Nick was rubbing his eyes and trying to clear his head of cobwebs as he came into the office the next morning. He and Rashi had stayed up too late yesterday, continuing to talk about the Fermi Paradox even after going to bed. At one point, Goose had even chimed in to say that his people had their own variant of the paradox, which had reignited the discussion. Goose’s people had pretty strong sociological biases, expecting any other intelligent life to follow their hive-mind anatomy. Most of their theories to explain the paradox were based around assumptions that a sufficiently advanced alien civilization would concentrate their energy output inwards, to support the network.

Walking into the coffee room on autopilot, Nick was replaying some of the conversation as he was filling his coffee mug when a voice from behind him suddenly spoke up. "Morning Noah!”

Nick jumped and looked around, seeing Tord sitting at the common table, nursing a coffee and petting Lotte, the office kitten.

“Sorry mate. Didn’t mean to scare you,” and smiling, he added, “Did you see the article in WBW last week on the singularity?"

Tord was one of those guys who was loved by everyone: Always in a good mood, always helpful, and never arrogant; he was a rare type of person in an office filled with competitive over achievers.

Nick smiled back and parked his musings on the Fermi paradox for now. "I saw the headline, but didn't have time to read it yet," Nick replied. "Is it about singularities in general, or are they looking at a specific stellar system?"

"Oh no! Not a black hole type singularity. The technological singularity!"

"Ah..." Nick tried to remember. "Something to do with advanced technology, right?"

"Well, yes. But so much more. Just like a black hole singularity creates an event horizon as a barrier to seeing what's going on behind, the technological singularity is a concept to explain... well, when a civilization reaches a level of advancement where it's impossible to predict the consequences of that advancement."

Nick and Tord paused their conversation to smile and say hello to Jessica. Jessica was the head of the Astrogation department, and Nick was still half expecting that to be part of some practical joke. Every morning, Jessica would come into the office, get her coffee and say hello, and walk over to her nondescript desk and sit down to work. Four hours later, she would get up from her desk to have lunch, refill her coffee, and go back to her desk for another five hours. Five weeks into working here, Nick had yet to receive anything that resembled an order or request from Jessica. Work just... happened, and everyone always knew what they had to do every day. Nick wasn't sure if that made Jessica the best boss ever, or the worst.

As Jessica left the coffee area, Tord continued. "Anyway, it's like this. Imagine what life was like before the mindpal. People had to communicate with external devices, with actual screens they had to touch to interact with. Not having a device isolated you from most of society. Once the mindpals entered the scene... imagine how society changed in unpredictable ways. We are always connected, able to send messages to each other, almost like telepathy! There was actually a time where people could go for hours without being contactable!"

As Tord took a sip of his coffee, Nick picked up the thread. “And before that, there was even a time when humanity lived in isolated villages, with hardly any interactions between tribes. Just like the people from recent history really couldn’t imagine the way society functions today, the people from those ancient villages would hardly recognise our current society as human. They wouldn’t be able to understand how society had developed from their dirt huts and fireplaces, to what we have today”.

“Exactly!” Tord said. "The technological singularity is kind of like that, only with a much stronger effect. When society reaches a certain level of technological advancement, everything will change massively. It will change so much that we can’t even begin to guess what might happen.

Society, humanity, will... become something else. Perhaps we will live forever? Perhaps we can travel through time? Perhaps we can flap our arms and fly into space? The whole point is... it's impossible to predict."

“So when can I expect my immortality or wings to arrive?” Nick asked.

"That's the core premise… question… in the WBW article. We may be thousands of years away from it happening. We may be months away. Advancement is an exponential function - a hockey stick. To a person standing on a hockey stick graph, you can only see the rate of advancement behind you. Maybe we are standing at the bottom where it climbs rapidly, or maybe we are still walking up the soft slope to the left of the function. "

"That’s fascinating, but it sounds like... science fiction," Nick said.

"Sure it does. But look around." Tord laughed. "We are in a space station orbiting Mars, trying to get a spaceship working to travel faster than light. If this is not science fiction, what is?"

Nick conceded the point with a smile and got up to refill his mug. Giving Tord a wave, he took his coffee over to his desk and sat down. Bringing up his todo-list on his mindpal, he looked over the list, looking for something fun and simple to get the day started.

Working here in Astrogation on the Pegasus Project was just night and day from his job at Sisyphus. Every day was like Christmas Day, and he couldn’t imagine a better job. Opening observational data packages. Poking at the data and analyzing it. Trying to figure out how the Universe worked. This was like spending his whole day in the observation bubble and getting paid for it. If it wasn’t for the whole Goose thing, Nick would be happy just staying in this room for the next few decades.

Match/confirm HR.4523-66G.Cent parallax with last VISION dataset looked like fun, and he marked it in the backlog as In Progress. Nick felt a buzz as he set up his workspace for the analysis. HR 4523 was one of the prime candidates for Peggy's maiden flight when they worked out the plasma drive issues. Just over 30 light years from Sol, it was full of interesting features.

Nick lost himself in the data and only surfaced for air when Tord ambled over an hour later. "Check that out, Noah!" he said and pointed to the corridor outside. For once, Nick reacted to his new identity immediately.

Nick's heart skipped a beat as he saw men in suits having an animated discussion with Jessica. The only group on the Deimos station wearing suits was security, and... Surely they can't be here because of me? He sent a message to Goose: Check their body language, please.

A few seconds later, Goose responded. They are not here for you in particular, but... This is strange. I am reading their lips, and they are asking Jessica to look up data from… the exact date when... When you found me. And they are asking her to delete it.

A chill washed over Nick's body. He was about to ask Goose if there was anything else when the men in suits disappeared down the corridor and Jessica came back into the room. She looked unusually hesitant, and stopped halfway to her desk to look back at the men disappearing down the corridor.

Nick followed her gaze. There could be only one plausible explanation. Someone, somewhere, knew about the signal. And they were trying to delete it?

-

Nick, Rashi, and Sae gathered in Nick's room after work. A small, simple room in the middle of the station, the room had no windows. Nick had set up the big screen on one of the walls to flip through some of his favourite stellar vistas. Right now, he was sitting on the small bed together with Rashi, watching the screen as he was listening to the conversation. Sae was trying to pace around, but the desk and bed took up most of the space and she appeared to become increasingly frustrated with the lack of options for good pacing.

"What we know," Rashi said, "is that we are not the only ones who know about the signal." Nick kept his eyes on her and waited for Rashi to continue. "What we don't know for sure is if they captured the full signal. We also don't know if they managed to assemble the signal." And looking at Sae, Rashi added with a smile, "And finally something that we do know: They don't have access to the best computer genius in the solar system".

Sae gave Rashi a slow nod as she sat down in the chair, still deep in thought and not acknowledging Rashi’s boast. Nick had a few ideas himself that he wanted to share, but kept quiet. He was trying to think about the security guys at the same time as he was trying to figure out what was going on with Sae. She had grown distant over the past weeks and was more closed off than normal.

Eventually, Sae said, "What we did to reassemble the signal was... inspired. Not super complex if you knew what to look for, but we made a couple of leaps of logic that were not obvious. My guess is that by now someone else could have come to the same conclusions as we did. They wouldn't even need the full signal: Remember, most of the signal contains Goose's memory banks. The first part of the signal contained the bootstrapper, the Turing machine, that you need to… run him".

Nick felt his brain waking up to the problem, and added; "So if you happened across part of the signal in the middle, there is no way to start up Goose. But if you captured the beginning.... "

Sae continued, "Then yes, it's entirely possible."

Nick thought for a moment and brought up his mindpal workspace for some quick calculations. "Actually, look at this, " he said, sharing his workspace, "If you look at the signal direction, Enceladus station was situated right in the signal stream for several hours. The orbit happened to be stable in relation to the signal for the duration. If you look at other receiving stations in the solar system, only two other stations that I know about were in a position to intercept the laser signal."

He had the girls' full attention now.

"There's Deimos... here. Deimos was in position to receive... let me check. Yes, a small part of the middle of the signal. However... and this is interesting!" Nick felt his pulse speeding up.

"Neptune was in perfect alignment at the right time, and there is a possible observation outpost in orbit. They would have been in position to receive the full signal".

"Possible? What do you mean?" Rashi asked. "Who's running that observatory?"

"It's actually something of a mystery, which has been the topic of some intense discussions," Nick said. "We know about the group because some of the components shipped there. They could only be used to build observatories, really. But whoever is there is keeping their cards close to their chests.”

“I’ve actually heard about them,” Sae said. “I was chatting to another… tech enthusiast, some months back. She called them The Neptune Group from something she had read. Apparently, one of their key computer techs had some kind of breakdown and started uploading tons of material on a public server. The strange thing was that… normally with these types of leaks, the source organisation may stop the leak, but as soon as the documents are out there, they are… out there. Here, the documents simply vanished from all known storage. Nobody has any idea that was even possible. We still don’t. The only thing my contact remembers from the document she saw is that it referred to a project on Neptune.”

Nick was thinking hard now. This was the first he had heard about the documentation leak angle, and if their capabilities weirded Sae and her friends out, that meant some serious players were involved.

Sae asked, "But the guys you saw earlier, you said they were station security?"

"Yeah. Which means..."

"... that our mysterious group has some connection with Deimos. Enough to direct station resources, " Rashi added.

They both looked to Sae, who had suddenly gone a strange colour of quiet.

"What?" Rashi asked.

Sae visibly collected herself, before she looked back at Rashi and said in a quiet voice. "They have a copy of the signal and have realised what it is. They are here at Deimos, which means they have checked other stations in position for the signal, like Nick just did... they will have figured out that the Enceladus habitat was able to receive and record the signal..."

Rashi finished the thought. "...Which again means they must have sent people there to check it out. And if that investigation crosses paths with hab internal audit... they will hear about us."

Sae had gotten out of the chair and was pacing quickly now. "Everything relies on our fake identities, and no matter how good they are - and they are pretty damn strong - it's only a matter of time before they look at people newly arrived at the Pegasus Project."

This time, it was Nick who got there first. "We have to get this bird in the air, and away, before that happens,” he said, and Goose added; Yes. We do.

-

It was the next morning, and Nick was brushing his teeth when Goose suddenly spoke up.

I fear we are running out of time, Nick.

In what way?

Those security people are onto something. I don’t know what yet, but it can’t be too difficult for them to find us once they have the basic facts in place.

But what can we do? That Birk guy listened to Rashi about the engine problems and it’s probably just a matter of time before…

Even so. Goose interrupted. I don’t think we can afford to wait.

What do you mean…. What choice do we have? What do you propose?

Let’s call it… insurance. If they come for us, the nanite swarm can disable one, maybe two, foes. But…. We’ve been building up the nanite stock over the last weeks, and we have millions more than what we can control with the current architecture.

Nick took a moment to think about how easy it was to forget about the weirdness going on inside him. The last weeks had been calm, with no reason to use his abilities.

I’ve been doing some research, and if you permit me access to only a small part of your brain, I should be able to put together a swarm interface which would boost the number of nanites that we can control by orders of magnitude.

For the rest of the day; Goose continued to make his case with his very logical arguments.

-

They gathered in Nick’s bedroom again in the evening.

"It's out of the question, Nick!"

Sae exploded, leaving Rashi and Nick with their mouths hanging open. After a few seconds to gather himself, Nick felt his anger rising. Why didn't she see how important this was?

Sae drew a breath, getting ready to renew her charge.

"Not only is it dangerous to you personally, but it's a tremendous risk to us, to everyone on the station. If this goes wrong, the risks extend to the entire solar system! We discussed - and agreed! - when this mess started. We need to keep control, we need to maintain containment, and we cannot take any unnecessary risks!"

Nick tried to interject, "But this is not unnecessary..."

Sae whirled to face him. "Oh yes, it is. You just want more power. More abilities. It’s not enough for you to read minds or send nanites into people’s brains. You want more! This has gone to your head. Your wish to become some kind of superhero does not give you the right to risk everyone.

You are not a superhero, and you do not have the right to make those kinds of choices for anyone".

Nick had known this conversation was going to be... tricky. But he had not expected this kind of detonation. He had never seen his sister like this before. She was scaring him, and a small voice at the back of his head kept insisting that something was wrong. Something more than his question - which he had carefully formulated in his head a hundred times, exactly to avoid triggering this type of reaction. Sae was always the reasonable one. The careful one. So, of course, she would not jump at the suggestion that they give Goose some extra access. But this... this was unnerving.

"I absolutely refuse to be part of this. You are treating this like a game and it has gone on for long enough. I logically understand that assisting Goose's mission makes all kinds of sense. I understand that to get him home, we have to walk a very thin line. But not at the expense of humanity. If you give Goose access to your brain, and the networks, who knows what is next? Full access to your mindpal? Full access to the satellites carrying all communication between human settlements? Full access to everyone's mindpals?"

Sae’s barrage was affecting Nick, who was at the moment seriously questioning his own judgement. It had all seemed so logical only a few minutes ago. He tried to remember the conversation with Goose from that morning. Goose had made everything seem so… simple.

"Where will it stop, Nick?" His sister’s words brought Nick back to the present.

She was tired. He could see it. She was slowing down, and her voice was changing in tone. Only this was much scarier than what her shouting had been. Sae continued in a low, sad, desperate voice. "Where will it stop? You seem to have forgotten that this Goose is a very alien thing. We can't know its intentions. We can't know its thoughts. We can't know its capabilities. We are simply guessing and hoping that it will play nice."

Sae looked at Rashi for help to explain this to Nick, but Rashi stayed quiet.

As the look lasted without Rashi speaking up, Nick could see Sae shrinking inwards, and he wanted to reach out to his sister. Knowing her, he knew this wasn’t what she needed now.

Instead, he shook his head to clear it. He had wanted to share what Goose had said about security being onto them. To explain about the risk that they would be stopped, but Sae’s reaction… her arguments, had convinced him,

"Sae." This time she didn't whirl towards him so much as hang her head. Tired. "There is nobody in this world whose advice I trust more than yours."

At this, Sae looked towards him. Perhaps hopeful, but still deflated.

"I wanted to do this for my own sake. For ours. I genuinely believe this would have given us an invaluable advantage that we are going to need. I didn’t want it because I was hungry for power. But enough. I trust you enough that I will follow your lead in this, Sae."

Sae's shoulders straightened at this. "Really?" She asked. And although her voice was still very, very small, there was colour somewhere in it.

"Yes," Nick answered. "Goose stays where he is. And I actually suggest you strengthen the existing security around him. Perhaps you can do a security audit?".

Nick, I must protest! The voice inside his head spoke up. This is not what we agreed on!

Nick had never heard Goose this insistent before. It was actually quite uncomfortable, the way Goose’s voice filled his thoughts, pushing everything else away.

Quiet! He urged. Don’t yell like that!

I apologize, Nick. But this is important. Too important to let Sae decide. She has always been too careful! We don’t need her help. All I need is your OK and we can do it on our own!

This was a new tone from Goose, and a small shiver ran down Nick’s spine, just as Sae said “Yes, I would like to do that. I need sleep now, but tomorrow I will do a full review of the security controls.”

Don’t you see her logic? Nick attempted to reason with the alien. We have trusted you, and we have helped you - are helping you! - but this access would give up a level of security that could put us all at risk.

Goose went quiet for several moments. Eventually, he simply answered.

Yes. I see the logic. And then Goose went completely silent.