Ex Lacrima Remnant

#B-Side I – The first message

The comnet is as old as man. When Lagash turned one hundred, the gates of the network opened. Protocols, schemas, ways to communicate at a distance, more effective than phones, than any other system designed till that point by the waking humanity. That was the content of the first vault – blueprints that taught us how to build an interactive, connected network, one that could bring mankind together. Not even two years after that discovery, we had our first functioning system, the intercon. When it was finally switched on, the technicians sent a first message, relayed it via ground towers. It was a simple message, ‘hello world’, written in seven different Earth languages. However, what was received on the other side was different.

‘Stop’

It was the only word.

‘Stop’

A warning waiting to be received. But sent by whom? And how?

There are theories that this is connected with the mummy from the eighth vault and the urban legend of the ancient satellite. These are, however, just theories. No proof. No evidence.

Except that one word, recorded in our history books.

‘Stop’

Who or what sent that? How did that signal reach us?

Was it even real or just a prank, a ghost story to scare children in front of a bonfire?

‘Stop’

We never registered any more anomalous signals, any more unexpected communications, even after training our telescopes to the stars, scanning the deep cosmos. From that first day, the day the intercon was switched on, nine centuries have passed and, with time, reality and myth collapsed into one. What is real? What isn’t?

I fear we will never get an answer.

But, in my heart, I hope that single word means that we aren’t alone in the universe.

And that someone was waiting for us to wake up to the stars and receive their message.

Whatever that meant.

Rijkard-Isidor Kirchard

Preface to Lavinie Vandermeer’s ‘On the History of Comnet’, YR997