Resonances

by Elisabeth_Long

"The Earth could be like one giant what ball?"

"Baoding."

"A bow-ding ball?" The reporter laughed. "Is that anything like a Pokéball?"

Across the way, Michaela squinted in the misty, pre-dawn light to catch the network logo on the guy's mic. Fox News. US. Seriously, why were these guys here?

Well duh, the hollow earth hoax/conspiracy angle, what else.

"Baoding balls are metal balls used for meditation and hand exercise." Their team geophysicist, Li Mei, exuded nothing but calm patience as she continued with the reporter. "They fit in the palm and when you rotate them, they produce a wind chime-like sound. Very soothing. I use the analogy of baoding because they are hollow spheres. An inner metal ball strikes a coiled spring set inside them. That's what makes the sound.

Now, there's no actual coil inside the Earth. My theory proposes that the"–Mei paused to make air quotes–"...spring... is actually layers of different densities within a homogeneous substance. These layers could resonate under the right conditions if acted upon by an appropriate external force. Take water, for example. You can't bash your head in on steam but you can on ice."

Hah! Good one! Michaela thought.

The Fox guy was looking a little lost.

"But what we're doing here today really is testing Dr. Michaela Smith's theory" –and here Mei gestured at her– "that Stonehenge was built with the ringing bluestones to transform what I've theorised is our hollow planetary sphere's resonance and, according to Dr. Smith, amplify it out into the sky."

The reporter was quick to latch on to something he understood. "Ok. Right. The sky. For what purpose? So the whole world could... rock and roll?" He chuckled. Not hard to tell how he felt about things.

"More like worlds. Plural."

The man's brows shot skywards at Michaela's words.

"Yes, well, why don't I let our project leader take it from here. Dr. Smith is the cosmologist responsible for all this, after all." Mei was all smooth delivery, which was why she usually led with interviews –that and the fact Michaela hated any kind of spotlight.

Reining in a sigh, Michaela put down the laptop she'd been typing on and started towards the pair.

The Fox News guy stepped back. "Actually, I need to touch base with my producer. Let me get back to you afterwards? Thanks for your time, Dr. Li." The man spun on his heels and jogged back towards his cameraman and their van.

Figured.

Maybe the guy was disappointed there were no Pikachus running about.

Heading back to her post, Li Mei shrugged at Michaela. "Probably for the best. You'd have blown that jerk's one operating brain cell, or dropkicked his rude ass."

"Bao-da-ding, bada boom", Greg Anderson deadpanned as Mei passed behind him. The team's geoarchaeologist was hunched over doing a final calibration of the gravimeter.

Mei smirked at him over her shoulder and flipped him the bird.

"Despite what our esteemed Princeton comedian quips," Michaela said, smiling at Greg's swooning chest clutch, "if what we do here today works, it would indeed point to something generating sound inside an empty shell of planet crust beneath us. So why not some giant marble bada bing, bada booming against some kind of earthen spring?"

She glanced over to see Domenico Gentile, their acoustical engineer from Palermo, wend his way through the maze of loudspeakers and microphones they'd set up. She couldn't help thinking the redheaded Sicilian fit in perfectly against the backdrop of misty hillside of Salisbury Plain.

As he handed her a warm styrofoam cup as well as a tablet displaying the latest vibrometer readings, Dom cocked a brow at Greg. "You know, a lot of people think that bada bing-bada boom line is from the Godfather, or if they're not old enough, The Sopranos. But it was originally from a 1958 movie called The Italian Wedding."

"Hey, whaddya hear, whaddya say? You're only as good as your last envelope. If they're any flies on you, they're paying rent. Those who want respect, give respect." Greg pinched his fingers upwards to his thumbs and bobbed his hands at Dom.

The ensuing laughter reverberated about the ring. The best kind of warm up for the stones, Michaela thought as she sipped on what passed for black filtered in the UK.

Greg watched her with a grimace. "Man, I don't know about you guys but I can't wait to get back to real coffee, oh, and disco fries and tomato pie. British food sucks."

"Tomato pie? You can't be serious." Dom managed to keep a straight face for about two seconds before cracking up. "Listen here, Jersey boy, the only real crostata di pomodori is to be found in Naples. But on your last point, we can agree."

Both men knuckle-pounded.

Michaela rolled her eyes. "And disco fries? Pfft. That's nothing more than you Americans copycatting our poutines. As every maple syrup-blooded Canadian knows, it's the squeaky cheese that makes all the difference."

More laughter, then everyone returned to their tasks.

Michaela, however, couldn't stop picturing the look on the Fox reporter's face when Mei had mentioned worlds.

But then that was why a cosmologist was leading this team, wasn't it.

She eyed the handful of other news vans parked in the distance. At least other outlets, like the BBC, had asked well-informed questions about her and Mei's supporting theories and followed up with astute questions.

Pokéball?? Crazy.

She rubbed her forehead, blaming that last newsman's remark for what felt like something trying to bust loose from the inside of her skull. Or maybe that was just the stress of being lead on this project. Christ, want to talk about crazy? If what they were about to do suggested Earth was hollow?

Scientists were supposed to debunk hoaxes, not validate them.

Ever since news of their project began circulating, the press had been full of articles speculating how Stonehenge may have been used as a giant musical instrument. Cue the conspiracists and deluge of memes.

Having secured funding to assemble her international team, Michaela was seeking to prove that the ring of stones was in fact a giant echo chamber, an amplifier for sounds generated–not within the circle–but within the earth itself. That's where Li Mei's theory meshed with hers.

How to prove it? Realignment of the fallen stones and replacing missing ones with newly quarried rock from the original source in South Wales. Welsh bluestones from Mynydd Preseli.

Because that's what it all came down to for her. The central bluestones. The ringing rocks as they were otherwise called that when struck, produced musical tones.

Ringing rocks were important in many parts of the ancient world, recognized for their spiritual powers. The ancient Chinese considered them highly concentrated with qi –the energy that was thought to permeate the universe. In India, the blue stones were embedded throughout temples. In North America, such stones were found in vision quest sites of Native Americans.

And after months of work, this was the day they were finally replicating Stonehenge's fullest configuration from 4000 years before.

Today, this morning, they were setting the last stone into the ground.

But Michaela's hopes weren't solely earthbound. No, this cosmologist had begun her journey of discovery from a completely different sphere. A celestial one. Thanks to the James Webb telescope and its next generation laser interferometer antenna.

She'd been among the first to study the readings of gravitational waves which the antenna had detected.

Only data sonification had been used before to extrapolate sounds from space. Space was a vacuum after all. There was no medium for soundwaves to travel through (like air or water - ice to bash one's head on).

The interferometer had been picking up something altogether unheard of before. Waves she'd interpreted as musical ripples in the fabric of spacetime. Tones playing throughout the solar system. An amazing galactic symphony. One that Michaela hypothesised was missing a section.

And if that section originated from within the Earth? A section that could only be picked up and transmitted by a certain neolithic structure that just happened to be designed in relation to the solstices. And happened to contain rock formations that produced sound?

She thought of the Stonehenge song scene in Spinal Tap, one of her all time favourite movies.

Michaela smiled. In one sense, their project was to prove Stonehenge was the lithophonic amplifier that was one louder, its stones going to 11 to channel Nigel Tufnel.

A car engine revved and a horn blared. Some more press vehicles were arriving. The latecomers were going to have to start jockeying for the best spots to set up their cameras and capture their soundbites.

Michaela checked her wristwatch...good ol' school analog, thank you very much. "Dawn in seven minutes, people. Get ready.

Did we get confirmation from the news crews to shut off their engines and stay quiet?" she asked.

As if in answer, headlights went out and ignitions cut.

They'd made special arrangements to have the site closed to tourists that morning.

Li Mei had pushed for dawn as it was the best time for qi to flow, at least according to the Chinese classic texts, she claimed.

Michaela just hoped the rising sun would burn off the mist. She kept expecting to catch glimpses of Heathcliffe's brooding ghost trudging through it.

A chill gust of wind made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. It wasn't just the food. British mornings sucked too.

The carry deck crane was in position to set the final rock in place. Julia Carvalho was on standby at the controls. There wasn't an excavator, loader, forklift, tractor, or backhoe Julia couldn't handle. Her decades-worth of experience operating heavy machinery at South American digs made her the man for the job.

Catching Michaela's gaze, the Brazilian operating engineer smiled and flashed a thumbs up.

"Din, we ready on the recording equipment?" Michaela spoke into her mic.

From across the site, several metres clear of the outer ring, Idina Meinhardt, their sound recording technician, classical pianist, and garage band bass guitarist was headphones up–and now that Michaela thought about it, looking like a pokemon with her spiked pink and blue hair. The German was sitting behind an impressive array of sound recording machinery and laptops. A neon green nail polished thumb got flashed Michaela's way.

Michaela slipped her headphones completely over her ears and opened a channel to all.

"Ready to... rock and roll, everyone?"

Greg curved his hands into a heart shape at her and batted his eyelashes.

When all readys came through, Michaela nodded to Julia.

Julia pushed a lever forward. The last ringstone was planted and seated in place.

Another chill gust of wind blew. Goosebumps broke out all over Michaela's arms. A low rumble rose.

"Dammit, those reporters are supposed to be radio silent!" Dom muttered over the channel.

Michaela frowned. Clasping her headphones tighter to her ears.

"It's not coming from the vans." Din's voice was barely above a whisper on the channel.

She looked over to Mei who was bouncing on her feet, her hands clutched tight over her own headphones. The glow of excitement on the geophysicist's face was as bright as the oncoming sunrise.

The stones began to ring. Without any visible impetus.

Oh my god... this is it. Was she about to hear the symphony of the solar system?

Michaela lifted her gaze to the peach hued sky and closed her eyes.

And as gentle vibrations washed over her, Michaela felt her body absorb the sound. She felt revitalised by a cleansing energy...baoding ball indeed. Chime-like tones joined a sudden cacophony of...voices?

Michaela frowned.

Snapping open her eyes, she ripped off her headphones. All the other team members had removed their headphones as well. And not one of them was speaking.

Holy shit. Were voices coming from inside the Earth? An unmistakable cadence of speech echoed through the rings.

"That's Italian...and some form of Greek?...and bedda matri is that Latin?" Dom's own voice was strained with shock.

Mei Li's face had completely drained of colour. "Archaic Chinese... and Tibetan I think..."

"Spanish... Quechuan..."

"Celtic, Sanskrit..."

Greg whistled low under his breath.

The babel of tongues crescendoed, languages ancient...and modern.

Doors slammed and footfalls pounded as news crews rushed out of their vehicles and raced toward them.

They must be hearing what Michaela could now understand in clear syllables of modern English...

Let us out! Let us out!