The one thing I wanted to do at the house tonight was to look through Elliot’s notes, to try to understand. To see if I could figure out what was happening on December fourth, while I was gone.
By the time I arrive at the house, though, and hide my bike under the shadow of the front porch, I have a new message on the forum. But I can only check with my phone, since the house no longer has Internet.
I read it on the way to the shed around back, where I’ve left the box of Elliot’s notes, with my bag slung over my shoulder.
There are two things that stick out in the message. That make me freeze. That make the goose bumps rise across my arms.
The first: pi. How did I not see that? I’m practically running to the computer out back to see if he’s right, when I notice the second part of his message: Virginia.
Holy. Crap.
So what if he doesn’t want to think this is coming from space? I’ll deal with that later. There’s no way this radio telescope picks up something from his house. It’s pointing at the sky. Anyway, he’s mapping electromagnetic fields, and I’m documenting radio frequencies. We’re not even looking at the same thing.
There’s something more important here. The location. And the pattern itself. Pi. Holy crap, I think he might be right.
I write back immediately, telling him I’m in the process of confirming, and then I tell him the name of my county before I can stop myself and think about whether this is a good idea or not.
For a second, I wonder if he’s some master computer hacker or something, who has hacked into my forum account, has seen where I was sending my message from, and has responded accordingly. If he’s doing this to play me, prey on me. But then I think of his notes about his brother, the video with the blue wall, and no. It’s not possible.
We have something here. Something real.
The problem with Elliot’s equipment is that it isn’t exactly the highest-tech equipment in the world. This began as some independent project last summer, before the start of his freshman year of college, and it took on a life of its own after that—he brought at least one friend back from college to see it: I saw them at night after, lying on their backs, looking up at the stars.
It’s an old satellite dish, plus scraps he acquired from various old electronics, and a computer program I think he partly copied and partly made himself, and I’m having difficulty pulling the exact times from the readout. But I think Visitor357 is right, even with my inexact calculations. It’s definitely right around three seconds. And he’s right; that’s close enough that it could be pi.
I kick myself, that I didn’t think of it first.
Elliot told me that when Voyager was sent into space with a message for any extraterrestrial life that might come upon it, our mathematical definitions were included, possibly as a way to communicate.
The signal has to mean something. And yes, it makes sense: this is what you’d send. Math is universal. The ratio of a circle would be the same anywhere. The universe operates by certain laws that are bigger than all of us.
This is one of them.
My eyes have gone dry and the numbers on the screen are starting to go fuzzy when I hear footsteps out back—several people’s footsteps. And then, underneath, the familiar mode of speaking among the group of friends I’ve come to know so well since we moved in last year.
Sutton is leading them across the field behind the shed; I don’t even have to look out the window to know it. His voice is the most distinct. Marco and Lydia are following a step or two behind, interjecting periodically. I can’t make out any of the conversation, but their presence here is enough to be suspicious.
They were here on Friday, when the signal started coming through. Lydia and Marco said they know what I’ve been doing at the house, messing with the inside to scare prospective buyers off. It made me suspicious then, and it makes me suspicious now that they’re here again. I need to know what they really do around here.
I quietly step outside the shed, picking out their darker shadows heading to the other end of the field. To Freedom Battleground State Park.
They move in a pack, each anticipating the other’s moves; all my time hanging out with them, and I never felt I fit in, because I didn’t. As Lydia said, she would literally forget I was there. I wasn’t meant to be a member. I was always just a visitor.
I met Marco almost right after we moved into this house, the summer before starting at a new school. And I hitched myself to their group when we started hanging out, never making myself a separate set of close friends. Friends who would call me up, rally around me after an eventual breakup.
Well, lesson learned and then some. The friends I made here were all friends-of-Marco first. There is no rallying group remaining.
I keep about fifty yards behind them now, and Lydia’s right—they never even notice me. I’m right here and no one turns around. If they spotted me now, it would be creepy, I’ll give her that. But it’s their own fault.
They duck between a row of trees, following a path deeper into the park. Their voices stay low, as if they’re trespassing and afraid of getting caught. It’s a Sunday night, and Sutton’s got a bag with him, and every once in a while someone shines a light on the path with their phone.
Eventually they veer off the trail into a larger clearing, and Sutton lets out a cheer as he climbs on top of a tire swing, swinging like a pendulum in the dark night. He swings back my way, where I’m standing behind a row of hedges, but he never notices me. I feel the rush of air as the tire brushes by me; I’m close enough to reach out and touch him. We’re in a playground in the middle of the park, next to some picnic tables. I think there are probably grills around; I’ve been in here before, but only in the daylight.
Marco opens Sutton’s bag, pulling out a can of beer.
Wow, mystery solved. Apparently they need to trek from their neighborhood, across my property, into a state park, off hours, in order to carry a backpack full of beer to the center of a playground in the middle of the night. Completely logical. Completely.
Marco sits on top of a wooden table, his feet on the bench, focused on the now-opened can of beer in his hands and nothing more.
“Where are you, Lydi?” Sutton says, his voice coming and going as he swings.
“Here, you idiot.” He reaches forward for her in the dark but she jumps back, laughing.
He swings back in my direction once more, and I get a whiff of coconut hair product. What to say about Sutton: He’s got locks. Like, not hair, but locks. Like a hair commercial, and he knows it. They trail behind him in the wind. Sutton always makes sure there’s some sort of wind blowing in his direction. And if there’s not, he creates it, like now.
“Sutton,” Lydia says, but he ignores her. “Sutton.” Louder now, until he drags his heel in the dirt, bringing himself to an abrupt stop.
“Someone’s here,” she whispers.
I freeze, trying to decide between running away and letting them find me, and I’m not sure which would be more embarrassing. Except Lydia tips her head in the other direction, away from me.
It’s then that I see him.
A fourth person, in the shadows. I can tell he’s taller than the rest of us—except for maybe Sutton. And he’s got a backpack on. I quickly run through the list of possibilities: hitchhiker, drug dealer, teen runaway. Serial killer. Killer.
Instead of getting quieter, Sutton gets louder. “Who goes there?” he calls, like nothing can touch him. Like the chance of there being a knife (or a gun) is so outside the realm of possibility. Six months, that’s all it’s been. Six months, and everyone’s gone back to believing themselves untouchable. That the evil is behind bars and can no longer exist out here.
The belief, once more, that they are the center of their universe.
That this story is theirs.