McCartney Times

The Signal (Chapter 10)

The Signal had come from deep space.

Its origin had been tracked to a star system about 600 light-years away from Earth’s sun, in the constellation Cygnus.

The planet the sound emerged from was Kepler-22b.

(Kepler-22b is 2.4 times Earth’s size and, assuming its greenhouse effect is similar to Earth’s, has an estimated surface temperature of 72 degrees Fahrenheit (22 degrees Celsius.)

The signal had produced a strong readout. The Wow! Signal on the screen showed a strong spike in the graph similar to the one they had discovered way back in 1977.

‘Contact’ The signal had been confirmed by every astro-scientist from around the globe.

The Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder, 800 kilometers north of Perth…

‘This one is real’, they’ve sent the message’.

Commander Roderick Barnes pushed the print command on his console.

A matrix printer sprung to life.

‘Looks like the Singularity is here!’

‘We better answer.’

General Washington’s Headquarters

‘Status, commander!’

General Washington bellowed as he looked up at Commander Barnes.

‘Well sir, the situation is as follows.

As far as we can tell we have received a signal this morning and verified it.

However there was a disturbance in the frequency, so we did not pick up all of the encoding.’

‘Meaning?’ General Washington looked at him intently.

‘We don’t have the exact time of the invasion yet, sir.

The signal got compromised at the end.’

Barnes started to shift a bit. Just a bit.

‘Disciples!

Goddamn, Commander Barnes, get your best team together and hunt them down.

I don’t want anyone or anything to disturb the schedule of the invasion!’

Whatever it takes, commander. Whatever it takes!

‘Yes, sir!’

‘And Barnes?’

‘Yes Sir?’

‘One more thing. Today is a Singularity. Once we have gone through, we will gain in strength and intelligence. We will have power. We will have the high ground,’

‘Yes, Sir’ with that commander Barnes saluted the general and turned and walked out of the room.