by Nick Cook
It’s about time we had that rematch, so you have the chance to regain your dignity after my crushing defeat last time.
Steve hit return.
‘Is that all you’re going to say?’ I asked.
‘Think of this as fishing and waiting for a bite. I’m hoping it should be enough to trigger Anton’s curiosity.’
‘OK, but surely he won’t be thinking about playing a chess game if St Petersburg has been affected by this signal too?’
‘If they have been, then this is exactly what Anton will be doing. He’s something of a chess addict and it’s his way to mentally relax when he needs to think things through. Like I do with my yo-yo.’
‘It still sounds like a long shot to me.’
‘Maybe, but if our hunch is correct and this event is playing out across the world, then Anton will almost certainly be facing a similar situation to us. And if you follow that same line of logic, he’ll be trying to reach out to us too. So if the obvious lines of communication are off limits, what do you do?’
I smiled. ‘You dust down an ancient chess program hoping your opposite number will be thinking the same.’
‘Precisely, although the only problem is we don’t know how long it might take for Anton to respond, or even if he’s in a position to do so.’
I cast another nervous glance at the door and leant back in my seat. My gaze wandered across Steve’s computer desktop and I noticed the minimised movie on his taskbar.
‘Hey, what have you been watching, Steve?’
‘War of the Worlds – well, at least I was until all hell broke loose.’
‘The original 1950s version?’
‘Of course! Here I was thinking that you knew me.’
A beep came from Steve’s laptop and a reply appeared written in red.
Dear Steve, I’m always ready for a rematch!
Next to the message window, a chessboard in crude graphics was displayed. The white queen moved two squares up the board.
Your move, although be prepared to lose again…
Steve laughed. ‘Cheeky sod.’
He typed a response. It’s been too long, dear friend.
Tell me about it. However, I imagine the timing of you reaching out to me is more significant than simply wanting a chess game.
It is, but the first question is have you got company?
If by that you are asking if the eau de cologne favoured by Russian intelligence officers is somewhat overpowering at the moment, then you’re absolutely right.
I raised my eyebrows at Steve. ‘So their intelligence services are poring over their systems too.’
Steve started typing again. But I trust the scent isn’t too close at this particular moment?
Thankfully not. I’m currently hiding in the server room, hoping they don’t notice my absence for a while longer. So, we’d better be quick. I imagine you received the same incredibly powerful EHF signal that we did?
Yes, and it’s currently lighting up Lovell like an out-of-control Nikola Tesla experiment.
Da! Us too.
And that’s why we need to talk and quickly come up with a theory to explain what’s really going on.
One simple enough for even overzealous security personnel to comprehend, hey, dear friend?
Precisely!
‘So let’s see if we can get to the fine detail of this with Anton,’ I said. ‘Ask him for the precise moment when they first received the broadcast.’
Steve nodded and began typing. What time did you first receive the signal?
At 02.08 GMT.
‘Ours was earlier – at 02.07 GMT,’ I said. ‘As far as we know, we were the first to receive it.’
‘Then let’s see if we can confirm a few other details,’ Steve said.
What was the power of the signal?
In excess of 200 gigahertz. Incredibly the signal appears to be powering our systems despite the mains feed being cut to it.
Exactly the same is happening here. Although it appears Lovell was the first dish to capture the signal at 02.07 GMT before spreading out around the globe.
And are your authorities acting as paranoid as ours are? Anton asked.
Steve paused and gazed at me. ‘How much should I tell him?’
‘Everything, Steve. If he doesn’t know already, he needs to. He might be in a position to convince others, just like we hope to.’
He nodded. ‘An academic pincer movement might help, although this does feel as if we’re about to cross some sort of line.’
‘I think we crossed that line some time ago,’ I replied, then moved to the door and wedged a chair up beneath the handle.
Steve started typing again. Anton, I’m not sure if you know this, but the West believes this is some sort of Russian attack and a prelude for a full nuclear strike.
Oh my god. I was hoping that your authorities would be somewhat less paranoid than ours.
No such luck, my friend, Steve typed. The question is, have you any ideas about how we can stop them leaping over the edge and dragging the whole world with them?
Now that we can confirm both the systems in your country and the West have been affected, it must make a difference, surely?
My problem will be convincing them that this is the truth, Steve replied.
Da. Although we’re both taking huge risks, the alternative is far, far worse. I will do everything I can to cool the hotheads over here.
And we’ll do the same, my friend, Steve typed.
The door banged hard against the chair.
‘Open this bloody door before I kick it down!’ Kiera shouted from the other side.
‘Let’s just hope you’re wrong about the Wrath of Khan, Lauren,’ Steve said.
‘If not, I just want you to know that working with you has been the happiest time of my life.’
He threw me a small smile. ‘Always good to hear.’
I crossed to the door, took a breath and pulled the chair out.
The door flew open at once and Kiera barged in, her pistol already aimed across the meeting-room table – directly at Steve. ‘Close that bloody laptop now! My team has just detected an unauthorised communication from this room. What the hell have you done, Steve?’
He shut the laptop and raised his hands. ‘I just took the initiative and reached out to someone,’ he replied, his voice calm.
Kiera glowered at him, leant across the meeting-room table and grabbed the laptop, yanking its Ethernet cable from the wall. ‘Just give me one good reason why I shouldn’t shoot you right now for being a traitor?’
My heart banged in my chest. I could read the fury in Kiera’s eyes and feared that she might actually shoot him. With cold sweat soaking my armpits, I stepped into her path and pulled the muzzle of her gun to my chest.
‘If you are going to shoot Steve, then you can shoot me as well because I helped him do this,’ I said.
‘Lauren, this is between me and Kiera,’ Steve said.
‘Wrong, it’s between all of us. Reaching out to the St Petersburg facility was always going to be the most sensible play.’
‘You did what?’ Kiera said. Her eyes became slits and her finger started to tighten on the trigger.
I breathed the slightly musty smell of the room and closed my eyes, bracing myself for a bullet to pierce my chest.
‘Why the hell are you aiming a weapon at one of my staff?’ Graham’s voice shouted.
I opened my eyes and looked past Kiera to see Graham in the doorway behind her.
‘I’m about to shoot these two for betraying their country.’
‘Will you bloody listen before going all Die Hard on us?’ I said. ‘Because of his bravery, Steve may have actually saved this whole stupid world of ours!’
Kiera squeezed her eyes shut, breathed out slowly and lowered her weapon a fraction. ‘You have precisely thirty seconds to convince me.’
Steve stood up. ‘I just spoke to my opposite number who runs the MERLIN radio telescope facility in St Petersburg.’<
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The tip of Kiera’s thumb tapped the stock of her gun. ‘I told you I was trying to get clearance for you to do exactly that.’
‘With all due respect each second counts and what Steve found out changes everything,’ I said.
Kiera gave Steve a weary look. ‘Go on then…’
‘It turns out that the St Petersburg radio telescope is being swamped right now too. If this is some sort of cyberattack designed to neutralise early-warning systems, it isn’t just the West that’s been affected.’
‘And you seriously expect me to believe that? What’s to say that your contact didn’t have a gun being held to his head as he spoke to you?’
Steve stared at her and then his shoulders fell. ‘Yes, that’s a possibility, but I’ve known him my entire professional career.’
Something that looked almost like sympathy crossed Kiera’s face for a moment. ‘It’s also a classic counter-intelligence technique. Wrap truth round a lie to help reinforce what we want to hear during a time like this.’
I stared at Steve. His face had become ashen. Had Anton been compromised? Was that it? But every instinct told me otherwise.
‘No, I’m sorry, but that doesn’t make any sense,’ I said.
‘Why not?’ Graham said. ‘As much as I admit it, Kiera does have a point.’
‘Because her version supports what amounts to a zero-sum game,’ I replied.
Kiera tilted her head to one side. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Regardless of who pulls the trigger first, nobody wins the prize in an all-out nuclear exchange. Everyone knows that.’
Graham nodded. ‘And the Russians have just as much to lose as we have.’
‘Which means the only logical explanation is that this phenomenon has nothing to do with Russia or the West,’ I said.
‘To me that still sounds as if you’re relying on hunches and prayers,’ Kiera replied.
‘And you’re also basing decisions on a bigger assumption that the Russians would be stupid enough to telegraph their intentions by taking out the West’s early-warning systems,’ I said. ‘That doesn’t sound like much of a military strategy to me.’
Kiera was about to respond when John pushed past Graham into the room.
‘There’s been another major development, Kiera,’ John said. He glanced at the gun in her hand. ‘And one that is probably relevant to the situation in here. The signal has stopped dead and that’s not all – it’s ceased across all our monitoring stations simultaneously, according to the communiqué from London we’ve just received. All our early-warning radar systems are back online and there is no sign of any enemy activity. The threat level has been reduced to DEFCON 4.’
‘You mean it’s over?’ I replied.
‘Nuclear war seems to be off the table for the moment,’ John replied.
We exchanged stunned glances and then Steve whooped. I threw my arms around him as he spun me around.
‘Oh thank god!’ Graham said.
John held up his hand. ‘However, we do have a new problem. The huge amounts of data that have been captured at the other receiving sites is now being downloaded on to the computers at this facility, and certainly not by us. We thought it was random data at first, but initial analysis indicates it’s actually code that’s been exposed to some sort of sophisticated fractal compression. It’s expanding and seems to be compiling itself into a single program at this facility.’
Graham nodded slowly. ‘Of course, data can appear like white noise unless you have the right key.’
‘A key that has somehow turned this program on within our own systems,’ I said.
‘But what sort of program are talking about here, John?’ Kiera asked.
‘We have no idea yet – it’s still compiling. However, Control have ordered us to begin Operation Digital Fortress to contain it before it finishes its compile.’
Kiera gave him a grim look. ‘Then do it.’
She strode out of the room after John and the three of us exchanged long glances.
‘Looks as if our execution is on hold – for now, at least,’ Steve finally said.
I turned to Graham. ‘And you might need to start dusting down this planet’s first contact protocols.’
Graham gave me an unreadable look that was anything other than surprised.
But Steve was gawping at me. ‘Seriously, Lauren?’
‘I think we have just eliminated every other possibility,’ I said with fresh excitement churning inside me.
Chapter Seven
We entered the control room to see Kiera and her team gathered around the large monitor watching a series of ones and zeros scrolling across the screen.
‘Is that binary code?’ Steve asked as we joined the group.
‘It appears to be,’ John replied. ‘But the really puzzling thing is, if it’s alien in origin, how can it be compatible with our own computer systems?’
‘So we’re really going there that this is from aliens?’
‘There was always a possibility it was an extraterrestrial signal,’ Kiera replied.
‘So why let the world be dragged to the edge of Armageddon if you thought there was a chance it wasn’t the Russians?’ I asked.
‘That had to be our default response in case it really was the opening move for a pre-emptive strike,’ Kiera replied. ‘Any hesitation on our part to take that threat seriously would have left us exposed in a worst-case scenario.’
‘We can talk about the rights and wrongs of that later,’ I replied. ‘However, why are you now seriously thinking this could be a first contact situation, especially when the power of the signal would suggest it’s coming from a local source?’
‘Because we’ve already received a signal sporting some of the same characteristics,’ Kiera replied. ‘Isn’t that right, Graham?’
Steve whirled round to face him. ‘What’s she talking about?’
Graham’s shoulders fell. ‘Can I brief them, Kiera?’
‘You can go ahead now that they’ve signed the Official Secrets Act.’
He gave us both a long look. ‘Six years ago, here at Jodrell Bank, we received a signal that our analysts believe may have been alien in origin, even though it appeared to come from a nearby source.’
I found myself gawping at him.
Steve was the first to find his voice. ‘If that’s true, why have we never heard anything about it, let alone the rest of the world?’
‘Let’s just say that a huge amount of pressure was applied to everyone who worked at the facility at that time to make sure it was never leaked,’ Graham replied, casting a razor-eyed look towards Kiera.
Steve growled. ‘God give me strength, Graham. It might have bloody helped tonight if you had started off by telling us that there was a signal before this one.’
‘That wasn’t my call.’
‘Graham’s right, because it was mine, and we’re telling you now,’ Kiera said.
‘So that’s why you’d already signed the Official Secrets Act,’ I realised.
Graham nodded.
Steve looked between Graham and Kiera, clenching his fists so hard that his knuckles turned white.
I stepped in front of him in case he did something epically stupid. ‘OK, we can play the blame game later, but we have more urgent matters to deal with. Graham, was the original broadcast like this one?’
Graham glanced at Kiera.
‘Tell them everything,’ she said.
‘No, it was nothing like as powerful, and it certainly didn’t actively take over systems like this latest signal seems able to. It was also different in another key way. It was a distress signal transmitted in English and it contained a looped voice recording.’
My skin tingled. ‘What did it say?’
‘It was from a pilot called Angelique calling for assistance. According to the message, her ship, Athena, had been left drifting after some sort of battle.’
For a moment my mind scrabbled to process what Graham had just said.
Graham’s gaze skated away from Steve’s.
‘But when you say “ship”…?’ I asked.
Graham spread his hands wide. ‘A spaceship, a boat at sea, who knows? The one thing we can be certain of was that this signal didn’t originate from our world.’
Steve clenched his fists even harder. ‘So you’re telling us that we have had a bona fide first contact situation and the government has clamped down on that information ever since?’
Graham couldn’t meet Steve’s eyes. ‘Yes…’
Steve grabbed his yo-yo and started pacing up and down. ‘You bloody people.’
‘Your friend just did what he was told to do,’ Kiera said. ‘But as Lauren attempted to do a moment ago we need to move this conversation on. And to do this you have to understand the context. This latest signal has just been the most recent event in a series of contacts with alien species.’
My question came out as a whisper. ‘Species as in plural?’
Even Graham was looking surprised.
‘Yes, there have been multiple contacts, from UFO intercepts to direct interaction with non-terrestrial creatures,’ Kiera replied.
‘You mean that disbanded Pentagon UFO unit that released the video of F18 pilots chasing a weird spinning craft wasn’t just pursuing some top-secret military vehicle?’ I asked.
‘No, it was the real deal and just one of many encounters. Some of them have been far more extreme.’
Steve’s expression twisted. ‘So you’re telling us the UFO conspiracists have had it right all this time?’
‘Not all of them, but a few came very close to the truth. However, this latest signal, along with the original voice recording, doesn’t fall into the same category as the other encounters.’
Maybe I was dreaming all of this. Maybe I’d fallen asleep binging Netflix at home. I tried to keep my voice steady. ‘And that’s because?’
‘When our experts analysed the original voice signal through a process of triangulation with other receivers around the world, the signal appeared to originate at an altitude of two thousand feet over a small town in Oklahoma,’ Kiera replied. ‘However, when the US scrambled military jets to intercept the signal whilst it was still broadcasting, nothing was found at the coordinates.’
