Jenny visits Mr. Fessenden
Québec, Canada, North America, Earth. 10 August 2011, 16:54
After a nice flight in a small government jet, Jenny and the Warehouse Agents arrived at the Jean-Lesage airport in Québec, Canada. Before they left, Artie had given them his default flight package to get the flight and passports for all of them, so they didn't have to worry about any security checks or the like. He had even offered Jenny to keep the passport and driver's license, since she seemed really happy to finally have a full name, 'Jennifer Susanne Smith'. Besides that, she was also proud to be considered 23 years old, but didn't show it.
— ❖ —
Jenny jumped around the airport looking at all the rooms and stores. When she entered, they were already through customs and ready to leave. Now the agents were running after her into one of the main entrances.
"Wow, look at all this stuff! This is so cool!" Jenny stood in front of a duty free shop and bounced up and down in front of the shop window while shaking her arms to point at all the stuff inside. "I've never been shopping in my life!"
"Oh no… Even alien women love shopping…", Pete stated in utter dissatisfaction. Of course, the others completely ignored him.
"Oh, Jenny, you have never been shopping? Never stood in a store for hours browsing through stuff?", Claudia asked. "I mean, I'm not the one for always having the latest fashion and all that, but this looks like quite a nice store…"
"Oh wait, how do we pay for stuff here?", Jenny asked. "Do they take this?" She grabbed into a pocket of her jacket and pulled out a roll of dollar notes.
"Oh my god, Jenny, how did you get so much money?", Myka gasped, but then reconsidered, not really wanting to know the answer. "But… yeah they'll take this, I'm sure!"
"Guys, please, we have a mission! You can all go shopping later… when I'm not with you…"
"Orr, please, Pete. This is even duty free!", Claudia said, then pointed at Jenny, who, after sitting in the plane for hours couldn't help but bounce from one shop window to the other. "Let's just say it's… for alien mood stabilization[1]."
And without waiting for him, the women entered the store.
— ❖ —
They were now sitting in a rental Audi A8. Pete was driving, Myka next to him, Claudia and Jenny on the back seats. The trunk had been filled with the newly acquired 'mission clothing' of the agents and Jenny's brand new, but already full, suitcase.
"How come Pete always gets to drive?", Claudia asked.
"That's 'cause I wanna arrive on the same day and besides, Myka always yells at the other cars and it drives me mad."
"Hey, I'm not that bad!"
"Yeah, but I can drive, too, you know?", Claudia replied, ignoring Myka.
"Okay, I get you, next time we need something, you drive to the store!"
"Nah! I wanna drive on missions! Just once! I couldn't even persuade Steve to let me drive!"
"Is driving so exciting for you?", Jenny asked suddenly. She hadn't really paid much attention to the conversation so far and had instead been eating a banana, one of the few Earth fruits she knew she liked. "I think it's pretty boring and slow."
"Seriously!", Myka turned around. "You drove this morning like a freaking maniac, at least twice as fast as any sane person would have, and that was boring for you!"
"Hmm… it didn't seem that fast to me… but that was way more fun than this!"
"Pete, let Jenny drive!", Claudia and Myka said at the same time enthusiastically.
Minutes later, they sped down the road at 210km/h (130mph) and Claudia, now in the passenger seat, was shrieking at every little turn like she was on a roller coaster.
— ❖ —
"Okay, take the next right and then we should be about there."
The Audi slid around the corner onto a small road along vast fields. The only thing that indicated that there would be people living at the end of it were the power poles next to it.
Finally, the car came to a stop in front of the entrance to a large mansion. 'Fessenden Residence' was set in huge letters atop the gate. Behind the fence of the gate, a small path went up for about 50 meters, where it ended right in front of the big country house.
"So, here we are. I just hope this guy still lives here.", Pete said while exiting the car and going towards the right side of the gate, where an old door bell was.
Pete rang.
Nothing happened.
"Well, doesn't sound like there is someone answering.", Claudia concluded. "Should we try the regular approach?"
Pete grinned. "By all means."
Jenny and Myka looked at each other confused as they watched Claudia take a small object from her purse that looked like a key. She went to the main lock of the gate, put the key in and with a purple spark the gate opened.
Myka grabbed Pete by his left arm. "What the hell was that? You two have a new artifact toy for missions and didn't tell me? Does Artie know?"
"Calm down, Myka. The first week when you were away, Claud and I were just playing with some artifact-y stuff and we extended our mission gear a bit."
"It's Linus Yale's master key, by the way, if anyone's interested…", Claudia tried to tell them, but was interrupted by Jenny, who was now running past them.
"So, let's go inside!", she called. "Old scary villa, here we come!"
— ❖ —
After a bit of a march along the large road, they finally saw the large mansion in a small valley before them. As they came nearer, a person in a black suite, which made him look like a typical English butler, exited the main door. He waved them.
"Good evening. Are you the visitors Mr. Fessenden is expecting?"
"I think not", Myka answered. "This is a rather unannounced visit. May we nevertheless come in and have a talk with Mr. Fessenden? We are, erm, with the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and looking for some information about the life of Reginald Fessenden."
"Of course, please follow me." He gestured with his left hand to follow him inside. "He may however have other plans later as he is expecting the company of US agents. He is a very busy man."
"Agents? From which agency?", Claudia asked intrigued.
"I do not think that I am at the liberty to share details about Mr. Fessenden's personal plans with you. You should ask that Mr. Fessenden himself."
They went into the front hall of the mansion and the butler let them to an old, large living room suite. "Please wait here while I ask Mr. Fessenden to meet you."
He went towards the large staircase at end of the hall and, once on the upper floor, elegantly left through one of the doors.
The Warehouse agents were still standing next to the living room suite. Pete was the first speak, "Wow, that sure is one hell of a house!" He let himself fall down onto one of the old sofas and instantaneously and large cloud of dust emerged. Pete jumped up again and coughed, "Should invest in some new furniture though."
Jenny walked around the room, looking at everything in awe. "Wow, this is all so large. How can a single person need so much room?"
"Yeah, yeah, nice house and all that, but guys, the more pressing issue is, who the hell are these agents that are coming over? And what do they want here?", Claudia said.
"Would be better not to run into them…", Myka added. "Remember the last time you guys had CIA support?"
"Why? What happened? Aren't other agents supposed to be on our side?", Jenny asked.
"Yeah, except they don't know what we do, so, to them, we don't have any right to do anything."
"That's bad, right?"
"Very. And the last time we encountered other agents, they claimed they were to lead the investigation", Myka added. "And in the end, Pete had to tackle them so they were distracted and I could get the artifacts."
"It's not as bad as it sounds…", Claudia said. "You can tell everyone you're a special agent and everything you do is top secret need to know and all that. It's quite cool actually."
"Yeah, except it's that top secret that they don't believe you 'cause for them, you don't really exist.", Pete concluded.
"So, you are telling me", Jenny began, "that from all the crazy people this planet has to offer, I ran into those who I can't tell anyone about? Like, you're all my imaginary friends to the rest of the world?"
"Nah, not like that. 'Cause we exist and all that, it's just the Warehouse you can't talk about. Officially, the Warehouse is an IRS building.", Claudia answered but quickly added, "But… don't tell anybody that! They hate the IRS…"
Jenny heard a door opening softly and looked up to the higher floor. The others gazes followed hers. They saw a small, elderly looking man come out. He had slightly grey hair and wore a white pinstriped shirt and dark grey trousers.
"Hello, my guests! Excuse me for letting you wait, I wasn't expecting visitors", the man greeted with a surprising Western American accent.
— ❖ —
"I assume you are Erwin Fessenden, then?", Pete asked.
"That I am. But who might you be? I didn't know a museum in North Carolina was planning an exhibition about my great grandfather."
"Well, to be honest, we are not really here because of an exhibition. We heard that you claim you can listen to yourself in the future with one of your great grandfather's devices? We would like to know more about that."
"Why, yes, of course! It's just as I said. Every morning I get a transmission from the future. It tells me all I need to know." He gestured around him.
"Okay, so you get a message. How do you know it's from the future?", Myka inquired.
"Oh… I don't know. Where else should it come from?"
"Maybe the present? Like all other transmissions?", Claudia offered.
"Oh no! It tells me what to do! It must be from the future!"
The agents looked at the wildly gesturing man in front of them. They didn't know his mental condition, but it seemed quite clear that he was not just an ordinary healthy person living in an isolated country house all by himself.
"Could we, maybe, see the receiver?", Jenny asked after half a minute of silence.
"Of course! It's a glorious piece of technology! My great grandfather designed it in 1932, it was one of the last things he ever built. Let me get it for you!"
He turned on the spot and suddenly started to jog out of the hall through a door that possibly led to another corridor.
— ❖ —
"Okay, what's wrong with this guy?", Claudia asked after Erwin had left the front hall and they sat in the couches again by themselves.
"What isn't?", Pete replied.
"Is it just me, or is this guy obsessed with the future? Like he kinda depends on it?", Myka said.
"Okay, I can see that Jenny is a time lady from the future because she has two hearts and this vortex manipulator, but how can this guy get instructions what to do every morning from some old radio transmitter? From himself? How would that work?", Pete said.
"Yeah, seems a bit to much of a coincidence to meet two time traveling people in two days, right?", Claudia added. "And this guy doesn't even have a vortex manipulator or something but just an old radio…"
"Oh, right! Let me just use the manipulator!", Jenny interjected and pulled her sleeve up to open the vortex manipulator. She pressed some buttons on the screen and concluded, "Okay, so when something happens with the time vortex around here, it should beep. Or do something else, I'm not sure. I set it to detect slight chronon radiation, but it didn't really do anything."
"Does that mean there is nothing or that it doesn't work?", Myka asked.
"I don't know, but the scanner functions seemed to work so far… I'll just leave it on and when it beeps we know."
Pete shushed and nodded his head towards the stairs. "Here comes Mr. Loony again…"
— ❖ —
Fessenden entered the front hall again, but this time he stepped rather slowly towards them. In his right hand he held a small device, about the size of a Farnsworth, but all in all just about half a centimeter thick, just a bit more on the upper side.
"Here it is, my friends. My great grandfathers latest and greatest invention!"
He showed them the device by holding it in front of him and from close it looked rather simple. There was only one dial which contained another, smaller dial on the inside and one speaker visible on the upper side.
"Nice, clean design. Dieter Rams would be ashamed to know he was twenty years late.", Claudia commented more to the agents than to Fessenden.
"Wow, it looks like new. Would you like to tell us something about it?", Myka asked.
"Of course! You must know, I never really met my great grandfather as you can imagine… and I never really cared about his work either. I'm more of a salesman, you see? But then… not two years ago I heard that one of my relatives had died and left me this nice mansion here in Canada.
"I was quite intrigued by having this old house and, not only that, but also all the things in it! It was like… I was destined to find something important here! And so I went through all the things and there in this box in some room, there was this device here…
"I didn't know what it was at first, but then I saw the blueprints next to it. My great grandfather had constructed this device here in the last hours before his death. He thought he never finished it, because when he turned it on and listened for something, he couldn't hear a thing.
"My grandfather moved it with his other stuff back to his childhood home, which is near here, and from there it someday got into this house. And here I found it, just at the right time."
"Wow, that's quite a nice story. You got all that, Myka?", Pete asked and Myka, who seemingly wrote something down, nodded.
"What happened then? You think it's a receiver, right?", Jenny asked Fessenden.
"I know it to be one, girl. You see, when I found it, there was only one part missing and that was batteries. I don't know what kind of batteries they got in the 1930s, but I just put two regular ones in. And since then, this thing has been receiving!"
Claudia had just finished putting on her purple gloves. "May I have a closer look? We have almost no information about the later developments of your great grandfather and what technology he used to build this."
"Go ahead, just don't disassemble it. It's very valuable to me." He said while putting the device in Claudia's left hand.
— ❖ —
Nothing happened. The receiver lay in Claudia's hand and hadn't reacted to the purple gloves at all. She sat down on a chair next to a small coffee table and put the device on it.
Myka, in the meantime, had taken a camera from her purse and shot a picture of every side of the receiver and especially focused on the dial with its labels. Jenny and Pete stood, along with Fessenden, on the other side of the table and waited for what Claudia was going to do next.
"Very nice polish", Claudia commented on the receiver's design, as she rotated the frequency dial. "It says that the range goes from 120 Kilohertz up to about 145 Megahertz. That's quite a lot to cover for this small design… and without the apparent need for an external antenna. I really like how there's this inner dial for quickly setting the multiplier and turning on and then you can use the outer dial to specifically set the right frequency, very nicely done. Have you got that on picture, Myka?"
"Yeah, I think you can read all the labels on it.", Myka replied, then looked towards Jenny, who was pointing at her left wrist. "Mister Fessenden, may I take a picture of you as well?"
Fessenden smiled and moved away from the table. "Of course. Where should I stand?"
"Oh, I think it's alright if you just stand in front of the table. It's not gonna be a public photo or something, just for our documents, so we know that it was you who showed us the receiver. We'll make a better photo once there'll be an exhibition."
Fessenden seemed delighted by the answer, smiled and turned around to stand in front of the table, having his back towards the receiver now. Myka had at the same time moved in front of him and began taking a few pictures.
In the background, she saw Jenny open her vortex manipulator, press some buttons and all of the sudden, a blue layer of light came out of the manipulator and moved across the receiver. When it was done, Jenny closed her wrist-strap and nodded at Myka, who had just 'finished' with the photo session.
— ❖ —
Myka put the camera back in her purse. Claudia picked the receiver up from the table, gave it to Fessenden and thanked him. "Thanks for your time. We'll just discuss what else we might want to know, if you'll just give us a minute. I think we don't want to intrude any longer, I've heard you were expecting other guests?"
"Of course", he replied, "I almost forgot. They didn't really announce the visit, but if everything goes to plan, they should be here any minute. I'll just take the receiver upstairs again."
With that, Fessenden left towards the stairs again. Unknown to the Warehouse agents, he was already dialing in a new frequency and, while manically grinning, entered a room on the upper floor and once inside, pressed the button in the middle of the receiver's dial to activate. He glanced at his clock. 'Just five more minutes, then I'll know', he thought to himself.
[1] Phrase shamelessly copied from 'Jenny Returns' by silverrose2013 (goo dot gl/ABCxY) in which just a similar situation occurs. You should read it, it's quite nice.
A/N: You see that up there? What the hell is wrong with this site anyway? I try to give credit to an author and want to link to his/her work, but this crazy story editor strips links from my texts? Is this how it's supposed to be in the real world? Hinder someone to give credit and refer to other works? Nice attitude, fanfiction dot net.
But never mind that. I just wanted to take a minute to thank everyone who has written a review, added this story as a favorite or to his/her story alerts. I' always glad to see a new mail about a new review/fav/alert. That really makes my day! And of course I would love to know how you liked this new chapter and I cannot stress enough how much I would like to read your suggestions for scenes you'd like to see. By the way, if anyone want to beta read my drafts for the next chapters, just send a message.
As for the next chapters, I have to admit that for chapter 6 I have only written about two scenes and the complete plot line is not yet set (for the chapters after that I have already more scenes finished or as drafts), so I'm guessing there will not be a new chapter for the next week or so. (But as said you can use that time to write reviews full of constructive criticism and suggestions!)
So, how about some spoilers? Here they come: Maybe the mission will be finished in the next chapter, maybe in the one after that (but not longer). To give you a quick timeline, a few days after completing the mission, there will be a visit from Captain Jack. And Jenny will also meet her father, but you never know at which point in time he might turn up with his driving. And, she might not recognize him at first. That should give you enough clues for now!