The Call

She answered on the third ring. Protocol.

The voice on the other end was a man who gave his name once and did not repeat it: Colonel Markus Veld, Norwegian Military Intelligence, Svalbard Command. He knew she was Dr. Nadia Chen. He knew she had arrived at SVAR-7 at 14:00. He knew she had disconnected the emitter at approximately 18:00.

He knew exactly how long the emitter had been offline.

"We have been monitoring SVAR-7 for fourteen days," Veld said. His tone was not alarmed. It was the tone of someone delivering a report they had already written. "We need you to reconnect the emitter. Current output level or higher."

"The emitter was the source of the infrasound effects," Nadia said. "It made the station uninhabitable. The three scientists went underground to escape it."

"We're aware of the effects. We're also aware that the anomaly is now uncontained."

"The anomaly appears to be communicating."

A pause. Not surprise — she would have recognized surprise. This was the pause of someone recalibrating based on a variable they had anticipated.

"Dr. Chen, the emitter's function is deterrence. Whatever you're observing is a behavioral response to the removal of an aversive stimulus. We need you to reapply that stimulus."

"You're asking me to torture it."

Another pause. Shorter.

"We're asking you to maintain a security perimeter."

She looked at Eriksson across the sub-basement. He was watching her with the expression of someone who had expected this phone call and had not told her.

"You knew," she said to him, one hand over the phone.

He looked at the floor.

"Dr. Chen," Veld said through the phone. "A team is en route. ETA approximately six hours. I'd like your cooperation before they arrive, but I want to be clear that your cooperation is preferred and not required."

She looked at the emitter cable on the floor. She looked at the spectrometer still registering the eleven-second pattern in the sensors above them.

"I'll be here when they land," she said.

She ended the call.

Eriksson wouldn't meet her eyes.

"You didn't find this station by accident," she said. It was not a question.

He looked up. His jaw was set. "No."

"You installed the emitter because the military told you to."

"I installed the emitter because the protocol said to if the anomaly responded to the survey signal." He stopped. "I didn't know what it would do to us. I genuinely did not know."

Nadia sat down on the cold floor of the sub-basement and thought about the six hours she had before Veld's team arrived.

The eleven-second pattern continued above them, regular as breathing.

Six hours to learn something. Six hours before the people who had weaponized 18.98 Hz against three scientists arrived to use it on something that knocked in threes and learned the shape of a conversation in under five minutes.

She picked up the recorder.

They had work to do.