1 month after returning from the Keck Observatory, New York CityI debated the next steps. So much has changed in the past month, and I needed to improve. I heard footsteps approaching. I knew it was Sarah.Leaning my head, I saw her standing at the door with a steaming cup of relaxing tea. With a forced huff, she said, smiling, "Finally got the kids down. Issac, tomorrow is your turn."I leaned forward in my chair and turned to face her as she entered the room. She was wearing loose sweatpants and one of my old sweaters, her hair tied back in a loose bun. She looked stunning, as always."I'm looking forward to it," I said with a smile, pulling her chair out with my foot and gesturing for her to sit."So, what are you doing?" she asked, a smile on her lips."Just thinking," I replied, gesturing toward the computer. "Just finished reading the official report about that blob we found a month ago.""Oh?" she asked, sitting in the chair I offered, placing the cup of tea on her table.The short version is that this is huge, fast, and aiming straight for us. There is an uncertainty of speed and angle, but if nothing changes, it will be here in under a year.Sarah pursed her lips and leaned forward. "I'm sensing you are not finishing the story. Short version still needs to be completed version," she asked. She knew me so well and had the cutest worried face.I leaned forward, taking her hand. "NASA is organizing an all hands on deck joint task force. They are going to be building some new telescopes and tools and need-""Go." She interrupted, her face lighting up."But I didn't finish. Because I made the discovery and led the online group that has been investigating this, my name was put on a short-""Go. It's an amazing opportunity." She interrupted again.I sighed and took her hands in mine. "Please let me finish! This means moving to Texas earlier than we planned, and you have your job and project that you just got assigned to. So how do you imagine this working out?""Well, first off, we moved here because I had an opportunity, and now you have one. So it would be selfish of me to demand you didn't go," she said, letting go of my hands, leaning back in her chair, and sipping her tea. "Thanks to your blob in the sky, everyone in the UN is up and arms. There's a lot of talk about this new task force that NASA is organizing and how humanity should respond."I raised my eyebrows, my mind immediately jumping to the worst-case scenario. "What do you mean to respond? What does that mean? Are they expecting an alien invasion?" I scoffed and looked at her with a raised eyebrow.Sarah chuckled, shaking her head. "I think it's just a precaution, but you know how people are. The idea of aliens coming to Earth will always get people talking about war and peace."I nodded, understanding the gravity of the situation. "Well, let's hope peace for all sides. Because if they want war, we are as good as gone." I shook my head. "But that's even if this isn't just a bunch of rocks and ice."Sarah took a deep breath. "For now, my boss says we should prepare for the worst and pray to all that is holy that it is just a bunch of ice." Her eyes softened. "But you should apply and go to Texas. We were going back there when Aurora was going to start school anyways. We are only about a year early this way."I closed my eyes, thinking through all the possibilities and everything involved in building a life there. The giant Sarah-shaped hole was the most enormous hole in all the plans I saw. "And you?" I whispered.I heard a smile in her voice and felt her hand on mine. "I'll support you from afar and come down as often as possible." I opened my eyes to see tears coming down her face. She continued smiling, "I'll also ask to transfer or work remotely. But you should go. This happens once a millennium, if not less often, and you can do something with it."I nodded, feeling tears in my own eyes.---Five months later, six months After the blob was discovered.It's been four months since I got the job down here—four months of studying, researching, and analyzing everything related to the blob in the sky. I moved down here with Aurora and Leo, leaving Sarah behind. She's been flying down here as often as possible, but it hasn't been manageable with her job and our kids to take care of. The last two months have been particularly tough, as she's only made it down here twice for one week at a time. But she promised to come for a more extended visit in a few weeks.My brother has been a great help, much to my surprise. When I moved, he came over and helped his friend move us in. He was picking up things and moving them off the truck and into the house. He still doesn't like kids, but at least he interacts with them usually.My official title is astronomer, but that doesn't even begin to describe the scope of my responsibilities. My days are spent reviewing data, tracking the blob's movements daily, and updating all measurements accordingly. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. My main task is to build models for possible origin points using observed changes in vector and speed and to reevaluate our understanding of this enigmatic object constantly.My informal job is to run around the other departments and help with math and analysis wherever needed. It's not uncommon for me to work alongside engineers, computer scientists, chemists, and astrophysicists, all to further our understanding of this thing in the sky.We've set up, repurposed, and built from scratch several observation platforms around the problem of taking good images of the object. And now, after months of studying it, we're confident that it's a singular object, not a cloud of ice and rocks like we initially thought. For now, our best is about 100x100 pixels of something beyond the heliosphere. With the uncertainty in the measurements, the size could be between the size of Texas and the size of the moon.Right now, I was rushing to answer an urgent request from Miles Nelson. Miles and I had known each other since college when we were roommates. Thanks to him, I discovered my love for tabletop RPGs, and he also played a crucial role in introducing Sarah to the hobby. But when it came to his urgent requests, you never knew what you would get. They could range from something as simple as needing a spare battery or calculator to something as serious as having just been in a car crash and barely surviving. I was in a hurry.As I approached his office, I could hear the faint sound of music and a conversation from inside. Miles was always listening to something, either music, podcast, or audiobooks, and sometimes multiple things all at once. I found him calmly sitting at his computer, wholly absorbed in his work, with headphones on. I looked around and realized he had classical music from a set of speakers and a podcast conversation about history from the opposite room.I walked up behind him and peered over his shoulder. His screen had a series of equations and trajectory formulas on it. "What's so urgent that you had to pull me away from my work, Miles?" I asked, maybe 2 inches away from his head, and stood back, knowing what was coming.Miles jumped to his 6-foot 5-inch frame, ripped off his headphones, and turned to face me. "Damn it, Isaac, you scared the hell out of me!" he exclaimed, clutching his racing heart.I chuckled. "You're a scaredy-cat for someone so big," I teased.Miles rolled his eyes and took a deep breath. After a few minutes of calming down, he answered my question, "I need you to check the orbital adjustments of a telescope that's going online tomorrow. It's purpose-built for high-resolution photography of the object.""Oh? Is this the wide mirror or the array?" I asked, intrigued."Array. The wide mirror didn't work. We can't get it safely into the fairing, so we will see what we do with that. The array got dropped off and self-assembled yesterday," Miles replied as if it should be obvious.I nodded in understanding. "Right. I'll get right on it. Is there anything else?"Miles nodded. "Yes, do you want to be here when we open it up?"I took his laptop and settled on the beanbag I shared custody of with Miles's dog when he brought him to work. "Of course. Can I bring the kids?"Miles shrugged. "Sure. They know how to behave, right?"I glared at him. "Yes. Better than you half the time."I settled into my work, pulling up the relevant documents and equations on Miles's laptop. I saw Miles pull out a tablet and start working on something else. He put his headphones on, so I pulled out my headphones and turned on some instrumental music to help me focus.As I went through the math and calculations, confirming line by line that nothing was missing or missing. I know we had computers doing the same job I was doing, but for whatever illogical reason, we still trusted human eyes for this final walk-through. I worked steadily for about an hour, double-checking my work and ensuring everything was accurate.Finally, I sat back and stretched, feeling satisfied with the results. I turned to Miles, still on the tablet, scribbling notes about something. I tried to get his attention, but he couldn't hear me again.I stood up from my beanbag and stretched my stiff muscles. I needed to get better at taking breaks and moving around. Miles still didn't seem to react to me. I walked over to Miles's desk, carefully placing his laptop in front of him. As I did, Miles jumped up, clutching his chest again."Isaac, I forgot you were in the room," Miles said, looking sheepish.I chuckled, shaking my head. "It's all good, man. I'm done here anyway," I replied, gesturing at the laptop.Miles leaned forward and quickly scanned the information on the screen. After a moment, he looked at me and nodded with a smile."Everything checks out," I confirmed with a grin and a thumbs up.Miles's face lit up with excitement. "Great! The launch is tomorrow at around 6 pm in observation room A. You should try to be here a bit early." he announced."That's the big one, right?" I asked, my interest piqued.Miles nodded eagerly. "Yep, the biggest telescope launch we've ever done. We've got many guests coming, including some bigwigs from NASA, and a few people from the government, military and international guests, too," he said with a grin that slowly turned concerned."Sounds like it's going to be a big night," I remarked. Turning to the door, I added, "I'll ask the kids if they want to come and shoot you a message."I was happy that my kids wanted to join me for the launch. After an early dinner, we drove to the office and parked in the closest lot to Observation Building A. As we walked towards the building, my heart raced with excitement. This culminated months of hard work, and I couldn't wait to see the results. This would be the first time we saw the blob as anything more than pixels.However, as we entered the building, I could sense my kids' unease. The room was filled with hundreds of people, and the noise level was almost overwhelming. I could see Leo and Aurora huddled around me, their eyes wide with apprehension. I squatted and offered them to climb on me, and they both nodded. Aurora climbed on my shoulders, and I picked up Leo on my hip.As I stood up again, I locked eyes on Miles from across the room. He ran up to us with a big smile, waving excitedly."Hey, Isaac! Oh, good, and the little ones came too! Hey guys, this is so exciting," Miles said, beaming as he looked at my kids, Aurora at eye level now with him. "Don't worry. I'll show you around my section. Just don't touch anything, okay? Plus, you'll get the best view possible."My kids nodded, still slightly nervous, but I could see their excitement growing. Miles led us to his section, which was located in the middle of the room. He gave us a quick tour, pointing out the various stations they would be using during the launch of the new telescope. Miles grabbed two chairs and brought them for the kids to stand on. His teams were responsible for designing and manufacturing several physical components and part of the interface that translated the few thousand robust arrays into a cohesive image before sending it down the earth side.The anticipation in the room was palpable as we waited for the launch. The idle chatter died down, and all eyes were glued to the giant screens at the front of the room. The only noise was the call out of "Ready" or "Green" from various stations. I could feel my heart racing excitedly, and I glanced down at my kids. Aurora was fidgeting with excitement while Leo was snuggled up close to me, his eyes also fixed on the screens.As the screen countdown began, the room grew quieter and quieter. Every eye was on the numbers as they ticked down toward zero. And then, finally, the countdown reached its end, and a hush fell over the room. Suddenly, a green light flashed on the screen, indicating that the telescope was now one and working. A wave of cheers and applause rippled through the room, and my kids let out a small scream of excitement."Wow!" Aurora exclaimed, her eyes wide with wonder. "What happens now?"Miles grinned at her, still watching the screens. "Now, we wait for the first image to come in," he explained. "That's the next big thing."Aurora looked confused. "But what's so special about the first image?" she asked.Miles chuckled, turning to face her. "Well, that's the moment we finally get to see the blob in all its glory!" he exclaimed. "We've been working towards this for months, and when that image comes in, we'll finally get to see it up close and personal."Leo's face lit up with excitement. "Can we see it, too?" he asked eagerly.Miles nodded. "Of course! Once the image gets processed and beamed down here, you'll get to see it too. But there might be a small delay of around 30 seconds," he explained. "When they do, they will appear on that screen," Miles added, pointing at the 25-foot display in the dark room. "And you will also see it here on my screen." He said, tapping the monitor in front of one of his workers.The first image on the screen was a stunning sight, but it wasn't what we expected. The blob we studied for months looked more like an artificially-made structure than a natural phenomenon. My heart sank as I realized this was entirely new and unexpected. My kids looked at me with concern, feeling the tension in the room.Leo tapped me on the arm, his voice trembling as he whispered what was wrong. I took a deep breath, trying to collect my thoughts before answering. "That... doesn't look like what we were expecting," I said, pointing to the screen. "It looks a lot like an artificially-made structure. Almost like a spaceship."Aurora's eyes widened in shock. "A spaceship?" she repeated, her voice filled with awe and wonder. "Like the Enterprise?"I smiled. "Yes, honey. But this wasn't something we built."Aurora looked confused. "Then who built it?" Her voice cared further than expected in the dead silence.Before I could answer, a second image came in, and Miles asked me to come over and look at the side-by-side comparison. I looked at two identical pictures as I moved closer to the screen."Do you see something different from 1 to 2?" Miles said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Like here and here in particular." He pointed to the two edges of the images.I looked at the images. Everything looked identical to me. "Looks like two frames from a movie or so."He picked up a finger and said, "Just wait."As new images appeared on the screen every 10 seconds, my eyes remained glued to the screen, trying to make sense of what I saw. And then, slowly, I realized what Miles had seen. The object we studied was turning, revealing new angles and features we hadn't seen before.I turned to Miles and said, "It looks like it's tumbling or has some rotational momentum."Miles nodded and shrugged. Sighing, he said, "We'll have to wait and see. But I'm starting to get a bad hunch."My kids had been staring at the screen for a few minutes. They started getting bored of the nearly identical image appearing repeatedly. They were starting to get restless. "Okay, time to go eat again," Aurora grinned. "We burnt through all our dinner from excitement!"Leo giggled, "Yeah, we need more fuel to keep up with this space stuff!"We watched the object turn and turn and turn for the next few days. We were compiling the images into potential 3d models and using extrapolation to build a more comprehensive image of it. My job has focused on using the new measurements made by the array telescope to identify the exact path it will take. The government gave us a blank check to find out what was happening and get as much information about it as possible.Sarah called me once on a secure line and asked many questions. Her boss and every politician and diplomat in the UN made peace with everyone else. This was good news because, on the one hand, no war is always good. On the other hand, it was good because Sarah's boss was pushing hard to make the team in Texas focus on preparations for potential first contact. It was in the early stages, but that would mean Sarah would be moving to us, and we would work in one building.One evening, as I was sitting in my home office trying to make sense of the new data that had come in since I left the office, my kids burst into the room with their usual energy and excitement. "Dad, dad!" they shouted, running over to me. "Can we see the blob again?"I smiled at them, feeling a pang of guilt for neglecting them over the past few days. "Of course, we can," I said, standing up from my chair. "Let's go take a look."I walked out to the backyard observatory. My shed was filled with various telescopes and light buckets. As I approached, I could already feel the excitement building inside me. My kids were excited about space like I was! I grabbed my most powerful telescope and quickly set it up. Finding the blob was like second nature to me, and I could easily spot it at any time of day or night.I adjusted the focus to get the best possible image and motioned for the kids to take a look. One by one, they peered through the eyepiece. Aurora gasped in excitement while Leo furrowed his brow and said, "This picture is worse than Uncle Miles's pictures."I burst out laughing at his innocent insult. "Well, this light bucket was much cheaper than Uncle Miles's, but it still gets the job done."The kids quickly lost interest and declared they were ready to shower and get ready for bed. I shook my head, feeling disappointed that they weren't as enthralled with the space as I thought, and began to pack up the telescope.Suddenly the night sky grew brighter.I looked up in confusion, thinking that a full moon was pulling out from behind a cloud. Then I realized that the blob was lighting up brighter than the moon in a completely different part of the sky.---In Observation Building A."Sincerely, Miles Nelson," I read aloud as I finished typing the final email of the day. I stopped adding my Ph. D.s and whatnot after the second one. It felt...like humble bragging. Now all that was left was to pack for the night.Unfortunately, my phone rang out of nowhere, making me jump out of my skin. Looking at the caller ID, my colleague was supposed to take over the night shift. She was asking if she could have the evening off to spend with her out-of-town family. She promised to come in after midnight with at most two beers. With a sigh, I agreed and went to the break room to fill up on coffee and grab whatever sandwiches were still edible.After my short break, I trudged to the observation room and checked all the stations in my sector. The initial excitement surrounding the massive telescope had died down as the object had completed whatever maneuver it was doing and was now on a stabilized trajectory. The observation operation would be transferred to observation room G next week, as we were switching to a skeleton crew in preparation for the following projects and several possible sample probe missions.I settled into my chair with a groan. Taking a sip of my forbidden coffee, I placed the self-sealing mug on the floor and pulled out my ebook reader. It wasn't like I would do anything different at home anyways. As I started reading to stay awake, every warning light in the room went off simultaneously. My heart racing, I jumped up from my chair and looked around the room, trying to figure out what was happening.Looking around, I saw every person on duty become fully awake, trying to figure out what went wrong.My eyes darted to the monitor displaying the object's trajectory, and I couldn't believe what I saw. The blob had suddenly increased in brightness. I deployed the sun shield I insisted was a good idea, and most alarms died down.The only one that was still blaring its warning was the tracking software. It let us know that the tracked object was no longer in optimal positioning in the frame.A cold sweat gushed from every pore on my body as I realized the object's speed was changing.Excerpt from the Blog "The Illuminati Insider"Attention all truth seekers! The moment we've all been waiting for has finally arrived. The object we've been tracking in the sky is NOT just some random asteroid or piece of space debris, as the mainstream media and government have been trying to tell us. No, my friends, it's something much more sinister.It's a spaceship! An alien spaceship, to be exact. And it's preparing for an invasion of our planet. I know it sounds crazy, but just hear me out.The object is now in a slow-down pattern. This means the aliens are ready to move. This is not a drill. The end is near.If you don't believe me, just go outside and look at the bright spot in the sky. That's the spaceship warning us of what's to come. The government is trying to cover it up, but we won't be silenced. We must prepare for the worst.Stock up on food, water, and weapons. Gather your loved ones and find a safe place to hide. The aliens are coming, and we must be ready to fight for survival.Don't listen to the mainstream media and their lies. Trust your instincts and join me in the fight against the alien invasion. Together, we can save our planet from destruction.---Excerpt from the blog "Divine Daily"Dear Brothers and Sisters,We have been blessed with a sign from above, a new star in the sky that has appeared in recent days. While some may see it as a simple astronomical event, we must recognize it as a divine message from God himself.This star, this celestial phenomenon, is a sign that the end of the world is near. It is a warning to all of us that we must repent and prepare for the coming of our savior. We must turn away from our sinful ways and embrace the light of God's love.As we see this star shine in the sky, we must remember the words of our Lord and Savior, who said, "You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times."Now is the time to interpret the signs of the times and prepare for the coming of our Lord. We must be vigilant, we must be prayerful, and we must be ready.So let us come together, my brothers and sisters, in this time of uncertainty and prepare for the coming of our savior. Let us repent of our sins and ask for forgiveness. Let us live our lives in accordance with God's will and show love and compassion to our fellow man.The end of the world is coming, but it is not a time for fear or despair. It is a time for hope, for faith, and for love. Let us embrace this new star as a sign of God's love for us and prepare for the coming of our Lord.May God bless us all in these trying times, and may He guide us towards salvation.Yours in Christ,Brother Franks
