Simultaneity

"So we swung the dish around to a spot with the least near obstructions, set the widest available bandwidth and filtering turned off. The most pristine random signal from the distant cosmos was the target."

With a bit of dramatic flare, a countdown to detection launch was called out by the gal with the NASA communications officer sound for everyone in the command center to hear."

"At tee minus zero, it was as if we would be taken on the ride our lives. The room of seven people became mystically still. The monitors went dark including the master. The audio pulse had the oddest echo."

"I don't know how it felt to others. To me it was as if a darkly brilliant flash had 'illuminated' a large field. Full of detail, none recognized but all retrievable. Though we were using the cutting edge in recognition hardware and software we knew the sheer data size meant nothing could be calculated in mere minutes, perhaps hours."

"But the feeling was instantaneous, as if the existence alone of such recognition capacity could trigger the outcome whether or not the mechanism was activated."

© 2012 Buzz Hill