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Neighbors next door

Sal rinsed his hands and then splashed some water on my face. He looked at himself in the mirror, his smile was still there. The persistent hum of the fluorescent lights was actually comforting. The over treated tap water didn't actually taste bad in his mouth. He took a deep breath and went back to the office.

"Did anyone get me a clearer reading on the moon?" he said as he entered the room. One of the guys on the computers raised his hand. "I'm nearly finished on that, sir," he said.

He let that pass. Waiting a little bit of time now isn't much of a problem. He pulled out an empty chair and sat in front of the big screen. On it was an image of Titan floating about with Jupiter in orbit. That was where all his hopes and dreams were. This close, but it took him so long to notice.

He heard a chair being pulled and someone sitting next to him. He didn't even need to turn to know who that was.

"Did you get my coffee?" No reply came from his friend. He sighed,

"Can you give me the coffee, please?"

"Sure," Charlie replied

He handed him the standard issued cup, and he took a small sip. Not as bad as he remembered it.

"It's the excitement, Sal," Charlie said, "The coffee is still shit,"

They both continued to drink. Bit by bit, getting through the cup while looking at the screen. Charlie took the screen controls and switched to the different lenses the telescope pointed to the moon had.

"You, at B6," Charlie said, "Can you put Earth on half of the screen? I want to compare what the two look like,"

"On it," the kid replied with a thumbs up.

Contrary to the one Sal asked before, this guy got on it. They only needed to wait a minute till the images were on the screen.

"Thank you," Charlie said. He went with the comparison.

"What do you think?"

"Did you pull it up so we'd look like we have work to do?" Sal said,

"Pftsh, yes,"

They went for a minute, silently looking at the images, then the next, then the next. Sal had seen them about a hundred times by now, but they were still,

"...beautiful," the word escaped his lips. Charlie smiled at him,

"It is, isn't it? Can you imagine what it's like there?"

"I've tried," Sal said, "Still trying to convince NASA to send me there,"

Charlie chuckled. "Good luck on that," he said,

Sal took his eyes from the screen and let them wander around all the other small ones in the room. There were enough that he could find something novel mostly every glance, though this time, it wasn't the novelty that kept him going but rather the sense that something was terribly wrong with what he was seeing. Nothing added up.

He put his hand on Charlie's shoulder, eyes still going from screen to screen.

"Charlie, something is wr—" the power cut out, and cursing ensued from everyone in the room. The backup generators kicked in. But they were late, by 13 minutes to be exact. That's another thing to add to the list of things to worry about.

"Sir," the kid from earlier said, "The image of titan got corrupted by the power outage. Do you want me to start again?"

"No," Sal said softly, "Can any of you zoom out on the telescope image for me? I want to see the whole of Jupiter,"

"Also get me a reading on the magnetic activity of that thing for the past 26 minutes," he pointed to the kid, "Pull it out of your ass if you have to. A power outage shouldn't be an issue to begin with,"

The whole room turned to the opposite of what it had been earlier. Everyone's hands were on deck. Sal couldn't even hear himself think amidst all the side talking and machine noises.

Charlie got closer to his friend's ear.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't know yet. But something is,"

Soon enough, someone raised their hand, and Sal paced to them,

"Hit me,"

"Sir, we got a reading on Jupiter, as you said. The magnetic field spiked about 13 minutes before the power outage,"

"Was it a planet-wide thing?"

"Nope. Just us," the kid said. Sal steadied himself and started going back before he was called again,

"Sir, also something else,"

"What?"

The kid lowered his tone, "T-the disruptions from the field might've messed up with my machine. There is a coded file on my desktop that was created during the blackout,"

During the blackout?

Sal rubbed his temple, "Do what you must, figure it out, and don't tell anyone,"

He turned back to his seat and couldn't find Charlie anywhere. One of the employees said that he got out for a phone call. Charlie doesn't get many phone calls. This was giving him a headache.

Before he asked, the camera panned out slowly from Titan. The room fell silent as everyone turned their eyes to see the screen, and once the image was clear, all hell went loose.

"What is this?" "Are you actually telling me this is Jupiter?" "Someone hacked us boys," "Some elaborate trick," "What the fuck," "What is this," "What is this," "What is this,"

"Can everyone please shut the fuck up!"

The room fell silent. Sal collected his thoughts. He took the controls Charlie kindly left on his chair; and went through the different lenses. X-ray, Micro, Gamma, Back to Visible, Radio, Gamma again. A chuckle escaped his lips. Those were eyes, alright; on Jupiter and every one of its moons.

An idea that he reflexively tried to bury came to his mind. It took a lot of his willpower to speak it.

"I-I want you all to separate into two teams. One-third of you, show me all the other planets and moons in the solar system. The remaining, of the neighboring stars with the gamma lens turned on,"

There was a murmur between them, but they slowly got to work. Sal took out his phone and dialed Charlie's number, busy. He stood in the middle of all the mess, eyes only on the big screen, waiting for something to happen. He heard slow footsteps make their way to his side.

"You were right," Charlie said,

"Did anyone else see it?"

"Yes," he said, "I just got a call from the EU, China, and Russia. All of them saw it,"

Charlie paused, then continued, "What is it?"

"Eyes," Sal said.

The images started getting pulled up. Multiple shots of the distant stars. All with black spots in the middle, twitching and twiddling between the various photos. No one said anything. No one panicked. One by one, the people started leaving by him, dropping their ID cards near his feet. Charlie was already out. The only one who remained was the kid he talked to earlier.

Sal walked to him. He had the text file already opened. The kid looked at him,

"You can leave if you want to," Sal said,

"I-I don't know what to do," the kid said. Sal hugged him as he started crying. His eyes pinned on the small paragraph on the screen, wondering what to really do.

Congratulations. We've been watching you since you began. We're proud to see you come this far and complete the task of finding other life. This is our first contact, but don't be afraid; this isn't going to be our last.