Chapter 32: The Radio Tower
"Scout!" barked Sergeant Donathan.
"Yes, Sergeant," Patten said nervously. He was walking with Donathan during a stroll along the balcony on the second floor of the Bigrock Area. Beyond them stretched an endless series of sand-dunes with the obelisk of Lakeside barely visible in the distance.
"Do you know the legend of the Radio Tower?" Sergeant Donathan pointed to the rusty tower with various broken-down dishes on it that stood on the floor above them.
"Uh, no."
"It is said that it was used as a way of transmitting long-distance messages to the various Mercenary-controlled Areas scattered across America, but then they went out of use after the Machine Wars and now nobody knows how to work them. Hell, I would be surprised if they did work after all these years. The one we have here is particularly special because it's capable of sending messages to multiple Areas at once."
"Oh, that's very interesting. At the Hydro dam my cousin and I found a Radar Dish when we went looking for our friends before…" Patten stopped mid-sentence as a deep frown grew on Sergeant Donathan's face. "Um, never mind."
"That's what I thought. You're dismissed for now, short pants."
"Yes, sir."
After Patten left Sergeant Donathan, he walked around the Base till he found Gerald at the Upgrade Station. There he told Gerald everything Donathan said about the Radio Tower, which seemed to perk Gerald's interest. Then Gerald ordered Patten to learn everything he could about the Radio Tower, which turned out to be easier than Patten expected as Donathan had amassed an entire library's worth of manuals on different subjects. He took the one that detailed the workings of the Radio Tower and brought it to Gerald, who breezed through the book in a matter of minutes.
"Interesting," Gerald muttered as he closed the book. Then he turned to Patten and said, "Patterson Tyke, I want you to do something dangerous for me. Do you think you're up for it?"
Patten smirked. "Hey, Doc, you're talking to the guy who spent several nights with Headless Horsemenn and helped take down a Wizard, so yeah I'm up for it."
"I want you to activate the Radio Tower. If we can get it to work, I can use it to send a message to Rottenburg so our friends can come to Bigrock's aid for I fear that Donathan is losing his mind."
"But why can't you just send a dove? Medics talk to doves, right?"
"There aren't any doves in the Area and even if I did call one it would take too long to get here. So let me ask you again; are you up for it?"
For a few minutes Patten scratched the spiky yellow hair on his head and then he gave a thumbs-up. "No problem!"
As Patten was heading back to the office, he noticed the doors were closed and he heard angry voices. One voice was Donathan's but the other sounded a little like Benjamin but still different. Patten then leaned against the doors and tried to listen, but the wood was so thick that he only caught bits and pieces of conversation. What he did overhear was that an attack on the Robots occupying Lakeside would commence in an hour but whoever Donathan was talking to was against it. But after the voices settled down, Patten heard footsteps approaching the doors and he got out of the way just as they swung open to reveal a Soldier who looked like Benjamin except he had a mop of brown hair obscuring his eyes. He didn't see Patten as he stormed off, which Patten felt grateful for as he walked back into the office where he found Sergeant Donathan with a large ham in his hand.
"Ah, Scout, I was just about to send someone for you," Donathan said between taking enormous bites out of the ham. "Entertain me while I'm eating. Know any songs?"
"Um, maybe a few."
"Good. Sing me something."
"Uh, want do you want me to sing about?"
"Anything, just sing!"
As Donathan continued to consume his ham, Patten thought up a song and began to sing.
Later, after Donathan decided to take a nap after consuming two fistfuls of ham, Patten made his way through a series of corridors and up several flights of stairs to reach the third floor where the Radio Tower was located. Fortunately, there weren't too many Soldiers around, which made Patten's entry to the third floor roof easier. He opened the door to the roof as quietly as possible, but was surprised to find two Soldiers having a conversation with each other next to the Radio Tower. Quietly, Patten walked up to the Radio Tower out of the Soldiers' line of vision and slowly began to climb it.
As it started to creak, Patten climbed faster until he reached the top of it where he pulled out a handful of tools he stole from Bigrock's storage facility. He worked quickly on the Radio Tower's main antenna, hoping that the Soldiers hadn't noticed him yet, and then when he was done Patten took out a Battery Canteen and hooked it up to the Radio Tower's antenna with a jumpstart cable. After a few seconds an electric shock vibrated from the Battery Canteen to the Radio Tower, which caused Patten to jump and nearly lose his balance. Then to his surprise a faint humming vibrated from the Radio Tower as Gerald was sending a message via Morse Code in one of the smaller buildings below.
"Excellent!" Gerald said to himself.
As the message reached across vast distances, passing through radar dishes and stations that had been inactive for years, Sergeant Donathan was awoken by one of the Soldiers who alerted him of the Radio Tower's reactivation. Enraged, Donathan made his way up to the third floor just as Patten was running down the side of the building to a hidden fire-escape. Gerald in the meantime finished his message and quickly destroyed the machine he was using with a magical blast of energy from his Freedom Staff.
End of Chapter 32