Unknown Read online

September 29

  Test Day!

  Jenny and I spoke the next morning while I walked to work. She was a historian of sorts originally from Texas and had spent the past twenty years researching, gathered stories, and sifted through what scant records were preserved from the war. That would have made her close forty. I couldn't believe it, and told her so. She looked easily like a woman half that age. She responded with musical laughter and told me her secret was clean living, a positive outlook, and lots of makeup. Curious woman, I'd have to invite her over for dinner again sometime to see just how many stories she had to share.

  Work was lively, involved three large women, and a child that wouldn't stop screaming and grabbing at things. The day wouldn't end, and I don't want to write in too great a detail of it. Little point in revisiting any of it, and I was grateful it finally ended. Finn, for once, didn't crawl into his favored watering hole after we closed up and instead started walking with me.

  He asked if everything was alright. Of course it was why wouldn’t they be? He noticed I had been preoccupied through the day. I waved the idea off. I was fine, I told him, just didn't like what I saw when I was gone. There was no way he would believe a story involving human-like machines with the capacity to kill everything around them. So I told him of the looters, empty homes, and of losing two people that had traveled with us there. That seemed to satisfy his curiosity, and no I did not need any more time off. It was nice of him to offer, but I needed to work to get my mind off the matter.

  He asked me if I was nervous about my upcoming exam. No, not in the slightest. I knew the theory well enough, and could work through a conversation at the speeds that I would be tested at. Morse was a soothing way of communicating. It was, to me, nearly musical in it's own way. Many have boggled at those of us that seem to hold whole conversations in our heads rather than write any of it down. I boggle at anyone that has to write the exchanges down to make sense of them. Morse was a thing that was best understood by being heard, not visualized. I looked forward to this, I told him, it was one of those things I felt good at.

  On the way home I'd picked up several leaflets advertising for this or that place which might need work Billy was suited for. There was still time enough for me to grab a quick shower between now and time for my exam. I was nervous, but I was confident. The cleanup and change

  of clothes were simply to put on a presentable face if they wanted to add my picture to the wall of people that had passed since the club organized. Time to go with the green and black suit.

  I arrived a few minutes after the examiners had, but still a few minutes ahead of schedule. All of them were dressed in plain black suits neither extraordinarily well made nor cheaply slapped together. All three shook hands with me and told me, in warm tones, that they had heard about me. I gave them the stock line that I hoped not; else they would know just what a vagrant I was.

  They lead me into a room with a receiver, pad of paper, and enough desk space by the receiver to work with. I was instructed to not touch the equipment and to copy, exactly what was sent and was asked if I understood what they just told me. I told them I did and that I was ready.

  I told them that I was. One of the three left the room, presumably to give the text I was to translate. What follows is the text they wanted me to transcribe.

  I hadn't even started writing by the time the ended. When I was asked why, I had told both men seated with me that I wanted to hear the entire message, since whenever I attempt to transcribe in the middle my accuracy drops. They both nod and give me a few extra minutes to write what I believe the message was.

  Their verdict? I had not cheated, and had something that appeared perfectly reasonable. However they would have to confer with their third man to see if I had, in fact, written what he sent rather than just make up my own message. Even with the standard Q-calls (QST, QRR, CQ, and so on) most people that work in Morse, at least that I've seen, use forms of shorthand to copy the exact message. Procedure demanded they verify with the sender before moving on to the second part of the exam, but I was assured by both men that I did fine.

  When this was done and I had been officially told I had passed the first half of the examination I was then led to another room for the theory segment. This is one that I had somewhat less self confidence in, but still felt I had a reasonable chance of getting more right than I did wrong. This time all three men sat with me and watched as I wrote the answers to the questions lain before me.

  The first few sections dealt with procedure and rules, which were mostly things that were common sense material. Emergency traffic trumps everything else. No voice transmissions on Morse segments of the bands. Transmitting your call-sign every ten minutes. No profanity, codes or ciphers, or discussing illegal matters. All these things, and more, I had to explain. As I said, easy stuff that most people should be able to figure out on their own. Why they have to write it down I'm not sure, except so that it's on the books to prevent anyone from going 'well I never saw anyone say I couldn't, so I did.'

  The next segment dealt in electrical theory and radio prorogation, but even there I felt confident to a degree. Where I really felt I messed up, however, was on the different math formula for things like figuring out electrical current from the amount of watts and amps being carried, or the correct dimensions for different antenna, or how much power will be lost from the transmission going through to the antenna. These I felt less sure of, but answered to the best of my ability. I didn't, when asked, review any of my answers. There are occasions when I've caught mistakes doing this, but more often than not the changes I made were to make a right answer into a wrong one.

  With that done to everyone’s satisfaction I could have stopped and been awarded a grade 1 license. Even the math segments were things I hadn’t been too terribly frightened of, not compared to the portion that I was now facing. The difference between the questions I had faced and the ones I would be facing had to do with the fact that those that came up with this whole procedure made the assumption that one would take the entry level examination, wait a few years to gain some real-world experience, then move on with the more advanced material. I hadn’t and instead had studied and worked since July to skip the waiting. If I passed not only would I have an expanded set of privileges, I could also put my knowledge to use in commercial fields Though truthfully that was only a partial reason I had wanted to wait, train, and do it all at once.

  Minutes passed. I saw things being marked down with a pen one of them brought for the occasion. Relax. Either in passing or failing I did the best I was able to do. Be calm. Do not crowd in. You would find out soon enough.

  Julian Guy Fawkes 3rd is now recognized by the call-sign K4GW and henceforth given all frequency privileges and limitations of a Class 2 Civilian Wireless Operator.

  -William Bedford Davis, K4FB

  The nicely framed certification on my wall as well as my picture and call sign in the clubhouse's roll book should speak for themselves on how I did.

  October 1

  Mood: Happy

  My recent certification still had me in good spirits. Friends congratulated me. Drinks and merriment were had. I spent last night working a station from France. Yes. The world could end tomorrow for all I knew, but I was content. It wouldn't last, but while it did I had things I need to do that required a cheerful mood. Chief amongst these was rearranging furniture. It has been awhile since anything thorough had been done with any of it, and the best way to get the debris and garbage from where it hid was to move everything about and clear the trash while the floor was clear. Strange. This chair had already been moved, and the floor under it wasWait. What's this?

  A large jar of money. Have to ask Billy about that when she gets home. In the meantime put it back and pretend it wasn't there. No other treasures greeted me while I cleaned unfortunately. It needed doing no matter if I'd found only dust and leavings, but I was still somewhat disappointed. Oh well.

  Next was a trip to the tailors for a fitting. I hated
the process, but it was a good idea to have my measurements updated every year or so to adjust for periodic weight changes and just to be social with them. No I didn't mean the 'Tailors' and 'seamstresses' that one finds at night when the doorways were visible in red lights. I mean being social with honest hard working men and women that shaped and repaired clothing.

  Take Andrew for instance, the man that had done mine and my father's suits for the past decade. He had three kids, one in law school, and the other two followed in his footsteps as apprentices. Part of the reason I chose to stay in Ashton rather than see if it was safe back home was that he and his family had asked me to stay. That probably meant I owed him my life in a roundabout way, but he was the last person I would expect to hold anything like that over someone's head.

  Unfortunately because he's known me this long he also knew how to get under my skin. I'm sure his barbed humor was just his way to make people laugh, but more often than not it's a cruel thing that had often gotten him in trouble over the years. Take that sort of humor and add almost a decade's worth of knowledge about a person and you had enough barbs to make a fence from here to Oregon and back.

  Most of our talk while he measured me was about my trip last month. He thought I was foolish to have gone back since there wasn't family to go back to, and I had apparently thrived here. I told him about the looting, which amused him more than anything else. He seemed to view those wanting to pick the long bleached out bones of the ruined cities as idiots not worth his time. After all, as his thinking went, if there were anything good there to begin with wouldn't it have been the first to be hauled away during the migrations?

  He had a point there. That point was lost on those that spent their whole lives scouring through a single city, and there were hundreds just along the east coast of the continent. To counter I could have mentioned that big vault of gold that got excavated eight years ago. There was enough money there to keep the Confederates bank-rolled for generations. However I didn't mention this, as he would have only found something else to barb me with.

  After my measurements were updated I checked the prices for several different patterns both for day to day use and a few special occasion outfits. While we looked through pattern books, sketches of final designs, and discussed color I did a little mental figuring. There were many outfits I wanted, but I only could afford maybe two or three, and that was if I negotiated a payment plan with the man. He knew me, so unlike most customers he allowed this. I never like taking advantage of his generosity, but you couldn't go about in worn out and ill-fitting clothes. What would I do with the 'worn out and ill-fitting' clothes? Donate to charity probably. I might not want to further wear them out, but everything I have kept packed away was in good order.

  With the details of cut, fabric, color, and price settled I asked if he was willing to drop by for dinner. Tomorrow was fine, I told him. So far as I knew we had no plans then, and the company would help keep things from getting boring. No I didn't just wish things would get interesting! Deus I didn't want to have to go through last month's insanity again, what happened in May, or- Nevermind. It's never a good thing to tempt whatever hands shape things into having a little mischief at your expense.

  Next on my list of things that needed taking care of that I didn't want to do was to catch up on the latest rumors. Yes I have told myself that I would not worry about what happens until it happened, but if there were any warning I could have that these things were headed this way I wanted to try getting those I could to skip town. Finn could always reopen somewhere else, same for Andrew. If I could save either, preferably both, I would do what I could.

  Jenny? She was a valued friend as well, but she already knew as much as I did about the situation. Actually she probably knew more than me, but I didn't want to try peeling back why or how she knew what she did. I didn't want to give into delusional fantasies, nor did I want to upset the lady. She was a good friend.

  It was harder than most would think to find what the general gossip about any particular subject was. Not only did I have to either get lucky, steer the conversations towards what I want, but I was further handicapped by the fact that I'm from where these stories are supposed to be about. Something about people, at least in my experience, made them shy about talking about a person, their family, or their home with them around. Might have to do with fear of talking badly about the wrong person and ending up hurt in the process. Not that I would, but human nature seemed to trump casual association.

  Three hours, two drinks, a platter or cheese, and a lighter wallet later and I got discouraged. There was still

  talk of looting, that the army was both there and gone, and that nobody that went back had been heard from since except for Billy and myself. The one new rumor I started to hear more of was that the entire town had been deemed unfit for resettlement and there were armed patrols making sure nobody returned, lest some ancient horror recently unearthed infects them and spreads.

  Frightful to be sure, but not quite the truth. I supposed if this one were to gain wider acceptance than at least people would know to stay away. Maybe if the machines saw nobody else they would turn off, or go back to sleep, or whatever. I didn't believe it either, but it was a warm fuzzy thought.

  Before leaving I added my own twist, and credibility as someone people knew had lived there as well as someone who had recently gone back to see what happened, to that tale to the mix. My story was much the same as I had written down earlier; three companions and I went back to see what had happened and why no news, good or bad, had come from there. We found bodies, rather than empty piles of clothing, everywhere. Two of my companions died, one by looters, the other refused to rejoin our group after finding an open sore on his body. I was very careful to remind these people it had been close to a month since I was there, so any sort of illness would have already run its course.

  They asked me of my remaining companion, and I told them that her face was ruined by debris knocked over while we searched the ruins for survivors, but she was alive and well. I wasn't much of a storyteller, but I drew a small crowd that kept asking questions. What were my friends like? Was the ride difficult? Why didn't I get sick? I told them what answers I had, and before leaving I reassured them that I had seen a doctor and was given a clean bill of health since returning. To cap it off I chipped in on the collective tab. I would have paid for the entire round, but I needed to save what I have left over for the week's groceries.

  I make a quick stop home to drop a few things off, and wrote a brief note explaining that I was headed to make use of the Wireless Club's equipment and would be back later tonight. With that done I did as I said I would and saw what stations I was able to work for a couple hours. It's dusk, after all, and signals traveled much farther with the sun down. I worked Paris the night I passed my exam, and so I was excited to see which places that could be found tonight.

  In the back of my mind I heard China's voice hissing at me. She had always warned me when my hobbies and interests started crowding in with the have-to parts of life. Even though she wasn't here I'm sure she would have again provided one of these lectures to me. I waved the warning away. I would be careful and try only doing these things two nights a week. That would give me time to enjoy what I had worked hard to achieve, but would hopefully not interfere with the more important things in my life.

  The night was in a giving mood. There were, all told, three different stations that were in a talkative mood and could receive my end well enough to have pleasant exchanges. What did we talk about? My recent certification, policies both local and abroad, the weather, and my budding interest in pre-war technologies.

  I was assured by all three stations that my interest was perfectly natural. Most Wireless operates had at least some passing interest in the area if they hadn't gone so far as to make it a major facet of their personal studies. It was still too early for me to tell the story Jenny had told me. It might strike these people as nonsensical, and I wouldn't want to ward away potent
ial friends by seeming like an intelligent crazy.

  Instead each conversation ended with us exchanging post office addresses with promises to send each-other QSL cards. Think of them like specialized postcards that acted as proof that you had, in fact, made contact with a particular part of the world. People could fake them I suppose, but what's the use? All anyone would have to do is talk to the person directly to see if they had worked the station that says they had.

  Yes I knew it was somewhat competitive. There were no real set criteria to go by to determine who gets a card from you or not, so exchanges could only be the exchange of postal information to mail things to, or it could be as lengthy as a discussion of history, or electrical theory, or anything not expressly forbidden by each country's regulations.

  I had been given a stack of twenty cards when I came in, and now I had three that needed sending off. Hopefully these three, and many others, would be able to educate me on what we were facing. It seemed a sensible use of my newly acquired privileges. On the other hand it also smelled like justification for spending more time here than I had promised I would limit myself to. Must be careful so I don't overdo this.

  On reflection I probably should not have taken out the lengthy bits of note-taking and copying from different books, manuals. Granted if I left everything as cluttered as my original journal anything intelligible would be lost in the noise. Don't fret; I won't go into lengthy explanations of bandwidth privileges, the steps needed to make even a modest transmitter-receiver setup. True, transceivers are more common than separate receiving and transmitting boxes, but the different kits I can currently afford are for separate systems, not that I have space for a proper antenna even if I had the money to invest. Right. Getting sidelined, sorry about that. I should state, before I get off track again, that though my licensed privileges allow for the use of voice (or as Diana and the others call it, Radiotelephone) the three systems Ashton's clubs had at the time were dedicated Morse systems.