It was not much of a surprise that Geller's vintage radio set still functioned despite seventy years of misuse. However, it was entirely bewildering that the transceiver began spitting out garbled signals from an unknown frequency.
The technician amplified the volume on the ham radio enough for everyone in the makeshift communications room to hear. There was no mistaking that the signals translated into a male voice that endlessly repeated a distress call in a language far from English.
"It just keeps going," Joel muttered, being the first to speak after over a minute of listening.
"I don't understand a single word of it," Tommy said.
"That's 'cause it's in Russian," Maria echoed from the door. All eyes turned towards her, Tommy's bearing the most confusion. "I can tell. I had an aunt who lived in Moscow, covered the Grozny wars on the cable news."
"Grozny, Grozny," Joel repeated, tapping his forehead. "Yeah, that's right. Chechniya. War in Chechniya an' all that." He looked at the rest. The familiarity of it all became apparent in their faces.
"It never really occurred to me," Geller spoke, his voice cracking with age, "that there was still someone out there...across the ocean."
"Well, they must have some pretty strong transmitters to broadcast across the Atlantic," Tommy remarked.
"You think? I mean, it could be a lot of things. Like a bunch of 'em survivors in Siberia and they're close enough to Alaska for us to pick up their signals."
"Or a bilingual American," Maria added.
"Could be a lot of things."
Joel tapped the frame of the transceiver, tracing his fingers on the wires to the windowsill up towards the roof where the jury-rigged satellite antenna had been propped up weeks earlier. "Geller, what's the signal radius on this thing?"
"I can't tell really. My best estimate is about a hundred miles and I've been using this thing for over two decades now."
Tommy crossed his arms. "So if that could sweep out a hundred miles around and pick up something like that...makes me think. Why now? We just installed the antenna two weeks ago. Why now?"
Geller scratched his head. "You do know that I tinker with this every night, right?"
"Typical," Maria huffed. "You must've put two and two together and it was good enough to start spewing distress signals from God-knows-where."
"So where does that leave us?" Joel asked.
The technician sat still, staring at the machine that relayed the looping messages. He ran it in his mind: a lot of factors here. It would be wild if there were others out there who still fought the cordyceps in other parts of the world. Though over the years, they had come across some really crafty cannibals. Either way, it had to be something. But what if the other side was dead?
"What do you want me to do?" Geller asked, breaking the tension.
"Don't—"
Maria cut Joel off. "A far cry from who's on the other side." She looked at both men, silencing them with her stare. "But go ahead with it."
"Goddamnit!"
"Just go with it. Respond. Let 'em know."
"Maria!"
She paced to the door, not wanting to ruin her mood for the day. "I got a feeling about this. We could help people."
"Aye, aye, ma'am," the radioman echoed, swinging back on his swivel chair and picking up the dated microphone his father had jury-rigged long before. He held down the switch and after making a few tests, began making up the words that would become their reply to a long-distance distress call.
Voroshin leaped from his chair upon hearing something different, the unlit cigarette almost falling off his mouth. He quickly dropped his lighter and pressed the headphones against his ears. It went again. And again. It went on for three minutes. And the signal dissipated.
Having monitored their camp's radar systems for a few months since their installation, it came as something truly remarkable that something absolutely foreign came up in the sweeps.
The voice—clearly American, he told himself to believe—was clear and he hoped the words were, too. He had to report this. The overseer should know. Everyone should know. There was someone on the other side of the globe, he thought with excitement.
He pulled out a piece of paper and started scribbling down what he heard. Then he tossed his head into the corridor, turning frantically until he saw just the right man.
"Artyom!"