Necrophage

Signal Received

Wednesday July 13th

12 days Pre-Message

 9:00 AM Local time

His name is Larry and he is having a bad day already. First, the stupid alarm clock did not go off at 6:00 AM as he thought he had it set for, (turns out Sarah turned it off by mistake) but in rushing to work he ran a stop light and almost hit a mother and child crossing the street. The only good thing about today is that it is one day closer to the big event this Friday. He has been looking forward to taking the trip to Mauna Kea for about 3 months now. His friend and colleague Richard Pamarang has invited him to take a tour of the facilities for years now and he has finally saved up for the plane tickets for Sarah and the kids.

"Just a few more days," Larry mumbled to himself, "and I will be in paradise, for a few days anyhow."

Larry pulled up to his reserved parking space at the VLBA (Very Long Baseline Array) headquarters in Los Alamos, New Mexico and turned off his car.

"Hey Jim, how are ya doing buddy?" Larry asked Jim, the front door rent-a cop.

"Very good Professor Schinger" Jim replied, "gonna be another hot one eh?"

"Yes well, when do we have anything else?" Larry mumbled.

"You have a point there, ha ha! Oh, you have a Mr. Larson waiting for you in your office." Jim stated, "I never met him before but the credentials he flashed kinda spooked me"

"Mr. Larson is here really? Oh well thank you very much James, I appreciate that." Larry said as he hurried off to his office to ponder what this was all about.

Larry rushed to his office nervously wondering to himself why the Head of VLBA was in his office. He started inventorying all his accomplishments and possible failures in his mind coming up with graceful thank yous and excuses respectably. He barely got into that train of thought when he bumped into Eric Larson, his boss's boss and all around intimidating guy.

"Oh excuse me Mr. Larson, I heard you were waiting for me and in my rush I guess I did not see you there." Larry apologized

"Never mind that Lawrence, come into your office I have something important to discuss with you".

Larry walked into his office, placed his coffee and keys down and watched as Eric Larson closed the door behind him.

"Would you like some coffee, Mr. Larson? I can have Olivia bring in some fresh java for us; she makes a mean cup of joe." Larry asked

"Thank you Larry that would be nice." Eric replied.

Larry dialed his secretary's extension and asked her to bring up a carafe of coffee and as he hung up the phone he looked expectantly at Eric.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Larson?" Larry asked.

"Lawrence, I don't know how to phrase this nicely so let me come right out and say it: Your budget is being cut. Now before you get excited and worried let me tell you something, the only major consequence to this cut is that your SETI searches are going to have be curtailed if not ended completely. I know that you like to go for that kind of stuff but in this economy, we have to reserve the viewing time for, well, ‘commercial’ applications. Now this may be a temporary or permanent situation, we are not sure right now. The only thing for sure is that the SETI program is going to have to end." Mr. Larson explained, "Perhaps in the future when the economy turns around we will have the funding available." 

Larry looked down at his desk and thought about what this will mean for him. "When will this be effective?"

"I understand that you are talking a little vacation so it will go in effect nationwide on Monday, that should give you time to wrap up things." Mr. Larson answered