Chapter 2: The Betrayer's Signal

At the end of 1979, Michael Evans—a wealthy heir—drove alone through the American Southwest, planting trees in hopes of saving a species of swallow. He wore dusty Levi’s, an Arizona State baseball cap, and kept a flask of bourbon tucked under the driver’s seat. The desert air was sharp and dry, the horizon endless.

One afternoon, while watching the swallows, a rush of memories from another timeline crashed over him. He dropped his binoculars, heart pounding, sweat prickling his scalp as visions of his past life—ending in agony, sliced apart by nanowire—flared like static from a broken TV.

"Humanity’s not worth saving. Nor is Earth," Michael decided, bitterness thick in his mouth. He spat in the red dirt, watching a vulture circle high above. "To hell with all of it."

By 1985, after inheriting his father’s fortune, Michael began building an ETO base on his private yacht, Judgment Day. The yacht gleamed among shrimpers and tankers on the Gulf Coast—a floating fortress stocked with tech, art, and secrets. Harbor masters looked the other way for fat envelopes and whispered promises.

He brooded in the captain’s quarters, thumbing old science fiction paperbacks, vowing not to repeat his past mistakes. The sound of waves beating against the hull became his metronome each night.

In 1987, when the base was finished, he personally fired an enhanced electromagnetic signal at the sun, sending his first letter.

He set the dials himself, hands steady. The hum of the equipment filled the cabin—a strange hymn to destiny or madness. On the 12,000 MHz band, the sun became, for a moment, the brightest star in the Milky Way.

Evans pledged loyalty to the Lord, promising to help the Trisolarans seize Earth. He wrote in precise, clipped English, signing his name with a flourish: Michael A. Evans, son of oil and steel, betrayer of worlds.

He poured a glass of bourbon, stood at the bow, and waited for a reply that never came.

Each sunrise, he checked the instruments, his voice growing hoarse from shouting into the void. He became a haunted silhouette on the deck, a fixture in the dawn.

Every year after, Evans sent a new message to Trisolaris, reporting the ETO’s progress and praying for the Lord’s arrival. The ritual felt oddly comforting—like mailing letters to Santa, only the stakes were infinitely higher.

Only in the third year did Evans die—suddenly, in a car accident. The local news barely noticed: a paragraph on page six, a shattered Porsche, a midnight road, and no explanation for his missing fingertips.