The Hatching Of Earth

USGS Seismic Monitor

"Paul? Have you seen these readings?"

"Yes, Janet, and before you ask, no, I do not know what they mean. We're getting activity all across the planet. If I didn't know better, I'd say someone inside the Earth was kicking to get out."

"Let's take a look at that idea. Sometimes the wildest ideas can lead to an answer you wouldn't find otherwise. So, assume that there is something kicking to get out, where is the activity focusing? I mean, if it's a chicken egg, the chick is usually hammering on one end or the other, but that's going to kick up a fuss all around because it has to move it's body pretty hard to peck its way out."

"Okay, Janet, your idea, you run with it. I'll see if I can come up with anything that fits."

"Well, if we treat all of this as noise from inside, then we want to know where it's loudest. A simple amplitude subtraction won't do, there's a lot of harmonics and other noise, so let's use a sound filter. Run it through a few passes, and what do we get?"

"Um, I hate to tell you this..."

"...but it looks like garbage. Ideas?"

"Huh... When I did some sound work in my earlier years, I would have tried either a high-pass, low-pass, or notch filter to see if that made any difference."

"Alright, let's try them all with ten different sets of settings, and see what we get."

"That's more like it! Good job, Janet!"

"Yes, they look better, but which of the thirty is the right answer?"

"Try combining them.

"That's what, thirty factorial? No, I don't think so. We haven't got that much computer time in the whole USGS budget. We need another filter to bring things down to a reasonable size. How about we take the weakest signal and subtract it from all the others?"

"Repeat as needed, most weak candidates to the strongest candidate."

"Yes, and that we can do right here."

"Hey... I'm seeing a pattern emerge. What do you see?"

"A pattern, a very frightening pattern."

"What? It's just seismic activity; it's not the end of the world!"

"You think so, look at this 3D projection. The entire Arctic basin is cracking at the edges."

"Janet, you might be right, but this data is so massaged that we can't take it to the boss. Not without corroboration from some other factor."

Prudhoe Bay

"Mike! What the blazing blue hells is going on here?!"

"Earthquakes, bad ones, we've already had injuries on the rigs, I've called all the crews in, with their supplies. If it all goes to hell, at least we'll know where they are."

"We can't do that! We have schedules and production quotas to meet!"

"Jones, you tell the board, the customers and any other damn fool who's pushing for production to come up here and tell me how the fucking hell we're supposed to do that when the gods damned equipment is jumping around all over the place! We'll be double damned lucky if any of the drill rigs are still standing in a week!"

RUMMMBBBLLLEEEE

"HANG THE **** ON!"

USGS Seimic Monitor

"Janet? You watching the news? Turn on Channel 7; there's corroboration of the arctic circle theory. Oh, boy, is there ever!"

"Paul, I've got a clean report ready. I'm dumping it to your station, take a quick look, no more than five minutes, then we both sign and drop it on the wire to all USGS stations, special attention to chief's of station and their seconds. Then we're going to Washington and damn the travel budget. The director has to hear this now.

USGS HQ, Washington D.C.

"You two had better have something good, OMB has been pounding on me to cut the travel budget, again. For some reason, they just can't wrap their heads around the fact that we work with "geology" which means we have to go where the "geology" exists to do our jobs."

"Yes, Sir. You've seen the news from Prudhoe Bay?"

"Who hasn't. You two have a theory?"

"A theory, yes, but it's based on an absolutely outrageous idea. The only thing that got us to bring it in is how well it's predicting the current events."

"A theory that matches reality. That would be a nice change."

"Not when you realize that the theory predicts that sooner or later, and sooner is the way to bet, the entire Arctic basin is going to pop loose. What happens after that? Who knows. It's pretty near unprecedented."

"And the name of this theory?"

"Well, from the wild idea that spawned it, we call it the "Egg Hatching" theory."

"Do tell... have a seat and fill me in; this has all the earmarks of either utter brilliance or complete insanity. Of course, it's often hard to tell the difference."

White House

"Mr. President, we may have a handle on what is happening, but not why or what we can do about it."

"If you have any kind of handle, it's better than anyone else has. I've got Russia claiming that this is all some sort of scheme involving nuclear weapons to steal all the oil that they claim is theirs."

...

"Director? If it weren't for the fact that your predictions are matching what we're seeing, I'd call up the Surgeon General and have you three committed."

"Mr. President, the title comes from the first wild hair idea we had to try and figure out what's going on. The initial lack of a pattern gave us the idea that maybe something was knocking about on the inside. With that as a WAG model, we started playing with it. Since then, we haven't found another title for the model that fits it quite as well."

"Yes, Mr. President, if anything, the refinements are suggesting that there are several other "contact points" that are taking some of the impact energy."

"Paul, Janet, that was good work. Directory, bringing them here was perfect. Now I can call the advisors together and see if anyone else has any bright ideas, beyond sitting here and waiting for the Earth to hatch."

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