The Discovery

 The warm July sun peeked through an open shutter and illuminated a cluttered, but homely room on the second floor of a peculiarly shaped building. In the middle of the room, a youth no older than twenty with messy blonde hair toiled over the control panel of a large telescope. This feat of human engineering towered above all other furniture in the hemispherical dome, casting a formidable shadow over much of the tiny observatory’s floor. A little to the side, perched atop a battered leather couch, a second youth lay stretched out as far as his body allowed, keeping his head in the shadows to escape the sunlight’s glare. He was a tall young man with short brown hair, visibly more athletic than his astronomer friend, with a serene, thoughtful expression on his face. His full attention was directed to a laptop computer on a nearby coffee table, but the screen was off, leaving its owner’s thoughts a complete mystery to anyone but himself.

As the athlete gazed lazily into his aging but still capable device, the astronomer finished fidgeting with his telescope’s many levers and buttons and hit the ON button of the control panel with a satisfying click. In the telescope’s shadow, a desktop computer reminded the two friends of its existence with a roar of its assorted fans. The monitor flickered to life, and a large red bar with the word DOWNLOADING… began quickly filling with green.

The astronomer breathed out a sigh of frustration, but also of relief. His friend briefly looked up and smiled:

“I told you it was just a faulty wire.”

“Real funny, Andy. This thing’s at least seventy percent wires!” The athlete only smiled in reply, and lowered his head to resume his meditation.

With an exaggerated, much more audible sigh, the astronomer carefully made his way over to the desktop, dodging debris that lay sprawled on the faded hardwood floor. Though his claim about the wires was lighthearted, it was not far from the truth - as he approached his destination the network of wires grew denser. They stretched from the telescope, from the very singular camera rig attached to it, from a digital weather meter hanging out of the open rectangular shutter, from a hefty satellite dish overhead, and from every cardinal direction, as if that sleek red-black box chiselled for optimal cooling was the heart of the whole room.

Gracefully, the young man cleared the last stack of boxes and stood before his target apprehensively. Gradually, the stubborn red bar depleted, and, after what seemed like an eternity, fully filled. The computer, having been programmed, coaxed, and beaten into perfect optimization, immediately opened the high-definition picture of the night sky it had just downloaded.

At this moment, the astronomer’s entire body jumped into action. His face threatened to pierce the expensive monitor and burst through into the piece of sky within it. His hands clattered away on the keyboard, filling the room with sound.

Even his leg was not idle, searching the surroundings for a stool to pull closer - in his restless waiting he had forgotten to sit down.

Through this passionate display of concentration, contrasted with his careful crossing of the labyrinth of bags, boxes, and wires earlier, it was evident that he was by no means inferior to his friend. Though his build was closer to average, he was not out of shape, nor much shorter, indicating a deliberate reallocation of time and effort rather than some physical limitation. From his speech pattern - unhindered but clearly unaccustomed to its task - to the racing, slightly near-sighted gaze of his deep blue eyes, to the way in which his fingers danced on the keyboard without disturbing the many papers around it, it was evident that he preferred the company of machines and papers to that of his fellow humans. In fact, if the massive computer was this observatory’s heart, he was its brain - efficient, graceful, and brilliant.

Without even consulting the star charts and photographs which littered the coffee-stained desk, he navigated to a seemingly unremarkable sector of the sky, accelerating his machine with commands all the way. Once satisfied with the window size, he identified familiar stars with light taps of his finger on the screen, eventually stopping on a region of empty space. Increasingly more agitated, he rummaged on the desk for a picture, found its general location in the sea of beige, and fished it out after a brief struggle. On it was the same sector, but where the computer showed an eternal night the photograph - printed in negative to save ink - had a faint dot circled in bright yellow marker. Puzzled, the young man continued his search, replacing the paper carefully in the pile from which it came.

After a while, perhaps realizing that his fingerprints would eventually have to be wiped off the monitor, the scientist paused his search for a moment, hesitating. Then, his eyes widened and his hand snapped right back to the screen, in spite of the chore that cleaning it would be.

“There you are!”

The object of his interest, that same unremarkable dot, had reappeared between two very dim stars. Though this roving dot was very faint, it obstructed much of their warm glow. In fact, that was how they had found it in the first place - a variation in Alphecca’s magnitude discovered accidentally while monitoring a comet. It should have remained a footnote in their disorganized archives, but curiosity got the better of them.

“Andy, I found it again! We should have enough replicates for a proper analysis now, right?” exclaimed the astronomer.

“Only the numbers will tell, Clementine. If you’ve sent me on a wild goose chase, who knows how many more dinners you’ll owe me!” came a teasing reply.

Clement did not like that nickname - it brought back too many unpleasant memories from their elementary school days. But, just this once, he told himself, he’d let Andy annoy him to his heart’s content. After all, the presence of their school’s top programmer would make analyzing and simulating the data much easier.

“You sure like to talk, but did you even look at that simulation program I told you to install a week ago?”

“Of course. Spent half of last evening fixing compatibility issues and drivers.” the athlete grumbled.

“Always the damn drivers, isn’t it? Anyways, I’m sending the numbers over. Positions, phase shifts, luminosities - this is gonna be the most accurate simulation in the history of simulations!”

“What’s with the virtual data delivery method? Can’t walk over and give me it? Can’t even put it on a USB and throw it?” For all the staring at his computer, Andrew did not sound too excited to actually use it.

“Weeeell, I’d love to, but, you see…” Clement’s face lit up as if he had found a second celestial object, “Ever since that rugby game in March I’ve lost all faith in your ability to catch things!”

A low blow? Sure. But the school’s team won that game anyways, and plus, time had already mended that injury, morphing it into something of an inside joke. Most importantly, they were now even.

“Oh, you…” The laptop lit up and chirped as the data was received, and Andrew got to work importing it into the simulation program. As he tapped away, Clement assessed the tasks in front of him.

They were gathered in the school’s observatory in the middle of summer because a comet they had been tracking for months was to pass very close to the Earth. All astronomy club members were invited to watch the event through their mighty telescope, along with some “special guests” as the former club president had called them. The main task was to prepare the cluttered old building to accommodate twice as many visitors as it was used to, and set up the telescope to observe the closest and brightest point the comet would pass through.

Normally, Clement would do this alone - he was incredibly apt at manning the telescope, and had even gotten decent at dusting off a few shelves and making sure the piles of papers, boxes, and electronics did not spontaneously generate rats. However, this time the president made it abundantly clear that the place had to shine. It was specifically for this Herculean task that the unsuspecting Andy was brought in. 

With another sigh Clement began organizing boxes. He had to start with the papers from the club’s archive, because if his friend got involved neither of them would know where anything was and the poor souls that were inheriting this place in September would have to spend a month re-organising it. Having gone through this himself four years ago, he wouldn’t wish it on anyone, especially given that Andrew’s brother Mike was entering ninth grade next year. So, the papers had to be rounded up and sorted in double time.

For a while, the chattering of keys, the low hum of computer fans and the rustling of paper all blended together as the two young men worked on their respective tasks. Then, Clement heard a sharp exhale of amusement from the direction of the couch.

“Having fun over there?”

“Nah, you’re gonna want to see this!” said Andrew, holding back laughter.

“What is it this time?”

“Well, you see, this worthless clod of code is telling me that not only is this a real object, but…” he paused to get the rising tone of his voice under control “This thing is heading straight for us! Estimated arrival time is in a year!” He burst out laughing, unable to control himself any longer.