Two and half hours later, when Marinakis finally saw the tip of the radome peaking above the desolate Arctic white, it was enough to make her briefly forget about McAiden’s body laying in her CATVs trailer, bundled up and stored next to fuel cans. By an unspoken agreement, nobody asked about the beings that killed him. Of all that was unknown, some things were better off that way. They were still out on the ice, somewhere, or locked in a mass hallucination. Either way, a problem for another day. Something to keep your eyes peeled for.
Heart failure. That was all the medic could give her. He’d never been trained for an autopsy. Just a field medic. Not much he could do for the already dead.
CAM-3 was a small base. The main building was a long structure that looked like multiple mobile homes glued together. There was a garage, a warehouse, some oil tanks, and an equipment shed. Most importantly, there were radar systems.
The main one was the AN/FPS-30 Sentinel, its radar dish hidden within its protective dome, the image Marinakis had held for the two days on the road. The dome stood on a truss structure that elevated it above the main building. Two other parabolic dishes pointed south, secondary radars to detect air attack. These looked more complicated than the Sentinel, their maze of trusses exposed to the elements, but they were less sophisticated and could survive the exposure. A couple of smaller domes squatted in the snow. Satellite communication units, now with very little to talk to. A handful of high and low frequency comm antennas rounded out the equipment.
It was a lonely place, built for the needs of the radar dishes first, human factors second. After days in the CATV, she would take anything. They pulled up in front of the main building, and she ordered her troops to dismount. Brent didn’t speak to her.
“What should we do with McAiden?” Remington asked once they were all on the ice.
“We’ll find somewhere to store him for now. Don’t want to leave him outside for too long. Let’s start figuring out how to get these radars up and running. Then we’ll hold a service.”
The young man from Alabama saluted. The sun was harsh.
At the main building’s door, situated square in the middle of the structure, the forward observers were kicking away the built up snow drifts. When she approached, one gestured at the door and said, “You do the honors, Lieutenant. Your mission.”
She braced against the ground and pulled. After a few hard tugs the hinges loosened, and the metal door scraped across the snow. She found herself frozen at the entrance, unwilling to enter the narrow building, the long tomb of outdated electronics.
Grabbing her flashlight from a pocket, she poked her head into the dark, looked left then right. Then she sent her beam down either wing of the building. The light bounced off exposed ductwork, harsh metal fittings, and closed doors. There were no emergency lights, no red beacons implying that somebody would come back and fix everything up. Nobody had expected anybody to return. And now she was opening it up again, in time for the end of the world.
“Captain Waechter…” his name felt more like an idea than a person… “told me that there should be power here. Probably just enough to run the LF and HF transmitters.” She pointed at a few of her platoon. “Go check the generators, get ‘em up to speed, then call me.” The last three words made her feel inexplicably uneasy. “Actually, we’ll see when you get them back on, don’t worry about it.”
She poked her head back in. “Remington, Watts, let’s start wandering around in here. Scout out the place. The rest of you guys, walk the perimeter.”
Stepping into the building, she slowly walked down the left wing. Her boots thudded over the cheap flooring. She kept her flashlight on a swivel, checking for any overhanging metal fixtures or strange things on the floor.
While at first the interior made her uneasy, she was quickly getting acclimated. The harsh metal started to feel secure, a shelter from the Arctic wind. Gonna be here for a while, might as well get used to it.
They continued to walk. She caught glimpses of signs on the doors, shelves filled with equipment she didn’t understand, door frames in brushed aluminum. The hallway opened to a much larger room. Her flashlight caught the edge of a chair. A whine, then the lights snapped on and she found herself in a cafeteria; cracked cushions, abandoned cutlery that nobody had bothered to grab, a big painting of an unspecified island locale. Arctic humor.
The interior had the cold indifference of a combat vessel. Still, as Marinakis looked around, she felt comforted by the facility. The metal was harsh, but it glimmered as she moved her head. It didn’t buck and sway like the interior of the CATVs. There were no windows in the cafeteria. The deadly sky was held outside.
They regrouped and got to work. The first order of business was finding documentation. None of the platoon knew much about radar technology, but they knew how to follow instructions and push buttons. Heading off in teams of two (and one of three), they got searching. Marinakis and Remington took the first door they could find, which turned out to be an entertainment room. There were seats, blue fabric worn to gray, and even wood. Low quality furniture wood with a scuffed laminate, but it was a gesture at homeiness.
Remington was examining the shelves when he whistled appreciatively, “Hey LT, check this out.”
She looked over and he spun around, holding up colorful cassette cases. “VHS,” he said. “Poor guys, they never got upgraded. Cheap-ass Air Force; enough money for some stupid missile that won’t work but not enough for DVDs… forget about streaming… But we have Robocop! Got a few Star Trek movies. Got some Star Wars…”
At least he was having fun. She didn’t have the heart to tell him that CAM-3 was probably retired before DVDs were invented.
There wasn’t much for her to do. Looking out the door, she saw Watts walking towards her. “Boss, good news already, we found some shortwave radios, and they are battery powered. There are a few settlements within driving range, so we aren’t abandoned. Puts us in a good place for food if we don’t get picked up soon. And also…” he paused and tilted his head, “actually, I think you should come hear it.”
She followed him down the long building. As they approached the radio room, she heard voices.
Inside, a private was fiddling with the dials on a shortwave radio. When he saw Marinakis, he turned the volume all the way up. “Been picking this up around the one-forty to one forty-eight megahertz range. Seems strongest around one forty-four,” he said.
“What is it? Sounds like people talking?”
“Definitely. Gotta be hundreds, maybe even a thousand,” Watts explained, “Lots of shortwave enthusiasts out here.”
“That makes sense. What are they talking about?”
“Can’t tell. I’m not even sure what language they’re speaking. I’d think it’d be English, but it seems to be an indigenous language. I’ve only picked out a few words here and there. But wait for it, there’s something else they’re doing.”
As Marinakis listened she tried to recognize individual sounds or phrases and felt embarrassed to not even know what language was being spoken. How had she never cared to find out what these northern people were like? Then, the voices stopped and a series of clicks, buzzes, and chirps began. It lasted for a minute then faded away. The voices returned.
“What did that sound like to you?” Watts asked.
“I don’t…” She thought about it, then a collective memory of technology she had never experienced surfaced. “Hold on. That sounds like the old internet, from the 90s. Dial-up?”
Watts nodded. “That’s what I thought too. The start of the shortwave internet.”
“How would that work? Don’t you need phone lines and routers and modems or whatever?”
Watts shrugged. “Guess they’re trying to figure it out.”
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