Digital Life Form - part 3

 

Graham Marks looked up at the sound of the Jeep coughing and spluttering outside the Exxon survey base HQ.  Relaxing the hand that had hovered over the short-wave radio reserved for emergency calls he stood and walked over to the window of his office.  Outside, under the floodlights he watched as the crew unloaded the Jeep, carrying tools and equipment to the correct storage, chains clanking as mesh gates were secured, locks snapping shut despite the HQ being located miles from any civilisation.  Routine was routine, and that was what had pissed Graham off.

Chuck flinched as he walked into the front office of the HQ, a long, squat trailer containing basic office furniture leading to the connecting tunnel to the crews’ living quarters at the rear and to the boss’s office to the right.  Graham stormed out of that office, straight past Ben sat manning the comms radio and laid straight into Chuck.

‘Where the fuck have you been?’ he shouted, pushing his face into Chuck’s.

‘Sorry chief, shaft seized, then the Jeep started running rough, had to nurse it back real slow.  Sam thinks it’s electrical – alternator or some shit like that, I thought maybe fuel pump.’  Chuck backed off from Graham, intimidated by the man mountain twenty years his senior.  ‘Radio failed too, probably battery I guess, couldn’t fix a frequency or hear any broadcast.  Spare battery didn’t do any better, either.’  He stood arms spread wide, palms forward.  Graham paused, evaluated the information.

‘What about the CB?’ he asked, turning his head towards the commercial set sat next to Ben.  Chuck shook his head.

‘Same as the main radio, probably linked to the Jeep’s electrical problem, I guess.  Shit Graham, you know Sam knows fuck all about electrics.’  Graham stood aside, decided that he’d call head office in the morning to get the vehicles serviced on-site earlier than planned.  The two mechanics struggled into the HQ carrying the day’s core samples, the depth and location labels fluttering below.  For them, once the samples were in the lab they were done, they could grab a beer from the icebox and relax.  Chuck would grab a beer too but would spend the next hour cataloguing the samples ready for the duty geologist to process tomorrow.  Before he began his task, he reached into his bag and pulled out the meteorite and with a smooth swing he lobbed the rock to Ben.

‘Meteorite, saw it land, damn near took my head off,’ he said as Ben caught the rock.  The young radio operator turned the rock in his hands, wonder in his eyes. 

‘Wow, like straight from space?’ he asked.

‘Just landed,’ replied Chuck, heading for the icebox.

*

Winston spoke clearly and carefully into the phone, explaining that, yes, he would personally deal with the situation and yes, he had made a note of the caller’s name and number but no, he probably wouldn’t call him back to apprise him of his progress.

‘I’m a fucking federal agent not a wet fucking nurse,’ he said to nobody in particular as he placed the handset back down.  ‘Has anyone got that number yet?’ he called over his shoulder while hovering over the handset ready to take the next highly predictable call.  Natalie, the registry clerk, placed a slip of paper in front of him.

‘He’s expecting you,’ she said.  Picking up the slip, Winston dialled.

‘Maurice Sands,’ answered a voice.

‘Mr Sands, my name is Grace, an agent with the FBI.  I’m calling about some weird transmissions that seem to be hitting pretty much all the popular frequencies, we’ve been getting a number of calls this evening and I wondered if you guys at the FCC had any advice for us,’ Winston said.  Sands didn’t pause to answer.

‘You’ve had a number of calls, what do you think I’ve been getting as the unacceptable federal face of the local communications commission?  Christ, everybody hates us ninety-nine point friggin’ nine percent of the time because we’re seen to be officious kill-joys stopping everyone from using the airwaves for whatever they think is their “God given right”, but the moment someone does what we spend our lives trying to prevent and you can’t hear Dolly Parton’s Country Hour on your favourite local station then my phone goes into meltdown. 

‘Yes, I’ve got some advice – someone’s breaking the law, a federal law, and I know approximately where they’re doing it from.’  Winston paused, partly to digest the unexpected rant.

‘Can you do anything about it?  Close down the station or whatever is interfering with all the FM, AM and short-wave stations on and off?’

‘Sure.  Now that the interference source has been helpfully triangulated by several pissed off amateur radio freaks all I need to do is call up the FCC gunship, fly out into the desert and make them stop.’

‘You can do that?’

‘Sure.  Except the bit about the gunship.  And I’m sorry if it sounded like I could do something real quick.  Perhaps if someone could rustle a judge up who isn’t too picky about issuing a court order to an address in the middle of the desert with no name on then I could slap a stamp on it and hope the postal service finds the offender before they piss every radio listener in California off.’  Winston understood the frustration Sands was feeling.

‘Sorry Mr Sands, I guess I was a bit slow there.  How about a bit of federal organisational co-operation.  If you really do know where the perp is broadcasting from then I can take you there – if an offence is in progress at the time of my arrival I can use my tin badge to make it stop and bring this guy in, what do you say?’

‘You got one of those FBI gunships to take us?’ asked Sands.

‘Only if they’re made by General Motors,’ replied Winston.

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Digital Life Form will be back with part 4 soon.  Can't wait?  Like all of my books Digital Life Form is available as an eBook and paperback on Amazon and can be read for free if you're an Amazon Prime or Kindle Unlimited customer.