"4:15" by Da Rastafrog
Only Harry knew of the true capabilities of the monstrous computer.
He could remember
the first time he played with the thing. He remembered going
home to his wife and
explaining to her its capabilities. He told her he could "access
on-line servers at 128,000
BPS." and how the computer could "run at over 2500 Megahertz".
He was like an excited
child with a new toy. He remembered the expression on her face,
overwhelmed and
confused. Of course that was years ago, and the computer was much
faster and much
more advanced than it used to be.
Harry Donaldson was a man in his early forties. He had a
wife, Rachel, and two
kids, Henry and Jordan. Harry was no different from the rest,
that is, except for his high-
paying job at NASA. Harry was head of the communications
department at the U.S.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration facility. The
computer console at which
Harry slaved over every day was incredible. The machinery stretched
from one corner of
the room to the next, and then around to a third corner.
It was a huge, impressive-looking
apparatus with hundreds of tiny flashing lights, levers that went
every which way, and
monitors that could each access a number of secondary computers.
One of the monitors,
separated from the rest, was not used to access other computers,
but it was used
exclusively for the computer at which harry was seated. This
monitor was connected
directly to the computer, while the keyboard, which Harry was currently
asleep behind,
printed onto this screen. Harry fell back to earth with a
buzz over the intercom.
He groggily guided his finger to a little blue button labeled
"talk" and said,
"Yeah?"
A voice returned his, "Mr. Donaldson, It's Bob Smuckers.
The boys and I got
your lunch, would you like it now or would you like us to put it
in the fridge?"
"Yea, I'll uhh.. Be right down, thanks," he answered remembering
that he was
hungry--within all the "working", he had almost forgotten. Harry
stood up from his rolling
Relaxo brand reclining chair, picked up an empty coffee cup that
had been waiting for him
on the table by the door, and began his walk down to the lunch
area while waving to a few
people he was friendly with. He opened the door to the eating
area. There was blood all
over the table.
There lay Bob Smuckers on the floor struggling in his own
crimson horror. There
stood four other personnel casually eating their own lunches looking
down at Bob with
only grins on their faces. Just as Harry was about to totally lose
hold of reality, Bob
Smuckers stood up off the floor and began to speak.
"Oh, uh...hi boss. Sorry 'bout the mess. I was trying to
make a peanut butter and
jelly sandwich and I slipped. The strawberry jam flew outta m'
hands. I swear it was an
accident, I'll clean it up immediately! I-"
"Awright, no problem. Just go get a janitor, that's what
they're for right?" Harry
spoke out of hunger. Such clumsiness is definitely something NOT
needed around NASA,
but Harry was in a good mood. It was Thursday, which meant
tomorrow was Friday, and
Harry had a big fishing trip planned for the weekend. Harry saw
his Chicken MgNuggets
and large MgFries waiting for him next to his MgDrink and MgApple
Pie. He sat down
and began to shove the MgNuggets down his throat as he stared vacantly
at the triple
purple arch printed on the container of his Mg Fries. He
didn't seem to care that the
MgNuggets were cold and soggy of strawberry jelly. The only thing
that mattered was
that it was food. As soon as he felt his stomach began to
fill with food, Harry began to
chew his food rather than swallow it whole. He waited for
Bob to return with the janitor
before he began his mid-day discussion. Bob walked in with the
Cezil Bryeson, the
friendly Jamaican janitor who always had something amusing to say.
"'Oo's makin' all dis trouble 'ere?!?" Cezil joked. The janitor
was in and out in a
few minutes with a quick table wipe-down and floor pickup. Then
Harry began to talk.
"What have we found out today boys?"
One of the men spoke saying, "I got some error messages from
Omega Ten. It
relayed that it had trouble scanning some photos of the farside
of Pluto. It was most likely
because of the extreme temperatures. I sent the new self-repairing
program along with
some extracting instructions through our communications signal.
Now Omega is back on-
line and scanning pictures like you wouldn't believe."
"That's great Tom," Harry spoke with a ring in his voice,
as if he was pleased. And
he was. Tom Smith was a great, hard-working guy. Not to mention
his extroverted social
behavior and an unbelievable personality. Tom and Harry had been
friends for years. Since
Tom started the job actually so it had been...13 years. Wow had
it been that long? Lately
Harry hadn't been able to detach himself from this feeling of old
age. Since his forty-third
birthday the week before, he had been frequently reminding himself
that he was aging. His
face showed it too. But not to get into that, for in two days he'd
be reclining on a fishing
boat in the middle of Fish Lake, and those are the thoughts he'd
rather be thinking.
"Anything else?" he finally spoke up. With a series of nearly
silent "Nos" and other
negative responses, Harry finished his last bit of MgDrink and
his MgFries and with
MgApple pie in one hand, Harry stood up and said to his employees,
"Then that is all,
please contact me if anything significant happens." With that,
he walked back to his office,
placed his now half eaten MgApple Pie on the table near the door,
and sat down in his
comfortable hundred and eighty-five dollar chair.
Harry hardly had anytime to sink into deep thought before
he got another ring over
the intercom.
"Yes?" he said impatiently.
"Sir, you'd better get down to Sector 7-G immediately!"
"What's the prob-"
"We've received another one of those signals again..."
"Shoot...Just hold it, I'll be right there Al!"
Harry sped down the hall and past the elevator, he couldn't
afford to lose much
time so he ran down the emergency stairwell. He reached levels
I....H....and finally G. He
opened the heavy steel door and ran down the hall to the seventh
sector. He rounded the
corner and found himself met by his five highest ranking employees:
Bob Smuckers, Tom
Smith, Al Jones, Mark Farringer, and Henry Harrison. All
five men stared in awe at a
monitor mounted on a computer that was about two-thirds the size
of the one in Harry's
office. Through a small speaker came a series of high-pitched signals
and tones. A group
of red and yellow LEDs were flashing rapidly and in random order.
Upon the monitor was
a message that the computer had attempted to interpret and translate
to English. The
program that the computer ran would record the series of beeps
and run it through over
five hundred known forms of binary and audible codes. Then it would
print on the screen
the translation with the most English words. It looked like a bunch
of random words but
with a closer look.....it was almost scary:
GREET HAS MORPH PEOPLE WE DON'T NOW ELK WE NOW OTHER SOLAR
PEOPLE
It took about 45 seconds before the computer could print
the next line:
BABY BABY FLOWER OUR RUBBER UGLY PETE SORRY CULTURE HOWEVER
NEAR
The words just didn't fit. Perhaps it was an unlisted signal.
Either way Harry began
to lose it again. He gawked at the message as if it were in plain
English. Sure, it sounded
stupid, but it was real, and it was the happening. He finally spoke.
"This is ridiculous, Is this some kind of error message from
Omega?" Harry asked
only to hide the truth from himself.
"Sir," Spoke Henry, "You know our satellite doesn't send
messages in broken
English."
"So...what are you saying?...." There was an uncomfortable
silence that made
Harry's stomach turn. No one said anything, but one at a time,
each man lifted his head
from the monitor, and met his eyes with those of Harry Donaldson.
"Listen, "outside" communication is just out of the question.
There is no
way..."Harry continued to babble sub-consciously. He knew that
the signal was not one of
any satellite or space shuttle. He knew there was extra-terrestrial
life out there, and that
one Harry Donaldson, just a face in the crowd, had the information
to prove it.
************************************************************************
Just over two decades ago, in the year 1991, Harry had received
over a dozen
signals combined for the year. Each was not unlike each other nor
the one they were
currently recieving. In more than one instance, he had overridden
the other computers so
that his was the only one able to receive. one day he received
three separate signals from
three separate races. He had sent out a greeting, a very friendly
one at that, and it was
returned by two hostile responses each traced to solar systems
located billions of light
years away. The third was from a small tribe of extra terrestrials
from a solar system only
150 light years away. Each race had sent their signals periodically
during the year.
Every four weeks or so, Harry could pick up some sort of
communication. He told
no one and luckily no one else had witnessed these communications
transactions. He was
not sure whether it was their technology or something else that
regulated a signal only
every four weeks. Apparently none of the races, though each quite
advanced, had the
technology to trace the signals directly to Earth. This was because
Harry had bounced the
signal off of a Russian satellite and then into space. Three hours
later, the satellite was
destroyed by an outside force. He was the only one that knew the
real reason why the
satellite exploded. According to the media, it was some sort of
system malfunction. Harry
had thanked god that he had not replied with Earth's coordinates.
Had the alien's
technology been advanced enough they would've traced Harry's signal
directly to Earth.
God knows what they could do now, over twenty years later! Judging
upon the damage
that was done to the satellite, they, at the time, had weapons
far superior to any of Earth's
firepower.
Harry had saved all the information on floppy disk and deleted
it from the
hardrive's memory. So Harry had complete and legitimate proof of
life beyond Earth, and
he was the only one that knew about it.
"So what do YOU think it is, Mr. D?" asked one of the men.
"Well, it must be-wait a minute--" All of a sudden Harry
noticed that Al, who was
currently seated in front of the keyboard, was typing something.
"WHAT DO YOU
THINK YOU'RE--" And then, as if it had gone in slow motion, Harry
watched Al's finger
strike the [ENTER] key.
"Sir I just-"
Harry ran for the phone jack but he knew it was too late.
Too late unless..."You
didn't happen to bounce that off Omega, did you?!?" He said this
as he disconnected the
phone line from the jack.
"Of course, Sir, but like you said, it most likely isn't
alie-"
"It IS aliens. And there is to be no more communication between
here and there
ANYMORE!" Harry spoke sternly and strictly. "It may be too late
already. There's no
time to explain now, but I have the evidence that we need. Al,
I want you to take this
key," Harry held out his opened hand, "And unlock the top left
drawer of my desk There
are, taped to the roof of the drawer, two floppy disks. I want
you to take them, upload
them into the computer in my office and then distribute the information
to all known
media sources, the FBI, the CIA, and the President himself. Tell
him that a state of
Emergency is mandatory." Al was gone quicker than a snowflake melts
on a summer's
sidewalk. "Bob, plug in the phone line and bring us back on-line.
Bring us to the same
frequency channel as before and try to get back the signal. Send
out as LITTLE as
possible, Bob, it is CRUCIAL that you heed my word."
"Sir, You'll have the whole country in a panic!" protested
Farringer.
"The whole world should be in a panic you fool! They're more
advanced than us!
They're weapons are monstrously overpowering. If we don't-"
"Sir!" spoke Bob.
"WHAT?!?"
"Omega is......gone..."
Harry put his hand to his forehead and fell into a chair.
He sat and thought and
finally, almost whispering said, "Then...its too late..."
"What the hell is this some kind of joke?!" someone spoke
up.
"Do you see a frigging smile on my face you bastard?!?. Someone
buzz Al and tell
him that once he gets the info out, he can go home. Everyone is
dismissed."
Harry drove home to his loving wife who was at home dazedly
staring at the
president on TV as he gave his last ever public address. Harry
gathered up his family in the
living room and they all sat down to enjoy their last while together.
As the hours passed
sounds were growing from outside. It was quite a madhouse, broken
windows, sex in the
streets, open drinking, and huge mobs covered the town. And as
the hours still passed, and
the children fell asleep, Harry anticipated the shock more and
more. Eventually Rachel fell
asleep too.
Finally he loosened up just enough to look at his watch.
It was 11:45 p.m. yet no
sign of anything. When 12:30 rolled around, Harry began to think
almost optimistically.
When it was finally 1:00 on Friday, June 15, 2012, Harry began
to think about fishing. He
started to think about what he might catch while relaxing in his
beautiful, newly purchased
fishing boat in the middle of the lake with the sun glistening
on the water, the birds
overhead, and the clouds, nowhere to be seen. He looked at his
watch. 1:45. Harry said to
himself, "You know, maybe I was wrong after all, maybe it wasn't
even aliens..." 2:30.
Harry was hungry, he made himself a sandwich and went outside on
the porch. On the
streets, there were people drinking, singing, dancing, partying
the hell out of their puny,
worthless little lives. Some were already celebrating. There came
a naked drunk man
waving his hands screaming down the street which startled Harry
at first. He was at least
eighty.
Harry finally figured out what the man was yelling. "NOOO
ALIENS! THEY
GONE SHOT THEMSELVES TO HELL! THEY ALL DEAD! WE ALIVE! WE
ALIVE!"
Harry smiled, that crazy old man was right, there were no
aliens! Harry went
inside, got a six pack of beer, and came back out. He drank slowly,
for he was on the best
high of his life. He looked at his watch, 3:30. Then he looked
at his six pack, gone. He
looked again at his former beer supply and noticed two empty six-pack
containers. He
hadn't meant to get too drunk that night, but on second thought
he might as well take
advantage of it. He saw that the streets were still filled with
people rejoicing and dancing
and he figured they would be there until dawn. He stood up from
his chair and went to the
front of the porch, more than slightly slowed by the alcohol. He
cupped his hands in a
cylinder around his mouth and yelled, "I have sumpin ta' tell ev'ryone!!!"
People gathered
around his house. "The aliens aint comin' and we know it!" there
was cheering from a
happy, and drunk, crowd. "Those dirty aliens aint gunna do nuthin!
Theyz too friggin
scared!!! WE ARE TH' BEST!!!" His voice echoed through the
street before there was a
cheerful roar in the crowd and music started up again. People continued
their dancing and
singing and Harry just sat back down. He looked at his watch which
read 4:13. He
screamed "FOUR FUCKIN THIRTEEN A.M. EVERYONE!!!!" He sat back and
smiled.
The crowd roared.
Then there was a sudden stop to the music. Everyone froze
and stared up at the
sky which was luminous with twisting colors of green and blue.
Everyone began to wake
up. It was 4:14 a.m.
It must've been the longest sixty seconds in history. The
whole neighborhood was
awake, the whole state, the whole country. The world's atmosphere
everywhere began
twisting and shifting. 4:14 and 30 seconds. The entire population
of Earth was awestruck.
Everyone stared at the sky. It was mesmerizing and beautiful. 4:14
and 40 seconds. The
world was a colorful slide puzzle. Colors came in and came out.
Harry couldn't blink. His
eyes were fixed upon the heavenly glow of the sky. 4:14 and 50
seconds. The Earth began
to spin wildly, and the colors spun faster. No one said a thing.
Not a single voice of over
10 trillion on the over-populated Earth even muttered the slightest
sound. 4:14 and 55
seconds. The Earth spun even fast now, the animals scurried about,
the people remained
motionless. 56 seconds. The sky opened up and out came a white
light, small as an the
period in a book. 57 seconds. The sky resealed itself and the small
white light shined
brighter than the sun. It had a hold of people, they could feel
it, but could do nothing. 58
seconds. The light began to expand slowly until it was the size
of an egg. The egg floated
in the air as the people all watched the magical light show. Meanwhile,
on the other side of
the globe, the mirror-image of this event was taking place. 59
Seconds. The two eggs
began to circle the earth in opposite directions at incredible
speeds. they passed each other
at the two points where they had first appeared. Harry finally
was able to move again. He
noticed his wife standing next to him. She had to have been there
the whole time. And in
that one second, Harry put his hand in his wife's and watched the
finale.
60 seconds.
And God said, "Let there be.... nothing." The only thing that stood
out was a large
asteroid hurling through space. The asteroid had a peculiar
green iridescence to it. It was
smoking too. But perhaps the oddest thing about the asteroid was
that there was a beeping
sound from one of the contours of the pourous rock. It was a digital
watch. It was the
only item left in tact on the rock. Its alarm somehow triggered
in the explosion-The
instantaneous eruption that sent Earth speeding off its axis and
out of the gravitational pull
of the sun. Upon the watch, which would be beeping into eternity,
there still lay, to this
day, three legible figures: A day, a date, and a time. FRIDAY,
6-15-12, 4:15 A.M.
Song: "Thematic Gel" composed by Aleks Ozolins.
(But if you ask him, he says it doesn't sound right
over general midi. I still like the way it sounds!)
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