Chapter 24: Mysteries

Well, now I know why security was tight around the farm. That high-security barb-wire fence was there for a reason!

The locations and operation of the SORS’s were confidential. A farm was chosen as the location for this one because it was inconspicuous and free from human disturbances and signal interferences.

But to think it was right under our noses last time Steve and I were here… Drake thought.

The group of soldiers went into the underground facility, their curiosity piqued. A former mechanic got the old-fashioned electric generator running and the systems powered on. In the central room was a supercomputer with wires running around everywhere across the floor and a Tabel screen on the wall connected to it. A SORS consists of a computer that collects information from space and unmanned satellites and cameras from nearby areas. Any suspicious activity, whether it be a chunk of space rock entering the atmosphere picked up by a satellite, or a possible terrorist in a town, detected by the artificial intelligence on the computer and cameras placed around a town, is reported to the authorities. Over time, these computers had become very smart at assessing threats, so it was a wonder why the threat of the meteorite had never been reported.

A former IT technician powered on the computer and set it up. He then retrieved the data captured from the night of the Apocalypse. The computer expert, along with Steve, brought onto the screen the information that the computer had received and processed live that night through graphical interpretations of data and recordings. The group huddled around and observed carefully:

It was close to ten-thirty P.M. Everything seemed normal. Suddenly, the blue screen with data on it turned red. An important alert popped up: “Space object detected!”. It showed a small-scale 2-D diagram of Earth from the side, with an arrow pointing from the ground to a simple illustration of a meteoroid, indicating the distance from the surface. The altitude was two hundred miles, and the object was approaching fast.

How did the satellites not pick it up sooner? Drake wondered. Surely, it couldn’t have been blocked by space debris the whole time.

The computer was now calculating the area of collision and damage level assessment. Normally, it would have time to do this because the danger wouldn’t be observed so late; it wasn’t programmed for this situation.

Fast-forwarding a few minutes, the meteorite could be seen through a camera on a hill to have crashed in the woods near Beil. The computer, alarmed about this situation it couldn’t handle, decided to send whatever information was calculated to the nearby authorities. It attempted to transmit the information, but something blocked it from doing so. An error. The data interpretation system was seemingly forcibly shut down, and all calculated data was erased. All that was remaining on the screen were about fifty different recordings from black-and-white surveillance cameras positioned across the city and at a few spots in the woods.

It was a disgraceful wonder that, despite the world advancing so much since the invention of the camera over two hundred years ago, CCTV cameras would still record in black-and-white and at an absurdly and outdatedly low, three-hundred-sixty pixel resolution.

Fast-forwarding the video once again, Mayhems could now be seen emerging from the woods. People averted their eyes from the feeds that showed terror in the town. Drake, who should have felt disgusted at rewatching the destruction of his hometown and murder of all his neighbors and friends, watched with discomfort. A pulse of light shot out from around where the meteorite crashed and spread through the sky, casting the Blucteryhem across the world and marking the beginning of the Apocalypse.

Steve stopped the replay. “I think we’ve seen enough; we don’t need to see any more of the terror that ensues.”

The room was silent as everyone contemplated what they had just witnessed. It was clear to all that what prevented the computer from transmitting information was not an error in the system, for it had worked countless times in the past, but an external attack: someone had remotely hacked into the radar station’s computer and prevented it from sending that critical information.

Who would do such a thing? Drake thought. Why would someone want people to not know about the meteorite? Could they have known about the Blucteryhem? In that case, they must have wanted for all of this to occur! Why? Who would benefit from an Apocalypse killing everyone in the world? The politicians? They were preparing for this. But even they wouldn’t get much from this.

Even if it was a person or group of people who had hacked the SORS, there was no way they could have prevented it from detecting the meteoroid sooner. It was as if it had been hidden until the last minute. Many things didn’t make sense here, but at least humanity now had a starting point—some information from which they could start to search deeper.

This incident exposed a vital flaw in the SORS system: the government had depended entirely on a few radar stations to monitor all activities in their vicinity and interpret all communications from satellites. They had entrusted a small number of hacking-and-error-prone computers to warn them of all sorts of threats. Doing so had been a blunder.

At last, Rein spoke: “Beil is a few hours away by walk from here. While we’re in the area anyway, we should go check out the meteorite at the crash site. Maybe we can find some clues.”

Steve whispered to Drake. “Do you think we should tell the Commander that we should probably take horses to Beil?”

The two knew from experience that walking there was a pain. Taking horses was better, even if they made noises that could attract Mayhems and were prone to mutating if a Mayhem surprise attacked them in the dense forest.

Drake didn’t want to be the one to tell Rein. It was awkward between them at the moment. He told Steve to do so instead. After some hesitation, Steve went up to Rein when there weren’t many people around.

It’s nice that he’s at least getting the courage to talk to high-level people in private, Drake noted.

Meanwhile, Drake and the other soldiers went back up to the surface. They stretched their legs and ate some corn from the farm they were in, in preparation for their return voyage to the Mall.

After twenty minutes, Steve, and, a few minutes later, Commander Rein, too, came out of the SORS facility.

“What took so long?” Drake asked.

“You’ll find out in a few days,” Steve replied teasingly.

The group returned to the Mall. Rein then led another group of soldiers, excluding Drake, to travel to Beil on horseback, leaving Drake wondering whether he was left behind because Rein had ill feelings toward him or because he was considerate of his emotions. Beil was his hometown, after all. Seeing it destroyed and revisiting the place his mother had died may invoke trauma.

The group departed, and, by nightfall, returned wearing exhausted and somewhat grim expressions.

“Well?” Drake asked Jord. “What’d you see?”

He was keen, as was everyone there, including the Cyll Survivors, on finding any more information that could help unravel the mystery of Mayhems.

“Nothing,” Jord replied. “There was nothing there but a stupid crater. No big chunk of space rock.”

Drake was confused at first, but then realized what had probably happened. Most meteorites, upon impact with the Earth at extremely high speeds, vaporize due to the sheer energy of the collision, leaving empty craters. It explained why you don’t see a large rock in a crater nor the contents of the meteorite—just a hole where it was supposed to be.

But, if that was true, then where did the pulse of Blucteryhem in the sky come from? It was already a mystery how was the meteorite able to shoot it into the sky dozens of minutes after it had landed on Earth, and with the precision and quantity so that it spread through the sky of the entire world. This only deepened the mysteries. Nothing seemed to make sense. Could the meteorite and the Blucteryhem shower be unrelated as Drake had initially thought that day? Then, was whoever hacked into the SORS involved with the spreading of the Blucteryhem?