by David Peters
“Erica, honey?” she asked as she slid the headphones around her neck.
Erica was sitting on the floor surrounded by various toys and stuffed animals, “Yes, Mom?”
Daniel screamed mightily as he charged across the room and tackled Erica, his shriek settling into a continuous growl.
“Could you do me a favor and take Daniel out to see the horses or something?” She added with a smile, “Anything outside, on the other side of a closed door? A very thick, closed door”
Erica was playing on the living room floor with Daniel running circles around her, “Sure, Mom. Sorry if we are being too noisy.”
“I just want to get this place as quiet as I can. If you see your dad, could you send him this way? I need his opinion.” Then she quickly added, “And his ears.”
“Sure thing. Come on, Little Bear, you want to go see what Buck and Jonas are up to? Maybe see what Cap-Cap and Daddy are doing?”
“See Daddy working?”
“Sure, we’ll go see what Daddy is building today. Maybe he’ll let you use some tools again.”
Daniel yelled as he ran out the front door, “Yay! I’m gonna build somfin’!”
“I appreciate it, love you guys,” Niccole said as she turned back to face the radios and cupped her hands over the headset.
“Love you too, Mom. I’ll send Dad when I find him.”
Daniel waved enthusiastically, “Bye-bye, Mommy! Have a good day!”
“You too, Little Bear! Keep Erica safe for me!”
He waved and smiled as he pulled the front door closed behind himself and ran to catch up with Erica.
With the cabin door closed, the house became completely quiet. Doug the cat came out of hiding and took up his usual position in the front window sill, his tail twitching as he saw the occasional bird or chipmunk. Niccole smiled as she watched the old cat pining for his younger days.
Niccole leaned back again and closed her eyes, concentrating on the seemingly random sounds in the white noise of the radio. With the gain on the UHF radio set to full, the static began to take on a recognizable pattern. The clicks and pops were rhythmic and seemed to repeat after a short time. She couldn’t pick out any words but after she had listened to the analogue signal long enough, she could pick out the pattern easily enough. It sounded as if it were the same two sentences repeated over and over on a loop.
She needed a second set of ears, some part of her was concerned that maybe she simply wanted to hear something in the static so her mind was obliging her. She had listened for so long now that she was hesitant to hope it was someone new somewhere out in the ether. It wouldn’t be the first time she pulled something from nothing and it wouldn’t be the last.
Dylan came through the door and dropped his hat on the top of the coat rack, “Erica said you needed something, is everything okay? You have something new for me to start worrying about?”
“I just wanted someone with your aural talents to listen to the radio for a few minutes, nothing is going to explode. I swear I’m hearing something but I could be going stir-crazy too. Way too many hours at this board,” She pulled the headset jack out of the ancient radio and replaced them with small stereo speakers. “I just want you to listen and tell me what you hear.”
He pulled up a chair next to her and sat down with his elbows resting on his knees. He closed his eyes for some time, nodding occasionally as he listened. After several minutes he nodded, “It repeats, you aren’t hearing things. No doubt about it.”
“Exactly! So I’m not going crazy! I’ve been sitting here listening to it for almost an hour, thought I was beginning to hear what I wanted to hear.”
“You definitely have someone there, or at least some sort of an automated message that is repeating. This is on the UHF?” He looked at the settings, “Gain is all the way up, is there any way you can get this more clear?”
“This is as good as it gets and I can only pull this in on clear days like this. Once the cloud cover comes in, this channel is totally quiet. That’s why I started listening more to the static. I know for a fact that this signal wasn’t here three weeks ago.”
“That seems kind of odd but that may mean someone just got power to start it up.”
Niccole nodded, “That would make sense.”
“We need to get you more range.”
“How do we do that? The tower is already patched to no end. I don’t think we could squeeze another inch out of it height wise without the entire thing collapsing under its own weight.”
“Could we run it to a hill that’s taller? Spark’s Hill across the valley is at least another hundred or so feet.”
“That would be a run of several miles. I don’t think the cable will work that far will it? Doesn’t it have some kind of limit in how long you can string it out? Do we even have that much?”
“I’m sure it does and I don’t think we have four miles of cable anywhere in a ten mile radius.”
“Could we make something?”
“I’ll float it by Travis. I’m sure he can come up with something. He’s pretty good at crapping stuff out when under pressure.”
“Can he make it a priority? This is really bugging me, I need to know who is out there and what they are saying. They may need our help.”
“Will do, Coco. You need anything else?” he asked as slid his arms through his jacket, “I need to get back out to the mill, I guess the log roller damn near killed someone this morning. Porter is wanting some work done and I don’t know how we are going to do it. We don’t have the machinery to make something that large let alone make it run.”
“Nope, I’m good as long as I know I’ll meet whoever is on the other end of that static. You get back to work, slacker.”
He smiled and kissed her before putting his hat back on, “Love you, Coco.”
“Love you too, Cowboy,” she answered back with a smile.
~1~
“I’m just not sure what I can do about it, Boss,” Travis answered back, his voice sounding uneven as he swung a large iron-shaping hammer.
He continued to pound several glowing pieces of metal around the anvil until they were bent at smooth right angles. He used the heavy, iron tongs to dip the properly shaped brackets into a bucket of water. Steam flowed out from the bucket with a loud hiss. He grabbed another metal plate with the tongs and placed it into the forge fire.
As Travis pumped the bellows he continued, “I’ve done everything I can think of to get that tower higher. I just don’t have the kind of steel I need to build anything bigger.”
“Could we relocate it? Move the whole tower?”
“You mean move it to another hilltop?”
“Yeah.”
“I might be able to drum up the cable but we would run into some serious voltage problems over that distance. I don’t think it would work.”
Dylan nodded, “I was really hoping you could pull something out that melon of yours.”
Travis turned and looked over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow, “Really? Did you actually just use the word melon when you are not in fact, referring to an actual fruit-type melon? Wouldn’t you usually say something like head, or brain? Maybe even medulla oblongata if you are feeling particularly edgy?”
“You’re rubbing off on me, what can I say?” he said in his best surfer accent, “You make me all like, hip and stuff.”
Travis furrowed his brow.
Dylan smiled, “Should I have added a ‘dude’ to the end of that?”
Travis burst out laughing as he pulled off his thick gloves, “I guess that’s a good thing. Still don’t understand why everyone thinks I used to surf, that is so damn odd. Anyway, back to the tower, we certainly don’t have any shortage of cable now, unless you want to figure out a way to run it across the valley.”
“That salvage you got from the telco office in Sumter was crazy. Erica says we have more than a thousand feet of the stuff, still wrapped in plastic and all. Should keep indefinitely as long as we keep it dry.”
Dylan shook his head, “Just no damn use for it.”
Travis turned back to his smelter and flipped the flue open, “I’ve looked at that old cell tower down by the highway but I don’t think we could get the pieces back up the hill. Even if we did manage to take it apart and not get killed, we couldn’t lift them back into place without a crane. They are like, thirty feet each.”
Travis pumped the bellows several more times before he suddenly stopped and stared at the burning embers.
“Travis?”
The younger man continued to stare without responding. He gave the bellows a long slow pump and followed a random spark as it floated upward through the flue then winked out.
Dylan watched him for a moment before getting concerned, “Is there something wrong, Travis?”
The young man nodded several times before a smile crossed his face, “Nothing at all, boss man, nothing at all.” He held up one finger as he continued to stare at the fire, “I just need a minute to watch this fire.”
Dylan knew this look. An idea had taken seed and the first green leaves of the shoot had just pushed their way up through the soil. Travis was building something in his head and testing how well it worked. In the years he had come to know him he had learned to read the specific nods as the man wandered through the recesses of his own mind.
“I’ve seen this look before, Travis, I’ll give you some time and space.”
Travis merely nodded in acknowledgment as he turned and stood in front of his work bench. He scrawled several notes on a piece of paper. After some quick math, he circled his result and nodded with a smile.
Travis yelled toward the back of the shop, “John, I’ll be back in a few hours. Can you dig out those hose clamps? The brass ones in the back cabinet, not those crappy aluminum ones in the front tray, I need the good stuff. I also want those black cable-ties, the wiring kit and that box of electrical crimps.”
“On it, Travis. You want me to take the stuff somewhere or just have it ready?”
“Load it into the wheelbarrow and I’ll be back in a few, thanks.”
“Not a problem, see you in a few.” He waved an acknowledgment to Dylan as he disappeared behind the storage cabinet door and began digging through a large, steel-doored cabinet.
Dylan suddenly felt very awkward standing alone in the doorway of the blacksmith shed. He couldn’t figure out what to do with his hands and decided it was time to head back to the cabin. There really wasn’t anything for him to do but wait. Travis would deliver, he just had no idea what was going to arrive and whether it would explode or not. He was really hoping it didn’t explode.
~2~
“Just trust me on this, Doc. If I can make this work it will absolutely rock!”
Doc leaned back in his black swivel chair, “Travis, this is the only one I have and there are so many uses that I can’t begin to explain. The rubber alone can be used for innumerable different medical devices. I don’t have much use for the gizmos in the box though, you can have those.”
“I need the whole thing, Doc. Can’t you help me out?”
“I’m not seeing the justification in that statement, Travis. That certainly doesn’t shed any light on your intended use.”
Travis gave him an exasperated look, “Dude! How long have you had that thing just sitting back on that shelf? If you haven’t found a reason to use it yet, you aren’t going to.”
“I cannot argue that fact. It has been back there for more than six years but that doesn’t mean I will not have a use for it in the future.”
“I’m not going to tear it up. Just trust me on this, Dude. Will you, for once?”
Doc sighed heavily, “I’m just not sure I can do that without knowing what you are going to use it for. You have a reputation around town.”
“Do I? Ouch.”
“You would be blind not to notice, young man. More than a few of your devices have had a tendency to generate large amounts of either fire or shrapnel. Tell me what you are going to do with it.”
“Come on, Doc. You know I don’t work that way. How about a trade? A little tit-for-tat?”
Doc looked at him with a smile, “And what is it you have to offer in trade, young man? Don’t waste my time. That is a valuable item and I expect something of equal value in return.”
“Awesome! Now we are talking, let’s make a deal.” Travis looked around the room frantically for anything that he thought would close the trade. He drummed his fingers on Doc’s desk as he looked for anything that might spark the trade, “I can refill those oxygen cylinders in the back closet.”
Doc’s eyebrows raised, “Now just how in the heck would you manage to do that?”
Travis panicked momentarily as he realized he didn’t know how he was going to fill them, “That’s my problem to work out, Doc. Do we have a deal or not?”
“You will fill my oxygen? And I mean oxygen, I don’t want compressed air, I want straight O2 and nothing else. I also want it completely dry, no moisture. You rust these things out from the inside and blow up my office, I will not be a happy man. You put any moisture in there and wreck my tanks I’ll hang you by your toes until your lips go numb.”
“Pure, dry, compressed oh-two, my man. Nothing else.”
“If you can get me that, you can keep that entire kit.”
“Right on! Thanks, Doc!”
Doc held on to the box as Travis tried to take it from his hands. The younger man pulled several times but the older one wouldn’t let go.
Doc looked over the top of his wire-rimmed glasses, “And you promise not to kill yourself, or someone else. Not to mention blowing something up or burning something down? No chemical burns and I won’t spend eight hours pulling splinters out of innocent bystanders?”
Travis grimaced at the reminder of some of his past endeavors, “No one is going to get blown up.”
Doc frowned and still held his tight grip on the box.
“Or any of that other stuff you said,” Travis added sheepishly.
Doc scowled at Travis as he handed him the small wooden crate, “You promise?”
“At least no one should get blown up, I don’t think so anyway,” Travis pulled on the box but Doc still wouldn’t let go.
“No new injuries either. No radiation, drowning, falling death?”
“Now you are just giving me ideas.”
“If there are any injuries from this, so help me, Travis.”
“If anyone gets hurt, it will only be me and you have my permission to do whatever is painfully necessary to patch me up.”
Doc shook his head as he released the crate then shooed him out with the wave of a hand.
“You don’t really think I’m going to hurt anyone, do you, Doc?”
“I don’t think you would do it intentionally and I know you are only keeping the town’s best interests at heart.”
“Thanks, Doc. I’m off to see if John will let me make some alterations to the turbine.”
“Right,” Doc said as he shook his head, “you thought our deal was difficult. I wish you luck with that one.”
~3~
“But, John! I’ve only got to shut the thing down while I make a quick change. I already have everything in place to make the change, I just don’t want to get lit up while I’m doing it. There is some serious voltage running through that line and if I fry myself Doc will kill me.”
John Martelli paced back and forth in the power shed while he tried to decide what to do. “In the shop you’re the boss, but in the power shed, well this is all my responsibility, my baby. And that ‘thing’ I might add runs all the powered equipment in the town that pulls more than twenty amps. As long as I have been here, we have only shut this thing off once. What if it won’t spin back up? Dylan would have my head on a platter! This is our only steady juice and on cloudy days it can be our only juice at all.”
“We will get it running again, I just need to kill the current for a moment while I connect a few things. Nothing is going to go wrong, man. Ser
iously, thirty seconds, tops.”
“Does anyone ever say no to you, Travis?”
“I hear the word no all the time, you know that.”
“But does it ever work?”
“Nope,” Travis answered with his infectious smile and raised eyebrows. “Come on, man, I’ll give you credit for letting me set this up, I need your help on this. This part is kind of the keystone to the entire project.”
John rolled his eyes, “Fine. What do I need to do?”
“Wait one sec,” he said as he backed out of the small shed, “I’ll be right back, don’t go anywhere.”
Several moments later Travis returned with a wheelbarrow with a large pair of twelve-inch pipes towering six feet above it. Several iron plates were welded to the wheelbarrow. He lowered two stabilizers down onto the ground and tightened the butterfly screws so the wheelbarrow was now locked in place with the front wheel several inches off the ground.
With the feet locked in place, Travis checked the wired connections at the base of the plastic pipes, followed them out the bottom of the wheelbarrow and into a large, black box. Happy that everything was secure he checked the water intake on the side of one of the tubes. A green garden hose ran from a spigot he had attached and lay coiled up in the bottom of the wheelbarrow. He ran the other end of the hose to a spigot on the wall and began to fill the pipes with water. As the water filled the pipes, he closed off two small valves in the top of the machine.
“What in the world is that monster of a thing? What are you powering? Is this a weapon, Travis? Are you building some super-weapon in my power shack?”
“This, my fine-mechanical friend, is not a super-weapon. This bad boy here is a hand-crafted, state-of-the-art, post-apocalyptic electrolysis unit.”
“This is all about removing hair?” John said angrily. “Are you kidding me? That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.”
“Ah, no. Wrong electrolysis. Water comes in here, runs through this salt filter and then a current gets applied. Through decomposition...”
“It rots?”
“Uh, no. It doesn’t rot. The water is separated down into oxygen on this side and hydrogen on this side. I’ll vent the oxygen and save the hydrogen for a little project. Now that I think about it, I already promised the oxygen to Doc,” he continued to mumble to himself as he moved about and set up the system, “I need to figure that part out. Okay, so the oxygen won’t be vented, which I guess is good. I told the doc I wouldn’t blow anything up and venting free oxygen into an enclosed space could be hazardous.”