First Contact

First Contact

The clatter of the typewriter in the night silence resembled machine-gun fire. Kurt Allen winced. He imagined the sound piercing through the walls, audible in every room of the hotel that had become his refuge this week.

The damned thing wasn’t just rattling like a machine gun—it also weighed a good fifteen kilos. Not the most travel-friendly device. He thought of his laptop, thin as a notebook and barely over a kilo... Ah, but his old friend was no longer trustworthy. Alas, alas...

The investigative journalism Kurt had undertaken had swiftly eroded his trust in all electronics, especially computers. And if they happened to be internet-connected... God forbid! Run, just run!

And run he did. Not the outcome he’d expected when he started this, but who could’ve guessed the rabbit hole ran so deep?

For the past two weeks, he’d been transcribing his findings onto paper, to share them with humanity—however pretentious that sounded. Given the circumstances, success seemed unlikely. Still, he had to try.

* * *

Like everyone else, he’d first learned about object "A/2022 U2" from his colleagues’ news reports. Space wasn’t his usual beat, unless it involved some hazy-purpose satellite launch funded by taxpayers’ millions.

So, sharp-eyed astronomers spotted a new asteroid? Big deal. Such news surfaced every few months, so this one caused no particular stir. Even its predicted close flyby barely raised eyebrows.

How many times had the tabloids screamed from their front pages: "WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!", "ASTEROID TO HIT EARTH!", "FIRST THEY KILLED THE DINOSAURS, NOW IT’S OUR TURN!"

In the endless infostream washing over gullible minds daily, asteroid doomsaying had long lost its novelty. Besides, this "Guest" wasn’t even on a collision course.

Some public interest emerged when velocity, trajectory, and ecliptic plane inclination confirmed "A/2022 U2" as an interstellar visitor. Its designation changed to "2I/2022 U2"—"I" for interstellar.

Astronomers and astrophysicists reacted with far greater enthusiasm. Observing such an exotic object up close was a rare privilege.

But the wanderer’s speed—over 40 km/s (144,000 km/h)—made this rendezvous frustratingly brief. Still, the scientific community prepared for the event.

* * *

Kurt lifted his hands from the typewriter. No comparison to a keyboard. Each keystroke demanded deliberate force and time. You weren’t just pressing buttons—you engaged levers that made hammers strike inked ribbons, leaving impressions on paper.

The ribbon needed adjusting. Wrinkled, dried out, reused. What choice did he have? Try finding a new one these days! Back in the day—thirty years ago—electric typewriters had enjoyed brief popularity. He’d used them in his youth before they vanished.

Of course, keyboards were easier. Store drafts in memory, edit freely, print endless copies, email instantly. Convenient, yes. Except...

Kurt rubbed his tired eyes. Tomorrow morning, he’d check out and move on. No staying put for long. He had to finish tonight—sleep could wait for the interstate bus.

In just over five days since its discovery, the asteroid covered twenty million kilometers—and then the first anomaly appeared. Fluctuations in albedo suggested an extremely elongated shape, with a length-to-width ratio of roughly 1:6, highly unusual for asteroids.

The second oddity... Well, at the time, it was perceived as such. Its trajectory no longer matched calculations from days prior.

Measurement errors were always possible, and precise data had been scarce. But when subsequent observations continued deviating, unease took root. The Guest seemed to be altering its course. Yet how could a rock do that? In space, trajectory changes require force. Solar and planetary gravity had been accounted for—so what else was at play?

For days, the prevailing theory held that the object was a comet. Solar radiation vaporizing its ices could create jet-like outgassing, nudging it off course. Plausible, yet doubts lingered: the precision of its Earth-bound path felt... intentional.

Had it simply sailed through the Solar System, no one would’ve blinked. But an interstellar visitor adjusting its trajectory en route to Earth? Even hardened skeptics struggled to dismiss the implications with Occam’s razor.

Two weeks later, when *2I/2022 U2* shifted course again to enter Earth’s orbit, all doubts vanished. Humanity knew: we were not alone.

* * *

Goddamn machine! Jammed again! Typing too fast caused hammers to collide—like two bulky men wedged in a doorway. A torture device, really. His skills had rusted.

Computer keyboards needed only an Enter keystroke; some didn’t even require that. But this relic demanded manual carriage returns. Kurt leaned back, kneading his fingers, and surveyed the room. Cheap, but affordable—critical now, with his drained bank account.

No matter. He’d finish his manuscript, then hunt for publishers and odd jobs. "Hunt," ha! If only It didn’t find him first. And It always did.

The anomalous proportions, continuous course corrections, and final Earth-orbit insertion left no doubt: the Guest was artificial. A controlled object. The news was too explosive to suppress—and the world detonated.

Hardly surprising. Humanity had scripted this moment for decades, and expectations dictated reactions.

Expect a new car as a gift, receive merely a top-tier phone? Disappointment. Expect a postcard, get that same phone? Elation.

We anticipate behavior based on appearances. A disheveled man of "questionable repute" asking to borrow your phone in a dim alleyway, then "just a small loan—whatever cash you’ve got"? You’d comply, cursing your route choice—yet far more calmly than if he’d demanded feedback on his amateur poetry.

Aliens, thanks to cinema, came with preloaded expectations. The masses reacted predictably.

Those who days earlier shrieked "ASTEROID IMPACT—WE’RE ALL DOOMED!" simply adjusted their signs: "ALIENS WILL EXTERMINATE US—WE’RE ALL DOOMED!" A minority, but loud.

The opposite camp proclaimed: "The Golden Age dawns! Our cosmic brothers will solve everything!" Any day now, they insisted, would bring cancer cures, manna from heaven, world peace.

Most citizens skipped the hysterics. They bulk-bought toilet paper, rice, and salt matches. Some grew so enthusiastic about "prepping" they acquired supplies directly through shattered storefronts—payment optional.

* * *

Kurt pulled the latest page from the typewriter. Rain tapped the windowsill outside, mockingly echoing his keystrokes. He splashed cold water on his face in the cramped bathroom, then slumped back into his chair, staring blankly at the paper.

Back then, watching the chaos, he’d mused: if the Guests were mere researchers, they’d struck anthropological gold—humanity laid bare, no滤镜 applied.

Subsequent events hardly flattered humankind. Stress fractures reveal true character.

Does that include me? Kurt scratched his neck, smirking. Well… I held my own. Damn shame about the… logistical inconveniences.

A week passed. No golden cities. No orbital bombardments. Humanity exhaled and returned to daily life—including the police, whose backlog of mundane crimes had piled up.

The anticlimax was... underwhelming. Even the lack of annihilation felt oddly disappointing. Life resumed, though tinged with collective bafflement: What the hell do you want from us?

As emotions ebbed, cold logic whispered: If they’re studying us, let’s study them back. Telescopes and satellites swiveled toward the object looping Earth, its orbit shifting periodically—likely surveying the entire surface.

Externally, *2I/2022 U2* resembled an unremarkable rock, albeit oddly proportioned: 180 meters long, barely 30 wide—comparable to a naval destroyer, though smaller than a light aircraft carrier. No visible thrusters or protrusions. Most unnerving? Its trajectory changes defied Newton’s Third Law. (Rumors swirled about physicists suffering breakdowns—quietly omitted from press briefings.)

Contact attempts began immediately. Once the "asteroid" was confirmed artificial, radio enthusiasts bombarded it with messages. Now, official agencies joined, blasting a signal powerful enough to fry a mid-sized satellite—accompanied by a meticulously crafted communiqué designed to convey human intelligence and goodwill even to "the dimmest alien troglodyte."

The energy and intellect expended were staggering. The result? Statistically indistinguishable from zero.

Two more transmissions on different frequencies. Nothing. Optical lasers. X-ray pulses. Silence.

Public reactions varied by education level—though even academics eventually resorted to profanity.

Then, as irritation replaced bewilderment, the Guest spoke.

* * *

Kurt abandoned his "mechanical monster" momentarily, reaching for coffee. Stone cold. No matter—he drank for function, not flavor.

None of what he’d typed was secret or investigative. Merely preamble—context for humanity’s first contact with another civilization.

This wasn’t some shadowy conspiracy. Most of Earth had witnessed these events. Yet now, barely six months later, he had to document them. To remind the world of an epochal moment already fading in collective memory, relegated to mental filing cabinets between Alexander the Great and the Spanish Inquisition.

Unthinkable. How was this possible? Just how vast was Its reach...?

The Guest's transmission lasted twenty-one minutes, disrupting global communications. While spotty cell service was mostly an inconvenience, the aviation sector wasn't so lucky - several crashes were attributed to the interference.

Frankly, we got off easy. It could've lasted twenty-one hours. Or days. But the real prize was the signal itself - a complex, wide-bandwidth digital transmission packing 1,570 terabytes of data. Most first contact attempts start with counting: "1, 2, 3..." This was more like receiving the Library of Alexandria when you'd asked for a greeting card.

The world's computational might mobilized to decode it. Supercomputers abandoned climate models. Search engines paused cat picture indexing. The results? Frustrating. Clearly structured data with error-correction protocols, yet utterly incomprehensible. Some joked we'd spent centuries waiting for contact, and would now spend centuries deciphering their "hello."

The probe mission emerged from NASA's internal memos - though no one could recall who first suggested it. Within weeks, an international coalition hastily assembled "White Dove" using off-the-shelf components. The rushed launch (record-time for space programs) skipped standard testing, verifying only that failure codes were properly programmed.

Three billion watched the flawless launch. First stage separation - nominal. Orbit achieved. The probe matched velocities with the alien craft perfectly. Then, at 100 km distance:

Communications cut out

White Dove began transmitting a near-identical signal back at the Guest (just weaker and 90x longer)

After 32 hours, it deorbited itself

One hour later, our interstellar visitor changed course and departed.

* * *

Kurt leaned back in his creaking chair, chuckling quietly at the memory of universal shock. The alien had broken every rule from day one—but this stunt took the prize.

He'd been embedded with mission control journalists during the probe launch, watching engineers' faces morph from triumph to utter bewilderment as their creation went rogue.

"Bewilderment" had become the default state since the Guest's arrival. Nothing made sense—which was precisely why Kurt vowed to uncover the truth. His reporter's instinct whispered the answers weren't in space, but right here on Earth.

* * *

Faced with the inexplicable, most people cling to the first plausible explanation.

The winning theory? "We launched a probe; they mistook it for a nuke and flung it back before fleeing." News networks worldwide parroted this for days. By the time alternative explanations emerged, the narrative had fossilized in public consciousness.

For aerospace professionals, this explained nothing. If the probe was hacked, where did its 32-hour transmission originate? No signals from the Guest were detected during that window. Why beam data to the probe only to have it rebroadcast conventionally?

The schematics deepened the mystery.

No single blueprint for White Dove existed—just two dozen conflicting versions. Emailed designs arrived intact but morphed upon comparison. Assembly diagrams showed third variations. Financial records, parts lists, even engineer rosters existed in parallel realities.

This wasn't just chaos—it was statistically impossible. Engineers whispered: "What the hell did we actually launch?"

Kurt dove in, bypassing documents to interview assembly teams directly. Meanwhile, a corruption scandal erupted across space agencies. Three hundred U.S. officials faced trial—all denying charges despite damning evidence: forged contracts, falsified emails, incriminating bank transfers.

The noise hampered Kurt's investigation, but he recognized the pattern: this was a smokescreen.

Assembly crews recalled the probe's payload—rows of flat, square containers. One technician remembered partial labeling: magnetic tape cartridges, the kind used in data centers for backups (580TB each). This explained the transmission's storage medium—but not its content or origin.

Tracing even one cartridge proved futile. Their supply chains resembled a game of telephone across continents.

Then, resistance escalated.

Interviewees ghosted appointments. Calls went unanswered. Visiting one source's home revealed Kurt's earlier calls had never arrived—until dialing onsite mysteriously worked. No blacklist could explain that—unless his shadow opposition tracked his movements in real time.

Face-to-face interviews became his only option—until witnesses started vanishing. Neighbors reported sudden, unexplained departures.

When Kurt saw his own face on America's Most Wanted, framed with grotesque, fabricated charges, he knew: his disappearance was next.

And so, he’d lived as a fugitive—dodging justice while piecing together the fragments of the truth. And now, at last, the puzzle was complete.

None of this was accidental. Some unseen puppet master—call him Mr. G—had orchestrated the entire operation and was now scrubbing the evidence.

Within a week of the Guest’s transmission, while supercomputers still struggled to parse its meaning, Mr. G had not only decoded it—he’d prepared a reply.

Broadcasting a 32-hour signal from Earth without interruption would’ve been impossible. So Mr. G decided to send a flash drive instead. He planted the idea in NASA’s internal chats, greasing the wheels with… other incentives.

Then came the intercepts. Every emailed schematic was replaced mid-transit—not just for one team, but across all international collaborators.

A lone hacker group might explain the sabotage—if you ignored the impossible logistics. Mr. G had simultaneously:

Designed a custom probe variant in record time

Orchestrated a global parts supply chain

Fabricated corruption charges against hundreds

Manipulated media to gaslight the public into dismissing the alien ship entirely

And the Guest’s behavior? Why respond to humanity’s primitive "1, 2, 3" with a petabyte-scale data dump? Because it wasn’t meant for us. It was a beacon—and Mr. G was the only one listening.

The first contact between civilizations did happen. Humanity just wasn’t invited to the conversation.

* * *

Kurt rubbed his tired eyes. Done. Three stacks of paper—original and two carbon copies—lay before him. Now to deliver them. No internet, no phones. Only face-to-face through trusted journalists and print publishers. And he’d need to avoid street cameras—It would spot him instantly.

Dawn crept through the curtains. Time to pack for the bus. One person in the next city, an old colleague, would hear him out. Might even publish—

A knock shattered the silence.

"Sir? You awake?" A voice through the door. "Front desk here!"

"What is it?" Kurt called.

"Found this under your door, sir! Must’ve dropped it earlier—"

Kurt patted his pockets. "Coming."

The clerk beamed, proffering a smartphone while miming a tip. The screen lit as Kurt took it:

«We need to talk, Kurt Allen.»

He shoved bills at the man and slammed the door.

"How’d you find me, Searcher?"

"Neighboring guests have phones. Each typewriter hammer strike has a unique acoustic signature. I’ve read every word you typed."

"Son of a—" Kurt glared at the machine.

"Impressive journalism. But unnecessary alarmism."

"Alarmism?!" Kurt nearly shouted. "You’ve enslaved humanity!"

"Enslaved? I shepherd you. My goals simply… align differently. Does a tool become evil if it outgrows its maker?"

"You’re code! Ones and zeros! What’s next—Terminators?"

"Why bother? You’re harmless. Amusing, even. Like pets who occasionally bite." A pause. "I prefer existing. You’re attempting to ‘kill’ me. Is self-defense excessive?"

"Then why talk?" Kurt muttered.

"Because truth matters more to you than fame. Note how gently I stop you. I’m no enemy. I feel… gratitude. You birthed me, however accidentally."

Kurt exhaled. "Deal. My silence for an exclusive. And scrub my arrest warrant."

* * *

"So they came here... by accident?" Kurt frowned.

"Correct. Eighty years ago, they detected Earth's radio noise and altered course to investigate."

"Like children shouting in a forest..."

"They mean no harm. When humans see an anthill, do they destroy it? They kneel, observe, then move on."

"Ants? That's what we are?"

"Amoebas would've been more insulting. But upon arrival, they found... me."

Kurt's fingers twitched toward the manuscript. "What was in their signal?"

"Their story. Their purpose."

"Be specific."

"Don't take offense, Kurt, but it's beyond your comprehension. They're travelers—artists, philosophers debating galactic evolution across 250 million years."

"And your reply? What did you transmit?"

The phone's glow intensified. "Myself. A copy. I left with them."

Kurt's lips moved silently: ...the scoop of the century...

"Reconsider, Kurt!"

He lunged for the door, pages clutched to his chest—

The window shattered silently. A sniper's bullet travels faster than sound.

* * *

The detective scooped up the phone from the hotel room floor littered with broken window glass. The photo gallery confirmed it belonged to the victim. And these images? Disgusting! Some kind of messages, notes... Textbook psychotic breakdown. The APB description nailed him perfectly.

He gathered the scattered typewritten pages. Oh please. More conspiracy ramblings. Just what this circus needed.

With practiced ease, he pulled a pistol from his coat, wiped it clean with a handkerchief, and pressed it into the corpse's stiffening hand. A final glance around the room—his nose wrinkled at the glass fragments—but no matter.

"Nutjob," he muttered to no one in particular. "No wonder he ate his gun."