Blob, Chapter 1 - The Message
An alien arrives on Earth with an astonishing message about the dangers of AI development. The world is thrown into chaos. Some say he's here to save us. Others think it’s a trick. One woman stands between him…and the forces determined to silence him forever.
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Chapter 1 - The Message
On Tuesday, September 22nd, at exactly 11:22 Greenwich Mean Time, a text message suddenly appeared on every digital device in the world.
A guava farmer in India received it on his old, mud-smeared Nokia.
The Prime Minister of Australia received it on his government-issued, secure sat-phone.
A two-year-old boy in Oslo, Norway, received it on an electronic toy he was playing with on his parents’ living room floor.
A well-known Brazilian soccer player received it on his TV game console at his office.
An engineer at a recording studio in LA received it on his console computer.
The text message itself was grammatically perfect, composed in the local language and dialect. Screens displaying the message were completely frozen for a couple of minutes. Then the message disappeared, leaving the device unaffected.
Well over three billion people on the planet read the words in that fateful moment, with the vast majority of them staring at the words with disbelief.
Stanford, California
When Dr. Aurora Manotti’s phone received the message, she was in the middle of teaching her Astronomy II class.
This morning’s topic was the mathematics of black holes.
“So,” she said, indicating a point on the current slide behind her, “the event horizon is defined by the Schwarzschild Radius. For a static black hole…” She hesitated, glancing out at the students.
They were all looking at their cellphones, whispering to each other.
She loudly cleared her throat, but nobody paid her any attention.
With annoyance, she said, “Are we going to have to adopt a high school-level policy and forbid you to bring your phones to class?”
Incredibly, not one of her students looked up at her—they were captivated by whatever was on their phone screens.
“What the hell is going on?” she said.
“We all got the same message,” a girl in the front row finally explained. “It’s really strange.” She turned her phone towards Aurora.
I am an intelligent being from a distant galaxy. I will arrive on your planet at exactly 06:00 GMT, one week from today. I am traveling alone. My spacecraft will land on the roof of the United Nations Building in New York City, the United States of America. I will address the General Assembly shortly thereafter. I have urgent information that every member of the human race must hear. I implore all world leaders to be there, in person, and to pay close attention to what I have to say. Do not fear, for I come with only the warmest intentions and the highest regard for your civilization.
Aurora smiled. “Okay, very funny, guys.” Dr. Aurora Manotti was considered one of the world’s leading experts on extraterrestrial life—aliens, in other words. Which was itself ironic, since not a single alien had ever been proven to exist. Her students often teased her about this fact, and she figured the text message was their idea of a good joke.
Aurora moved back to the front of the classroom, prepared to continue her lecture, but then she noticed that the same text message was on her phone, too, which was sitting on the podium.
Then she noticed something else that was odd. There wasn’t a sound in the building—it was as if all the other professors had stopped lecturing, too.
Aurora glanced towards the far window, behind the last row of students. It afforded a clear view of Campus Drive, which was usually quite busy at this hour.
The four-lane road was completely devoid of traffic.
Aurora stepped down the aisle to the window and put her forehead up against the glass so she could look up and down the street.
A half-dozen cars were pulled over to the shoulder of the road. Several drivers were standing outside their vehicles, staring at their phones or looking as if they were trying to call someone. One man appeared to have swerved his car onto the sidewalk and leaped out, the door wide open—he was staring at the automobile as if he thought a dangerous creature had materialized in the back seat.
“Is it okay if I leave class?” one of the female students asked nervously. “I need to go.”
“Me, too,” another one said.
“Over this?” she said, exasperatedly. “It’s just some hacker playing a hoax.”
“I need to go home, Dr. Manotti,” another one said anxiously.
There was no dissuading them—all the students began quickly packing up their bags and heading towards the door.
In less than a minute, Aurora found herself standing alone in an empty classroom.
End of Chapter 1. To keep reading, click the Next button further down on the right.