Chapter 1: Moonset

The full moon rose silently over the town of Pinereach, California, ascending alongside Jupiter with regal grace over the Cascade Mountains to the east against the swirling, splotchy backdrop of the Milky Way's galactic center. With the stroke of midnight, the local radio station fell silent and the forty-two titanic dish receivers of the Allen Telescope Array at Hat Creek Observatory stirred, commencing their nightly duties. With infinite precision, they kept their immense radio-wavelength ears locked on this pale strip of sky, picking up on all the emissions emanating from the core of the galaxy.
Martin Fisher had to admit, it was hard not to fall asleep to the dim sounds of the cosmos and the loud hum of the AC unit this stuffy summer night, just four days before the longest day of the year. But something caught the astronomer's attention close to 4:00 in the morning... something that shouldn't have been there.
"....Echo."
No answer.
"Echo....?" He turned around and saw his colleague passed out on the lab's cot, and rolled his eyes. "Silena!" He tugged on the drawstring of her hoodie.
The young woman jolted awake and sat up, rubbing an eye before slipping her glasses back on. "Hm? Sorry, it's just... never mind. What's up?"
"C'mere and look at this signal. Tell me what looks funny about it."
Echo pondered for a moment, twirling a stray strand of blonde hair. "Well, it's got a modulation structure like an AM broadcast, but it’s on the gigahertz band..." She trailed off, scowling in realization "...and the radiant point is a little too low to be bouncing off the moon, right?"
"Within margin of error... barely," Fish muttered, lapsing into silence. After several long minutes puzzling over this radiographic misfit, he sighed heavily and dialed a number on the landline, pinching the bridge of his nose almost hard enough to squeeze his freckles right off. He hated bothering anyone this late, especially this person, who should be sleeping, but... this was important.
Thirteen miles south, the landline in the apartment of Calvin Gray began to ring.
Calvin was, of course, not sleeping. He had made the effort to be in bed, but it was only 4 AM. He’d stayed up longer before and still kept his signature persona intact the next day on the air. He just had to play a few more songs than usual. Maybe brand it a “morning commute commercial free music” sort of deal, just to catch up on his sleep. He’d done it before, but if anyone caught on to the fact that it wasn’t just a cool gimmick, he got the sense he’d be in some kind of trouble. Thanks for that trick, dad.
The music that had been playing from his laptop faded out, and there was a pause between songs –the town’s poor internet lead to longer gaps– and the next sound he heard was his landline. It jerked Cal from his drowsy music trance. He fumbled his glasses onto his face and took a moment to let his eyes focus properly on the number the caller ID was flashing, only to sigh with recognition. He shrugged to no one in the room and picked up the phone. “Hello?”
“Gray? It’s Fish, at the observatory. Sorry to bother you this late, but...” he paused, pondering how exactly to put this. “You turned off the secondary AM channel at the station, right? We’re picking up something funky and... well, it’s either KRPO or that Starman waiting in the sky that Bowie told us about.”
Calvin blinked, trying his best to act as though that last part was totally normal. “I... should have? I have a checklist that’d put a pilot to shame for closing time, and I could have sworn that I turned it off... but I’ll take the drive up there and double check.”
“Thanks, mate.” Fish sighed. “Again, I really hate to bother you, but I want to make absolutely sure this isn’t just something local before we label it ‘Hazy Cosmic Jive’.”
“Nah, I bet the sleep deprivation is catching up and I just forgot. I’m sorry dude, this is probably way more annoying for you than it is for me. I’ll be out the door in 10, I’ll let ya know what I find.”
“Gotcha. Talk soon.”
“See ya.” Cal hung up and began to grab his stuff. Fortunately, he was still in his customary baggy clothes, so there was no need to change. He splashed some cold water on his face to alleviate the oncoming fatigue (and avoid snoozing on the road) and walked out, locking the door behind him.
The short drive up to the station near the summit of Pinereach Peak was uneventful. Fireflies drifted lazily in the heavy June air, blinking out flirtations in their ancient unspoken cipher.
The radio mast was dark save the lone red light at the top, a warning beacon against low-flying aircraft –not that there were any around here, really, especially at this deep hour. The closest airfield was in Chester, some sixty miles south on the banks of Lake Almanor, and that was all private Cessnas and whatnot.
The dim bulb over the door afforded little illumination with which to fumble the key into the lock. Calvin sighed, annoyed at the situation. He had to remember to get a new lightbulb. He was lucky his phone had a flashlight; he wasn’t a barbarian. So using that in one hand, and the key in the other, he opened up the KRPO-FM studio and moseyed on in.
After a brief check, he noticed everything was offline. He checked it all thrice before sitting down for a moment and realizing something.
He knew exactly what he had to do. Cal picked up the studio’s landline and called Fish while simultaneously preparing something devious.
“Heya Graylien,” Fish chuckled, picking up the phone. “I haven’t noticed a drop-off of the signal yet so I’m guessing...”
The moment he answered, however, “Starman” by David Bowie started playing into the receiver on Calvin’s end. “Mhm” was all Cal said after the first part of the refrain played, knowing he’d made his point.
Martin wheezed with laughter, away from the phone. There was some muffled exchange of words and another voice joined in the humor. After a minute they calmed down.
“Thanks for that,” Fish giggled. “Point taken. Echo’s almost done the calculations to figure out where it’s bouncing from, if it is reflecting off the moon in the first place.” Fish paused, and Cal could tell he was scratching his head. “It’s a bit too high for your frequencies if I’m being honest, hovering in the gigahertz band, but the signal has amplitude modulation for sure-“
Echo cut him off with something unintelligible, eliciting a disappointed “fuck” from Fish. “It’s dropped off. Dammit.”
Cal sighed heavily. “I’m sorry about that, dude. Maybe next time you’ll get your...” He paused and chuckled halfheartedly. “Eh, making the same joke again is trite. You get the idea.” He looked around the room aimlessly. “I’m positive I had it all shut off. Not really sure what your mystery call could have been.”
“Well,” Fish said, yawning, “if it comes back in about half an hour we can be pretty sure it was obstructed by the moon rather than reflected by it, in which case...” he trailed off. “Hm... Echo, what’s the right ascension on that again?”
He listened to her reply and mumbled, “Isn’t that 58 Ophiuchi...?” with an air of confusion. “Eh, I’ll keep you in the know. Go home and get some rest, Cal.”
“Honestly I may just crash in here and wait for my shift to start,” he mused, following it up with: “Regardless, I’ll see ya later.”
“Talk to you tomorrow.”
Calvin hung up the phone and sat down heavily on one of the chairs, exhausted. He quickly drifted off into deep slumber.
In the Hat Creek Observatory lab, Echo frowned at the numbers on the monitor in front of her. “Alright, I really don’t think this is a moonbouncer. Origin estimates put it in the middle of nowhere. Out in the steppes of Kazakhstan. Where they don’t use the gigahertz band, if anyone even lives there. So what the hell is it, Bigfoot jamming out to ska in Subway Cave or something?”
“IT’S THE SKASQUATCH!” Fish howled, laughing so hard he almost fell over. “Barry is gonna love that,” he chuckled, but when he glanced back at the monitors he quickly fell serious. “Oh shit. Well, whatever it is, we’re about to find out because it’s back,” Martin said, rushing over to a set of equipment and tuning a few dials. “Echo? What’s it reading?”
“Uh, nothing verbal. I’m picking up on... a set of rapid tonal oscillations? No, make that... several sets, sequential, each longer than the last.”
Fish sat back in his chair, bemused. “Uhhh... hang on, how many oscillations were in the set you just picked up?”
“Fifty-five.”
Fish scratched his stubble. “And the next one?”
“Eighty-nine.”
“After that...?” he asked cautiously, dark green eyes narrowing in suspicion.
“One hundred and-“
“Forty-four,” he finished. “Let me guess. Next is 233, 377, 610, infinity and beyond?”
Echo looked startled. “Yeah...?”
“Son of a dick, it’s the fucking Fibonacci sequence.”
A shocked hush fell heavily on the lab, broken only by the tones, which abruptly stopped.
A moment of silence passed before the speaker produced a sequence of three short tones, three long, and three short.
And that was it.
After a solid five minutes of total speechlessness, SETI radio astronomer Martin Fisher whispered, “Holy fucking shit.”