20 October 3024
Sector B12, Earth's Upper Research Dome
The sky is the same flat gray it has been for as long as Eric can remember.
The dome hums, the filters push, dust hangs in the seams of the world.
The launch pad below him is empty.
The vessel is gone.
Dr. Eric Relish stands at the glass and watches the ash clouds roll and fold over the dead horizon, he was trying to picture the desert his books showed him once the sun, the wind, a line of scrub but it won't come.
Orson's reflection appears beside his own he was carrying two metal cups, the steam smells sharp and bitter.
"You didn't sleep did you?" Orson says.
Eric touches the glass with two fingers and lowers his hand again. "Did you?"
"Closed my eyes a bit that's all." Orson passes him a cup. "They'll call us in you know they will."
"They always do."
They stand there and listen, the room hum is steady, but under it there's something new.
A faint, low beat, not a loud sound just a feeling.
It sits in Eric's teeth, in the hinge of his jaw.
"You feel that?" Orson asks.
Eric nods. "It's the core very settling."
On the far wall, the mission board glows soft blue with four names, it sits in white letters under the heading REVIVAL MISSION — FLIGHT UNIT 9.
LYS AMARI
NYRO
KEANU VENN
ZIA
A fifth line under them is blank, just a line that says RETURN SIGNAL: and then nothing.
For a breath the R in "RETURN" flickers and vanishes the line reads ETURN SIGNAL. It blinks back to normal before Eric can say it out loud.
He doesn't like how quickly it came back.
"Did you see—" he starts.
"Yeah" Orson says. "I saw it."
The intercom cracks "Dr. Relish council Chamber C-03."
Orson sighs "Here we go."
The Council room is colder than the lab, a stone walls, a long table with edges worn smooth by hands. The Elders sit in a line, lean faces, eyes that hold old storms.
Elder Seya speaks first "We note the launch, we also note the silence after."
"It's been one night" Eric says.
"One night is enough to measure risk" Elder Tolan says. "The hum is different, the power draw is wild. The dome lights failed twice on the lower tiers, we do not accept that Dr."
Eric keeps his voice even "The core's field is decaying but it will settle we expected that."
"Expected?" Elder Seya repeats, as if tasting the word. "Dr. Relish, you argued for this mission you said we had one chance left but the board says 'return signal—none' and now the dome itself speaks of strain."
"They made it" Eric says. "We would feel it differently if they didn't."
"How do you know?" Tolan asks.
Eric looks at Orson.
Orson gives the smallest nod.
Eric turns back to the Elders.
"Because the hum has a rhythm now" he says. "It wasn't random last night it's beating in fours. Fourteen-beat cycles. The field is pulsing and that means the jump settled where we wanted it to settle."
"Words" Tolan says.
"Numbers" Eric replies softly. "Fourteen."
Seya leans back.
"We will not kill the dome to save a rumor of a past we ask for proof that the field can be used without tearing us apart what we really ask for now is control."
Eric folds his hands he started to think of a dark ring in sand he has never touched he thinks of his own teacher's voice saying the word Earth with a weight that made his chest hurt.
"Give me one day" he says.
"Twenty-four hours I can shape the hum then we can ride the low band under it and push a clean message through words they can hear on the other side, no high power, no lights, a whisper only."
Seya looks at Tolan and he doesn't blink.
"Twenty-four hours" Seya says at last.
"Then we review if the dome shakes, we cut. If a name on that board fades, we cut. Do you understand?"
Eric nods "I understand."
They leave the room with their cups between their hands like anchors.
Orson blows air out through his lips.
"Fourteen" he says. "You pulled that out of calm air."
Eric shakes his head.
"No. The math gave it two half lives, the field decays in sevens. Seven, then seven so it's fourteen to safe, It's cleaner than anything else we have."
They walk the long curve back to Lab C-09.
The corridor lights flicker once and hold, a metal plaque on the wall reads REVIVAL — POWER.
The V is duller than the other letters, as if it is tired of being a V.
In the lab, the power core sits in its cradle like a ring that forgot how to shine, coils and plates wrap it in a tight embrace and cables run up into the ceiling and down into the floor.
Eric palms open a case. Inside is a small loop of copper, two thumb-length rods, a scattering of ceramic pieces, a coil wound by hand long before he was born.
"What is that?" Orson asks.
"A radio" Eric says. "Before we had dust in our blood, we used these to pull voices out of storms."
Orson raises one eyebrow "You stole that from the museum."
"I borrowed it." Eric sets the loop near the core "It likes noise and the core has plenty."
They rig the loop into the shield grid, not too deep just enough to feel the field but not fall in.
Orson brings up a screen that shows nothing but a flat gray line.
Eric tightens a small screw the loop's wire hums once and goes quiet.
"I just lost the little song" Orson says suddenly.
"What?"
"The one I was humming all morning" Orson says looking embarrassed. "The one with the river in it, I can't find the next line."
Eric watches him.
Orson shakes his head, laughs once without humor.
"Forget it" Orson says. "Ready when you are."
Eric doesn't forget it, he will not forget it.
He rests his fingers on the control pad and lowers the core's outer shield by a breath, the hum grows. The floor trembles, then settles.
A new sound creeps into the room, a thin hiss like someone breathing behind a door.
"Static" Orson says quietly.
Eric nods.
He taps a key and the screen draws a line that shakes itself into a different kind of line, not flat but also not wild it was something like a tiny wave.
He keeps his voice low, as if someone could hear him from a thousand years away if he doesn't scare the sound.
"We send nothing loud" he says "Only numbers."
He presses a contact.
"Three" he says into the grid.
The wave bends, the copper loop warms.
"Three Point Three Nine Four."
Orson stares at the line "It's writing it."
"Not writing" Eric says. "Riding."
He breathes in then out then he speaks again.
"One Zero Four Point Five Two Three."
The wave goes soft and then returns as if it had to climb around a rock in a river.
"Fourteen" Eric says last. "Fourteen."
The wave collapses flat and then rises with a gentle curve, like a shoulder under water.
Orson's eyes shine wet. "Do it again" he says.
Eric does.
Numbers, pauses, numbers, he never raises his voice and he does not press too hard on the grid.
He treats the core like a living thing that is tired and sore.
He stops.
He waits.
He listens.
Nothing breaks.
The dome continues to hum and the lab lights hold steady while the tea on the bench trembles just a little.
Orson rubs his forearm "I feel like someone walked past me."
"They probably did" Eric says. "On the other side."
The intercom clicks once.
No words there was just a soft breath sound and then the line dies.
They open the lab door and the corridor is empty.
Back inside, the mission board shows the four names again.
For a heartbeat KEANU VENN loses its second word. It reads KEANU and then it fills itself in.
Eric crosses to the board and touches the glass under the names like the board might feel that and take comfort.
"Don't do that" Orson says.
Eric pulls his hand back. "I know."
They work through the day with small pushes, numbers only. No more than ten count each time.
They try the loop at different angles. They watch the wave behave like a skittish animal, then like a tame one, then like something else again.
At noon, the canteen sends up food, it tastes like paste and salt.
Neither of them finishes.
Around midafternoon, the lower dome lights dim to a darker gray and hold for six breaths.
Orson looks up and Eric does not move until the seventh breath lands.
"Seven" Orson says.
"Half" Eric says.
They take a break because they know they should, not because their bodies want one. Eric sits on the floor with his back against a cabinet and he closes his eyes the hum of the core slides under his rib cage and vibrates there.
"I had a dream last night" Orson says.
"Tell me" Eric replies.
"I was standing next to water" Orson says "It was blue." He laughs like it's an apology. "I don't know what blue looks like you know not really but it was I know it was."
"It was" Eric says he keeps his eyes closed, he lets Orson's voice paint a picture he cannot hold on his own.
"Someone was speaking on the other side" Orson says. "I couldn't hear the words I only heard how they felt they were not afraid just… careful."
Eric opens his eyes. "We push at dusk" he says "Storms in that era love dusk that's when the static catches."
"How do you know?"
"I don't" Eric says. "I just do."
They tune the loop a little tighter. E
ric rolls the thin coil under his palms like he's reading it.
Orson sets the shield to open one finger-width and close one finger-width in a steady rhythm.
Fourteen ticks open.
Fourteen ticks closed.
The wave on the screen learns the rhythm fast it goes from messy to a neat sway and it looks almost like a heartbeat.
"Look at that" Orson says, almost smiling "It likes it."
"People like patterns" Eric says. "Why should a field be different?"
They push again at dusk numbers at first. Then Eric tries a word.
"Help" he says, slow and plain.
The wave jumps like it stepped on a hot stone and then relaxes.
They wait.
In the quiet between pushes, the lab smells a little like hot metal and old rain, which makes no sense but feels true.
Eric thinks of an old teacher who hung rain pictures on the wall and called them windows.
The intercom cracks again it was not a call but more like a leak, a hiss with edges.
And then, so soft they could lie about hearing it later if they needed to, a voice that is not theirs a woman's voice, not from the dome but from a long way away from the other side of a loop.
"Fourteen" it says.
Then nothing.
Orson grips the edge of the bench"Did you—"
"I did" Eric says. His throat is tight, he swallows.
They do not tell the Elders not yet they do not want to bring a half-true thing to the table and watch it die under old fear.
Instead, Eric prints a small card and writes three lines with a blunt pencil:
33.394
104.523
14
He tapes it to the edge of the monitor and stares at it like it is a face he loves.
"Do you think they can send back?" Orson asks.
"They just did" Eric says "A word is a world if you let it be one."
The corridor outside the lab fills for a moment with a group of apprentices moving from one class to another, their shoes click on the floor.
One boy hums under his breath he stops as he passes the door and frowns, like he meant to hum something else and forgot what it was.
Eric feels a cold thread pull through him and then let go.
He takes a thin piece of film from a drawer and draws a circle on it with a marker he writes the number 14 inside and sticks it to the lab window at eye level.
"Why a circle?" Orson asks.
"Because we come back to where we started" Eric says "Until we don't."
On the evening the dome's outer lights turn from almost white to almost dark and he city below is a line of faint embers.
The Council calls once more"Status?"
Eric hits the open button he keeps his voice clean. "Stable Low band whisper is possible no high draw spikes we can send numbers."
"Numbers" Tolan says like it's a bad taste "Numbers do not change a war."
"They can" Eric says "If the numbers are the right ones."
There was a pause then Seya: "We will give you until morning then we meet again."
The line goes dead.
Orson leans his head against the cabinet "They will cut it."
"Not if we show them something that breathes" Eric says.
"What does that mean?"
"Something alive enough to listen to" Eric says. He rubs his eyes with his thumb and middle finger.
"They don't trust our math but they'll trust a voice."
"You want to send a voice?" Orson sits up "You just told them no lights."
"Not lights" Eric says. "A whisper ten words and then no more."
"Which ten?"
Eric looks at the board.
LYS AMARI NYRO KEANU VENN ZIA.
He looks down at his hands the skin is pale under the lab light, the joints are too big for how small his hands are.
He says the words once under his breath to hear the shape of them.
We are people wait fourteen minutes do not chase.
"That's eleven" Orson says, counting with his fingers.
Eric huffs a laugh that doesn't quite make it out "We'll shave one."
He stands again at the console and lowers the shield one breath then counts to seven and raises it while he counts to seven.
He touches the contact then speaks.
"We are people" he starts, plain and low.
The wave bows and lifts.
"Wait fourteen minutes" he says.
The wave sways, pauses, holds.
"Don't chase" he finishes.
The wave settles like a blanket pulled up under a chin.
He lets go an closes his eyes.
The lab is very quiet a drip somewhere. The dome hum keeps the world from falling open under their feet.
Orson whispers, "If it works, we fade."
"If it works" Eric says, "we give them a sky."
They shut the loop down to a soft glow and stand by the glass looking out at the ash for one strange second the gray outside the dome seems less thick.
He knows it is not but he lets the lie sit because it feels like a practice run for a truth he hopes to see.
The mission board blinks.
The blank line under RETURN SIGNAL: fills for one beat with a single word.
SOON.
Then it is blank again.
Orson exhales hard "Did you—"
"I did" Eric says "Don't tell them."
"Not yet" Orson agrees.
Eric picks up the pencil again and writes one more line under the numbers on the card:
We don't shoot our own.
He sticks that to the corner of the monitor too.
He turns off the overhead light and leaves the small work lamp on it throws a circle on the floor.
The circle looks like a target and a promise at the same time.
He sets a little timer on the bench for 14:00 and lets it run while he watches the wave fade to a thin line. When it hits zero, nothing breaks he exhales anyway.
On the way out, he passes the mission board again, the names hold and the glass is cold when he puts his palm near it but doesn't touch.
In the corridor, the plaque that reads REVIVAL — POWER catches his eye. The V that looked dull before shines a little brighter now, or maybe that's a trick of the light.
Orson bumps his shoulder "Tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow" Eric says.
He doesn't sleep when he goes home he just lies on his back and listens to the dome breathe. He counts breaths to fourteen and starts again.
Somewhere outside the shield a dead sea keeps its secrets.
Somewhere else a mountain holds up a black sky full of tiny holes.
Somewhere in between, nine lights skip, a woman waits at a window, and a man in a desert writes three words in a book and underlines them twice.
Wait fourteen minutes.