The Echo
Earth will never be the same
A cryptic optical signal is detected from Globular Cluster NGC 1851 forty-thousand light-years away.
Who sent it and why?
Theoretical physicist, Katrien DeVries from Anti-Paradox and her colleagues at the University of Amsterdam have uncovered a mysterious signal detected by the James Webb Space Telescope from forty-thousand light-years away.
Buried within the signal is an encrypted message that will send the Amsterdam team on a quest to make sense of its meaning.
What they learn is an improbability – a massive gravimetric wave is heading toward Earth and DeVries and her colleagues must find a way to survive the coming apocalypse.
But time is running out…
Physicists at the University of Amsterdam’s Institute for Theoretical Physics have uncovered an anomaly…
Institute for Theoretical Physics
“What did you find?” asked Annika.
Lewis became excited. “Professor DeVries has created software to sift through the James Webb Space Telescope’s data looking for evidence of high information content. I oversaw getting her code to work and two nights ago the algorithm detected anomalously high information in the data stream which we later confirmed by passing it through a Shannon entropy routine.”
Annika leaned forward in her seat, “Does that look at the information content?”
“Exactly.”
“So what did the code show?”
“The information density is practically off scale. We think it’s an alien message sent from forty-thousand lightyears away.”
Then, as if summoned to end Navarro’s musing, the system suddenly beeped. A ripple had been found. Navarro checked the coordinates and reset the system to a finer grid. There it was—just as Katu described, a massive, red-shifted signature from some passing gravitational anomaly.
A chill ran through Navarro. Whatever was causing the disturbance, it was huge. He did a crude vector analysis on the ripple and estimated its direction. Navarro wasn’t used to seeing results that brought fear. He rechecked his estimate and found no error. The anomaly was real … and heading straight for Earth’s solar system.
A nightmare awaits…
Tahia made a sound in the bedroom. Katu went to her, but she was asleep, her head turning from side-to-side, trapped in a bête noire. What was she dreaming? Katu glanced outside the bedroom window and could still see the Pleiades twinkling against a black backdrop. They, like the world around him seemed inviolate. Tomorrow, Tahia would wake from her fitful sleep and find the day the same as yesterday. But would the day come when she awoke to find a world more terrifying than any nightmare, a world about to be torn asunder?
‘Ice sheets are cleaving in Antarctica. The Larsen C. Ice shelf has just collapsed causing a massive tsunami. Esperanza Base and the South Shetland Islands will soon be inundated.’
‘This footage just in from our affiliate in China showing the Xihoumen Bridge collapsing across Hangzhou Bay. Vehicles and pedestrians can be seen tumbling into the sea.’
‘Massive Florida sinkholes are forming across Pasco, Hernando, and Hillsborough counties taking entire homes underground. Many are missing and presumed dead.’
‘A drone caught this image of Chevron’s Petronius platform being hit by a gigantic ocean surge. Within seconds, the entire structure can be seen being engulfed, ripped from its moorings and disappearing into the Gulf of Mexico. No attempts are being made to look for survivors due to the hazardous conditions.’
A rumble reverberated behind him, coming down the Northern Cascades, then fading as it headed toward the sea. Earth was stirring, her bowels churning with something unpleasant.
It was starting.
A new sound drew his attention toward the ocean. A plume had shot up beyond the coast, rising in a column, white and foaming. More followed in succession, sprites of water climbing upwards, reaching high into the sky.
Grant didn’t dare blink.
Red followed the white. Magma released from beneath Earth’s crust at the Cascadia Subduction Zone had found freedom. The subduction zones were separating, breathing now, venting, waking Earth’s subterranean denizens after their long slumber. Not since four million years, had the super-heated rock been allowed passage to the surface. And now that it was free, it was ready to party.
Grant inhaled, realizing that he had been holding his breath. A clammy sweat broke out and he began to tremble. His death was no longer hypothetical, or a probability with a margin of error, it was imminent and that fact suddenly struck him unprepared. He did not want to die.
Hold onto your seats … The Echo is coming!