Thirteen-point-six billion years after the Big Bang, a civilization inhabiting an unpronounceable planet decided that they were tired of feeling alone. After much deliberation, they elected to send a message to the stars. The citizens formed a world government, allocated all their resources, built an absurdly powerful transmitter, and beamed a note to whoever was listening. For thousands and thousands of years the radio waves oscillated undisturbed through the vacuum until—finally—they impacted a radio dish in the desert of a medium-sized world.
At the same time, Dr. Michela Constantine stood smoking outside her observatory, the warm New Mexico breeze gently flowing through her long black hair. She wore a Missoni off-white sleeveless blouse, Emilio Pucci flared paisley pants, and high-topped boots, all perfectly suited for the desert sunset. In every direction she saw only ochre sands. Radio astronomy required isolation, otherwise the great electromagnetic signature of humanity would interfere with observations. The cigarette burned down to its stub. She dropped it to the dirt and walked back to her radio dish, a great white bowl pointing to the sky.
She stepped into the carmine glow of her tech room. Radio equipment was scattered everywhere. Snaking cords routed all the data to a top-of-the-line CRT screen that dutifully displayed the ambient stellar radiation. She snicked the door shut and glanced at the screen, expecting nothing as always. But, a shock! Equations were scrolling down the screen, throwing cyan highlights across her sharp cheekbones.
First Contact! A message from the stars! Michela, overwhelmed, flattened herself against the wall, arms askew, staring at the glowing numbers. She felt her eyes widen, her jaw go slack. With great effort she peeled herself from the wall. Bootheels clicking over the tile, she ran down the narrow tech room to the door leading to their staff lounge.
Opening the door, she saw Jerome Montgomery, the communications tech, sitting in a fuchsia arm chair, sipping tea and reading an American muscle car magazine, legs crossed elegantly and his hand idly running through his mane of curly blond hair.
The University of Santa Fe had sprung for a lovely staff lounge. They needed it, so removed from anything resembling civilization. It was a wide open space with black tiled floors. One side held a kitchen that was outfitted with flush and generously beveled taupe plastic cabinets. The opposite wall was covered in IBM 729 magnetic tape drives. A conversation pit with teal cushions was installed in the middle. Tempered glass stairs led up to their rooms. For Michela, it just about made up for being so far from her hometown of LA.
“Dr. Montgomery,” Michela gasped, “it has finally happened!”
He looked up from his magazine and raised an eyebrow. “Are you referring to a message from an alien?” he asked sarcastically.
Michela nodded enthusiastically, flopping her hair down and framing her face in loose black waves. She used her hand to brush it back; gave her head a little shake to set everything back in place.
“My god!” Jerome exclaimed and jumped up from his chair, “I must alert the others!”
Michela walked over and collapsed into the ocean colored paisley cushions. Jerome walked into an adjoining lab. They would get the Nobel Prize for this, she was sure of that. Her life’s work finally paid off. All these months isolated from her social circle. It was worth it.
“Is it true?” Dr. Barbara Ross, electronic engineer, asked as she ran into the longue, her long blond hair flowing over her corduroy jumpsuit like a golden river. Michela nodded.
“We must celebrate,” declared Dr. Bentley Perillo, computer programmer and onsite medic, as he came in behind her. “This is the most momentous day in human history.” He walked over to the kitchen and opened a cabinet, producing four liqueur glasses and a bottle of chilled limoncello from an inset freezer. The three other scientists joined him.
Bentley poured the shots and held up his glass. “A salute to American science!”
Jerome drained his shot and walked over the 729s, “I will alert the university.” Michela was only barely listening, caught in the excitement of the moment and the lightheadedness of the lemon liqueur. What must the aliens be like? she thought. What might we learn?
From the computers, Jerome audibly scoffed. He tapped a few keys on his terminal and the teleprinter clanked to life, rapidly printing black lines. Jerome tore the readout from the machine and turned to the other three. “We seem to have a communication error. Damnable equipment. Perhaps the antenna was damaged in the last dust devil?”
“We should all go repair it,” Barabara suggested.
Jerome held up his hands, “No, no. Continue with your celebration, it will only take a moment.” He opened the door to the tech room and disappeared into the red glow.
“So Dr. Constantine, what will you do now that you will be the most famous woman in the world? Will you name the aliens after yourself?” Bentley asked as he topped off Michela’s glass.
“I find that a tempting proposition,” she said, “but perhaps we will find a name that expresses something about us all. And anyways, you were the one who created the receiver computer, perhaps we should call them Perilloans.”
“This is a thought…” Jerome came back into the lounge. The tall man marched over and found the J & B Scotch.
He cleaned his hands with it and said, “My good friends, I am sorry to report that we have a major bummer on our hands. It seems that the wires to the antenna were cut…” he paused, “…or rather were probably damaged by some Chihuahuan vermin. Either way, we can not communicate with the university.”
Barbara screamed and flung herself on top of the kitchen island, “We will die out here!” Her distress made it appear as if her lips had desynched from her words.
“Nevermind that,” Bentley calmly intoned, “remember our emergency procedures. Every day we send a confirmation code that we are alright. If the university does not receive the confirmation code for three days in a row they will send the helicopter. We must stay put, it would take us a week to reach anywhere by walking. We have enough supplies. We have planned for this.”
Michela ran her hand soothingly through Barbara’s hair. “Come, Doctor. Now is the time to celebrate.”
Barbara looked up, her delicate face covered in tears but waterproof eyeliner still in place, and nodded. Bentley began mixing negroni sbagliatos.
***
Later that night, unable to sleep after the others had retired to bed, Barbara resorted to what she always did in such situations: started some scientific work. She had a small lab off the staff lounge, filled with experimental machines—high tech stuff on the frontiers of astronomy. She put on goggles, spun a light jazz record, and mixed the acidic cleaning fluids. Then she started scrubbing dirty circuit boards and electrical components.
Everybody seemed so blasé about the communication error, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that they would die out in the desert, that the emergency procedures would not be properly followed. Still… First Contact! What could be more exciting? If she could just focus.
Scrub, scrub, scrub. Bentley knew what he was talking about, he always did. Michela wouldn’t lie to her. More acid.
“Come on, Barbara, keep your wits about you,” she said out loud to no one. As she completed the preliminary cleaning she fell into her groove, so much so that she didn’t notice the record needle slipping out of its. She flipped a switch and the warm lights turned to an otherworldly ultramarine. The specks of dirt glowed in phosphorescent orange.
The deep blue suffused her with comfort. She fell deeper into her circuitry haze. When the leather glove caressed the soft side of her neck she responded instinctively, leaning into the stroke and feeling her skin prickle. Then she caught herself.
The knife entered on the other side. The finely honed point easily parted the epidermis, plunged deep through the rest of the skin layers. It was so sharp that Barbara barely felt it.
Then the nerves caught up. She stiffened in pain. Blood welled around the blade. The wielder twisted their grip, opening the slit into an oval hole. Deeper the knife plunged, cutting through the carotid artery, angling down to catch the interior jugular veins, destroying every blood vessel it found, only stopping as it punctured the trachea and released a whoosh of air.
Barbara tried to scream. It came out as a croak. Warm hemoglobin splashed across her shoulders. A gloved hand entered her visual field and grabbed an acid vial. She tried to push away from the table. Another hand tore the goggles from her eyes and tilted her head back, further separating the already gaping neck wound. She wanted to reach up to stop the hand. Her limbs weren’t working. She croaked once more. The vial tipped towards her…
And the killer never knew if the blood loss or acid got her first.
***
Bang, bang, bang!
Michela shot awake at the sound, briefly terrified before realizing that someone was knocking at her bedroom door. Slipping into a gauzy nightgown, she cracked open the door.
Jerome stared, his eyes wide with fright. “There’s been an accident in the lab… it’s Barbara… come quick!”
Michela closed the door before getting more details, quickly dressed, and emerged from her room at the same time that Bentley emerged from his.
“Do you know…?” she managed.
“No, I haven’t heard anything.”
They quickly descended the stairs. The feeling of cold glass told her that she had forgotten shoes or socks. Then they ran across the lounge and to Barabara’s lab. Jerome was holding the door open. When she crowded into the entrance, behind Bentley’s shoulder, she screamed.
Barbara—or more accurately, her corpse—was laying on her back in a pool of liquid and glass shards, still sitting in her chair. Her legs had locked into position when she died. Her face was gone, replaced by a deep black hole. With the blue cleaning light still on, it was impossible to distinguish any details.
Michela reached around the wall and found the light switches by touch. She triggered the normal lights and gasped.
There was nothing left of the scientist’s face. The hole was ringed by liquified gobs of pale green flesh. Rivulets of blood had congealed on the surface. Strands of blond hair, carried into the hole by the collapse of the facial structure, were embedded in the dissolved mess of flesh, as if they were insects trapped in prehistoric amber.
Bentley stepped forward, grabbed some rubber gloves from Barbara’s work table, and snapped them on. He kneeled near the body and moved the head back and forth. When the hole that was previously a face turned towards Michela she caught a glimpse of white occipital bone and gagged.
“You said this was an accident,” Bentley asked, turning to Jerome.
“Indeed I did,” the man answered.
“I do not believe this is the case.” Bentley rolled the head to the right and pointed at a gash in the neck. “This is a knife wound.”
The words took a handful of seconds to sink in. When they did, Michela started backing away from the door.
Jerome turned, “Dr. Constantine…”
“Stay away from me!” she screamed. She saw Bentley stand. “And you too!”
The three stood in a silent tableau, the implication of the wound freezing them. Jerome’s eyes flashed with calculation. He looked back and forth to his co-scientists. Bentley slowly reached for a screwdriver on the table.
“Don’t you dare,” Jerome commanded, pointing at the other scientist. “Hands where I can see them.”
“I could say the same to you.” Bentley sneered. Jerome held his hands palm forward with an exasperated sigh.
Michela backed towards the conversation pit until she felt the upper tips of the teal cushions against her heels. “Get out of there Bentley!” she yelled. “Jerome, let him through.”
The communication tech stepped aside to let the other scientist through the door frame. Bentley walked over to the kitchen and leaned against the island.
“Jerome found the body,” Bentley said.
“Michela tried to lull her into comfort,” Jerome said.
“Bentley’s the one with the medical knowledge. I’m sure he knows about acids,” Michela said.
“Michela has never told us much about her background,” Bentley said.
“Jerome wanted to fix the transmitter himself,” Michela said.
“Bentley was the one who wanted to stay put,” Jerome said.
The three looked at each other.
Stepping backwards into the conversation pit, Michela fell into the cushions on the far side. “Well, I’m not moving until I can find out which of you did it.”
Jerome walked over, hands up, and sat on the left side of the pit. “I’m not entirely convinced it’s not you.”
Bentley swore and turned to the cupboards.
“Stay away from the knives, you bastard!” Michela shouted.
Bentley ignored her, opened a cabinet and produced a bottle of amaro. He took a swig. “Please doctor, let’s try to keep our heads about ourselves.” He walked over and took the right side of the pit. “And what do you propose we do?”
She didn’t know, but needed time to come up with a plan. In the interim, the move would be to not fall asleep.
Throughout the day the three scientists sat, staring at each other, mentally formulating strategies and counterstrategies, studying the faces for any sign of murderous intent, and keeping tabs on anything sharp in the room. When one went to the bathroom, the other two followed. They poured espresso to keep themselves alert. Paranoia enforced a sense of decorum. If any strange behavior could be read as a clue, it behooved them all to act their best.
But the day wore down. Adrenaline only lasts so long. Despite the caffeine in her bloodstream, Michela found her eyes beginning to fall as the sun set. The night stretched. She played mental games to stay awake. The cushions were very soft.
Slipping into sleep was the easiest thing in the world…
***
… then …
… she snapped awake to a sudden gurgling sound and the lounge shrouded in darkness. When had she fallen asleep? Adrenaline surged again. Jerome was sprawled on the teal cushions, twitching and shaking, his breath coming in wet gasps.
Bentley’s back was turned to her. She gasped and he spun around, a knife in hand. They made eye contact, and the man’s eyes went wide. He leapt over the cushions and sprinted across the black tiles, disappearing into a storage room.
Michela heard the door close but was distracted by Jerome’s death throes. Fragments of a shattered shot glass covered the floor. She crawled over and shook the man, brushing the blond locks from his face.
Jerome’s eyes were blood shot, matching the red of his turtleneck. They rolled around in their sockets, looking for a reprieve from the neurotoxin that was coursing through his blood stream, the complex molecular chains finding their way into his brain. His limbs twitched as the toxin latched itself to his neurons, blocking the transmitting ions and quickly degrading their ability to send signals.
Michela screamed and tried to open his mouth to prevent him from swallowing his tongue. White foam came out. She reached into the foam to keep his jaw open, but nothing was working properly in Jerome’s body and the man tried to bite her fingers. She got them out of the way just in time.
The foam turned pink as blood welled from his esophagus. His back arched and went rigid. Michela slapped at his face, panic driving out any possibility of first aid. She had never been trained on neurotoxin recovery in the first place. Has anybody?
Jerome’s eyes went crimson red as the capillaries burst. His skin turned byzantium purple, shot through with oxygen-deprived cobalt veins. With one last gurgle he died.
She screamed and fixed her eyes on the door through which Bentley had disappeared. For the first time in her life she felt like a killer, death having activated a deep animal part of her brain. When she yelled again it was more like a battle cry.
She ran to the kitchen, tapped open a cabinet and found the knife set. She selected the 8-inch chef’s knife—precise German steel—and sliced the tip over her finger to test the sharpness. The pain inspired her; she licked the blood and reveled in the metallic taste.
Slowly, she crept through the lounge towards the storage room, aware that Bentley could be anywhere. With no ambush forthcoming, she opened the door and snuck in.
The lights were all out. The only illumination came from a neon green EXIT sign, a weak cone of light that faded at the edges. Pure darkness extended out; she couldn’t see the walls. She sensed more than saw the aisles of storage racks. She hadn’t heard the thick metal door open and shut prior to entering. Somewhere within the grid the assassin waited.
“Come out, you absolute asshole!” she yelled. Something clinked to her left. Pinned by the green glow, she turned towards the sound and tried to make out movement. There, a shadow! It disappeared.
Another sound to her left, towards the door to the longue. She spun, catching a glimpse of movement. Holding the knife out in front of her, she rotated ninety degrees once again, facing the right side of the room. More clinking.
Then, as her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she made out a body behind the closest shelf. She lunged, roaring, and crashed into rows of star catalogues. The shelf fell back, knocking into the ones behind it and causing a cascade of crashing and falling.
Did she get him? She couldn’t tell. The noise of collapsing shelves fogged her brain.
Then the knife entered between her ribs, slipping right into the sweet spot of cartilage protecting her lungs. It drove in and punctured the lower lobe. She instantly collapsed into the cone of green light. Her knife clattered to the floor, ringing as the finally honed blade chipped against tiles. She reached to where she thought it was and felt a boot softly step on her outstretched hand.
“It is impossible to survive that,” Bentley calmly announced.
“Why?” she gasped as she felt blood pooling in her abdomen.
The assassin bent down so that he was face-to-face with his victim. The weak green light illuminated his crazed gaze. “We are at war, Dr. Constantine, a conflict for the fate of the human race. You might know it as the Cold War, but believe me, that is simply the name we gave it for public relation purposes. No, it is quite ‘hot’ for someone like me.”
He twirled his knife in his hand. “In the end, the world will either be ours or theirs. No other option is possible. Two systems cannot hold the keys to the apocalypse forever. One must bring about their heaven; the other must be condemned to hell.
“At the level we play, every variable must be fine-tuned, every eventuality accounted for. It is why we built the suburbs, the Interstate, and the pre-packaged foods. Everything within the nation must be calm. There must not be any randomness for the war state to succeed.”
Michela was only half listening. She still wanted to fight, to stab, to kill this man. Yet her body wouldn’t cooperate. He continued speaking, “But these motherfucking aliens keep sending signals; the ultimate unaccountable. They are such awful neighbors, blasting their little messages out into the stars, no concern at all as to the geopolitical conditions of the worlds they are disturbing…”
Death was coming, the cone of EXIT light fading away to deep black. Bentley kept talking as she moved bit by bit into the next life.
“… which is why the CIA has planted agents at every observatory capable of detecting messages within the 21-cm hydrogen line. We have done this since the 1940s, when the threat of alien interference became clear. Since then our agency has intercepted many messages. Not all operations are fatal, and I’m truly sorry that this is the only way. It was not easy for me. Arecibo was always a simpler assignment, so much jungle out there, so many ways to disappear…”
Michela Constantine died somewhere within his monologue. Once again, as with Barbara, Bentley Perillo was unsure as to when exactly it had happened. He looked down, saw that the deed was done, and stopped speaking. He stood and wiped the knife on his pant leg.
He walked back out into the lounge and opened a secret cupboard where he had hid an ultra-powerful short wave radio. He sent a code signal and walked over to the wall of 729s. Locating the correct data reels, he gathered up the only evidence of the cosmic message. With one last look around the staff lounge, he sighed and walked out through Michela’s tech room and into the New Mexico breeze.
For hours he sat in the shade of the radio dishes, watching the developing morning and wondering what the message he held in his hands said, what the reels of magnetic tape could reveal. They never told him. He didn’t want to know.
He heard the helicopter before he saw it, a thumping sound carrying through the dry desert air. On the horizon a dot appeared and rapidly grew until it resolved itself into a midnight black Augusta 204—the agency’s preferred extraction ride.
The pilot didn’t bother to touch down, instead hovering a few feet above the ground. Show off, Bentley thought as he stood and clambered up the landing skid, the downwash from the blades making his Valentino jacket flap about. The chopper rotated and climbed into the sky.
“Good job, agent,” the man in the copilot seat called back. Bentley never had been told his name. Need to know, and all that.
“I have the tape reels, but for best results we should destroy the observatory.”
“I think we can arrange for a missile test from White Sands to go astray. Do not worry about the cleanup.”
Bentley smiled. Very clever. What a great job he had. New Mexico sped by under the chopper. They flew the whole day, scorching afternoon giving way to a technicolor sunset and eventually the deep, uninterrupted desert night. The darkness between the stars was as bright as the distant, inconsiderate pinpricks.
— Zachery Brasier is a science fiction writer and space artist residing in Salem, MA. His art focuses on retro space concepts. His writing has appeared in the APOCALYPSE CONFIDENTIAL special The Chemistry, the This Exquisite Topology anthology, Nocturne Magazine, and more. Find him as Element115Art on most platforms.