MARTIAN TRIANGLE: PART 3

"Bethany! It's been a while!" Aston answered the phone in his usually over the top-ness.

"Aston! It's been too long! How's Seoul?"

"It was great, I got back late last night, and right back in the office this morning, do I sound that tired?"

"Well, I would've just stopped into your office if I would've known you were back!"

"Is this about Alice's birthday party? Because you totally don't have to bring a gift, just being there is great." Alice and Bethany had been friends since the third grade, and Aston had figured out years ago, before he proposed to Alice, that having Bethany on his side would make it easier for him. They had a great, appropriate friendship, and he had even helped Bethany get an interview at Industrial Light and Magic when she was downsized form her previous company. Alice, his wife, and Bethany's bestie, was a middle school teacher, and loved to bring her students in to see ILM, having Bethany in PR & Marketing and Aston actually making Digital effects made for a great field trip every October.

"No, no... I'll make the party, but you may not," she replied.

"What are you talking about? Why wouldn't I make the party?"

"Truman just called me," she replied. "He wanted to talk to you."

"He wanted to talk to me?" He paused for a moment, "Isn't it almost always the other way around? Did he tell you what it was about?"

"He said there would be an NDA involved... he just sent it to me and I just forwarded it along to you... He wanted it signed before we got on a call."

"Um... okay. Just give me a sec and I'll get it done. When does he want to set up a meeting. Like soon?"

"ASAP."

"I mean, I could make time at lunch tomorrow if it's really urgent, but -"

Bethany cut him off, "He said now."

Aston was fun, and kind of a showman, but he was still the Director of Digital Effects, and wasn't used to someone telling him when a meeting was going to be. "Now, now?" he asked.

"He said now."

"Well, this better be good... Sony's gonna be up my ass, but how often does NASA call us, right?"

Aston had just finished downloading the video files from their secure file transfer when the secure phone line beeped. It was usually used for discussion with producers and directors about films. People loved to get the scoop on what was coming up next, and leak plot points and anything else they could get their hands on as a film came up to its release date. Truman had agreed to use this line instead of a secure NASA line, because he felt that if any of it did leak, he would have an alibi by talking on this line to Aston at ILM.

The general niceties finished up, Truman cut to the point. "Here's what we're looking at, you'll see in the video that there's some footage that we're looking to investigate, and figure out how it was made. I understand that we're usually the ones trying to help you make things look more real, but in this case, we need some help finding out how they're faking it."

"So this is a video from Mars?" asked Aston.

"It's directly from the feed early this morning."

"It looks like there's a huge navy ship or something in the distance."

"Exactly," replied Truman. "Can you figure out how someone would super-impose a ship into our feed, like is this something you guys could convincingly do?"

"Sure, we could do it, but..." his voice trailed off. "I mean, at first glance, whoever did this did a great job, I can't see any artifacting or pixilation."

"Can you figure out how they're doing it?"

"Sure, I could open up the thing in Maya and Autodesk, and maybe Matchmoving to see if there's anything that sticks out, but since it's already rendered, it's gonna be tough."

"Please do it," said Truman. Aston was surprised by the urgency in his voice.

"Sure.. sure, no problem, Aston replied.

"How long should it take?" asked Truman.

"I should have something in less than an hour," replied Aston. He thought for a minute and then asked, "Truman, if you don't mind... why the NDA and all, I mean if it's prank footage what's the big deal?"

It was silent on the other end of the phone for a full three of four seconds while Truman chose his words. "I just don't want this getting out before we're ready," he said.

"Ok...well... give me an hour or so, I'll call you."

"I'll be waiting," replied Truman, and he hung up the phone.

Bethany leaned against Aston's desk as he clicked to import the files into Matchmoving, a well known and amazing software program that could make backgrounds realistic enough to replace green screen with whatever you wanted, and the audience was never the wiser.

"Did he say he didn't want it getting out before they were ready?" Bethany asked. "I mean, we worry about this stuff all the time, but why would NASA care if someone's pranking?"

"Who knows. Maybe it's some disgruntled employee, or someone with a million followers like that History Channel Alien guy - "

"Giorgio?" Bethany quipped.

"You know crazy hair guy's name that quick?"

"Giorgio Tsoukalos. How about that?" Bethany completed his name with a smirk.

"Wow. Remind me never to pick pop culture against you on Trivia night."

"We all have our gifts," Bethany replied with a chuckle. She could rattle off any A, B, C, and pretty much any D-list celebrity, She could also have almost any scientist that had written a top ten best seller on the phone within a day. She was proud of all the connections she had made over the years.

As she reflected on her own amazing work, she was so busy patting herself on the back that she didn't notice how quiet it had become. She glanced over to Aston to see him completely engrossed in his screen. Click. Scroll. A few keyboard shortcuts. Scroll again. Click, click.

"Huh," Aston finally muttered. "Whoever it is, this guy is good, I just..." Aston trailed off as he kept clicking, he squinted at the screen, "There should be some..."

Bethany wasn't sure if she should hang out or not, "So... I guess you don't need me looking over your shoulder, huh?" She glanced at the screen where all she saw were reddish-brown pixels slightly changing colors as Aston moved a slider left and right.

"Uh-huh," Aston said under his breath. He was focused on the screen, and only half listening to Bethany.

"Ok, so... bye then? Let me know if you find anything!" She tried to sound as chipper as possible.

"Uh-huh," Aston replied without moving his eyes from the screen. He sat up, and leaned forward. Bethany rolled her eyes and left the office.

If it wasn't for me, they'd have NO personality around here she thought to herself.

Truman was looking through his window up at the huge main screen in the control room, it had been almost seven hours since he stepped into work far too early, and the caffeine wasn't quite going the job it was supposed to. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tommy nodding to the two heads of the Communications team for the rover, Cliff and Abby. He then took some notes he was scribbling and made a turn to walk towards the office.

"What have you got?" Truman asked as Tommy crossed the threshold of his office.

"Well, you asked about a possible intercept of the signal," Tommy replied.

"And?"

"And, well. We have the clocks synced, so -"

"The clocks synced?" Truman interrupted. "I asked about the signal."

"I know, I know," Tommy replied, "We've been receiving and broadcasting on the same frequencies the whole time, that's never changed."

"Ok," Truman paused, "So what do the clocks have to do with it?" Truman leaned back in his chair.

"Well, we have the rover and control clocks synced. And our signals timed down to the micro-second." Tommy looked down at his notes, "As of today, right now, that back and forth would take 706.96551 seconds. And since Mars is moving away from us right now, that means it took 706.80991 seconds at this time yesterday. That's to the micro-second. We've tracked the times all the way back from when it landed seventeen months ago, and there's no discrepancies. All the math checks out. There's never a hiccup, never a delay."

"So the signal isn't being intercepted and rebroadcast... that's what you're saying," Truman replied.

"That's what we're saying," Tommy glanced out the window to Cliff and Abby, and gave them a thumbs up.

Truman rose from his seat and walked to the door, he raised his voice enough for the whole room to hear, "Cliff?! Abby!? How certain are you of the numbers?"

Alice and Cliff looked at each other, their excitement turning to a strange fear at the sudden change from radio signal/communication specialists to public speakers. Alice's face flushed red at the whole room staring.

"Ninety nine percent," Alice finally managed to say.

Cliff was quick to back her up. "Point nine.... nine," he added. Truman turned to Tommy. Tommy was smiling.

"Dammit," Truman said under his breath. He stared at the floor, trying to make sense of it. The entire control room sat silent, only the blipping of screens. One one thousand, two one thousand.

RING! the landline on his desk broke the silence.