Anomaly

by Peter Cawdron

  “The Laver Administration, here in Washington, is downplaying the incident, stating that Ambassador Carter has flown to London for security reasons and will return to Paris once law and order has been restored.”

  Teller had walked up beside Cathy. He too was alarmed by how little attention the news broadcast generated. No one cared. The work they were doing here was tearing the world apart, but no one seemed to notice.

  “Is it just me?” she asked.

  “No,” said Teller. “I see it too. We're getting tunnel vision.”

  Cathy moved slowly, aching. She yawned.

  “It sounds bad,” she said. “But I'm sick of caring. I just want the world to come to a halt, to stop the madness. Why is it like this? Does it have to be this way? Why can't we all get along?”

  Teller suspected she already knew the answer, but he said it anyway. “We've never been able to get along. The anomaly hasn't done anything other than expose the weaknesses that were always there.”

  Teller pointed at the screen, which was showing images of protests in South Africa.

  “They don't trust us because we're different. We don't trust them, because they're different. Oh, if only we could see how similar we all are.”

  Cathy rested her hand on his shoulder, saying, “If only we could see at all.” To which Teller laughed.

  Someone had got hold of an old couch, a couple of armchairs, and a walnut-stained coffee table from somewhere and had set them halfway between the NASA research trailer and the anomaly. A pair of binoculars, a copy of the New York Times and a couple of half-empty coffee cups sat on the worn, wooden table in front of the couch.

  “Now, this is what I'm talking about,” said Cathy, seeing the couch. “You go do your science thing. I'm going to have some me-time and unwind for a bit.”

  The couch hadn't aged well, with stains on the cushions and tears along the seams. Teller watched as Cathy slumped into the couch with a sigh. She leaned back, slouching, looking up at the anomaly, a vacant expression on her face.

  Teller was in two minds. Part of him felt numb from the events of the day. Part of him wanted to flop on the couch next to her, but not to talk, just to be near her. With all they'd been through, from the very first day, he felt a bond with Cathy. She was so different to him. Seeing her go through all the same things he had gave him another perspective, one that seemed more grounded than his own. That she'd propelled him through all this escaped his mind, and he saw only their common, shared experiences. But she needed some time alone to clear her head and recharge her batteries, so to speak. He figured he'd sit there at the other end of the couch and not say anything, perhaps have a cat nap, when he saw Anderson walking up to him.

  “Your timing is impeccable,” said Anderson, oblivious to all Teller and Cathy had been through. “We're making great progress. We just passed radium.”

  And with that, Teller found himself swept up in the anomaly research again. He lost himself in the science, talking passionately with Anderson and Bates.

  A row of monitors set up beneath the awning of the trailer displayed all kind of readings from the various instruments set up around the anomaly. None of them made any sense to Teller. They were plotting trends over time, noting the subtle changes when each new element was introduced, but what it all meant was lost on an elementary school teacher. Teller knew the graphs were probably telling the real scientists a great deal about the anomaly, but he'd rather turn around and watch the anomaly itself.

  After milling around for a while, talking to the contact team, Teller noticed Cathy again, still sitting there alone on the couch. He looked at his watch, it had been the best part of two hours since they had watched the vision of Paris in flames. Anderson was rushing from one group of scientists to the next, so Teller figured he'd stay out of his way and keep Cathy company.

  Sitting on the couch, they were less than twenty feet from the open pit carved out by the anomaly. Teller was surprised Mason had allowed even the scientists this close. If anyone fell into the broad hole, they'd fall up to the concrete intersection, wherever that may be as it rotated over the course of a day. It was as though they were sitting on top of a building with no railing along the edge. The view of the anomaly was awe-inspiring.

  “Are you OK?” he asked.

  Cathy nodded but didn't say anything. He held her hand. She responded to his touch, snuggling up against him for warmth.

  “It's a lot to take in, isn't it?” he added.

  “Yep,” was all she could muster in reply.

  They sat there in silence for a few minutes.

  She breathed deeply before saying, “It's not just the anomaly any more; the whole world is turning upside-down.”

  “Yeah,” was all Teller could manage in reply.

  “Why is all this so difficult for everyone to accept?”

  “I guess it's change,” said Teller, putting his arm around her. “We tend to get in a rut, in a rhythm. We expect life to unfold the same way, day after day. As boring as it may be, we feel comfortable with the mundane and routine. There's security in repetition, going off to work each morning, watching a soap opera at night, taking the dog for a walk on the weekend. And then, along comes a visitor from another planet, from another galaxy, and, well... there goes the neighborhood.”

  Cathy laughed. Teller laughed too. There was something about belittling such a radical, disruptive concept that meant if you didn't laugh, you'd cry.

  “You know the UN wants this thing?” she asked. “They're claiming jurisdiction over it. They claim we're illegally occupying the site.”

  “I don't understand politics,” Teller confessed. “It's never made sense to me.”

  “Me neither.”

  They chatted idly for a while before Cathy drifted off to sleep, snuggling up to him for warmth.

  Teller was sore, but it was nice having Cathy leaning against him as the cool of the evening settled around them. After watching the swarm of activity around the anomaly for a while he started dozing off as well.

  Bates walked up to them with two cups of hot chocolate.

  “Thought you two might like this,” he said. Cathy stirred with the sound of his voice. She smiled, accepting the warm cup of chocolate. It tasted nice, with a rich, milk froth on top.

  “Is this from the mess?” she asked.

  “They've brought in a barista,” said Bates, sitting down in one of the armchairs next to them. “I guess there's only so far you can push a bunch of civilians without decent coffee and some fancy hot chocolate.”

  “Yeah,” said Teller, taking a sip.

  “So, what do you think about our setup?” asked Bates, seeing Teller staring at the activity on the intersection above them.

  “I just don't know if I can ever get used to that,” said Teller, watching the core team walking around upside-down on the inverted concrete slab. For him, it was mind-bending to watch people climb down the scaffolding from his perspective, but up the scaffolding from their perspective. And the orientation of their bodies, with their hands lowest and their feet above them, it all seemed to lie, betraying the instinctive notion of up and down. He kept waiting for them to fall.

  “Yeah,” replied Bates. “I know what you mean. It's one thing to understand that the anomaly is stationary in its orientation, while we're moving, spinning around the Earth's axis, but it is another to see it that way. It feels like we're standing still and it's the one that's moving. How do you get your head around that?”

  “To be honest,” said Teller, “the anomaly does my head in.”

  Cathy almost choked on a mouth full of hot chocolate. She shot forward on the couch, turning to look at him, her hand poised to catch any drips of drink. “You're kidding, right? I thought it was just me! You guys are always so confident and assertive. I just figured I was the only one that felt intimidated by all this.”

  “Oh, no,” replied Teller. “Don't let the macho act fool you. And when it comes to what Anderson is doing now, well, I don't kno
w what half of these elements actually are. I couldn't spell any of their names.”

  “Me neither,” said Bates, leaning over the back of the couch.

  “If I ever get to name an element, I'd like to call it absurdium,” said Teller.

  “Ha,” cried Bates. “I like that.”

  “I'd call mine ignorantium,” joked Cathy, leaning back against Teller.

  “Mine would be have to be wackium, or ium-ium,” said Bates.

  Mason walked over with Anderson. Cathy sat up, feeling like she was doing something wrong by snuggling up to Teller. Mason swung a chair around and sat backwards on it, facing them as he straddled the chair back. Anderson sat on the arm of the other armchair while several other NASA scientists milled around, sitting on the coffee table or just standing in the background. Finch angled for the best shot.

  “So,” began Mason. “What do you think of our progress?”

  Teller looked up at the anomaly. He could see another injection process under way. Whatever substance they were up to in the Periodic Table was in the process of being dropped upwards from a canister ten feet above the center of the anomaly. The clump of silvery metal was roughly the size of a tennis ball. It floated for a second or two upon reaching the center of the anomaly before continuing up and into the catchment basket on the inverted concrete slab. Only, as it fell up toward the basket, it seemed to have a slightly different hue to it.

  “That was the Fermium drop,” said Anderson. “It's a fascinating process. The anomaly catches our offering, somehow adds a proton to all the atoms within that mass, converting it before our eyes into the next element in the periodic table, and then lets it fall through. So that would have been Mendelevium coming out the other side with the green tinge.”

  “Incredible,” said Teller, lost for words.

  “You should have seen the platinum drop,” said Anderson. “We released a one kilogram glistening silvery sphere only to watch a kilo of gold drop out the other side. There was more than one technician that wanted to see that one again. Astounding. Alchemy in action.”

  “So what's next?” asked Mason, looking at Anderson, Bates and Teller. “What kind of machine is this thing likely to build?”

  “No idea,” said Bates.

  “I can't think of any machine that would use all these elements,” replied Anderson.

  They looked at Teller.

  “You're asking me?” asked Teller, looking back at Mason. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  Teller corrected himself, pointing at Anderson and Bates, saying, “In fact, their guess is significantly better than mine. These guys understand the physics, they're operating on a whole other level to me.”

  “I don't know if we're going to be able to preempt the next step,” said Anderson. “We may just have to wait and see.”

  “Got any more helium balloons?” asked Bates. “Any ideas?”

  “Well,” said Teller, stalling for a second. He was sore and tired. He pushed his mind through a sense of lethargy. “Let's look at what it knows about us. It knows we're able to isolate a continuous string of periodic elements through to the heavy radioactive metals like uranium and plutonium. So it knows we're in the atomic age. It knows we have nanotech and can form buckyballs and sheets of graphine. So it must figure we've stumbled upon relativity and quantum mechanics, at least at a basic level, as without that knowledge we wouldn't be able to come up with these things.”

  Bates and Anderson nodded in agreement.

  “So we've passed Chemistry 101, probably not with an A+, but I think we would have been given a strong B. We certainly didn't flunk. It knows we're out of the dark ages and should be in the space age.”

  “So what's next?” asked Anderson. “You don't think it's going to get into advanced physics, string theory or anything like that? Astrophysics maybe? Astronomy?”

  “Too specialized,” suggested Teller, liking his thinking but realizing there were other possibilities. “I mean, this is just a guess, but I'd think it's going to branch out and establish a broader base of understanding before delving too deep on any one specialist subject. You've got to remember, we're still at the trading-beads-for-blankets stage at the moment. We've got to expand our shared scientific vocabulary before we can get into some of these other topics. Perhaps delve into some of the other fundamental concepts for life.”

  “So what?” asked Bates. “You're thinking biology?”

  “It's possible,” said Teller.

  “Really,” said Anderson. “Not a particle accelerator or something like that?”

  He seemed disappointed.

  “Hey,” said Teller, qualifying his comments. “I may be completely wrong on this. I was wrong on the whole Vega thing, so it wouldn't be the first time I've been wrong when it comes to this thing. But my guess is biology because any kind of mechanical device is going to be so far beyond our level of understanding it would be meaningless. And, picking up on the point Dr. Anderson made, it's the only thing that uses at least a majority of the lighter elements in the Periodic Table.”

  Mason looked intently, not saying a word.

  “Hey,” Teller continued. “It's just an idea. I mean, imagine trying to teach Archimedes how to build his own tablet computer. Imagine taking one apart and trying to explain to Plato or Aristotle what each of the components are, how they work, how they are built, and how they all fit together. And these guys were highly intelligent. I just think the anomaly's tech is going to be so far beyond us, we'd never get it. And besides ...”

  “Besides what?” asked Cathy, not wanting the thought to slip away.

  “I think it's curious about us. We've exchanged chemical elements. Elements make up molecules. Molecules make up DNA. DNA makes up life. It's here because we're alive. I think it's going to want to know what makes us tick. Remember, this isn't just about what we want from the anomaly. It has goals and objectives too. It's going to want to examine life on Earth.”

  “So what?” asked Mason. “We start dropping animals and people into the damn thing?”

  “Not quite,” replied Teller. “Just samples of their DNA. And we'll need to do it sequentially, traversing the phylogenetic tree of life. It's going to quickly work out the pattern of inheritance and link species together.”

  Bates groaned. “And I thought the periodic table was tough. Where the hell am I going to get sequential biological samples from? Good God, most of it's bacteria. Where do I start? At a zoo? At a university? At a garden nursery? For that matter, I could start in a garbage can.”

  Teller laughed, saying, “How about all of the above.”

  “And?” asked Mason, suspecting there were more ideas bouncing around in Teller's head.

  “And there will be another exchange.”

  There was silence.

  “Ah, what do you mean by that?” asked Mason.

  “I mean, it's whole premise of interaction has been based on exchange. It presented hydrogen, we responded with helium.”

  “So we give it some of our DNA,” said Bates.

  “And it gives us some of its DNA,” added Anderson. “Or whatever its equivalent is.”

  “Maybe,” said Teller. “It's just an idea. We'll find out soon enough. But I suspect it's not going to be interested in seeing our computers or electronics or any other kind of machinery. It's going to want to see what chemicals make us tick.”

  Mason's phone began vibrating. He looked at the caller ID.

  “Let me guess,” said Bates, knowing the President's Advisers would be watching the live broadcast along with everyone else. “Make sure he understands this is speculative. We could be way off base on this, but it makes sense.”

  “Tell him progress will be slow,” said Anderson. “It took us decades to decipher our own DNA. Anything the anomaly shows us could take decades to unravel and map out. Making sense of it could take even longer still.”

  “Yeah,” said Bates, agreeing with him. “I suspect the days of sensational news events are over. Now is
when the serious science begins.”

  “Absolutely,” said Teller. “And maybe once the anomaly has sat here for four or five years, slowly conversing with us about the mysteries of the universe, we'll finally figure out there's no reason to get all upset and feel threatened.”

  “Where's Charles Darwin when you need him?” asked Bates, to which Anderson and Teller smiled, appreciating the sentiment.

  Mason walked away, taking the phone call from the White House. Finch followed him with his camera, catching his every word.

  Chapter 15: Neptune

  “Did you say all that stuff about biology just to set the cat among the pigeons and get everyone out of your hair?” asked Cathy as the others had dispersed.

  “No, but that would have been a great idea,” laughed Teller.

  She leaned into him on the couch, while he slipped his hand around her shoulder. They both quietly appreciated how natural and comfortable it felt. The events of the past day seemed to fade like some distant dream.

  “You really think it's going to move from chemicals to biology?”

  “If I was setting up something like this, it's what I'd do next. After all, the whole reason for coming to Earth was to seek out intelligent life, so it must be intensely curious about us. It's at least as curious about us as we are about it, so yeah, I think cycling through the periodic table of elements was a prelude to the main event.”

  She rested her hand on his thigh.

  They chatted idly, watching the hive of activity on the inverted slab. It was almost directly overhead which meant it was getting close to midnight. Hundreds of feet above them, soldiers and workers moved around, their feet seemingly glued to the concrete slab. After a while, Cathy drifted back to sleep with her feet curled up on the couch. Teller leaned back, getting comfortable himself before drifting off to sleep wondering what they'd see next. Someone noticed the two of them asleep and covered them with a blanket.