We Built a Gateway to Another Star

0:00Hello, I'm Wilkins' stories all the time. The Laddeware here. Let's get into it. We built a gateway to a star, 1470 light years from Earth. And I can't keep what we saw on the other side of Secret anymore. On December 2nd, 1987, the Soviet Deep Space Network received a transmission from outer space. It was first picked up by the GameCard team in a 70-radio telescope and soon confirmed by the other telescopes within the system. The signal, which repeated every day for about two weeks, came from KI's C-minus 846-2,852. Today, more famously known as Tabby Star. It's an F-type main-sequence star located in the constellation Signus Approximately 1470 light years from Earth. Unusual light fluctuations of the star, including up to 22% dummy and brightness, were discovered by citizen scientists as part of the Planet Hunter's project. These observations puzzled the scientific community, which is yet to explain what kind of natural phenomenon could cause such a massive dip in brightness in a star.

1:01My team, however, wasn't as surprised. Given the transmission and the nature of its content, we felt confident that the dimming of Tabby's star must have been the result of some kind of artificial mega-structure, such as a Dyson swarm. The transmission contained two datasets. The first was the mathematical blueprint of a larger rectangular structure resembling a doorframe. And the second was the date, communicated to us with the help of a number of illustrations of our solar system where the planets orbits around the Sun were used to indicate the passage of time. It only took us a week to figure out which date it was. November 18th, 2019. But we weren't able to figure out what would happen on that date. Although, as you can probably guess by now, we know. We spend decades trying to build the structure and almost lost our funding several times, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But slowly and surely, we kept trying and trying and trying. And then, around the same time Tabby star began appearing in the media, we finally finished it. It looks sublime. A giant gate we standing at the center of our Siberian facility in the middle of nowhere. It didn't have any visible features except a hole at the top.

2:02But it consisted of billions of intricate circuits, cooled down to around minus 237 degrees, and it was powered by a small nuclear reactor. Even though the entire facility was as cold as Antarctica, not just because of the deletion refrigerators, but also the harsh weather outside, I was still sweating when we were about to turn the power on for the first time. When we did, nothing happened. No matter what we try, we couldn't get it to do anything. For years, all we could do was to monitor it. It was disappointing, really. Especially after all, the hard work we had put into it. A lost hope was the mysterious date. And after it had come to pass, everything changed. On Monday, November 19th, 2019, at 2354, an object entered Earth's atmosphere above the Pacific Ocean. To the unspecting astronomers around the globe, it looked identical to a small meter. But we knew better. An aliter-class submarine was deployed with me on board together with the rest of the crew. The object came down on Disappointment Island, an uninhabited island in the Auckland Island's archipelago. It felt so real stepping ashore, not knowing what kind of alien artifact we would find

3:04it was during the eye of fading twilight when we arrived in the bird's warming the island, as if an apprehension arose to nearer sensation crawling up my spine. We found the object inside a crater. It was spherical about as large as a pole bowl, and its surface looked like the surface of the giant structure we had built in Siberia. Unlike our construction, however, the stark sphere was active. It took some time for us to understand that, though, since its activity was only audible. Quiet, I said to the soldiers that I'd set to show with me. Listen, none of us moved a muscle while we stood around the crater. There was an echo of slow-dragging footsteps coming from the sphere. It didn't sound like a recording, more as if we heard something actually happening in front of us. The footsteps stopped for a minute, and then continued until they faded off completely. After that, at least as far as we could hear beneath the agitated birds on the windy island, the sphere was silent. A brave soldier volunteered to touch the sphere, making sure it was safe. And after that, we moved it to the submarine. It wasn't as heavy as it looked, but as if it was hollow. During our entire voyage back to Russia, a sat next to the sphere, listening carefully.

4:06It was mostly silent, but now and then I could hear the echo something that reminded me of metal scraping against metal. Although I couldn't explain what it was that I hurried, or by which means I could hear the still-felt ominous and foreboding. Back at the freezing facility, we soon discovered that the sphere would fit perfectly within the hole at the top of the structure. A nest that is what we had been missing all these years the last piece to our puzzle it has traveled through space for more than a thousand years, my colleague and dear friend, Dimitri told us although we already knew it, Alexander, he said and looked up to me from his wheelchair. He really heard footsteps. I nodded. Amazing. Sanya, our chief engineer, said. Alien footsteps from a thousand-year. I clear my throat, interrupting her. I am not so sure that these sounds were recordings. I said and looked at my colleagues on certain ice. There have been no repetition so far. I continued. Every sound we've heard has been unique, and there have been several hours of recordings. What are you trying to say? Dimitri asked anticipating an answer beyond his wildest imagination. I was suggesting it's just a thought, hypothesis at best, but I think we have to consider that the sound has something to do with the obvious function of this of this black

5:08or of the structure. It is clearly meant to be a doorway in this spherical component as you all probably think as well. It's most likely what will open the doorway, what will connect our world to the world. You mean this thing is already connected to Sanya began without finishing a bit of my frozen lip nervously, collecting my thoughts if I would have to guess? I would say it's entangled with an identical object on the other side on a quantum level. Somehow allowing us to hear what is happening a thousand light years away in real time, and although it's beyond our knowledge, I do believe that it is through this entanglement that a sphere will allow us to go there, perhaps in an instant, if we were to place it inside the hole on the top of this structure. We felt the pressure of fate, perhaps the fate of mankind. When I was old as if this is true, Dimitri whispered, it means that it goes both ways. Oh my gosh, Sanya said, with a trembling voice, can hear us. We proceeded to set up a soundproof chamber in which we put the sphere together with microphones so that we could observe its activity without it being able to observe us while we started it, trying to find as many clues as possible about what to expect in the other side. We began talking about what to do next, at this point, the higher ups and the Russian space forces, and even in the government, had suddenly become extremely interested in our little, underfunded team of engineers and researchers, they sent an analyst, diplomats,

6:09and generals. They all wanted this, and in the matter of how to proceed, I will not dwell on the politics of it all, but have quickly begun a mess, and its first victim was in surprisingly the scientific method my team wanted to study the sphere from maybe two years before putting it inside the structure, not only to learn as much as possible, but also to be safe but the generals, only caring about their careers, didn't want us to sit on this longer than a few months, and in the end. Even though we had still only heard strange metallics graving from the sphere, they decided on a very simplistic plant near me to put the sphere in place. And then, if it looked safe, sent a team through what was assumed to be a gateway to another world, they didn't listen to outwarnings about rushing things, but they did at least take the potential for it seriously enough to prepare for it, in the way we asked for us since we knew next to nothing about the beings who sent us the sphere, except that they were thousands of times more advanced than us. We had no choice but to prepare for the worst, with the strongest defense known to man, a thermonuclear missile, seen the missile being rolled into the facility prior to opening the gate where it was a menacing site to be held, as something hostile were to enter from the other side. The bomb would be detonated and the blitter it everything in the area, in the middle of June this year. A crane lifted the sphere up to the top of the structure, I stood next to Dmitry in

7:10the rest of my team down at the floor, alarmingly close to the arm missile, I looked at the end souls as next to it who had been given the assignment to trigger it in the worst case scenario, I asked myself, were they really prepared for death at the tender age, and then I thought, if so, how brave, if not, how full it. The structure was surrounded by military guards, with dogs while the generals stood on an impromptu observation deck a few hundred meters away, the probe we intended to send in was a rover sent to us from Roscosmos, a female voice spoke through the public address system and echoed through the cold facility, there might have been a way for us to avoid noise around the sphere, but since we had been ordered to go through it with the mission so quickly, we hadn't had the time this meant that everything set on our side especially the instructions being delivered through the speakers could be harder now the side it was reckless to say the least as we suspected the sphere fit perfectly in the hole at the top of the structure we didn't know what to expect, but we all expected something as silence fell upon all of us, I didn't even doubt a breath, but nothing happened for a moment. We thought there was something wrong, but then the dogs began barking like wild animals, it made the hair all my next stand on its end because it meant as something had it happened we just couldn't sense it, one of the dogs got free, somehow, and ran off to the gave it, the soldier in charge of it ran after, yelling for it to stay put, but it wouldn't

8:11listen and then when it ran through the gateway it vanished, a collective gas could be heard throughout the facility, and then a concerning mama, the gateway was, without a doubt, Oben did the dog just travel over a thousand light-years to Miffyacht, no one said anything for a couple of minutes, fruitlessly trying to hear the dog through the sphere, and then one of the generals spoke with authority from the speakers in the sealant sent in a probe that the rover vanished just like the dog, we all looked at the screens in the wall, which were connected to the rover for a cable that now seemed to hang in the air by itself in suspenseful dissipation, nothing, there was a crash coming from the sphere, and then everything went silent again, I got out of anxiety, we debated what might have happened, but of course there was no way for us to know, it was suggested that the rover might have fallen over by accident, and for no other reason than convenience that was taken as a fact. Next, we put a camera on a metal bar and inserted it into the portal, and after having been retrieved for ten minutes later, we finally got to see our glimpse of what it was like on the other side, the recording was heavily distorted and didn't reveal much, just as if the camera had been subjected to some kind of radiation, although none was detected, but it was clear that there was a large, open space on the other side, the ground was too flat to be natural, and there were shadows in the distance indicating structures, nothing

9:11of what we saw offered any explanation as to what had happened to the rover and the dog, there were nowhere to be seen there to argue for imagery to be on the team that was eventually decided to be sent through the gateways since he was in a wheelchair. The general and Charles thought he would be a liability to the rest of the team, but I convinced him that his expertise in exobiology was absolutely necessary, of course, that wasn't entirely true. After the accident with soya's TM5 spacecraft that put in the wheelchair, he had spent almost all of his life working on our top-secret project, I would be damned if he, my best friend, wasn't allowed to see the fruits of his own labour, unless I proudly helped him inside the spacesuit now. We'll get to be the cosmonaut you were always meant to be, I said with a smile on my otherwise with a bead in face, we'll make history again just like we used to back in the day for the model and he said and laughed himself into coffin fit, I think we need a drink after this, I said we will have deserved to decide, for myself and my small team of scientists, a group of highly trained commander Frobman were assigned to assist us the presence didn't make me feel any safer, whatever waited for us on the other side, if they greeted us with hostility, we wouldn't stand a chance, we were nothing more than pesky ants walking in through the front door of a house beyond our comprehension standing in front of the large gateways all suited up enhanced, the sensation considerably while saluting the generals in the observation deck, a female choir sang the national anthem, all the splendor.

10:14I whispered to Dimitri and patted his shoulder, but only to cover up how infinitely small we are beneath the ancient secrets we're about to uncover, the commando next to me had struggled in his space who to make the sign of the cross, I nodded at him and smiled and in attempt to inspire some confidence he didn't need to know that his gun would be useless, all I could hear in my helmet was my own rapid breathing, telling me how scared I really was, and the radio chatter pursued forward. It was the general, he cleared his throat and then continued with a soft voice, Mick Russia and the whole of Mankind Proud, I took a deep breath, Dimitri grabbed the wheels of his chair and pushed his way toward the gateway, I hesitated for a second and looked at the people behind me, the fact that they would be over a thousand light years away from me in a few minutes was almost impossible to wrap my mind around, Alexander, Sonya said, this time. I helped her carry a metal crate with equipment that made me feel somewhat safer, some out to walk next to her, even though the space you protected against the cold, I could still feel the extreme temperature coming from the frozen gateways, the gold visor attached to my helmet fogged from icy breath, we all stopped right in front of the invisible threshold, that minute felt like I was, all I could see behind the gateway was the wall at the other end of the facility, there were no visual cues at all, not even the slightest vibration in the air, it made what was about to happen even harder to believe,

11:18no one said anything, the commandos made sure the guns were ready to fire, I looked at Sonya, but I couldn't see her face behind the visor, well then, Dimitri finally said, God's be comrades, that became the unofficial go, and we stepped over the threshold, the transition was seamless, the crack in the radio was the only indication that something had happened, cutting off our contact with Earth, for some reason the radio signals couldn't penetrate the gateway, a wondrous sight greeted us, the star, filtered through a partly cracked, orange tinted dome that covered the entire sky, shunned down on a darkened silent set-skate filled, with skyscrapers taller than anything ever build on Earth, there were all black silhouettes against the rising sun outside of the dome, tons of toasted metal and enormous chunks of broken structures floated through space, two things became immediately clear to us after seeing this, we were standing on a space platform, large enough to allow for its own gravity, indeed a part of an attempted dusk in swallon, and that at some point between when the message was sent to Earth and now, their entire civilization was either abandoned or destroyed, another enormous platform came into view, solemnly rising at the horizon like a black flower and casting its giant hexagonal shadow on top of us, it was ripped apart in the middle by unimaginable ancient forces, leading through a sunbeam that illuminated the landscape in front of us, large depth climbed down from

12:21the gateway, and a rover we had sent through lay crashed against the ground beneath them, the gateway stood at the edge of a large oval square that was surrounded by identical gaveways, indicating that the people who built the civilization had sent out many messages to the stars and patiently awaited Francis, the dog came running toward us from the middle of the square, proving that the platform was pressurised and filled with oxygen, off our helmets, was out of the question, though since we didn't know what other gases were possibly even pathogens might have lingered in the atmosphere we descended the stairs Sonya and I happened to Mitri and investigated the rover, it had clearly fallen down the stairs justice we suspected, but there was also a set of small holes in its side that we couldn't explain the dog wiped its tail when it reached us, one of the commandos been done and patted it on its head, he looked at her tack, good girl, he said and laughed at her name's allown at a true hero. I have a bad feeling about this place, to Mitri said, I mean, what happened here? All these gateways, Sonya said, just waiting to be connected to some far away world. Look, I said and pointed at one of the gateways at the other end of the square, that one over there was broken, almost as if it was blown up. Although my gut feeling, an uneasy inkling of apprehension, told me to stay away from this forsaken place and return to earth, my scientific curiosity kept me going, the gateway

13:23was indeed in ruins, and by the looks of it, it was the result of an explosion, I looked back at our own gateway, anonymous among the rest of them. If anything was to happen to it, I thought, we would be stranded further away from home than anyone in the history of Mankind, Alexander, I heard Dimitri's voice in my helmet, he was a few hundred meters away from me, look at these. There were enormous, seemingly fossilized bones scattered across the ground, Sonya helped us collect some of the smaller pieces while the commandos patrolled the area, hundreds of small holes covered the brittle fossils, just as if they had been eaten by worms at some point. This looks like a part of a skull, I said, and pointed to pieces largest boulder, how fascinating, how astonishingly fascinating, its size might explain why the gateways are so large, Dimitri said, they might have used their own size as a point of reference, I have a theory, Sonya said, all these gateways, they must have built them to reach out to potentially civil as worlds, but this gateway, this particular gateway, you don't think it just collapsed over time from natural causes, I asked, maybe they invited something unfriendly, she said, something more powerful than the beings who built all of this. Dimitri asked, I took a deep and steady breath, if so, I said, the question is, what happened

14:25to the ones who destroyed them? Dimitri continued, sending shivers down my spine, I think maybe we should return, and Dimitri was interrupted by the commandos, who yelled at us to get behind them again, as if they didn't know that in this place we were nothing more than primitive trouble at, from one of the broad, desolate streets leading to the square, a figure's toll as a building appeared, it limped toward us, slowly stepping into the light, just by seeing how slow it moved. I understood that it was the source of the footsteps I had had coming from the sphere on Disapointment Island, to this guinea, grey body filled with bleeding holes, its huge head resembled a fossil we had found in the ground, with ten or more small eyes covering the entire face, no mouth or nose. Some blinking eyes that moved its long arms in such a way that it looked like it wanted to show us away, but it was impossible to say if there was any aggressiveness behind it. Mother of God, Dimitri said, this isn't right. Please Alexander take me back. The dog barked furiously and the commandos prepared to fire out of pure panic, I grabbed Dimitri's wheelchair and instructed everyone to return to our gateway, but just before we were about to move, the alien being collapsed and fell forward, it kicked up a cloud of dust as it hit the ground, for a few minutes we stood in silence and watched it seemingly dead body, my heart was racing, and I could feel my pulse in my temples, and echo something

15:28large falling to the ground in a distance reached us, the uneasy feeling from before turned into dread. Mixed with the uncanny sensation of being watched, a sudden touch spread through the dead body, and then to ask creams of terror, creatures began escaping through the holes in its skin, and even through its many eye-circuits, it's hard to describe the apparent sight that played out in front of us, these creatures were assembled over sized blocks and defeats. One of them, the largest one, forced itself out through the mouth of the body, and it was at the repulsive moment the commandos opened fire. The space suit made it more or less impossible to run and it felt like running in a nightmare where you never picked up speed no matter how hard you tried. The apropodic beasts swarmed toward us, one of the smaller ones called inside the suit of one of the commandos, I could see it enter his mouth and then eat its way out one of his eyes, a bigger one crushed the visor of another commando and ripped his head off with his spine still attached to it, I didn't run to save my life, not even to save the life of my friend, because I knew that but only nuclear eradication awaited us on the other side, I ran to save mankind from the same fate that had bestowed the inhabitants around KIC 8,462,852, and to save myself and my friend from the jaws of the beast, Stephen larger creatures, as big as trains appeared from their hiding spots inside the dock city,

16:30the dog ran in front of all of us and was the first to reach the gateway, Dimitri's wheelchair fell over just as I was about to drag it up the stairs, some of the creatures run past us, obviously more interested in getting through the gateway than killing us, I bent down and reached for Dimitri's hand, at the moment Sonya ran up to me and helped put Dimitri back in his wheelchair, more and more creatures entered the gateway, and there was no indication that the warhead had been set off, why haven't they detonated a nuke? I yelled, since there was no way to open the visor and no time to take the helmet off, I crushed my visor against the ground and yelled toward the spherous ladders I could, blow it up, you fucking cowards. Blow it up! Sonya helped me drag Dimitri's wheelchair up the stairs, leave me here, to Dimitri beg, and just shut up, I said, I'm not leaving you with these abominations, two commanders run past us, one got through the gateway, but just moments later his headless body was thrown back through it again, and then Sonya screamed and let go of the wheelchair, I almost dropped it, she put her hands on her helmet and a desperate attempt to take it off, but there wasn't any time the creature ate its way and threw her eye and continued to a brain, making her vomit and controllably until she fell down the stairs, it was an absolute miracle that I got through the gateway together with Dimitri, the chaos that met us, I can't even describe it, the women in the choir

17:33were being ripped apart, the guards were shooting at each other while naively trying to hit the creatures the soldiers operating the missile were nowhere to be seen, most likely because they left the pierced as soon as the first centipede appeared through the gateway, except for one or two that were lying dead on the ground, the generals were nowhere to be seen, but helicopters were taking off at aid, so it wasn't difficult to figure out where they were, the glass from my visor kept cutting my chest behind the suit as I zig-zagged through the maim, pulling Dimitri in front of me, I could still hear him through the radio on my helmet, leave me next to the missile, he said, what are you talking about? I asked, although I already knew, there is no reason for both of us to stay here, there's no way any of us get out of here if we succeed, I said that's the entire point try, Dimitri said, you can walk, I can't, I start next to the missile, not knowing what to say, I'll give you some time, unless they get too close to me, Dimitri said, no time for a sentimental goodbye, my friend just run, and I did, with tears of shame obstructing my vision, I did, I managed to get inside one of the helicopters that were just about to tick off outside, a wife to one of the generals was sitting in it with her little boy who must have been brought to the facility against protocol, just to let him watch history be made, he looked shell-shocked, but he was cat-combed by

18:35the dog laying on the floor beneath his legs, he saved her, I said, and tried to smile while the helicopter took off your hero, young man, a true hero, the facility shrunk beneath us as we rose to the sky, and the feather away we got, the more worried I became that one of the creatures had gotten to Dimitri, but then, maybe one and a half kilometers away, the blinding light from the nuclear explosion overwhelmed us, I don't remember much after that, the shark we've must have hit us pretty hard, I woke up in the rural locality oimeakin, told me that they had found the wrecked helicopter in one of the valleys beside the town, the boy and the dog had survived, but the mother and the pilot hadn't, the villagers had seen a mushroom cloud, but other than them no one would have been able to see the explosion given its remote location, however the increased radiation levels were detected over Scandinavia sometime later, naturally the government kept quiet about the reason and, perhaps naively, I truly thought that everything would go back to normal and that we had successfully avoided the extinction of all life on earth, but last week I learned that Aliona had collapsed outside, apparently one of her eyes were missing, and that is the end, thank you for

19:38listening and I will see you in the next one.