Transmission Received

The cup shattered on the black and white tiled floor. The translucent brown liquid holding its shape for a split second before collapsing in on itself and spreading in a pool across the room. Edward ignored it completely. The steady static he had been listening to,the same static he had been listening to for months, had been replaced by a sequence of beeps as the radio antenna pointed at M17, the Horsehead Nebula.

beep, beep, beep...beep, beep, beep, beep, beep...beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep...

Edward had been reading the newest issue of Maxim, while sipping some disgusting budget coffee. He hadn't noticed the change in the sound at first, having been so used to hearing the same static for weeks, but all at once his brain registered it and he was struck dumb. Luckily, the computers had already locked on to the signal and began recording the radio waves.

Edward sat listening to the beeping, a strange unnatural sequence of noises in his ears. It had been just as they said it would be. Stuffy old Professor Harding had droned on and on about the most effective way to communicate intelligence across space, but Edward had only half listened. No, Melissa Brown in her short skirts and low cut tops had always been more interesting to Edward, and he kicked himself now for not noticing the sequence earlier.

It had been convenient for Edward's father, to simply "volunteer" him for duty at the Arecibo Observatory. His father had always been disappointed in Edward's lack of interest in science, and it was only by incessant nagging that his father had pushed Edward into a career path he had little personal interest in. But here he was, after months of listening to cosmic static, now confronted with the clear and irrefutable truth of extraterrestrial intelligence.

The sequence continued:

beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep...beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep...

The phone rang and Edward screamed in fright despite himself.

"Mr. Nigma?"

Edward fumbled for the reciever as he dropped it twice. "Y..Yes, this is Eddie."

"Can you confirm the source of the transmission?" There was an edge of excitement in the man's voice on the other end of the phone as Eddie nearly slipped on the coffee as he crossed the room. He punched a few keys on a computer console and waited. On the screen was a map of the stars in the southern hemisphere. Eddie held his breath as a small blinking red box centered around one small cluster.

"Right ascension: eighteen hours, twenty point eight minutes. Declination: minus sixteen degrees, eleven minutes." Edward's hands shook and his voice wavered as he stared at the coordinates flashing beneath the map.

There was a long pause on the other end of the phone and for a moment Eddie thought perhaps they had lost the connection, then he heard a sniffle and realized the other man was crying.
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"Clearly, this is a message from God, sent to warn us about our destructive ways and to cause us to repent for our sinful acts against him!"

"Sir, you are implying that God sent us a signal which can only be received by radio telescope, and it is a warning against such technology? Surely I am not the only one who can see how ridiculous that is?"

"What I am saying, Mr. Harper, is that we have done everything we can as a society to destroy ourselves, and clearly we have reached a level of corruption that has warranted direct intervention by God. We have heard the first blast of heaven's trumpets, a clear call and a sign of the coming apocalypse. Christian soldiers, lift up your eyes and behold the glory of God! The time has come for the holy redeemer to walk among us!"

"Thank you gentlemen for joining us today. Coming up on The Forum; what are the chances of these messages coming from an extraterrestrial source? Professor Carlos Saganos joins us with his views on the subject, and later, we take a look back on our history of alien fascination. Stay tuned."

Edward sighed and rubbed his temple as he muted the tv. He watched idly as a commercial for Toys R Us peddled alien plushees and star-base Lego construction sets. He glanced at the digital clock on the DVR; two a.m. Frowning he turned off the t.v. and stood staring at his reflection in the screen.

Why had God chosen him? Why was he the one on duty that night, the one who made "the discovery of the millenia"? Did he believe in God? A few months ago, Edward's main concern was getting laid, now, confronted with the possibility of extraterrestrial life...these questions were impossible to ignore. Like the repeating signal from M17, the questions played over and over again inside his head.

Edward had grown up, thinking that God was a convenient way for people to escape their problems, a by-product of human fear and superstitions. A way for primitive man to rationalize nature and give some meaning to their lives. Edward's father was a renowned physicist, and his mother was a respected anthropologist, and he had been baptized to science as soon as he could crawl. But now he was lost. Now, the cold facts of science offered no comfort. It offered no sympathy, and the prospect of unconditional brotherly love that beats at the heart of religion appealed to him more than anything he had ever wanted. His father would have called him a coward and would have scolded him saying he was trying to hide his head in the sand. His mother, always the more compassionate one, would have said it is only natural to seek some sort of unyielding anchor when life is a storm. A strangely poetic statement for an anthropologist, but then again she was always the passionate one.

Edward had been forced to study world religions in college, and though he could see some common myths and beliefs they shared, mostly they seemed a product of the region the culture lived in who created it. Perhaps this deep curiosity had always been inside him, some deep desire to know his father, coupled with the still many secrets that nature kept from the inquisitive minds of even the most advanced scientists Earth had to offer. Edward knew he wasn't a brilliant scientist, not even a very competent one. He had often jumped to wild conclusions when his half baked theories didn't hold up in experiments, only his father's influence had gotten him through school, something Edward secretly resented. His father always expected the most, and always made his disappointments known when Edward failed to meet those lofty expectations. Then, one day, despite all of his scientific knowledge and firm belief otherwise, his father lay on his death bed, dying from cancer, a purely scientific and biological mutation which caused the rapid and uncontrolled growth of cells within the body, and with his dying breath, he turned his face to the ceiling and uttered two words which shattered Edward's world; "Oh God."