Wednesday July 13th
12 days Pre-Message
9:00 AM Local time
His name is Larry and he is having a bad day already. First, the stupid alarm clock did not go off at 6:00 AM as he thought he had it set for, (turns out Sarah turned it off by mistake) but in rushing to work he ran a stop light and almost hit a mother and child crossing the street. The only good thing about today is that it is one day closer to the big event this Friday. He has been looking forward to taking the trip to Mauna Kea for about 3 months now. His friend and colleague Richard Pamarang has invited him to take a tour of the facilities for years now and he has finally saved up for the plane tickets for Sarah and the kids.
"Just a few more days," Larry mumbled to himself, "and I will be in paradise, for a few days anyhow."
Larry pulled up to his reserved parking space at the VLBA (Very Long Baseline Array) headquarters in Los Alamos, New Mexico and turned off his car.
"Hey Jim, how are ya doing buddy?" Larry asked Jim, the front door rent-a cop.
"Very good Professor Schinger" Jim replied, "gonna be another hot one eh?"
"Yes well, when do we have anything else?" Larry mumbled.
"You have a point there, ha ha! Oh, you have a Mr. Larson waiting for you in your office." Jim stated, "I never met him before but the credentials he flashed kinda spooked me"
"Mr. Larson is here really? Oh well thank you very much James, I appreciate that." Larry said as he hurried off to his office to ponder what this was all about.
Larry rushed to his office nervously wondering to himself why the Head of VLBA was in his office. He started inventorying all his accomplishments and possible failures in his mind coming up with graceful thank yous and excuses respectably. He barely got into that train of thought when he bumped into Eric Larson, his boss's boss and all around intimidating guy.
"Oh excuse me Mr. Larson, I heard you were waiting for me and in my rush I guess I did not see you there." Larry apologized
"Never mind that Lawrence, come into your office I have something important to discuss with you".
Larry walked into his office, placed his coffee and keys down and watched as Eric Larson closed the door behind him.
"Would you like some coffee, Mr. Larson? I can have Olivia bring in some fresh java for us; she makes a mean cup of joe." Larry asked
"Thank you Larry that would be nice." Eric replied.
Larry dialed his secretary's extension and asked her to bring up a carafe of coffee and as he hung up the phone he looked expectantly at Eric.
"What can I do for you, Mr. Larson?" Larry asked.
"Lawrence, I don't know how to phrase this nicely so let me come right out and say it: Your budget is being cut. Now before you get excited and worried let me tell you something, the only major consequence to this cut is that your SETI searches are going to have be curtailed if not ended completely. I know that you like to go for that kind of stuff but in this economy, we have to reserve the viewing time for, well, ‘commercial’ applications. Now this may be a temporary or permanent situation, we are not sure right now. The only thing for sure is that the SETI program is going to have to end." Mr. Larson explained, "Perhaps in the future when the economy turns around we will have the funding available."
Larry looked down at his desk and thought about what this will mean for him. "When will this be effective?"
"I understand that you are talking a little vacation so it will go in effect nationwide on Monday, that should give you time to wrap up things." Mr. Larson answered
"And what about Jacob?' Larry inquired, "He was hired almost exclusively for the SETI project."
Eric Larson looked him squarely in the eye and stated, "I think you just answered your own question Lawrence, the other duties, non SETI related that Mr. Peterson was working on can be reassigned to the various other members of your staff. Just be grateful it is only one pink slip you have worry about handing out."
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Jacob Peterson was enjoying his favorite pastime of playing a quick game of spider solitaire when Olivia walked into the office. He barely glanced from his game as she placed a cup of Starbucks coffee on his desk. ”Hey Olivia, thanks a lot, how’s it hanging?’
“You are going to be the one hanging,” she said, “if Professor Schinger catches you goofing off again” She looked at him with concern and asked, “Do you ever actually do anything here other than play games and watch TV”
Jacob considered his response before he said, “Hey everyone knows I am the golden boy around and ‘ole Larry would be lost without me to come to bail him out when he needs something tweaked. Besides,” he stated, “what he does not know will not hurt him”
“What won’t hurt me” asked Larry
“Oh, uh nothing sir,” stammered Jacob, “Olivia is just messing around.” Jacob quickly clicked out of the game and brought of the current radio logs. Jacob wondered exactly how long his boss was standing there. Olivia was right his good graces with the Professor would only go so far. He watching Larry carefully for signs that he could be mad at him and when he did notice anything is quickly decided that now was a great time to drink some of his coffee.
“How are we going with the nighttime logs Jacob, anything out of the ordinary?” asked Larry
“No sir, it has been fairly quiet,” replied Jacob, “I did notice something coming from SHGb02+14a, and I logged something for a total of three times at a frequency of about 1420 MHz I do suspect this is the same as the false alarm that we had back in 2003”
“Jacob, that location has been done to death, it has be the consensus that it due to a resonating pulsar across a normal Gaussian belt.”
“True professor, but you did ask.” Jacob replied.
Larry looked at his assistant with a concerned look on his face.Thoughts of Jacob's family ran thru his head.
How am I gong to break this to him?
Larry walked up to Jacob, and put his hand on Jacob’s shoulder in a fatherly manner. “Jacob, come with me for a moment to my office, I need to speak with you, okay?”
“Alright, boss, no problem... what’s going on?”, Jacob asked.
“Not here, Jacob, let’s go in the office.”
Jacob got up, and looked at Larry strangely. Larry remained quiet. He followed Larry across the outer office into Larry’s office and squeezed past him, as his boss closed the door and looked at him. Jacob sat down, and wondered what the Hell was going on. Is he really that pissed at me for playing around on the computer? Jacob pondered, as he waited for Larry to speak.
“Jacob, how are things at home? Is everything okay?”, Larry asked.
“Woo, you got me scared there for a second, Boss”, Jacob laughed, “I thought for a second there that I was in trouble and you were gonna fire me! But yeah, everything is fine at home. Oh and I forgot to tell you, I have good news about that, Abbey’s pregnant!”
Jacob saw the ashen look on Larry’s face after he told him the good news, and asked, “What’s with the messed up look on your face, I thought you’d be happy for us. I mean I am gonna do the right thing and get married and all.”
Larry gathered his thoughts, and swallowed. He tried to maintain eye contact but wasn’t successful. “Jacob, did you know that Eric Larson was here today? I don’t know a nice way to put this, so I’m just going to tell you plainly, the SETI program is being dropped, effective Monday. Mr. Larson has informed me that Friday will be your last day here at the center. I know this is sudden and believe me, I hated to be the one to tell you this. There is going to be a rather substantial severance package, and I of course will give you a wonderful reference for your next endeavor.”
Larry looked at Jacob for a response. Jacob looked at Larry blankly and remained silent.
“Jacob, say something! I’m sorry this is happening to you, but don’t just sit there! Don’t you have anything to say?”
“Hell yeah I have something to say,” Jacob shouted, “This is so much bullshit and you know it! How can you after 10 seconds of me telling you of what should be the happiest day of my life, tell me something that turns it 180 degrees around into the worst day of my life. Dammit, Larry, I have been here for 4 years, straight out of college, and I looked up to you! Not only as my boss and mentor, but as my friend!”
“ Jacob, do you somehow think this is easy for me?”, Larry stammered, “I have no choice. The program is being shut down, your other duties will be shifted to other workers, increasing their work load, and some of that work will go to me as well. I have the thankless task of telling them their work load has just increased.”
“I know you’re upset Jacob, I tried, and would, do anything to keep you, and if it was in my power, you would stay here for life. But it’s not. If there’s anything that you need, ask me, I have some other connections I can call, and see if I can get you placed somewhere else within the field.”
Jacob spoke softly, “Yeah you’re right boss, I’m sorry. I know it’s not your fault, it was stupid of me to think it was your fault. I would appreciate anything you could do for me. Do I need to clean out my desk right now?”
“No, you can work out the week, there’s still a few projects I know you need to wrap up. Also, this way we get to work together a little bit longer before I head over to Mauna Kea.”
“Oh that’s right, you’re visiting Professor Pamarang. That’d be a fun place to work! See if you can hook me up working there, I’d love to go to Hawaii!”, Jacob laughed, “Hell, this may not be so bad after all.”
“Of course, Jacob, I’ll talk to him. I don’t know what your chances are though,” Larry said jokingly, “but it’s worth a shot! Anyways let’s get back in there before Olivia wonders just what we’re doing in here.”
“Good idea, but hey, I’m glad it was you who told me.”
Larry got up and approached the door, and said “Now laugh like I told you a funny joke, I don’t want Olivia or anyone to know about this until Friday.”
Larry opened the door, with a smile on his face, and Jacob said, “So the girl said I’m only gonna charge you $75 because the second guy only has one leg!” and laughed while walking into the room. Larry followed, with a smile on his face and said, “Son, you have a crazy sense of humor!”
Jacob tried to keep the smile on his face as he looked around, hoping no one saw through his facade that was hiding the melancholy that he felt welling up inside him. As he looked around the office and the equipment, it brought dozens of memories to the fore-front of his mind. It saddened him greatly to see that he had to leave the place that was a second home to him. He really hoped to have some kind of impact in his field before he left here. He went to his desk, sat down and turned on his computer. He was glancing over the logs, and noticed a particular anomaly.The same signal he had seen 3 times last night , he now noticed there were 245 distinct events. His heart raced as he saw this and ran a diagnostic test. 30 seconds later the test came back clean. Checking back with the logs, he saw the event count was now up to 315, no wait, 512... now 750... now over 1000. “This is impossible, this can’t be happening, what the Hell?!”, Jacob said. Jacob got up and quickly looked around for Larry, not seeing him, he quickly walked over to Olivia. Olivia was signing some papers and didn’t see him at first. “Where’s Larry?!”, he shouted. When Olivia didn’t answer quick enough, he shouted, “Larry, dammit! I need him NOW!”
“What’s the matter, hot shot, you looking to brag about your new high score on Solitaire? Or is it Mind Sweeper, right now?”, Olivia joked.
“Dammit Olivia, I’m not joking, where is Larry?!”
Olivia saw the serious look on his face, and said, “Okay, okay, calm down! He’s in the cafeteria getting some coffee, what’s the matter?”
Jacob didn’t answer as he ran off to the cafeteria, searching for Larry. He saw Larry getting some coffee and grabbed Larry by the arm. “Whoa boy! What’s the matter with you, you look like you just saw a ghost! What’s the matter?”
“Larry, you have to see this NOW!, Jacob said, “Remember that signal I had 3 hits on last night? Well, there’s more. A lot more.”
“Okay, well that is exciting. Nothing for almost 10 years, and then 2 occurrences in one night, so how many are we talking about this time? 4 or 5?”, Larry joked.
“It started climbing to over a 1000 events since we were talking, you have to come see this now.”
“Are you sure?! Did you run the diagnostic test and... “
“Of course”, Jacob interrupted, “I know my job, we have to call Hawaiian for confirmation now!”
Larry and Jacob ran to Jacob’s desk, and looked the logs. The event counter was at 7000 events and climbing. Larry brushed Jacob out of the way, and initiated a level 3 diagnostic.
“I told you I already did that!”, Jacob said. Larry ignored him and waited methodically for the test to complete. all the while keeping an eye on the event counter. 30 seconds later, with green all across the board from the test, Larry keyed in the command to bring the 150 foot array online. He entered the coordinates in and waited to see if he received an echo signal from the second array. A few moments later he got his confirmation. My God! It’s happening, we have to call Hawaii! Larry stood up and said, “Jacob! Get Professor...”
“Pamarang... on the phone for confirmation... yeah I’m way ahead of you!”, said Jacob.
Jacob was on the phone as Larry walked over to him, when all of the sudden, all the power went out.
“Oh shit!”, Jacob said, followed by a excited scream in the background.
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