text: Chapter 1: “I’d like to thank all of you for joining us today at this event.” Nicolas looked across the large, bright atrium. The crowd gathered was sparse. It was mostly family members of the technicians who would be working at the facility, and a couple of locals. A smattering of press. There ought to be a whole hell of a lot more of you here, if you ask me, he thought. “As many of you know, the Democratic Republic of the Congo was once one of the poorest nations on Earth. The Climate Trials of the 21st and 22nd centuries badly affected the entire world. More than half the world’s population died in the famine and wars that followed. The sea levels rose and farming became all but impossible in the intense heat and droughts. The DRC was in the worst shape to withstand it. Many people died as what was once verdant lands became dry savannah. The jungle dried up, the heat became unbearable. Food could not be grown, even as people from the coastlines poured in to escape the rising sea. Famine lead to war - not just here in Kinshasa, but around the globe.” Nicolas looked around the room. The faces that looked back at him seemed bored. They knew all this already, he thought. But it’s important to remember. “But today, I’m here at the latest Advanced Elemental Reactor facility to help usher in a new day. The power generated here, as well as the elemental output, will help bring life back to the DRC. We can begin to build greenhouses to feed the people of Africa. We can build roads to bring them to market, hospitals for the sick, schools for the children, and we can build homes. No longer will the people of the DRC have to scramble to find shelter from the heat, or food from the parched soil. With the energy from the AER, and it’s associated elemental output, we can solve these problems, and bring stability, peace, abundance, and joy back to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.” Some scattered applause. Nicolas went on to introduce the technicians who would be working at the facility, struggling with some of the names. After the technicians were introduced and a few of the managers had spoken, the event was over. Nicolas mingled with a few of the people and press, admiring the clean white facility, with a vaulted ceiling and large windows. The press were doing some interviews and taking a few pictures, but soon he noticed that a couple of the reporters had their communicators up to their ears, then they quickly left the building and got into their transports. We certainly didn’t hold their attention for very long, he thought, but then his own communicator chimed in his pocket. He held it up to see his wife’s hologram floating just above the screen. “Have you heard?” she asked. He could see that she was breathless. “No, I’m still at the reactor in Kinshasa. Is Hugh ok?” “Yes, he’s fine. They’ve found something in space. It’s sending signals to us!” Her face showed excitement and fear. “What are you talking about?” He asked, trying to remain patient. Now he could see other people in the foyer looking at their communicators, some of them talking animatedly. “There is an object in space transmitting to us, and it’s moving into our solar system!” She laughed breathlessly. “What is it? Do they know?”, he asked. “No. But I want you to come home.” She said, the fear winning over the excitement in her voice. Chapter 2: “It’s not transmitting data, just sort of pings. Like a fog horn from a ship in white-out conditions.” The Mars Global Administrator looked up from his desk to look into the camera directly. “And it’s moving quickly into our solar system.” “Why would it just send out a meaningless signal? Why wouldn’t it say something?”, said the United Earth Nations president. “Is it close enough to see it?” He squinted at one of the screens, as if trying to spot the object. He was seated at a large table, with a panel of screens behind him. Each of them showed different images - some were scientists and speculators talking to the camera, others showed pictures of the orbital satellite that picked up the signals. A stern looking man with silver hair and a black uniform sat next to him, his hands folded on the table. He was looking at the camera which connected them to the office on Mars. “We have sent signals back at the same frequency, but the probe hasn’t responded or changed behavior. And no - we don’t have any telescopes pointed at it that can show what it looks like, though we plan to move them into position as soon as we have a clear line of sight.” The MGA shook his head. “We have no way of knowing what it is or what it wants without more information.” “We need someone to get a closer look at it.” President Knowles looked down at the image displayed on his desktop monitor. The black uniformed man sitting next to him glanced at him sharply. His voice was deep. “Sir, the people best suited for a task like that would be the military, and I would not authorize such a mission until an unmanned vehicle has been sent that can determine the safety of the object.” “Its current trajectory will have it pass between Jupiter and Saturn, and Mars’ current orbit means we’re the closest to it”, said the MGA. “We have a probe that was outfitted for a trip to Jupiter. We can fit whatever sensors and camera’s you’d like on it. We should have the time to retrofit it, change its telemetry and send it before the object passes us by. Then we can determine if a manned mission is safe and needed.” “That sounds good to me. Mike?” The president looked at the man seated next to him. “The cat is already out of the bag with this.” He looked annoyed. “So there’s no point in trying to keep this quiet.” He looked up at the image of the MGA. “But David, I’d like one of my men at the controls.” “I’m sure we can arrange for your personnel to be present”, David said. “Gentlemen, I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that this is the single biggest human discovery since Dr. F invented the Advanced Elemental Reactor. Let’s be cautious.” President Knowles leaned back in his chair and crossed him arms. “Mankind survived a global climate meltdown, and we’ve only just begun to recover. Us and the planet. I want to be absolutely certain that this thing doesn’t pose a danger to Earth or the Mars colonies. David, please inform us when you’ve prepped the probe and it’s ready to launch. I’m sure any change in the objects behavior will be reported immediately to myself and General Ding. Thank you.” He turned off the link and looked at the General. “I’d like there to be an explosive on that probe. I Want to be able to blast that whatever-it-is to hell if needed. I want you to handle that.” “I will see to it,” said General Ding. Chapter 3: Francis walked quickly through the corridor that linked the reactor housing with the Elemental Output Distillation facility. He walked quickly. Not for any particular reason, he just liked to look busy to anyone who might be wanting help with something. He was not high on the organizational chart - just a distillation monitoring technician. He was responsible for monitoring the containment of elements that came out of the AER to make sure they went into the correct storage facility for cooling and storage. He knew that even if he wasn’t there, most of the elements that were expelled by the AER would proceed into their designated containers even without his intervention by virtue of their density or mass. His was mostly an ancillary position. This suited him well. Not particularly ambitious, Francis, or Frankie, as he was known to his friends and family, was a tall young man with a slight hunch in his back. People wondered if this was because he was born on Mars and moved back to Earth to work for the Institute. He didn’t know. He was lucky enough to get a job at the famous Bern AER. This was the very first AER brought online. This was where Dr. F had discovered a way to improve on nuclear fusion so that no fuel was needed, and energy was continually produced along with a steady stream of elements. The importance of the discovery, and its transformative effect on humanity was not lost on Frankie. He sometimes would marvel at the change from the near-apocalyptic state of human affairs just 90 years ago to the near-utopian society he currently lived in. But, like many people of his generation, this was a passing notion, and he often took for granted the abundance he currently experienced. He rounded the corner to one of the several control/monitoring stations. There were 5 stations with chairs in front of them in this small alcove. Each had several viewscreens with data about the temperature and velocity of the elements as they streamed into the distillation chambers in gaseous form, and more data about the capacity of the various holding tanks for the elements as they cooled. The 5 technicians were intently focused on their screens. They did not acknowledge Frankie’s presence. “What’s going on, people?” Frankie asked, glad to see all the chairs occupied. Someone would surely have time for a chat. Without looking away from her screen, one of the technicians said “For some reason the flow of elemental output has sped up. The distillation chambers are filling up too quickly and we’re running out of room.” No chat today, it seemed. “Can’t we slow down the reactor?” Frankie asked. He was now staring at data on the viewscreens as well. Warnings were being displayed on most of them. “That’s what we’re trying to do”, said the woman. Frankie looked at her. Her hands were shaking. “So this is pretty serious.” He said it mostly to himself. He heard footsteps behind him. Three executive level administrators for the facility were walking down the corridor towards the bank of monitors. One of them pointed his finger at Frankie. Frankie recognized Administrator Brevlin, the head of the facility. “Get back to your station!” He said. Frankie hurried back to his desk. When he got to his desk he could see that the information displayed on his screens was beginning to look alarming as well. He watched his screens for a while, making small adjustments to settings when he thought it would help. He saw that some of the heavier elements’ containers were filling up. The flow of elements from the reactor chamber was being disrupted, causing heat buildup. There was little he could do except watch. He glanced out the 3rd story window where his desk sat. He saw people piling into busses, and he heard the old sirens that were used during the wars. This was a massive exodus of people from Bern. “If this buildup of materials continues, there won’t be enough time to get everyone out of danger. Eventually the heat will cause a meltdown.” He murmured this as he watched the busses congest the roads. There would be enough heat built up in the reactor chamber to cause a massive explosion - enough to level Bern and a good portion of the surrounding countryside. The flow of material needed to be stopped before the buildup became critical. An idea blinked into existence. “An escape!” He lunged across his desk and grabbed his communicator. “Administrator Brevlin! I’m going to go into the distillation chamber and open the emergency relief valve. That’ll give you time to slow the reaction.” He didn’t wait for a reply, but immediately ran towards the part of the building that housed the output regulators. This was where the elements were gathered before being piped to the silos. It was a dangerous part of the building - during normal operation of the reactor, this room was off limits due to heat. The emergency vent Francis intended to open was only installed here at the Bern facility, before people understood the AER reaction to be foolproof and completely safe. Frank ran to the large steel door that housed the chamber. He entered his access code and waited for the huge steel door to unlock. It did, and as it swung open, the heat wave that hit him was tremendous. He involuntarily held his hands up to shield his face. He took a few deep breaths and walked through the door. Chapter 4: Nicolas looked out his window at the sky. From his house’s position on the side of the mountain, he was able to see quite far, when the clouds permitted. He could almost see to the edge of the city of Banff, where this portion of Canada’s AER was housed in a semi-subterranean facility. He knew it well - he had spent a good portion of time there during his initial employment with the Institute. His home, as well as much of the buildings in Banff (and the globe) were built using the elemental run-off from the AER’s around the world. He heard a thump from inside the house. Then footsteps. His wife came out of their son’s room, holding Hugh, his face full of mischief. “Go see dad.” Maria carried Hugh to the edge of the living room and put Hugh down. He stood unsteadily for a moment, then toddled up to his father. “I’ll go clean up.” She walked back down the hall. Nicolas didn’t ask what she needed to clean up. He didn’t want to know. “Hey little fellow!” Nicolas held Hugh up, then cradled him in the crook of his arm. He had been in Africa for a couple weeks, meeting with AER Institute executives and local press people. He had missed Hugh and his wife deeply. Central Africa had been among the last regions on earth to get AER’s to supply power. He had been happy to be part of the effort to bring this transformative technology to a part of the planet that so badly needed it. While the earth was healing from the Climate Trials, outdoor agriculture was still a fruitless effort. It was simply too hot to grow many of the staple diets that man relied on. Huge greenhouses were needed grow crops. Without the cooling made possible with the power from the AER, mankind could not live above ground. “Can you believe this child will grow up already knowing that there is life somewhere out in the galaxy, Maria?” He smiled at Hugh and put their faces close together. Hugh grabbed Nicolas’ beard and babbled. “Can you believe he broke another vase? I thought materials from the reactors were supposed to be flawless.” Maria came out of the room she had been in, holding pieces of glass. “Not flawless, just pure. Besides, glass isn’t an element.” The beard grip Hugh had on him was substantial. He grimaced and attempted to dislodge Hugh’s hand from his face. “Thank you for elucidating,” Maria said wryly. She glanced at the tablet on the table near the hallway. “I’m still not convinced they should bring that thing back here. I know they tested it and everything, but it seems dangerous to bring an alien piece of technology that close.” Nicolas had freed his beard from Hugh’s grip, but now was trying to avoid his son’s waving arms. “Well, the orbit of Mars isn’t too close. They say there’s pictures all over the outside of it.” “A space faring postcard. These aliens are kind of low-rent.” Maria had picked up the tablet and was scrolling through it. “I agree. Did you hear that the material the thing is made of pretty primitive? They tested some of the metal from it, and it seems to have been made using pretty primitive techniques, and lots of impurities.” “Are you going to have to go to Bern to talk about the meltdown?” Nicolas felt his stomach tighten. “Not a meltdown. They want that made clear. Thanks to that kid, Frankie is his name I think, they managed to vent the discharge underground. And no, I don’t think they’ll need me there. They have a public relations staff there. They’ll all gather under that statue of Dr F and talk about how safe the AER technology is. Which it is. This was just a one-off anomaly.” “I’m sure you’re right.” Maria had put down the tablet and now stood in front of Nicolas, who was still holding Hugh. She leaned in and said “Sandwich hug!” and squeezed Hugh until all three of them were laughing. Chapter 5 “Of course we can’t be sure what any of it means. But it seems to be a reasonable guess that the pictograms are depicting a civilization’s technological advance.” Jerome indicated a section of images projected onto the large screen at the head of the room. “So nothing your team of linguists have discovered indicates that this object is a weapon, or is intended as a threat?” General Ding’s voice filled the large conference room. “Not at all. Judging by the radio transmission the object was emitting, and the amount of wear we have seen on the exterior of the object, it seems to have been floating in space for quite some time.” Dava, the Global Space Exploration Organization’s director, ran her fingers through her hair. “Also, the object seems to have been made with what I would describe as primitive techniques. There are many impurities in the metal, and its propulsion is a very early version of ion drive technology. We could build something more advanced than this.” The room was crowded with scientists and government officials from both Earth and Mars. There was a large conference table arranged in a U shape with images of the object projected on the adjacent wall. It looked like a grey-black pentagonal pyramid. There was no obvious front or back to it; no outstanding features at all. It spun silently, the small white colonies of Mars visible as the planet rotated in the background. Occasionally the screen would show a close up of the symbols etched into the entire surface of the object. “Any ideas about where this thing came from?” David, the Mars Global Administrator was slouching in his chair. The extra gravity on Earth was a strain on him, but his voice was steady. “All we can do is plot backwards from its trajectory when we first noticed it. There’s nothing of interest in that direction that we have detected yet, although we have telescopes pointed in the direction it came from to see if can pick anything up”, Dava said. “You said it seemed it seemed to have been out in space for a while. Any estimates as to how long?” General Ding asked. “Judging by the amount of power left in the plutonium fuel cell, and the amount of pitting from micrometeroid impacts, our best guess is three thousand to six thousand years.” Dava couldn’t keep the awe from her voice. There were whispers in the crowded conference hall. President Knowles looked up at the image displayed on the wall. “So what else can you tell us about the symbols on the object, Jerome?” “Yes sir. As I said, it seems that the images depict the development of their society. They start with an image of what we assume to a member of their species. It shows their numbers growing, then the development of gatherings, or cities.” He hesitated. “Sir, some of the people on the team think that a few of the pictograms show AER type technology.” More whispering erupted in the room. President Knowles raised his eyebrows. “How could that be?” He looked down the table at the officials gathered in the room. “We only just discovered its use recently.” Dava spoke up: “Sir I might be able to answer that. I think we can assume that, like prime numbers and other mathematical principles, physics has certain rules and constants that can any sufficiently advanced civilization will eventually come across. It’s only a matter of time, once the basics of chemistry and physics are understood, that the AER technology will be uncovered.” She looked at the other attendees before focusing again on the president. “I think we have a more interesting question. If the pictogram does indeed show AER technology, then why wasn’t the probe itself built with it? The object was not powered by an AER reactor, even though it wouldn’t have needed to be much larger to accommodate one. The materials used to build it are impure, which is why it shows the amount of damage to its surface that it does. If it had been built with AER generate elements, it would be almost impervious to the type of micrometeroid damage we see on the object.” “Why show what we consider to be the pinnacle of technology on your spacecraft and not make your interstellar spacecraft using that technology?” General Ding looked at Jerome. “What do the rest of the symbols show?” Jerome looked uncomfortable. “Well General, the symbols get more difficult to interpret after the pictures of an AER reactor. There are no images of what we thought were the aliens themselves, or any other images we saw elsewhere in the pictograms. Most of the room left on the craft’s surface was taken up by the pictograms showing the civilization before the pictograms showing the AER.” President Knowles stood up. Everyone in the room stood as well. “It seems to me that what we have here is a message in a bottle. I’d like everyone to continue their hard work to determine what they are trying to tell us. Thank you all for coming.” He headed out the conference room double doors, followed by a cadre of advisors. Chapter 6: Frankie and Doctor Brevlin stood at the foot of the statue of Dr F, in the courtyard of the campus for the Bern AER reactor facility and looked out at the people gathered there. The mayor of Bern was speaking to the assembled people, praising Doctor Brevlin and Frankie for their tremendous bravery and hard work that saved the city from a complete shutdown of the reactor. Frankie felt as though if there were any hero here, it was him. After all, he was the one with bandages on his hand. Plus, he noted that the mayor only talked about the danger of a reactor shutdown, not a meltdown. He thought this was an odd omission. He remembered the heat and the light when he had stepped into the distillation chamber. He had had the good sense to grab some safety gear from the closet near the reinforced door, but he had only grabbed a mask and coat, not gloves. He looked down at his bandaged hands and attempted to flex them. The doctors at the Bern hospital had said he could have them off in a few weeks. The 2nd degree burns would have healed by then. The mayor was wrapping up his speech. The statue provided some shade for Frankie. They were under a massive dome that covered the entire campus. Much of the city, and most cities in the world, were mostly covered with similar transparent domes, as the heat was much too intense. But the sunlight still streamed in. Frankie felt uncomfortably warm, and was glad to have the shade from the statue. Doctor Brevlin was talking about the safety of all AER reactors, and how they saved the world. Frankie resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He talked about how this very statue was built using the first elements to be discharged when the great Dr F brought the reactor online. Frankie definitely felt worse. He was getting hotter and hotter, and now he felt dizzy too. He felt as though the ground was spinning, and the felt like the statue loomed over him, Dr F’s coppery gaze like a malevolent force. He reached out a hand toward the statue to steady himself. When his bandaged hand made contact with the metal, he could feel the heat right through the wrapping. He pulled his hand back and felt someone grab him under his arms and his knees buckled. He started to fall forward, then vomited. He worried briefly if it would get on whomever was holding him. He looked up blearily, and could have sworn the statue was glowing. Chapter 7: Nicolas wasn’t panicking. He read the statements in the press about the statue of Dr F melting into a glowing hot mass of radiation, emitting a dose strong enough to kill Dr Brevlin, Frankie, and many of the bystanders. He, being an employee of the AER Institute, was privy to the internal memo’s showing that the materials harvested from the reactors were all becoming unstable, and would soon all melt into highly radiative isotopes, shooting high doses of radiation out in all directions. He knew that soon enough, the very walls of his house would start to do the same. Nicolas wasn’t panicking. He read with detached interest that the linguistic team had determined, to the best of their ability, that the markings on the outside of the object depicted a society that had become reliant on the AER technology. Whether they were forced into reliance on it, as humanity was, or whether it was simply too good of a resource to pass up was unclear. That they had discovered, utilized, and ultimately were destroyed by it was evident in the etchings. The objects purpose was to be a warning. A species soon to perish had used ancient technology in a last-ditch effort to warn anyone who might find the object not to do what Earth had been doing for almost a hundred years. The AER technology had saved mankind from a self-made disaster. It had held the frayed society back from the edge. Now it was going to destroy them all. An image appeared on his tablet. A mushroom cloud where the city of Bern had been. Reports of imminent meltdowns at reactors, in the order in which they were brought online. Soon the tablet lost all external feeds. Nicolas knew his wife was in their bedroom with Hugh. He walked slowly to them and laid on the bed, Hugh between himself and Marie. He held them both tightly. The window blinds stopped their slow waving in the breeze from the air conditioner. Nicolas didn’t panic. He knew that the power from Banff’s AER had stopped flowing, which is why the blinds no longer moved. He knew that power only stopped flowing in dire circumstances. He waited. His wife was crying. He reached out a hand and rubbed her shoulder. He thanked god that Hugh was asleep. When the intensely bright flash lit up their home, he covered his son’s eyes.