Harry Van Trapp startled awake at 4am, half an hour before his usual time, to the sound of his Red Phone ringing. He listed it as his Red Phone on his internal company business cards not for the color, but for the connotations. As anachronistic as the image was, hell, almost nobody even had landlines anymore, everyone still knew exactly what a Red Phone was supposed to mean. The Red Phone line directed the caller to a landline in one of his seven homes around the globe, whichever one he happened to be in at the time, and it was only given to department directors or higher. Everyone who knew received it received it personally from Harry, and they knew if they dialed the Red Phone it had better be for something very damn important, or it would be their last phone call as an employee of Galaga Conglomerate, or any company for that matter. This call was directed to his modest mansion on the slope of Mount Tamalpais.
Harry rolled out of bed and padded over the Persian rug to the old fashioned push-button intercom on the bedroom wall, the only electronic device he allowed in any of his bedrooms.
“Who is it?” he asked.
The AI operator answered in a voice with a west coast accent, to let Harry know he was in his home on Mount Tamalpais, “Incoming call from Julian Cheng, at SETI Headquarters.”
Julian Cheng? What the hell is he calling me for? The director of the SETI division rarely had anything to say, even at Harry’s annual facility tour. Harry had acquired the non-profit mainly as a lark, but also because on the off chance that they did find something of interest, he wanted to be the first person of importance to know about it. When the aliens told SETI “Take me to your leader,” Harry would be the guy in charge, ready with a “Live long and prosper” hand jive. After 3 years of owning the outfit, Harry had almost forgotten he was in charge of it.
“Put him through in stereo.” Harry said, pushing open the door to his bedroom and walking out toward the second floor kitchen.
Julian’s clipped, accented voice came through speakers set in the ceiling at intervals, so that the sound followed Harry as he walked.
“Good morning Mr. Van Trapp.” Julian said. “I’m sorry to call you so early. This is Julian Cheng, at SETI. We have something you might want to see.”
“Okay, can you tell me why this merits a call to my home phone line?” Harry said as he opened the refrigerator for a bottle of cold brew coffee.
“No sir.”
Harry paused, cold brew in hand. “Excuse me?”
“Mr. Van Trapp, you said if I ever have to call your Red Phone number it had better be for something of the utmost importance.”
Those were not Harry’s exact words, but a more polite paraphrase. “Get to the point, Julian.”
“Sir, we have something you need to see, in person.”
Harry raised an eyebrow, grabbed another bottle of coffee from the fridge, and said, “I’m on my way. Julian, does anyone else know about this?”
“No sir. Just the overnight team here and myself.”
Harry kicked the fridge closed as he opened a bottle. “Julian, do you remember our conersation we had when I first promoted you? About what would happen if you allowed any sensitive info to leak out?”
“Yes, Mr. Van Trapp. I’ve gathered the team’s phones and restricted internet access.”
“Good. Very good.” Harry liked loyal employees. If this Julian Cheng wasn’t so prim and proper he might invite him up for dinner some time, if he didn’t have to fire him today, anyway.
Thanks to a brand new private electric helicopter and an ex-Navy pilot always kept on retainer, Harry arrived at SETI’s Mountain View office around 5:30. The April air was chilly in the morning dark, and he was glad he decided to suit up in worsted alpaca wool. Harry drained the last of his now warm bottle of coffee and handed it to Julian as he met him in the lobby.
Julian took the empty bottle with a puzzled expression, saying “I’ll show you to the analysis center.”
Harry nodded and followed as Julian badged through several security doors, noting the building still had fluorescent tube lighting, some of which were discolored and flickering, giving the hallways a dim, ramshackle feel that reminded him of the basement level of the liberal arts building in college, which he avoided like the plague unless he wanted a quiet place to take a dump on the way home from a late class in the business school. He would have to have someone talk to the chief of operations, this kind of aesthetic in one of his buildings was unacceptable, even if it was one he bought as a joke.
Julian began to brief him as they pounded the linoleum through the empty office building.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“The team found it around midnight while one of them was reviewing the last few months’ data. It seemed like it might have been some kind of interference, but they found a trace of it at regular intervals over the last 3 months.”
“What exactly is it they found in the data?” Harry asked as they neared a glass door.
Julian hesitated with his hand on the door handle and looked at his boss, both joy and profound worry written on his aging face, then badged open the door.
The pair entered a room where 3 people sat in office chairs playing Uno, two women and one man. They were all young compared to Harry and Julian, maybe late twenties or early thirties, and they all looked tired but nervous until their boss and some 60 year old guy who looked vaguely familiar and seriously important entered the room. Then they just looked nervous.
“Rebecca, Xijun, Henry, this is...my boss...our boss-”
“Harry Van Trapp. Just call me Harry, it’s faster. I hear you found something interesting.” Harry said.
The trio scrambled to clear the cards from the table, suddenly remembering where they had seen this well-dressed older gentleman with the salty hair and the salesman smile.
The young man, still holding a red 3 and a reverse, stood quickly and was the first to speak. “Uh, yes, yes sir, uh we found it, I mean, I found it around midnight. I was reviewing last night’s data collection from the LMA and found some anomalous edge interference, that, uh, well, it was really faint and just a sliver of data, so, uh, then I compared it to the previous month’s data and it matched, so then we decided maybe it was worth running it through SRP for flagging and-”
“Take a breath. Sit down, I’m not the damn President.” Actually I own three heads of state, but not in this country yet, Harry kept to himself. “Just tell me what you found, son.”
Henry looked to Julian for assistance when one of the young women, presumably Xijun by her looks, pushed up her glasses and said, “It’s a signal.”
Harry looked at her blankly in the silence. “A signal?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of signal?”
“We don’t know.” Julian cut in. “But it comes in pulses and seems to be aimed at the far side of the moon.”
“So you woke me up at 4am and brought me down here on my first full weekend off in two years to tell me you heard a spooky noise and you’re afraid of the dark?” Harry said.
“It’s not one of ours.” The other young woman, Rebecca, stated, her eyes downcast. “We don’t know what it is, but it’s not from...it’s not one of ours. The SRP, Signal Recognition Protocol, it recognized a repeating signal in the pulses, but it’s not congruent with any known pattern or emission source.”
“No signal from any SETI arrays, you mean. Not some sort of bounceback effect?” Harry asked.
The girl looked up at Julian.
“No signal from Earth, or any known object of Earth origin. Not the Mars builder bots, not the Europa drones, not even the Voyagers or Pioneer. We can’t pinpoint the direction exactly, but the signal cone is centered on the moon.” Julian said, nodding at the three “kids,” now all standing card-free.
The five stood in that room for some time, each trying to think of something useful to say. Finally Harry broke the ice with, “Where is your coffee machine?”
Rebecca nodded and pointed at the corner behind Julian, where a large Mr. Coffee stood guard next to a family size tub of Folgers and a stack of moderately clean mugs with the seals of various universities painted on the side. A yellow sticker on the coffee machine read “CAUTION! ROCKET FUEL. NO SMOKING!”
“Good. Make us a strong pot of that. Julian, men’s room?” Harry turned to exit. Julian started to tell him it was down the hall to the left, and Harry stopped him, saying, “Why don’t you show me yourself, I tend to get lost in my own buildings this early in the morning.” That was a lie, but he did need to take a leak, and he did need to talk with Julian about the three potential leaks now all moving toward the coffee machine in unison.
As the two older men left, Rebecca asked nobody in particular, “That guy owns the whole building?”
“I think he owns more than just this building, Bec.” Henry replied, popping open the Folgers container.
In the hallway Julian led Harry to the men’s room. Harry pushed open the door and beckoned Julian to follow him in. He then proceeded to a urinal stall and jerked his head to indicate Julian should join him. Julian, puzzled, took the stall next to Harry and pretended to do his business while Harry let loose. With the reassuring sound of trickling human juice, Harry whispered,
“Is this place clean?” His expression was unfamiliar to Julian. In every meeting, tour, conference, and video appearance Harry Van Trapp appeared to be calm, cool, cordial, and in control, the smoothest operator God ever ordained. This Harry seemed more like a mix of a paranoid tweaker and a giddy schoolboy who just figured out how to find pictures of boobies on the internet.
“Janitorial is pretty good about cleaning the restrooms twice a week.”
“No, I mean is this room monitored, bugged, any recording devices?”
“Not unless Henry is a bigger pervert than I thought.”
“Just so we’re clear, Julian, this is aliens, right? I mean, this signal is not of Earthly origin, that’s what they said, right?”
“We are scientists here, sir. All I can tell you is that our instruments picked up a signal of unknown origin that our best recognition software cannot identify.”
“Did you double check the Signal Recognizer thingy that kid was talking about? Maybe a bug in the system or something?”
“Yes, the Signal Recognition Program is working fine.”
Harry finished, zipped, and washed his hands. Julian also washed his hands, though he hadn’t done anything at the urinal but finger his keys in his pocket. While drying his hands, Harry’s usual calm demeanor returned. While straightening his tie in a mirror he turned on his smartwatch (he always kept it powered off until needed) and, placing an earbud into his ear, told it to call his legal team, or rather, just one lawyer, head of the legal department for Galaga North America. He lived just up the road in Woodside and was always ready to answer the call.
A groggy voice with a New England accent answered in Harry’s ear.
“Good morning, boss. Bob Parker here. To what do I owe the pleasure.” Harry always liked the way Bob spoke. It reminded him of his grandfather from Maine, and the guy from the old episodes of This Old House he would stream when he couldn’t sleep, the kind of guy who might pahk his cahr in Hahvud Yahd.
“Bob, I need you at the SETI office in Mountain View. Now. Bring the most restrictive NDA document you have for 5 employees.”
“Can do, boss. I’m about uh,” Bob yawned, “Mountain View, right, about half an hour.” Bob ended the call without a goodbye. That’s why Harry considered Bob as close to a friend as another human could get, as well as his personal lawyer and head of NA legal. The man knew when to keep his mouth shut and drive.
Twenty three minutes later the Mr. Coffee was dripping out the last drops of black gold into the almost comically large caraffe, and Bob’s new Polestar whirred into the parking lot in front of the lobby. Julian showed Bob through the doors to the little room where Harry, cool as a cucumber, continued to play Uno with the three bewildered night shift skywatchers.
“Julian, you play my hand,” Harry said, “and watch Rebecca, I think she’s cheating.” He handed his cards to Julian and smiled at the bespectacled Rebecca, whose face immediately turned redder than her dyed crimson hair. He then left the room and met Bob in the hall with his vice-like handshake and waited for the door to close securely before speaking.
“Bob, I need all four persons in there to sign NDAs, heavy duty ones, and you too, for everything they see, hear, feel, taste, and touch in and around these premises. Anything to do with their work for the last 3 months is not to leave this building. And that goes for you too. As far as anyone else is concerned, you were never here. Tell your wife you went to meet her boyfriend for an early tee time. If I hear any kind of news whatsoever coming out of SETI, make sure everyone in that room knows they will all be flayed living and fed to the hounds.” He added, “Figuratively speaking.”
Bob smiled as Harry turned to leave. “You’re the boss,” he said. Bob loved his job. As he entered the small room full of questioning faces he beamed, saying, “Hiya. Bob Parker, head of Galaga legal, North America. Do I smell fresh coffee?”
As Harry walked through the corridor toward the first of several doors leading to the exit, (he really never got lost in one of his own buildings, after buying a property he committed the layout to memory) he called his helicopter pilot to inform him of their next stop, and sent a secure text to Bob with a location pin of where to follow when he was through reading the 4 scientists their last rites. The time was 6:34am, and he already felt behind schedule. He had so many stops to make today.
His weekend off would have to wait.