"Honey!" Gregg, runs in the room. "Hope!"
"What?" She turns around, attention riveted.
"I just saw FedNews." He looks at the three of us grimly. "There's a bounty on your heads."
Wesley sits up immediately. "Hope. We need to use that console."
She points down the hall, "In the study."
The wave of a hand automatically illuminates the console. "Alright," Wesley looks over at us with the beginning of a grin. "Let's see if this is going to work."
I'm curious since I'm not as good with facile as Wesley or Jean Luc with the more obscure, antique aspects of technology. "How do you plan to send the signal Wes using the console?"
Wesley glances at me with a small smile before riveting his attention back to the screen in front of him. "After the Third World War, no one really used the radio anymore because they'd invented Polarised Microstream Database. But, consoles, for some reason are still able to send and receive radio signals. I guess it was always considered a back-up…"
More keystrokes and touches of the screen, "we're going to originate the signal from the console's transmitter. Every basic console has a rudimentary transceiver that we can program to send a broad spectrum of wave signals. Then we're going to bounce those signals, with the superimposed microwaves, off of local Radio towers. Because we have targeted the signal, it'll be directed to the Huebner Station and from there, hopefully it'll reach Data." He opens another program and enters a data set, "We have to condense the data stream. So, the easiest way to do that would be to use a Morse code-like signal." With a few more finger strokes, "The first bit of information I'm going to send out is a question as to whether he got the message."
"How fast is this going to work, Wes?" I know that our time is limited; we don't have time to wait for days on a conversation.
"Almost instantaneous… there might be a small lag, but I don't think it'll make that much of a difference." One last tap of the screen, "Sent!"
/
The waiting is excruciating. The weight of what's happening is sinking in – we're fugitives and authorities are looking for us. It's one thing to say, even to myself. But, the actual reality of the situation is stifling. If Data can't help us, then we're going to have to climb the ladder of creativity and I don't know where that's going to end up…. Likely in a penal colony on Cardassia….
To be honest, I cradle my head in my hands, we just need a break!
The silence between us is booming and the tension could be cut with a spoon. "Anything yet?" I ask, anything to break this horrendous stillness.
Wes shakes his head, "N-Yes!" He exhales a shaky breath of relief. "Oh my, God! Yes!"