0x0E Bitsraised in a barn by hippy wolves

Sun Feb 24 19:01:00 CST 2008

"No. No. You sit right there. The munchkins will take me up."

"Dad, why doesn't Sam take...."

"Because I enjoy spending time with my grand children!" he grumped.

(Chuckled) "Are you going to fart the entire way this time?"

Grandpa glared. "I knew I should have asked Sam to fix me a liver and onions omlette this mornin." He wheeled his chair out the door and down the ramp to the path.

A little meteor of pure energy named Faye hurtled through the driveway crowded with family vehicles to the family minivan, the electric door opening in anticipation to accept the flury of Sunday dress, her dress shoes klip-klopping on the driveway. She leapt into the door and scrambled to the back looking for her suitcase. It was buried. She excavated, and locating her case, ran the zipper and extracted her other shoes, a tiny pair of cloth and leather gardening gloves still too large for her hands, and a pouch.

"Hunter, You better come help. You promised."

"Ok, ok. Sheesh."

Faye scrambled to change her shoes.

"I bet Sam pushes him up there all the time."

Her voice packed all of the information urgently into one burst. "That isn't the point he likes it when we do it, and we get to practice on his rig we don't have an antenna at home with all the gain Grandpa's has he has the best radio ever and we hardly ever make it over here."

"We're here all the time."

"Today is special. And Grandpa is sad."

Brother sighed.

She was running. Brother followed after her. They caught up to Grandpa's chair on the path half way to the old shack.

"I thought you weren't coming."

"Faye made me promise."

"Oh, well good for her. It's a long push, but I'm half way there without you two. I've done almost all the work by now."

"The hard part is getting up the ledge onto the ramp."

Faye put on her gloves, and with all her energy, pushed on the back of the chair. Big brother Hunter pushed, too, and steered and the three wrestled, and shoved. Hunter's dress shoes slid through the gravel. With shouts and grunts, Grandpa was up on the sidewalk.

"Now for the long haul to the shack. Muuuush!"

Back inside the house, drinks were poured, and small polite plates gave up their snacks to the audience of friends and family watching the team effort through the window.

Grandpa locked the brakes, and Faye and Hunter rested.

"That wasn't so bad! Why are you two so winded? Heheh heh." He laughed and winked.

The two caught their breath. He fumbled in his pocket for the fob and pushed the button. The door lock buzzed. Faye turned the handle and swung the door open.

"Ok, troops! One more time!" He lined up the chair with the final ramp, backing up to the edge of the concrete.

"Too far!" both the children shouted. They took up their positions.

All three chanted: "One! Two! Three!" The chair slid inches forward.

"Brakes, Grandpa!"

He muffled an oath. "Oh yes, sorry."

"One! Two! Three!"

Motors whined, gears whirled, children growled. Grandpa liked to think the chair left the floor for at least a little bit as he hurled into the shack.

"Can I tune the big one? I remember from last time."

"No. Not yet. I have to do something else, first. I have to send an important one. Sit right there."

Faye was crushed, even more so when Grandpa had them wait in the front. She listened while Grandpa turned switches and dials behind a closed door. Her eyes teared. Hunter sat next to her.

"Do you have a pad and pencil I can borrow?"

She handed him her pouch and walked outside to look at the mast next to the shack to see which direction Grandpa was going to point the antenna. Who was he talking to?

"This was it. This was the one. Got to get this one right." He couldn't help but laugh. A little chuckle between sighs.

He remembered when this message had come through. The dilation and distortion spread it across three days. Even back then, she drove meals and coffee out to the shack. The preamble had taken several hours but the signal was unmistakable. It was shifted, faded and dirty. The edges were rounded, but it was there. He hardly recognized the fist. He knew it was the farthest message he had ever managed just from the travesties to the signal as it came through. He had had the rig working for months after years of procuring supplies when that message came through. The amateur radio shack was the perfect cover for the roughly two hundred miles of fiber optic cable coiled beneath the surrounding garden, the unusual menagerie of equipment, optics, tubes and cooling fans, backup generator, costs for continuous power for almost forty years and a heat bloom visible from orbit. That the encoding was similar was no accident, but was a natural consequence.

That message? This message. He twirled the safe combination lock and pulled out the notebook. He set that aside. He pulled out a stack and set that aside. Then he pulled out a photo album. The plastic sleeves were yellowed and cracking. He opened it up to the first page, then browsed quickly, even unconcerned through the rest. He returned it to the first page.

He turned around and faced the wall behind him. He unscrewed two wing nuts and let the shelf desk fold down.

To get this message that far back, he would need a very sharp, very strong signal. He would have to tune it as high as the media could hold. He span dials.

He swung back to the radio desk and un-cabled his key, and wired it to the terminal, and turned on the artificial modulator that made a tone, even though that tone was not the actual signal he was encoding, just because he wanted to hear it. He pulled out the old polishing cloth, loosened the nuts on the key and polished the contacts. He tightened the key down to optimal. The meters on the luminator indicated full charge, as did the coils.

Outside, Faye looked up at the antenna mast. Still no movement. She took a breath. The transformer at the end of the garden creaked and popped.

He had to get this one right. No mistakes. "I owe it to the guy after all."

Grandpa cracked his knuckles, took one last look at the album, and then let his hand rattle the key in straight dots. He pounded out a steady countdown from 99 first.

He pounded out the message mustering as clear a fist as he could. Then the sign off. That was all there was room for.

"Not bad. I still got it." He hummed a tune as he packed everything back. It was his wife's favorite tune.

"I miss you already."

He wiped the tears, and the residual brass polish in the cloth stung his eyes.

"Well, we've kept little Faye and Hunter waiting too long as it is."

He unscrewed the wire terminals for his key, put the rig into stand by. Now that the message was sent, the coils were cold and the fans were blowing at maximum. He looked at them blowing fog again, decided they would probably be ok as long as condensate didn't short anything. He folded up the panel.

"Alright, operators! Let us see if we can hit Paris before the F gets cold." Though Hunter had opened the door, it was Faye who was first in side, in a chair, and running the tuner. Hunter put his pad back in the pouch and handed it to Faye.

Grandpa knew family was waiting. The three reversed the navigation procedure after all had said what they could say to strangers in France, including descriptions of radio equipment, other hobbies, favorite colors and commentary on shy family members unwilling to be on the radio.

The report began as soon as the door was open.

"We talked with Moorerease in Paris. He is an electrical engineer and he has three kids and I talked with Jill-beared."

"Gilbert", Grandpa corrected.

"Well what did he say?"

"He said 'Hello' and his favorite color is blue."

Faye's father handed Grandpa a small tumbler.

"Yeah, might as well. As good uh time as any." He pointed to the shelf. "She set out her favorite albums. We should put something on. It's too quiet." His chair whirred into the kitchen.

Hunter's father turned to Hunter as he slumped in the chez. "How was it?"

Hunter shrugged. "France sounds nice. My code is getting better. I got most of one message but it helped that most of the message was numbers."

Father raised his eye brows.

"I don't think you were supposed to listen to the first one. He said it was important. He had the door closed." Faye admonished.

"It was just advice. Just advice to a friend."

Father asked, "What did he tell his friend?"

Faye pulled her notepad out of her pouch and handed it to Hunter. "I told you."

Hunter tore the first page out of the pad and handed it to his father. Father read out loud:

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 MARRY HER BEST IDEA EVER NO REGRETS

The room came to a stand still. Hunter and Faye's mother got up from her chair and embraced their father, crumpling the piece of paper.

Grandpa whirred back in carrying a large pizza. He set it on the table. "Which one of you can get that old music player working? I said it's too quiet."

Hunter rose.

"Don't scratch them," Faye said.

"Shut up, I know how to do it Harrrrr Miiiii Ohhhh Neeeee Grrannngerrrrr know-it-all."

"You are like a mean jerk."

"Whine whine whine I can't breath without you telling someone my favorite color for me."

"Grandma used to use a penny to weight the arm."

Hunter glared.

Grandpa gave them the eye-brow.