FICTION: The Radiomen by Jake Johnson

Dials swiveled as sound poured through speakers.

Once there were cries for help. These desperate, local signals have been brought to an end. Now there is static. The Radiomen tune themselves to the stars above, and they hear distant, strange signals set against the white noise which those last human signalers called “cosmic background radiation”.

There are many messages, now. Prime numbers, dozens of them.

Each night, the Radiomen gather and broadcast a signal of their own. Millions of prime numbers go screaming through the void.

No race has the courage to answer them.