Nullxiety. The term had been coined five years ago by a psychologist at CERN—the anxiety produced by staring at a null result. The fear that the silence wasn’t a message, but proof that no one was listening.
But for the past seventy-two hours, the main receiver had logged something impossible: a repeating pattern of nulls . Not static. Not interference. Just clean, deliberate gaps in the cosmic background radiation. A pause. Then three short silences. Then three long silences. Then three short silences again. morse code nullxiety answer
S.O.S.
A pause.