“The signal is repeating! We’ve got the whole thing.”

“How many bits?”

“Almost 500k. 454,957 bits”

“I got a hunch, factorize that number”

“Bingo, seven fifty seven times six oh one. Think it could be a rectangular bitmap?”.

“It’s what we used to do back before those assholes let Arecibo fall down. Try bm2png.pl in my bin dir.”

“That worked. Holy shit I know that image. It’s the Pioneer plaque. That diagram from Pioneer 11 of human figures, and a map to Earth.”

“What, thats impossible, it’s only been, what, 70 odd years. That probe would still be in our own Kuiper Belt.”

“Outside it, actually, it’d be about one sixty AU out. They lost contact in the mid 90s. Still basically in our backyard but.”

“It’s too soon! If someone’s found it now, that would mean. Shit. They’re. Already. Here. Inside the Solar system.”

“And all they’ve got to say, is ‘Hi, we liked ur meme’.?”

“Maybe not, can you bring up an image of the original plaque? Are the images identical?”

“I’ll do a layer subtraction. Hey, there /is/ a difference. In the map of the planets. They’ve omitted Pluto from their copy.”

“Fucking hell. Little green reply guys.”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction