Chapter 11: Live

On Sunday morning I let myself into the lab with the key Peter had given me.

He was out getting coffee, and I had the room to myself.

His laptop sat open on the bench, and the screen was awake.

I only meant to read the telemetry log.

The program was called ArrayLink.

Its window was grey and plain, the kind an engineer builds for himself.

It had four tabs.

Status, Tune, Archive, and a fourth one in a small pale font.

Live.

I clicked it.

A green wave began to draw itself across the screen.

From the laptop speaker came a hiss, and then a faint tinny echo of the lab.

I said, "Hello," out loud.

The wave jumped.

One second later a small voice said, "Hello," from the laptop, in my own tone, a little late.

I stood very still.

It was not status.

It was not battery or temperature.

It was what my ears were hearing, going out into the world as I heard it.

I clicked Archive.

The list that opened was long.

Each file name ended in .wav and carried a date and a time.

The first was from the day of activation.

ACT 09:04, 3 min 12 sec.

Then there were files for each night after.

Two minutes here, ten there, one that ran forty-one minutes and began at 02:19 a.m.

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