Anomaly (6 page)

Mason held his hands slightly apart, with his fingers poised. He was ready to throw Cathy to the lions.

“Ms Jones,” he said. “You broke this story. Is there anything you would like to add?”

Although she looked calm, Teller could see her hands shaking as she held them down on the desk. Her voice quivered as she spoke.

“Ah... I'm so sorry. This is all my fault. It was rash and thoughtless of me to betray what was a casual conversation between a school teacher, one of his pupils, and her uncle. I'm sorry for causing so much confusion.”

She started sobbing.

Mason was stone-faced. He wasn't finished with Cathy, not just yet.

“Moving forward,” he said formally, “Ms Jones will act as the media liaison for the anomaly investigation team and will undertake daily briefing sessions for the media. It is our intention to provide complete transparency into our observations of this phenomenon so as to avoid any further speculation. We will not engage in sensational or unsubstantiated claims. I expect Ms Jones will ensure this protocol is followed.”

Cathy's head hung low.

Teller walked up to the NASA trailer with Cathy.

“You too, huh,” said Cathy, seeing Finch looking despondent. His camera sat idly beside him on the ground.

“Oh, yeah,” replied Finch. “A cavity search would have been more fun than what I've just been through.”

Cathy flinched. “That bad?”

Finch was quiet. He was holding Susan's balloon, poking it with his finger like it was some kind of boxing speed bag. He clearly wasn't in the mood for idle chatter.

Susan was sitting next to him in a deck chair, watching the slab of concrete in the distance as it slowly rose up on one side. It was almost at a right-angle to the ground, appearing like a large circular wall blocking the view of the United Nations building by the river. Susan sat there tossing a football idly from one hand to the other to stave off the boredom. The anomaly was supposed to be exciting, but she found it slow.

Mason, Bates and Anderson walked up behind them, stopping to talk with a few of the NASA scientists some ten feet away. With the news conference behind them, there was a lot of discussion about the next steps. There was a general agreement that they'd learned all they could passively, watching the anomaly from a distance. At some point, they needed to probe the interior, but the question was how?

Anderson asked Mason about Teller, knowing both Teller and Cathy could overhear their conversation. Anderson was thoughtful, not one to jump to rash conclusions. In this case, he clearly appreciated the fresh perspective Teller brought to the discussion about the anomaly. Bates was not so complimentary, saying there was no room for amateurs on the project. Mason reminded Bates they were all amateurs when it came to possible extraterrestrial contact. Bates protested, saying it would look bad in scientific circles. Anderson challenged that, asking since when did Bates care about what others thought. Mason reminded them both of the loss of the Challenger space shuttle, and how group-thinking had dominated NASA's decision making prior to that fatal launch. As far as Mason was concerned, a little diversity in the group was a good thing, preventing them from falling for the same mistakes again. Teller, it seemed, would become a part of the team. Teller might not be qualified, said Mason, but he was sharp and he thought laterally. His gyroscope comparison had been a good example of thinking outside the box. Teller, Mason noted, seemed to understand the anomaly better than anyone else so far, something that grated on Bates. Even with the Vega fiasco, Mason said it had been a productive afternoon.

Hearing this, Teller wasn't quite sure what to think.

Cathy pretended to be talking to Teller about something else and not listening in on Mason's conversation, but she raised her eyebrows knowingly at Teller as Mason walked up behind him. Mason's hand landed on Teller's shoulder with a thump.

“We'd like you to stick around a little, OK?”

Teller went to say something in reply, like sure or thank you, but Mason had kept walking. An answer wasn't needed.

Mason knelt down by his niece.

“I got hold of your Mom,” he said, bending down beside her. “She's going to be home around eight, so we'll get one of the police officers to drop you off then.”

Susan's eyes lit up at the prospect of a ride in a police car.

“Can I turn on the siren?”

“I don't know about that,” said Mason, rubbing her head fondly. “Hey, where'd you get that football?”

Finch raised his hand. “Guilty, as charged. I found it in the trailer, behind one of the filing cabinets.”

Susan tossed it to Mason and he tossed it back with a smile. She passed it to Teller.

“Have you thought about ballistic trajectories?” asked Teller, passing the ball to Mason.

Mason grinned, saying, “Are you thinking what I'm thinking?”

“I sure am,” replied Teller. “All in the name of science.”

“Your thoughts?” asked Mason, gripping the ball like a quarterback as he spoke to Dr Bates.

“Well, I don't think it's going to be harmful or anything like that. I'd expect its arc to follow localized gravity, so as it passes through the anomaly it's going to fly sideways, falling toward the slab.”

“Galileo would be proud,” joked Dr Anderson, recognizing the historical precedence for the simplest of experiments when it came to gravity.

“Notice how the flags are rustling in the breeze,” added Bates. “The wind is already blowing through this thing without any adverse effects. I think we'll be fine.”

“If anything,” said Dr Anderson, “a football is a good choice for our initial probe into the interior. It's low-tech so nothing can go wrong. It's aerodynamic and has a well understood trajectory. And it's brief. It'll give us some good metrics.”

Teller liked the way they could rationalize something so childish and make it sound scientific, but they were right, it was a good, simple first step, and it was fun.

Mason spoke into his radio. “Can you get one of those guys from the National Guard over on the south side to turn around? Tell him we're going to throw him a football.”

The reply over the airways was one of surprise. The radio operator asked for confirmation.

“It's OK,” Mason replied. “You heard correctly.”

Teller laughed. “This is what I love about science. It can be fun if you want it to be.”

Mason took off his suit jacket and draped it over one of the deck chairs. He loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves. It was humid, even with the sun setting. Sweat soaked his armpits.

Together, the group walked over toward the anomaly. As he stood before it, Teller felt small, in awe of its size. The concrete slab that once made up the intersection, with its white lines marking the road, its curb and trash can, along with the tree and the traffic lights, were almost at a right-angle to the ground. They looked like some crazy advertisement raising awareness for some obscure conservation group trying to make the concrete jungle all the more jarring to the mind by displacing it and sticking it sideways on a billboard. Teller half expected to see a Greenpeace logo somewhere near the bottom right. The UN flags were hundreds of meters above him, floating effortlessly in the sky, waving in the breeze. The shattered remains of several floors from the State Department slid into the hole in the ground. The world had gone topsy-turvy, it was as though someone had handed the architecture of the city to Dr. Seuss.

“Come on, Finch,” said Cathy joining in the moment, “this is history in the making, start the tape rolling.”

“Absolutely,” said Mason. “Make sure you get a good shot of this. We've got to give your buddies on the news desk something for the late edition.”

On the far side of the intersection, beyond the gaping hole in the ground, a soldier stood facing them. He yelled out, “I'm open.”

“How far do you think that is?” asked Mason, turning to Teller.

“Oh, I'd say it's around 40-50 yards. How good is your arm?”

“It's good enough,” Mason replied with a wink. “And where should I throw this thing? On what angle do you think?”

Teller liked being asked. Mason had a way of making the people around him feel important.

“Bates is right. It's going to fall that way, toward the slab, over against the UN, so don't worry too much about height, you'll have plenty of height once the ball passes into the anomaly. But be sure to throw to the right and it should arc back to the left as it falls sideways toward the intersection.”

“And you're sure this will be fine?” Mason asked, looking one last time at Dr Bates and Dr Anderson. They both nodded, grinning like school kids.

Finch lined up so he could catch a side profile of the director throwing the football and then pan to follow the ball as it passed through the anomaly.

Susan was excited. She was holding her balloon, jumping up and down, saying, “Do it, Uncle James. Do it.”

Mason slapped the ball hard into his right hand, cocked his arm back, took a few steps and unleashed a Hail Mary pass, aiming for the spot Teller had pointed out.

Deep inside, Finch wanted to see something spectacular as the ball passed into the anomaly, something like sparks or St Elmo's fire, but the ball sailed effortlessly through the air. Its arc changed, though, as it passed through the air space within the anomaly. Instead of following a curve toward the ground it held its height while curving to the left, falling toward the near vertical slab of concrete that once made up the busy intersection.

Teller cheered, as did several of the scientists watching. It was silly, stupid really, he thought, but it brought out the sense of wonder in them all.

“Kids,” said Cathy, winking at him and smiling.

The ball passed out the far side of the air surrounding the anomaly and then dropped down toward the ground. The soldier had to run backwards to make the catch before yelling, “Touchdown.”

They all laughed.

Dr Anderson turned toward the NASA trailer, looking at the gaggle of scientists monitoring the anomaly and held his arms up in a gesture, posing the obvious question.

“Nothing unusual here,” came the reply.

“Throw it back,” yelled Mason across the pit. The soldier wound up, determined to do himself proud, and threw the ball back, but he didn't allow for the unusual dynamics of horizontal gravity within the anomaly. The ball arced to their left, falling sideways toward the concrete slab. It would have made it out the other side had it not struck the traffic light sticking out of the slab almost parallel with the Earth.

Finch got a great shot of the ball bouncing sideways on the concrete slab as it rolled to within a few feet of the edge. It came to rest and sat there looking like it had been glued in place on a wall.

“Oh, no,” Mason cried.

“That was so much fun,” said Susan. “We should do that again.”

“Sorry,” came the cry from the other side.

Mason held his hand up in acknowledgment.

Well, it would keep the journalists off their backs for a while, thought Teller, as they love a bit of unique footage, and the vision of that ball defying normal gravity was quite something to behold. Then a thought struck him.

“Why don't we just go and get it?” he asked.

“What? Go in there?” asked Dr Anderson. “Are you mad?”

“No,” said Teller. “Think about it. This thing emits no radiation. It doesn't do anything other than turn over on itself. It should be perfectly safe.”

“I can't let you do that,” said Mason. “It's too risky.”

“And this from the man that just played football with what could very well turn out to be an alien space craft,” replied Teller. “Think about it. What's the risk? We know there were people inside the anomaly when it first appeared. Both Cathy and Finch were in there. No one was harmed by it, except for a fender bender and a bit of flying glass. What could go wrong?”

Cathy confirmed his point, saying, “We stepped in and out of the anomaly several times without noticing anything at all when the slab was close to the ground.”

“But that was when it was aligned with the Earth,” replied Mason. “This is different.”

“How?” asked Anderson. “Because it appears more sensational when it's up on a steep angle?”

“In principle, it is still the same,” said Teller. “Think of it like climbing over the next door neighbor's fence to get your ball back. It's nothing more than that.”

“Only your neighbor is The Thing from Outer Space,” joked Bates.

“Can I have your balloon?” asked Teller, turning to Susan.

“Sure,” she replied, handing it to him with a smile.

Teller turned to Anderson and Mason, saying, “I'll use this as a reference point for gravity as it will always face up, pulling tight on its string. I'll be fine. It's only a big deal because we think it is a big deal. The reality is, the anomaly was completely stable on both instances where the football passed through it. And that slab probably weighs several hundred tons, so I'm hardly going to cause an imbalance. I'll be like a fly landing on an elephant.”

As a group, they walked over toward the UN building as the slab of the intersection raised up before them like a wall. The sun was setting. Already, spotlights lit up the near vertical concrete intersection.

“Bates?” asked Mason.

“It's a Go from me,” he replied, holding his hand over his radio. He'd been talking intently with the NASA team back at the trailer.

“Anderson?”

“It's a Go from me too. I don't think we're going to see anything other than Teller switch between gravitational planes, just like the football did. There was no physical contortion or deformation of the ball, so I think he'll be fine. I think he'll simply find himself oriented to another plane.”

Finch kept recording.

Cathy stood beside Finch, whispering, “I can't believe they're serious about this. And they said we were irresponsible. So it looks like mankind's first interaction with an alien civilization is going to be as the result of a game of backyard football.”

Finch laughed.

Teller walked up to the edge of the slow moving slab with the balloon as the others stood back. Nice, he thought, there's nothing like people backing away from you for reassurance. It wasn't like he was going to get sucked in to some kind of vortex or something, now was it?