Haven't decided yet. by kxiang

Mind to critique this leisure writing of mine?
Hope you enjoy it as much as I did writing it.
Haven't finish it though.

Prologue
He never liked darkness, but the lords of night drew their cloaks over the ancient ruins, refusing even the languorous radiance of the moon to illuminate the expanse below.
Steari Liberman sighed as he paced wearily around the plateau, attempting to sooth himself with the nocturnal symphony of insects that came from the surrounding dense growth. The trek had been painstakingly harsh, but it was a relief that they made it through, only to find this algae-covered ruin that was once a prosperous Mayan city. Gazing up into the aphotic sky that hung above him, he recalled a similar sight decades ago that preceded a peculiar event, and that event would eventually bring him here.
“Professor, why exactly are we doing this?” his lackey Isaiah’s voice broke his silent contemplation.
“Ah, it’s a long story…” he replied, turning towards Isaiah’s silhouette, though keeping his glazed eyes focused at the distant horizon.
“Well prof, tell me about it. There isn’t anybody to eavesdrop around here,” Isaiah said as he halted his work, turning to gaze into the hazel eyes of his mentor. “And I guess you’ve kept the truth from me long enough.”
“If you insist,” Steari replied as Isaiah returned to his work. Seating himself on a pile of garments, he continued, “It was Passover, and I was twenty then, walking back home under a stygian visage just like the one today. As I walked into an abandoned alley, I heard a strange voice –“
A loud crash punctuated the narration, followed by a stream of apologies. Steari wondered whether it was because of his mystical revelation, or was it a genuine accident. No matter, he continued, “As I said, I heard a voice,” pausing for a while in expectation of a reaction, but none came. “It was the strangest yet most exalted voice I’ve ever heard, and that feminine voice whispered:
The end of time draws ever closer,
The aides of the savior must come together;
The prescient web contorts ever tighter,
Steari Liberman, you must heed no matter.
Your own profession shall be your cynosure,
A signal of distraught shall be sent no further
than the beacon of cleansing that bears a brother.
Completing that, I bless you, as a martyr.”
Heaving a breath, Steari clasped his face, but peered between his fingers to observe the silhouette, he had been apparently stunned and cast in a demeanor of disbelief, just as he was then.
Adjusting his glasses, again settling his gaze at the dispersing clouds that hid the sky, Steari continued without being prompted, “Of course, I was as confused as you are now, perhaps even more, being quite secular. However, I felt an inexplicable urge to decipher those instructions, and I followed my instincts. Although you may have only recalled me teaching physics, but I had also taught astrology, so my best guess was that it was something celestial, that beacon.
What that beacon was, though, eluded me for some time. Then it struck me a few years back, while making an observation of the constellation of Gemini: the two brightest stars, named Castor and Pollux, were the twin sons of Zeus. What made me ever certain was that astrologers associated Pollux with celebrations, celebrations with wine.”
“For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” Isaiah quoted from Matthew.
“Very true. Drinking wine, a symbol of His shed blood for the forgiveness of our sins, cleansing us of guilt,” Steari added with a satisfied smile, “and following the verses is precisely what we will do tonight.”
“Really? We’ll send a message to Pollux, using this instrument?”
“Yes. When it is activated later, a stream of signals will be propelled as powerful gamma rays, fueled by the radioactive decay of a Hafnium isotope within the core, carrying a message I have pre-coded in that direction.”
Delving back into deep thought, he left his apprentice to continue assembling the device. He wondered about his rationale for such an absurd course of action, and contemplated the possibility that all of it is a hallucination. He shrugged off the thought nonchalantly. Like Pascal’s wager, I don’t stand to lose much anyway.
Before long, the stars and the new moon have emerged from their previous occlusion, leaving the sky very much like the glittering fabric of theatrical garments. Looking at distant Pollux and its twin Castor, Steari could not help but think up the last verse of the mysterious poem. A martyr?
“Professor, it is not extremely difficult to comprehend that such a technology, employed in this device, is being used with the intention of saving humanity,” Isaiah stated as he continued to set up the device.
“Is it so? Why?”
“I heard that the United States dropped an atomic bomb on a Japanese city a few weeks ago. Tens of thousands perished, and they’re still planning another similar strike.”
Steari shook his head and sighed, “knowledge and technology are both double-edged swords,” with that last syllable, he sighed again.
“There, done!” Isaiah exclaimed, “To the very precise angle and direction you have –“
A loud bang erupted from the woods behind, echoing off the derelict structures of stone and sending flocks of birds into the sky. Steari gasped as Isaiah went limp and fell backwards into the undergrowth. His mind raced in panic as he tried to absorb what has happened, apparently to no avail. Shit, what in the nether hell…
Even in the chaos of panic and exasperation, he forced his mind back into its rational form and knew what he had to do. Lunging forward, he pulled the lever that activated the mechanism within the device, just before another vehement crack emanated behind him.
He didn’t feel the bullet, though he was sure that there was one. His lungs got weaker as it filled with blood; the tensing of his muscles disappeared. Experiencing an elating moment of freefall, he fell flat onto his back. Gazing again at the starry sky that had never failed to fascinate him, he finally understood the meaning of the last verse. A martyr, aren’t I?

Chapter 1
“A self-proclaimed martyr had been arrested yesterday when he attempted to detonate an explosive device at a subway station. Authorities have confirmed reports that the middle-aged Muslim man was discovered to be carrying explosives at Baker Street at noon…”
“Wow, did you hear that?” he asked as he nestled himself in front of the television set, eagerly listening evolving news report.
“So?”
“Didn’t you forget? I was there at precisely the same time of day a week ago! What if that rabid psychopath chose to bomb the place a week earlier? I could have been charred to a crisp!” Damien replied, overtly annoyed by the ignorance.
“Can’t be helped.” Alistair replied coolly, with neither the slightest hint of amazement or empathy as his gazed remained fixed on the computer screen. “Don’t go to London.”
Damien grumbled something inaudible at that apathetic reply, much to Alistair’s amusement.
Damien and his endless stream of ‘what-ifs’. Alistair commented in the back of his head, growing weary of the empty conversations that his roommate who was so intent on engaging in. It was especially irking when he was occupied with something, like right now.
The bright fluorescent lightings bleached the room, rendering a vague reflection of Alistair on the dark background of the computer screen. He saw his own inquisitive blue eyes analyzing himself, from the charcoal-black hair down to the thin lips.
I’m wandering off again. He thought, bringing his attention back to the fore, scrutinizing the rapidly shifting numbers on the screen, just when suppressed sniggers broke his concentration. Without even looking, he knew where that grotesque, unnatural sound had came from – his other roommate Isore, who was currently engaged in frivolous online chats that often consumed him as much as it consumed Damien. Incarcerated, more like. What an eye-sore…
All because of university. Doubtlessly, the change in his friend’s personality had disgusted him. The change being so dramatic that an attempted comparison with their previous traits was nearly impossible, too many conflicting grounds.
People change, when a variable is introduced into the system, he quipped.
That variable was the opposite gender. Coming from an exclusive, single-gender college, Alistair, Damien and Isore were once very good friends. However, the introduction of the opposite gender into their school-life has turned the how world upside-down. Isore, for example, had morphed into a self-righteous, deluded teenager who often thought his moral philosophy was the grand truth, discarding all advice and criticism, all this while believing he is engaged in a multitude of intimate relationships (which were actually unilateral) and involving himself in chat rooms constantly. Damien’s old cheerful personality has seeped from the real world to the virtual world, deriving joy from chatting online.
Pathetic. Alistair growled. It’s a genuine waste of time, that thing they claim as ‘socializing’.
He, however, couldn’t deny the possibility that he may be oblivious to a change in his own traits as well, though he still concluded, out of anger, frustration and disappointment, that some friendships had to be consigned to the depths of hell. It’s not too bad yet, it hasn’t deteriorated to the point of mistrust and vindictiveness.
A moment passed.
Nothing again. He sighed as the timer displayed that five minutes have passed. Reaching out the window, he felt the caress of the gentle night-breeze, noting how dry the air felt. It was the perfect night for observing the heavens then, cool and dry, the least aberration. After readjusting the small radar dish, he settled back to his chair and ran the program again.
The weight of his eyelids was getting unbearably heavier by the moment, but the task at hand, a routine assignment thrust upon the shoulders of members of the university’s department of astronomy, was still demanding attention. The assignment had been sort of a branch of SETI’s unrelenting yet unsuccessful search for extra-terrestrial beings, which Alistair had thought to be an excellent method to torture students. Since two days ago, he had been conducting the search, hoping at least that he might find encoded signals from sentient beings beyond earth, but was greeted with the drone of background cosmic radiation instead, not as if he was expecting anything.
This round will be today’s last. He yawned.
Another five long minutes passed. Reluctantly, he lifted his head from the comfort of the table. He reached for the volume knob, eager to rid his ears of that ubiquitous drone that was driving him on the verge of insanity.
Damn this.
BOOM!
That last syllable was barely thought out when the earphones suddenly emanated a deep bass that rattled his inner ear, sending low frequency shockwaves throughout his skull.
What the hell was --
BOOM!
He was wide awake now, though he was still reeling in some measure of shock. On the screen, the display showed a matching skyrocket in the wave’s behavior, surging to the top of the graph.
Static…
A supernov –
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Third time he jerked in surprise in less than ten seconds. Believing there shouldn’t be fourth, Alistair ensured that the computer was recording and his guard was up.
The signals repeated themselves a few times, before rejuvenating again after a brief pause in a rhythmic cycle. Before long, the waves started pulsating at half the amplitude, but at uneven lengths, but at a steady interval.
Static…
Static…
Static…
“Gosh, did you fall asleep while with your eyes wide open?”
It was Isore, the baritone voice startling him from behind. Alistair’s heart missed a beat. Damn it, fourth time.
“You look like you’ve been zombified, ha-ha!” Isore chuckled at his own unintimidating joke, “you’ve been staring at the screen for so long, we thought you would have made a good statue.”
Alistair turned to face Isore. Not funny.
“Hey, you found something?” Damien butted in this time.
“It’s uh… Some… I… Ah…” Alistair stuttered as he searched his lexica for descriptions, “I don’t know.”
“Woah, a message from the Martians?” Damien enquired, his question marinated with sarcasm.
“Not that you would give a damn,” Alistair snarled.
“What is it then?” Isore again.
“Oh I wished I knew,” Alistair mumbled, “I’ll go have it checked out, most likely a cosmic event, then I’ll get back to you all…”
As his roommates scampered back to their computers, desiring to continue frolicking in the virtual chat rooms, Alistair sat down and struggled to comprehend the incident, not able to fathom what these weird signals implied. He still knew though, that the best course of action was to mention it to SETI, and let the experts decipher it, if they had not detected such strong activity already.
He did that, and loaded the data on a backup drive as a precaution, something he had learnt after using his frail computer for a month.

Ensuring that his computer would record till the next morning, he nestled into bed, while various thoughts drifted around the void of his mind.
Is it really a message from extraterrestrial intelligence? It could be another of those hoaxes… But what if it really is true this time? Do I get to be Nobel laureate? It’s too hard to prove it though. The world now is filled with too much Hollywood movies that ridicule such things … … …

Chapter 3
Flanked by towering racks filled with countless old tomes, Rabbi Elijah Liberman paced down the aisle. The sun poured rays of light through the tall vertical windows, their paths streaking across the soaring visage of the arched masonry roof. It had the aura of a holy sanctuary, but the stinging tang of aged books that permeated the air immediately reminded anybody of the real function of this building, a sanctuary for books.
Proceeding down the lengthy aisles, he recollected his first experience in this library, how a huge labyrinth it seemed to him. At that time he almost regretted not bringing along three days’ supply of food and breadcrumbs to mark his trail. Fortunately, he had the luck of bumping into a sophomore student who guided him out of the maze.
The rabbi was tasked with research on the torah code, in which the torah (Jewish parallel of the bible) was considered a cryptic message sent by god, and he, Elijah Liberman, would decrypt it. The messages lay hidden diagonally in the letters of the torah that spanned several matrices, and dealing with so many possible permutations, forgoing the use of technology would be grossly inefficient. The rabbi would enlist the aid of technology for such a task.
Eventually arriving at his workstation, he fired up the computer and ran the amalgam of algorithms that would find him the hidden messages of God. Even for a supercomputer, the process of sifting through billions of letters in uncountable orientations would take a few minutes for an inputted search. The application though, was poorly written and adhered strictly to the search input. He would have to get a better programmer next time.
19th of June, 2012. The computer date registered. That would be my grandfather’s 100th birthday, if he hadn’t disappeared.
Taking a seep of coffee, he took out the religious documents that he had brought, contemplating the choices he had and what would attempt to search for.
Leaning back and resting on the comfortable cushioned chair, he allowed his thoughts to wander while the computer loaded the data into memory and began sieving through the data. Chuckling silently, he remembered how he shunned people who attempted to research the torah code in the past, labeling them as time-wasters who sought nothing but to kill their time instead of understanding God. That however, changed when an American journalist, Michael Drosnin, using messages from the torah code, predicted in 1994, the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. Now, that was truly an eye-opener, dispelling Elijah’s previous doubts and piquing his interest in the arena… and here he was today.
One match for his inquiry, as it turned out. Nothing concrete, since a small number of matches usually meant a coincidence, a result of statistical probability, rather than a hidden message.
Today though, he would try out a new application, written by a programming genius that would allow the computer to vaguely snoop through the arrays of letter, automatically finding from within possible hidden codes. Deciding to give it a try, he ran the application.
Beep! The speed of the application astounded him, but also reinforced his demeanor of doubts about the program. Written by a Palestinian… how quaint…
As he browsed through the long list, one result caught him completely by surprise. ‘Steari Liberman’.
Elijah barely remembered to breathe. My grandfather!
His father was barely religious at all. It was impossible, probably a malfunction of the application. There was however, only one way to verify, and he keyed it into the system. As he hit ‘Enter’, he exhaled deeply.
Bing!......Bing!...Bing!Bing!Bing! ......
The candid sound chastised his precedent judgment.
Search complete.
5,267 results.
Elijah was dumbfounded as he attempted to consolidate the information. However, there appeared to be something was deeply troubling. Out of all the matches, only in fifty four of the codes were the sequence of letters in “Steari Liberman” in order. The other five thousand six hundred entries though, were an anagram of his grandfather’s name.
Lousy search program! Won’t display the other matches!
No choice. He took out a paper and tried to rearrange the letters to make out a significant religious meaning, in which he would search through the torah again.
Hours passed… and the rabbi was clearly in distress.
WHAT IS IT? What else could be formed from ‘Steari Liberman’?

Chapter 4
“Alistair Bremen”
The young woman in front of him whispered as she read out the name on the all too familiar-looking ID card.
“Its mine, I dropped it,”
“Oh…” the young woman turned around, her golden hair dawdling behind her head, reflecting the warmth of summer’s sunshine, “I’m sorry, here it is.”
Receiving the ID card from her gentle hands, Alistair couldn’t resist looking at her beautifully lean face, the blue irises which exuded an aura serenity, her rosy thin lips…
“Uhm…, What is it?”
Alistair gasped, he had been holding her hands instead of the card, how embarrassing! And now she was tugging her hands, asking of him to release them.
“Oh, sorry,” He replied hurriedly, “Thanks!”
Preventing further awkwardness and chagrin, he took his ID card and dashed away……
The rattling of a glass.
Alistair opened his eyes wide. He thought he felt a tremor. He peered around. Everything was dark. In bed. Damned dream. Can’t shake off my infatuation over her.
Then abruptly, a loud boom. And he knew the tremor was for real.
Something is wrong, very wrong. He thought as he got out of bed swiftly, he could feel his instincts urging him on. His roommates Damien and Isore were getting out of bed too. It’s very dangerous, we must get out of here.
“Dame! Isore!” Alistair whispered as loudly as he could manage as he grabbed his Swiss knife, hesitating a while before pocketing it together with his mobile phone and wallet, “people are going to get killed. We must get out of this place!”
“Jeez, you know I don’t like to be called –“
Alistair’s outstretched forearm landed his palm on Damien’s cheek, knowing the tight slap would do more good than harm.
“For God’s sake be quick! Don’t plod about and get out of your damned beds! Grab your important belongings, we MUST get of here!”
Damien and Isore were barely awake but apparently recognized the urgency and franticness in their friend’s voice, though they had their doubts, mutual trust built up over the years overruled rational decisions. They too, scurried to get essential belongings for identification, something they have been trained to in these violent times when terrorists struck frequently.
Alistair was sweating profusely. The perspiration felt cold as it glistened down his cheeks, the sensation strangely reinforcing the fear within him. Deliriously panning around, he saw orange flames licking the sky not so far away, and he knew they had to escape. Whatever the danger was, they must not escape through the main corridor. Why? I don’t know.
“The air vent!” Alistair gestured to the vent high on the wall just outside the room. “We’ll need to get up there.”
Damien and Isore exchanged a few dubious glances, but nonetheless followed Alistair.
“Al, just what are –“
“Trust me on this, please!”
Below the vent, Alistair leaped and jerked the grating open. Leaping again, he caught the edge of the vent and pulled himself through. Isore followed suit. Damien though, had a difficult because of his height, but Isore stretched out his arm and pulled Damien through, who made an awfully loud clank when his waist landed on the metal surface of the vent.
“Damned big phone you have there,” Isore teased.
“Hush!” Alistair commanded, sealing the vent with the metal grating, “This is no time for fun and games. We have to climb through the vent, quietly, and exit through the back.”
“I don’t even know what he’s –“
Damien again fell silent when Alistair shot him a glance brimming with anger.
Following Alistair’s lead, the trio crawled through the vent as silently. The vent though, was definitely not designed to contain the dimensions of a human, and they had much difficulty navigating through the initial tight passages. Their perspiration apparently helped lubricate the surface of the vent, preventing their knees from making all too obvious resonant sounds.
“Get on your knees! Arms on your head!” the voices of masculine men perforated the initial shock when the students discovered the explosion. Loud crashes coalesced with shrieks toned with panic soon took the place of those voices.
Numerous shots rang in the air, worrying Alistair as the warning shots fired in the air might actually hit them. He looked back at both Damien and Isore, they were both as terrified as he was.
Trembling in fear and cold, he continued to lead them through the vent. It was not too much of a chore, the vent went just one way, and he knew the exit: the lawns at the back of the dormitory.
Sirens. Speedy response from the police. I can only hope this ends well.
Maneuvering through the ominous tunnel, Alistair thought they had reached salvation when the end came into view. Relieved, he peered through the grating for reassurance.
His relief was short lived, with the dim illumination of the crescent shaped moon, he observed the silhouette of a man, holding something extremely familiar. Damn it.
He looked back at both his friends, and mouthed the words “There is a gunman.”
Shifting to the side, he allowed Damien and Isore to look through the grating. The end of the air vent was large enough for the three of them to squeeze, fortunately having a good distance away from the gunner.
“Shit!” Isore gasped, barely audible. He pointed an index finger to some figures lying limp against the far walls, scarcely observable.
Alistair and Damien focused on the spot, and were soon greeted by an abhorrent image of death. A few bodies lay limp against the wall, blood was smeared against the wall with little gunshot indents on them. One of them was a classmate, his lifeless eyes oddly gazing towards them.
They are murderers. The dead bodies were apparently those who tried to escape, and Alistair shuddered in fear as his mind played out the imagined consequences if they were caught. Panicking, he turned his head to assess his friends.
Damien’s eyes were bloodshot, his face contorted with anger that Alistair had never before witnessed. He only saw Damien briefly placing the gunman between the sights, and pulled the trigger.

Chapter 5
BANG!
Looking through his binoculars, Captain Rosenberg surveyed the effects of the explosion that had just taken place. Boulders tumbled down the steep slope of the chipped rockface.
A successful operation, of course. I’m commanding the Special Forces here.
With his aide carrying his equipment, he led the squads to the site of the blast, where previously an analysis of satellite images has revealed the existence of a large cavern behind a thin wall of rock, and he planned to use that as a weapons cache. After all, this war could very well last for another year, and he needed his soldiers to be ready for that.
A year ago, terrorists in Lebanon detonated a dirty bomb in Haifa. The radioactive wastes were quickly cleared, but the antagonism soon mounted as much as the umbrage did. And soon, Israel declared war on Lebanon. Now, here he was, on a mountain range near Zahlar, less than 50 miles from Beirut, digging-in his forces in preparation for an assault by the armies of Syria and the Sunni emirate of Iraq.
“Sir, we have a problem” a soldier radioed.
And indeed, it was a problem. The captain found out that the cavern wasn’t empty shortly thereafter, but was an ancient subterranean structure filled with crates.
“Don’t touch anything. I’ll investigate.” The captain commanded, realizing that an archaeological find was as important, and the weapons cache could wait, he could not risk having soldiers plundering the find.
The cavern whiffed of stale air. It was apparently sealed off thousands of years ago together with millions of liters of desert air, and remained so for millennia. The captain observed the crates around him while continuing deeper into the chamber, recognizing from shattered ones that they contained clothes, jewels and ornate pottery.
A burial chamber.
The structure stretched on for about fifty meters, before suddenly it opened into a large, circular space. A casket lay right in the center. The stone casket was decorated with a few sparkling stones and had figures meticulously sculpted on it, but that didn’t compare with a golden pedestal that stood behind it.
The captain stepped up the pedestal, and marveled at the bright polish the pedestal still retained. A single sack made of purple cloth, extremely expensive even during the medieval ages, sat on the surface. Reading the Hebrew letters inscribed, the captain wheezed.
BEHOLD, THE MOST CONSECRATED ARTIFACT:
THE TUNIC OF YESHUA.

• Jews have historically regarded the name of Jesus as Yeshua.
Chapter 6
“Jesus Christ” Isore gasped.
The gunshot reverberated through the air vent, eerily replaying the sound that was so synonymous with death, the deafening recurrent blast left their ears ringing for moments.
The gunman then fell forward with a dull thud.
Isore cursed again and again under his breath, more in shock than anything else. That damned thing is what made that clatter when he got up this bloody vent.
As the three lay stunned, the gravity of their situation apparently struck Alistair first. He broke the panorama, leaning forward and squinting through the sides of the grating. Perceptibly noticing that coast was clear, he swiftly produced his Swiss knife and disgorged the grating.
At first reluctant, Isore followed Alistair’s lead after he was offered an outstretched hand, knowing that they had to get out before they were found.
Standing up and using his sleeve to wipe droplets of sweat off his forehead, he tilted his head and examined the corpse.
It’s not a corpse. The chest was still rising and falling at a fast but rhythmic intervals, blood, portentously black in the absence of light, gushed out from the wound with every breath. He could hear gurgling sounds as the inky lacquer trickled out the mouth, constricting the gasps of air.
“You… you…” he muttered, feeling bile at the back of his throat at the abhorrence of the scene.
Panning his head, he gaped at Damien. Look what have you done.

Damien did not return his piercing stare.
Abruptly, Alistair jerked hard on his forearm, and on Damien’. Shifting his attention, he saw a silhouette of a man emerging from the far door, and instinctively spun around and bolted off behind Alistair. Shit.
He suddenly heard sporadic gunfire behind him, banefully crackling as he made his mad dash behind Alistair. He could feel his thigh muscles beginning to ache, but the dosage of fear was stronger than steroids. Ducking around vaguely outlined trees, he had no idea where Alistair was leading them, but he just ran, wanting to get as far away as possible from the cacophony behind him. Damien was following behind, and Isore feared that his friend would turn around and fire.
Then in front of him Alistair suddenly came to a halt, and Isore had to force his panic-stricken mind to slow down rather than to continue leeching on his adrenaline. Alistair lifted a lid, and ducked right into the void. Hesitating briefly, he too leaped down.
At the moment Damien’s feet landed on the floor, Alistair reached for the manhole cover and pulled it downwards, drawing a lever that locked the lid with a resounding click.
“We’re safe,” Alistair’s voice barely came out through his huffs, “this tunnel is built to withstand bomb attacks, steel and concrete.”
Isore however, retreated a number of yards away from the opening. He could hear his heart beating on his ear drums, his diaphragm in pain while his legs numb from overexertion. He still could hear virulent gunfire erupting outside, their sound distorted by the enclosure.
“I think the police are storming the building,” Damien managed.
Isore wiped a load of perspiration from his brow, settling himself down on the floor in utter exhaustion. He could feel himself on the brink of hyperventilating, his vision was fading while his breathing was deepening. He shut his eyelids, and waited for the dizziness to go away. He could not afford to lose consciousness at such a critical moment.
A few minutes passed with only the sound of heavy breaths, even the distant sounds of gunfire have died down. While they steadily recovered from their previous virile exertion, the fatigue from their apparent lack of sleep begun to drain their awareness.
Isore mobilized the remnants of his strength and sat up.
“Dame?”
No answer.
“You shot someone.”
His eyelids flickered open.
“You killed someone.”
“Oh jeez, I didn’t kill him!”
“Then who did?”
“He wasn’t even dead when we left!”
“Isn’t that worse?” Isore was clearly angered.
“That’s what vile murderers get.”
“Who gave you the right to dispense judgment?” Isore scowled, “you don’t even know if he was shot them.”
“Oh god, could you stop that shit?” Damien snarled. “My damned cousin is bleeding dead!”
“And a vendetta makes you judicious? Hardly.” He scoffed in reply.
Damien sat up and clenched his fist, and Isore was frightened for a moment as he saw Damien brimming with bottled fury, and also of that murderous weapon that he was sure Damien still had.
“You don’t know a single –“
“You didn’t even tell us you had a gun!”
“Like you needed to know.”
“Damn it!” Alistair intervened. “Could you guys stop the pathetic bickering? We got out alive, could we now thank fate or whatever rather than lament over such bullshit right now?”
Asshole.
Isore huffed, lying down on the concrete floor. Allowing his eyes to rest a while in the face of mounting weariness.
Idiot.
Now, didn’t he look like he enjoyed killing?
Psychopath.
Damn it was horrid.
What was that thing I thought I wanted to do again?
Nevermind.
The blood. The essence of the human body drained slowly. A deliberate, dawdling death. The blood… the blood…

Chapter 7
“A pool of blood without a body, seven dead and four wounded occupants,” the officer reported the figures with morbid calmness.
“Objectives of the insurgents?” the superintendent asked, adjusting his belt over his massive waist while he walked past the smoldering remains of the guardhouse, amber still dotting the charred surface.
“We don’t know, sir. Nothing stolen, no ransom demands. They exchanged a few shots with the strike force before fleeing. They had a get-away vehicle, a black van. Planned and executed operation.”
“A pointless massacre?” the superintendent enquired again, avoiding a scurrying medical officer.
“We have not ruled out kidnapping, though it is highly unlikely.” The officer replied, producing a list of names. “We did a background check, nobody of interest, and neither would it warrant such a massive operation. Our estimates put them at ten, ten gunmen.”
“Do a headcount.”
“We’ll do it as soon as we confirm there aren’t any insurgents hiding within the crowd of innocents.”
“The attackers. How were they equipped?”
“The strike team commander reported the hostiles wore black clothing, with the possibility being protected by Kevlar as well.”
“Weapons?”
“9mm, nine times nineteen. Analysis being scheduled to ascertain their handguns or submachine guns. The other cartridge though, is disturbingly peculiar.”
“Why?”
“4.7 DM11. Case-less cartridges for the G11 family of rifles.”
The superintendent tapped his chin as he tried to recall. “Isn’t that an exclusive rifle for the German Special Corps?”
“Yes sir.”
“Very peculiar indeed.”

Chapter 8
Odd.
He glanced down at the body.
Caucasian.
Gunshots. A few bullets whizzed past him. He ran as fast as he could.
A bullet tore through his leg, shattering his shin. He lost his balance, felt a strange watery sensation as his lower leg felt it melted, falling face down onto the dewy grass.
It was weird, he didn’t feel pain. His assaulter approached him slowly from the back, with every step hammering fear into his mind.
His saw from the shadows that his adversary stopped right behind his body. Instead of shooting, the figure bent down, and grabbed him by the collar…
“Wake UP!”
Alistair jerked awake, staring right into Isore’s leathery face, his heart still pounding his sternum in trepidation.
“I thought you were dead.”
Rubbing his eyes to expatriate the last vestiges of his dream and deep slumber, Alistair sat up, it was still dark. He pulled out his phone:
SOS CALLS ONLY

9.04 AM
“We shouldn’t have slept here, but we were too lethargic yesterday,” Isore continued. “Let’s get to the police.”
It was only a while, but he saw it. Isore eyeing Damien for a brief moment, static crackling when they made eye-contact.
“The lock is not functional, the lever broken. I guess you pulled too hard yesterday.”
“There’s another exit on the other end of the tunnel,” Alistair said as he got up and gestured towards the lengthy corridor, “it opens up at the water pumping station near William’s Street.”
“How did you know about this tunnel?”
“Somebody told me about it. I used it a couple of times to sneak out of the dorm at night. I’ll take point then,” Alistair replied. Gesturing towards the gun on the floor, “you should pocket that.”
Damien deliberated for a while, then picked up the gun under Isore’s intimidating gaze.
The three of them scurried along the narrow shaft, their footsteps echoing briskly along the walls of the tunnel that seemed to stretch out forever. The illumination was minimal, as the power to the main lights had been cut off by the explosion, they reasoned. Even though the path was frightening and daunting, Alistair led them on with relative ease as he navigated the junctions by memory, leaving both his friends to wonder how many times had he used this tunnel in actuality.
At last, they emerged from a hatch about half a kilometer away from the university. The morning breeze was ambrosia to them, fresh with the dewy dampness of dawn.
Out on the surface, Damien flipped out his phone. As Alistair drew his attention towards him, he couldn’t help but notice a bruise on his right cheek. Then he thought about the gun, and how the top sliding frame of the pistol recoiled backwards when fired, ejecting an empty case.
Must have held the gun there when he aimed. Don’t even know how to operate a weapon, no wonder he keeps losing to me in classic games of Counter-Strike. He seemed surprised himself at his morbid and inappropriate sense of humor.
“There wasn’t wireless coverage down there,” Damien said while pressing the buttons on the phone adeptly, “I’ll check the news, see if there’s anything.”
Alistair and Isore gathered behind his back, eager as well.
Loading…
Welcome to BBC Mobile Phone News Service
‘Top Stories.’
Stream selected news video?
‘Yes.’
Buffering…
“Authorities have confirmed that a terrorist attack had occurred early this morning at Hatfield University. Security footage has showed that the terrorists used an explosive device of substantial power to overcome the security barrier, though no one had been killed by the initial explosion, which was reported to be heard two miles away. BBC correspondent Carolyn Harker is currently at the scene. Carolyn, please.”
“Thank you Shelley. Behind me here are the smoldering remains of the front gate that once barred unwanted visitors from entering the dormitory. According to Commissioner Reynolds, a cell of roughly eleven terrorists entered the facility and briefly held the two hundred occupants hostage. As the police arrived after a few minutes, the terrorists showed they were not willing to negotiate and opened fire. They, however, fled the scene swiftly as police stormed the building, reported making their escape in a black van. The casualties include seven students who were ascertained to have attempted to escape, while four are still missing. The peculiarity of the incident however, was baffling as even authorities do not know the objective of the operation, though some cited kidnap. However, police have found that one room particular had been ransacked, and are investigating further to deduce the possible purpose behind committing this atrocity.”
That’s our room.
Alistair was shocked by the image of their room. Clothes were thrown all over the floor, locked drawers bashed open while volumes of books lay in disarray along the racks. A neat little circle at the center of his pillow marked where the bullet has entered.
Where’s my computer?
The ghastly image of the room was incidentally the last frame of the video, and hung there on the screen of the mobile phone.
“Did they get the wrong room number?” Isore shattered the enveloping silence, his question as awkward as the hush itself.
“What if it’s about thing Al was so hyped up about yesterday? What if it’s a guarded military secret that Al found out?”
His endless ‘what-ifs’.
“Could be. My computer’s gone.”
Scrutinizing the image, Isore visibly found it disturbing as well. “Is it that ‘cosmic event’ you were talking about yesterday?”
“They were just unnatural signals.”
“From space? What if it’s a top-secret spy satellite?”
He clearly has an aptitude for story-telling.
“You lost all the data?”
“Uhm, they were all in my computer.”
“Hey wait,” he pulled out his wallet, cautious not to reveal what was in his other pocket. Producing a small drive, he grinned. “Damned fortunate I made a backup.”
“Is there a computer we can use anywhere here?”
* * *
Booking a computer terminal, Alistair sat down and plugged in the device. While downloading the appropriate software, he conjured up a table of celestial coordinates on the browser. Borrowing pen and paper from the counter, he worked out the source of the signal.
“It’s most likely from Beta Geminorum, better known as Pollux.”
“What’s from it?” Isore asked.
“This,” Alistair replied, turning the vole knob a little and pressing the ‘play’ button. The familiar, deep-sounding clip lasted for less than two minutes.
Swiveling in the chair, he turned to face the two of them. Assessing their reactions, he felt an odd sense of déjà vu.
“Is it a message?” Damien suggested.
“If it isn’t a natural source, then of course it would be a message,” Alistair replied quickly, a tad little excited. “However, determining that it is artificial and decrypting the contents is another matter altogether.”
“Are those binaries? Could be ASCII,” suggested Isore.
Most probably, if its artificial.
Playing the clip again, Alistair wrote on the paper the first part of the signal:
1 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
“I guess it’s most probably two different messages were intended,” Alistair tapped the pen on the table. “Since they are both distinctly different, one of unequal intervals and of lower strength. Isore, you could read ASCII codes?”
“It’s a random jumble of letters and numbers. I don’t think it is ASCII.”
“Aliens wouldn’t use our codes, and neither would the military not encrypt the data,” offered Damien.
Staring at the binaries, Alistair could offer nothing either.
An encrypted sequence of binaries? Maybe.
A key-code for the second part’s encryption?
The browser loaded the SETI website just then, the background a gigantic dish constructed in a natural sinkhole that he had no trouble identifying.
The Arecibo Telescope.
Arecibo… the Arecibo message! Shortly after the completion, they sent a message to outer space, which in one of the seven parts they broadcasted the numbers one to ten.
Numbers… these are numbers.
Alistair gasped. “Prime numbers.”
Both of them casted a dubious glance.
“The amplitudes correspond to numbers,” Alistair continued, “Two, three, five, seven … to seventeen. Divisible only by themselves and one.”
“Holy…” Damien couldn’t believe his eyes.
“Do you know what this means?” asked Alistair rhetorically, discernibly excited, very excited. “It wasn’t a natural occurring signal!”
“Let’s decipher the second part?” not hiding his thrill, he replayed the clip immediately.
“Oh damn,” Isore attempted to recall. “It sounds so familiar! It’s that… that… mouse code –“
“Rubbish! Aliens using the Morse code?” Damien teased.
“Hush!” Alistair summoned a table of codes on the browser, and replayed the clip again while deciphering it. “Let’s see…”
T H E E N D I s C O M I
The message abruptly ended, it seemed. Alistair recognized the shift in wavelength.
“The end is coming?” two voices simultaneously.
“It’s a message from earth? What if it is some broadcasting satellite?”
“I don’t think so,” Alistair answered as he played with the pen between his fingers. “These are gamma rays, extremely microscopic wavelengths. Moreover, it’s broadcasted at an even more absurd frequency – about 6.2832 gigahertz.”
“Oh god. The arc of a circle in radians?” Isore was amazed.
Alistair was astounded, he had not considered it before. 2π. Definitely not natural.
“What does it mean, then?” Damien asked. “What, exactly, is ending?”
“The alien civilization?” replied Isore swiftly.
“They’re using our language, if there really is a ‘they’” Alistair remarked. “It may not be the Morse code. Perhaps the prime numbers were the key to decode the message. Let’s try the most primitive method, if they intend it to be decrypted, the key would suggest either a grid or perimeter of a matrix where we can arrange the signals.”
Alistair launched the calculator on the screen, then keyed in.
2 + 3 + 5 + 7 + 11 + 13 + 17
=
58
2 * 3 * 5 *7 * 11 * 13 * 17
=
510510
“What are those supposed to mean, a 29 x 2 dimensioned matrix?” Isore asked.
“I don’t know.”
2 ÷ 3 ÷ 5 ÷ 7 ÷ 11 ÷ 13 ÷ 17
=
7.835301952949 E -6
Alistair paused for a while, it was not making any sense. Remembering the reputed properties of squared prime numbers…
22 + 32 +52 +72 +112 +132 +172
=
Nothing happened.
=
=
“The computer chooses to hang at this time?” Damien growled impatiently.
“Damn it, just do it manually!”
Alistair heeded, turning the piece of paper to the blank side, he scribbled down the values.
22 + 32 +52 +72 +112 +132 +172
4 + 9 + 25 + 49 + 121 + 169 + 289
=

6 6 6

Chapter 9
dEVIL SATANz says:
I’ve got smth 2 do right now
---------------------------------------------
You just sent a nudge!
---------------------------------------------
dEVIL SATANz says:
c u tmr
‘ ‘ Morbid™ says:
cya
Breathing in the cold, dry air from an air-conditioner set to its highest power, he signed off the messenger program. Launching an advance programming console, the display was bleached of colors and turned into an obsidian void, while the program loaded its contents into the computer’s memory.
The young man took a moment to assess his vague reflection, adjusting his spiked hair that blocked part of the fluorescent lighting behind him. Tapping his left mouse button gently, he smirked, brows furrowing further when he thought of how ingenious his idea was. Yes, with that idea spearheading his act of revenge, he would no doubt have made a personal statement.
Loading a saved file, he reviewed the programmed codes again, as he had done so for weeks. He knew he couldn’t afford even the slightest or simplest flaw. After proof-reading all the complicated algorithms twice, he took a sip of coffee as a reward.
Cracking his knuckles, he began typing out a continuation of the source code, his fingers in a flurry of activity around the keyboard, adding lines after lines of complex operations to the existing code.
Completing a large segment, he leaned backwards and stretched, conjuring thoughts about the malignant result that would precipitate from his endeavor, in an attempt to exorcize the fatigue that was slowly creeping into his mind.
Even Satan himself would have been proud of this.
At that exact moment, the irregular whirling of the fan sounded somewhat like an evil chuckle, similar to that of a brooding demon, emanating from within his computer. The air-conditioner, however, continued its incessant drone.

Chapter 10
The dissonant drone of the engines irked him. Alistair wanted to catch some shut-eye, but the dissonance and the excitement from the preceding events worked better than the most concentrated coffee. Letting out a yawn, he produced a piece of paper tainted with his scribbles, double checking his calculations.
Previously, they were convinced that the message told of an impending apocalypse, but had no idea of its origin and purpose. Damien had put it most appropriately albeit with that annoying ‘what-if’, citing why a human would want to warn a nest of ants of the coming downpour that would drown them, not to mention taking great lengths at understanding they way they communicated.
Alistair had thought he could find an answer when he found SETI’s reply e-mail, but that e-mail raised more questions than it answered. According to the message, SETI had not been able to confirm the signal, implying that either his equipment was faulty (which he found quite unlikely), or the signal was specifically targeted to a kilometer radius around his dorm (which he found quite unlikely too, but given that the signal was composed of high-frequency gamma-rays, maybe…).
Isore apparently unwittingly raised some very pertinent information, recollecting an article he had read on BBC’s news website, which mentioned something about astronomers finding another rocky planet in the Pollux star-system, since it was only reputed to have a gas giant satellite previously.
That had set Alistair’s mind in motion, digging out some facts about the star over the internet. Apparently it was a red giant, a star roughly the mass of the sun butt had exhausted its nuclear fuel and bloated to enormous dimensions. The equilibrium that governed the size though, was erratically unstable, leading to an unpredictable, fluctuating size. The fluctuations in size presumably have allowed the chaps at NASA to detect the rocky planet, which had been consumed by the star’s expansion for at least half a century.
So what about the rocky planet? The answer could have lay in the nature of the message itself. Since it was suspiciously of human origin, Alistair had previously thought about a signal sent into space and then reflected. However, high-energy gamma-rays would woefully have passed through anything, even the thickest mirrors. Only at an absurdly small angle of incidence, so tiny that the light-ray merely grazed the material, then would it be able to be redirected. So theoretically, a gamma-ray mirror would be of half an ellipse, stretching tens of thousands of kilometers. Hence, Alistair theorized, that the rocky planet actually turned into gigantic spherical mirror (requiring some eccentric thinking). It was plausible, since the red giants rapid retreat in size lowered surface temperatures by huge proportions. The plunge in temperature disallowed the liquid rock to turn back into solid form, resulting in the formation of an amorphous substance known as glass. He even drew a diagram for his friends:
Also bent by gravity, deviates from path

Light bent by gravity

A message sent from Earth, reflected off the planet back here. Seeing that Pollux was about 33.5 light years away (takes light that many years to get there), using exact values, Alistair calculated that the message was sent on August 21st 1945 at around 1 a.m., two weeks after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Very probable, since we have perfected our knowledge about radioactive decay by then. He even exacted the location of the source, using a simulator. Searching the coordinates online yielded ‘Zona 7, Guatemala City, Guatemala’.
The whole idea seemed wonderfully brilliant yet fictitious in a sense, but that had clearly provoked their interest. Alistair had deduced however, that he would be dismissed as a fool should he take this information to the agency, as the signal was never confirmed, but nonetheless sent SETI an e-mail. Seeing that their holiday was quickly coming to an end, they decided to take an exhilarating trip to investigate it themselves, though Isore initially needed quite some persuading. Damien had the money, in the form of one of the credit cards owned by his father, a hedonistic playboy living off his brother’s fortune.
One problem still remained though, which were Isore’s parents. He assured them he would settle it himself, but they doubted how easy that could be done. Alistair was not worried though, he never knew his parents. Damien had no problems too, since his father would indisputably be sipping wine in some tropical beach, surrounded by bikini-clad girls at the moment.
Making certain his calculations were correct the eighth time, Alistair was relieved. Looking out the small window of the plane, he saw the distant sun gradually descending below the endless surface of clouds, producing a violent calamity of colors over the cerulean Caribbean Sea.
A person-to-person call, transcending time.

Chapter 11
“Hello?”
“Father, we didn’t get him.”
“What?”
“He was gone before we got there.”
“Fools, all of you! Where is he now?”
“He boarded a flight, father.”
“To where?”
“We’ll find out soon.”