Chapter Two
“I don’t know, he just seems… different since school let out,” Eve Parker admitted as she spoke to her friend and neighbor, Patricia Cove.
“How so?” The blond asked curiously, “He’s always been a very bright boy, everyone knows that.”
Eve nodded, “I know, and I’m so very proud of him…”
“But?”
She sighed, “but he’s more driven than he’s ever been. His curiosity has always been flighty, bouncing from subject to subject so quickly it’s dizzying, but never focused for long on any one thing.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound bad?”
“It’s not bad, I just don’t know where it came from. He actually talked to Derrick Givens, did you know Derrick has a HAM operators license? I didn’t realize it myself.”
Pat shrugged, “Can’t say it’s ever come up.”
“Well Derrick got Seb the materials he needs to take the test for his own permit,” Eve said, sounding a little bewildered. “He’s been studying it intently ever since. I don’t know, I can’t even tell if I should be worried or not?”
“If nothing else is wrong, I think you’re ok, Eve,” Pat said comfortingly. “He’s always been well ahead of his age, everyone knows that. This is just that playing out. It'll be fine.”
“I suppose, it just happened so fast.”
“Kids are like that, bouncing along like superballs until they find their thing, then suddenly that’s all that matters to them,” Pat said, smiling tightly, “Ok, so most of the time for boys it’s after puberty when they discover girls, or sometimes cars, but it’s just a boy being a boy.”
“I guess you’re right. He made supper last night, you know?”
“Oh? How bad was it?”
“It was a stir fry, and better than anything I’ve managed,” Eve laughed. “Though he gave my heart palpitations more than once, what with needing to stand on a chair to get up to the Wok.”
“Where did he learn that?”
“Where else? A book he got from the library.”
“I don’t envy you the trouble he’s going to give you in a few years, but I will bet that it’ll never be boring,” Pat chuckled as Eve rolled her eyes.
“There is that, I guess.”
*****
Getting the equipment needed to connect his computer to Albert was basically a non-starter.
He didn’t have the money yet, and his mother had enough problems with the bills.
He’d told her to hold off on a graduation gift until they could get to a city with a decent computer store, but that would be a while.
In the meantime he had been able to set up the antennas needed for Albert to listen in to radio broadcasts while he was working on his transmitter license, which left him with little else to do during his days than write.
It’s been a long time, He thought as he sat in front of the Commodore and stared at the monitor with the ancient word processor loaded up.
Luckily he had a lot of ideas from the past couple decades that he’d not had the time, nor energy, to work on.
The keyboard isn’t bad. Old school mechanical keys, I remember paying good money for far less back in the day.
The software sucked, though not as bad as he had feared if he were honest. The basic functions were there, and he didn’t really need anything more.
It had been a couple decades since he’d done much typing, his old fingers made it hard to pound away at the keyboard, and Al usually handled that side of things anyway but it didn’t take long to remember how to ride this particular bike.
He started with some short stories, stuff he’d be able to print out and send off to various zines, both to get back into practice and because this far before the days of being able to efficiently self publish he knew that he’d have to get in through the gatekeepers at the big publishers to have a chance.
Best way to do that was to start building a name for himself that would be recognized later.
“Mein Herr.”
Seb looked around sharply, making sure that his mother wasn’t around, “What is it, Al?”
“I have completed decoding the currently active numbers stations.”
“Oh? Right, anything interesting?”
“Little. Some are likely legitimate CIA and KGB fronts, most seem to be little more than hobbyist games.”
“Not surprising.”
“There is one that stands out, however, Mein Herr.”
“What about it?” Seb asked as he continued to write. “Interesting coding?”
“The transmissions themselves are nonsense as best I can tell,” Albert informed him. “The true code is in the transmission timing. I have a historical match, from the enemy.”
Seb snapped his young head around, hands dropping from the keyboard, “What.”
“There is a historical match…”
“I got that, what match?”
“Early war communications intercept, transmitting on Cherenkov Frequencies…”
“There is no way in hell you’re picking up Cherenkov radiation,” Seb interrupted.
The VI paused, the silence dragging out for a moment.
“As I was saying, Mein Herr,” The VI returned testily, “there is a coding match to an early war communication cypher.”
“Did we break that one?”
“Yes.”
“Well what are they transmitting?” Seb asked, his mind awhirl. They were here this early?
That changed things, but for the price of his soul he didn’t know how much.
“It appears to be coordinates and a time vector.”
“Where and when?”
“May 12, last month. Off the coast of Brazil.”
Seb straightened up, confused, “Why would they broadcast about something that already happened? Actually, did anything happen in Brazil last May?”
“Indeed, Mein Herr, a large scale UFO sighting. I have records of the reports, but nothing actionable was ever discovered.”
Seb leaned forward, steepling his fingers as he thought about it.
“Seb! We’re going into town, come on get ready!”
“I’ll be right there, mom!”
He looked back to where he’d hidden the VI’s system components under some of his toys.
There’s a statement that just sounds wrong, isn’t it?
“Keep listening, and look for any others,” He told Al, “Run pattern recognition, look for anything we can use. Nothing to be done about it for now, but any data is useful data.”
“Jawohl, Mein Herr.”
“I swear you do that just to annoy me,” Seb grumbled. “Who spun up your core anyway?”
“That data is secured behind a timelock. Time to open… one hundred and twenty two years, three months, fifteen days, five hours, three minutes, and twenty eight seconds. Twenty seven seconds. Twenty…”
“Enough. Just map the data, Al. I’ll be back shortly.” Seb rolled his eyes as he tossed on a jacket on his way out of the house.
*****
Shopping in town was the sort of thing he’d once looked forward to. Living out in the boonies meant that each visit to a place with electronics, toys, and junk food was an event for a ten year old.
For Seb now, however, it was a chore.
Particularly with his mind whirling in thought over the revelation that Albert had dropped on him.
I never would have suspected that they’d found us this far back.
Most of the so-called UFO reports posted over the decades had clean official explanations, he knew because he’d had access to those files once the military had brought him in along with the others.
Once he had security clearance, one of his first moves had been to backtrack through old reports and look for anything that could show when and potentially how the invaders had found Earth.
UFO or, later, UAP reports tended to fall into a few common categories.
Civilians mistaking some known aircraft, classified or not, or people just interpreting video or photographs how they wanted despite clear evidence to the contrary were the most common. By a lot, but those were easily flagged and removed from the reports so he’d not wasted any time with those.
Uncommon meteorological events were less common, but still happened.
The so-called swamp gas, strange clouds, and various other natural phenomena.
These he’d had to slog through because while those reports were unlikely to be alien contact, it was often hard to rule entirely out because meteorological reports were never listed as one hundred percent unless official witnesses were present with enough experience to be certain.
Then there were the ones where the government reports just straight up admitted that they didn’t know. The phenomenon was probably natural, but nothing could be stated with certainty.
Those were the ones that he’d spent weeks digging through to little avail.
Now, however, he was wondering if he’d had full clearance after all.
If they’ve been here this long, someone had to spot something. It’s not like they ever showed any sign of cloaking devices or the like. RADAR absorbing materials and scrambling fields, sure, but nothing that blocked the good old eyeball mark one.
“Are you alright, Seb?”
Sebastian shook himself, looking over at his mother as she drove.
It had been so long since he’d spoken with her that he didn’t know where to begin. He had so many things to say, but most of them were absolute madness from her point of view. He’d lived… decades without her, and now didn’t know how he was supposed to live with her again.
Every time he looked at her, he felt the pain of the day she passed.
“Seb?”
“I… I’m fine, mom,” He said haltingly. “Just… thinking about stuff, you know.”
“Ah, stuff.” She smiled at him, “Earth shaking indeed.”
He forced a smile, “Yeah… I, uh, guess.”
“You’ve been on the computer a lot lately,” She said. “Not playing games either.”
Seb breathed out slowly, relaxing a little. This was safe enough territory.
“I’ve been writing, you know, stories?”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I like to read, so I figured I’d try writing some too.”
Eve Parker nodded, “Good for you. Budding author, then?”
“Maybe, we’ll see, I guess.”
“Right. Yeah, we’ll see,” She said, her voice dropping off as Eve focused fully on the road again.
Seb quietly stared at the glove compartment as they drove on.
*****
Seb was out of the truck even as it rolled to a stop amid the trees surrounding their driveway, grabbing the bits of wire, electronics, and other gear from Radio Shack that he’d managed to get his mother to buy for him.
He grabbed some of the groceries from the back, and beelined for the house with his arms filled with food and supplies such that his ten year old frame staggered step to step as he headed down the hill to the old home they called their own.
Once inside he dropped the groceries off in the kitchen and headed for the living room where the computer was set up before his mother could get in.
“I’m back Al,” He said quietly. “Did you find anything? Keep the volume low for now.”
“Volume adjusted, Mein Herr,” The VI responded softly. “The numbers station in question has not yet broadcast again, and scans for others using the same code are still running. One item of note, however. Operation El Dorado Canyon has a mission in play.”
Seb frowned, “I don’t know what that is.”
“Operations against Libya, following the bombing in Germany. Operations concluded in April.”
“And they have something going on now?” Seb asked quietly, listening as his mother came down the hall.
“Seb, what would you like for supper? Burgers or Chops?”
“Chops sound good, Mom!” He called over his shoulder before leaning back.
“Indeed,” Albert said. “Unusual, and not in my core records, but not all records survived or were considered worth entering into the VI training databases. However, this operation is in the same region as the Numbers station I was tracking.”
Seb leaned back, thinking furiously. He couldn’t exactly ask Albert to hack the military network, since in eighty six the idea of a mobile network, let alone anything resembling a battle-network was little more than a pipe dream.
“How are you tracking that?”
“The operation, or the location of the Numbers station?”
“Yes,” Seb said dryly.
“The soldiers are using an early spread spectrum communications system, not officially introduced before the early nineteen nineties,” Albert told him.
“Their cypher codes were in my database. They have been tracking the Numbers station in question and are preparing to assault it as part of ongoing operations.”
Seb leaned back, blinking.
Is the American government taking actions against the invaders this early? None of that was in my briefs… or are these poor soldiers about to run right into a trap they have no chance of understanding?
Either option was bad to his mind, since the latter would certainly get the soldiers in question killed quite messily. The former, however, meant that he was working even more blind than he’d previously believed.
“If they run into the invaders…” He said softly.
“They will certainly be killed.”
“Can we send a message? A warning?” Seb asked the VI.
“Any broadcast will be traceable, illegal, and certainly will attract very negative attention from the American authorities since we would have to break into a secure encrypted system that officially does not exist,” Albert warned him simply.
Seb leaned over, head falling into his hands as he rubbed fiercely at his face while thinking.
There has to be something… right? Or should I even… is this a good change to make? Should I leave it to happen? I don’t know…
He felt himself spiraling down that twisting descent into indecision, a familiar feeling.
Taking action would potentially disrupt events in ways he couldn’t predict, but could he predict any disruption?
Just his checking out different books and building Al a link to the antenna might have already spiraled things out of control.
Seb closed his eyes and, in a moment he was back in Cheyenne Mountain looking at the young mother and child.
No.
“Al, what about a compressed signal? We could send that without being traced, right?”
The VI was silent for a moment, “The soldiers’ systems do not have the capability to decode such a signal…”
Damn it.
“However, I could send an over the air update to their system’s firmware.”
Seb looked over slowly, “You can do that?”
“It is an exploit that was developed for the system in the early two thousands,” The VI explained.
“Ok, prepare the update and record a message for me,” Seb said, taking a breath. “We won’t send it right away. Follow the mission as best you can, Al… if they get in trouble, pulse the following message…”
*****