10.16. 100. 244 Review

The ground hummed. Not from generators. From below.

She opened a starchart. 100 hours of arc. 244 degrees. A line of sight pointing not outward, but back toward Earth. Toward the buried salt flat beneath them. Toward something that had been asleep for millennia—until 10:16 PM. 10.16. 100. 244

"Check the Array’s own logs for 10:16 UTC," she said. Leo’s face went pale. "That’s… now. The message arrived the same second we received it. No propagation delay. It didn’t come from space, Mira. It came through the Array—as if something used our own dish to talk to us." The ground hummed

Mira felt the air change. The desert night had always felt vast and empty, but now the silence felt watched. She opened a starchart

"Run it through the standard filters," she told her junior, Leo. He tapped away, frowning. "No source. No reflection pattern. It’s like the signal started inside the mainframe itself."

The ground hummed. Not from generators. From below.

She opened a starchart. 100 hours of arc. 244 degrees. A line of sight pointing not outward, but back toward Earth. Toward the buried salt flat beneath them. Toward something that had been asleep for millennia—until 10:16 PM.

"Check the Array’s own logs for 10:16 UTC," she said. Leo’s face went pale. "That’s… now. The message arrived the same second we received it. No propagation delay. It didn’t come from space, Mira. It came through the Array—as if something used our own dish to talk to us."

Mira felt the air change. The desert night had always felt vast and empty, but now the silence felt watched.

"Run it through the standard filters," she told her junior, Leo. He tapped away, frowning. "No source. No reflection pattern. It’s like the signal started inside the mainframe itself."