The Signal
By William Young
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PUBLISHED BY:
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Chapter 1
Carla Lombard stared through the window of the lab, up into the nighttime heavens and the twinkling stars above. Silence, again. For twenty years she had been coming to the Owens Valley Radio Site to plumb the universe for signs of extra-terrestrial intelligent life, and every year she had ended her trip the same way, with nothing to show for it. For a moment, she caught her reflection in the window, a translucent version of herself staring back at her above a mug of herbal tea, but then her eyes focused back on the dark sky above the radio telescopes, not perturbed one bit by the silence of the sky.
“Nothing from any of you, again. How typical,” she said to herself, sipping from her mug.
Carla turned from her reflection and surveyed the lab, a cramped space with a dozen terminals and various charts and calendars pinned to the walls, most of them out-of-date, remnants from previous groups trying to co-ordinate their efforts to find something new in the universe. Graduate students and doctoral candidates were scattered at computers, reviewing the latest data and looking for clues pointing at some life in outer space. Carla glanced at the clock on the wall and shook her head knowingly: they’d all stay until they fell asleep at the terminals if she didn’t shoo them out of the room every night. She had been like that too, long ago, as a graduate student desperate for answers from the universe. Now, life was different; she didn’t care if outer space had anything to say to her.
“Okay, guys, it’s almost ten o’clock. Let’s shut the system down and let the computers do the work,” Carla said. The students emerged from their own private data cocoons, in which they were oblivious to the hums from the computers or the clicks on terminals. “I’m going to The Rose. As usual, the first round is on the university, so feel free to join me.”
Carla paused for a half-moment as the students finally found their way to full attention on her, their reveries broken and reality back. “But if you want to stay…”
The Rose was nothing like a flower. It was a large room with wooden booths, a long bar with a brass rail, fake stained glass windows behind the bar, bottles of gin and vodka standing in columns and rows on low risers. Indeed, it more resembled an Elks Lodge built in the 1950s and never remodeled. Carla and her team – she liked to think of the members of the annual trip to the Owens Valley site as a team, rather than students – sat at a long table, several pitchers of beer before them, a pair of pizza boxes empty. They had been talking about politics and current events and had come to the conclusion that none of them really knew what was going on in the world because they spent so much time wondering what was going on in the universe.
“You know what’s weird, there’s a presidential race going on right now and the only thing I really know is that the president is running again,” Peter Jenkins said. “My dad asked me what I thought about Hartman and I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. And then I thought, ‘election,’ I’ve never even voted and I’m not sure if I’m even registered.”
Gloria Flores, a doctoral student in her early 30s, leaned forward in her chair and assessed Peter. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-four,” Peter said.
“You’re twenty-four and never voted?” Gloria said mock-incredulously. “Tell me you’re not still a virgin, too.”
The rest of the team smiled at Peter as he took the rib good-naturedly.
“Hey, I haven’t always been an astronomy geek. I was an undergrad for four years, I had a life, once,” Peter said. “And, anyway, spending all your nights pointing things into the sky kind of occupies the same time spot dating would.”
Barrett Smythe leaned in and laughed, “Well, you’ll have a couple of weeks off soon enough. Maybe you can work something into your love life between Sunday and the start of the semester.”
“I was kind of thinking I’d register to vote,” Peter said.
Gloria Flores smiled broadly and said, “Well, then, I guess I better tell you that Hartman is the president on the television show The Oval Office, not the real president in the White House.”
Peter looked confused. “But I don’t even watch that show.”
“You probably read an issue of Entertainment Weekly and thought it was Time,” Barrett Smythe said.
The table erupted in friendly laughter and Carla felt a warm glow of pride within her. Her team was like family, and it felt good when the family was bonding and enjoying each other’s company, not feuding over misplaced decimal points or time on a telescope. Carla tilted the last of her beer into her mouth and set the pint glass down on the table. She glanced at her watch and then surveyed the table.
“Well, I’ve got just enough time to call home and say good-night, so I’ll see all of you tomorrow,” Carla said, standing from her chair amid a chorus of well wishes.
It was cold in the parking lot, and Carla shrugged tighter into her light windbreaker, hoping for heat. She slipped her cell phone from a pocket and pressed in the numbers for home.
Hundreds of miles away, Bill Lombard reacted to the trill of the phone and checked the caller ID.
“Hey, honey, how was your day?”
“Same as yesterday. Yours?” Carla asked.
Bill sighed audibly. “I found a bag of pot in the saddle bag on Jenny’s bike.”
“What?”
“Yeah.”
Carla stared into the darkness of the horizon beyond the parking lot. “How’d you find that?”
“She asked me to tighten the chain on her bike, and while I was lifting it, it just fell out of the saddle bag under the seat,” Bill said matter-of-factly. “That and a pipe like the one you had in college. And a lighter.”
For a moment, Carla stung at the reference to her college life and her weekend marijuana use. She hadn’t smoked pot since before Jenny had been born, giving it up when trying to get pregnant the first time. She’d never missed it. But now, just weeks from when her first-born child was due to fly the coop for her own college journey, Carla couldn’t help but think that her daughter would embrace the wrong aspects of her freedom.
“Aww, Christ. What’d you do?” Carla asked.
Bill chortled. “I switched out the pot with some tobacco from a Macanudo I tore apart. I want to see what she does when she realizes I’m on to her.”
Carla rolled her eyes and stared up into the night sky in disbelief. “So, you switched out a bad habit for another bad habit?”
“Well,” Bill started, then paused. “It’s not like she’s going to take up cigar smoking because I pulled a switch on her. And, anyway, she starts college in a couple of weeks, I figured we ought to let her know we’re not as dumb and out-of-it as she thinks we are.
“I’m sure she’ll notice the difference right away. I think. Pot leaves and cigar tobacco don’t look the same,” Bill said, uncertainty creeping into his words. “Maybe it’ll scare her straight.”
Carla sighed. “Yeah, I know, but it’s one thing to smoke pot on the weekends in college, it’s another thing to stash it in your mountain bike and go for daily rides,” Carla said. “I thought she was exercising, dammit, not riding out into the woods to get high.”
“Well, when she goes out on her ride tomorrow, she’ll know the jig is up,” Bill said. “And you’ll be home in a couple of days, so, maybe we should talk to her when you get back.”
Carla looked back up into the night sky, searching for answers. She knew so much about how the heavens worked, and so little about how people did. Oddly, she had never noticed the irony in this.
“How’re the boys?” She asked.
“Nate is fine, and Johnnie is scheduled to pitch tomorrow, so that’s good,” Bill said. “He??
?s wanted to start all season, and now he gets his chance. We worked on his slider tonight after dinner, but I think he should really just stick to fastballs and curves. He hasn’t had the experience on the mound to add another pitch, yet.
“I’ll video it and you can watch when you get back.”
Carla smiled at the thought. “Do that. I want to see it.”
“About when do you think you’ll be back?” Bill asked.
“Before dinner.”
“Well, I hope you have good hunting while your season lasts,” Bill said.
“Thanks honey,” Carla said, closing her phone and walking to her car.
Chapter 2
Tom and Mary Gibson strolled through the main display tent of the Bucks County Grange Fair, Tom pushing a double-stroller with their two toddler children. Mary stopped frequently to check the wares of the local artists, normally hand-made jewelry, photographs, or paintings of landscapes past and present. Tom was bored almost immediately, as he guessed he would be after Mary had proposed the idea after breakfast.
“You want to look at stuff about farming?” Tom had said, suddenly seeing his afternoon matinee evaporating before his eyes. “I mean, it’ll be farm animals and plows and tractors, what’s to see?”
Mary had looked at him thinly, as if he didn’t get it, and he hadn’t gotten it. “It’ll be a ‘family day activity,’ Tom, something we need to do … as a family.”
And right then another unspoken requirement of married life became apparent to Tom. Five years and two kids into the venture, Tom hadn’t realized he would have to cede so much of himself to the enterprise. He’d had to quit smoking when Mary did, the morning she’d produced a plus sign on a pregnancy stick, although he had walked outside the house and lit up a cigarette in both celebration and bewilderment. He’d only walked outside to be one with the world, but, weeks later, after Mary had actually quit smoking for good, she had asked him to either quit or smoke outside permanently because she didn’t like the smell of the house when he smoke inside. Ultimately, he quit the day his son was born, smoking a cigar outside the hospital with another newly-made father.
“I think the kids are enjoying the trip here,” Tom said, looking down at the two toddlers sitting idly in the stroller.
“We’re starting a tradition, Tom,” Mary said, using a tone of voice women reserve solely for husbands, before her attention was grabbed by shiny objects behind glass. “Oh, I’m going to look at this case, there might be something interesting in it.”
Tom watched as his wife drifted a few feet away and engaged the saleswoman in conversation, pointing at earrings and necklaces inside the case. Tom stared around the tent and then down at the children, wondering if the new family tradition was taking root with them. He pushed the stroller down to the next artisan and looked disinterestedly into the case at the wares. And then he pushed the stroller a few more feet and stopped dead in his tracks.
“Wow,” Tom said, unconscious of the fact he was speaking and not thinking. “Ham radio?”
On the other side of a long collapsible table, Lincoln Feathers sat on a folding chair, seemingly oblivious to the world if you judged by the expression on his face the first instant Tom stopped before him, but the words from Tom’s mouth changed the man’s demeanor, and Lincoln lit up full of ceremony and circumstance.
“At your service,” Lincoln said, standing and sticking his hand into the void between him and Tom. “I’m Whiskey Three Four Niner Tango.”
Tom stared at the man’s hand for a second, unsure what the heck had just happened. He recognized the need for action and shook the man’s hand.
“What do your friend’s call you?” Tom asked.
“Niner Tango,” Lincoln said.
Tom paused and smiled, a bit confused, still, over what was going on between him and the man across the table from him. Tom glanced around for a clue and noticed a wedding band on the man’s hand.
“What’s your wife call you?” Tom asked.
“Late for dinner, usually,” Lincoln said.
Tom, flustered, resorted to the direct approach. “I’m Tom Gibson.”
The man smiled. “Lincoln Feathers, nice to meet you.”
Tom shook the man’s hand awkwardly, not getting a good grip and feeling foolish about the seconds that had passed while Lincoln had held his hand in the gulf between them.
“I thought this stuff went out of style with the Internet’s arrival,” Tom said.
Lincoln brightened. “Oh, no, it only made us more popular.”
“More popular?” Tom asked.
“Of course, now people can look us up online and find out how to join in on the fun,” Lincoln said.
“Wouldn’t you guys rather just email each other, instead?” Tom asked, glancing about to see what Mary was up to. She was still at the artisan’s stand, examining necklaces.
“About what?” Lincoln said.
“About all the stuff you’re saying into your radio. You could use and instant message client and do it all in real time, or tie a mic into it and it’s just like you’re using your radio,” Tom said.
“And where’d be the fun in that?” Lincoln asked.
Tom shrugged in a friendly manner. “Well, I suppose you could come up with some sort of skin for the IM interface that would make it look like you’re using a radio, and you’d still be talking to the same people you always talk to.”
Lincoln smiled affably. “Except I’d be using a computer instead of an actual radio, which is the whole point of using the radio. If I wanted, I could just call people on the phone.”
“So what’s the purpose of using an old radio to reach people somewhere else?” Tom asked.
“Well, Tom, it’s really about finding people like yourself. Someone else out there who wants to bounce radio waves off the sky and see where they go. The randomness of finding someone you’d have never found through any other way, and the thrill of connecting to a transceiver a mile or a thousand miles from where you are,” Lincoln said patiently, explaining for the thousandth time the point of the hobby to a befuddled questioner.
“And, anyway, this isn’t an old radio. I bought it brand new just six months ago. It’s state-of-the-art.”
Tom suddenly felt foolish. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—“
Lincoln waved his hand through the air politely, shutting down Tom’s apology.
“No, I know what you meant. I get this all the time from people who’ve never been around an amateur radio enthusiast, but it’s more popular now than ever. It’s a hobby, that’s all, not some call for people to revert to an earlier age,” Lincoln said, reaching down to the table and pulling a business card from a stack and handing it to Tom.
“Here, take this. Some friends and I meet the first Saturday night of the month to run a couple of sets and see who we turn up. Mostly, though, it’s an excuse to get away from the family and drink Scotch,” Lincoln said, noticing Mary had finished her discussion at the jewelry booth and looking at her husband. “And this Saturday is the first of the month. Come and bring a single malt. There are a couple of guys who’ll talk behind your back if you bring a blend, even if it’s a good one. They’re snobs, but they’re friends.”
Mary stopped by the ham radio booth and gave the two men a quizzical look, the look on Tom’s face giving away something, but she wasn’t sure what. She looked at Lincoln, who was smiling guiltily, although Mary couldn’t quite make out why. She looked down at the radio on the table between the two men, and then turned to Tom.
“You’re not going to buy that, are you?” Mary asked, her voice tinged with a blend of sarcasm and incredulity.
“No,” Tom said too quickly. “No, I was just talking with him about it.”
“Good, I don’t think I want you buying any more gadgets until you can figure out how to program the universal remote control,” Mary said with a measure of good cheer and wifely condescension. She knew her man and his limitations.
Tom looked at Lincoln, and Lincoln sm
iled back knowingly, having been in the same spot a million times in his own marriage.
“Thanks for the invite, I may just take you up on it,” Tom said.
Tom and Mary pushed the stroller away from the booth. Mary looked over her shoulder back at Lincoln, who was again sitting, and turned to Tom.
“Take him up on what?” Mary asked.
“He and some of his ham radio buddies get together once a month to hand out at his place and – as he put it – bounce radio waves off the sky,” Tom said.
“Just like you and the Internet, only less often,” Mary said.
“Yeah, though I get the idea it’s mostly a guy’s night out.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He told me to bring a bottle of Scotch if I go.”
Mary paused for a second and tilted her head at Tom. “Well, that makes it a lock, I’m sure.”
Chapter 3
Dante Holmes, aka “Scots Tape,” was at work in his home recording studio, putting some finishing touches on his latest single. He sat before a small bank of computer equipment and musical devices, listening to the song, stopping it frequently to adjust a level here and there, or to insert a new sound track. But no matter what he did, the result was not what he wanted.
“Aww, shit. I need a sound,” Dante said to himself. “Why the hell don’t I have the sound?”
Dante lived in a modest apartment, and his recording studio consisted of a corner of the living room stuffed with equipment and wired into a nearby walk-in closet. The closet had been re-fitted to be a recording studio, and the walls and ceiling were covered with sound-dampening material. The look was cheap, but meticulously done. Dante didn’t have the cash for even a pretend professional home studio, but he didn’t do anything half-assed if it was him doing the work, and the room showed it, even if it was covered in a composite of egg crates and Styrofoam.
Dante started the song over again while digging through his computer files looking for a sound. He dragged a file into a mixing program and dropped it in, then managed it with another software tool. He listened. He frowned.