He had no idea how many hours had passed. In this situation, it was impossible to tell the passage of time.
He was getting tired.
Should he take a nap? But what if something happened? Should he stay alert?
He had checked the room numerous times, shouting in English, Spanish, and even the bit of French he knew. Heck, he had even used the couple of bad words his Indian friends had taught him. But there was nothing.
The room was absolutely perfect, not a single imperfection.
He was exhausted. Maybe he should just take a nap. If this was the work of a kidnapper, then so be it. There was nothing he could do.
His eyelids grew heavy, and he laid his face on the ground. Shifting to one side, he curled into the fetal position and fell asleep.
…
"Huh?" He slowly opened his eyelids, blinking at the ceiling. As he saw everything around him, the memory of his situation flooded back, breaking through his tiredness and bringing him fully awake.
The floor was hard and uncomfortable, pressing against his hip and shoulder. He groaned and rubbed his eyes, still disoriented. The room’s illumination hadn’t changed, but where did the light even come from? There were no windows, no visible bulbs or fixtures. Just an even, cold glow that made everything feel unnatural.
His neck was stiff from the awkward position he had slept in. He stretched, trying to shake off the discomfort, but it clung to him.
He stood up, feeling the ache in his joints, and looked around again. Nothing had changed. The white room was still perfect, still maddeningly flawless.
What should he do? Hunger and thirst were setting in, and the anxiety of not knowing if he would have access to food or water made the situation worse.
Then, he spotted something—a small, slightly shiny object lying in the middle of the room. His heart skipped a beat.
"Hello?" he called out, scanning the room, but there was nothing else. He waited for several seconds, receiving no response. Cautiously, he walked toward the object.
As he got closer, he started to discern it. It was... it was a knife.
image [https://i.imgur.com/EPU265m.png]
> May 14, 2024 - Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas
“So what did they say?” Chiara asked, looking at her colleague.
He sighed heavily and looked at her with a serious but tired expression. "It was the same: Roscosmos, ESOC, CNSA, JAXA, ISRO—they all detected the same signal."
"Unbelievable," she laughed as she let her back sink into the couch. "Well, this is getting interesting."
"They're all heated up about this. They checked all the sensors, and everything seems to be working fine. If it was a hack, it was by far the greatest ever."
"If it was?" Chiara said with a slight frown but a hidden spark in her eye.
"Well, the other strong option is that someone developed a technique to fool all of our sensors with a signal like that. And since the ASCII translated to English..."
"They're blaming us. Typical," Chiara interrupted. "And I think the higher-ups might even like the idea of bragging about something they don’t have or didn't do, as usual," she gazed at him. "So, what about you, Stephen? What do you think?"
Stephen calmly walked to the coffee machine, grabbed a cup, and selected the Latte option. The machine started to rattle as the coffee, milk, and water were poured.
"Someone, somewhere, discovered something they shouldn’t have, and we weren't prepared for that," he said, opening several sugar packets and pouring them one after another into his drink.
"I didn't know you had such a sweet tooth," Chiara smiled.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
"It helps in this line of work," he sat down and took a sip. "Especially for the upcoming days."
"Let’s say, just for the sake of it, that this message is not a hack and not a redirection sent by someone using whatever they did to actually reproduce the redshift effect from 2 billion light years away. Then what?" Chiara asked after a long silence.
Stephen looked at the ceiling of the office and closed his eyes. "Then we will be tested."
image [https://i.imgur.com/EPU265m.png]
A knife? A dagger?
Its design was simple, perfectly symmetric with a double-edged blade and a black, smooth hilt. Its design clearly suggested it was meant for combat.
It was rather long for a knife, possibly nearing the size of a shortsword. Or maybe it even was one. He had no idea.
He looked around again, his heart tensing. How did this knife appear here? Did someone place it silently while he slept?
The thought was alarming, and the sense that someone had crept in while he slept sent a wave of fear down his spine. But the main question was not how, but why? Why had they left this knife here?
After some contemplation, he crouched down and picked it up. It was heavier than he had expected.
He examined it, seeing his reflection in the blade. Everything appeared normal. Nothing had changed.
He toyed with the weapon for a bit, getting used to its weight and structure. He had never used a knife as a weapon in a fight, nor any other weapon for that matter. Would he have to use it soon? Should he get prepared?
The introduction of the knife added a troubling variable to his current situation. He had no idea whether it was good or bad, but if he had to bet, it was likely the latter. A weapon only had one purpose after all: to harm and, in most cases, to kill.
He stared at the knife in his hand. Its pointed end suggested it was suited for stabbing, while the sharp double edge indicated it could also be used for slashing.
Now the question was: what to do with the knife?
A part of him suspected this was some sort of psychological experiment. Perhaps he was a human subject in the research antics of an eccentric mad scientist with enough money and connections to conduct experiments that blatantly violated ethical regulations. But if that was the case, why him?
Sure, his dad had passed away and his mom was in a coma, but he still had family left. He was an active PhD student in Australia and had several friends there. Typically, test subjects for such experiments were chosen more carefully—people with the least amount of social connections, often from poorer countries or countries at war.
But if this wasn't an experiment, then what was it? Who had gone to such lengths for this?
Now that he thought about it, had his friend Pablo, the one who was hiking with him, also been taken? The odds were high. If so, this could be an experiment involving many people—or just the two of them.
His heart skipped a beat as dark scenarios played out in his mind. He looked around, worried that at any moment a door might open, revealing his friend holding a knife too. He had to stop himself. Dwelling on potential horrors would only mess with his head. He needed to stay focused.
There was, of course, another possible purpose for the knife. Maybe it wasn't meant to harm others at all. Perhaps … it was supposed to be used on himself.
image [https://i.imgur.com/EPU265m.png]
> May 22, 2024 - Geneva, Switzerland
"Thank you all for coming on such short notice." She stood at the head of the oval table in the sleek conference room, her gaze moving across the gathered representatives. "Let's get straight to the introductions. I'm Dr. Emily Carter from NASA. To my left is Dr. Hans Müller from the European Space Agency, General Sergey Ivanov from Roscosmos, Dr. Li Wei from the China National Space Administration, and Dr. Chiara Lin from the Johnson Space Center. We also have experts from various international space agencies and cybersecurity teams."
She paused, allowing the weight of the situation to sink in. "On May 13, at 21:32 UTC, an anomalous signal was detected simultaneously by space stations worldwide. The signal was strong and clear, with minimal noise and distortion, albeit presenting a red shift that suggested an origin beyond 2 billion light years away. The signal, after being filtered and decoded, revealed a Unicode sequence that translated to three English sentences. It read: You have been invited. The Tower will appear in 77 days. You will be tested."
General Sergey Ivanov's eyes narrowed. "So, what is everyone's take on this message? Is it a hack? Was it faked? Who could have sent it? I mean, let’s not joke around—a message from 2 billion light years away, received in English?"
After a moment of silence, a middle-aged man spoke up. "My name is Pasindu Patel, representing the UN Group of Government Experts on Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security. We have considered the possibility of a sophisticated hack, but the scale of it makes that unlikely. We have checked all the sensors everywhere, and there is no evidence of tampering. For reference, if it was indeed a hack, whoever did it would have the ability to destroy the local market or basically hack anything in the world right now. It makes no sense for them to target all the space stations just to send this message when they could have taken control of global communications directly."
“And what about faking the signal? What if someone, or some organization managed to reproduce a signal to fool our sensors, as it would have the characteristics of something sent from much farther away than what it really was?” Dr. Li Wei interjected.
"Theoretically, it's possible to fake the signal, but the complexity involved is staggering," Dr. Emily Carter intervened after a brief silence. "To create a signal with such a precise red shift indicating an origin 2 billion light years away would require technology far beyond our current capabilities. It would involve not just fooling our sensors but also accounting for cosmic background radiation, interstellar medium interference, and the precise energy signature consistent with such a distant origin."
“So, what’s left?” General Sergey Ivanov asked.
But no one answered.