Lost Signals (7 page)

The fly-spattered light bulbs flickered, and Max looked up, noticing perplexing lines and curves etched into the ceiling, surrounding what appeared to be several intricate, overlapping star maps. But, the maps didn’t feature any of the known constellations, or none with which Max was familiar.

“I speak of what was whispered to me, through the sounds of the desert, of elder mathematics—the language of all creation, the root and the key of what we know as eldritch magic. That which sank R’lyeh, raised Atlantis, and built the sacred pyramids and other abandoned monuments to the Outer Gods across our crowded sphere . . .”

Max sank slowly into the stout broadcast chair and gazed wide eyed around the room, as if a sudden realization clicked in his head, giving confirmation to something he had always surmised but didn’t dare believe, and rarely ventured to dream. West, ever west . . . Out into the Pacific . . . Fate or drown. Fate or drown . . .

Max’s eyes bulged as he listened with every atom of his being, taking in the words as the voice went on to tell of the Outer Gods, who will come and take away those who know how to ask. About how he and others throughout history and prehistory and the dawn of sentient life were mere chroniclers of these impossibly old entities and their epic machinations, from drawings in the primordial clay, to paintings in caves, to those driven mad compiling the Dread Book, to now—transmitting the stories and knowledge into the atmosphere, then out past the charged particles of our finite space. All the same. All working in the same service. Those who chronicle and spread these revealed truths are members of the enlightened few, and are assured a place of exaltation beyond the stars, spared the coming reclamation of this tiny blue rock by the errant overseers who have seeded all of the living worlds in the dimensions of their influence.

The workers at Outpost Six at Grimes Point are the newest members of these few, collecting information imparted in purposely small, disassociated segments to keep the recorder sane for as long as humanly possible. These are the further writers of the Book of Knowledge, continuing the work of Alhazred, von Junzt, The Scribe of Eibon . . . Mason, Curwen, Carter, and Ward . . . these are the chroniclers of the Higher Wisdoms to prepare the Earth for the promised coming and the transformation, when the Old Masters return home to check on their children, their forgotten Petri dish prepped and left in a far flung corner of nowhere . . .

“This is what the desert told me,” the voice continued, “and what I and others have recorded for decades, centuries, eons before our poorly-made vessels became too full and started to crack . . .”

Sitting in the chair with his eyes staring straight ahead while his mind began to venture several dimensions away, Max didn’t see the bathroom just off the broadcast room, where a bloody razor and clumps of hastily shaved body hair clogged the sink. Max didn’t see the trail of blood that led out the smashed back door, over the dusty yard, past the unnatural mounds and monoliths surrounding the property, and into the sand of the endless desert. Max didn’t see the speaker of the voice, just hours before he arrived, standing on the brink of Grimes Point, and flinging himself down onto the curiously arranged rocks below. Max also didn’t see the body of the man disappear into the void before it hit the craggy bottom, warping away to a swirling, unnamable infinitum of places unknowable, where he would join the roiling mass of omnipotent chaos that probed for a way back into our tiny plane of existence, settling in the meantime for psychic missives sent from the Beyond. Measured portions of the ultimate truth transmitted to our time, place, and space in hopes of teaching one of us the correct formula to open up the dimensional gaps dotting our universe just wide enough for something substantial to come through, to return to a place unvisited in a billion years, but never, ever forgotten.

Max didn’t see these things, because he was sitting at the microphone—his new post at Outpost Six—taking in The Words in preparation for continuing The Work. The voice in the darkness had sliced open the forbidden fruit and offered a taste to Max. He took a reluctant bite, and was now changed forever—a doomed man enslaved by this terrible growing wisdom, joining all those curious souls who had been drawn to this place before him.

“So,” the speaker in the picture, the speaker who dove into Grimes Point and into the boundless, structured abyss just hours earlier, concluded in his strange, hollow voice. “I leave this sacred burden to you who have found your way to this humble temple of the Outer Gods, the true rulers of this universe and many others, who have revealed themselves to those who were forced to forget . . . They are there, and They are waiting, watching, and whispering . . . Tend to your task with seriousness, and be mindful in your work, for the destruction and rebirth of all we know demands rigorous attention and strict vigilance . . .” The speaker’s voice began to give, but he mustered enough strength to continue, if only to breathlessly croak
 
: “Fare thee well . . . and worry not . . . for understanding beyond measure is nigh
 
! A replacement draws forth, even now
 
! Signing off . . . and bid this forgotten place goodbye . . . knowing that you are already on the doorstep . . . and the cycle . . . continues . . . ”

The voice gave out and the transmission ended.

In the dead silence of the tiny shack, the noises of the desert began to creep in, as well as those softer, more terrible sounds that lurk underneath the normal nighttime din.

Max was listening.

 
/
 
SAMPLE
 
: Audio L5161ORDE-01. 00:00:23.

[ . . . ] My father swallowed swords. It was one of the years he turned 40. Not realizing that’s how old he turned the year before, I got him a birthday cake that said “Happy Big 40, Dad
 
!” I may have done this twice. My father went from age 40 right to 43. My father went from 40 to swallowing swords. How does one who leads [ . . . ]

 
/
 
SAMPLE
 
: Audio L5161ORDE-02. 00:00:05.

[ . . . ] and I do not wish to live in a world where this is permitted, where [ . . . ]

 
/
 
SAMPLE
 
: Audio L5161ORDE-03. 00:04:14.

[ . . . ] to me. Growing up, I remember the myriad satellite dishes, rods, and scanners stretching from our home’s roof and siding. Together, they crowned the building with cosmic magnificence. I remember the basement lined with arrays of panels with buttons and levers, small green monitors that strained the eyes, tubing that billowed steam periodically. No one else remembers. Mother denies it, denied it until the day she dropped into a catatonic state, probably still denies it in her hospitalized unconsciousness. Sister denies it, being too young and too preoccupied to remember much of anything. But I remember.

[EVENT ALPHA]

I rebuilt father’s glorious instruments, the tools to continue the work he no longer performs, can no longer perform.

[EVENT BETA]

 
/
 
SAMPLE
 
: Audio L5161ORDE-04. 00:10:47.

[ . . . ] but he never spoke of the pulsars, not directly. He’d rather postulate on the existence of the jackalope, or question why restaurants didn’t bake an entire meatloaf each time a customer ordered a meatloaf dinner entree. He watched football, and only ever cheered for his one team, never giving any other a second thought. He raised an eyebrow to conversations of gay men, but never missed a chance to jump into one on lipstick lesbians. But the pulsars weighed on everything he did, everything he said. They were his tic.

[EVENT GAMMA]

A man can walk at a speed, step by step by step. He can walk faster or slower, but only at one speed at a time. His blood circulates much the same way. His speech is a fixed cadence. Walk beside that man, and your feet will never strike the dirt at the exact same time. Your speech will never align. Hold his hand, and the rush of your blood will never be the same as his. An army of men march
 
: though they appear to be in unison, the tiny disparity between each step sends waves of chaos through the earth. They may as well step at random. And it’s this randomness that influenced my father’s tempo. Given enough time, enough patience, the mathematics can break down that randomness into the layers of overlapping regularity. Current calculations estimate there to be around one million pulsars in our galaxy alone. Having perfected the forgotten technology of my youth, I am familiar with about 2.6 million, in and out of the Milky Way. My father was the epicenter of 82.2 million pulsars. He was speared by so many points of light, he lost his banal, rigid form. The math does not lie, and I think my father’s silence on the matter was his admission that a primitive mind shouldn’t question the limits of its entrapment. A tiger would do well not to measure the dimensions of his cage. No biological form wants to accept how trapped he is [ . . . ]

[EVENT GAMMA-02]

 
/
 
SAMPLE
 
: Audio L5161ORDE-05. 00:00:26.

[EVENT DELTA]

[EVENT DELTA-02]

 
/
 
LOG-L5161ORDE.

CLEARANCE GRANTED TO ALL CLASS STAFF WITHOUT CURRENT SECURITY HOLDS. MAY NOT BE COPIED WITHOUT WRITTEN CONSENT FROM TWO (2) CLASS-B ADMINISTRATORS.

The preceding items are textual representations of electronic audio files related to Item L5161ORDE, colloquially known as
The Dangsturm Interruption
or
The Interruption
. The incident occurred on 8 June 20XX. A radio signal originating from 45°XX’ N 101°XX’ W in South Dakota, United States played for an estimated fifty-three (53) minutes, intercepting the signal for local station #withheld#. Station employees denied involvement.

Preceding audio files are the only samples of the incident in administrative domain. A complete recording of the incident has not been brought to administrative attention. Station employees claim to have recorded the entire incident save for the first few minutes, but this recording went missing before staff could claim it. A complete recording of the incident may not exist.

Colloquial name
The Dangsturm Interruption
derived from the name of the only suspect apprehended for the incident. Martin S. Dangsturm was arrested but not convicted for the incident. His residence showed no evidence of advanced astronomical technology or audio
 
/
 
radio equipment. Surveillance of his activity is ongoing.

Audio 01 through 04 include a male voice speaking the text from the sample. Audio and linguistics experts posit a 96.1% match with the voice of Martin S. Dangsturm. Audio 03 through 05 include additional audio occurrences titled EVENTS.

EVENT ALPHA (00:00:05) is a low-volume distortion of spoken word played in reverse. The text spoken is “It can be heard, but you cannot see it. It has no face.” Distortion is significant and hinders attempts for voice matching.

EVENT BETA (00:03:23) is a low-volume distortion of spoken word played in reverse. The text spoken is “40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40, 43 to 40.” Distortion is significant and hinders attempts for voice matching.

EVENT GAMMA (00:08:54) is a sequence of ticking that occur in regular overlapping meters ranging from 0.4 bpm to 167 bpm. Unlike previous entries, EVENT GAMMA occurs concurrently with the spoken word. It begins at 00:00:28 of Audio L5161ORDE-04 and continues until the end of the sample. It begins with a single 40 bpm tick and additional sequences begin playing concurrently with no discernible pattern.

EVENT GAMMA-02 (00:00:08) is a low-volume distortion of spoken word played in reverse. The text spoken is “How does one who leads a boring life make it sound interesting to other people
 
? Perhaps I shall wear a mask.” Distortion is significant and hinders attempts for voice matching. EVENT GAMMA-02 begins at 00:06:26 of Audio L5161ORDE-04 and occurs concurrently with EVENT GAMMA.

EVENT DELTA (00:00:26) is a sequence of ticking that occur in regular overlapping meters ranging from 0.0XX bpm to 9.5x10
X
bpm. EVENT DELTA is defined as the entirety of Audio L5161ORDE-05. Audio experts suggest EVENT DELTA may be a continuation of EVENT GAMMA.

EVENT DELTA-02 (00:00:16) is a low-volume distortion of spoken word played in reverse. The text spoken is “A mask, a thousand masks. A thousand forms, a billion points of light.” Distortion is significant and hinders attempts for voice matching. EVENT GAMMA-02 begins at 00:00:10 of Audio L5161-ORDE-05 and occurs concurrently with EVENT DELTA. Audio experts suggest there may be more to the text due to the fragmentary nature of the audio sample.