Shorts

                The machine stares at me. It’s about the size of a VCR on the metal desk. It’s pretty unremarkable. If someone didn’t know what it was, they probably wouldn’t think it anything but a piece of junk, created from various materials that had been cobbled together. But what they wouldn’t know is that this machine holds the answer to the single greatest mystery our world has ever known.

                I step back from the desk and look as my assistant stands in the doorway, standing tall as the President of the United Degentaran People comes rushing in. His aids quickly get situated in the room and my entire office/work space begins to bustle as more people stuff into the usually cramped space. I rub my face and look at my assistant. “What part of ‘keep it quiet’ did you miss?”

                “Are you serious?” He asks back, almost laughing. “The entire building is buzzing about this. We’ve been waiting days for you to get this thing running. The President flew in this morning from the capitol city of Tingeltal.”

                “Get this thing running?” I say, glaring at him. “I don’t even know this thing works. I haven’t tested it on . . .”

                He brushes me off suddenly and goes to press the flesh with one of the President’s aids. I swear, the next time I get an assistant, I’m making sure he doesn’t a politic science minor.

                I turn back to the machine and stare at it. It’s taken me six years to build this machine. Originally, it was built around some of the recent breakthroughs in linguistics, ones that make it possible to translate any spoken language.

                In theory, that includes languages from outer space.

                I take out a cigarette and light it. I take a deep puff and hope. Man, this thing better work. My assistant comes strolling up. “Sir,” He says, whispering into my ear. “This is a no-smoking building and the President doesn’t . . .”

                I stick my cigarette near his face, startling his back. God, I hate this kid.

                I think back to when I was just a young boy. It was almost forty years ago we first encountered the message, on the historic landing of our second moon. On that day, the spaceman who first touched down on the red surface broadcast the fateful message all over our world:

                ‘And with this flag, I pronounce that our people have arrived into the universe beyond our sky.’

                It’s a famous speech. But what we would soon discover was that, while that speech was being delivered, there was another message being received. It was a simple signal, not really a broadcast. It was noise from the universe, captured somewhere between radiation and background waves. But as we analyzed every tiny fragment of that famous speech from our first contact with our distant celestial body, we realized that this repeating message wasn’t just background radiation, but an intentional signal.

                For years, scientists considered the signal. It was systematic. It was far too methodical to be anything but artificial. But there was no evidence of any other signals like it. It had come from deep space, that much was certain. And it was an isolated signal. One voice that was suddenly silenced.

                During all this time, this message had become a symbol of religious importance. People played it on the computer broadcasts, maintaining that they could understand it. It was called a broadcast from god with great ease. But the first problem was that different religions thought it said different things from different gods. Whole doctrines grew out this message, a message not a single person on the planet understood.

                In time, wars erupted. There were skirmishes, then whole battles. World events transpired due to, at the heart, this message, about what it might have said or, more importantly, what people thought it said. A whole religion schismed over the thoughts that the message might be from an angel rather than from a god. Everywhere you turned, this message, this signal, was a source of urban myth, of local legend, and of endless speculation.

                And then we determined something new.

                “Sir?”

                I look out of the corner of my eyes at my assistant. “Sir, the President wants to go ahead and start the . . .”

                “He can wait,” I casually. “We are waiting until the department head gets here.”

                “Sir, apparently, he’s on the phone with his priest.”

                I blow smoke into my assistant’s face. Why didn’t I fire this little punk before I finished this project? I always get touchy when I’m under pressure, but damn it, he’s annoying today.

                “We wait,” I say. I look back at the machine. “He won’t be much longer. A few more minutes won’t matter.” My assistant toddles off.

                We were able to track the degradation of the signal. We were able to follow its course across the universe, follow it into the distance of our known space. It had traveled for an endless time; it seemed, over an endless space. But it was here.

But was more important, now that we understood the degradation, we could undo it.

For the first time ever, the voice of that signal was able to be broadcast in its original form. We were able to hear the sound, the tone, the emotions, of the voice that spoke. It was a message. Repeated only a few times, then silence suddenly. It was a harried voice, one that sounded controlled, but with a hint of frantic fear.

                It was a distress signal.

                Well, you can imagine that that news was received well.

                New religious turmoil erupted across the entire face of our planet. You’d think religious leaders had would have something better to do than speculate on something they don’t understand. Much less, get it wrong.

                But the same old claims were made, only now with a voice to manipulate. Without understanding what the voice was saying, new speculation rose up. ‘The gods are in their heavens, demanding that we renew our devotion to them’ and similar claims. ‘The angels are calling for help’.

Scams and lies ran rampant. Whole knew worlds of speculation came into being over the nature of this message, this simple call into the farthest regions of space. And while this voice continued to taunt us scientists with its mystery, the world beyond the scientific community continued to argue and fight.

                The world, it seems, never has anything better to do.

                And then, about five years ago, there was a major break through in language development. A woman made a startling realization using sonic waves and the thought patterns of deaf children. The science itself was always lost on me, but it opened up whole new fields of study, study of language and the way language functions in the brain.

And in time, I managed to construct this device. It used my life-long study of hearing and combined it with some of the new theories on language and manipulated, instead of the signal, our perception of the signal. And in theory, it would allow us to understand the signal without actually translating the literal sounds. It had worked on terrestrial languages. The question would be if it would on a language from outer space. I glance over my shoulder at the President and the growing crowd of important men and women.

Oh boy. This thing had better work.

                I turn back to the gathered viewers. My office/work space has been filled to standing room only. Nearly every free space is taken up as everyone from the janitor to the President of the United Degentaran People stands anxiously, waiting with practically tangible anticipation. The greatest mystery since our origins from the dawn of time is about to answered.

                No pressure, right?

                My assistant, for all his flaws, has been keeping them entertaining. But he sees me standing and takes a step back. “Gentlemen,” I say to the gathered crowd, noting my department head standing in the crowded doorway. “I am pleased to report that the machine has been completed. We are prepared, now, to hear the signal.”

                I take a deep breath. “As we all know, this world has grown up in the last forty-five years around the mythos of this signal. It has been speculated to be everything from messages from angels to the voices of the gods themselves. We’ve known for a while now that this message is a distress call of some kind, one sent from beyond our skies. Now, for the first time ever, we shall hear this message, sent to all the universe, in our own tongue, so that we may know what it speaks of.”

                I turn back to the machine. I hit the large green button on the top. The machine begins to hum. A simple display screen comes to life and displays a list of files for it to decipher. I glance down at the wires to make sure that they’re connected. They are. I take a deep breath. No excuses now. I highlight the single file and take a breath.

                I hit the red button.

                The speakers come to life and the entire room goes dead silent. The buzz of the pre-sound fills the room as we all wait with anxious anticipation.

                I hold my breath, my eyes closed.

                For a brief second, my mind runs through all the possible options that this signal might carry. Angels? Demons? Gods even?

                I hear the sound begin to pick up.

                Here it is. The message from across time and space, the distress signal from the future, and it plays now for the first time.

                ‘Optimus Prime, do you read me? The Decepticons are blitzing Autobot City. We’re really taking a pounding. Don’t know how much longer we can hold out!’