00 shook his head. “No. Within a few seconds.”
“A few seconds?” The last of Rain’s doubts left her face. She moved closer to the radio mixer and gingerly touched one of the dials. “Could we send a message back?”
“Yup,” Parker said with a grin. His enthusiasm spread throughout the room.
“That’s interesting,” the doctor said in a low voice. “The council will never approve it though. They’re in the business of suppressing technology like this. They’ve been doing it for a long time. My whole life, at least.”
Sunny entered, crossing the room so silently that when she rested a hand on Rain’s arm, the doctor jumped. Sunny looked at Rain with an apologetic gaze. “Maybe we wouldn’t have to tell them.”
“That’s against the law,” Rain said in a cautious voice. “As a doctor, I’m sworn to uphold Hanford’s laws and enforce them in the interest of protecting our people. I can’t in good conscience be a part of bringing such a dangerous thing to life. What if turning it on attracts our enemies?” Rain pulled her fingers away from the dial she’d been caressing subconsciously. “It goes against everything I’ve sworn to protect.”
“But if it works, we can keep you updated on our health, and Sunny’s recovery. Whenever we want. Every day. Every hour if we need to.” 00’s eyes were pleading as he spoke, and the doctor’s stance softened as she took in his earnestness.
Rain turned to look Sunny in the eye. “I can’t be a part of it. If I help and it’s found out, I’ll be pulled out of the hospital. My patients are everything to me. I can’t risk being sent out here like an outcast.”
“You mean, like us?” 62 asked.
“Yes. Like you,” Dr. Rain answered.
Sunny’s grip tightened on her friend’s arm. “I thought this was all a waste of time, but now that I’ve seen it, I’m going to help these Boys get the radio running. They can make it so I can talk to Parker without having to expose myself. That’s worth the risk to me. Will you stop us?”
Rain closed her eyes and shook her head slowly. “No.”
The awkward relief that passed through 62 made his heart flutter. Rain might be afraid of the radios and what they represented. But she wasn’t going to send the guards to rip the place apart. He looked around at his brothers, and saw the same shrewd smile creeping across their faces. No one said any more about working on the radios. They settled into the first room of the building and ate a quiet lunch, chatting about the shifting winds, odd office furniture, and the coming hike back down the mountain. 62 and the others stole excited glances at the radio equipment whenever Rain wasn’t looking. As nice as it was being out of the jailhouse with Rain, 62 couldn’t wait to come back onto the mountainside without her.
CHAPTER 33
Rain and Sunny didn’t go to the radio room again. The doctor promised she would keep their discovery a secret, but asked that they not talk to her about any progress they made so she could remain ignorant of their schemes. Sunny helped her in the greenhouse with the tasks she and Parker had actually come to attend to. While Parker helped the Boys dismantle one of the jailhouse solar panels, Rain pointed her nose to the soil.
The visitors had done 62 the favor of bringing a dozen books with them, hand selected by Mattie. 62 hadn’t had a chance to so much as look at the spines of the books since they were given to him though. He’d been too busy feeding cables through holes in walls, climbing over the tops of the transmitter boxes, and running back and forth across the mountain, delivering tools and equipment to Parker and 00. Blue had his own role in the endeavor. While the others had their feet planted firmly on the ground, he’d volunteered to climb the radio tower to knock off bird’s nests.
On their third day of work, with batteries charged, wires attached, and a pair of ancient speakers cobbled together from scavenged equipment, Parker flipped the power switch. A high-pitched wave of sound flowed through the components, as if the electricity coursing through it was making the machinery awaken from a deep slumber. A few of the needles on the transmitter and receiver rolled from one side of the display to the other, and a red light burned on the front of the receiver housing, indicating that it was turned on.
A quiet static bled through the speakers.
“Is it working?” Blue whispered.
“It is,” Parker answered. He slumped down into a chair and his mouth turned down into a frown. “This is as far as I’ve gotten though. Hear that? Without another radio signal, there’s nothing to listen to.”
“Can we send a signal?” 00 asked.
“We’d need another radio. The only one I know about is the one I have in town.” Parker rolled his head back on his shoulders and stared up at the ceiling. “If I left right now to turn it on, we could test it in about four days.”
“Can we make another radio?” 62 asked. He looked around the room at the heaps of parts and equipment they’d pulled from every nook and cranny of the radio room.
“I don’t know. I’ve never built one from scratch before.”
“I have instructions,” 00 piped up. “When we were here the first time, I found a bunch of manuals.”
A light of excitement filled Parker’s face. He leaned forward in the chair, resting his hands on his knees and doing his best to temper his excitement. “We’d need another radio tower.”
“We have an antenna,” Blue offered.
“You do? Where?”
“Up on the jailhouse roof,” 62 said. “We don’t think it’s hooked up to anything. We haven’t found a radio down there.”
Parker smacked himself in the forehead. “Of course! I can’t believe I forgot about it. That one’s not very big, but it should work all right.” Parker assessed the disarray of parts around him, then clapped his hands together. “Well then, I guess it’s time to go for a hike. Don’t you?”
Blue stretched his arms overhead, yawning. “Are we going to build this thing right now? I’m as excited as the rest of you, but I really don’t want to walk all the way to the jailhouse and then have to turn around and climb back up here.”
“Let’s pack as much stuff down as we can carry. With any luck, we’ll have what we need when we get there,” Parker suggested.
“I have an idea of the parts we’ll need. It’s not much, if I remember right,” 00 said. He started shuffling through the pile nearest him, pulling wires and clamps from the heap. Parker asked 00 what kinds of things he was looking for and helped while Blue and 62 went to the rear office to start blowing out candles.
“Should we tell him about N302?” 62 whispered.
Blue shook his head. He frowned and his scowl looked severe in the candlelight. “What’s got you thinking about that? We don’t need computers for all this.”
“I don’t know,” 62 answered quietly. “He’s helping us with all this radio stuff, and Sunny said he likes technology. I thought maybe he could help us figure out how to deal with N302’s split personality.”
“It’s a bad idea,” Blue murmured. “We’re lucky Rain is letting us get away with the radio stuff without telling anyone. You saw how worried she was when she found out what we were doing. If we tell Parker about N302 and he lets it slip to Rain, it’d be the end of N302, and maybe the end of us, too.”
“But Sunny uses the computer all the time. Won’t she tell him about it eventually, anyway?”
“She hasn’t so far.” Blue exhaled over a candle, watching the flame burn out, leaving nothing but a wisp of smoke behind.
Parker sauntered into the room, his pack flung over his shoulder and his mask propped up on his forehead. “We’re all packed. You two ready to go?”
They hurried through the rest of the building, extinguishing the remaining candles. They shut off the radio equipment, one piece at a time. Once the radio room was dark again, they exited the building and headed back down the mountain. Parker’s pack jingled with the sounds of parts shifting every time he took a step.
“We’re off to make history, Boys!” Parker cheered from the
head of the line. He slipped on the loose gravel and slid down the hill a few feet, whooping and hollering in gleeful surprise.
They made the hike down the mountain in record time, propelled forward by the excitement of their rebellion. Parker, especially, was filled with an abundance of energy, and once they’d arrived at the jailhouse, he was intent on diving right into assembling the radio. They steered clear of Rain as they stalked through the rooms. They searched for the perfect place to work on the radio, settling on a room just outside the stairwell on the top floor. They were tempting fate by being so close to N302’s room, but needed a space as near the rooftop as possible. The urge to tell Parker about the bot hiding at the end of the hall built in 62’s chest like a bubble about to burst. He felt cornered, and guilty, torn between his loyalty to the secrets he shared with 00 and Blue, and the truths he was hiding from Parker.
Parker was too enthralled in the electronics in front of him to notice 62’s fidgety behavior. He was focused on the books 00 had laid out, and just a few hours after they’d started, they’d packed a small box with components. The device was smaller than the equipment in the radio room, and 62 was surprised when 00 insisted that the box, which was small enough to fit in a backpack, held both a transmitter and a receiver. It was like an entire building of equipment, miniaturized.
The sun had set at some point during their project, and 62’s hungry stomach rumbled. There wasn’t much else to do until the next day. “Is anybody else ready for dinner?”
Blue and 00’s hands shot up in the air. They scrambled over one another in a race toward the door. Parker was more hesitant, still poking around the radio. As he leaned over the table, a loud gurgle tore through Parker’s gut. He sighed. “I might not be ready for dinner, but it sounds like my stomach is.”
62 was the last one out the door. He switched the light off and closed the door, casting another glance toward N302’s room. Whether or not they told Parker about the bot, 62 felt that the radio was going to unleash a new world of possibility for N302. He thought about how badly he and the others had wounded the bot’s feelings when it heard them talk about shutting it down. He wondered if figuring out the radio system would be enough to set things right.
CHAPTER 34
Early morning found the Boys climbing across the jailhouse rooftop. Their mask lenses glinted, reflecting the rising sun’s rays as they clambered around the elevator, hauling electrical cables up from the solar batteries, hooking them to the antenna, and connecting everything to the radio. The morning was blustery and cold, with clouds racing overhead. The cloud cover was hanging so low over the mountain that 62 felt like he could reach up and touch them. When he thought no one was looking, he extended an arm overhead, silently disappointed when the rolling mist passed by beyond his reach.
“Checking the weather?” Parker joked.
“Yeah,” 62 answered, yanking his hand back to his side, glad that his mask hid the burning of his cheeks.
The jailhouse radio was soon set up, and it was time for someone to hike up the mountain to try sending a signal from the other end of the line. Blue and Parker decided they’d be the ones to make the trek. Parker was most familiar with the equipment, and Blue had already proven his worth if someone had to climb up the tower to make adjustments. That left 00 and 62 squatting on the roof with nothing to block the frigid morning air but the waist-high wall that encircled the flat-topped building.
They wandered over to the front side of the building as their brothers began the hike to the summit. It was interesting to watch them begin their climb, far down below. 62 imagined he was in Blue’s place, and suddenly it was like watching himself in a dream. 00 was silent, lost in his own thoughts, and 62 allowed his feelings to wash over him. This was a moment to absorb, its importance something to be looked back on in the future.
00 finally broke the silence once the others rounded a bend in the trail, disappearing from sight. “How long do you think it’ll take them to get there?”
“I’ve never paid attention to how long it takes. I’m always too busy walking,” was 62’s reply. He walked back over to the radio antenna and 00 followed. 62 picked up the radio, making sure the switch was turned on. A faint static leaked from the speaker. Parker said the two radios would need to be on the same channel to work, so 62 was careful not to bump the knob. He didn’t want it to be his fault if they missed whatever message Blue and Parker sent from the other radio.
The Boys shivered in the cold, situating themselves beside the roof’s low wall. 62 and 00 scooted together, back-to-back, protecting a portion of their bodies from the wind. They leaned against one another for warmth. 62 passed the radio to 00, then tucked his knees to his chest to keep warm. The wait was long. 62’s mind wandered, thinking about the bot hiding on the floor just below them, daydreaming about telling it they’d succeeded in making the radios work. He avoided the flitting thoughts of potential failure that pestered him with greater frequency as their wait continued. Whatever the outcome, he hoped the experiment with technology would please N302. As odd as it was to admit, he’d missed the bots in Adaline, and now that they had one to talk to, he didn’t like that it was upset. He feared it would stop talking to him.
They spent so long sitting in silence, that 62 nearly jumped out of his skin when the radio unit squawked to life.
“Hello? Hello?” Parker’s voice cried from the radio in 00’s hand. His voice came through in waves, tumbling through the speaker in uneven spurts.
00 leaned over the box in his lap and pushed the transmission button. “Hello! This is 00. Can you hear me?”
There was a brief pause, whether from a delay in the radio, or from a problem on the other end, 62 wasn’t sure. Then, Parker’s voice squawked from the box again. “I can hear you!”
Both Boys on the roof let out a celebratory whoop. 62 jumped to his feet and danced to let the excited energy out of his body. Suddenly, the cold was forgotten. 00’s arms flailed in excitement, knocking the radio out of his lap. It fell to the roof with a jarring crash, and the wire connecting it to the power supply pulled loose from the box. The radio let out a fading squeal as the power leaked out of it, and then the box was silent.
“Fix it! Quick!” 62 screeched.
00 scrambled to repair the connection, but his numb fingers fumbled the wires. Time dragged by as he blew on his hands, wriggling his fingers under his warm breath to try to force them to life. Once they moved freely, he tried to repair the wire again. 62 paced impatiently, holding in a cry of frustration. He knew it had been an accident, but part of him wanted to throttle 00 for wrecking the radio. 00 clung to the box, refitting the wire to its proper place. The radio sprang to life again, and Parker’s voice pealed out of the speaker once more.
“… hear me? Has something gone wrong?”
00 pressed the button and his voice cracked in a nervous panic. “I dropped the radio. Sorry! Had to reattach a wire. Can you still hear me?”
“Yes!” came the reply. “Thank Hanford, I thought I’d broken something. Hold on, Blue wants a try.”
The wait was brief. 62 closed his eyes, imagining his brother standing at one of the desks in the radio room, talking into the microphone.
“Hey there, dustbuggers!” Blue cackled, his laughter broken by the squeals and fuzz on the line. “What d’you call two clones standing on a roof?”
“I don’t know. What?” 00 asked the radio.
“Cold!” Blue’s laughter screeched through the speaker.
“He’s got that right,” 62 said to 00 with a nod. The mere mention of the weather sent a chill to his bones. “Ask them what else we need to do to test this thing.”
00 repeated the question into the radio.
“Nothing,” was Parker’s reply. “We’ve proved it works, and this channel connects fine. I just need to write down the channel number so I can remember it when I get home.”
“Are you staying up there a while?” 00 asked the box.
“Yeah, it’s a long
walk. We’ll stay ’til we’re too bored to stand it, then we’ll come back.”
The radio operators bade one another farewell, and 00 turned off the radio. He unhooked the wires and 62 followed him down the hatch and back into the warm building. They couldn’t contain their excitement over their success and raced down the stairs to the greenhouse where Rain and Sunny were working.
“We did it!” 62 shrieked as they entered the covered gardens. 00 held the radio aloft, laughing and cheering.
“Did what?” Dr. Rain asked, her face long and disapproving. Her sharp eyes held a warning to not say too much.
“We—” 62 stammered, “We spent the morning on the roof!”
“The roof?” Sunny asked, a thin smile on her lips. “And what did you find there?”
“The water collection system works great!” 00 cheered. “And the water’s as clear as a day without wind!”
“Well, maybe a little wind,” 62 said, commenting on the static of the radio broadcast.
“So, we’re all getting new boots?” Sunny probed in their secret code.
“Death to brussels sprouts!” 00 crowed. “New boots for everyone!”
Rain raised a confused eyebrow. “You’re a strange lot,” she said with a shake of her head before turning her back on the celebration. She chuckled, then returned to the bed of seedlings she’d been tending to.
“We’re strange,” Sunny agreed with a nod. “But it’s a happy kind of strange, I think.”
CHAPTER 35
Parker was oblivious to Sunny’s haunting stares as he rushed to pack his bag. Now that there was a chance to use his radio, he couldn’t wait to get back to Hanford. Rain did her best to be sympathetic to Sunny’s plight, but even she was ready to get out of the laborious work of the jailhouse and back to the relative comfort of her rounds at the hospital. While the males had whittled away their time playing with electronics, Rain and Sunny had thinned seedlings, planted rows of corn, and prepared the beds of languishing raspberries for another season. They’d erected new lattices along the far wall of the greenhouse, turned the compost curing in the bins, and built a coop for the hen and rooster. Now, Sunny stood in Parker’s room clinging to his arm, as if trying to hold him back from finishing his packing while Rain hobbled to her room complaining of a sore back.
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