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by Al Macy

  “Bob, you sent me another x-ray with the artifacts in it. Didn’t I tell you to stop using that machine?” A vein pulsed in Sachar’s neck.

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Sachar, but I did stop. Look.” Bob pointed to the machine that was not only shut down but was being examined by two technicians.

  “Well, the Reston film has the artifacts.”

  Bob stepped over to the desk and brought up the x-ray schedule on his screen. “Look here.” He pointed to a line on the screen. “Reston’s x-ray was done in room four.”

  Sachar stared at the screen for a few seconds then motioned for Marie to follow him and left without a word. Marie winked at Bob, an old friend, before leaving. Sachar walked the length of the hospital to the chief radiologist’s office. They entered to find his boss on the phone and three other radiologists in the room.

  “You seeing the lines too, Moulik?”

  Before he could answer, Dr. Harrington hung up and turned around. “Well, gentlemen—oh, Marie. How are you? What are you doing here?”

  Marie waved her hand dismissively. “Just getting a routine scan. Moulik showed me the lines. Please don’t let me interrupt.” Marie had worked at the center as an x-ray technician for twenty years in one of her “former lives,” as she called them. She was in for a follow-up breast x-ray.

  “Well, it’s good to see you. You know everyone except for Dr. Tong, here. He’s an MD-PhD postdoc on loan from MIT.”

  He turned to the others. “Folks, we’re not the only ones seeing these lines. I just spoke with the chief at County General, and they’ve got the same thing. Dr. Thomas called the CDC, and this thing is widespread. There’s nothing wrong with our machines.”

  “So?” asked Sachar.

  “So, we’ve got to continue working and ignore the lines for now. But I want to know what’s causing them. Are you guys seeing them on every x-ray?”

  “No.” Dr. Tong shook his head. “For some patients, the x-ray is clean. For patients with a series of x-rays, they’re either all clean or all … contaminated. But look at this …” He moved over to the viewer and brought up an x-ray that had been performed an hour earlier.

  Sachar whistled when it came up on the screen. While most of the problem scans showed three to five thin white lines across them, this one was covered with over a hundred lines at all different angles.

  Tong said, “I did a little experiment. I ran an exposure with this same patient, but I didn’t irradiate him. That is, I didn’t turn on the x-ray source, but I ran it as if I had. Here’s the result.” Tong switched to the next display, which showed a lot of the artifacts, as in the previous one but without the background of the normal x-ray image. “Instead of a chest x-ray with lines on it, what you see here is simply a dark field with lines on it.”

  “Whoa,”Sachar said. “So that means—”

  “The patient has an x-ray emitter in him. And in his case, he has twenty-seven emitters in his body.”

  “Twenty-seven? How do you figure that?” asked Harrington.

  Tong pointed to the screen. “Assuming that each set of parallel lines belongs to one emitter—”

  “Wait, why do you assume that?” asked Sachar.

  “Well, this is kooky, but I think each emitter is doing a scan around 360 degrees and then progressing downward, or upward, and doing another. Maybe in a spiral. Very fast. The parallel lines represent the different passes.”

  “That’s pretty wild, Tong.” Harrington stared at the screen.

  “You’re telling me. But anyway, in this patient I counted twenty-seven sets of parallel lines, suggesting there are that many different emitters in his body.”

  “These emitters would have to be sending out focused beams, like a laser beam.”

  “Right.” Tong nodded.

  Sachar turned from the screen to Tong. “That’s a cute idea, but you’ve got a big problem: if the patient has twenty-seven laser beam x-ray emitters in him, why don’t we see them?”

  “You’re not going to like the answer,” said Tong.

  “Try me.”

  “Each emitter is microscopic.”

  All the other doctors laughed. Marie did not. She was glad that her x-ray didn’t have any lines on it.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  June 8, 2018

  In the Mexico City headquarters of Corby Solutions, Jake arrived at his office following his daily five a.m. workout in the gym. It felt good to get back into shape. His year of not trying had taken a toll on his body, but he was making good progress at reviving his former self. At least that was a positive.

  The kidnapping case was going nowhere and Renata Perez was not holding up well. Jake had taken over her office, the same one he’d used when he had run the company.

  They’d had contact from a mole in the kidnapper’s organization, and Jake had told him they’d give him one million dollars and a new identity if he provided any information that helped free Sophia. But they’d heard nothing from him.

  The secretary came in. “Senor Corby, you are the big news today. On the front page.”

  He frowned. Me? He walked to his desk, and there was a copy of USA Now. His name was in the banner headline and an older photograph of him accompanied the story. He dropped into the chair and started reading.

  President Seeks Jake Corby, World’s Number One Problem-Solver

  USA Now has learned that President Hallstrom and his staff are seeking former government troubleshooter Jake Corby, who disappeared two years ago.

  Corby, if he is still alive, is forty-three years old. He joined the government as a clandestine operative and worked his way up the ranks. Mystery surrounds his career, but he seems to have been shared among our government’s most secret divisions.

  Ten years ago, he left to form a private company, Corby Solutions, but continued to work under contract to the federal government, a lucrative arrangement for Corby.

  A high-level source at the White House explained that Corby’s batting average when it came to solving unusual problems was ridiculously high. According to Charlotta Keller, President Hallstrom’s top adviser, “He always seemed to come up with a different way of looking at a problem. He could see through to the core of the difficulty.” Sources say Corby didn’t suffer fools gladly, causing friction, but that the president found him indispensable, and he was called in frequently.

  The article went on to describe his disappearance, and ask for the public’s help in locating him.

  World’s Number one problem-solver? Sheesh. Jake finished reading and tossed the paper into the trash. Well, if Hallstrom hadn’t already found me, that article certainly would have flushed me out.

  * * *

  June 8, 2018

  In the Ruby Mountain conference room, Charli sat with McGraw, puzzling over one of the drawings from the device plans that Cronkite had uploaded. Some plans made immediate sense while others were as confusing as an abstract painting. She admired McGraw’s enthusiasm for solving these puzzles.

  “And I have absolutely no idea what this device does,” McGraw said.

  They both looked up as Maddix Young came in and sat across from them.

  “Seth, I’m glad you’re here. This extraterrestrial stuff has caught me flat-footed. Can you bring me up to speed on SETI? Just a quick summary.”

  Charli put her tablet down. “You’re wondering, now that we know ETs are out there, why we hadn’t detected them.”

  “Yeah. Pretty much.”

  “Ready for the quick and dirty answer?” asked McGraw.

  “Ready,” said Young.

  “Okay, there are a few ways that we might discover an alien civilization. First, they notice our TV and radio signals, which leak out into space. When they see we are here, they send us a tightly beamed message to say, ‘We see you. You are not alone.’”

  “Is that likely?” Young asked.

  McGraw shook his head. “No. Here’s why. Even though there are billions of stars in the galaxy, most are too far away. Think about this: Radio
was first broadcast around 1910. Let’s say a planet with advanced beings is only seventy five light-years away, much closer than most. In the almost-impossible event that they did notice our first weak broadcasts, they wouldn’t have noticed until 1985.”

  “I’m starting to see the problem,” said Young.

  “Exactly. If in 1985 ET hops to it and sends a powerful signal right back to us, it would take another seventy-five years for us to receive it. It won’t get here until the year 2060.”

  “Okay, why can’t we just detect their TV transmissions?”

  “Those signals are just too weak. We don’t have equipment sensitive enough to detect them.”

  The president and Gordon Guccio bustled into the conference room. Charli checked her watch.

  Guccio raised his eyebrows and jerked his head back when he saw Charli. “Hey, what are you doing here?”

  She frowned. What’s going on? “What do you mean? Why wouldn’t I be here?”

  “Shouldn’t you be out looking for Bubble Boy?” It got a good laugh from everyone but Charli.

  The heat rose into her cheeks. Golubkhov’s prediction about seeing the man Charli loves in a bubble had gone viral within the bunker. “Very funny. I don’t know what made me share that with anyone. You know, maybe she meant ‘bubble-head’ and she was talking about you, Gordon.”

  Seth McGraw sang a few measures from the song “Tiny Bubbles.” It was so shocking and so out of character that everyone stopped and stared at him then burst into laughter. He had a pretty good voice, too. Young clapped him on the shoulder.

  “I swear,” Hallstrom said “that you guys all joined the government just for the laughs. Now you’ve even infected Seth. Can we pretend, for a second, that we are serious people running the strongest nation on earth, and that the human race is threatened?” He looked around. “Okay?”

  Hallstrom sat down. “Okay. We’re here to talk about the plans that Cronkite uploaded, see what Seth has figured out about them, and decide what to do. Seth?”

  “Right. Well, we knew that Cronkite’s civilization has learned our language, knows our history or they have some kind of universal translator. So it’s not a big surprise that he has access to our internet. The plans just appeared on WikiLeaks for anyone to see.”

  Guccio cut in, “We tried denying access to the site, to keep the plans private, but that wasn’t practical. The instant they appeared, they went viral. You can see them on sites like AlienPlans.org and MyFavoriteMartian.com.”

  Hallstrom said, “Stay serious, Gordon.”

  “No, that’s a real web site devoted to Cronkite. One of many,” he said. “We tried to control it, but it was a game of whack-a-mole. Shut down one, and another would pop up.”

  “Obviously, Cronkite intended to make them public,” Charli said. “That’s why he chose WikiLeaks.”

  “Right.” McGraw continued. “IBSR is handling the coordination of the scientists around the world, together with the International Association of Engineers.”

  Guccio said, “Hold on. IBSR?”

  McGraw looked at him. “Sorry. That’s the International Board of Scientific Research. The groups are insuring that there isn’t too much duplication of effort around the world. We have plans for over forty devices, and the boards are checking that everyone isn’t making a salad.”

  Everyone looked at him.

  “You know,” McGraw said, “when you go to a potluck, if it isn’t organized, everyone might make a salad, with no one bringing a dessert. The coordination insures that all the plans get looked at.”

  He continued. “So, back to the devices. The thing is, the plans themselves are hard to understand. You might expect each plan to start with some kind of description of what it is. ‘This is a plan for a transporter,’ or ‘This device is a raygun.” That’s not the case. And all the plans are different, like they are from totally different civilizations.” McGraw picked up his tablet to control the wall display.

  “For example, here’s an image from a plan that is clearly a space elevator.” McGraw displayed a view from space of a green planet with a cylinder that extended down to the surface. He pointed. “You can see a gondola here. By the way, this is a photograph of a completed project, not a drawing.” The next slide showed a line-drawing of a small device. “But here’s a plan for something that looks like a TV remote.”

  “What does it do?” asked Hallstrom.

  “No idea. Some plans come with a legend. Some of those legends include the periodic table of the elements. For this one, it’s immediately recognizable.” McGraw displayed the next slide, a chart just like one that might appear on the wall of a chemistry room, except that it was upside down and backwards. None of the symbols were recognizable. “But check out this one.” The next slide showed the elements as a complex spiral with three separate loops.

  McGraw turned off the image. “Because the plans are so different from one another, I’ve concluded that they were collected from a number of different alien civilizations.”

  “I’m missing something here,” Hallstrom said. “I don’t see how we can have enough in common with the designers that we could possibly build these plans.”

  “I understand, and for some devices you’re right, but some plans hold our hands and show us how to get started. Some of the plans are strictly software, by the way. But we’re working our way through them and hope to have some of the easier ones built soon.” McGraw put down his tablet.

  “Hold on.” Young held up a hand. “Isn’t there something we’re forgetting here?”

  Everyone looked at him.

  “Don’t we need to decide whether we’re going to build these or not? I hate to rain on your parade, but I see some negative outcomes here.”

  Guccio was nodding and the president asked, “Such as?”

  “Okay. Let’s say some aliens want to destroy us, but instead of sending troops they just give us these plans and say ‘Greetings Earthlings, here’s a plan for a magic can opener.’ We build it, and it causes a chain reaction that destroys the planet.”

  After a dramatic pause, Young went on. “Or maybe it’s a Trojan horse. We build a transporter and out pour interplanetary warriors.”

  “It’s good that you consider these things, but I have to say that you don’t know what you’re talking about here,” said McGraw.

  “And you do?”

  “These are issues that have been discussed in the SETI field for years. The main problem with your idea is that you don’t see the vast difference in our technology and theirs. They’re no more threatened by us than we are threatened by the ants in the grass.”

  “Then why does every hardware store carry ant killer?” Young crossed his arms.

  McGraw’s shoulders dropped. When it came to arguing, politicians were in a whole different league from scientists. Poor Seth.

  McGraw said, “The ants aren’t thirty or a hundred light years away with no ships to travel that distance. They can crawl right into our house. We’re not even on the aliens’ radar—” He bit that last sentence off, probably realizing his error.

  “I’d say we just appeared on their radar, literally. Plus, we have to consider the source. Does Cronkite seem like a friendly, intellectual alien ambassador to you? Do you see him as trustworthy?” Young gave a dismissive wave.

  Hallstrom put up both hands. “Okay guys, take a break here. Let’s not make it personal. This is an amazing opportunity, but perhaps Maddix has a point. Seth, if we can’t tell what a device does, can we at least decipher whether it is dangerous or not?”

  “Sometimes. Also, if we were to cap the energy available to a device it could be limited in the damage it could do.”

  Young was quick to pounce on that. “Unless it creates its own energy or pulls it out of the environment in a way we didn’t expect.”

  Charli leaned forward. “You guys are forgetting: those plans were uploaded to WikiLeaks, and they’ve been downloaded by tens of thousands of people. The cat is out of the tra
nsporter. If we don’t build them, someone else will. Better that we do it first or at least figure out what they are, before some nerdy teenager starts making them in his or her basement.”

  Young scoffed. “I can’t quite see a teenager using his erector set to build a space elevator.”

  “True, but maybe Russia or China will start building these on their own. Do you want to turn on the news and see Kim Jong Un displaying his new planet-scale electron disruptor beam?” Charli stared at him.

  Hallstrom stood up, signaling the end of the meeting. “Okay, let’s do this. Let’s charge ahead, but don’t hit the power switch without approval, okay, Seth? In the meantime, we’ll talk more about the dangers. I’ll continue to talk with the other world leaders on this.”

  McGraw stood up. “Speaking of nerdy teenagers, there’s a set of teenage twins who have an amazing ability in both language and machine design. I’d like to get them on the team, if we can ever get out of Ruby.”

  Hallstrom said, “The Carter twins?”

  McGraw’s eyes widened. “Yes. You know about them?”

  “I do, Jake told us about them, and we’ll have—”

  “Wait. Jake’s on the team?” Guccio said.

  “No, but he will be soon. Charli’s talked with him. We’ll be getting the Carter twins on board also. Okay, if there’s nothing else …” Hallstrom looked around the room, “meeting adjourned.”

  * * *

  June 8, 2018

  In Mexico City, Jake started to give up hope. He secretly believed all was lost, that Sophia was dead, her body dumped where it would never be found. But he was trying. Trying to stay positive. He told the others, “They’re just prolonging our agony to soften us up. We’ve seen that before.”

  Renata had sunk into a severe depression, and Jake spent hours trying to pull her out of it. He held her hand and talked of the years they’d worked together, and the surfing trips the four of them had taken to Baja, Mexico: Jake, Mary, Renata and her now-ex-husband, Pierre.