17: 04052049

As I rode the lift down to the computer core access level, I knew that I carried the fate of everyone and everything I cared for in my hands. Not only because my home was under threat of an attack which could come at any minute, but because of the things I had stumbled upon. If they were big enough to warrant such extreme actions on the part of the three biggest tech-unions, the most power corporate mergers on the planet, then they were big enough to enflame the entire world. Something told me that no one would be spared the consequences.

The problem was I had no idea where to start – I wished I could have shouted out to those armies arrayed outside, “WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? WHY ARE YOU HERE?” But I knew I was alone in this. Scratch that, I wasn’t alone – I would never be alone so long as I had Naomy by my side. Just one look into those blue eyes of hers and I felt I could work without food, drink, or sleep for a month. I would go to the ends of Earth for her, and God help the person who ever put her life in danger. I was caught by surprise the first time, but never again.

My first order of business was to get my notes scanned and loaded into the database core, a process that would likely take several days of intensive and non-stop work by myself. From there it would be a matter of trial, error, and analysis, until the system, and my own brain began to hit upon the patterns within the artifacts, and cross-referenced those patterns against everything already contained within its memory core. I knew that there was no better engine in the world to handle the load than the Codex’s deciphering program – I had written most of it myself. But it was a lengthy process at the best of times, and I was going to have to find some way of streamlining things, before time ran out. If only I knew which objects to analyze first...

God only knew how long the stalemate raging outside our walls would last before someone came out ahead of the others and finally had their way with us. I could only pray that God would hold them at bay long enough for me to finish the job.

* * *

Noal stepped onto the familiar deck of the Codex’s lowest level: core access. It was perpetually warm down there, being nestled between the metro’s extensive network of geo-thermal energy harvesting pylons, but had a decidedly musty and subterranean smell. There was little in the way of luxury down there, and the space had been efficiently laid out for exclusive use by all the various pieces of equipment the Codex used to crunch its vast data-store. Noal preferred to work down here, usually in solitude, though Naomy was helping him this time. It was free of distractions, free of extraneous stimuli; here, he could throw himself into his work without sharing his mental faculties with external distractions. It was also worth mentioning that the terminals were faster this close to the core’s central database.

Sidling up to his favourite terminal, Noal punched in a series of keystrokes enabling him to log in directly to the core. The terminal screen confirmed that he was ready to proceed:

User Name: Noal Silver
Password: **************
Access Level: Complete

Noal slipped a pack off of his back, opening it to reveal his cache of notes within, handing half the stack to Naomy. “Alright, we each take a terminal and start scanning this stuff in. The database will begin analyzing everything upon its entry, so let’s hope anything that needs to be entered sooner than later gets done first. This may take awhile, so let’s get to it.”

The hum of a descending lift grew louder and eventually stopped, more than a dozen technicians stepping into the chamber. “Chief Silver, we want to help – what can we do?”

“Thank heaven for small miracles,” said Noal, grinning, “Grab a stack of notebooks and start entering them into the system. There should be enough terminals for everyone.” The technicians went to work alongside Noal and Naomy, entering into the sytem in hours what would have taken days. That done, the real work had just begun.

As the technicians continued plugging in the last bits of information from the notes, Noal pulled up the database’s pattern analysis program and began punching in search criteria related to prophecies about the shift, the apocalypse, and the freezing of the world. The search began returning results immediately, pulling up all kinds of obscure references that Noal would never have found himself, dating back thousands of years. Individually these references would not have amounted to much, but put together they might mean everything.

As more data was analyzed by the tools, the pattern became even more clear, confirming Noal’s theory that in order to be fully understood, the code had to be studies in reverse chronological order, starting at the shift and moving backwards. If one started at the beginning, the thread became lost after a few centuries, but in reverse it became so clear that each thread connected to a dozen other threads, connecting references to prophecy, debates on physics, chemistry, biology and the environment, artistic renderings of cataclysmic storms, top-secret scientific data exploring global warming and possibility of a massive climate shift. It was there, it was all there, almost from the very beginning of time it seemed that people had known about the coming of a time when the world would one day be thrust into a storm of unprecedented proportions, and mankind would suffer under ice and snow until… what? He couldn’t decipher that part yet. Not yet.

It’s all right here! Why can’t I see it? Why can’t I see the answer? He felt suddenly faint, a completely unexpected and inexplicable sensation to his mind. It seemed his legs were made of gelatin, and his heart pounded loud enough to hear inside his head. He was drenched in sweat, and black spots clouded his vision as he collapsed, no longer able to support his own weight.

Naomy’s worried face was there, looking down at him – what was happening to him? “Noal! Noal you’ve got to take a break!” Naomy was saying, he thought. Take a break? I’ve only just started! “You’ve been sitting in front of that terminal for three days straight! You need food and some sleep. I don’t even think you’ve had anything to drink!” Noal couldn’t remember whether he had or not, and that was probably not a good sign.

Time seemed to shifted, oddly, and now Naomy’s face was accompanied by that of the Codex’s medical Chief. “No, no, Chief Silver, you go back to sleep now. No more work until tomorrow morning, that’s an order!” To emphasize her point, the doctor jabbed Noal with a syringe full of something that made his head feel ten sizes too big for his body.

He came too in his living quarters, bolting upright in a panic. Naomy was beside him a moment later. “Nae – what happened? Why am I here? I’ve got to get back to the core!”

Naomy grabbed his shoulders, pushing him back onto the bed. “You’re not going to accomplish anything if you die in the attempt, Noal. You have to take care of yourself or else you won’t make it to the end of this.”

“But the enemy—“

“Will be that much better off if no one figures this thing out, okay?” Naomy was insistent. “I love you Noal, and I know that you are doing something important, so do what you need to do to keep going. Here, you can start by eating some soup.”

Noal was back in his ‘office’ a few minutes later, under Naomy’s watchful eye. He had taken a moment to get an update on the situation outside of the Codex, and things were not looking good. The airwaves were clogged with antagonistic chatter, mostly between the Golans and the Amocos. Ito seemed content to remain largely silent, acting as an element of calm between the disparate factions. Despite that, however, a series of minor skirmishes had already taken place, threatening to destabilize the entire situation. Clearly, the Codex was running short of time.

Hours, days and weeks blended together in Noal's mind, as he worked his way through the data, scarcely noticing when he was thirsty, hungry, or tired. It was only due to Naomy's constant care that he avoided the consequences of ignoring such bodily necessities. The data was all there was, and all there would be until his home, and his world, was safe again.

As Noal got back into the data stream, he began to notice something peculiar that he hadn’t noticed before, probably due to hunger and fatigue. It was an odd tenor the thread of the pre-shift prophecies spread over the grid of the data. As he scanned through more and more of the data he realized that the tone was not merely prophetic in the mystical sense, but was in fact more like a vast architectural drawing. What he had taken before as a foretelling of future events began to feel ominously more similar to the dissemination of a long-standing agenda – a plan. The presence of an agenda suggested the involvement of someone, or something, with intelligence, rather than a random series of events.

The reference to the involvement of an intelligent mind in the great shift became steadily more apparent the deeper he delved into the pattern, but it remained a vague, fluid thing that he couldn’t quite pin down. After a few days spent spinning his wheels on that, he decided to take a different approach altogether, concentrating on numerical patterns instead of straight contextual references. An underlying stream of mathematical permutations became apparent almost immediately within the data, lending further credence to the idea of an intelligently conceived plot behind it all.

As the system began to compute the numbers, a single mathematical phrase began to pop out again and again – a seemingly random series of numbers, referenced thousands, or even millions of times. It had to have meaning, if only he knew what its context referred to. He began applying all kinds of rational arithmetic filters to the numbers, calculating roots, factors, derivatives, denominators – anything he could think of, but nothing was making any sense.

“It seems to appear most frequently in calendar grid references,” Naomy pointed out, “Could it be a reference to a certain point in history – a date, maybe?”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Noal, “But it fits.” He applied a dating filter to the numbers, calculating all known methods of dating encryption, none of which yielded any results. He then switched the context that defined by the data grid itself, limiting the numbers to a pre-defined definition of time contained solely within the data. The computer took a few minutes to crunch the numbers and suddenly the terminal screen lit up like an old-world Christmas tree.

The filter had spat out a non-contextual number, seemingly counting up to the number of seconds from the program's definition of the beginning of the world. Noal quickly applied a seconardy filter to cross-reference the number into the requisite number of days, weeks, months, years, and centuries and extrapolate the appropriate date. The number that appeared on his screen left his mouth dry and ice crawling up his spine: 07222049 – July 22, 2049 AD. The exact date of the great shift.

Not only had the pattern predicted, or as Noal now believe, revealed the planning of the shift, it contained the exact date that the shift would occur. Noal checked back through the pattern's thread and confirmed that the date reference existed even in the very earliest of the artifact, proving beyond any reasonable doubt that someone had known exactly when and how the shift would occur over seven-thousand years before it had happened. A gigantic piece of the puzzle had come into clarity, but there were others to be uncovered yet; he still didn't know what had caused the shift, or perhaps whom?

Probing for patterns or threads coming into the date-string from elsewhere in the pattern, Noal hoped to hit upon something containing clue as to the causes of the event occurring on that date – the shift – but instead found a secondary stream of numbers that he had originally passed over, somehow. Trapping the second number code, he realized that he hadn't seen it before because it was a decaying pattern, starting at an original phrase elsewhere and growing smaller each time it cycled around. It took a moment before Noal fully realized what this decaying number was – a countdown, ending on the date of the shift. If he could trace the decay back to its original configuration he might find some answers, he decided.

Starting at the last decay of the number-string, he analyzed the amount of decay in the final cycle and extrapolated a logical decay pattern. Following this pattern, he rode the numbers from 07222049 backwards, ending up with a completely different phrase: 04052049. Another date, this time it was April 5, 2049. According to this, it was something that occurred on that date which triggered a countdown to shift on July 22; he needed to know what it was.

Using that date as his search criteria, he started the database on an extensive cross-reference for all references with any possible significance to worldwide affairs, the climate, or any other vaguely relevant events. He received a mountain of returns, all of which had to be seperately and individually sorted and checked. After days five straight days of this, he had come to the end, and still no answers were forthcoming. A testament to his frustration and exhaustion, he walked himself into the lift and willfully went to his living quarters to mentally regroup and recuperate. Naomy looked concerned, as usual, but said nothing.

As he was about to climb into his bed, he saw the small container that had been left for him in the vault, sitting on his work desk. The data-disk was still inside, having been forgotten up until now. Noal grabbed the disk in his tiredly shaking hand and headed back out the door, eliciting irritated questions from Naomy, who decided against stopping him and simply followed him to the lift instead.

Back in front of his terminal, Noal inserted the disk into the requisite data slot and opened the data onto his screens. Contained on the disk were decades worth of classified military documents and records, heretofore unseen by anyone, since they were first created. Nothing jumped out at Noal right away, so he called up his searched program, looking for any data from April 5, 2049. A single entry appeared on the screen, a video log recorded by a junior air-force serviceman, and by the looks of it, heavily encrypted.

Noal called up the video, and an image of a disheveled looking man in a military uniform appeared on the screen. “This is the personal duty log of Junior Specialist Samuel J. Grierson,” said the nervous voice of the figure on-screen, being interviewed by a second person off-screen.

“Please state your name for the record,” said the off-screen voice.

“Junior Specialist Samuel J. Grierson,” the man on-screen responded, nervously.

“What was your position within the USNA Air-force, as of April 4, 2049?”

Grierson swallowed hard, “Uh.. that is... I was a radar operator, sir.”

“Please describe what occurred on that date, at approximately 17:50 hours.”

“Last night, right.” He cleared his throat. “At approximately 17:50 last night I... er... well I picked up an object on my radar screen, apparently on a collision course with, um, Earth.”

“Describe the object.”

“Right, well, it was large – maybe five-hundred cubic meters – and roughly trapezoidal in shape. I, uh, I thought I had messed up something on the thermal, sir, because the scans indicated unknown composition...”

“Please explain what you mean by 'unknown composition'. Was there any hint as to the objects place of origin?”

Grierson had started to sweat by this point in the interview. “Yes, yes. You see the scans – they suggested a... er... extra-terrestrial origin, if you know what I mean. Not random formation, but designed. Like, by somebody.”

“You detected a potentially hostile extra-terrestrial vehicle, on a collision course with Earth, and you did what in response?”

“I thought I was reading it wrong!” Grierson burst out, tears streaming down his face, “I thought I had miscalculated everything, so I hid it. The object, that is. And I erased my presence in the logs so that nobody else would be able to find it. I was going to check on it in the morning, except that I... well I didn't wake up when I had intended to, sir.”

“Would you have been able to effect a solution if you had?”

Grierson shook his head, dejectedly. “No, sir. The object increased velocity during the night and—“

“And made landfall in the middle of the Atlantic, where currently resides!” a third, authoritarian voice barked out, “Where it promptly dove to the bottom of the ocean and attached itself to the sea-floor, to do god-knows-what! Does that just about sum it up, Junior Specialist Grierson?”

“Yes, General, sir!” Grierson was sobbing now. “Please forgive me, General! I didn't mean to do it!”

A broad-shouldered man in a uniform extensively decorated with medals, and five stars along each shoulder, stepped into the frame, looking every bit his level of ultimate authority, facing the camera. “For willfull, gross, criminal negligence of his post, resulting in the compromise of protected territory by intelligent, extra-terrestrial invaders, I, Senior General Malcolm Reynolds, hereby pronounce summary judgment upon Junior Specialist Samuel J. Grierson. I find him guilty of the charges against him – sentence to be carried out forthwith.”

Stepping away from the camera, toward Grierson, the general removed a pistol from a holster at his side, placing it against the convicted serviceman's temple. Grierson's eyes went wide with terror just before the shot rang out, spreading blood and brains across the walls behind him, as well as onto the camera.

Reynolds stepped back in front of the camera. “Let the record show that a navy black-ops unit has been dispatched to intercept and investigate the object, which, as of latest reports, has anchored itself to the sea-floor between the coasts of Newfoundland, Canada, and the United Commonwealth of Great Britain.”

The video ended at that point, leaving Noal and Naomy looking thoroughly shocked. “This is incredible,” whispered Noal, breathlessly. “This object – this extra-terrestrial object – lands in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, beginning a countdown that ends with the shift! All this time we were looking for a natural cause and effect – nobody would have imagined that it was done intentionally!”

“Okay, so we know that someone, probably not human, was responsible, but who? Why?” asked Naomy.

“There’s more to this pattern yet – look at these trailing codes coming from these object references…”

He searched into the pattern, probing the date-string for more information. It was clear that there was more buried inside the code, but he was missing some vital element that was needed to unlock it. Branching off from the date and object-strings, he found a thread connecting to another reference to the hinted at intelligence behind the planning of the shift, only this time there was a definite identification string attached to it, that needed to be entered – like a key in a lock. Unfortunately he had no idea where to find it. Naomy was also out of ideas.

The lift touched down and out stepped Kaizer Manheim, the Codex Chief of Linguistics, waving the note Noal had given him for translation, presumably left for him by Hunterwraith in the vault. “Noal! I have just now identified the language this note was written with! It is Sanskrit!”

“Sanskrit? What does it say?” Noal replied, suddenly very interested.

Kaizer frowned, “Unfortunately I don't know that there is any sense to it, but I will let you be the judge.” He handed the translation to Noal, who read it aloud.

“'Unlock the Coldblood's secrets and I will not be far behind.' What the hell do you suppose that means?” he asked, shrugging. “Wait a minute— 'unlock' .. I wonder if this is referring to unlocking this pattern. I have no idea what 'Coldblood' could be referring too, though.” He sat staring back and forth from the note to his screen, looking for some clue that seemed to be eluding him. “The empty string requires nine characters,” he muttered, “Maybe…“ Acting on a guess, he input 'Coldblood' as the data key, and re-ran the analysis. Unlike his previous attempts to guess at the necessary string, results began streaming on his screen.

The phrase 'Coldblood' became instantly connected both to references of a causal effect to the shift, and also to the intelligence behind it. Could 'Coldblood' be a reference to a person? Or a group of people? Re-threading the phrase back into the numeric date-string he had already uncovered triggered other lines of data that had been hidden before, only this time the pattern was threading beyond the shift, into references of engineered viral pathogens and genetic mutations of the planetary fauna – a workforce acting on the will of this ‘Coldblood’ entity.

“Viral pathogens and genetic mutations…” Noal mumbled, “Aberrants? Could they be a part of this too?”

The stream continued, reaching what should have the present year, 150 A.S. and continuing forward into a separate, all-to-familiar decay pattern. Another countdown, this one ending in some indeterminate future event. This time the ending of the countdown was not as easy to extrapolate, and the terminal quickly became bogged down trying to crunch a multitude of connecting codes and patterns. The symbol references to the unknown event were obvious: danger, calamity, death.

“Something very bad is going to happen soon,” Noal declared, “And we need to figure what it is, and when. And how to stop it!”

“What do these symbols mean?” Naomy asked, pointing at a set of glyphs repeating through the pattern in several examples.

“They aren’t good,” Noal replied, “”but I can’t get a positive translation. I think they’re important though.” He paused for a moment, to think, suddenly snapping his fingers, “Yes! In the antiquities library there is a book of ancient symbology. I need you to run and get it for me right now – Holleran will know which one I’m talking about.”

“I’m on it,” said Naomy, heading for the lift. “Noal!” she called as the lift began to rise, “I love you!”

“I love you too, Nae,” Noal replied, quizzically. He turned back to the monitor to find little progress had been made; at this rate it might take hours or days to extrapolate the end date of the countdown.

A mild concussion echoed through the chamber from somewhere up above, followed by a series of louder blasts from much closer that rocked the foundations of the core chamber, knocking dust motes and bits of un-finished cavern stone from the ceiling.

“Noal, what’s your status?” came Ophi’s voice through the intercom, accompanied by the sound of klaxons, and more explosions. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” he replied, “What’s going on up there?”

“….Matsu-Sung….” The intercom was starting to cut in and out as more blasts rattled the Codex. “… something exploded…. Amoco and Golan…. destroyed! ….Matsu….incoming!”

More explosions rocked the chamber, far below the rest of the Codex as it was. “Ophi! I need more time – can you hold them off for a little while longer?”

There was a long, static-filled pause. Eventually the intercom buzzed to life once again. “….screens have been breached, Noal! We’ve got… soldiers inside…” The sound of gunfire erupted over the speaker, followed by laboured breathing. “…too late, Noal… headed for the lift… sorry.”

“Keep Naomy off of the lift!” Noal shouted into the intercom, “Keep everybody off of the lift – I’m blowing the shaft!”

Noal ran toward the lift controls and opened a hidden compartment below the primary console, revealing a keypad painted bright red and plastered with all manner of urgent warnings not to touch unless authorized. Wires ran from the keypad box up to a cluster of high-explosives installed around the lift shaft; it had long ago been decided rig up the explosives to prevent potential enemies from gaining access to or damaging the Codex’s computer core, in the event of a hostile takeover. It was only to be used as last resort.

Noal figured this qualified, and he needed more time to finish analyzing the countdown; something told him it was more important than his own life, and even more important than the lives of his loved ones. Punching in a code known only to a select few individuals, Noal prayed to whoever would listen. Please keep Naomy and my friends safe. Guide my hands, and protect me until I can finish my work! If don’t make it out of here alive, let my knowledge be passed on to someone who will do the right thing!

He pressed the enter key, and jumped away from the shaft as a series of explosions demolished the shaft, raining stone and debris back down into the chamber. All the lights went out as one, plunging him into darkness, with the exception of the light from his terminal monitor. Let’s see those Mastu-Sung bastards try to get down here, now!

Feeling his way back to the console, he groped around for the intercom button and turned it back on. All he could hear was static, and the sounds of people dying.

Noal sat back in his chair, wondering what was happening topside and mourning the loss of Ophi, among all the others who had no doubt given their lives in defense of the Codex, and of him. Alone, in the dark, with nothing to do but wait, he began writing a series of logs in the hopes that whoever found them would know what to do:

My name is Noal Silver, and I am a historian of sorts, though most would call me an archivist, because of where I come from. The Codex is my home, also called the great library, and not without reason. You see, the people of the Codex have long been devoted to collecting, archiving and studying the surviving knowledge of the old world, the one that existed before the Shift plunged all of humanity into the massive frozen hell we all call 'Home’…

Sometime later, how long he did not know, Noal smiled to himself, happy in the knowledge that he had done all that he could do, and signed off on his final entry. His only regret, before he died, was in not knowing whether Naomy still lived.