Mixed Signals

I was told to never wander, never explore. That it would only get me killed. But I just wouldn’t listen. I couldn’t. Let me start from the beginning—this morning.

I woke up in our tiny loft, where we've lived since forever. It's cramped, but we make it work. Our "kitchen" is just a corner with a single burner, two worn-out pots, and a tiny fridge, powered by the solar panels we have on top of every building. Dad built a bed on stilts for me with scrap wood to give me some space. He crashes on our too-small couch. It's small, but it's home.

I don’t know much about my mom other than how much my dad loved her. She died a few months after I was born. Dad doesn’t really like talking about it. He always says I have my mother's eyes—blue like the ocean that used to surround every continent. Anyway, I’m getting distracted.

So, this morning I threw on one of my five outfits—yeah, five. A green tee with a leaf print and my second-favorite pair of jeans. I wore my straight dark brown hair up in its usual ponytail and slid on my trusty too-small black boots. Then I went to do my rounds in Bos, offering help for trade. My dad is an engineer and taught me everything I know. I can fix anything—seriously, anything. Try me. Ever since Kelvin toasted the planet sixty-seven years ago, we've been stuck here in this tiny slice of Boston we call Bos.

Most people don’t really call it Boston anymore. They cut the “ton” off “Boston” because we are barely a “ton,” or town. We just call it Bos. I mean there are actually a lot of people here. ALOT. But—it's more like a decrepit city than a town. We all live stacked on top of each other in rickety skyscrapers. We were told Bos is the only area with any vegetation, while the rest of the world is sand.

Alright moving on. If we ever meet, you’ll see how easily distracted I am. So, I was walking around town—if you can call it that—and I was asking if anyone needed assistance. An old man on the ground floor of one of the skyscrapers said he needed help with his watch. I went inside his home to see what I could do to help. The battery was loose, so I pushed it in and got it ticking. He offered me a cup of tea in gratitude.

I will try and remember the conversation with the old man. Bear with me.

“So... you must remember what Boston was like before Kelvin?” I asked the old man, trying to fill the awkward silence, and then I realized I just called him old by asking that question. I took a huge swig of the unsweet tea loaded with loose leaves that escaped the strainer, trying my best not to choke on them.

“Why yes. I remember the whole world. At least the parts that I saw, which weren’t much. I was only twelve when Kelvin came,” the old man replied. Or was he thirteen? Whatever, it doesn’t matter.

“What do you remember? Do you remember the water? The rivers, the oceans, the lakes?” I have an old magazine clipping hanging above my bed of Daytona Beach, that I daydream about being able to see, even though it’s just sand now. There is no body of water here, no ocean. The survivors of Bos, when Kelvin first came, noticed where the ocean was and should have been, prior to evaporating into nothing, there was moist sand a few feet below. They dug and dug while trying to survive off of the few water bottles they had left before Kelvin. They dug hundreds of feet until they could see water. We still get water out of that pit to this day.

A huge smile lit up his face as he tried digging through his memories. “Oh my, the beach was lovely my dear,” he said while looking up at his rusty metal ceiling as if he could see his memory projecting on it. “You could sit out in the sun all day, and when it got too hot, you could jump in the freezing cold salty water and cool off. We used to get ice cream every time we went.”

“What’s ice cream?”

His eyes became focused as if he snapped back into consciousness. Someone started knocking on his door. He looked over at me with worry in his eyes.

“Would you mind terribly bringing my trash outside? It’s just out back,” he said, cautiously nudging to the back door.

I quietly got up from my chair, luckily it didn’t squeak, and made my way to the back door, which did in fact squeak. The knocking on the door got louder as the old man slowly walked over to the door. He looked back at me one last time, nudging me to get out. I closed the door behind me and settled down in a small alley that could barely fit a person from shoulder to shoulder and held my ear up to a hole in the wall of his loft.

“Is she here?” a new voice asked. A male voice.

“She never came,” the old man replied.

I thought, they couldn’t be talking about—me. Could they?

“Now you wouldn’t be lying to me old man.” His footsteps grew louder and louder.

“That would be foolish of me,” the old man laughed, “I would never disobey him, never.”

“We’ll see about that.”

The next thing I heard was furniture being thrown across the place, glass smashing, metal bending. I peeked through the hole to get a glimpse, a tiny peephole, and saw a massive man in a leather vest and pants, with what I want to say was tattoos of maybe a bird. He was throwing all of the old man’s belongings, trashing the place, and the last thing I heard was the old man’s scream.

I had no idea what was going on. I mean really what was there for me to do? I tucked as far into the wall of the alley as possible to blend in. The front door slammed shut and I waited a few moments before I ran inside.

His loft only moments before was his little haven, then was turned into a junkyard in a matter of minutes. I ran over to the old man who was laying on the floor with a bleeding head. He’s alive I thought and repeated. He’s alive.

“Who was that?” I asked while trying to help him sit up.

“He came for you. I was meant to trap you here and let him take you, but I just couldn’t do it,” he shook his bleeding head held up by his hand while peering at the floor in shame. “You need to follow him. Find out what they’re doing in Far End. Why they need you.”

“I can’t just leave you here.”

“I’ll be okay. You need to go now.”

I paused for a few moments weighing my options. Was I supposed to leave this injured man to chase after a guy that was trying to kidnap me? I concluded that the man would probably resort to extreme measures and might hurt my dad if I didn’t figure out what he was doing.

“I’ll send help.” I ran out of the house and found the first person I could see and told them to help the old man, whose name I never got. The man in the vest must have turned left from the house because I didn’t see him in the alley, so I headed that way. I walked, checking around each corner to see if he turned anywhere, and found him right on his way to Far End which is essentially where the more “fortunate neighbors” live, highest up on the skyscrapers at the far end of Bos, hence the name.

I creeped behind him keeping my distance. I was told to never go to Far End. Never. My dad was adamant about that, as well as the others in the rest of Bos. We were told to never leave Bos, and never explore as there is nothing else behind the dust wall but death and destruction. I should have just turned around, but I could never guarantee my safety, or my father’s, if I had.

The man in the vest disappeared into what I figured out to be the tallest skyscraper in Bos. It was built up high after Kelvin, from all of the good parts taken from the rest of Bos, leaving the rest of us with scraps. It’s so tall, the top of it hides in the clouds which I’ve been told by the elders are lower than they were before. It used to be sunny and beautiful everywhere, but now it’s constant clouds and cover.

Again, I waited until I knew I wouldn’t run into him as soon as I walked inside. I ran to the door, surprisingly unlocked. Inside was the bottom of a staircase and nothing else. I could hear someone walking up them, maybe five floors above. I started walking up the stairs, level after level and on the tenth level, I nearly gave up, but I could still hear him walking. I had to follow.

I carried on, heaving and struggling to get up those steps, matching my footsteps with his so I could be quiet and know when to stop. I forgot count of how many floors I had surpassed. I heard him stop and open a door. I walked up the remaining flights to a black door, identical to the ones I had passed on each level. There was no window on the door, so I waited a couple of minutes with my ear up to it.

I opened the door and saw a massive hallway, larger and longer than the bottom of the building. As I walked through the hallway, I could see all around through the seemingly invisible glass. This—palace—sat atop several skyscrapers connecting them all, completely hidden in the clouds. I heard voices coming from the end of the hallway and ran through a door to my left without even looking. Stupid.

“Hi Talla,” a voice from behind me said.

I quickly turned around, flattening my back against the wall. This man was massive and clean and polished—different from the man I followed here. You don’t see that very often in Bos. He wore dark blue pants with a tucked in black long-sleeved shirt. He had clean, slick black hair, the color of the night sky, and eyes that said, ‘I kill people before breakfast.’

“I’m Jace by the way. Nice to meet you,” he said reaching out his hand, implying I should shake it.

“How—how do you know my name?” I asked, stuttering over my words.

“You didn’t think Grey here,” he gestured to the corner of the room where the man in the vest appeared, “didn’t know you were following him?” He raised his brow.

I stood still, shifting my eyes between the two men. “What do you want from me?”

“Easy. You see, I need someone capable to fix something for me. My radio. I was told you were the best Engineer here,” he said with a waving motion of his hand to the surrounding space.

All true, I might add. “Why me? Were you just going to abduct me? You hurt that old man, and for what?” I looked over at the man in the vest, Grey.

“He—can get spirited sometimes, but we knew you wouldn’t come willingly,” Jace laughed, “I mean I guess you did come willingly after all. Quite the irony.”

“Say I fix your radio, what will I get out of it?” I said picking at my nails.

“Anything you want.”

“A bigger loft, and food for me and—” I stopped myself realizing I shouldn’t mention my dad.

“Done.”

“Done? Who the hell are you?”

“I’m Jace.”

“I got that. Who. The hell. Are you?”

“I am someone that has access to many things. I can get you what you request, or I could just as easily dispose of you if you become a nuisance. Your choice.”

“Whatever. Give me what I want, and I’ll fix your damned radio.”

“Deal. See? Now wasn’t that easy?” He started walking to the door. He stopped inches away from me. “I need to open the door,” he said flatly.

I moved away from the door as he opened it and led me through the halls to another room. It was locked.

“Look away,” he said, as he put in several combinations and keys to open this vault-like door. He slowly opened the door, shoving its massive weight like it was nothing. “This is the communications room. This, is the radio that needs fixing.” He motioned at the massive maze of wires and screens and dials. This radio was intricate and had a gigantic antenna. I wondered how far it could reach and why he needed such a heavy duty one, assuming you could reach both ends of Bos with a walkie talkie.

“You have until the evening to fix it. I trust that won’t be a problem?”

“We’ll see,” I whispered, staring at this ridiculous tangle of wires.

He gave me a flirty smirk as he walked out the door, twisting each lock behind him.

I had never worked on anything this intricate before. I had only ever worked on household appliances like stoves, fridges, or a watch. I needed to get this thing working so I could leave as soon as possible.

I unwound and sorted the wires. I looked for loose ends, cuts on the cords. Nothing. I pressed all the buttons. Like they hadn’t tried that before. I could not figure out what was wrong with this thing, other than the fact that I had no idea how this radio even worked.

It had been hours, and he still hadn’t come back to check up on my progress. With each passing minute I felt dumber and dumber. My dad taught me everything he knew, and he could fix anything. I—could fix anything. I tore open the back of the radio, and just looked at it, waiting. I saw a spark coming from the antenna port. It had a loose connection and the spark from the thin thread of wire still hanging on for dear life was shorting out the charge. I shoved the antenna in tightly and wrapped it up in some electrical tape I found in the pile of miscellaneous tools and things left in here with me. I unplugged everything letting it reset itself, waited a few moments, plugged it back in and alas, the radio was on. I mean, I did say I could fix anything.

I started going through every channel one by one, I spoke into the microphone and waited a minute for a response. I had gone through what seemed all of them until I finally met something other than static.

Now, I remember this conversation verbatim.

“Hello, can anyone hear me?” I heard static for a while and right when I was about to change the channel, I heard someone.

“2743 this is 6225 do you copy?” I thought, what the hell were they talking about? Luckily, I knew a little bit about radio etiquette from when my father taught me when I was younger.

“6225 this is 2743 copy.”

“2743, what’s going on over there, we haven’t heard from you in days?”

“We had—uh—radio issues, just got it up and running. How is it over there?” I tried to sound as much like a man as I could by lowering my voice, assuming it was probably Jace that spoke on this thing.

“It’s getting rough over here in NYC. We had a storm that almost knocked down our station. We could have used your help.”

There was another city out there—New York freaking City. I could not believe it.

“2743 are you hearing me okay? Have you made contact with anyone else? The storms are getting worse these days.” Before I could answer, I heard all the locks clicking.

I laid the radio back on its front with its back open wide. I turned off the radio and pretended like I wasn’t just talking to some lady on the radio from New. York. City. Jace stormed in. His eyes slackened and narrowed at me. He grabbed me by the arm and asked me if I had the radio working. I said I hadn’t, but I was making progress and left it at that. He narrowed his eyes at me once more, looking all over my face for any hint of reaction.

I guess he didn’t believe me because he threw me into a room, which brings me back to now. I found some parchment and a pen and began writing to—anyone. To you.

I am writing this letter in the hopes that someone will find it in case I don’t make it out of here. You need to know that we are not alone. There are others out there, and these people are hiding it from us. My name is Talla Satheon. My father is Bill Satheon. Please find him and tell him what happened to me. I’m putting this letter in a bottle and throwing it out of the window. The date is October 18, 2097. Please help. If you cannot, at least share my story and tell everyone that we are not alone. We need to explore; we need to find the others. They’re out there and they’re keeping it from us.

I can hear someone coming. Wish me luck.