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Chasing echos |
| Written by Timmy Dee | |
| Monday, 06 August 2007 | |
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Share it:      It was another night spent huddled over my computer, listening to the same damn moan, comparing it to other sounds, as usual finding no similarities. I turned around in my chair, resting my eyes. I deserved a long rest after a full 24 hours of working. I opened my eyes again. The pale glow of the screen lit up my office, showing a wall filled with close-ups of the same picture; the outline of a skinny woman's face and a window with two different colors of blue. That was my job. To find out what the blue thing was. To search the skies for the color blue. To listen to the same sound bite over and over and over again. That had been my job for two years now. For two years, all i did was look at the same picture, compare sounds to the low cry heard in September 25th, 2009. For two years, I worked my heart out, and I was as close to finding out what the noise was than I was last year, and the year before that, and the year before I even heard the sound. I had made virtually no progress. Somewhere, that low howl was flying above me, mocking me, laughing at me. I turned back to my computer , closing down all of the windows, revieling the same picture of the skinny woman and the window looking out of the rocket. The internal clock at the lower right side of the screen said it was 1:43 AM. I looked at my sunglasses by the moniter. It was a day and a half ago that I came to work. It was almost hard to believe that I wasted a full 36 hours of my life looking at the same picture and listening to the same sound. Since it was so early in the morning, I decided to go see unit 1001, my great invention. Unit 1001 was my only friend in this godless hellhole called work. I created it the first months I was employed by the E.T.D., the Extraterestrial Discoverment branch of NASA. Unit 1001, or as I call it, Loki, was a giant robotic colossus standing 50 feet in stature. When we finally find a way to exactly locate our mysterious moaning wall, Loki will run tests right on it. If I felt like I accomplished one thing in my job, it was creating Loki. In fact, this entire E.T.D. bullshit required Loki. What we have him programmed to do is play back the sound we have while being flown through the air. Then, if we get a response from the thing in the air, we drop Loki, and hopefully it lands on whatever made the sound in the first place. Loki was in the elevator chute, as usual. The elevator will only ever operate until we are ready, which we would be in a few weeks of hard, meaningless work. Loki was truly a piece of art. It was the only thing keeping me here. I wanted to see my baby through. I wanted to make sure It got on whatever monstrocity was making the noise. I couldn't imagine losing Loki. I looked at my watch. It said 2:17, which could potentially stir up some issues. Nothing major, but it could delay my trip home. I was at least 6 hours late for curfew, especially it being an orange level this month. Not that any of the cops could do ****. ****, I probably out ranked most of them, and I never served. Assholes. Out on the street, I could see my breath in the crisp fall air. The closed building across my work had a new cool grafitti on it. What an artwork, especially with the cops partolling everywhere. The new message said "AnRkey" underneath it had the writers name, "Rebell!" The cops would have fun painting that ****** white again. It seemed like everytime they painted over it, they invited more artists to use the blank wall to express their anti-martial law ideas. I could give two shits. It didn't affect me. Down the road, two cops spotted me, and started walking towards me. I didn't help that I was wearing a long coat and had a pair of sunglasses resting on my forehead. yup, I was just asking them to detain me, but they would be able to do **** about it. "You, stop right there." I chuckled in the inside. Why say "You"? who else could they be talking about? "Why? Did I do something wrong?" Oh, bring it on you fuckers "You have given us a cause to search you." "Oh, what is your cause?" It's because I'm pale, I'm wearing sunglasses at 2:30, and I have a trenchcoat. I dare you to say it. "You look suspicious," said the one who had kept shut up. This time I really chuckled. "O.K. run along and I won't have to use my authority as a Major to get you two fired." One of the pricks made a psh sound. "Let me see some ID." Now I had it. O.K. **** head I handed the clown my ID. The realization that I was in fact a Major made his once smug look fear. "Sir. I'm sorry, Sir! I didn't realize!" "Shut up *******. Let me go." I walked home leaving their mouths open with fright, fear, and relief. I looked at myself in the mirror after my shower. I certainly was paler, most likely because I spent every waking second in front of a ******* screen. I was also boney, and not in a perverted sence. My cheek bones were completely sunken in. My hair, although recently washed, seemed dark and lank. This was the result of two years of work. Work was killing me. "O.K. Major?" I yawned. It had been two days since the cop incident, yet I was still tired. I just couldn't get enough sleep. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. "Fine." It had been another two usless days of work. My latest discovery was that the sound sounded most like an combo of a base guitar playing in its lowest octive and an orca whale (exciting). However, I downloaded the entire sound bite into unit 1001, so now it would only take some commited work from the designers and Loki would be ready to fly. If Loki's life depended of the designers, he was ******. Not that the designers were ban or anything. They actually built Loki, or helped build it. But still, I just didn't trust anyone but me with Loki. My stomach growled. I desided I would steal someones lunch from the Cafe. I started the trudge to the other side of the building. While I walked, I thought. When I first joined this finantially bankrupt and logically devoid project, I was excited. Finding new life in our own atmosphere! Cool, right? What did bum me out my first days was building Loki. Imagine having to build a giant robot. however, as time went on, trying to find whatever we hit with sattelites or echo location became futial, and building a robot, in essence, playing god, became more and more appealing. It was fun. Adding cameras to Loki, making its arm a big noise transmitter. After the frustration of the first year, Loki became the sole reason why I would wake up. The cafe was basically empty, besides a couple huddeled over their coffee mumbling. I recognized the chick, but I had no clue who the guy was. Over the intercom, an old Red Hot Chili Peppers song was on, which made sence, because the guitarist died a year ago today. They say he ODed after his girlfriend broke up with him. The song was called "This is the place". Lunch was pretty limited. I could steal someones instant noodles, someones taco, something that smelled like eggs... I'll go with the noodles. As I added water and stuck the noodles in the microwave, the lunch bell rang. In a matter of minutes, the cafe flooded with people. I could hear one saying," What the ****! Who stole my noodles?" That was my cue to leave. It was 2:30 AM when I left work, and "AnRKey" by "Rebell!" greeted me as I walked out the door. It was decided in a meeting that Loki would fly by the end of the week. The spontaniousness of the E.T.D. Directors was probably because they had been a tax wasting project for two years. Chances are, if we don't get our acts together, the E.T.D. would be completely disbaned. Like it matters. More cops were out; It was a red level cerfew today because of recent attacks on the white house and pentagon. I hardly cared. If 10,000 protesters died in a march, It wouldn't affect me the slightest. It would just mean I would have to wear my ID that proved I was a Major on my clothing. As usual, my physical appearance was deteriorating. I noticed this while looking at my mirror. Aside from looking like ****, I felt like it too. I couldn't open my eyes without getting a dull headache that wouldn't go away, no matter how many asprin I took. Whenever I saw the warm glow of a screen, computer, laptop, or anything else, I shuddered. When something was played on the radio, it became just garbled noise which made no sence. I analyzed music instead of listening to it. All of this I originaly thought was the product of work, and it was. But it wasn't work that was killing me. I was killing myself. "Liftoff. We have liftoff. Unit 1001 is airborne." Everyone in the station clapped as Loki shot into the air attached to a rocket. Everything looked good. Even though I was watching the entire thing from outside mission control, I couldn't help but feeling EVERYTHING relied on me. So far, everything was smooth; we hadn't hit anything. Loki hadn't fallen appart. "We have hit-" My heart stopped for a second. "-the ionosphere. Engaging sound bite." A computer version of the low moan echoed through the base. It sounded for a good 3 minutes before turning off. There was a good 3 seconds of silence, before a non mechanized moan answered back; we had found our creature. This sound was much different than the one we heard two years ago. The one heard two years ago was a sad, almost pained moan. This one, while still maintaining the beauty of the original, was much fiercer and angered. Whatever the creature or thing was, it wasn't happy. It was pissed. And that is when I saw it. The first thing we all saw was a pair of eyes. They weren't humanlike. Or catlike. Or doglike. They were...were. Its eyes just were. They didn't look like anything. They just look exactly like eyes should, which, as I described, didn't look human. I realize that i have not described its eyes, but whatever I said wouldn't accuratly describe them. The only excuse I had for not being able to describe them is that if I tried, it would be like explaining that up was down and left was right. Past that, I didn't see it's body. It was to blent in with the surroundings. What I did see was catastrophic. The thing collided with Loki, and in event similar to september 25th, Loki's top was completely fued with its middsection, and in order to survive, the plane had to drop my mechanical wonder. Through Loki's eye camera (which was ungraciously now close to where its belly button would be), I saw a discoloration of blue in the ionosphere, then I flipped to see the fast approaching ground. Loki was gone, and we only got one good picture of the things eyes. The "artists" were going to color in the beast, where they knew shadows were. All of the peoples tax dollars were going into ten guys using adobe photoshop to make a pretty picture. Loki was found over Kansas. Some hick farmer called us an hour after he dissapeared to tell us a burnt up hunk of medal created a giant crater in his wheat field. **** him. He's an *******. And he has Loki. I didn't go home that day. The day Loki died. I sat in front of my computer, looking at the eyes. They were amazing. I couldn't believe how beautiful they were. They were astounding, even more beautiful than the cry it made. "Major, check this out." I was shaken awake by a colligue, some prick I bearly knew. "What? What?" The kid looked taken aback. I seemed to have offended him. "Sir, its the newest picture. The Artists are finally done." He handed me a picture of the thing. I must admit, I was amazed at its appearance. Its face, or at least what I thought was its face, was just weird. On the very top of its head was a rocklike horn protruding towards the camera. The horn was mirrored on the bottom of its head, except it was longer, like some massive underbite. In all honesty, its head was the least majestic part of its figure. However, it was the body that was amazing. It was extremely long and snakelike, with what could be seen as wings protruding from the side of its body. there were a pair of "wings" on its head, then two pairs of much larger wings several yards away from the first pair. Further down its body were lines of wings stretching to the end of the picture. "This thing must be a mile long..." I whispered to myself. The kid, who was still hovering over me, started talking about how the general of the project wanted everyone to look over the pictures and get familiar with them. Then he said something that really set me off. "You have to rebuild unit 1001." I turned to him and stood up. He was a couple inches shorter than me, but he didn't seemed threatened. Not until I jabbed him right in the nose. Blood ran freely through the office, and the kid stumbled to the door. "Wad da ell is ron wid you!?" he shouted, blood splurting onto my face. "Get the **** out! Get out!" "Fuk you ban!" I rushed over to him and smashed my foot into his face, causing more blood to go throughout the room. "Out! Get out!" I roared. And he did. The boy tripped out of the room, pushing people over in the hallway and bleeding all over the walls. Three years. It's been three years. Three years since september 25th. Three years of failure. Three years of my life, gone. Wasted. Searching the skies for a mile-long creature. Three years of playing a sound that echos through the sky just to hear the deafening sound of silence. Three years. Its been three years since Loki died. Died chasing something I am sure no longer exists, even if we have pictures of it. Even if we have to hear it day after day after day. Three years chasing an echo. Chasing an echo when we don't even know or care what is happening on the outside. The president was killed. Killed in a street riot by some prick. It was raining outside. The only ways I could tell was the pitter patter of the heavy drops and the lightning aluminating them. each time the lighting flashed, I could see the militia scum crawling around the streets. Now, I couldn't leave the office at 1:00 AM, unless I wanted to get shot, even though I was demoted to lieutenant. It was 1:24 AM. I was going to leave for home. It didn't matter what it meant. I was going to leave. I was in the lobby, putting on my coat. The T.V. was playing the same clip. "...Due to the death of President Thormun, anyone caught outside after curfew will be shot on sight. In these hard times, we all need to unite against these anarchists. Be strong. This is Silas Johanas, good night." The clip didn't stop, instead just starting from the beginning. Silas's droning voice continued. I looked out the window to see a fresh white coat on the other building. However, Rebell! had repainted AnRkey. You got your wish, Rebell! Militia dogs were by the door, reading the grafitti. I opened the door and stepped outside. On September 25th, 2009, a rocket was sent with 12 astronauts and three civilians to the moon. At the 44-mile mark, the beginning of the ionosphere, the crew and ship hit something so well blended into the sky the pilot never even saw it. The result of hitting this object literally flattened the rocket. It was comparable to watching a bullet hitting a solid steel wall. The fifteen passengers were killed, but their last moments were caught on tape. In it, the Civilian family was plastered to their seats by the sheer G-Forces. The Camera then looked to the right, where a cute, thin woman was seen smiling. Behind her, a small window could be seen, only a deep blue color, the color of the ionosphere, emanating from it. There was a small color oddity, where one color blue was deeper than the color blue that was next to it, then chaos struck. The camera was dropped onto the ground, and after a few seconds, flipped upright to show 15 nearly liquefied corpses. Reporters were all over the crash. One reporter on sight was going on and on about the travesty, while CNN showed the same clip of the rocket mysteriously being flattened by something, something that the satellites didn’t pick up. It was during this reporters heaven that one of the oddest things happened; A beautiful, low, sustained cry which is almost indescribable (the nearest description, a whale, is unbelievably off, but closer than any other natural sound made by an animal, humans included.) This sound low moan could be heard throughout North America, into Canada and Mexico. It was another night spent huddled over my computer, listening to the same damn moan, comparing it to other sounds, as usual finding no similarities. I turned around in my chair, resting my eyes. I deserved a long rest after a full 24 hours of working. I opened my eyes again. The pale glow of the screen lit up my office, showing a wall filled with close-ups of the same picture; the outline of a skinny woman's face and a window with two different colors of blue. That was my job. To find out what the blue thing was. To search the skies for the color blue. To listen to the same sound bite over and over and over again. That had been my job for two years now. For two years, all i did was look at the same picture, compare sounds to the low cry heard in September 25th, 2009. For two years, I worked my heart out, and I was as close to finding out what the noise was than I was last year, and the year before that, and the year before I even heard the sound. I had made virtually no progress. Somewhere, that low howl was flying above me, mocking me, laughing at me. I turned back to my computer , closing down all of the windows, revieling the same picture of the skinny woman and the window looking out of the rocket. The internal clock at the lower right side of the screen said it was 1:43 AM. I looked at my sunglasses by the moniter. It was a day and a half ago that I came to work. It was almost hard to believe that I wasted a full 36 hours of my life looking at the same picture and listening to the same sound. Since it was so early in the morning, I decided to go see unit 1001, my great invention. Unit 1001 was my only friend in this godless hellhole called work. I created it the first months I was employed by the E.T.D., the Extraterestrial Discoverment branch of NASA. Unit 1001, or as I call it, Loki, was a giant robotic colossus standing 50 feet in stature. When we finally find a way to exactly locate our mysterious moaning wall, Loki will run tests right on it. If I felt like I accomplished one thing in my job, it was creating Loki. In fact, this entire E.T.D. bullshit required Loki. What we have him programmed to do is play back the sound we have while being flown through the air. Then, if we get a response from the thing in the air, we drop Loki, and hopefully it lands on whatever made the sound in the first place. Loki was in the elevator chute, as usual. The elevator will only ever operate until we are ready, which we would be in a few weeks of hard, meaningless work. Loki was truly a piece of art. It was the only thing keeping me here. I wanted to see my baby through. I wanted to make sure It got on whatever monstrocity was making the noise. I couldn't imagine losing Loki. I looked at my watch. It said 2:17, which could potentially stir up some issues. Nothing major, but it could delay my trip home. I was at least 6 hours late for curfew, especially it being an orange level this month. Not that any of the cops could do ****. ****, I probably out ranked most of them, and I never served. Assholes. Out on the street, I could see my breath in the crisp fall air. The closed building across my work had a new cool grafitti on it. What an artwork, especially with the cops partolling everywhere. The new message said "AnRkey" underneath it had the writers name, "Rebell!" The cops would have fun painting that ****** white again. It seemed like everytime they painted over it, they invited more artists to use the blank wall to express their anti-martial law ideas. I could give two shits. It didn't affect me. Down the road, two cops spotted me, and started walking towards me. I didn't help that I was wearing a long coat and had a pair of sunglasses resting on my forehead. yup, I was just asking them to detain me, but they would be able to do **** about it. "You, stop right there." I chuckled in the inside. Why say "You"? who else could they be talking about? "Why? Did I do something wrong?" Oh, bring it on you fuckers "You have given us a cause to search you." "Oh, what is your cause?" It's because I'm pale, I'm wearing sunglasses at 2:30, and I have a trenchcoat. I dare you to say it. "You look suspicious," said the one who had kept shut up. This time I really chuckled. "O.K. run along and I won't have to use my authority as a Major to get you two fired." One of the pricks made a psh sound. "Let me see some ID." Now I had it. O.K. **** head I handed the clown my ID. The realization that I was in fact a Major made his once smug look fear. "Sir. I'm sorry, Sir! I didn't realize!" "Shut up *******. Let me go." I walked home leaving their mouths open with fright, fear, and relief. I looked at myself in the mirror after my shower. I certainly was paler, most likely because I spent every waking second in front of a ******* screen. I was also boney, and not in a perverted sence. My cheek bones were completely sunken in. My hair, although recently washed, seemed dark and lank. This was the result of two years of work. Work was killing me. "O.K. Major?" I yawned. It had been two days since the cop incident, yet I was still tired. I just couldn't get enough sleep. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. "Fine." It had been another two usless days of work. My latest discovery was that the sound sounded most like an combo of a base guitar playing in its lowest octive and an orca whale (exciting). However, I downloaded the entire sound bite into unit 1001, so now it would only take some commited work from the designers and Loki would be ready to fly. If Loki's life depended of the designers, he was ******. Not that the designers were ban or anything. They actually built Loki, or helped build it. But still, I just didn't trust anyone but me with Loki. My stomach growled. I desided I would steal someones lunch from the Cafe. I started the trudge to the other side of the building. While I walked, I thought. When I first joined this finantially bankrupt and logically devoid project, I was excited. Finding new life in our own atmosphere! Cool, right? What did bum me out my first days was building Loki. Imagine having to build a giant robot. however, as time went on, trying to find whatever we hit with sattelites or echo location became futial, and building a robot, in essence, playing god, became more and more appealing. It was fun. Adding cameras to Loki, making its arm a big noise transmitter. After the frustration of the first year, Loki became the sole reason why I would wake up. The cafe was basically empty, besides a couple huddeled over their coffee mumbling. I recognized the chick, but I had no clue who the guy was. Over the intercom, an old Red Hot Chili Peppers song was on, which made sence, because the guitarist died a year ago today. They say he ODed after his girlfriend broke up with him. The song was called "This is the place". Lunch was pretty limited. I could steal someones instant noodles, someones taco, something that smelled like eggs... I'll go with the noodles. As I added water and stuck the noodles in the microwave, the lunch bell rang. In a matter of minutes, the cafe flooded with people. I could hear one saying," What the ****! Who stole my noodles?" That was my cue to leave. It was 2:30 AM when I left work, and "AnRKey" by "Rebell!" greeted me as I walked out the door. It was decided in a meeting that Loki would fly by the end of the week. The spontaniousness of the E.T.D. Directors was probably because they had been a tax wasting project for two years. Chances are, if we don't get our acts together, the E.T.D. would be completely disbaned. Like it matters. More cops were out; It was a red level cerfew today because of recent attacks on the white house and pentagon. I hardly cared. If 10,000 protesters died in a march, It wouldn't affect me the slightest. It would just mean I would have to wear my ID that proved I was a Major on my clothing. As usual, my physical appearance was deteriorating. I noticed this while looking at my mirror. Aside from looking like ****, I felt like it too. I couldn't open my eyes without getting a dull headache that wouldn't go away, no matter how many asprin I took. Whenever I saw the warm glow of a screen, computer, laptop, or anything else, I shuddered. When something was played on the radio, it became just garbled noise which made no sence. I analyzed music instead of listening to it. All of this I originaly thought was the product of work, and it was. But it wasn't work that was killing me. I was killing myself. "Liftoff. We have liftoff. Unit 1001 is airborne." Everyone in the station clapped as Loki shot into the air attached to a rocket. Everything looked good. Even though I was watching the entire thing from outside mission control, I couldn't help but feeling EVERYTHING relied on me. So far, everything was smooth; we hadn't hit anything. Loki hadn't fallen appart. "We have hit-" My heart stopped for a second. "-the ionosphere. Engaging sound bite." A computer version of the low moan echoed through the base. It sounded for a good 3 minutes before turning off. There was a good 3 seconds of silence, before a non mechanized moan answered back; we had found our creature. This sound was much different than the one we heard two years ago. The one heard two years ago was a sad, almost pained moan. This one, while still maintaining the beauty of the original, was much fiercer and angered. Whatever the creature or thing was, it wasn't happy. It was pissed. And that is when I saw it. The first thing we all saw was a pair of eyes. They weren't humanlike. Or catlike. Or doglike. They were...were. Its eyes just were. They didn't look like anything. They just look exactly like eyes should, which, as I described, didn't look human. I realize that i have not described its eyes, but whatever I said wouldn't accuratly describe them. The only excuse I had for not being able to describe them is that if I tried, it would be like explaining that up was down and left was right. Past that, I didn't see it's body. It was to blent in with the surroundings. What I did see was catastrophic. The thing collided with Loki, and in event similar to september 25th, Loki's top was completely fued with its middsection, and in order to survive, the plane had to drop my mechanical wonder. Through Loki's eye camera (which was ungraciously now close to where its belly button would be), I saw a discoloration of blue in the ionosphere, then I flipped to see the fast approaching ground. Loki was gone, and we only got one good picture of the things eyes. The "artists" were going to color in the beast, where they knew shadows were. All of the peoples tax dollars were going into ten guys using adobe photoshop to make a pretty picture. Loki was found over Kansas. Some hick farmer called us an hour after he dissapeared to tell us a burnt up hunk of medal created a giant crater in his wheat field. **** him. He's an *******. And he has Loki. I didn't go home that day. The day Loki died. I sat in front of my computer, looking at the eyes. They were amazing. I couldn't believe how beautiful they were. They were astounding, even more beautiful than the cry it made. "Major, check this out." I was shaken awake by a colligue, some prick I bearly knew. "What? What?" The kid looked taken aback. I seemed to have offended him. "Sir, its the newest picture. The Artists are finally done." He handed me a picture of the thing. I must admit, I was amazed at its appearance. Its face, or at least what I thought was its face, was just weird. On the very top of its head was a rocklike horn protruding towards the camera. The horn was mirrored on the bottom of its head, except it was longer, like some massive underbite. In all honesty, its head was the least majestic part of its figure. However, it was the body that was amazing. It was extremely long and snakelike, with what could be seen as wings protruding from the side of its body. there were a pair of "wings" on its head, then two pairs of much larger wings several yards away from the first pair. Further down its body were lines of wings stretching to the end of the picture. "This thing must be a mile long..." I whispered to myself. The kid, who was still hovering over me, started talking about how the general of the project wanted everyone to look over the pictures and get familiar with them. Then he said something that really set me off. "You have to rebuild unit 1001." I turned to him and stood up. He was a couple inches shorter than me, but he didn't seemed threatened. Not until I jabbed him right in the nose. Blood ran freely through the office, and the kid stumbled to the door. "Wad da ell is ron wid you!?" he shouted, blood splurting onto my face. "Get the **** out! Get out!" "Fuk you ban!" I rushed over to him and smashed my foot into his face, causing more blood to go throughout the room. "Out! Get out!" I roared. And he did. The boy tripped out of the room, pushing people over in the hallway and bleeding all over the walls. Three years. It's been three years. Three years since september 25th. Three years of failure. Three years of my life, gone. Wasted. Searching the skies for a mile-long creature. Three years of playing a sound that echos through the sky just to hear the deafening sound of silence. Three years. Its been three years since Loki died. Died chasing something I am sure no longer exists, even if we have pictures of it. Even if we have to hear it day after day after day. Three years chasing an echo. Chasing an echo when we don't even know or care what is happening on the outside. The president was killed. Killed in a street riot by some prick. It was raining outside. The only ways I could tell was the pitter patter of the heavy drops and the lightning aluminating them. each time the lighting flashed, I could see the militia scum crawling around the streets. Now, I couldn't leave the office at 1:00 AM, unless I wanted to get shot, even though I was demoted to lieutenant. It was 1:24 AM. I was going to leave for home. It didn't matter what it meant. I was going to leave. I was in the lobby, putting on my coat. The T.V. was playing the same clip. "...Due to the death of President Thormun, anyone caught outside after curfew will be shot on sight. In these hard times, we all need to unite against these anarchists. Be strong. This is Silas Johanas, good night." The clip didn't stop, instead just starting from the beginning. Silas's droning voice continued. I looked out the window to see a fresh white coat on the other building. However, Rebell! had repainted AnRkey. You got your wish, Rebell! Militia dogs were by the door, reading the grafitti. I opened the door and stepped outside. Copyright 2007 Timmy Dee {moscomment} |
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