Nathan, for his part, was in crisis mode. For the first time in a long time, he was left with very little idea of what was going on. Less than what he’d started with, anyway. And he didn’t like that. At all. He knew it’d been a risk reaching out to the Chinese and Americans, knew he’d probably been burned, but at the time it seemed like it’d been worth it.

  He hadn’t thought they’d be so callous as to stonewall him, though. Nathan had thought they’d at least be able to warn the Russians, or maybe even shoot down the… whatever it was. Instead, the Chinese had ignored him, and the Americans had hardly reacted. And now, hours later, there was still hardly anything in the news. Either they were working to suppress information, or there was something really wrong with that asteroid. For now, he was still scouring every bit of data he could get on the two nations. He’d need to relocate soon, but he’d probably be fine for at least the next twenty-four hours while they cleaned up this mess.

  Moscow was certainly splattered, though. And judging by their reactions, he’d been right not to trust the Americans and the Chinese before. He’d been stupid to try to contact them now. Such a blatant trip up, and still he’d opted to hope for their better natures. That wasn’t a mistake he was planning on making again.

  Nathan sighed softly to himself as he worked, thinking about how worried his wife had been. She hadn’t tried to call him back yet. Hopefully she was asleep by now. He didn’t want to have to explain to her how badly he’d screwed up. So far though, he’d been able to get quite a bit of data while the Americans and Chinese were distracted. Unfortunately, most of the traffic the two nations were working with dealt more with the Russians than their own plans. He’d take what he could get, though. Besides, even without their capital, he knew they’d be a potent force in the near future. Most likely while they were lashing out at everyone around them, assuming the Chinese didn’t reign them in.

  He was working sloppily, though. It was efficient to just devour all the data he was able to scrape from the worms he had in both countries' systems, but it made him trivially easy to find. It was a risk he was willing to take, but it was a boon for anyone looking. Child's play, really, for the processing power of the thing seeking him out. First though, his hunter had to leave bait. It wasn’t hard; it could tell what he was looking for.

  An incoming data dump popped up on one of his data streams coming out of China, piquing his interest. From Moscow of all places. Nathan’s eyes went wide at that.

  “What the hell?” He muttered to himself.

  It wasn’t possible. He knew it wasn’t possible. Even a small asteroid breaking up above Moscow would flatten the city. Impact? There wouldn’t be anything left for kilometers. Still though, he was something of an optimist. All he had to do was take a look at what was coming out of the country, especially since the Americans and Chinese were already convinced it was a lost cause. They’d overlooked things before, and would again. It was possible this was one such example.

  Throwing caution to the wind, Nathan tapped that data stream, too. He regretted it immediately. His firewalls were almost instantly overrun with a ridiculous barrage of information. He’d never seen anything like it. This wasn’t just a brute force attack. If a normal attack was akin to a boxer throwing a punch, this was more like getting a cargo tanker dropped on him. He responded in a flurry, activating every protective protocol he’d ever written, throwing down a gauntlet for whatever hellish attacker he’d unleashed upon himself.

  For a moment, he didn’t think it’d be enough. Firewalls fell like levees before a flood, and protective protocols were rewritten and turned against him before his very eyes. He’d had no clue something like that was even possible, but the attacker couldn’t wriggle their way into everything. Eventually, the attack ebbed out, with the invader finally stymied by a maze of protocols and firewalls. He wiped away sweat that’d suddenly beaded on his brow. If he’d been paying any less attention, he’d have been overrun in seconds. Nathan thought it was over- he’d be on the move in the next eight hours after that- and then an indicator on his computer flicked on.

  He glanced at it, perplexed. The attacker had just taken over one of his programs. Why, though? Each one existed, effectively, in a vacuum. Obviously it was attached to his computer, but he had enough safeguards in place that it was tangential at best. Surely the attacker would see that? Especially with how ridiculously effective they’d been.

  He got the why part out of the way when the program activated itself, popping up on his screen. Nathan gave a yelp of shock, and reached down to unplug his computer. He’d wanted more time to skim data, but something manually opening programs was not to be trifled with. The only thing that stopped him was the words typed into the program. The attacker had somehow rewritten it into a… text chat? And his invader was typing something out.

  “GG, you have me stalled out for now. Haven’t had that much fun in a while! I just want to… talk?” Nathan said, reading it aloud. He furrowed his brow. It could, of course, be a trap. Like the Russia signal. He was too curious to avoid it, though. Besides, he was more than confident in his firewalls, and even if it this was the Americans or the Chinese… well. He knew they weren’t capable of what just happened.

  Memnon: Just want to talk, huh? WTH was that?

  C_Lypso: Oh, come on. I know you’ve seen a brute force attack before, don’t kid me.

  Memnon: Not anything like that I haven’t. Who are you? How did you do that? And what do you want?

  C_Lypso: Woah, slow down there. We’re on the same side, I think. You obviously have a lot of questions. We do too… but I’m not going to answer all of yours. I can’t tell you who I am, and I can’t tell you directly what I want. As for the attack, well, sorry about that. I tried to get what I wanted the easy way. Let’s just keep it simple and say I cheated <3

  Memnon: That’s awfully vague… and didn’t really answer anything. Sorry you couldn’t get what you wanted the ‘easy way’, but I’m not going to give up anything until you answer my questions. I only share information for two reasons, and one of those bit me in the ass today. So I’m sticking with the other.

  C_Lypso: Which is…?

  Memnon: Trust.

  C_Lypso: Oof, that’s a tough sell. Well, like I said, I can’t directly tell you what you want to know. So, let’s take a different track. How about we talk about those satellites you were snooping around earlier? See anything interesting?

  Memnon: How do you know about that? It shouldn’t be possible for you to know about that.

  C_Lypso: Don’t get so worked up. You assumed correctly: we’re after what you know, not your head. As for the ‘how’, well, it’s like I said: I cheated. So, did you see anything, or not?

  Memnon: You got enough out of those satellites to find me, so why don’t you tell me?

  C_Lypso: Now who’s being evasive? I’ll give you credit, you covered your tracks extremely well. But I’m sure you know how your code works. In the process, you burned everything from where you were, to what you did, to what you saw. Why else would I bother asking you? Dummy.

  Memnon: Honestly? That’s fair. All I saw was an asteroid, ok? Just some big, stupid rock I was hoping I’d be able to save some people from. I’m assuming since you got to me by spoofing Moscow that you know how well that turned out.

  C_Lypso: …That’s it? That’s all you noticed? Nothing weird about it, nothing out of the ordinary, just a stupid rock? You don’t have any other information you can give me?

  Memnon: Correct.

  C_Lypso: Then why’d you burn three satellites looking for it, instead of trying to warn people right away?

  Memnon: I’d hate to wake up the entire world over a false alarm. It looked like it was going to miss, initially. How could an asteroid be weird, anyway? Did you see it too?

  C_Lypso: I’d prefer it if we kept the questions on your side of the table.

  Memnon: A little bit of trust…

  C_Lypso: Ok, ok. I suppose you did answer at least one of my questions. Here, how about this? You don’t trust me, and I can’t answer all of your questions. So let’s play it one to one. You answer one of my questions, I answer one of yours.

  Memnon: I think that’s going to depend a lot on the questions asked.

  C_Lypso: And I think it’s pretty well established by now that we’ll both be moderating ourselves. Just don’t answer any questions you don’t want to. Or lie, that’d be more interesting. Deal?

  Memnon: Deal.

  C_Lypso: I’ll go first, since you answered one of mine. We both know you didn’t wipe out three spy satellites just because you were curious. On my end, we know the asteroid was weird because we didn’t see it coming. Simple as that.

  Memnon: Mmhmm. That’s a start, I guess. I’ll throw you a bone- you’re right. There are a few reasons I had to go through that many satellites. For one, I wanted to triangulate the trajectory of the asteroid. I needed to know if it was going to hit, and then where it was going to hit, in order to warn the right people. If it was pointing toward Siberia, you’d still be in the dark about me.

  C_Lypso: And for the other…?

  Memnon: Well, it was weird. I kept… not being able to see it? It’s hard to explain. You dug through them too, so I imagine you know: some of those satellites were state of the art. They had ground penetration capabilities, advanced cameras, and the ability to pick up all kinds of signals on their sensors. Everytime I pointed those sensors to the asteroid though, it just… vanished.

  C_Lypso: Wdym?

  Memnon: I mean just gone, poof. Couldn’t see it on that satellite anymore. So I switched to a different one to keep getting more data. Poof, gone, repeat.

  C_Lypso: Interesting. That explains a lot, actually. That’s enough for now; it’s your turn. I’ll follow up in a moment. Is there anything else you want to know? I’m still not going to tell you who I am or how I found you, by the way. My little secret :)

  Memnon: Fine by me. Why do you need to know all this, anyway? Moscow got wiped out by a big rock, yeah, it sucks. But eventually people will come around to that, and the world will keep on spinning. Why does it matter if the asteroid was weird? Weird stuff happens in space all the time.

  C_Lypso: My employer is very concerned about our inability to see the asteroid.

  Memnon: …and?

  C_Lypso: What? I answered your question.

  Memnon: Seriously? That was awful. You’re going to have to do better than that if you want to keep talking.

  C_Lypso: Well, I hate to play hardball, but it’s not like you’re going to keep me from speaking. I doubt you can close this program very easily.

  Memnon: My computer’s power cord says differently.

  C_Lypso: Oh, come on! Don’t be like that. Your questions are just- extremely difficult to answer sensitively. Look, I’ll answer your question with a question. A riddle, actually. It’s the best I can do. Let’s start with this: You’re a hunter, tasked with observing something that has eyes and ears everywhere. It sees every movement, hears every breath, and it’s VERY protective. It will retaliate if it notices you, so how do you deal with it?

  Memnon: That’s a weird question. I don’t see how that’ll answer mine, but I’ll play along. I guess you hit it with something that it can’t see or hear?

  C_Lypso: How inspired. You’re following, at least. So, you hit it with something it can’t see or hear. What do you notice?

  Memnon: What?

  C_Lypso: You’re smart, come on. You’re tasked with observing this beast, right? You just hit it with something it can’t see or hear. Tell me why. Just what are you observing?

  Memnon: Why…? I guess you… you get to see how it reacts?

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  C_Lypso: Ding ding.

  Memnon: Wait, you think someone threw an invisible rock at us to see how we’d react?

  C_Lypso: Nuh uh, I didn’t say that. But maybe you can understand our concern a little better now.

  Memnon: That’s- that’d be- you’re kidding me. You’ve got to be messing with me. Why hit Moscow, then? That’d be like kicking a hornet's nest. You’ve gotta give me something more concrete than that.

  C_Lypso: Maybe I shouldn’t have brought this hypothetical up.

  Memnon: Bullshit. Give me something more concrete, or I’m pulling the plug. I’m not going to screw around on something like this.

  C_Lypso: My employer wouldn’t like that very much.

  Memnon: You’re talking about an act of war. AT MINIMUM, a nation weaponizing asteroids is something everyone should be aware of. If it’s any bigger than that? Then we’re really in trouble. You’re not getting any more out of me until you convince me.

  C_Lypso: Hmm. Fine. IF, I get authorization to do that. Are you going to answer all my questions? ALL of them?

  Memnon: Yes.

  C_Lypso: Fine. Lemme check with my boss real quick.

  C_Lypso disconnected

  — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

  “I screwed up.” Calypso complained.

  Atlas quirked his two bigger antennae at that, even as he continued to study the innards of the alien monolith. While Calypso was busy with the human, he was hard at work manipulating the Earth to build a copy of the device he was studying. It was still mostly shell, but piece by piece he was beginning to understand how it worked. There were microorganisms present too, but he didn’t pay them any mind. There was bound to be cross contamination, and even if they were alien, they were burning up in the boiling air.

  “Guess there’s a first time for everything. Define ‘screwed up’.”

  “Well, I’m still in their computer. That isn’t going to change. But, they’ve gotten difficult. They don’t want to talk with me anymore until we give them some information in return.” She explained evasively.

  That was enough to distract Atlas from his work on the monolith. “You’re talking to the human?”

  “It’s not like they know what I am!” She argued. “Besides, if you spent more time with them, you’d learn that you can often get more out of them by negotiating. This is one of those times. I think.”

  “What, you can’t just steal the data?”

  “I tried that already.” Calypso complained.

  “Well, let me take a crack at it.” Atlas offered.

  “No. We’re not doing that.”

  “Why not? You know I’d be able to rip it out in an instant.”

  “Because either you’d get the data and insist on killing them, or they’d shut off their computer while you’re rooting around inside it, denying us access and causing you to insist on killing them. I don’t want either of those things to happen.” Calypso answered, causing Atlas to huff in exasperation.

  “Fine. What do they want to know?”

  “...Why we need to know where the monolith came from. The real reason.” She answered, after a moments hesitation. Calypso had expected Atlas to get more annoyed, but instead he gave it some thought. His antennae twitched for a moment.

  “Tell them we’ll make sure more aren’t coming. That we need to know where this came from so that more can’t hit.”

  “...Are we expecting more?”

  “Not necessarily. But purposefully or not, this is very obviously-” He paused to rip another huge segment out, and began to study it to continue building upon his model. “-a weapon. And that laser burst could have been intelligence this thing gathered, a signal, or anything else important enough to carry as data. We don’t know, so the least we can do is be prepared. I don’t think you need to tell this individual quite that much, though.”

  —- —- —- —- —- —- —- —- —- —- —- —- —- —- —- —- —- —- —- —- —- —- —- —-

  C_Lypso reconnected

  Memnon: Your boss?

  C_Lypso: LOL, ur not going to get anything about him out of me. But, I can answer at least part of your question. We’re trying to determine if any more are coming.

  Memnon: So you do think it was an attack?

  C_Lypso: I already told you, I can’t specifically say. Maybe, maybe not. This is more about future preparedness and as a ‘just-in-case’, than anything at the moment. You already noticed, but it would take a remarkable stroke of chance for this to just happen to impact Moscow… and for it to just so happen to seemingly have stealth capabilities.

  Memnon: …I see. What do you need?

  C_Lypso: You said you ran trajectory data? Did you try extrapolating that out?

  Memnon: …No. I didn’t. Give me a few moments to do so and I’ll shoot what I find over to you.

  Nathan hit send, then stood and stretched. He’d been working on this for… god, it felt like it’d been days. At the very least, he’d been on and off his computer for the last few hours. The person on the other end likely knew it wouldn’t take that long, but he figured he deserved at least a couple minutes break. He snatched up his empty mug and stalked out of his bedroom, down the stairs, and back into the kitchen, weaving around his metropolis of document towers as he went.

  He plugged the grinder back in, poured out another serving of coffee beans, and began heating the water and grinding the coffee. As he did so, he began to think. He needed to know who this attacker was. If they could get to him, then so could the Americans and the Chinese, and he couldn’t allow that. Once he did, he had to puzzle out how they’d been able to brute force nearly all the way through his computer systems. And rewriting a program in seconds? Into something entirely new? What could even do that?

  The dull whine of his coffee grinder caught his attention, and he swore as he realized he’d ground the beans into a fine powder. He grabbed his milk from the fridge and set about frothing it, then he turned off the grinder and rescued what little of the grounds he could. It’d be strong for his tastes, but he could offset that with a little cream. He carefully poured the warm milk into his mug, adding a dollop of cream for good measure, and finally poured the grinds into his coffee machine. He started it up, and set about thinking again.

  He needed to know who they were. How could he do that? It was obvious they weren’t going to tell him, and he couldn’t just throw viruses at them. With how efficiently his attacker had worked, he had half a fear they’d turn them against him. No, it had to be stealthy, subversive. He had to- it clicked, then, right as his coffee machine went off, announcing its completion. Nathan tried to carefully whittle the foam atop it, but he was too excited and scraped it all out in one swoop. The foam plopped right into his cup, and Nathan gave it a forlorn glance before shrugging and taking a chug from his mug. The brutal heat hit him, and he immediately turned and spat it into his sink as it burned his mouth.

  “Fuck.”

  Nathan nursed his burnt tongue, but kept with his thoughts. His foe could see and hear everything he tried, and would retaliate if it was obvious. Unlike their hypothetical though, he could already guess how they’d react. And he knew he’d been underestimated. First when they tried to brute force his systems, then when they’d tried to convince him to give up his data freely. He’d gotten into this mess by being arrogant, but they were too. He could use that against them.

  He could give this mystery person what they wanted, sure, but what then? Regardless of their motives, this person (or group) had taken an interest in him, and knew he’d been hacking satellites. They’d also tricked him into tapping into their data stream, which implied they knew he’d been siphoning data too. That didn’t bode very well for him, regardless of their intentions.

  Nathan could be a step ahead, though- he already knew what they wanted, and what they’d take. They’d used a trojan on him? Two could play that game. He had to be careful, though. They’d already mentioned they’d seen his work on the satellites, so he couldn’t reuse that code. Luckily for him, he had a wide assortment of tools he could trick them with. First, he had to compile the data they’d requested. Trajectory, sure. But he’d also throw in as much garbage data as he could. Everything he’d gathered on the spectrometers, on infrared, on visual, and any other information he had. Then, he’d encrypt the entire thing as much as he could, and bury the virus in the code. With any luck, his visitor would unwrap the package the same way they’d tried to open his computer; violently. Then, his worm could creep through the cracks without them noticing.

  Nathan nodded to himself in thought, then tried to take another sip of his coffee. He didn’t get anything, and looked down into his mug with a frown. Apparently, he’d emptied the mug while he’d been thinking. With a sigh, he rinsed the mug out and began his trudge back upstairs. It was time to get back to work.

  Memnon: Ok, back. Are you ready for me to upload the data package?

  C_Lypso: WTH took u so long? We’re almost done here, yes, I’m ready.

  Memnon: You don’t know what time it is where I am. Needed a coffee. Sending the data now >.>

  Nathan hit send, and waited. They’d been pretty vocal in the amount of time he’d been talking with them, and their last response hadn’t done anything to dampen that belief. Hopefully, they’d be just as vocal if they found his little gift.

  C_Lypso: Thanks for encrypting that so much, it gave me a little more work to do. I liked it :D

  C_Lypso: U could’ve skipped out on the Trojans, though. I appreciate the attempt, but did u really think that would work?

  Memnon: Not really, but I had to keep you on your toes.

  C_Lypso: Well, thanks for the fun anyway. Ta ta!

  Memnon: Wait, one other thing. You may want to keep an eye on Aleksandr Petrov. You probably know already, but American and Chinese intelligence are on fire about him. If you’re looking into this strike, you may want to look into him too. Keep in touch, yeah?

  C_Lypso: We won’t <3

  C_Lypso has disconnected

  “Hook, line, and sinker.” Nathan said to himself with a smirk.

  He’d decided on a more complex course of action, correctly assuming that his opponent would discover what viruses he left behind. He knew there was one they’d missed, though. They’d get the more obvious ones, like the ones he’d hidden in the actual data, the initial data transfer, and the final decryption. What they probably hadn’t noticed, was the worm they themselves had built while decrypting it.

  Nathan decided he’d check in on that one in a little while, let it stew. There wasn’t any point in letting them know he’d backdoored them yet. Besides, in the meantime he had a much juicier data package to look at. The information from the Americans and the Chinese would have to wait, it’d take a while to sift through that. What he was more interested in was the data in the laser that he’d managed to swipe.

  He’d known it was an engineered craft since this “Lypso” had. He had feelers everywhere, and there was no way in hell anyone looking would have missed that laser. Asteroids definitely never shot those. What was interesting was that they also knew it was engineered. Alien almost certainly. He didn’t know what to make of that, but he did know that the Americans and the Chinese had no idea what they were dealing with. So if not them, then who the hell was he talking to?

  Nathan shook his head, unable to make any real sense of it right now. He was too tired, and he still knew too little. Hell, if anything, he knew less than before he started the conversation. For now though, he’d stick with what “Lypso” had focused him on. The asteroid. First off, its trajectory data. That was interesting, but it had to go on the backburner for now. The laser, though…

  He scanned the last few files he’d managed to compile first. Curiously, there wasn’t any encryption on the information. At all. He supposed that made sense, in a way. It wasn’t meant for him, and it’d already been nearly impossible to read, transmitted via radiation as it was. Still, he was surprised that otherworldy visitors didn’t have the technology to do so- or at least hadn’t bothered. Even more curiously was that while the beginnings of the last few files were completely indecipherable, the last portions were written in… English?

  “Just what the hell were you doing?” He muttered to himself, as he read over what he could.

  {Statusof[PrimaryQuery](Located)}

  {Statusof[Fauna](Nonthreat)}

  {Statusof[Host](ENGAGE)}

  {[{[Seed]}]: (Compromised)}

  {[Ichor]: (Abundant)}

  {Statusof[WorldSoul](Active)}

  — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

  “And… got it! Like taking candy from a baby.” Calypso said smugly, when she returned her attention back to Atlas.

  “Really? They just gave that information to you?” Atlas asked, barely paying attention as he finished the final touches on his model of the monolith.

  “Well, they tried to sneak some trojans into it too. By human standards, they were extremely complex. By mine, they were a cakewalk. The entire decryption took nanoseconds, and now we know where this thing came from.”

  Atlas grunted an acknowledgement, then stood. Channeling his powers, he pulled his model into a vertical position, just like the alien one off to his side. “Before we take a look at that, send a signal to this thing. Turn it on.”

  “You sure? That’ll be-”

  “Loud.” Atlas interrupted. “But I don’t want you to turn that part on. Not yet. Just a general boot-up.”

  “If you insist.” Calypso responded, sounding uncharacteristically unsure.

  Almost immediately, his monolith began emitting a low hum. Atlas sensed the electricity coursing through the huge mechanical thing, and it slowly began to light up. The humming got louder and more violent, and Atlas took a step closer. He was positive he’d disabled the mechanism that had produced the soundwave, but it didn’t hurt to be careful. It quickly built to a fever pitch, leaving the titanic structure vibrating under the strain- and then the entire structure vanished from sight.

  “Wow. Why can’t my armor do that?”

  “You’ve never needed something like that before! I could build stealth armor.” Calypso grumbled.

  “Just messing with you. Shut it off for now, I’m going to shove it below. We can figure out exactly how it works later.”

  Calypso did as asked, disabling Atlas’ copy of the monolith. It reappeared, and almost immediately thereafter, a yawning chasm opened beneath the two superstructures and they both dropped. With a brief, telltale amber glimmer from his hand, the earth closed up again.

  “Now, where’d it come from?” Atlas asked.

  “It’s impossible to say specifically, but the extrapolation our busy little human gave us actually pointed to inside the solar system. So, we’ve still got nothing on that front. For all we know, this thing might have been creeping through the asteroid belt since the dawn of time.”

  “What about the radiation beam? Still nothing?”

  “Same answer as last time. Maybe the monolith has the key, but if you didn’t pick it up while cracking it open, then I doubt it. It always takes information to crack a code- I think that’s what we’re missing.” She answered.

  “And your human buddy didn’t catch it? ” Atlas asked, teasing again.

  “That was a stroke of pure luck. I was already amazed that they saw the monolith. If they got anything off of that laser, I’d be thoroughly astounded. And they’d have to know exactly where to look. Or be in so many places that the where ended up not being important. I was impressed by their code architecture, but not quite that impressed.” Calypso explained.

  Atlas gave a sigh, leaving his antennae to twitch in frustration. “Great. Wonderful. Glad we know nothing.”

  “Well, I don’t know If I’d go that far. My ‘human buddy’ advised that I look into an individual by the name of Aleksandr Petrov. Apparently, he’s the brother of the now-deceased Aleksei Petrov, a Moscow native and son of the former head of the Russian Military. Also apparently, chatter from the Chinese and Americans is almost exclusively about him right now. They’re worried he might be planning a nuclear retaliation against who he perceives to be the most likely culprit for the attack. AKA the Americans.” She answered.

  “And he has no hope of pulling such an attack off.” Atlas deadpanned. “Unless nations started giving out their nuclear codes since I’ve been asleep.”

  “Well, correct. But a man of his importance may very well be able to authorize a limited nuclear strike. Or may simply be the best positioned to fall into control of the Russian nuclear codes. The Russians aren’t particularly known for their lack of corruption and nepotism.”

  “Like I needed another headache tonight.” Atlas grumbled.

  “Oh, that’s not the least of it.” Calypso began again. “Aleksandr is also the head of a premiere Russian experimental weapons program. So, the nukes could very well be the least of your worries. You might want to intercept him.”

  “In-fucking-credible.” Atlas swore.

  “Hey, look on the bright side. Much as I hate to mention it, you might very well get to handle them your way.”