First Contact

David Lee, age 67, was working the midnight shift at SETI's Allen Telescope Array. It was the perfect arrangment for him. Not only did he have some quiet time to read his new issue of the AARP magazine, but he also got to fulfill his lifelong quest to prove the existence of extra-terrestrial life. Most shifts, however, ended with a radio telescope transcript full of random noise.

This one would be different.

At 1:34 A.M., the klaxon of the Intelligent Signal Analysis Node rang, summoning Lee to its terminal. The computer had picked up a pattern of digits corresponding to the Fibonacci sequence and was currently running the subsequent signal through an adaptive language cipher.

Processing...

Processing...

Processing...

...were the words that flashed at him as he felt his heart rate climb steadily.

Then the screen went blank.

Suddenly, a message began to appear on the screen, typed one letter at a time (just like in the movies).

Greetings intelligent Earth culture. We are a civilization from a planet in the constellation you call Ursa Major. We only have one question for you. Do you currently have active cryogenic units?

Lee was a excited, but a little perplexed at the last sentence. He pulled out the terminal's keyboard and typed a tentative

Hello from Earth. Yes, we do have running refridgerators.

After a brief pause, the response came.

Well then, you had better pursue them! ha...ha...ha...

Lee was outraged, and smashed the big, red "End Transmission" button with his fist.

Damn aliens and their damn rap music...