PETER WAS LYING IN bed, staring at the ceiling and wondering where the recent events might lead him and the podcast team. He was not prepared for what had happened thus far, but he felt driven to complete the task at hand despite the growing unease that things might not turn out well.

He recalled the odd circumstances in which he found himself ever since the obelisk crash landed in Saskatchewan. The arrival of the obelisk seemed particularly surreal.

“Why would an alien race send us a warning of an impending attack by other marauding aliens,” he wondered, “and if they’re coming, when would that be? Would we even have time to recognize it? Would we instead die instantly from their advanced tech?”

As a science and technology podcaster, he was current on most of the amazing new capabilities that had either recently been integrated into society or were about to be, from human-mammal hybrids to post-humans with expanded mental capacities. Given humanity’s accelerated pace of technology advancements in the last few decades, it was clear to him that any marauding species would easily possess innumerable ways to instantly annihilate native beings on a planet. Suggestions that they would want to experiment on humans or care to allow people to reside on the planet with them, even as zoo animals or slaves, were preposterous.

“So why worry about it?” he thought. “Everyone is stressing out over something they can do very little about. By some strange providence, however, the increasing global frenzy appears to be helping our podcast ratings.”

The podcast had started out innocently enough, focusing attention on the hard science behind the discoveries. Their recent move to the new format, one that delved into the applications of tech and effects on humans and the planet, still seemed misaligned with Peter’s original intentions.

Prior to the format change, which fortunately coincided with the obelisk’s arrival, his weekly show was on the wane. Advertisers were threatening to pull out, and listener and download numbers were in slow decline. He had previously hoped that simply running the show from his hometown of Cambridge would keep interest high, especially given the proximity to great research universities like Harvard and MIT, the bevy of inquisitive students, and an ample selection of qualified guests.

Given the recent, widespread use of AI, nanotech, genetic engineering, and aging reversal techniques, public attention was turning rapidly toward applications of science and tech versus the underlying hard sciences. Indeed, it was appearing to him that, like his podcast, basic science discoveries were also on the wane, almost suggesting that humans were reaching a limit there but not for functional applications.

Peter thought about the show’s guests since the format change.

“The Welcomer,” he thought, “a great guy with an undeniable message of acceptance. We could either greet the stellar marauders and acquiesce to their arrival and life on the planet, or not. To do the latter would mean certain death to all humans, but at least the former gave us a chance for some of our species to survive.”

Then there was Poison Paul who offered the flip side of The Welcomer’s more hopeful approach. His plan was to poison the world with nuclear waste such that restitution by any marauders would be difficult at best. To Peter, this seemed a rather rational concept that was hard to argue against.

No marauders would want a planet bathed in nuclear waste from hundreds of thousands of localized, simultaneous warhead explosions. Not even a futuristic race of alien robots could do much with that degree of devastation. The mere existence of such weapons and readiness to use them could serve as a fair deterrent to invasion.

The interview that left him cold and uncomfortable, however, was the most recent one with Eugenie Driver. Maybe it was her upper crust Boston accent or the attention she paid to her spoiled dog. Perhaps it was that Molli got kidnapped the same night as the interview. Or it was the audacity of Eugenie’s suggestion – that our technology should be allowed to run amok to see what future post-humans might evolve with advanced defensive capabilities.

In retrospect, Peter felt she was almost using the obelisk and impending alien invasion to advance a position she no doubt held well before its arrival. Advocating an unfettered Darwinian approach toward a transhuman, post-human future seemed equally as risky as not preparing at all.

The antithesis of her suggestion was what had been occurring thus far – the gradual integration of gene editing, robotic, anti-aging, and AI tech into the diverse and expanding biome of humanity via a well-intentioned but weak global regulatory and oversight structure.

“And what a humanity it has become,” he considered. “A traveling circus show brought to you by readily available, reasonably cheap, and often dangerous street tech. Every fricking person is an inventor, these days.”

The continuous stream of discoveries in these new technologies were being readily commercialized, given the instantaneous, incessant demand for anticipated outcomes and ‘winner-take-all’ riches to the first to market providers.

For those who could afford the going rate, vials of designer-hybridized, made to order DNA could be drop-shipped to homes in injectable or rub-on form. ‘Want larger biceps? Try this. Green eyes? Try that. A few more ears like my friend? How about a clone of yourself, or a set of cat claws instead of toes?’

Even Peter, the whiz at tech, was having a hard time keeping up with the array of hybridization options. Using the new scroll and rub-on technologies, it was now fairly simple to modify human or animal genetic code and integrate these changes quickly into one’s own DNA or, heaven forbid, onto an unsuspecting stranger. Any adept fifth grader could do it.

But this democratization of advanced tech was exacting a high price. The gene drive, or geedee, community was becoming increasingly differentiated from the non-geedee humans who maintained control over most aspects of society, government, and business. Bias against hybrids was on the rise, and multiple religious and extremist groups, as might be anticipated, were leveraging this perceived bastardization of what was once considered normal evolution to foment hatred and fear.

“Indeed,” Peter considered, “fear of change is forcing the grippers and mechs to react radically. To do things like kidnap Molli.”

Molli’s incident was an example of the growing unrest in the broad geedee community, but particularly for the grippers, those individuals who integrated robotic and metallic components into their musculoskeletal infrastructures. The mechs were the at hairy edge of the grippers, generally embedding substantial metallics within their bodies and increasingly hybridizing their mental capacities with AI linkages.

Thanks to her martial arts skills, Molli skirted certain death while at the same time taking-out the mech who kidnapped her. The Boston and Cambridge police took the case, but it was just one more jellybean in the expanding jar of unrest, angst, and anger that was escalating online and in the streets of major cities around the world.

“I’m hoping our future podcast guests can help this situation and mitigate concerns,” he fretted. “The last thing I want to do is taunt an apocalypse by exacerbating the animosities exposed by this damn obelisk. This damn, lovely, fortunate obelisk.”

* * *

“Five minutes to launch!” Ears hollered from his upstairs bedroom.

He despised cold weather and was dreading the oncoming season. One benefit of wearing layers of clothing during the long winter was that it obscured the bulges from his ears, helping him appear as a non-varint. It wasn’t that he minded too much when people took notice since his was a relatively modest augmentation in an increasingly obvious, highly differentiated population of varints.

The downside of wearing so much clothing, however, was that he could not hear as well. In a restaurant, he could normally listen to and process a variety of conversations at other tables. Not so when he was donning a thick winter coat or heavy shirt.

He peeked at the mirror.

“Freckles,” he thought, “will I still have these when I’m fifty? Sixty?”

Flipping his light jacket collar up to cover the ears on his neck, he walked into the kitchen and found Peter affixed to the vidscreen. He was checking-out a close-up image of the obelisk on an enhanced 3-D capability the screen provided.

“Shh!” Peter hissed. “Good stuff.”

A reporter continued with the description.

“Astrophysicists and scientists agree there is no known correlation between the obelisk and the suspected Dyson Sphere, which remains a hot item for viewing. People are flocking into public observatories around the world to get a live glimpse.”

A camera zoomed-in to the obelisk’s glyphs.

“Experts from across the globe have conceded, almost unanimously, that the glyphs are a pictograph of one species, represented by these images here, being dominated or overcome by other beings, as represented here.”

The image showed numerous small objects hovering just above a planet’s surface.

“This series of sequential square blocks indicates an invasion by nanites or nanobots. In addition to these new interpretations, other investigations released today confirm it is virtually impossible with our current technology to create such refined images in metal. In contrast, however, a small number of images are less exact and appear almost hand-scribed by the sculptors of the obelisk.”

The news anchor asked, “Is there any additional information we have discovered?”

“Although the analysis continues, sources suggest we’ll deduce little more regarding its origins or the meaning of the glyphs. To reiterate, experts say it is nearly impossible that this object was conceived or constructed on Earth. They are all but giving absolute certainty the obelisk was created by beings with technologies much advanced from our own.”

Peter was finishing his toast and butter. “You can’t go anywhere in the media today to avoid this obelisk talk. The words ‘media frenzy’ are not descriptive of the amplitude of tension. It’s not just hungry sharks in chummed waters. In this case, the sharks are chumming the waters. And look at my screen. Social media is raking-in big bucks on their targeted ads, the classically old psychographic tech crap to heighten negative emotions. Gaslighting and conspiracy theories running wild. Honestly, I could care less what they know about me in some marketing database, because with the podcast, my full monty is exposed for everyone to see.”

“You’re not that interesting,” Ears teased, “and I wouldn’t waste my time on targeting you since you never buy anything new. Reminds me, though. I checked the numbers on streams and downloads. We’re above three hundred thousand and climbing fast to the next tick mark.”

Peter shook his head in disbelief. “I’m not getting this. How can a mostly local, insignificant science podcast garner so much attention?”

Ears patted his chest. “Don’t look at me. I’m just the guy spinning the direct marketing machine, creating the content, and morphing the format. Unfortunately for us today, I’m also the stand-in technical guy for Molli.”

Ears slapped his cheek. “God, I forgot to tell you. I spoke with her last night. She’s coming home from the hospital!”

“I know that. Spoke with her as well.”

“But she and I talked after you both did. Bet you don’t know that she’s coming to live with us!”

Peter dropped his half-eaten toast onto the table, and it tumbled to the floor, face-down.

“Crap!” he barked.

“What. You don’t want her here?”

Peter picked up the toast and stood to find a wet rag. “No. I said that because I dropped my toast. When was this decided?”

“Uh-huh. You’re not big on the idea, are you? Before you speak, the invite involuntarily emerged from my lips last night. I implored her not to go back to her house, even with the cops and her kung fu protectors, as she calls them. It appears she was already convinced because she didn’t argue, which is very unlike her. This ugly episode has upset what is likely the most un-upsettable person on Earth. You can understand why since it’s not every day you get kidnapped then de-throat your captor.”

“Yeah. God, I wish the cops had better leads. This guy’s connections to radical mech groups don’t seem that strong, and I can’t find any reason the grippers would want a piece of her or me. We’re no big fish in the scheme of big ponds.”

“We may have been ‘no big fish’ a few weeks ago, but that’s not quite true now that we’re closing-in on half a million listeners,” Ears contended.

“I’m hoping her captor was one bored pervo streaming the same podcast over and over,” Peter offered. Then his eyes grew wide. “Wait a second. Wait a second. We’re in a two-bedroom condo. How do we make this work?”

Ears smiled slyly. “You and Molli can sleep in the same bed. Conversely, she could sleep with me as long as she’s very quiet.”

“Oh, I don’t think her boyfriend will be great with either idea.”

“You know my couch? Are you aware it’s a sleeper?” Ears queried.

“Serious? You’ll make Molli sleep on the couch with her broken ribs and all?”

“No.” Ears tilted his head. “You are going to make her sleep on the couch. Or not. Either way, I’m not surrendering my bedroom upstairs. It’s the warmest place in winter and my secret enclave. I love Molli, you know, but I love my mattress just as much.”

Peter grabbed his shirt collar as if someone had him in a choke hold. “Okay. This should be an interesting experiment. You’ll want me out of here soon enough, anyway.”

Ears smacked his lips. “Nope. We should do our best to protect each other in these bizarre times. Three amigos. Radical crap is stirring up everywhere in this town, much less elsewhere in the metro. Farmville, Nebraska may be okay, but it’s scarier in Bean Town. This is the safest part of Cambridge, and I prefer to be here if things get worse. Too many people are reacting with ill intent, and the news you were just watching, this scientific confirmation of aliens attacking other aliens, reduces speculation that a varint created the obelisk.”

“Reminds me of a market crash,” Peter mused. “When it starts to spin out of control, everything goes with it. Cascade follows cascade, and you hope to glue the pieces back together in the end.”

Ears motioned to the door. “Let’s go. Perhaps AlexG will mix the magic potion for us with his plea for help. Oh, and speaking of market crashes, I pegged a couple bankers to discuss how they are capitalizing on this new dynamic.”

“Seriously? Like an investment podcast?”

“We need to view this obelisk event from every angle. These folks are not shysters, mind you. They are very legit and making money off the latest fearmongering. They’ll round things out.”

Peter immediately thought back to his auggie contact. “Did you catch Jennifer to appear on the show?”

“I suspect this one’s more about the girl than the content, if you ask me. She fits better with our older format, but I placed her on the schedule to accommodate your passions.”

Peter opened the door for Ears and grinned. “Thanks, bud.”

* * *

After driving a short distance from his house, Peter parked his rental in the underground lot at the Cambridge library east of campus.

“You told this guy we had a reserved room, right? Can we really do this interview in a quiet library setting?”

Ears shook his head in feigned disgust. “I am competent, my friend. Remember, you’re only the talent, and I use that term loosely. It’s a silent study room, to be honest. They said we could use it for an interview as long as we didn’t get too boisterous.”

The two walked up the library stairs and entered the room where their guest was ready to greet them. He was a stocky man in his mid-fifties, with shaved hair on a balding head.

Peter was instantly comfortable with him. He knew they shared the same problem of male hair loss. This intractable problem still remained largely unresolved by genetic tech despite advances in most other areas of human physiology. They began the conversation.

“Alex, we were watching the news before this interview. It confirmed what most anticipated – the obelisk is not of this Earth, and one alien race attacked the other. We are speaking to you today as a radio astronomy communications expert. Can you describe for our audience how the technology works before you explain how it relates to our current challenges?”

Alex spent the next ten minutes discussing radio astronomy and how it might be used for interstellar communications. At the end of his detailed explanation, Peter suspected he had to lighten up the conversation to make it more comprehensible to his growing base of listeners whom he felt understood less about science than his longtime listeners. He continued questioning.

“Is it true that various known technologies could be used to proactively communicate with other sentient species across the galaxy?”

“Or even farther,” Alex interjected.

“Okay, then add intergalactic to that as well. But why this podcast? What unique resolution to the obelisk challenges are you proposing?”

“We now have proof – solid, irrevocable proof – that we are not alone in this universe.”

“Yes, there’s at least one other and maybe there were two others before the one got, you know, wasted,” Peter shuddered.

“Indeed,” he agreed. “What led humankind to assume we humans were unique? Was it our religions in the early days, or just an innate egotism?”

Peter wanted to avoid repeating arguments from the earlier show. “Did you catch our show with the Reverend?”

“Yes, it’s what compelled me to confirm this show with you. If I recall correctly, your other guest, the poison gent, said something about humans unwittingly broadcasting radio waves and other obvious indications of life on Earth. He mentioned a disco ball.”

“Poison Paul.”

“Yes, yes, that one. There’s a flip side to his suggestion that was not offered, however. We’ve been so ethnocentrically inclined that we failed to expand our perspectives on the methods by which other sentient beings might communicate, or if they even need to at all. In fact, if we could extract ethnocentrism from the fiber of our beings and assume we are not gifted by God to be the shining star in the ocean sands of stars, then we might take a different approach.”

“In what respect?” Peter queried.

He then stopped, annoyed by noise emanating from the next room.

“Wait a second, please,” Peter requested. “Hey Ears, can you get up and throw a mean glance at the characters next door? Tell them to temper their partying enthusiasm so the noise isn’t captured on our recorder.”

Ears was reluctant to do this, knowing he could easily edit-out the noise. He left the room to tell them anyway, then quickly returned.

“Let me start that over. What kind of different approach?”

The man shifted uncomfortably in his chair and pulled his bunched pant legs down. “The different approach, assuming you don’t believe you’re king of the hill but only a tiny ant in a universe full of hills, is to avoid detection.”

“But that was some of Poison Paul’s argument, if I recall. How is this adding a new perspective?”

“Poison Paul suggested we were foolish to amplify our presence on Earth. I’m suggesting that countless other sentient species across the universe are not so ethnocentric and are far more thoughtful and cautious than us. In other words, we humans are out on that fifth standard deviation of stupidity and presumptiveness. One could conclude this easily from our lack of success in discovering decisive radio transmissions of other alien cultures.”

“I’m still not getting your point,” Peter argued.

“We can’t let our ignorant bravado shield us from what many other, less self-centered creatures are likely doing. Since the early days of research on this topic, we assumed aliens were not out there because we didn’t hear from them when using our presumed mode of communications. Radio astronomy. If we’d stay calm for a second, and if we do the math properly now, we would surmise that our projections for intelligent life, the Drake Equation, if you will, fall many magnitudes short of reality.”

“Okay,” Peter concurred, “I get that. But we’re running a little tight on time, and I’m still not clear on what you’re proposing. How does it help that Drake Equation math shortchanges the number of sentient beings out there?”

“Everything matters on this topic. Let’s say this obelisk came from your average nasty invader, an average distance away from our solar system or galaxy. You might also assume that for every nasty invader, there are one or two who are not so nasty. I’m talking the type who are not marauders or enslavers or scourers of a planet’s surface for God knows what purpose. In other words, assume the universe has many ‘friendlies’ out there, whatever the mix, but friendlies that might help us in a predicament.”

“Okay, now we’re getting to the point.” Peter was relieved the man had finally concluded after taking the long path. “How do you propose these nice aliens will discover us? Do we send out a calling card to the Vulcans?” Peter chided, referring the old television series.

“Exactly. We must presume we are within a stone’s throw of this unfriendly species. This implies they’re so close to us that time, space, and every other obstacle this obelisk encountered in its travels were not restrictive enough to prevent it from arriving here. The next thing we should prepare for is a visit from them; a not so pleasant one. Yet, how do we know these marauders are the closest aliens to us? How do we know there is no help closer by? Help from a species we could befriend? Such a friendship might cause us to be less concerned about an ugly end with the more volatile obelisk types.”

Peter bit his lip. “Yeah, but how do we discern they aren’t just another unfriendly who would be happy to take a closer peek at our little blue dot?”

“We don’t,” he admitted. “You call me AlexG, referencing the inventor of the telephone. We need our ‘Watson, come here’ moment. We need to throw the dice to locate a friendly face since we sure as hell understand the alternative has a few serious negativities. It’s our crap shoot.”

“I’m there with you. But it’s risky. Huge risk.”

“That’s life and always has been. Inherent risk. But we’ll do our best to send the right message on the right calling card. In other words, we can issue a plea to friends we don’t know, hoping they’ll understand us. Think of Churchill pleading to Roosevelt and the American people in 1940. It’s a call, yes, a distress call.”

“But at least those two guys knew each other beforehand.”

“Well, life isn’t always that predictable. But you know what? If we humans were lucky enough to receive one of these little platinum-gold statues, then it’s highly likely we are not unique in that respect. We should assume many, many others received the same warning. Now, do we go back to our homes, paint our doors with the blood of slaughtered spring lambs, and hope to be passed over by the abominable fellas from above? I suppose that worked once in our history, and it might work again. Personally, I prefer not to take that gamble. Our best alternative is to scream very loudly at anyone within earshot and tell them we’re peaceful, friendly, and in need of some assistance.”

Ears and Peter agreed that this was a great ending, so they wrapped up the interview with AlexG, left the library, and drove back home. Ears was so excited about getting this interview on the web that he started to immediately edit the recording.

A few hours later, he got the call from Molli that she was on her way over to her new, temporary living quarters.

“Jesus,” Peter complained, “I hardly had time to get my stuff out of the room.”

“You can always go back to your house,” Ears joked. “Of course, the car rental agency probably won’t appreciate seeing their vehicle in flames in your driveway. Plus, your insurance company may need to replace other parts of your house, assuming the crazies only mess with the dwelling structure and not you.”

Peter rolled his eyes and consented. “You’re right. Let the investigations take their course. Besides, living here, avoiding cellphone usage, and having the three of us together for a while is not all that bad.”

“Glad to see you’re coming around. I changed the sheets on the couch foldout, so you’ll be fine there, and I’ll be quiet in the morning when I get up. I’ll do most of my work in my bedroom office upstairs and let you get the beauty rest you require.”

They walked out to help Molli bring her bags up.