The Blip

The email came through at 9:47 AM, which was honestly perfect timing because Ravi had just finished the morning sensor sweep and was settling into that comfortable zone where you're busy enough to look productive but not so busy you can't think about lunch.

Subject line: "RE: Junior Analyst II Position - Decision."

Ravi stared at it for three full seconds before opening. The staring didn't change anything. Never did. But you have to do it anyway, like your brain needs those three seconds to prepare for disappointment even though you already know what's coming.

They didn't get the job.

Of course they didn't get the job.

The email was professionally apologetic. Thanked Ravi for their interest. Acknowledged their strong performance. Noted the competitive applicant pool. Encouraged them to apply for future opportunities. All the standard phrases that mean "you're fine at your current level and we'd prefer you stay there."

The position went to Marcus Chen. Six months less experience than Ravi. Decent work but nothing special. Father was on the Consortium's advisory board.

That was the detail that mattered. Not the work. Never the work. The work was just the excuse to make it look like merit when it was really about who your parents knew and which social events you attended and whether you played golf with the senior analysts.

Ravi closed the email. Opened their data queue. Got back to reviewing sensor logs from overnight.

They were good at this part. Really good. Pattern recognition was their thing. Had been since they were a kid playing spot-the-difference games on their mom's old tablet. Some people are good at math. Some people are good with their hands. Ravi was good at seeing things that didn't quite fit.

Which was a useful skill for monitoring sensor arrays watching for alien spacecraft. Except the aliens hadn't shown up in twelve years and probably never would again, so mostly it was useful for spotting equipment malfunctions and satellite drift and the occasional asteroid that the automated systems flagged wrong.

Still. Someone had to do it. And Ravi was better at it than most people in the department, including Marcus Chen with his advisory board father.

Not that it mattered.

The Sydney Reconstruction Consortium's sensor facility sat in a converted warehouse in Alexandria. Not the nice part with the cafes. The industrial part that smelled like saltwater and diesel. Close enough to the harbor landing site to feel significant. Far enough that the real estate was cheap.

The building was mostly open floor plan. Rows of workstations. Analysts at screens. The low hum of climate control and electronics. Fluorescent lighting that gave everyone a vaguely corpse-like complexion. Motivational posters about "Excellence in Reconstruction" and "Humanity's Second Chance" that no one looked at anymore.

Ravi's workstation was in the middle section. Not by the windows (reserved for senior staff). Not by the break room (too loud). Just middle. Anonymous. Fine.

The current data stream was from Array Seven, the southeastern Pacific grid. Three hundred sensors scattered across ten thousand square kilometers of ocean, all watching the sky for something that probably wasn't coming.

Automated systems did the first pass. Filtered out known objects. Flagged anomalies for human review. Ravi's job was to look at the flags and decide if they were real or if the computers were having another panic attack about space debris.

This morning's batch: seventeen flags. Fifteen were satellite tracking errors. One was a meteor burning up in the atmosphere. One was a Chinese weather station with a wonky transmitter.

Nothing interesting. Never anything interesting.

Ravi marked them resolved and moved to the next queue. Historical review. Someone had to periodically check old data to make sure the archive systems weren't corrupting. It was grunt work. The kind they give to junior analysts who aren't getting promoted.

The files dated back to the Contact period. Twelve years ago. The three weeks when the Visitors were here. The forty-seven hours when we fucked it up. The recordings of our collective failure available in glorious 4K detail.

Most of the old data had been analyzed to death. Every moment studied. Every detail catalogued. PhDs written about individual frames. The Visitors' recordings from their perspective were one thing. Our sensor data from our perspective was another. Together they showed exactly how badly we misunderstood what was happening in real time.

Fun stuff to review when you're trying not to think about job rejections.

Ravi pulled up the departure sequence. April 8, 2031. The moment the Visitors left. Seven ships rising from seven cities. Perfect synchronization. Acceleration that made our best rockets look like they were standing still.

The Sydney sensors had captured it. The energy signature. The spatial distortion as they transitioned to FTL. Readings that looked like physics having a nervous breakdown.

Scientists had been studying this data for over a decade. Trying to understand how the Visitors bent space. How they achieved faster-than-light travel. How they made it look easy.

Progress was slow. Expensive. Mostly theoretical. But it was progress. That's what everyone kept saying. Progress. Like if we said it enough times it would actually feel true.

Ravi scrolled through the departure readings. Checked the archive integrity markers. Everything looked fine. The data was stable. The systems were functioning. Nothing to report.

Except.

There was something.

Ravi stopped scrolling.

It was tiny. A blip in the energy signature right as the ships transitioned. Probably just sensor noise. The equipment had been pushed to its limits during the departure. Readings went haywire. Lots of artifacts in the data.

But this didn't look like the usual artifacts.

Ravi zoomed in. Ran a quick filter to isolate the signal. Applied some basic pattern matching algorithms.

The blip had structure. Not random noise. Something organized. Repeating. Like a pulse or a beacon or...

Or Ravi was seeing patterns where none existed because they wanted there to be something interesting instead of just another day of maintenance reviews and rejected promotions.

They ran the data through three more filters. The structure held. Still there. Still organized.

Weird.

Ravi tagged the file for further review. Made a note in their personal log. Probably nothing. Almost certainly nothing. But it was interesting enough to come back to later when they weren't doing historical archive verification.

The ping of a new email interrupted their focus.

Department-wide announcement. The promotion decision was now official. Please join in congratulating Marcus Chen on his advancement to Junior Analyst II. Reception in the break room at 3 PM. Cake would be provided.

Of course there would be cake.

Ravi closed the email without responding. Went back to the queue. Found another batch of old sensor data to verify. Lost themselves in the rhythm of checking files, confirming integrity, marking completion.

The morning sensor sweep had been clean. The historical review was proceeding normally. The systems were functioning within acceptable parameters. Everything was fine. Everything was always fine.

Except for that weird blip in the departure data. That organized structure that probably meant nothing. That pattern that Ravi couldn't quite stop thinking about even though they had seventeen more files to verify before lunch.

It nagged at them. The way unsolved patterns always nagged at them. The way a puzzle with a missing piece bothered them until they found it.

But it was almost certainly nothing. Twelve years of the smartest people in the world had analyzed this data. If there was something there, someone would have found it already. Someone with better equipment. Better training. Better connections than a junior analyst in a warehouse in Alexandria.

Ravi saved their work. Queued up the next file. Kept moving through the day.

The lunch break came at noon. Protein bar at the desk. Coffee from the break room that tasted like burnt plastic. Ravi ate while scrolling through news feeds on their personal device.

More stories about reconstruction breakthroughs. A fusion test in Lagos showing promise. FTL research in Beijing making incremental progress. The usual mix of hope and frustration that defined post-Contact news.

Someone had detected another ship passing through the outer solar system last week. Fast. Purposeful. Not stopping. Just like all the others. Everyone pretended not to care but you could feel the disappointment underneath. Another reminder that we were being avoided. Another confirmation that our reputation had spread.

Ravi finished the protein bar. Drank the terrible coffee. Went back to work.

The afternoon queue was more of the same. Data verification. System checks. Maintenance logs. The kind of work that required just enough attention to prevent mistakes but not enough to be actually engaging.

Their mind kept wandering back to that blip in the departure data. The structure. The organization. The way it didn't quite match the expected noise patterns.

It probably meant nothing.

But what if it didn't?

At 2:45 PM, Ravi's supervisor stopped by their desk. Helena Park. Fifteen years with the Consortium. Good at her job. Better at politics.

"Hey Ravi. You coming to the reception?"

"Probably not. Lots of work to finish."

Helena gave them a look. The sympathetic one. The one that meant she knew they were disappointed about the promotion and was trying to be kind without actually addressing it directly.

"Marcus is a good kid. He'll do well in the position."

"I'm sure he will."

"Your time will come. Just keep doing good work. Keep your head down. These things have a way of working out."

Ravi nodded. Said something noncommittal. Went back to their screen.

Helena lingered for a moment, then left. Her advice was probably well-intentioned. Keep your head down. Do good work. Wait your turn.

It was the same advice Ravi's parent had given them. The same advice that had worked so well for the generation that lost their jobs and their careers and their dignity after the Failure.

Keep your head down. Don't make waves. Play it safe.

Great strategy. Really working out.

Ravi pulled up their personal log. Found the note about the departure data anomaly. Stared at it for a long moment.

They should just leave it alone. It was almost certainly nothing. Chasing random patterns in old data was exactly the kind of thing that got junior analysts flagged as time-wasters. The kind of thing that led to conversations with HR about maintaining focus and meeting expectations.

But.

The pattern was there. The structure was real. And nobody else was looking because everyone assumed that if there was something to find, it would have been found already.

What if they were wrong?

Ravi opened the departure data file. Started running more detailed analysis. Applied filters they weren't supposed to use on historical data without supervisor approval. Pushed the pattern recognition algorithms harder than they were designed for.

The blip became clearer. More defined. It wasn't just structure. It was information. Encoded somehow. Hidden in the energy signature of the Visitors' departure.

Ravi's heart rate picked up. This was something. Maybe. Possibly.

Or they were seeing exactly what they wanted to see because the alternative was accepting that today was just another disappointing day in a long series of disappointing days doing work that didn't matter for people who didn't care.

Hard to say which was more likely.

From the break room, the sound of people gathering. Voices. Laughter. Someone making a speech about Marcus Chen's dedication and promise. Cake being cut. Plates being distributed.

Ravi kept working. Kept analyzing. Kept pushing deeper into data that probably meant nothing.

But the pattern was there. And it was beautiful. And if it meant what Ravi thought it might mean...

No. Don't get ahead of yourself. Don't hope. Hope is dangerous. Hope leads to disappointment. Hope is for people who haven't learned better.

Ravi saved their work. Encrypted the file. Didn't submit it through official channels. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Just in case it was something.

Just in case twelve years of everyone else being wrong meant one junior analyst might be right.

Just in case the worst day in recent memory was also the day something actually interesting happened.

The reception in the break room wrapped up around 3:30. People returned to their desks. Marcus Chen walked past Ravi's workstation. Made eye contact. Gave an awkward little wave.

Ravi waved back. No hard feelings. Not Marcus's fault the system was rigged. He was just playing the game smarter than Ravi had.

The afternoon shift dragged on. More data verification. More maintenance checks. More absolutely nothing worth mentioning.

Except for that file. That anomaly. That pattern that shouldn't exist but did.

Ravi thought about telling someone. Helena. Another analyst. Anyone who might care.

But what would they say? "Hey, I found something weird in twelve-year-old data that thousands of people have already analyzed. Want to waste time looking at it?"

Yeah. That would go over great.

Better to verify first. Make sure it was real. Build a case before going public. Otherwise it was just another junior analyst with delusions of importance trying to make their work seem more meaningful than it was.

At 5:00 PM, Ravi logged out. Packed their bag. Walked out of the warehouse into the late afternoon sun.

The trip home was the usual. Train to Central. Transfer to the Inner West line. Forty minutes of standing because the seats were always taken. Scrolling through feeds without really seeing them. Thinking about the pattern. About what it might mean. About whether tomorrow would be different or just more of the same.

The apartment was the same as it had been that morning. Small. Empty. Fine.

Ravi microwaved dinner. Ate it while staring at the wall. Thought about calling their parent but didn't. What would they talk about? Another day of getting passed over. Another reminder that keeping your head down didn't actually protect you from anything.

Better to just let it go. Process it alone. Move on.

Except Ravi couldn't stop thinking about the pattern. About the structure hidden in the departure data. About the possibility that there was something everyone missed.

They pulled out their personal device. Accessed the encrypted file they'd saved. Looked at the analysis again.

It was still there. Still organized. Still refusing to be random noise.

Tomorrow they'd dig deeper. Run more tests. Figure out if this was real or if they were just desperate for their work to matter.

Tonight they'd sit with it. Let it nag at them. Let it be the one interesting thing in an otherwise completely unremarkable day.

Ravi finished dinner. Cleaned up. Got ready for bed. Set the alarm for 6 AM.

Tomorrow would probably be exactly like today. Another shift. Another round of data verification. Another day of invisible work for people who didn't notice.

But maybe not.

Maybe tomorrow would be different.

Maybe that pattern meant something.

Maybe keeping your head down wasn't the answer.

Maybe sometimes you had to look up. Even when everyone told you there was nothing worth seeing.

Ravi turned off the light. Closed their eyes. Fell asleep thinking about patterns and departures and the possibility that twelve years of everyone being wrong meant something important was waiting to be found.

It probably meant nothing.

But what if it didn't?