Guardian Of The Gate: The Ratio

Eldon needed the tape examined by an expert. After a short phone call, he had an appointment to meet with Wanda Evers, a sound technician who worked for a Lehigh Valley filmmaker. She kept a small studio in her Franklin Township home where she taped and edited her podcasts. Eldon arrived with three reels of magnetic tape in his backpack – the recording of the abnormality, an older recording of the Crab Pulsar, and a “blank sky” recording. After several minutes of coffee and conversation, the two old friends adjourned to Wanda’s studio.

Wanda loaded all three sound profiles into her computer. “This will be a first. I’m usually asked to remove noise from a recording, which is what the first pass will accomplish. But this will be the first time that I will be removing a significant signal from a recording to look at some noise.” After a few passes, the software was able to remove the noise of the pulsar and the background radiation from the recent recording. The remaining signal was almost musical. But the question of whether it was deliberate remained. Wanda emailed the resulting digital file to Eldon.

Eldon opened the email on his laptop and listened to the rhythmic clicking emanating from its speakers. “It looks like what I thought were glitches were actually instances of signal interference between the pulsar and whatever this is.”

“Based on my quick calculations, the signal-to-noise ratio is one point one between the pulsar and the new signal. If you figure out what it is, could you let me in on it?”

“It could be nothing, maybe a satellite flyby or the ISS. I’ll have to check out what was up where first, but I promise not to leave you hanging. Now, about this documentary you were working on.”

Guardian Of The Gate: The Emission

“The best part about being a radio-astronomer is being able to work from nine to five. The large dish on the top of this building listens to sounds from space twenty-four hours seven days a week.” Professor James Pike, the facility’s chief astronomer, led the small group of high school seniors into the control center for the Red Rock Large Array. “Although the large array is currently committed to monitoring a spatial anomaly, we can focus the legacy dish toward a local phenomenon and let you listen in on its activity.”

Eldon Speck tried not to yawn, but he was bored. He never got any work done when the high school tour groups came through. The man conducting the tour sat down at Eldon’s console. “The radio-telescope monitors a wide range of frequencies listening for signals. Usually the source is a pulsar. Sometimes we get reflected signals bounced back from nearby objects.” He flipped a switch and a speaker sprang to life with static. He turned a knob, slowly advancing the indicator needle along the scale. A sudden squeal followed by the sound of a metronome flooded the room. “That sound you hear is from a pulsar in the Crab Nebula.”

“What’s that other noise?” Eldon asked on cue after a reasonable pause.

“Background static.” The astronomer leaned forward and flipped a switch marked ‘Squelch’. Fortunately, we have a way of filtering that out. The majority of the background noise disappeared. The rhythmic “click...click...click” of the pulsar became clearer. Eldon could hear something else; something that neither his boss nor the visiting high school students heard. There was interference in the signal that wasn’t normal.

While Dr. Pike led the students into the main control center for the large array, Eldon made a recording of the repeating pattern. His research for his Master’s Thesis would have to wait while he pursued this little mystery. After a few days of attempting to decode the signal, he called on a friend.

Guardian of the Gate: The Three

Once upon a time, not so long ago, there were fairies and elves and a plethora of other magical creatures that roamed the earth. But over time they faded away into the ethereal Shadow Realm and became little more than legends and myths told to amuse children.

Every so often, the denizens of the Shadow Realm would cross into the realm of Man to see what had become of the world they left behind. And sometimes, they would leave behind one of their own to act as a Guardian of the Gate between the two realms. Often the one chosen to remain behind was one of the elders nearing the end of their life, but every once in a while, it would be a fairy child raised as a mortal child. Of course, the child would have no knowledge of their true nature until their powers began to slowly emerge. This necessitated regular visitation by the current Guardian to the child to keep them from exposing their true selves to their human parents or other humans lest they come to harm. Per an ancient accord, there are normally three Guardians assigned to the mortal side – a fairy, an elf, and a dragon.

Beyond the Shadow Realm, there are other realities. Some of them are worlds full of malicious beings, constantly at war with each other. And on occasion their wars spill over. In centuries past, the Guardians have kept them at bay. But not every threat comes through the Veils. And therein lies the tale.

The Field Test

The sudden quake was unexpected. It had caused the premature collapse of an old hotel that crews had prepared for demolition. The crews had made the critical cuts to the buildings support beams but would not place the explosive charges until the demolition date. It was an incomplete collapse fortunately for the child trapped inside. No one had bothered to inform the squatters to stay out of the condemned building. Despite the chain link fence surrounding the old hotel, they had taken refuge from the cold night air inside the building. They were on their way out when the quake hit, but the boy had run back inside to retrieve something he had forgotten.

Homeland Protection had assigned Agent David Bruce to train a new product from AndroGen Corporation. They had developed a Search and Rescue Mechanism whose purpose was to go places too dangerous for humans. The collapsed building qualified. Agent Bruce sat across from the AI in the van as it pulled up to the site. AndroGen delivered the unit while he was away on vacation. As a joke, his fellow agents had commissioned it with his face and had sat it at his desk.

He gave it the name Elijah as a tribute to another detective with a robotic partner from one of his favorite novels. Elijah was in need of training to deal with humans. Agent Bruce wasn’t sure that he was the right person for the job. He had only been working with Elijah for a month. This was the first time he had the unit out in the field.

The local police were uncertain which of them to address when they saw Elijah and Agent Bruce emerge from the van. It wasn’t until Agent Bruce inserted the commlink into his ear that someone extended an introduction. “Hi. You must be Agent David Bruce. I’m Sergeant Hawkins, Fire and Rescue. We’ve been informed that a child may be trapped inside.”

“What do your scanners say?”

“There’s a definite heat source, but we can’t be certain.” He glanced at Elijah. “Is that the SaRM we’ve heard so much about?”

“I have no idea. Who’s been talking to you about SaRMs?”

“AndroGen has been trying to get us to buy one. They said Homeland already had one for dealing with dangerous situations. We’ll see how yours does.”

“He’ll get the job done, but he won’t like it.” He also wouldn’t hate it. In fact, Elijah would have no opinion whatsoever about the task.

Agent Bruce sent Elijah in, monitoring his progress as he snaked his way through the rubble toward the heat signature. Inside a large pyramidal space, Elijah located an eight-year-old boy. Several of the passages that Elijah had taken to find the young boy had collapsed behind him. Agent Bruce searched the building plans and located a passage that would take them to the building next door.

Elijah entered the building next door and took the stairs down to the basement. He found the passageway door and waited until Elijah was close to the outer wall of the collapsed structure before opening the door on the other side. He waved at Elijah and the boy. “Hurry up, come through. Don’t ask, just do it.” Both the boy and the android ran through into the basement hallway just seconds before an aftershock hit. Agent Bruce slammed the door shut and then escorted the two upstairs and out of the nearby structure.

The youngster tugged gently on Agent Bruce’s jacket. “Mister, how did know that door was there?”

Agent Bruce smiled at the boy and winked. “Magic,” he replied.