{"sf1_id":1367875,"sf2_id":null,"title":"Degeneracy Pressure (Chapter 2)","author":"DecoFox","words":2597,"posted_at":"2018-09-13T11:07:00.000Z","tags":["90s","Abduction","Adolescent","Adventure","Alien","Anthro","Anthropomorphic","Arctic Fox","Bedroom","Canine","Fantasy","Fear","Fox","Ham radio","Ice","Interspecies","M/F","Male/Female","Mystery","Nasa","Night","Raccoon/Fox","Sci-Fi","Science","Science Fiction","Second Person","Series","Sky","Snow","Space","Story","Story Progression","Story Series","Straight","Supernatural","Suspense","UFO","White","Winter","Young Romance","geek","nerd","radio","rocket"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1367875-degeneracy-pressure-chapter-2","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/view/1367875","image_url":"https://www.sofurryfiles.com/std/thumb?page=1367875\u0026ext=.jpg","description":"#2 of Degeneracy Pressure\n\nA nervous human space geek makes an unlikely friend over HAM radio, and learns the Universe is just as wonderful and just as intimidating as it looks in the Hubble images.","content":"1. \n\\\u003eChapter 2, Lake Effect\n2. \n\u0026nbsp;\n3. \n\\\u003eThe radio has been dead for a few minutes.\n4. \n\\\u003eYou acknowledged her transmission, but no reply came. Earlier that evening that would have had you biting your nails, but now you're thankful for the respite. You have work to do.\n5. \n\\\u003eKim is sitting beside you now, taking generous swigs from a Coke can as he fiddles with the dots and lines scribbled on your notebook.\n6. \n\\\u003eArt Bell drones softly in the background, half forgotten.\n7. \n\\\u003eEach of you had tried a few solutions, but neither of you seemed to be getting anywhere.\n8. \n\\\u003eThrough a haze of caffeine, taurine, and fatigue, one thing is clear:\n9. \n\\\u003eIt's not goddamn Morse.\n10. \n\\\u003eNone of it is fucking Morse, not straight up.\n11. \n\\\u003eThere's got to be some kind of cipher.\n12. \n\\\u003eYou suppose you should have known she wouldn't make it that easy. Right now the only lead you have is the second line of the message.\n13. \n\\\u003e.----\n14. \n\\\u003eThe number one.\n15. \n\\\u003eYou've looked that up, down, and sideways, but it doesn't seem to make any goddamn sense.\n16. \n\u0026nbsp;\n17. \n\\\u003eThe swinging light has long since stilled, and the dancing monsters returned to sleep in the jagged shadows of dusty computers and overstuffed file organizers. Through the floorboards above drips the melancholy gong of the pendulum clock in your hallway.\n18. \n\\\u003e1:00 A.M.\n19. \n\\\u003eYou stretch, shake your head, and crack another Coke.\n20. \n\\\u003eIt's a damn good thing you're on Christmas break, because this is shaping up to be a long night. The only C you'd ever gotten in High School you'd gotten on a math quizz after a night like this.\n21. \n\\\u003eThey don't generally send you to space if you get C's.\n22. \n\\\u003eKim inhales suddenly and raises an index finger, but it wilts like a dead man's dick before he can say anything.\n23. \n\\\u003eIf Kim can't get it, you don't hold out much hope that you can.\n24. \n\\\u003eBut you have to try anyway.\n25. \n\\\u003eNo, a little voice reminds you.\n26. \n\\\u003eDo or do not, there is no try.\n27. \n\\\u003eYou were about to land your perfect asian girl, and the two of you were going to go to MIT together and get jobs at JPL.\n28. \n\\\u003eOr maybe you were about break a government conspiracy wide open, and be the man to tell the world that there is nothing between us and heaven, and that the stars are ours for the taking.\n29. \n\\\u003eYou could do this. You didn't come this far to drop the X-Wing. You were smart, right?\n30. \n\\\u003eYour teachers said you were smart. Your parents said you were smart. A few colleges had even started courting you, though none of them were MIT, and you hadn't much intention of giving them the time of day.\n31. \n\\\u003eYou could figure this out. No way in hell you were just going to slink off and play some Starfox, as good an idea as that sounded.\n32. \n\\\u003eSuddenly the radio shrieks like a fox.\n33. \n\\\u003eThat sound they like to make late at night in the woods, particularly when you're trying your hardest not to worry about skinwalkers.\n34. \n\\\u003eYou leap to your feet and jog back over, crashing into the desk a little as you snatch at the headphones.\n35. \n\\\u003eNothing but pops and squeals.\n36. \n\\\u003eYou call into the static, but it goes unheeded.\n37. \n\\\u003eAntenna must have gotten fucked.\n38. \n\\\u003eWhat fucking timing. No wonder you stopped hearing her.\n39. \n\\\u003eBetter than her just leaving you hanging, you suppose, but if you lost her then, who the hell knew when you might get another shot at it?\n40. \n\\\u003eIf the asian exchange student theory was sound, then you'd only get another if you were lucky.\n41. \n\\\u003eBut if it wasn't\n42. \n\\\u003eIf it was Secret Squirrel shit, or any of the more exotic ideas starting to condense in your imagination\n43. \n\\\u003eThen this was probably the only shot you'd ever get.\n44. \n\\\u003eThe next few minutes could be the difference between a life-altering, hell, a world-shattering revelation, and a fun little anecdote to tell at parties.\n45. \n\\\u003eYou don't go to many of those anyway.\n46. \n\\\u003eYou throw the headset back down and scramble for the window over the couch.\n47. \n\\\u003eKim rolls somewhat more hurriedly over as you fight with the window latch\n48. \n\\\u003e \"Told you the weather was getting bad. Think the antenna blew off?\"\n49. \n\\\u003eThere's actually some urgency behind his voice for once.\n50. \n\\\u003e \"Yeah, maybe. Just get up here and help me, will 'ya?\"\n51. \n\\\u003eYou manage to knock the window free again, haul yourself up from the basement, and flop into the snow like a seal.\n52. \n\\\u003eIt doesn't feel like much at first, then it starts to melt against your skin\n53. \n\\\u003eTendrils of cold work their way into you, stinging like jellyfish tentacles.\n54. \n\\\u003eYour old, pizza stained t-shirt is already soaked by the time you haul yourself to your feet, though it wasn't doing you much good anyway.\n55. \n\\\u003eYour socks follow in short order.\n56. \n\\\u003eThe weather had grown a lot worse over the course of the night.\n57. \n\\\u003eDespite the darkness, you can make out the distended iron bellies of clouds rolling overhead, their matted plumes glowing an otherworldly amber in the lights of the city below.\n58. \n\\\u003eA fast, ghostly wind whistles in the eves.\n59. \n\\\u003eIt's almost like being on Venus, you think.\n60. \n\\\u003eA very cold Venus\n61. \n\\\u003eGiven what happened to Pioneer and the Venera missions, you're pretty sure it's as close to Venus as you care to get.\n62. \n\\\u003eSomewhere behind you a chain of curses rings out as Kim hauls himself up, and into a few feet of lake effect snow.\n63. \n\\\u003e \"This had better be aliens, or she better be really hot,\" he shivers.\n64. \n\\\u003eYou swear and turn to face the house.\n65. \n\\\u003eAn extendable ladder runs up two stories from the basement window to the roof, cables coiled up the right side like a holiday garland and steps frozen like fish in a grocery store.\n66. \n\\\u003eYou hurry up and throw yourself at it\n67. \n\\\u003eUsually when you fucked up and missed something great, it's because you thought twice.\n68. \n\\\u003eOr five or six times, or more.\n69. \n\\\u003eThis time you're not going to give yourself the chance.\n70. \n\\\u003eThe ground falls away beneath you very quickly, your footholds precarious but ardent, your hands searing on the icy metal until it feels like you're grabbing stovetops.\n71. \n\\\u003eUp, hand over hand, rung by rung. The ladder jostles and flexes in the wind and under your weight.\n72. \n\\\u003eUsually that gives you pause, but right now you barely notice.\n73. \n\\\u003eYou clamber onto the roof, kicking some snow aside and sheltering your face in the crook of your arm.\n74. \n\\\u003eThe antenna is on the near side of the roof, but doesn't look very close to you.\n75. \n\\\u003eThe web-like structure bows and dances in the wind, weighed down by a coating of ice that makes it glitter in the warm, pastel shades of the Christmas lights hanging from the eaves.\n76. \n\\\u003eIt's almost pretty, but a particularly precarious step refocuses your attention. Kick away the snow. Step. Repeat. Fortunately the roof is mostly dry underneath, and the slant angle not quite so severe as it appears.\n77. \n\\\u003eYou peer over the edge and call out to Kim.\n78. \n\\\u003e \"The connections look good down there?\"\n79. \n\\\u003e \"Looks pretty good. What have you got up there?\"\n80. \n\\\u003e \"Fuckloads of ice. 'Gunna be an adventure.\"\n81. \n\\\u003e \"Just remember man, this could be it. This could be the big one!\"\n82. \n\\\u003e \"Yeah, well why don't you climb up here and help me?\"\n83. \n\\\u003e \"I'm not climbing that fucking thing in this weather.\"\n84. \n\\\u003eKim may or may not also be a little scared of heights. He claims he isn't, but you're pretty sure he's full of it, and make sure to tell him that every time you find yourselves somewhere with a view.\n85. \n\\\u003e \"Even to break the alien secret wide open? Just think, it could be you on Coast to Coast after Lear. You could be the guy to break the news to everyone.\"\n86. \n\\\u003e \"Fuck, man. Alright. But this had better be about aliens. The chick isn't going to cut it, especially if it's you she's interested in.\"\n87. \n\\\u003eThe ladder starts to shake and shimmy again as he climbs. You turn back to the antenna.\n88. \n\\\u003eThe ice problem is a little worse up close, which is probably good because at least it provides a measure of certainty.\n89. \n\\\u003eFrom each wire dangles forests of ice cycles, each rooted in thick patches of rime.\n90. \n\\\u003eA good shaking shatters a lot of the crystals. About half the ice cycles fall; the rime splits but it doesn't go anywhere. You set to scraping it with a nail.\n91. \n\\\u003eIt's slow work, but you're making progress.\n92. \n\\\u003eIf only you'd brought a fucking knife.\n93. \n\\\u003eYour hands have already numbed to a dull ache. It can't be more than 20 degrees, and humid at that.\n94. \n\\\u003eYou're shivering like a one of those little designer dogs.\n95. \n\\\u003eYou can't have more than a few minutes on the frostbite front.\n96. \n\\\u003eBriefly you remember how foolish and idiotic this idea is, but you remind yourself that caution doesn't ever seem to get you anywhere.\n97. \n\\\u003eWe choose to de-ice the antenna\n98. \n\\\u003eand meet the girl\n99. \n\\\u003eand do the other things...\n100. \n\\\u003enot because they are easy\n101. \n\\\u003ebut because they are hard!\n102. \n\\\u003ePresently the ladder knocks against the roof under Kim's weight. You're looking forward to his help.\n103. \n\\\u003eThe wind is building still further, and the clouds seem to draw nearer as you work. Thunder rocks the sky in the middle distance and rolls by like a freight train.\n104. \n\\\u003eWire by wire you scrape, the numbness working its way up your arms like creeping ivy.\n105. \n\\\u003eCome on, you're halfway there. Kim will be helping in a second. You can do this. You've got to talk to her. This could be it.\n106. \n\\\u003eA sharper boom cracks overhead, and then another roll of thunder follows.\n107. \n\\\u003eYou're not sure about that sharp one. It didn't sound quite right, not like thunder.\n108. \n\\\u003eThe back of your mind screams at you what it sounded like\n109. \n\\\u003eA sonic boom\n110. \n\\\u003eYou're doing your best not to listen, and scraping as fast as you can.\n111. \n\\\u003eSnow gathers in your hair and soaks it to the scalp.\n112. \n\\\u003eKeep working\n113. \n\\\u003eScrape. Scrape. Scrape.\n114. \n\\\u003eIt's getting a little easier.\n115. \n\\\u003eYou can see better now.\n116. \n\\\u003eThere's more light. It's soft, but it's there. A very pale blue, not like the christmas lights.\n117. \n\\\u003eDid the clouds seriously part? You're not sure that should be possible.\n118. \n\\\u003eYou look over your shoulder, and your heart just about fucking quits.\n119. \n\\\u003eThe amber glow from the clouds is all but gone, blocked by the span of a great black triangle.\n120. \n\\\u003eNo more than twenty feet away, it slides by with the easy grace of a reef shark, the surface of its wings and leading and trailing edges seeming to flex and boil, playing with the wind the way a seagull's feathers do.\n121. \n\\\u003eYou can't bring yourself to breathe or move or think.\n122. \n\\\u003eIt's all real.\n123. \n\\\u003eKim had been right all along.\n124. \n\\\u003eThis had to be a fucking dream, but the cold bit at your eyes and nose like a cobra, and you knew it wasn't.\n125. \n\\\u003eIf you hadn't been so sure, you might have thrown yourself off the roof in hopes of waking.\n126. \n\\\u003eIt slides overhead and banks, beginning to circle the roof with slow deliberation.\n127. \n\\\u003eIts skin pulses with veins of blue.\n128. \n\\\u003eA warm-looking blue\n129. \n\\\u003eBlue like tropical water.\n130. \n\\\u003eIt seems almost close enough to touch.\n131. \n\\\u003eA sense of calm settles over you like a lead blanket.\n132. \n\\\u003eYou're drawn in.\n133. \n\\\u003eIt's like sleepwalking. You can't stop. You can't think. You crane your neck. You step. You reach out to it. It's beautiful.\n134. \n\\\u003eThen the snow gives way, and the spell shatters.\n135. \n\\\u003eYou're lying supine in the snow, staring at a bleak, violent sky.\n136. \n\\\u003eOverhead the thunder rolls again, and then it fades.\n137. \n\\\u003efrom somewhere in the distance echoes the report of a sonic boom.\n138. \n\\\u003eSo that's a no on the exchange student, then?\n139. \n\u0026nbsp;\n140. \n\\\u003eYou and Kim regroup inside, hurriedly toweling dry and backing up against the water heater with your notepad.\n141. \n\\\u003eKim had seen it too. He didn't get as good a look as you did, but he'd seen it.\n142. \n\\\u003eHe'd also fallen, it turns out.\n143. \n\\\u003eWhat's weird is neither of you seem to be hurt at all.\n144. \n\\\u003eThere's a lot of snow on the ground, but not that much.\n145. \n\\\u003eHe says he doesn't really remember falling, just being on the ground.\n146. \n\\\u003eYou don't either.\n147. \n\\\u003eBut it's not worth pondering now. You're almost certain you know what's missing.\n148. \n\\\u003eIt makes sense suddenly, as if that ...thing told you while you were in the trance. It was so obvious. Why hadn't you thought of it? All that talk about the record, and it had never occurred to you.\n149. \n\\\u003e \"Kim, what if it's not a cipher.\"\n150. \n\\\u003e \"What do you mean not a fucking cipher. You seeing something there I don't?\"\n151. \n\\\u003e \"What if it's binary?\"\n152. \n\\\u003eKim raises an eyebrow, though after what you just saw you're not sure you can take the very idea of skepticism seriously anymore.\n153. \n\\\u003e \"That doesn't look like binary to me. I guess maybe the last, but not the others.\"\n154. \n\\\u003e \"No dude, I think I've seen the others before. I think I might know where they're from.\"\n155. \n\\\u003eThe heat's nice, but you've got work to do.\n156. \n\\\u003eYou peel yourself away from the water heater and rip a poster off the wall behind the radio.\n157. \n\\\u003eThe record cover\n158. \n\\\u003eFalling back against the water heater, you spread it on your lap under the notebook.\n159. \n\\\u003eThe timing for the video scan. Check.\n160. \n\\\u003eThe record speed codes. Check.\n161. \n\\\u003eShe wasn't trying to tell you anything with those codes.\n162. \n\\\u003eExcept the last one.\n163. \n\\\u003eThat was nowhere on the record.\n164. \n\\\u003eShe was just trying to tell you it was in binary.\n165. \n\\\u003eKim doesn't seem to take that as quite the revelation you do, but he plays along.\n166. \n\\\u003eYou plot out the last message, the one that had come just a little before the Encounter.\n167. \n\\\u003eC U SOON\n168. \n\\\u003eYour blood runs so cold you stop shivering.\n169. \n\\\u003eTentatively you shuffle back to the radio. The headphones are happily chirping away. You're more than a little scared to pick them up.\n170. \n\\\u003eBut hesitation never got you anywhere.\n171. \n\\\u003eOn they go.\n172. \n\\\u003eThree transmissions are looping patiently and consistently.\n173. \n\u0026nbsp;\n174. \n\\\u003e-.-.--.- / --.----- / -.-.-.-. / --.----- / -.--.... / -.--.-..\n175. \n\u0026nbsp;\n176. \n\\\u003e--..-.--/--..---./.-..----/--..---./--..-..-/--.--.../--..-.-./--..--.-/--.-...-/--..-..-/--.---.-/--.-----/-.--...-/--.-----/--...---/--..---./.-..----/--..--../--..--../--.--.../--..--.-/--..---./--.-...-/--..-..-/--.---.-/--.-----/-.-.-.../--.-...-/--.-----/--..---./--..--.-/--.-..../--..---./--..-.-./--.-----/-.------/--.-----/--..--.-/--..-.--/--..----/--..----/--.-...-/--.-----/-.----../--.-----/-.-.-.-./--.-...-\n177. \n\u0026nbsp;\n178. \n\\\u003e-.----../-..----./-...--.-/-..--.-./-..--..-/-...-.-./-..-..--/--.-...-/--.-----/-.--...-/-..-..../-...-.--/--.-----/-..-..--/-..----./-...-.--/-..--.-./--.-...-/--.-----/-.-.---./-...-.-./-..----./-..-...-/-...-.--/-...-.-./-..-..-./--.-----/-.---..-/-..----./-...-..-/-..-..../-...--.-/--.-...-/---.-.-/--.-..-./-.--.-../-.-.--.-/--.-----/-.---.../--..-.../-.-..---\n179. \n\u0026nbsp;\n180. \n\\\u003eYou finish writing them down, and in the space of a minute the radio goes dead.\n181. \n\\\u003eSchool or not, you're pretty sure it's time for some goddamn sleep.\n  \n  \n\n","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1367778-degeneracy-pressure-chapter-1.json"}