Friday, June 8, 2007

Chapter 30

Carmine Followorth sat on a wooden rolling stool in a small room, surrounded by various mechanical devices collected over the span of many years of life. While some of these items retained small amounts of functional use the vast majority were beyond repair. Carmine thought himself a master mechanic and upon acquiring a new gadget would go to work bringing it back to life. However, he was easily distracted and would no sooner be in the middle of one job before starting another, thus explaining his vast collection of broken machinery.
The dusty mechanic sat amongst his broken children, surveying their various states and deciding which project to tackle next. He longed for the day when he would flip a switch in the small room and all the devices would jump into life; all springing, spinning, or percolating into action as they had originally been intended to. As he rolled himself towards what was once a very effective coffee-maker one of the machines from across the room lit up and began to emit a static-like hiss.
“Hey, Weeble. You there?” crackled an aged voice from the hissing machine.

*~~*

As a child Jean-Paul Pickering was constantly left out of the loop. He was born into the family business of espionage which was, while loving, also extremely secretive. Family dinners were conducted in silence and there was never any talk of what had happened at work that day. As Jean-Paul grew older he learned to treasure even the smallest bits of information he could glean from his parents, recognizing that any whispered word could be useful in the right context.
Due to this predisposition for recognizing and collecting any information out of the ordinary Jean-Paul fell into a job as a scanner; a dispatcher filtering through radio signals; listening to silence with the dim hope of overhearing something he was not meant to hear. In the midst of any military conflict he was hired out by an agency to work for the highest bidder which, coincidentally, tended to be the winning side. After a lifetime in this line of work he left to pursue what are generally considered to be the ‘golden years’.
However, he found he could not shut off the sifting ear which he had so finely tuned throughout his career. He found himself sitting in distrip yards, waiting rooms, train stations; listening to conversations around him, trying to decode idle chatter. After eliciting one-to-many awkward stares Jean-Paul decided a change would have to be made. He holed up in his apartment and began listening again. He didn’t know what he was listening for, he just felt drawn to it, like an addiction.
He began the listening on his home radio to which he had attached a large set of headphones so as not to miss even one whispered word. He sat at his desk with a legal pad of paper; flipping slowly through the radio signals; listening to the dead silence in anticipation of a information bombshell.
His first bit of interest came in the form of an old mechanic who had managed to repair a radio long enough to transmit a signal so weak that even Jean-Paul strained in hearing it. The following is a transcript of their first conversation:

?: …Hello…Hello?
Jean-Paul: Hello!
?: What? Hello?
Jean-Paul: This is Ponce de Leon, what is
your handle?
?: Handle?
Ponce de Leon: …What do you go by?
?: Oh, my name? My name is Carmine Follo…
Ponce de Leon: NO! I don’t want your real
name! That isn’t how this works. Your handle
is your radio name. My handle is Ponce de
Leon, but people just call me Leon. What is
your on-air name?
Carmine Follow: hmm…okay, you can call me
The Weeble.
Leon: Okay, Weeble. How long have you been on the air?
Weeble: Just today…oh wait…radio’s on fire.
Gotta go.

Since their first introduction Jean-Paul and Carmine had spoken several times through the radio channel and had formed a friendship based almost entirely on their mutual loneliness.

*~~*

Carmine leaned back against the wooden stool as he held a radio receiver in one hand, a screwdriver in the other, and a shiny metal box with two slots on the top in-between his legs.
“This is the weeble. How are ya Leon?”
“Something’s up!” creaked the voice over the radio, “I’ve been reading my notes for the last few weeks and I’ve found a connection. Remember that guy Edward I’ve been telling you about? The one that I’ve been hearing about all over the channels in the city?”
Carmine popped the top off the silver box and set it on the table in front of him. He glared into the burnt innards of the machine.
“Yeah, I remember. So what?”
“Turns out all the radio chatter about him is because everyone thought he was dead. A few nights ago he was seen in the Long Spoon distrip on the east side of Recon-Chicago. And not alone! Turns out he’s got an accomplice. Got away though.”
“Damn,” said Carmine as he picked thin black pieces of charcoal from the gut of the ancient device.
“That isn’t the half of it. Turns out this Edward was a top-ranking official in that last skirmish with the Golden Acolytes. They want him bad. They’re watching every exit in the city. Jehovah’s out too, but as far as I can tell it’s for something else. Either way, the Spoon’s on lock down. It’s about to get very crowded.”
Having dusted off the newly cleaned gadget, Carmine secured its ancient plug into the wall socket next to his workbench. It slowly began to turn a vibrant red and the small handle on the side shot up. The red faded. Carmine depressed the handle to its original position and the machine glowed red again.
“Leon, I have to go. I think I fixed something, but I’m not sure.”
“Fine, but keep an ear out. I heard this morning they have a bead on where Edward might be. From what I can tell they’re blasting through the inner city with a demolition crew.”
“Sure. Sounds good,” said Carmine as he poked at the red part of the machine. “Good luck with your listening.”
Carmine laid down the receiver and the radio went dead.

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