The Lost Tribes, page 10
Ben was stunned by this new revelation. “No thanks. I’ll just coach.” He didn’t feel like playing basketball. He wanted to be back in the game. And now there was this new development. Serise was grounded. That was a first. She’d done worse things than hide a walkie-talkie and escaped without consequence. So why now? And Carlos, Boy Wonder, was on house arrest. Why were the parents trying to keep them apart?
Crash!
Ben had a brilliant idea. “My uncle said I couldn’t ask my parents for clues but he didn’t say you couldn’t ask yours. Think your father can help us? I can make some sketches before Mom gets back from the lab.”
Carlos shrugged. “Maybe. But I have to warn you, he’s been edgy since his trip. Not a bad mood exactly, just different. Whenever I walk into a room he and Mom get quiet. They’re NEVER quiet. So something is up and from the looks on their faces I’m not sure I want to know what it is.”
“Okay,” said Ben. “I’ll see if I can collect more clues we can use. I’ll try to find a safe location to go without a buddy. My uncle’s always complaining that I don’t know enough about Africa. I can go there.”
“I’m jealous,” Carlos said, crouching low and staring at the basket, “of the game and your basketball skills.”
“Don’t worry. Hitting a basket just takes practice.” Ben studied Carlos’s odd stance. He closed his eyes and tried to will the ball into the basket with his mind. Carlos definitely needed a win. “Visualize the basket. Visualize the ball IN the basket. Now shoot!”
Carlos sucked in a lung full of air, sprang forward and released the ball. It soared through the air before landing slightly off target.
“I’ll get it.” Ben wanted to be encouraging, but Carlos couldn’t hit a target even if it had a bullseye painted on it and were inches away. He climbed over a retaining wall and jumped down into the wooded area behind the garage. The basketball was nowhere to be seen. He followed a trail to a clearing forty yards down the embankment.
“Hey, Carlos!” cried Ben. “Get down here! Quick!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Searching for Superman
It is not good to look at the clouds or your work will not progress.
Mayan Proverb
The satellite dish rose more than fifty feet into the air. Its stainless steel parabolic reflector was polished to a mirror-like finish and rested on steel beams that crisscrossed like an inverted geodesic dome. The basketball was stuck at the base of one of the arms.
Ben took a running leap, grabbed the bottom rung of a support arm, then pulled himself up. The dish hummed and shocked him with static electricity.
“Whoa!” Carlos said, as he came around the bend. “Never seen that before. I bet it’s Dad’s new satellite dish. How’d you get up there?”
“I jumped.” Ben tossed the ball down to Carlos and was tempted to climb higher, but the humming vibrated through his body and tickled his eardrums.
“Jumped? Dude the first rung is at least fifteen feet off the ground.”
Ben thought Carlos was exaggerating until he looked down and got dizzy. He lost his grip and slid down the dish, landing on the ground with a loud thump. “What a rush! So you think this is your dad’s?”
Carlos helped him to his feet. “I don’t know. He said he was getting a dish to listen to SETI signals. Who knew he’d buy one the size of Rhode Island?”
“Why doesn’t he use a police scanner like everyone else?”
“Not city signals. SETI signals. Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.”
Ben frowned. “Does anyone on this block have a normal hobby?”
Carlos laughed. “I know, right? He’s so hooked on astronomy Mom finally gave in and told him he could get more equipment if it would stop his whining. I don’t think this is what she meant.”
Ben tilted his head, a brilliant idea swirling around in his brain. “Do you think we could peek at his computer?”
Carlos eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Well, think about it,” Ben said. “What else are satellite dishes good for?”
“You tell me,” said Carlos.
“Catching cool TV channels! I hear you can get stuff from all over the world. And this thing is huge. It must get awesome signals. Mom canceled our cable service last spring. Then she put a block on my browser. Grace and I broke the encryption code but it took a month to do it. Mom put a new one on. So far I can’t crack it.”
“So?” Carlos paused, then his eyes popped open as waved his hands wildly. “No! You aren’t thinking what I think you’re thinking?”
“Yeah!” Ben grinned broadly. “I never know what the other kids at school are talking about. Here’s our chance to catch up on some cool shows. Your parents are gone, right?”
“They won’t be back for an hour. But — ”
“But what?” Ben said. “It can go back to searching for the planet Krypton when we’re done.”
Carlos looked skeptical. And then his eyebrow raised just a hair. “O.K. I’m in. But if we get caught you have to say you forced me into this and cop a plea at the trial.”
“Deal!” said Ben.
Star charts, graphs, and maps of the world covered the walls of Dr. Lopez’s office. All with stickpins protruding from them. Carlos was right. None of the charts matched the ones in the game. Ben peered into a cabinet filled with DVD’s labeled “Death Rays from Space” and “Killer Mutant Attack.” Even Dr. Lopez’s computer looked as though it had come from outer space. The ancient iMac sat in the middle of an old pine desk, the monitor resting above a smooth white dome.
“Okay,” Ben said, “turn it on.”
Carlos took two steps backward. “You do it. If we get caught, I don’t want my fingerprints on it.”
Ben had barely touched the computer when it sprang to life and displayed a rendering of the solar system. “Whoa! That’s faster than mine.”
“He kept the shell but upgraded the guts,” Carlos explained. “Why do parents get all the good stuff?”
“Because they have jobs and we have a tiny allowance.” Ben laughed, then clicked on the wireless mouse. “Is this thing password protected? It’s not responding.” He placed the mouse back on the desk and tried again. No light glowed underneath.
“Maybe the batteries are dead.” Carlos snatched the mouse from Ben’s hand. It glowed red. While Carlos blew on it to dislodge dirt from the electric eye, the cursor followed his moves precisely.
Ben gulped. “I’d say your father has been doing more than upgrading. Look! It’s wireless AND motion activated.”
He snatched it back. The mouse stopped glowing. Ben shook it, tapped it, and waved it in elaborate loops through the air. The cursor did not respond.
“Must not like you.” Carlos laughed and took it back. The cursor mirrored his graceful arcs. “Guess I’m the only one qualified to pilot this thing. Now what?”
“Click on the hard drive and see what happens,” Ben said.
Carlos complied. Icons appeared and rotated on the screen.
“So what do they say?” Ben asked.
“Don’t know. Dad must have coded the files knowing we’d sneak in here one day.”
“You?” asked Ben. “You’ve never done a single dishonest thing in your life.”
“Maybe it’s because I live next door to you.” Carlos snorted. “But now I’m mad they didn’t trust me so I might as well live up to those expectations.” He waved the mouse with the flourish of a maestro and clicked on the Earth icon.
The computer screen filled with tiny windows, each with its own navigation point. Carlos clicked on the upper right window. It rotated to the front and filled two-thirds of the monitor. A CNN reporter stood at the site of a massive mudslide in Ethiopia.
“I’ll pass,” Carlos said. “Let’s see what else we can find.”
Click.
“… spewing ash and lava. The Chiliques volcano hasn’t erupted in more than 10,000 years …”
Click.
“… Tsunami threatens Shikoku on the eastern coast of Japan. All residents are advised to evacuate.”
Click.
“… Scud missiles are pelting the Egyptian peninsula. No reports of detonations. Military officials theorize the materials used to make the bombs were old or defective.”
“What is this?” asked Ben. “The disaster channel? Isn’t there anything else on this thing?”
Carlos returned to the main menu and clicked another icon. More news, most in foreign languages. He rotated through the options until he found a live stream of NASA’s control room.
“ … failure of the fuel system … cause unknown …”
“ … launch is scrubbed … all rockets are affected.”
“ … space station telemetry is down due to a solar flare.”
“Roger … third lens malfunction on the Hubble … lot of CME activity”
“… think we’ve solved the problem … new lens is reinforced with a titanium coating.”
Ben groaned. “What else is on?”
Carlos scanned through endless streams of wars, disasters, U.N. assemblies and intelligence briefings at the White House.
“Where’s the cartoons? The sports?” asked Ben. “How about some Sumo wrestling? What’s the point of having a satellite dish if all you get is the same junk you can get on cable? Try the outer space channel.”
Carlos navigated back to the main menu. “The what?”
“The signals from space. Maybe the aliens are broadcasting cartoons.” Ben pointed to an icon that looked like the eight-pointed star on the game disk. “Click on that one.”
The computer responded, “Control — online — enter authorization code,” then filled in the necessary information.
“Password accepted.”
A third window displayed gray and black static on the right. A sliding scale appeared at the bottom of the monitor. It ranged from 1,000 MHz to 15,000 MHz. But when Carlos slid the mouse across the desk the bar froze at 10,000 MHz. More symbols popped up and waited for an authorization code.
“Ugh! More passwords.” Carlos moved the bar back down the scale as if he were tuning an old fashioned radio. A faint rumble came from the backyard.
“That’s probably the satellite dish rotating into alignment,” Ben said. “Something that big would have to make a noise when it moved.”
At 7,025 MHz they heard rhythmic oscillations inside the static.
“Wonder what that is,” said Carlos.
“That would be E.T. phoning your satellite dish,” mocked Ben.
Another mild vibration shook the house followed by a brief pulse.
“Did you feel that?” Carlos whispered.
“Earthquake?” Ben looked around to see if anything was moving.
“What else could it be?” said Carlos. “I’ll try again.”
At 4,357.37 MHz, the vibration reminded Ben of the sounds he heard in the sweat lodge. Like the steady pulse of a heartbeat. Seconds later it disappeared. “I’m detecting a pattern. Maybe this thing picks up seismic activity.”
Carlos tried the scale again but found only static despite moving through the spectrum at an excruciatingly slow pace.
Ben threw up his hands in disgust. “So this is it?
“Dad’s probably blocked it,” Carlos said. “Wonder why you need a password to go above 10,000 MHz? And what’s up with those symbols?”
“Don’t know. Looked like some of the ones in the Guardian chamber. Think that’s a clue?”
“Doubt it,” Carlos said. “They’re just Mayan numbers. I think it’s just a coincidence.” He returned to the main menu and clicked on the last remaining icon. The computer displayed star charts and real-time images from space but nothing useful or interesting.
Carlos glanced at his watch. “Mom and Dad will be back soon. We better get out of here.” He tried to shut down the computer when a new window opened. It looked like an EKG printout. A second window displayed more graphs in rainbow colors, like a compressed radio frequency. Instructions appeared in an odd foreign language followed by a question mark and boxes marked “Si” and “No.”
“Can you translate that?” asked Ben.
Carlos hesitated. “It isn’t Spanish, but it looks like it’s asking if we want to shut something down.”
“Press ‘Si’ and see what happens,” Ben said. “Isn’t that universal for ‘yes’?”
Carlos blew air past his lips. “Okay. But if we crash my dad’s computer I’m going to have to move in with you until I graduate from college.”
Instead of shutting down, the computer sprang into action. Downloads streamed across the screen at a heart-stopping rate hundreds of gigabytes per second.
A second window opened showing a massive satellite dish. A message at the bottom of the screen read, “Logging on to National Astronomy and Ionosphere — contacting Arecibo Observatory … enter remote access authorization … processing … password accepted.” A third window appeared. “Contacting Project Phoenix — please stand by … password confirmed.” More than twenty windows opened in rapid succession, each with a similar message. The computer was accessing satellites and radio telescopes around the world, confirming passwords and then shrinking the windows to the size of a postage stamp before stacking them like file cards on the upper right hand corner of the screen.
Ben’s hands flew up to his mouth in a panic. “What did we just do?”
“I don’t know!” yelled Carlos, his eyes bugging out. “I don’t know!”
Frantic, Ben ran his hands up and down the smooth dome base. “Can we stop it? Pull the plug? Carlos! Make it shut down!”
“I can’t!” Carlos began hyperventilating as he swiveled the screen up and down and flicked the power switch on the mouse. “There’s no cord. No plug. This thing is running on a self-contained power source.” He shook the mouse violently but it glowed white and no longer responded to his commands.
Ben’s heart hammered against his ribcage. His mouth went dry. His parents would ground him for life! As for Dr. Lopez’s reaction — the thought was too horrible to imagine. He pressed and held the power button. The computer ignored his attempts. He tried moving the computer but it was stuck tight to the desk. He dropped to his knees and searched under the desk for a power source. Images of hiding in the Witness Protection Program flashed through his mind.
“Telemetry data stream confirmed”
A new window opened. Instructions, in English, revealed that Carlos had just activated SETI@ home software.
“Wait!” Carlos said. “This is the SETI program we were looking for! It uses volunteer’s computers to analyze satellite signals. The software sends the data back to Berkeley when it finds something.” Carlos drew his hand across his forehead in relief. “If it finishes before Dad gets home, we’re in the clear.”
The computer processed data at a rapid pace. “Activating Casmir Array … standby …” A world map was displayed. Red dots winked on across the globe. “All systems on-line.”
“Okay,” Ben said, still trying to calm his rapidly beating heart. “That makes sense. Your father must have a billion gigabytes of memory to handle all of this data.”
“Don’t be crazy,” Carlos said. “No one makes a chip that big.”
“Then how do you explain this?”
“I can’t. Except … well … Wow! Who knew a satellite could do stuff like this.”
Ben held his breath as he studied the lightning fast calculations. Pauses in the computation were accompanied by faint sounds from the Lopez’s satellite dish and a ping from the Arecibo telescope. Spikes in the graph compressed into a flat line. Ben grew concerned that all was not what it seemed.
“Carlos?”
“Yeah?”
“Why does the satellite dish react when the graph shows a spike and not any other time?”
“It’s scanning through a lot of data. I bet it only reports which frequency had activity.” Carlos watched the monitor with rapt fascination. “This is kind of cool. Kind of like spy stuff.”
The massive data stream continued. And then a message appeared.
“Replicating CME … Confirming class X solar pulse …”
“Solar pulse?”
“I think it’s the same thing as a solar flare,” Carlos said, looking worried again. “It can knock out a satellite. If it’s strong enough, it can knock out power to a whole city.”
Ben didn’t have to wait long for confirmation. Within seconds, the windows in the left hand corner expanded and jumped to the front of the screen. Ben barely had time to read them as they flickered by:
“Haystack Observatory — status — disabled.”
“Hubble Space Telescope — status — disabled.”
“VLBI Space Observatory — status — disabled.”
“Max Planck Institute — status — disabled.”
“Metsãhovi Observatory — status — disabled.”
“ESO Submillimetre — status — disabled.”
“ARO Granada — status — disabled.”
“SBV/MSX — status — disabled.”
Ben gasped. “What does this mean? Is this part of the program? The computer’s shutting down systems all over the world!”
Carlos didn’t answer. His hand covered his mouth. His eyes bugged out in horror.
“Project Phoenix — status — off-line.”
“NASA Deep Space Network — status … standby … connecting … ”
“ … confirmed — Canberra — off-line.”
“ … confirmed — Goldstone — off-line.”
“ …confirmed — Madrid — off-line.”
The list continued until the software had cycled through all remaining windows.
“Reprogramming complete. All systems returned to active status. Elapsed time — 12.3 seconds.”
Ben looked at Carlos and hoped there was a logical explanation. The only word he could muster was a weak and pathetic, “Oops!”
The color drained from Carlos’s face while the software began compiling data for upload to the SETI Institute. In a separate window, a graph showed the locations along the spectrum where activity was detected. Most of the spikes occurred above 10,000 MHz. And then, something unexpected happened. The computer deleted the data spikes below 10,000 MHz, replacing them with a flat line. Randomly generated pictures of static were inserted into the gaps in the graphics file.
