NSA Headquarters-Fort Mead-Maryland-0900 hours
Within the corridors of the National Security Agency headquarters, the older CIA agent was walking briskly with agent Stenson trying to keep up. Both men came to a double door at the end of the corridor where a young woman with short blonde hair and wearing pant suit was waiting for them.
"Agent Philips, agent Stenson, my name is Jennifer Nilsson and welcome to Maryland." She greeted as she held out her hand.
"Thank you Jennifer, I just wish I was here under better circumstances." Philips responded shaking her hand.
"Well that can't be helped now." She responded.
"Will Director Alberts be joining us?" Stenson asked as he shook Jennifer's hand.
"Unfortunately no, despite the situation he was tied up with a prior engagement so he assigned me to be your liaison for this operation." She explained.
"As long as we can get to the bottom of this I'm fine with it. So did Alberts supply us with the resources we asked for?" Philips said.
"Ah yes, right this way gentlemen." Jennifer instructed as she turned and walked towards the doors with the two agents in tow.
Approaching the door, Jennifer stood before a scanner on the side, she took out her ID card and swiped it down. The device emitted a green light at the doors unlocked, allow the trio to enter, once inside, the two agents looked around. They saw that they were in a control room with several people checking monitors, there were no lights and the only kind of light was being emitted from the monitors which gave the room a dark blue tint. In front on them was a glass pane that separated the control room from the main floor, the area in question was much larger and on a lower level than the control room. Within it were several rows of computer terminals, each manned by a programmer who was deciphering code.
"Impressive." Philips said.
"It's not much, but due to the nature of the situation it's really all we can afford at this time." Jennifer explained.
Jennifer had a point, when Alberts was informed about the signal, he contacted the President about to inform him of the situation. The commander and chief gave him the go ahead to do whatever necessary to get to the bottom of it. However due to the unknown nature and fearing the possibility that word will spread, he wanted the CIA and NSA to keep things quiet so as to not create suspicion.
"Well it's going to have to do." Philips said.
Looking down, Philips spotted a familiar young man who was currently overlooking several terminals. The young man looked up and saw Philips, he immediately walked to the staircase that lead into the control room. Upon entering he shook Philips and Stenson's hands.
"Good to see you Bradley." Philips greeted.
"Thank you sir." Bradley said.
"How have they been treating you?" Stenson asked.
"Not too bad, I mean with the 'ghost' stories you hear about these kinds of organizations, I was nervous but…" He began.
"Okay son reel it in." Philips said trying to keep Bradley focused, "So have you found anything?" He asked.
"Unfortunately no sir, right now we're checking every computer in the country to see if the signal surfaces again." Bradley explained.
"And there's no sign of it?" Stenson asked.
"Nothing sir, like agent Nilsson said we're working with limited resources here. We only have about 30 people monitoring, lucky for us the unique frequency of the signal make it easy to identify, but we still have millions of computers to check." Bradley explained.
"It's like trying to find a needle in a hay stack." Stenson said.
"More like trying to find a needle in a field of haystacks." Nilsson said.
"Exactly." Bradley said.
"Look I don't care how many computers you have to check, we need to find out if and when this signal is going to show up again and when it does we need to act quickly." Philips explained.
Meanwhile, many miles away at Berk high school, Hiccup was at his locker, putting his books away as he got ready for his next class. He had just gotten out of Algebra and as he place his math book away he rubbed his eyes because he was still a little tired from his hectic awakening.
"Man dad's going to have a field day when I get home." Hiccup said to himself already imagining what his father was going to say about his computer activities.
However not too far from where he was, Snotlout and the twins were walking down the hall talking about the discussion.
"Seriously man, space mutants?" Snotlout asked.
"It was a reasonable question." Tuffnut defended.
"Look man, if anything was going to invade I think they would look more like the little grey aliens you see in those old tabloids." Snotlout said.
"You're both nuts, they'll obviously look like giant squid creatures." Ruffnut said.
"Well I think..." Snotlout was about to say until he saw Hiccup and a mischievous grin formed on his face. "Hang on a second." He told the twins.
Snotlout picked up his pace a little bit and when he got close to Hiccup he purposely rammed his shoulder into Hiccup, causing the smaller boy to be knocked over, spilling some of his books on the ground.
"Oops." Snotlout laughed as he kept walking, the twins snickered as well as they caught up with him.
Some of the other students laughed a little while others didn't pay any mind, and as for Hiccup he picked himself back up.
"How original." He said to himself as he began to pick his books up.
Standing up he placed his books back in the locker and shut it, he gave one last hard look in the direction Snotlout was walking and turned around. At that moment his forest eyes met blue as he almost bumped right into Astrid.
"Whoa." He quickly said with his hand raised slightly.
"Hey watch out." Astrid said a little irritated.
"Sorry, wasn't looking where I was going." Hiccup said nervously.
"Well, you might want to try and be careful this is a crowded hallway." She said.
"Will do." He said as he was about to turn and leave.
"Hold on a second, weren't you the one who asked that question in Ms. Webber's class?" She asked.
"Which question?" He asked.
"You know, the one about technology that was built by another species." She pointed out.
"Ah yeah that was me, why, was it a stupid question?" He asked.
"No actually I thought it was interesting." She said.
"Really, you know to be fair I only thought about it when you mentioned civilizations." He said.
"Oh yeah that, I was actually thinking about my history class, we were talking about the rise of Mesopotamia and I guess it stuck." Astrid explained.
"History, are in Mr. Richter's class?" Hiccup asked.
"Yeah, how'd you know?" She asked.
"I had him last semester, he really likes talking about the ancient world." He said.
"I find it interesting how people can go from living in tribes to building cities and I was wondering if the same principle would apply on a different planet." She said.
"Possibly, if the species in question had the same kind of mental capacity as humans, I mean I like to think that…" He started until he was interrupted by Astrid as she checked her phone.
"Hold on, sorry I can't really stay and chat, I got to get to gym class." She said.
"Oh yeah sorry, I really need to get to shop." Hiccup said as the two passed each other and went in opposite directions. As he walked Hiccup was mentally celebrating, "We actually had a short conversation!" He mentally cheered.
Walking down to the lower levels of the school he came across a double door, opening it he found himself in a massive room where several students, who were wearing safety gear and welders masks were working on various projects. Hiccup smiled slightly and got to work, to him Metal Shop was his favorite class and he was lucky enough that he got it for two class periods all he had to do was trade in his study hall class. For him it was the one place in school where he didn't feel like an outcast.
"Almost came in late laddy." He heard a heavily Scottish accent say.
Hiccup turned and saw his teacher Mr. Belch, though he and many of the other students just call him Gobber. He was a large man with a bald head, long blonde mustache, and a prosthetic hand, though he also has a prosthetic foot it's concealed by his pants, both of which he lost in a horrific car wreck. Gobber was wearing an apron with some smudges on it, under that he wore a pale yellow shirt, dark brown pants and boots.
"Sorry about that Gobber, I had both a pleasant and unpleasant encounter." Hiccup said as he got some safety glasses.
"Oh really." Gobber said interested.
"Yeah, an unpleasant encounter with Snotlout and a pleasant encounter with Astrid." Hiccup said as he rolled up his shirt sleeves.
"Really." Gobber said surprised.
"I tell you Gobber this is actually turning out to be a good day." Hiccup said.
"Astrid talking to ya, looks more like a bad omen to me." Gobber joked.
"Really funny." Hiccup replied sarcastically.
"Oh I'm just givin' ya a hard time." Gobber said patting Hiccup on the back.
Hiccup smiled and rolled his eyes and got to work on his latest project, he was making a small sculpture of a dragon for his mother, her birthday was coming up and Hiccup knew that when she was little she used to love reading stories about the large winged reptiles. He took out the small metallic item, he was making good progress but still had some work to do.
"Lookin' good Hiccup." Gobber said admiring the sculpture.
"Yeah, I just hope she likes it." Hiccup said.
"Oh I'm sure she'll love it, in fact, funny story, when your parents were dating, your father got a tattoo of a dragon on his shoulder for their anniversary and your mother went nuts." Gobber said, "In fact she liked it so much she gave him a 'special' gift that night." Gobber said giving him a wink.
"Okay a little too much information big guy." Hiccup said.
Gobber just laughed as he went to check over other students and Hiccup got to work, he put on some gloves, grabbed a ball-peen hammer and started working on some sheet metal. As he did this he couldn't help but think about what Gobber said, normally you wouldn't have this sort of conversation with a teacher, but it's a little different when set teacher is best friends with your parents. Hiccup has known Gobber since he was a little kid, in fact he was the one who got him interested in metal work, hell he's been like a second father to him. Nearly 2 hours pass and Hiccup was getting much closer to making his dragon sculpture, then he heard the bell ring, putting away his project he made his way to the door.
"Good work out there everybody." Gobber called out to everyone as they walked out, however he stopped Hiccup, "Hiccup can I talk to ya for a second?" He asked.
Hiccup walked over to the one-handed man and looked at him curiously, "Yeah Gobber?" He asked.
"I noticed ya were a little tired, not enough sleep?" He asked.
"Fell asleep in front of my computer…again." Hiccup said slightly embarrassed.
"Oh, I bet your father had something to say." Gobber chuckled.
"Lucky for me I got out of the house before he could start." Hiccup said.
"Yeah but ya know ya just postponed the inevitable." Gobber said.
"I know, I can picture what he's going to say." Hiccup said, he then puffed his chest out a little bit and said, "Hiccup, you need to stop staring at that computer of yours, the world's out there not behind a screen." Hiccup imitated his father with a fake Scottish accent, causing Gobber to laugh.
"Gets me every time." He said.
"I mean I understand what he's saying, but I wish he could understand that there so much I can do on a computer." Hiccup said.
"Ya got it all wrong Hiccup, he doesn't hate computers, it's just that we grew up in a different time, back then we had to do every the hard way, not like today." Gobber explained.
"Yeah I hear you, I'm just hoping he comes around, who knows maybe a career in computers is in my future." Hiccup said.
"Hey don't forget about metal work, now that's something you and your father could agree on." Gobber pointed out.
"You could be right about that Gobber." Hiccup said.
"Just keep it in mind, by the way don't worry about your mother, she's going to love her gift." Gobber said.
"I hope so." Hiccup said.
"I keep tellin' ya lad you just need a little confidence and that's also how to Astrid's attention." Gobber said.
"Okay Gobber as much as I like to talk about my non-existent love life, I need to get going." Hiccup said turning around and heading for the doors.
"I'll tell ya what, if you get Astrid to go out with ya, I'll give ya an 'A' for this class until graduation." Gobber joked.
"See you later Gobber." Hiccup said as he left the smiling teacher. As he walked down the hall he couldn't help but think about his little talk with Astrid. "Who knew thinking about aliens actually got her to talk to me, the Universe definitely is a strange thing." He thought to himself.