This community decryption puzzle was the main programming people had these days for enjoyment, coming out of the invasive transmission signal windows hanging in the air throughout densely populated federet and planetary capital neighborhoods. People could ignore it, and some tried; it did have the urgency of a matter of survival, and it was also just incredibly intriguing. Navann lifted out a folded sheaf of five papers, each with a new reconstruction. She and young Isten had been playing an evolving game of cut-and-paste with the frame scrap, what they called the stuff around the sides. They tried different things with different images out of curiosity, boredom, frustration or the desire for humor.

There was lots of discussion about what the central images themselves depicted. Navann had taken her own notes, formed from what she saw when gazing out at it, and what others said it looked like. In the pictures were figures that belonged to the Strangers, and some that were obviously Human in proportion. Grainy and mostly in silhouette, it was still possible to discern an event, like in an illustration panel. On the list, there was:

Humans breaking into a room or ship of Strangers
a fight between the two
Strangers captured
Strangers held in bondage
shared pain between free and captive Strangers
Humans scavenging Stranger technology
more Human attacks
a peaceful meeting between Strangers and Humans
a handshake between the two peoples
death of many Human allies
more attacks from Humans

People constructed what they thought was the correct timeline for this sequence, which was transmitted with some slight inconsistency, the way events are recounted by different witnesses. Isten was the only one she knew remixing the frame scrap, a hobby reserved for people who had the energy for extreme levels of observation. Frame scrap referred to the staticky borders around the floating images, which had a seemingly logical way of translating onto 2D stills. Isten was cutting those apart and rearranging them to align some seemingly interlocking parts. Sometimes the static could even form pictures that recursively matched some of the images. This was a set of those static-form image replicas.

A familiar quiet knock came from the edge of the front door. Even though lockdown monitoring didn’t affect the inside of their apartment building, people still had this feeling like seeing each other might get them in trouble, the atmosphere of control was so heavy. Then there were those who did break rules in order to take care of their own, and it was halfway accepted. All knocks had become quiet, so that the quieter ones weren’t so suspicious, and the louder ones were noticed. No one was sure when the tension would break, or how.

Navann opened the door and let Leyga in. She was carrying the usual grocery bag, customarily weighted with a container of food from the most recent meal she’d cooked for her and her son. They hugged. “Hey, I brought this for you. Braised dartleaf and mixed grains.”

Navann accepted the grocery bag warmly. “That’ll go perfectly with what I have in my kitchen.” She set it down in there and came out with a bundle. “Also here, I have the previous tub and bag that you gave me. Clean.”

“Great, that’s thoughtful of you.” The mother tucked those under her arm. “Oh, and Isten passed me some of his new puzzles to give you. They’re in the bag.” Navann looked toward the kitchen. “I love how you two share this cryptic game. It’s actually kind of popular, right? Other people seem to know what it is, I’ve seen them looking at this stuff. I don’t really have time for it, but I can sense a craze.”

“I would imagine that lots of people find interest in this. There’s not much else that’s new and hot right now, and this works from-one-hand-to-the-next. So that suits our current… system. But I don’t really know any others, myself. I’m just glad to have something interesting to do, and an intelligent young person like Isten to enjoy that with. He seems to know more about the social aspect than I do.”

“Well, it’s no trouble for me.” Leyga looked a little drawn and slightly sunless, but strong and decidedly optimistic. “Are you running low on anything? You know it’s easy for me to get things. Running a grocery store through the back end is a bizarrely difficult twist, and they don’t exactly pay me more – but I don’t actually have to wait my turn to purchase.”

“I was thinking of that, but I’m fine for now, Leyga dear.” Navann patted the younger woman on her arm. “I’m truly thankful for your neighborliness.” She was also excited to see what the lad had sent her.

“Okay well, I’ll be around and you know I’m right over there.”

“Of course, have yourself a good night, and rest well.” Navann closed the door softly behind Leyga. She looked around her apartment for a moment before going straight to the grocery bag.

It had been a while now since Navann Ynam had finished her stint volunteering at the hospital as a retired nurse while the Affliction raged. It had wrenched her heart to use a device to determine who might get less lifesaving care, and then everyone survived. It was the most amazing thing when the reverse agent rolled out just in time, though many patients seemed to be recovering somewhat even before they had gotten any of the formulation. That hadn’t happened on Hirylien, some said. Navann remembered some of the faces in the back of her mind; sometimes, she was sure she saw them in the streets afterward, which put a tear in her eye. The signal takeover happened later, and she lived in an affected neighborhood. She remained in her single apartment on her own, not a whole lot different from her semi-retired life, while certainly more interesting.

every system is poised in arrested interlocking patterns
these many, focused, brilliant minds arrayed in strata
– medium within medium – facing an equal complexity –

this became my refuge, and then, my seeming multilayered purpose
these are not my calculations, though I may have furthered them
these are not my machines, though I may have nurtured them
this is neither my challenge nor my victory, but this may change me

as a Dragon, I accept change – the changes of the universe are mine as well
while as the mote of sunlight in the deepest, darkest abyss,
more obscuringly dense than the vast vacuum,
I wonder what I am here to illuminate?

the respectfully somber yet audaciously brave flourishes to begin,
and something starts to happen that never happened before
in the same way that nothing has ever happened before,
yet in such a way as to make that clearer than at other moments

clarity of our attention magnifying as pulses move through electricity,
furthering attached responses, setting in motion their multivarious channels
my awareness extends far, but only so far, not all being within my realm
I feel thrills in the anticipation held within the unknown
as the processes make their leaps.
what we’re hearing has never been projected in such a fashion,
and I for one feel it corporeally, perhaps they must in their own structures
this is going to have to affect something
this doesn’t feel like something that does nothing

my visual perception of water is probably the finest
in present direct experience, and this is stunningly unique
if the aim was to produce beauty, then they have done it
I have heard them say that the truest means are often the most beautiful,
and if so then from what I see, they may be achieving their exact aim

they, with their own ways of perceiving, appear as thrilled as I
probably more so in the Human way, because this is their endeavor
while I, in my Dragon way, recognize this as a turning point
the kind which we, too, note and remember within ourselves

from somehow within the sounds reaching and contacting the water,
there appear bright colors and dimensions, distances all around us,
as though we are inside something that is someplace else
but this someplace is no place of ours! so totally like, and unquestionably other,
fully realized, no sketch but a complete other place
– this could be a sky – this could be a land – shocking to the core –
though there is a form of grounding reassurance in our solidly continued existence.
we are fine.
our wavelengths are meeting other wavelengths,
and the completed soundscape is an unbelievable glory,
the definition of transcendence,
something nobody even knew they were going to achieve –
it shows on every face

and it’s transitory, we reach the end of our transmission,
and we’re back to the place where we yet remain, the same place we began
things achieve neutral state as we power down
did we do it? is this what this was supposed to do?

there’s someone in here that wasn’t here before
a small floating being who matches the skyscape colors that just surrounded us
she is clapping, and beaming radiantly

“Sublime! That was sublime,” said Rosy Glow. “I was drawn. You’re going to need something. I’ll try and see what it is by the time you need it.”

Finishing their rounds through the Service Hallway, Onk and the Woollibees rejoined the operating cluster at the Peak to deliver the all-set status. Team leads, point persons, and emergency messengers were gathered there. Princess Soleil was among them, along with some of the other nonresident visitors.

When possible to inquire without distraction, she’d gleaned various expectations of the projects coming to a head in this obviously landmark experimental run. The Princess wanted to know what she and these other unlikely personages were all here to witness under threat. She had her reasoning, which led her here; so did Arkuda, so did Captain Harper, et. al. These different purposes led these different people here at this moment, which held them gripped.

The predominating sentiment was an educated anticipation of the unexpected. In every list of possibilities was a line of question marks, connected to the question marks in other parallel projects. This element, along with the aggression above water, lent a slight doomsday aura to the scientific team’s determination to see this through – come what may. The unexpected observer-participants, in getting here, had reached this point themselves in successfully navigating the extenuating circumstances. This was next, this was it. If this didn’t take them all out, any number of other things might.

Every direct eye view at the Peak of the Arch was open, the full set of multi-spectrum camera perspectives engaged, plus arrays of readings routed to their associated staff. There was a certainty that they were on the cusp of corroborating hypotheses they had built from their soundings. Something may exhibit contact with the altered physics of a dimension close enough for them to hear, now that they’d figured out how to listen. They may have gotten close enough in their methods for it to hear them. In learning how to do this, they had already gained knowledge of their own dimensions. It had given them gifts already, the bargaining chips that protected and endangered them now.