There is a knock at the door and her assistant Sara walks in. “Beth, there’s something urgent.”
“What is it?”
“I just received a subpoena from the government. They want you to appear before a federal judge.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that. Leave it on my desk.”
“I’m worried. Are you in trouble?”
“No. Don’t worry, our lawyers will take care of it.”
“My heart dropped when I saw it.”
“Listen, I will stand up to Washington. There’s nothing to fear. This is part of my job.”
Sara’s frown turns to a smile. “Okay, Beth, we know you’ll be fine.” She looks up. “Also, Austin Sanders is here to see you.”
“Bring him in.”
Austin nervously paces into the room. “You wanted to see me, boss?”
She grimaces and points to the television. “What the hell did you get us into?”
On the TV screen, a reporter stands in front of a throng of protestors, one of them shouting, “Google is the Devil!” It cuts away to a montage of large gatherings across the world. The countdown continues on the bottom of the screen.
32:01, 32:00, 31:59…
Austin laughs nervously. “This is all a big misunderstanding.”
Beth fumes in anger. “How about I fire you right now?”
“Let me explain—”
“The CIA is taking me to court for leaking sensitive data, and now people around the world think we’re hiding information about some catastrophic event. Can you explain what on Earth is going on?”
Austin motions. “Hear me out. A week ago, the CIA asked me to hack some Chinese communications from Mars. It turns out the CIA was wrong; the signal is actually from a nearby star.”
“I need a cocktail.” She rubs her face in her hands. “This is the strangest story I’ve heard. What is this mysterious code? Who sent it to us?”
“We’re not sure, but we think it’s a message from an intelligent species near Barnard’s Star. We don’t know what they’re trying to tell us.”
“Then why did you leak this story to the press?”
“I did not leak anything to anyone.”
“Why is everyone calling it the end times?”
He blushes. “I have no idea.”
She scowls. “Your story doesn’t add up. Why didn’t you call the CIA back and report your findings?”
He looks away. “We were busy on other projects. We’re certainly not hiding anything and I’m happy to prove that to you.”
Beth hears a commotion and walks to the window to find protestors congregating outside. “They’re making such a big deal out of this. I’ll bet your radio signal is just random space noise.”
Austin balks. “…well…”
“What?”
“…there’s more I didn’t tell you. The decrypted code is an old rock song, ‘Johnny B. Goode.’ It’s being transmitted across the Galaxy.”
She shrugs. “And?”
“The same track was carried on Voyager 1.”
“You mean the probe from the 1970s?”
“Yes. It has been flying through space for the last century. We think an intelligent species intercepted our spacecraft and broadcasted the song back to us with an embedded signal.”
“A countdown?”
“That’s right.”
Beth’s eyes widen. “Incredible…”
“What?”
She paces the room silently and then raises a finger. “Don’t you see? Someone in space communicated something intended for us. They want to get our attention.”
Austin’s crosses his arms. “You think they’re trying to tell us something?”
Beth walks to the window. “They probably discovered Voyager 1 and realized they have intelligent friends nearby.” She looks to the sky. “They’re trying to speak with us, Austin…”
“To say what?”
9:59, 9:58, 9:57…
She glances at the timer on the television. “I don’t know, but we’ll find out soon.”
The shouting outside crescendos. Beth spots protestors picketing and throwing rocks at the building. “Why are these people so angry at us?”
“They hate our success,” Austin says. “We’re the largest corporation in the world. It comes with the territory.”
Beth pauses. “That doesn’t explain it. Remember Amazon? They were the biggest monopoly of all time before the government split them up. There wasn’t this much hatred against Amazon.”
“You’re right.”
“For some reason, they think we’re holding something back from them.”
Austin cocks his head. “Well, did you read the Telegraph article this morning? It portrayed us like the Illuminati.”
“Who leaked the story to the press?”
“I don’t know, Beth. There must be someone out to get us.”
She nods. “I know a person who fits that profile—Manos Kharon.”
“GoldRock?”
“Yes. I bet they’re behind this. They’re trying to sabotage our business and change our operations.”
“But why?”
“To make money, I guess. Manos is a shady businessman. Whatever his intentions, he’s hell-bent on the Information Tariffs. We can’t allow GoldRock to take over.”
Austin crosses his arms. “We have to stop him. I’d like to handle this the old-fashioned way, with a punch in the face.”
“You can’t restrain a bully like Manos with violence.” She takes a deep breath. “If we fight back tit-for-tat, we will lose our way and defeat ourselves. There’s only one way to handle him.”
“How?”
“By innovating. Instead of violence, we must turn to compassion and win back the hearts and minds of our customers. We have to return to Google’s core mission and advance technology for the betterment of society.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Well, there’s one issue that threatens all life.”
“What’s that?”
“Climate change. The world’s sixth mass extinction is underway. We have to stop it before it’s too late.”
They jolt as a rock smashes into the window and ricochets off the bulletproof pane. Outside, protestors set fire to trash bins on the quad and hurl objects at police. On the television, an angry mob shouts at a reporter. Beth glances at the timer.
5:59, 5:58, 5:57…
She mutes the volume. “We can’t be distracted by this madness. The planet is on the brink of catastrophe, and the only solution is to end the use of fossil fuels immediately. That’s only possible with a powerful clean energy technology.”
“You’re right.”
She looks at him. “What’s happening with Project Titan?”
He sighs. “I was hoping you wouldn’t bring that up.”
“Why?”
“We haven’t made any progress.”
“None at all?” She grows sullen. “That’s not what I want to hear.”
“I’m sorry to say this, but the TransAtomic executives duped us. Their blueprints are garbage.”
“You’re kidding me.” She flushes and rubs her face with her palms. “That’s unacceptable. You must succeed. There is too much at stake.”
“Look, their nuclear reactor will never work. There is no way we can trigger the fusion reaction.”
“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 innova
te 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.”
“We need to get that black gold before the Russians set fire to it.”
Gareth raises a finger. “Not to worry. The beauty of EMP missiles is that they cripple all electrical activity within a half-mile radius. The Russians can’t set the oil ablaze even if they want to. We’ve paralyzed their operations. All they can do is run.”
Stan’s cold eyes look away. “EMP is the best weapon system we’ve acquired.”
“I agree. For $30M a pop, we can neutralize a city without killing anyone.”
“We must have this capability in space. Have we armed our spacecraft with EMP?”
“Yes. Three of our military rockets are equipped with the technology. We can destroy anything on the ground or in space.”
“Excellent.”
> Camera crews hold microphones over the President’s desk as reporters jockey for position. The room grows silent and the tension builds. Someone shouts, “Five minutes!”
Stan whispers to Gareth. “Listen, we need to roll out more EMP artillery. The President wants Greenland captured by the end of the year.”
“That’s not a lot of time, sir.”
“We have no choice. We must secure the oil and gas platforms on the southern dry land, then rally north into the frozen Russian territory.”
Gareth nods. “The good news is that the Greenland glaciers are rapidly disappearing.”
“How quickly?”
“About three miles of permafrost per week.”
Stan grins. “Excellent. We have to use the melting ice to our advantage and push north. We can’t allow the enemy to retake dry land.”
“By next year, most of Greenland will be arid. It’s the perfect time for this offensive.”
“How are the Russians responding?”
“The traditional way—rockets and artillery.
“Casualties?”
“Few thousand a day, nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Good,” Stan says as he buttons his coat, “what about oil prices?”
Gareth tenses. “Steadily rising as usual. It hit $89,210 per barrel today.”
“Rats, it should be going down! We’ve seized so much Russian oil the last few weeks. We’re practically flooding in crude.”
“You’re right, sir. The more we capture, the more our inventories grow, but for some reason the market ignores our supplies.”
“Explain that to me, Gareth.”
“Well, sir, geopolitical tensions keep prices artificially high. And there are also rumors of peak oil.”
Stan grimaces. “What’s that?”
“An idea that global fuel production peaked in 2042. The quality of fossil fuels continues to decline every year. We have to pump more to maintain stable reserves. That’s why prices go higher.”
Stan rolls his eyes. “That’s a liberal theory, Gareth.”
“Yes, it’s just a notion, sir.”
Gareth turns to see the President’s spokesman reenter the room. “Three minutes!”
Stan remains emotionless. “What about these rations? Why isn’t the lower demand bringing prices down?”
“I’m not sure. Last week we cut public transportation services by three percent and the market paid no attention.”
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