Anomaly (4 page)

Initially Teller said no, figuring he'd need clearance from the school first, but Cathy was both cute and persistent. She explained she would much rather have been back in the office, but her producer insisted this was her story so she should continue coverage, no matter how boring it became. She told Teller that Finch was more interested in all the junk food and specialist coffees on sale in the park. Teller smiled, he'd been thinking about grabbing a cup himself. He too had noted that the anomaly had turned into an old style county fair, with people coming from far and wide.

Cathy pleaded with Teller. Her eyes implored him. The downcast look on her face cried out for attention, and Teller knew he was a sucker for a pretty lady. He agreed to a short interview, but insisted that Finch avoid any shots of the children's faces, so Finch lined up behind the kids. After a brief introduction and an idle chat about the community school, Cathy asked a few questions.

“Why did you bring the kids down to see the anomaly? What do you think is so special about this bizarre phenomenon?”

Teller smiled for Cathy rather than the camera, even though he felt awkward, fiddling with the toy gyroscope. He hoped she didn't ask him about it, but she didn't seem to notice it.

“Well, the anomaly is unique,” he began, trying to relax and lose himself in his reply. “It is like nothing we or our parents or our grandparents or anyone else on this planet has ever seen before. For these kids, this could very well be the key defining moment of their young lives. Instead of growing up in the dark specter of some catastrophic, epoch-defining event like 9-11 or the assassination of a president, these kids will grow up talking about how the anomaly reshaped their world.”

Teller could see the look of surprise on her face. She seemed genuinely surprised by the notion. Like most of the other reporters he'd heard covering the story, she probably only saw the anomaly in the sensation of the moment.

“Why do you say that?” she asked. The look on her face told him she was asking more for her own benefit than the camera.

“Scientific milestones are few and far between,” replied Teller. “And they normally pass completely unnoticed and remain unrecognized for decades, but this, well this is something that has seized our attention in a most remarkable way.”

“What do you think it is?” she asked.

Teller thought for a moment before replying.

“What do I think it is? I think it's complicated,” he began. “I don't know any more than anyone else, but I suspect it is far more intricate and complex than we dare to imagine.”

“Well, the social media is alive with speculation,” said Cathy. “Some think it's alive. Others say it is an alien artifact. Others speculate on it being a portal to another dimension, while still others say it is the result of two parallel universes colliding and collapsing. What do you think?”

“Well, I think those are all very grand and interesting ideas. It could be any one of those or none of them. The only way we'll find out for sure will be by observing it, by studying it.”

The kids were bored with the news crew and disappointed with the anomaly. Having been fed on spectacular images in the media and time-lapse photography, it was a bit of an anticlimax to see the concrete slab sitting low against the ground at this time of day.

As the interview ended Teller noticed that Susan had wandered off. A sense of panic gripped him. Teller asked the relief teacher to sit the kids down next to an idle diesel generator and have a drink break while he went looking for Susan. Cathy and Finch went with him, realizing what had happened. Finch didn't seem that bothered, but Cathy clearly felt awful about a lost child.

Susan was wearing a red jacket, Teller remembered, and holding a balloon, but as the bustling crowd was mostly made up of adults, her visibility would have been limited to just a few feet. He thought she may have tried to get a better look at the anomaly so he made his way over to the barricade still holding the spinning gyroscope like a baseball in his hand.

Teller spoke to one of the officers there, asking if he'd seen the young girl. As they were talking, he spotted Susan in the background, over by the NASA trailer in front of the anomaly. She was talking to an official, a tall man in a dark suit.

“That's her,” he told the officer. “That's Susan. I need to go and get her.”

“I'm sorry,” replied the officer. “My instructions are clear. No unauthorized personnel beyond this point.”

“Yes, I understand that,” pleaded Teller. “But surely you can see that she's unauthorized and she's beyond this point. All I want to do is to go and bring her back here so she's not unauthorized and beyond this point.”

It was a little patronizing, but Teller couldn't help it. He had a real disdain for authority when it was exercised without reason. And he knew his smart-ass comment, however subtle, really wasn't going to help things.

“I'm sorry, sir. I cannot allow you to do that,” replied the officer, turning sideways so he could see Susan. “I'll call command and we'll get someone to bring her over to you, but you can't go in there.”

“But she's a child. You clearly want to keep people away from the anomaly. She's already halfway there. All I'm going to do is bring her back. I'll be no more than thirty seconds.”

The officer rested his hand on his service revolver as he called in a request to have Susan escorted back to the barricade. There was no way Teller was crossing the line. At least, not in one piece.

Cathy flashed her press credentials, saying, “Look, I've been in the restricted area already. I was in there when this all began. How about I go and get her?”

“I can't let you do that, ma'am.”

“Susan,” Teller called out, waving. “Susan.”

Susan looked over at him, along with the man in the suit. She waved back at him while the stranger talked to one of the officers next to him, who in turn spoke into a radio. Within a few seconds, the officer with Teller received a message through his earpiece. He looked at Teller without any emotion and beckoned him with a nod of his head. Teller didn't need prompting. He ducked under the barricade. Cathy followed his lead, ducking under as well.

Finch remained behind the barricade. He held his camera by his side, casually recording the whole thing.

“Susan,” said Teller on reaching her. “You can't wander off like that.”

“It's my fault,” said the man standing with her. He held out his hand. “James Mason, Director of National Security.”

Teller shook his hand, a little confused as Cathy came up beside them.

“Susan's my niece. Her mother and I grew up just ten minutes south of here.”

“Oh,” said Teller, surprised.

“She's been telling me all about you,” he continued with a warm smile.

Teller hadn't taken in where they were standing. They were in front of a white trailer with the NASA logo proudly displayed on the side. Several monitors and computer screens were set up outside the trailer. Scientists milled around, talking with each other. Several of them were standing with Mason.

“Tell him,” said Susan. “Tell him about the gyroscope, just like you told me.”

Teller blushed.

Mason looked down at the toy in Teller's hand.

Mason was a burly man. In his teens, he'd played college football. His muscular physique seemed to burst out of his suit. His physical prowess and his crew-cut hair made him look business-like. An alpha-male, Mason had gained a doctorate in aeronautics, with the intention of becoming an astronaut before being lured into business. By the time he was twenty-eight, he'd become chief executive of Arden Oil. From there, he moved into politics, working as chief of staff for the governor of New York, before moving on to Washington and gaining the attention of the then presidential nominee, Robert Laver.

Teller felt intimidated even though Mason was at pains to make him feel relaxed.

“I was trying to tell him,” said Susan, looking up at Teller. “I was trying to explain to him that the anomaly is not moving, it's pointing, but now you can tell him.”

Mason smiled. He clearly wasn't expecting much. Susan was animated, and he seemed happy to entertain her enthusiasm. Teller, however, felt like a fool. It was one thing to entertain the imagination of his kids with his thoughts on the anomaly, talking with the Director of National Security, though, was entirely different.

“I gotta tell you,” said Mason. “This thing has stirred up a whole lot of fear and uncertainty, but, so far, we have no idea what it is. We've got scientists coming in from all around the country to examine it, but, as you've seen on television, there's not much to it. It just keeps turning over and over again, with no reason as to why.”

“Staying still,” said Susan, pulling on the leg of his trousers as she corrected him. “It's not moving. We are. It's standing still and pointing into space.”

Mason rubbed her head fondly.

“So what's it pointing at?” asked Mason. Teller was surprised by his patience, assuming someone at this level of government service would be an all-American action man, firing from the hip and hitting bandits at a hundred yards, but Mason was calm, content to consider the moving/not-moving concept. A couple of the scientists were also listening, a little curious as to who the director was talking to.

“It's pointing at home,” said Susan proudly. Teller shrunk just a little. He felt like a fish out of water, especially with the NASA scientists milling around in their navy blue polo shirts. They looked focused, determined. He imagined the scoffing and ridicule he was about to face with his petty theory.

“Home?” queried Mason, looking at Teller. “So you think you know why this thing is moving?”

“Well, technically,” Teller began, feeling as though he were tiptoeing through a minefield, “everything's in motion in one way or another. We look at the anomaly as though it's moving and we're stationary, but it is equally valid to say it's stationary and we're moving. It's remaining fixed, always facing in the same direction, while the direction we're facing constantly changes as we rotate around the Earth's axis.”

Standing beside him, Cathy looked confused. The scientists, though, looked interested.

Teller handed Mason the gyroscope, giving the weight inside the gimbal mounts a spin.

“It's like this, like a gyroscope mounted on gimbals. The law of the conservation of angular momentum keeps the gyroscope always pointing in the same direction. Only with us, instead of the gimbal frame moving, it's the Earth that's moving. As the Earth turns each day, the anomaly remains stationary relative to the stars, always facing the same patch of sky regardless of which way we turn.”

Mason seemed lost in thought. Teller pointed at the anomaly as he continued.

“Look at the bowl of earth beneath the concrete slab. It looks and moves like the dish of a radio telescope tracking a single star over the course of a night.

“We tend to think of ourselves, our home, this road, those buildings, these trees, as fixed in place. We think of them as stationary, but they're not, they're moving, spinning around as the Earth turns each day. New York is constantly changing the direction it faces out into space as the Earth rotates, so the anomaly is compensating and remaining still, stationary, staying fixed on a certain part of the sky, just like a radio telescope would if it were looking at something interesting in the heavens. It's just like our gyroscope.”

The NASA scientists milling around became very interested in Teller's comments. They were caught off guard by the concept.

“OK,” said one of the older NASA scientists. “So you're saying the motion of the anomaly is an illusion, that it's not moving, we are. And the apparent motion relative to us simply allows it to keep station with another celestial body?”

“Yes,” replied Teller, impressed with how quickly he grasped the concept. “Whatever it is facing is at a right-angle to the slab, perpendicular to it.”

He pointed up into the sky above the slowly moving concrete slab.

“Up there somewhere,” said Teller somewhat absentmindedly. “I think it's pointing at something outside our solar system.”

“How do you know this?” asked another of the scientists.

“Well,” said Teller. “There are reports on the Internet that the anomaly's period of motion is slightly less than a full day, which is what you'd expect from something that is aligning with a point outside our solar system. Ah, and its angle. It tilts down at night, but it doesn't turn completely upside-down.”

“So what is it facing? What is it pointing at?” asked Mason.

“It's pointing at home,” said Susan, looking up at all the grown-ups standing around her, keen to be part of the conversation. To her, it clearly seemed like a simple concept.

“What she means,” said Teller, regretting getting the kids so excited with his pet theories, “is that it is facing the point it came from. I think it's facing Vega.”

Everyone paused. It felt a little awkward so Teller continued, trying to break the silence.

“It's a message. It's like a signpost saying, Over here. At least, it seems to be facing the star Vega, it's hard to tell with just a rudimentary sky map and only a vague, approximate notion of its direction. So it's a guess, really.”

One of the scientists whispered in Mason's ear. Mason said something back to him and he nodded.

“Vega,” said Mason. “Why Vega? What's so special about Vega?”

“I don't know,” replied Teller. “It's a pretty ordinary star about 24 light years away from Earth.”

The scientist beside Mason spoke up.

“Vega was in that movie about meeting aliens, right? Contact, with Jodie Foster.”

“Ah, yeah, I guess so,” replied Teller.

“Don't you find that a little surprising?” added Mason. “That our first contact with an alien civilization would mirror a work of fiction?”

“It was written by Carl Sagan,” said the scientist, coming to Teller's defense.

Teller felt very much out of place. He reached out and took the gyroscope from Mason.

“Find me a radio telescope and point it in the same direction,” commanded Mason. “I want to see exactly what this thing is facing.”