Amygdala Hijack - A Genetic Engineering Sci-Fi Story of Impending Dystopia

EP. 7 - CIRCUS MEDIUS

ANXIOUS TO ADDRESS THE continuing news coverage, Molli and Ears started early in the day.

Molli: "Let's meet at Peter's. He's not home."

Ears: "Now?"

Molli: "Yes, if you can."

Ears: "Subject?"

Molli: "Red flags up. Red lights flashing. Media frenzy."

Ears: "Understandable. Why meet?"

Molli: "Discuss pod format. Implications of social media reactions. Circus medius."

Ears: "K. Just two hours tho."

Molli: "K."

Ears arrived in minutes at Peter's and rushed into the studio. "What's up?" he asked Molli, who was watching the vidscreen.

Her legs were perched on a stool. A bag of multigrain pita chips was open and empty, as was a plastic carton of hummus. Her jeans were covered with crumbs.

"Glad you left a little for me," Ears teased. "Did you stay the night here?"

"With Peter? Oh, I'm sure he wishes."

"He probably does."

"Well, he never indicated anything to me, but that's a topic for another day. Thank God it's Monday and I have a lousy day off. We need to review the format and questions for Wednesday's show, of course. But I can't get my mind off the media as of late. All-consuming, apocalyptic, and nonstop fear-mongering."

"Yeah, it's unfortunate. Mind if I turn up the volume?"

She nodded.

"Volume up!" Ears commanded.

A woman was reporting from the White House lawn, with other news outlets nearby doing the same in the background.

"This news leak of the Dyson sphere does not necessarily imply any correlation to the Canadian obelisk," the reporter confirmed. "The only verification we're getting from NASA is that, unlike other Dyson sphere candidates, they see a precise regularity to the orbit of the sphere around the star. This has not been the case for other objects speculated to be Dyson spheres. To remind everyone listening, a Dyson sphere is a theoretical construction of an alien structure so large that it obscures the light of the star it surrounds. Imagine a few hundred Jupiter-sized objects created to capture solar radiation, naturally orbiting the star via its own gravity."

"What is so different with this one?" the anchor inquired.

She continued. "Both public and private astronomers and astrophysicists compiled a clear view of this object. It has unique properties attributed to intelligent life. For instance, the shape is like a geodesic dome of the Buckminster Fuller kind. Second, it consumes particular segments of the light spectrum while casting off others, generally not believed possible in astronomical terms."

"How far away is this?"

"It's in our galaxy, roughly a hundred thousand light-years away. Essentially on the other side of the Milky Way."

The anchor twirled her hair nervously. "Has anyone determined its relation to the obelisk?"

"None that government officials will admit. We won't turn the cameras, but you can hear the protestors in the background even though the area around the White House is cordoned-off for crowd control. With the increasing numbers of calls for a specific response from our government, the White House remains under tremendous pressure to calm the nation. As the de facto leader of this hemisphere, anyway, everyone is waiting to see what responses are being considered."