What uh…,” the soldier carrying the radio stammered, “What brings you here tonight, Ma’am?”
He carried the device with ease, unlike all of us that struggled with it, as we walked past the first gate and into the large substation. Mrs Nguyen used her I.D card to tap against a flat panel above the door handle and it clicked open.
“RFID,” Elijah whispered. “Neat.”
Mrs Nguyen didn’t say anything to the soldier. She just kept walking. Down two hallways, past multiple doors, until she stopped outside an engineering door and handed out the waiting ear protection.
Each of us took a set and put them on, but it was Ace who affixed a pair onto the soldier’s head, in a show of solidarity. Her own dog tags were still exposed and flying proudly. For her, it was a solemn duty.
The heavy door swung open and revealed the enormous banks of transformers that stepped up the voltage from the generator for transmission. That was our target.
Mrs Nguyen directed the soldier to put the radio down on a nearby workbench and dismissed him with a nod. He didn’t put up any resistance or second thought, only efficient obedience.
Although I couldn’t hear her watch beeping, I did see Kim check and adjust the timer she set on it.
Top of the hour. The W.E.D.N broadcast would go live in a few minutes.
Kim acted quickly, pulling the radio up to the transformer and opening the panel. Tucked into the back of the radio was a pair of alligator clamps, one red and one black. She grabbed the set of orange electrician gloves that Elijah would later tell me were class 4 gloves and exposed the bare terminals.
The moment the clamps made a connection, the radio came to life. Even through the thick earmuffs I could hear it buzzing and hissing in vulgar defiance.
Elijah unwound the antenna cable and handed it over to Kim. She took it and ran another cable from it to a broadcast exciter on the nearby wall. It lead upward and out, through the ceiling, to an antenna on top of the plant for sending and receiving data.
As soon as the clock struck 2100, the power in the room clicked … and the machines went silent. We stood in the absolute darkness for three excruciating seconds before the room was filled with the harsh red light of emergency power.
A powerful, deep klaxon horn sounded somewhere in the facility, underlined with a wailing siren that reminded me of the monthly air-raid tests they had. It was a symphony of chaos and we were the conductors.
Kim slid her earmuffs to the front of her head, looking like some kind of freakish frog-person in the red light silhouette, and pressed the button on the buzzing call-box.
“This is special agent Nguyen, substation Bravo, control room.” She said.
“Control, this is Specialist Cartwright. What’s going on down there?”
Dad. I recognized the voice immediately, even through the sirens and alarms, through the tinny and distorted call-box speaker. My father worked at the plant for years. His official title was Nuclear Safety Inspector, but he held multiple roles through the plant over the years.
“I’m conducting a power audit of the substation for Fort Savannah’s ongoing experiment, GW-25 The Gateway Initiative,” she said. “It will return to normal operating parameters momentarily.”
“Gateway? Fort Savannah?” he said with an obvious confusion in his voice. “I wasn’t notified of any tests. Stand by, I’m enroute.”
Before she could object the line clicked dead and left her standing there in the isolation of her lies.
My eyes met hers briefly and she shook her head, checking her watch again and biting her lip in thought.
A slow mechanical hum came from the transformer panel a moment later. It sounded like a huge motor slow cranking from a dead winter freeze. Within a few seconds, the panel was transforming again and the radio’s light burned bright.
“We have to go,” she said over the humming, checking her watch again and grabbing the alligator clamps quickly. “Help me, Elijah.”
He quickly but carefully donned a pair of the same orange safety gloves Kim had and pulled the antenna cable off the broadcast exciter. His hands were steady and methodical as he tucked the cable back into the device.
Kim winced in anticipation of a spark when she removed the clamps from the transformer, but they came away with no fanfare. It wasn’t the power station that was the bizarre thing, it was the radio.
Even after she had disconnected it, the brilliant red light pulsed with energy, almost like a heartbeat of its own. She looked at it briefly but didn’t dawdle on its peculiarity and slung It off the workbench with a groan.
Ace stood by the doorway, peaking out like a sentry on fire watch. She kept her head on a swivel, looking and listening for any movement and waved us on as the coast was clear. Katie brought up the rear, remarkably silent throughout the whole event. She seemed off since her mother confessed to her part in Gateway.
Elijah and I scuttled through the doors and hallways quietly and quickly, the only sound we made was the occasional squeak of our sneakers on the hard concrete floors. Ace pushed past us, going to the next door with precision of many practiced marches and drills.
Kim hoisted the still beating radio like it was a patient on life support, keeping it away from her body which caused her arms to tremble at its weight.
At the end of the hallway we came in through, Ace was already at the door looking out.
“Shit, he’s here.” She said,
“Katie, you and Elijah take this and be careful.” Kim said, handing the radio off to them gently.
She stepped to the door and patted Ace on the shoulder, then stepped out.
I looked at Elijah, for some kind of comfort more than anything else, he just shook his head slowly, holding the heavy radio with Katie on the other side.
I could hear my dad’s voice from outside the door that Ace kept propped open. They were right on the other side.
“I didn’t get any notification of a test, Kim,” he said. “What’s going on?”
“Look Dave, I need you to let this one slide. Power is normal, there’s no danger here and … we … have to go.”
“We? Who’s we?”
“Please, David. I’ll explain it all later. I just need you to trust me.”
It was weird to me how informal they were with each other in person. I had heard them talk on the phone, all business, all professional, and always very brief, but this was something else.
“Is Bao with you?”
“No,” Kim said. “He’s working on the project at the lab, but this is connected and I don’t have any more time.”
“Please,” she said “Do me a solid, Dave. Mark it down as transient instability and let it ride. We’re trying to keep this from going above local.”
Look,” Dad said, glancing at his watch, “You’ve got about four minutes until the brass shows up. Get your asses out of here and make sure you fill me in on what this is all about. I’m going to have to answer for the fluctuations.”
“You’re a gem,” Kim said and waited by the door for him to walk around the corner.
She knocked on the door and we all piled out, hustling toward the gate.
Special Agent Kim Nguyen wasted no time in bamboozling the two guards again.
“Look alive, Soldiers. If this wasn’t a drill, your asses would be pushing dirt until the rapture comes.” She said in a huff and marched through the gate.
“And one of you grab that machine before those kids drop It, even the 0-10’s would balk at the receipt on this thing.”
We piled into the Ramcharger quickly. It felt kind of awkward when the Corporal tapped the back of the hatch twice when he closed it, signaling that they were ready to go.
I don’t know what ever happened to those two guys, but somehow I always felt guilty like they got reassigned to Antarctica or something.
We could see the headlights of the line of military and corporate vehicles driving up the main entrance, but Kim kept her lights off and coasted down the service road slowly, without using the break, until we touched the gate and gently pushed it open with the bumper.
“Okay mom,” Katie finally said, breaking her unusual silence when we finally got back on the blacktop. “Time to explain.”