finger-combed some tangles out of her long hair, which, usually, she was obsessive about brushing. “OK. One night off, away from the lab, then we’ve got to get on this. We’ll clean up, get some rest, and plan our work.”
###
So, we’d taken a long night to recharge, even though my imagination had been running a mile a minute. We’d been working pretty steadily for a week, making good progress on our plan. Kate had pulled down a non-classified version of the AI she’d been building through her post-doc work for the university’s advanced intelligence research group and had set it up in an isolated processing environment. After all, we didn’t want the Feds coming down on us, plus Kate going to jail would not be good. We couldn’t be too careful.
Across the room, Kate stood and stretched. “We’re all set. Jessa’s up and running.”
I liked how Kate named her AIs. It was kind of cute, like they were friends. But I couldn’t always figure out where the names came from. “Jessa?”
“Sure. Jenny’s Saturn Signal Analyzer—Jessa. Comes from the Hebrew, ‘He Sees’.”
“Clever. OK, let’s get her something to analyze.”
I loaded up the first signal set where I picked up the contamination back in April. “Let’s focus Jessa on just the shorter bands, see what she comes up with. We’ll run an hour’s worth of data to start.”
While Jessa ran, Kate and I spent some quiet time. We’d been working non-stop together and didn’t have much to say, so we just sat and held hands.
The loud buzzing from Kate’s laptop broke the calmness of the moment, but we were both eager to see what Jessa had found.
Kate brought up the signal analysis and stared at the screen. With her eyebrows scrunched together, she started chewing a strand of hair as she does when she’s concentrating. “Well, this is strange. Jessa says the modulated signal is only in the 2.3 GHz, 13.04 cm band.”
“That is strange. That’s the Cassini S-band frequency.”
“And Jessa has classified it as a beacon.”
“A beacon? Where did that come from?”
“Well, Jessa’s based on my intercept and decryption AI, and I taught the original to designate short, repeating sequences as beacons.”
“What’s the sequence?”
Kate typed in some commands, and her laptop screen displayed some weird, spinning 3D objects in an ‘I’m working’ graphic. Kate snapped her fingers and jabbed at her screen. “Oh my God, Jenny. Jessa’s decrypted the message. You need to send this to Dr. Raymond. Right now.”
With the beacon’s message flashing on the screen, I composed a succinct email to Dr. Raymond and hit send. We’ll see how he likes that. I knew I was right.
In the meantime, Kate and I worked on backing up our data, adding cycles to the signals Jessa was analyzing, confirming our results, and wrapping our heads around the consequences of our discovery.
Exploding into the silence, the door to the lab flew open. A horde of men and women, some in dark suits and some in tactical gear, stormed in.
Kate launched herself out of her chair, knocking it over, and fled to the far corner of her work area. White-faced, she stood there hugging herself and shaking. I rushed to stand between Kate and the intruders, acting brave, ignoring the panic-sparked sweat that had broken out—everywhere. I just hoped my weakening knees didn’t give out. That would be embarrassing.
The tactical guys dispersed around the room’s perimeter looking tough, while the dark suits began shutting down and packing up our equipment, including Kate’s laptop with the flashing beacon.
An older woman in a severe, dark blue suit, clearly in charge, came forward and flashed some indecipherable credentials.
“Ms. Chandler, Dr. Watson, you need to come with me right now.”
Despite her work with the military, Kate was not one to take orders. Still hugging herself, she peeked around my shoulder to challenge the woman. “Just who the hell are you, and what makes you think I’m going anywhere?” Then she ducked back behind me. Classic Kate. I had to love her for it.
“Dr. Watson, you’re not under arrest. We’ve been monitoring your work for some time and an alert flashed when you copied that military AI last week. We’ll talk about that security breach later. Right now, we need to get you to a secure location.”
After what we had found, I wasn’t inclined to leave either. “Where are you taking us? You can’t just take all my equipment. I don’t work for the government.”
“It’s for your own safety. We aren’t the only ones who have been watching you. Trust me. There are organizations that won’t hesitate to use violence to keep your discovery secret. Come. Now. Please. I’ll explain on the way.”
With our equipment gone and there being enough dark suits and tough guys to force us to leave, compliance seemed the way to go. I reached back for Kate’s hand, flashed her my best “we’ll be fine” look, and followed the suits out with Kate in tow.
###
Dr. Carl Raymond saw the incoming email alert flash on his laptop. He opened the message from Jenny:
Carl,
We isolated the signal. It’s a message. From Saturn itself.
“We have been listening. Your probe injured a member of the collective. We learned to use it to send this message. Make no more attempts to invade our home. Do not land on our moons again. Respond.”
We need to talk.
He sat for a moment, staring at the message. So, it’s Carl now, is it? Cheeky girl, that Jenny. Brilliant, but cheeky.
With a deep breath and a sigh, he unlocked and opened the top drawer of his desk. Startled, he drew his hand back when the small phone rang as he reached to un-tape it from beneath the desktop. With a gulp, he reached back in, ripped off the tape, and pulled out the phone.
A click signaled he’d made the connection, his handler direct and unpleasant as usual. “I know they’ve decoded the signal.” He paused and listened. “Yes, I know they’ve been picked up.” The voice on the other end dripped condescension. “Of course, I’ve been making a copy of their work. I know how to do my job.” He listened again. A spike of fear made the heat rise up his neck, his armpits dampening his shirt. “Don’t pin that on me. You guys were supposed to block the Feds.” Another irritating harangue. “Don’t threaten me. My spot on the team is in my contract, and if you want this last piece, you’ll make it happen.” A calmer tone on the other end. “Fine. I’ll bring it to the usual drop point tomorrow.” A click and the connection was broken.
He sat staring at the phone, breathing slowly to calm himself, idly scrolling through Jenny’s results on his laptop as he considered the consequences of her discovery. So, the race has begun. Once his benefactor got this new data, getting to Mars would become even more urgent.
It constantly surprised him that NASA had been able to keep the warning from Jupiter quiet all these years since they crashed Galileo in ’03, a warning decoded in time to re-configure Juno’s orbit. And now that warning was repeating itself, this time from Saturn—‘STAY AWAY.’ But of course, we’ll ignore those warnings. And a base on Mars will bring the company one step closer to making direct contact. After all, why should NASA and the military control that contact?
For now, he’d package up what he had, meet his contact in the morning, and collect his substantial fee, another reminder that private enterprise was far more lucrative than academia, even if it required a little duplicity.
He’d worry about his conscience after he’d joined the first contact team.