7.14.26 - Untitled: Chapter 3
Chapter 3: The EggHead
Across the Potomac, the President studied the object on the Resolute Desk. White ceramic, polished to an almost mirror finish. Porcelain, essentially. The real one was ceramic too, or so he had been told. He received the information with skepticism. But his top scientists confirmed it to him back in March. Ceramic. Like a piece of pottery. The object was held up by a brilliant gold stem, which erupted out of a striking white granite base. His idea. When it was originally brought to him, the model was mounted onto hard, clear plastic. But he wanted to keep it--it was his after all. But it couldn't look so cheap if it was going to sit on the Resolute Desk. The clear plastic looked cheap. And that meant it looked weak.
When he first requested his desired modifications his decorater suggested that the base be limestone. It would be "evocative" of D.C., he said. The material would make the diorama uniquely and distinctively of the Capitol and the monument its realworld counterpart hovered over--more befitting display in the People's House. After all, these objects were all over the country and the world. The diorama of this one had to be distinguished in some way. The President didn't like the way the decorator spoke as if he had a better idea of what materials made an object "befitting" display in the Oval Office than he did. He was the goddamned President. People always seemed to forget that. He won--in a landslide. And he was in charge. Besides, the President knew how to "distinguish" this particular object from its peers. Per his instruction, the white granite base was adorned with a golden plaque:
DC-1 38.889484, -77.035278 The Washington Monument March 23, 2020
24K gold. His orders. Limestone would have looked so dull behind it--and absolutely propesterous under his beautiful, gleaming, porcelain egg. The others called them tic tacs. But to him it looked like an egg. If you looked closely, the top was ever so slightly narrower than the bottom, and there was a nearly imperceptible taper to the length of the object. Tic Tacs are cilindrical, symmetrical at the top and bottom. Others didn't see that. But he had the eye. He could see it was really an egg. Elongated, narrower than the conventional chicken's eggs, but an egg nonetheless. The President delicately brushed its porcelain finish with his fingertips.
"It's really something, isn't it Rob?"
"I'm, I'm sorry Mr. President?" The President had caught the National Security Advisor off guard.
The President seemed annoyed by Rob's lapse in attention.
"My egg. It's really something. I showed it to Prime Minister Abe last week and he said, wow isn't that beautiful? He couldn't believe how beautiful it was. I don't think any of the other leaders have one like this. Mike, could we look into getting one like this to Abe?"
"Absolutely, sir" his Secretary of State responded.
"It has to be beautiful, like this one here, nice and polished. But do me a favor, let's uh, let's not make it too nice? Ho kay? We don't want anyone thinking that the Japanese are giving their leaders more beautiful presents than your President gets, now do we?" the President said through a cheery grin.
A few in the room chuckled.
"Of course sir, we wouldn't want that" the Secretary confirmed with a smile. The President liked Mike. He was curious, "where is Shinzo's egg?"
"uh, Mr. President, I assure you we'll get on it as soon as possible" the Secretary responded with some confusion.
"No, where is his real one" the President snapped back.
The Secretary understood the President's meaning. "Mr. President, Japan has dozens across their major centers, just like we do, but Tokyo has two over the Tokyo Skytree and Tokyo Tower"
"Which one is bigger?"
"Mr. President, the Tokyo Skytree is taller than Tokyo Tower. The eggs of course are all the same size."
"We should give Abe a di-yah-rahmuh of his Egg over the Skytree. Don't you think? Mike can we give him one?"
"Yes. Mr. President."
"Tell him there's more where that came from if he finally gets rid of those poultry tarriffs." The zinger generated some laughs across the Oval, and the President was pleased with himself. Then it was quiet for a moment. Cautiously, the Vice President broke the silence.
"Mr. President, may Mrs. Nichols resume her presentation?"
The President's eyes darted to his subordinate--a rush of burning hot anger coarsing through him. He glowered and pouted for a moment. This Mike, he didn't like so much. Even when he was seemingly trying to be deferential, the President felt he was really being nasty. One of his worst decisions. And he was a lightweight. When the eggs showed up, Mike wouldn't shut up about how important it was for the nation to have "spiritual leadership." Mike would try and start cabinet meetings with prayers, asking God for "guidance" during these unprecedented times. Mike was scared of the eggs. But the President wasn't scared, and his second in command's behavior was an unacceptable, contemptible display of fear and weakeness.
The Vice President maintained composure under the President's hot stare, and the anger behind it dissipated faced with this modest sign of resolve. He turned back to Katherine Nichols, who was standing in the center of the Oval patiently with a large smart board behind her, awaiting his word. This one he didn't mind.
"Why don't you go on, Katie."
In her forty-two years, Katherine Nichols had never gone by "Katie," and only her closest friends and family called her "Kathy." But the nickname by the President suggested a sense of familiarity and fondness which was exactly the point. Katherine was a trusted member of the intelligence community by the "adults" in the President's inner circle--she had served as NSA Robert O'Brian's aide for many years, and ultimately became responsible for coordinating interagency collaboration on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, and for being the NSA's point person on all related matters. She wasn't a technical expert on anything, but through her regular interface with the national security apparatus, the Air Force, NASA, SETI, and the All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, she was likely the most valuable repository of institutional knowledge in the room.
As it also happened, Katherine was exceptionally attractive. She had obscenely large, bright green eyes, which sat delicately on a pale face dappled with freckles. By nature, she had unruly, coarse, red hair, but she consistently wore it in a high, tight bun. This seemingly prudish styling choice, however, only accentuated her more femine features. Like how the soft curve of neck fell into her dainty, narrow shoulders--which framed the upper portion of a petite, but unmistakably womanly figure.
"Where would you like me to pick up, Mr. President?" Katherine was careful to avoid the instinct to resume with "as I was saying..." given the President's temparament. She needed him to feel in control.
The President's gaze darted back up to Katherine's face. His mind blanked. He glanced at the clock on his desk. 2:12. They were hardly ten minutes into the hour long briefing. "Why don't you pick up where you left off, Katie."
What was never explicitly said, but what Katherine was made to understand regardless, was that she had been designated this role because her more natural gifts helped hold the President's attention on--what he apparently found to be--a rather boring subject matter. It was critical that the National Security apparatus maintained the President's trust, interest, and attention. If they lost it, it was liable to be captured by voices that they found less...credible. Which itself was a national security risk. As a result of this need, Katherine had been promoted to take charge of organizing and presenting the briefings on the most unprecedented national security risk in human history to the Commander in Chief of the most powerful military on earth. She was the one who had to tell the President all he needed to know about the eggs. She was the eggspert. The Egghead, if you will.
"Thank you, Mister President." Katherine dropped the phrase with an almost girlish cadence, and followed it with a beaming white smile. She knew she had maybe ten more minutes of his focus. There was so much to tell, to a man who would listen, but right now, her only priority was to impart the information that would keep the President on a sober, safe decision-making trajectory, and which gave him the confidence to allow the operations of the bureaucracy to hum along without his excessive interference or concern. It was managing up in the most sensistive and highest-stakes of contexts.
She continued on with the briefing not unlike a grade-school teacher would present a lesson plan.
"Over the past week, your top scientists have found that the Eggs may have triggered back in March in response to a signal coming from a nearby planet. They aren't sure yet, but right now, their findings suggest that the Eggs may have been activated or even directed by an extraterrestrial source."
"What were they asked to do?" What a stupid question, Katherine thought to herself. How on earth could we possibly know? She was instinctively about to explain how the message was encrypted, and how it took some of the most advanced minds to even disentangle it from ordinary cosmic background radiation or natural phenomenon, but she caught herself.
"We don't know Mister President, but your best scientists are working on it. What we do know, however, is that the signal seemed to be purposely designed to avoid detection."
The phrasing was deliberate, and misleading. They weren't his scientists, and she never liked that turn of phrase. They were just various research institutions, individuals, and governments around the world working around the clock in a truly unprecedented fashion. Research papers were being produced at a staggering rate, being shared on Twitter, peer reviewed by a hodge-podge global community of academics and enthusiasts, working far faster and surprisingly better than the typical publication process could ever handle. The eggs had accidentally triggered the grandest crowd-sourced research project on earth. But this reality was too subtle, too novel, too complex to communicate. So they were "his" scientists. Whatever kept him happy, whatever held his trust.
"By who? Who are they avoiding?"
The President was now asking the right questions, but the ones where she had less of an answer, one that began encroaching in the realm of pure speculation. "Mister President, it might have been to avoid us finding it. But we can't rule out the possibility that it was designed to avoid detection by anyone."
The President thought to himself for a moment. "You mean, perhaps, they didn't want it to be found by other countries?"
What a blithering idiot. "That's possible Mister President, but our real concern is that it might show they're trying to be quiet from something else." The President received this information quietly, his brow furrowed a little and he crossed his arms, a signal that she should go on. This was the main subject of the briefing, and something that she had thought carefully on how to frame. She started gathering the beginnings of the national security risk assessment that the various teams had put together based on the new insights from the radio astronomers--but as the task of explaining the assessment to such an incapable audience confronted her, she instinctively retreated back to well-traveled terrain, hoping to slowly inch her way back to the darker, more unknown matters.
"Mister President, so far, this is what we understood before. Over the past ten years or so, our forces and those of other countries around the worlds have encountered the eggs across major military installations across the world, where some of humanity's most powerful and sophisticated radio signals are produced.
On March 11, 2020, hundreds of eggs rose up out of the earth's oceans at hypersonic speeds, and began encircling the planet at extremely high speeds in low orbit throughout the day, then, as each geography experienced sunset, they saw them begin glowing, flooding the night sky with red light visible across the world. This continued for 24 hours before, slowly across the world, the eggs descended from orbit and positioned themselves above the tallest structures in population dense areas as well as major radio towers. " Katherine could sense a degree of impatience from the President as she recounted what her, and others in the room already knew, but she pressed on with her recap.
"Since then, they have done nothing but emit a faint interference pattern which does not seem to afffect any terrestrial communications capabilities, but shortly after which we lost contact with Voyager 1, the only man-made object which is outside of the influence of our sun.
Analysis of the eggs reveals that they are of likely terrestrial origin, and their composition is a hard ceramic, although dating is inconclusive.
Aside from that, there has been no information, no attempts at comunication, no interference with our affairs.
In April, we returned our astronauts who were on the ISS without incident, and the private sector has recently resumed launching commercial satellites into orbit without provoking any response.
Taken together, this set of information left a wide variety of interpretation as to the Eggs' intent, purpose, and where they came from. We could not determine what the Eggs were, or what they wanted, whether they were alien, some kind of earthbound non-human intelligence, or of other exotic origin. We were in the dark. " Now she's set the hook for his attention and interest. She quickly studied his face, and confirmed that he was engaged.
"However, over this last week, researchers have confirmed that from December 2019 to March 2020, our planet was bathed by very low frequency radio waves which, at first, looked like 'background noise,' but after retroactive study appeared to be a disguised, spaced out signal coming from the TRAPPIST-1 system. It is the emerging consensus that this signal was of intelligent design, and was what activated the Eggs.
What's interesting about this signal is that it was deliberately designed to aviod detection. But it's unclear why they would want to avoid detection from us, specifically. Activation could have been accomplished by a higher frequency, more focused, and more visible signal, much more efficiently.
We also know that we have never received any forms of radio signature from TRAPPIST-1 until now, meaning they stay relatively quiet.
Taken together, we cannot rule out the possibility that not only are the entitites on TRAPPIST-1 trying to keep us quiet to something outside of our star system, but they themselves are taking measures to be quiet."
"Why?"
NSA O'Brian, growing slightly impatient, interjected, "Mr. President, it's almost impossible to tell what these things want, and what they mean. But we're trying to use the information we have, and whatever common sense god may have given us to try and inform our next decisions. Whoever these...things are--if they are the ones responsible for activating the eggs, they might have been the ones that put them there. If the eggs have been here for as long we think they have, and knowing how long it takes for signals to move between earth and their home, then we can assume they've known we've been here a long time. In that time, they haven't tried to talk to us. And it doesn't seem like they're interested. That's relevant a data point, from a national security perspective. And now they're trying to keep us quiet. This suggests there may be some risk to their, and our security that we don't fully appreciate. This is what Ms. Nichols is trying to impart to you."
The President leaned back and folded his arms again, his pout gave way to a an easier expression. A sense of understanding and satisfaction had just washed over him. "So they're afraid of something." The President glanced down at his beautiful, porceilain egg. "I guess everyone's afraid of something."