Anomaly

by Peter Cawdron

  Hearing this, Teller wasn't quite sure what to think.

  Cathy pretended to be talking to Teller about something else and not listening in on Mason's conversation, but she raised her eyebrows knowingly at Teller as Mason walked up behind him. Mason's hand landed on Teller's shoulder with a thump.

  “We'd like you to stick around a little, OK?”

  Teller went to say something in reply, like sure or thank you, but Mason had kept walking. An answer wasn't needed.

  Mason knelt down by his niece.

  “I got hold of your Mom,” he said, bending down beside her. “She's going to be home around eight, so we'll get one of the police officers to drop you off then.”

  Susan's eyes lit up at the prospect of a ride in a police car.

  “Can I turn on the siren?”

  “I don't know about that,” said Mason, rubbing her head fondly. “Hey, where'd you get that football?”

  Finch raised his hand. “Guilty, as charged. I found it in the trailer, behind one of the filing cabinets.”

  Susan tossed it to Mason and he tossed it back with a smile. She passed it to Teller.

  “Have you thought about ballistic trajectories?” asked Teller, passing the ball to Mason.

  Mason grinned, saying, “Are you thinking what I'm thinking?”

  “I sure am,” replied Teller. “All in the name of science.”

  “Your thoughts?” asked Mason, gripping the ball like a quarterback as he spoke to Dr Bates.

  “Well, I don't think it's going to be harmful or anything like that. I'd expect its arc to follow localized gravity, so as it passes through the anomaly it's going to fly sideways, falling toward the slab.”

  “Galileo would be proud,” joked Dr Anderson, recognizing the historical precedence for the simplest of experiments when it came to gravity.

  “Notice how the flags are rustling in the breeze,” added Bates. “The wind is already blowing through this thing without any adverse effects. I think we'll be fine.”

  “If anything,” said Dr Anderson, “a football is a good choice for our initial probe into the interior. It's low-tech so nothing can go wrong. It's aerodynamic and has a well understood trajectory. And it's brief. It'll give us some good metrics.”

  Teller liked the way they could rationalize something so childish and make it sound scientific, but they were right, it was a good, simple first step, and it was fun.

  Mason spoke into his radio. “Can you get one of those guys from the National Guard over on the south side to turn around? Tell him we're going to throw him a football.”

  The reply over the airways was one of surprise. The radio operator asked for confirmation.

  “It's OK,” Mason replied. “You heard correctly.”

  Teller laughed. “This is what I love about science. It can be fun if you want it to be.”

  Mason took off his suit jacket and draped it over one of the deck chairs. He loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves. It was humid, even with the sun setting. Sweat soaked his armpits.

  Together, the group walked over toward the anomaly. As he stood before it, Teller felt small, in awe of its size. The concrete slab that once made up the intersection, with its white lines marking the road, its curb and trash can, along with the tree and the traffic lights, were almost at a right-angle to the ground. They looked like some crazy advertisement raising awareness for some obscure conservation group trying to make the concrete jungle all the more jarring to the mind by displacing it and sticking it sideways on a billboard. Teller half expected to see a Greenpeace logo somewhere near the bottom right. The UN flags were hundreds of meters above him, floating effortlessly in the sky, waving in the breeze. The shattered remains of several floors from the State Department slid into the hole in the ground. The world had gone topsy-turvy, it was as though someone had handed the architecture of the city to Dr. Seuss.

  “Come on, Finch,” said Cathy joining in the moment, “this is history in the making, start the tape rolling.”

  “Absolutely,” said Mason. “Make sure you get a good shot of this. We've got to give your buddies on the news desk something for the late edition.”

  On the far side of the intersection, beyond the gaping hole in the ground, a soldier stood facing them. He yelled out, “I'm open.”

  “How far do you think that is?” asked Mason, turning to Teller.

  “Oh, I'd say it's around 40-50 yards. How good is your arm?”

  “It's good enough,” Mason replied with a wink. “And where should I throw this thing? On what angle do you think?”

  Teller liked being asked. Mason had a way of making the people around him feel important.

  “Bates is right. It's going to fall that way, toward the slab, over against the UN, so don't worry too much about height, you'll have plenty of height once the ball passes into the anomaly. But be sure to throw to the right and it should arc back to the left as it falls sideways toward the intersection.”

  “And you're sure this will be fine?” Mason asked, looking one last time at Dr Bates and Dr Anderson. They both nodded, grinning like school kids.

  Finch lined up so he could catch a side profile of the director throwing the football and then pan to follow the ball as it passed through the anomaly.

  Susan was excited. She was holding her balloon, jumping up and down, saying, “Do it, Uncle James. Do it.”

  Mason slapped the ball hard into his right hand, cocked his arm back, took a few steps and unleashed a Hail Mary pass, aiming for the spot Teller had pointed out.

  Deep inside, Finch wanted to see something spectacular as the ball passed into the anomaly, something like sparks or St Elmo's fire, but the ball sailed effortlessly through the air. Its arc changed, though, as it passed through the air space within the anomaly. Instead of following a curve toward the ground it held its height while curving to the left, falling toward the near vertical slab of concrete that once made up the busy intersection.

  Teller cheered, as did several of the scientists watching. It was silly, stupid really, he thought, but it brought out the sense of wonder in them all.

  “Kids,” said Cathy, winking at him and smiling.

  The ball passed out the far side of the air surrounding the anomaly and then dropped down toward the ground. The soldier had to run backwards to make the catch before yelling, “Touchdown.”

  They all laughed.

  Dr Anderson turned toward the NASA trailer, looking at the gaggle of scientists monitoring the anomaly and held his arms up in a gesture, posing the obvious question.

  “Nothing unusual here,” came the reply.

  “Throw it back,” yelled Mason across the pit. The soldier wound up, determined to do himself proud, and threw the ball back, but he didn't allow for the unusual dynamics of horizontal gravity within the anomaly. The ball arced to their left, falling sideways toward the concrete slab. It would have made it out the other side had it not struck the traffic light sticking out of the slab almost parallel with the Earth.

  Finch got a great shot of the ball bouncing sideways on the concrete slab as it rolled to within a few feet of the edge. It came to rest and sat there looking like it had been glued in place on a wall.

  “Oh, no,” Mason cried.

  “That was so much fun,” said Susan. “We should do that again.”

  “Sorry,” came the cry from the other side.

  Mason held his hand up in acknowledgment.

  Well, it would keep the journalists off their backs for a while, thought Teller, as they love a bit of unique footage, and the vision of that ball defying normal gravity was quite something to behold. Then a thought struck him.

  “Why don't we just go and get it?” he asked.

  “What? Go in there?” asked Dr Anderson. “Are you mad?”

  “No,” said Teller. “Think about it. This thing emits no radiation. It doesn't do anything other than turn over on itself. It should be perfectly safe.”

  “I can't let you do that,” said Mason.
“It's too risky.”

  “And this from the man that just played football with what could very well turn out to be an alien space craft,” replied Teller. “Think about it. What's the risk? We know there were people inside the anomaly when it first appeared. Both Cathy and Finch were in there. No one was harmed by it, except for a fender bender and a bit of flying glass. What could go wrong?”

  Cathy confirmed his point, saying, “We stepped in and out of the anomaly several times without noticing anything at all when the slab was close to the ground.”

  “But that was when it was aligned with the Earth,” replied Mason. “This is different.”

  “How?” asked Anderson. “Because it appears more sensational when it's up on a steep angle?”

  “In principle, it is still the same,” said Teller. “Think of it like climbing over the next door neighbor's fence to get your ball back. It's nothing more than that.”

  “Only your neighbor is The Thing from Outer Space,” joked Bates.

  “Can I have your balloon?” asked Teller, turning to Susan.

  “Sure,” she replied, handing it to him with a smile.

  Teller turned to Anderson and Mason, saying, “I'll use this as a reference point for gravity as it will always face up, pulling tight on its string. I'll be fine. It's only a big deal because we think it is a big deal. The reality is, the anomaly was completely stable on both instances where the football passed through it. And that slab probably weighs several hundred tons, so I'm hardly going to cause an imbalance. I'll be like a fly landing on an elephant.”

  As a group, they walked over toward the UN building as the slab of the intersection raised up before them like a wall. The sun was setting. Already, spotlights lit up the near vertical concrete intersection.

  “Bates?” asked Mason.

  “It's a Go from me,” he replied, holding his hand over his radio. He'd been talking intently with the NASA team back at the trailer.

  “Anderson?”

  “It's a Go from me too. I don't think we're going to see anything other than Teller switch between gravitational planes, just like the football did. There was no physical contortion or deformation of the ball, so I think he'll be fine. I think he'll simply find himself oriented to another plane.”

  Finch kept recording.

  Cathy stood beside Finch, whispering, “I can't believe they're serious about this. And they said we were irresponsible. So it looks like mankind's first interaction with an alien civilization is going to be as the result of a game of backyard football.”

  Finch laughed.

  Teller walked up to the edge of the slow moving slab with the balloon as the others stood back. Nice, he thought, there's nothing like people backing away from you for reassurance. It wasn't like he was going to get sucked in to some kind of vortex or something, now was it?

  The size of the slab was daunting, and he found himself wondering if this was such a good idea. But there was the football, less than ten feet away.

  He held out the balloon, allowing the breeze to catch it, watching as it drifted close to the anomaly. As the balloon passed into the imaginary sphere stretching out from the upturned intersection, it turned and pulled toward East 45 Street. Teller was pleased to see that the balloon didn't pop. It made the transition between different gravitational orientations with ease. This might actually work, he thought.

  Teller crouched as he approached the vertical mass of concrete, rock and dirt. He reached out with his hand, reaching through what he thought of as an invisible barrier, but there was nothing unusual. It felt no different at all. He touched the intersection on the other side. The road felt like a rough concrete wall.

  Teller knelt down and leaned inside the anomaly. Immediately, he had to put his hand out to stop himself from falling head first into the wall that was the slow moving intersection. Gravity sucks, he reminded himself. With both hands on the concrete, he climbed up and onto the slab, falling forward clumsily on his shoulder, but he was in.

  “You OK?” called Mason, already seeing he was fine.

  “Yeah, I'm good,” replied Teller, turning around and sitting inside the anomaly on the concrete.

  For a few seconds, he felt disoriented, a little dizzy. The world looked strange. He felt like he was sitting upright, with the balloon still pulling taut above him, but the rest of the world was now sideways. He stood up slowly, steadying himself. His inner ear was spinning slightly.

  “You guys look funny,” he called out.

  “You look pretty weird yourself,” replied Cathy, excited at seeing him standing sideways within the intersection. He looked like some bizarre kind of spiderman walking along a wall.

  “The whole world looks like it's falling over,” he said, walking over and picking up the football. “The buildings look like the under-hang of some giant, surreal cliff. And all you guys look like you should be falling down, skidding away.”

  “Hah,” cried Mason.

  “How does it feel to live your whole lives sideways?” Teller asked, trying to be funny.

  Susan was jumping up and down giggling with excitement.

  “How does gravity feel?” called out Dr Anderson.

  Teller jumped in the air a few times. Finch caught the motion on video. From where they were standing it looked like he was jumping out horizontally and flying back into what looked to be more of a concrete wall than a once bustling road.

  “Feels fine,” he said. “It's not like walking on the moon or anything. It feels normal. No different to walking on Earth.”

  Hmm, there's a thought, he realized, he was talking about the anomaly as though it were something that wasn't on Earth.

  Teller tossed the ball out of the anomaly and watched as it rolled along the ground on the other side. To him, it looked as though it was rolling up a wall.

  “OK, Neil Armstrong,” replied Mason. “I think we've had enough excitement for one day. Time to come home.”

  Teller looked at the balloon still pulling upwards on the string.

  “You said there was a concentration of hydrogen in the center of this thing?” he called out.

  “Yeah,” replied Dr Anderson.

  “I have an idea,” said Teller, turning away from them and walking toward the center of the circular slab.

  “What are you doing?” cried Mason. “Get back here.”

  “Just a moment,” replied Teller. “I have a simple experiment in mind. Watch closely. Hey, Bates, make sure the mass spectrometer is running.”

  “Teller,” yelled Mason, while Dr Bates talked frantically with the NASA team over the radio.

  Teller stood in the middle of the intersection. He was up on his tiptoes with the balloon stretched high above his head. He let go of the balloon and it sailed upwards from his perspective, sideways from their perspective. On reaching the center of the anomaly, it popped, bursting in a flash. The string, along with a few bits of rubber fell slowly back to the concrete slab beside him.

  Teller looked up. There, in the center of the anomaly, was a soft glowing sphere. He smiled. For Teller, at least, this was no longer an anomaly.

  Chapter 06: Pioneer

  “What the hell have you done?” cried Mason as Teller jumped down off the slab.

  Teller landed a little awkwardly, falling sideways and almost crashing into the ground. That was going to take some getting used to, he thought. He was so excited he barely realized Mason was angry with him. He looked up at the Director of National Security, saying, “What?”

  “What do you think you were doing in there?” Mason demanded again.

  “Saying hello,” replied Teller nonchalantly. He was more interested in what Bates and Anderson had to say. They were both on the radio.

  “So, is it lithium?” he asked.

  “It's lithium,” replied Anderson with a smile.

  “I knew it,” cried Teller, pumping his fist in the air. “We've made contact.”

  “What?” yelled Mason, but his phone was ringing. It was the
White House. He walked off to one side to take the call. Bates and Anderson started walking briskly back toward the main NASA observation trailer, Teller and the others raced to keep up.

  “What just happened?” asked Susan, seeing her teacher's excitement and becoming wrapped up in it herself, but not understanding why.

  “Yeah, what was all that about?” asked Cathy. Finch was still filming the soft glow at the heart of the anomaly as it lit up in the dim light of the early evening.

  Mason was back from his phone call. Whatever the president had to say it was short and sharp.

  “Teller,” he said. “Tell me you haven't done something stupid.”

  “On the contrary,” replied Bates, speaking on behalf of Teller. “I think our elementary school teacher has had a stroke of genius. We might actually have some answers for you and the President.”

  “Really?” replied Mason, not sure whether he was more curious, more angry, or more confused by what had just happened. Bates and Anderson already understood what was happening at the heart of the anomaly, as did several of the other NASA scientists. Finch made sure he was capturing the discussion on video.