Carrier Wave: A Day Of Knowing Tale (4 page)

Helms became suddenly aware that she had no
idea what she was looking for. Audio equipment? Okay, she found
that. What does that prove?

“Ask your questions,” the man muttered into
his own chest, then twisted his head upward and loudly repeated,
“ask your questions!”

“Well uh…” Helms mentally scrambled for a
plan. “We really just wanted to follow up on the initial report,
make sure that your neighbors haven’t uh… harassed you about the
complaint or anything.”

“The idiots? No, no the idiots have left me
alone. I bought the headphones, see?” Again the man wrenched his
head skyward and repeated “the headphones!”

He rattled a set of over-the-ear cans
attached to a long wire leading all the way back to the bedroom
full of electronics.

“So uh…you mind if I ask what all the
equipment is for?”

“Hmm?” The man’s face bunched up and he
blinked at Helms. “Why do you need to know? Not a crime to have
this equipment. Not a crime!”

“No, of course not,” Helms said, and put on
her harmless smile again. “It’s just that my nephew, he’s uh… he’s
really into A/V stuff and I’m trying to… y’know, connect with him
more.”

Damn. Helms felt her credibility slipping
away by the second.

“Okay…” The man said, dragging the syllables
out. He thought for a second, then continued. “I’ll show you! I’ll
show you!”

The man set his headphones down on the bench
and shuffled past Helms. They both had to turn sideways to let him
pass. Helms tightened her grip on her pistol while he did. He
stooped in front of the equipment and fiddled with something in the
bottom-most stacks. Then he flipped a few switches on the receiver,
and yanked the headphone cord out of its plug. He turned around and
smiled at Helms, and she instantly knew she’d tipped him off
somehow. She took a reflexive step backward to put some distance
between the two of them, but her heel thumped against the far wall
of the trailer.

Nowhere to go.

The man hit play. There was only static at
first, gentle pops and clicks as a recording spooled up. Then it
opened with a deep bass, almost too low to hear. The thin walls of
the caravan shuddered with it. A high ululating squeal, then a
wildly oscillating tone that dove up and down through the
registers. Quickly the sound filled out with too many atmospheric
squeaks and whistles to track. Helms felt something behind her
eyeballs pop, and a sucking vertigo pulled the floor of the trailer
away from her. She stumbled, but put a hand on the kitchenette’s
sticky counter and steadied herself. The recording stopped, and for
a moment Helms wondered if it had truly gone quiet, or if she’d
just gone deaf.

The man peered back at her from the far end
of the trailer. His eyes burned with focused curiosity. He was
expecting something.

When the vertigo passed and she popped her
ears a few times, she felt normal again.

“That was…weird,” Helms said.

The man smiled slowly, his thin, dry lips
cracking from the effort.

“Interesting,” he said, then looked to the
roof and barked “interesting!”

“So what was all that ab-” Helms began, but
the man cut her off.

“I wonder,” he said. He did a little hop and
then scuttled toward her. He stood a few inches shorter than Helms,
squinting up into her eyes and inclining his head to get all the
different angles. “I wonder which you are, then, hmm?”

He reached up to touch Helms’ eye, but she
slapped his hand away with her right while pushing him back to
arm’s length with her left. Then hand to pistol again, ready
position.

“Not a Manic,” the man continued, unfazed.
“This close to a filtered hi-fi source and you’d be clawing at the
walls by now.”

“What the hell are you on about?” Helms
said.

“A Sleeper then? Could be,” he clapped his
hands hard.

Helms jumped. She pulled her revolver out
from its holster a fraction of an inch.

“No,” the man shook his head. “The reflexes
would be fading by now. You could be one of the other frequencies –
I haven’t identified them all. Wouldn’t that be exciting?
Exciting!”

“Sir, I’m going to need you to come with me.
I have some questions for you in regards to a series of attacks
around town that I-“

“How’s your heart rate?” The man asked,
ignoring her. “Your breathing? Your vision? Are you hearing voices,
having sudden unexplainable urges? What do you taste? You have to
tell me, quick! Quick! The changes might render you unable to
speak.”

“What changes? Sir, you’re not making any
sense. If you’d just gather your uh…audio materials and… and
accompany me back to the station, I’m sure we can get all of
this-”

“Oh,” the man looked crestfallen. “Oh that’s
it. Just another carrier. How disappointing.”

“Sir, I’m going to ask you one more time to
gather your recordings and come with me to the station, or I will
have to detain you.”

“Of course,” the man giggled, “of course!
Just a moment.”

He shuffled to the far end of the trailer
and poked around at his audio equipment. He turned back to
Helms.

“I just have one question for you: What
would you do if I erased this recording right now?”

“Sir?” Helms said, her patience wearing,
“that is evidence to be used in a possible criminal
investigation…”

“I understand,” the man nodded. His finger
hovered over a button on the central console. “I’m going to erase
it now.”

“I’ll fucking kill you!” Helms had her
pistol out and trained on the man’s face in the span of a
heartbeat.

“Yes, yes. There it is. The carrier wave
doing its work. Not your fault of course – the carrier wave is the
strongest frequency. It has by far the most adherents. Not the most
interesting effects, of course, but it makes sense. The signal
needs to spread. I can’t cast aspersions on you – no shame in it.
No shame! It took me years to figure out that my own research
wasn’t on my initiative. I’m susceptible to the carrier wave,
myself. You’re in good company!”

The man started to fiddle with the audio
equipment again, and Helms had to bite into her own cheek to keep
her finger from slipping past the guard and onto the trigger.

“Don’t worry – I would never erase the
signal. I couldn’t if I wanted to! No more than you could, either,
now that you’ve heard it. There’s a nest of messages in the signal,
you see, each with different effects: The Manics are boring. They
just attack, attack, attack. The Sleepers are more interesting: I’m
just beginning to study them in depth. There seem to be some
genuine changes in physiology there, not least of which is the
seeming suspension of autonomic functions, presumably to conserve
the energy they then release in sudden, intense bursts that
transcend typical human abilities. I’ve been able to identify two
more frequencies so far as well, but who knows? There could be
more. More!”

The man flipped a series of switches and the
reel to reel to spun up. He bent down and hit a button on a
cassette player nestled beneath the mattress, and tapped his foot
while he waited.

“What…what did you to me?” Helms said.

As soon as the man had admitted he had no
intention of erasing the signal, the anxiety slipped away and she
was able to lower her weapon. She felt the first itchy pinpricks of
sweat springing out on her forehead. There was a tightness in her
chest, and a building energy crackling up and down her spine. She
felt like she would explode if she didn’t do something, but she
couldn’t for the life of her think of what that might be.

“Me? Nothing. I don’t
do
anything. I
am only a messenger. Like you are, now. See, there is such a thing
as a disease that is
too
fatal. It will kill it’s victims
long before they have the opportunity to infect others. It’s the
same with this signal. The same!” He turned his head to the roof
and barked “same! Same! Same!”

He composed himself with some effort, and
continued: “If everybody turned Manic, or Sleeper, who would be
left to spread the signal? That’s where the carriers come in. You
hear the signal, but you get to stay yourself: You are allowed to
retain your knowledge, your abilities, and your memories. But
there’s a price: Once you hear the carrier wave, all you want to do
is play it for others, over and over again, forever. I didn’t
realize that at first. Not at first! I’m a man of science,
understand. When we initially recorded that signal back at SETI, I
thought that I kept replaying it because it was
interesting
.
Then I showed others -- just to get their input, I told myself. The
others…changed.”

The man fell quiet then. He made a fist,
clenched it, then sighed and slowly released it.

“I knew it was the signal, but I kept
playing it. For science, I told myself! To understand its effects!
But that wasn’t it. I was just a pawn, myself. I’m still trying to
learn about it, of course. Maybe even one day stop it? But then the
urge gets too much, too strong, and I have to go out there. Out
with the idiots. And I
have
to play it for them. It will
kill you, if you don’t. Here.”

The reels clicked to a stop, and the man
ejected a cassette from the deck. He rummaged around in an overhead
bin and came out with a small tape recorder. He slotted the tape
into it and held it out for Helms.

“You’ll need it soon,” he said. “Normally
the signal takes some time to work, but I’ve filtered out the noise
and boosted the frequencies on the master source here. It’ll be
taking hold soon. Find somebody to listen, or it will tear you
apart. I don’t do this for everybody, you know. I don’t want the
signal to spread any further than it has to, so I just leave most
of the carriers without a way to relay the signal. It’s…not pretty
what happens to them. But it’s better for all of us, in the long
run. Better than letting them spread it. You seem different
somehow. Plus, you have the gun – if I tried to kick you out of
here without a way play the signal, I bet you’d gun me down,
wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you! Ha ha!”

Helms was about to tell the man what he
could do with his tape, but was surprised to find that she’d
already accepted it.

“I’m not going to-” she started to say, but
that energy in her spine was still building. She wanted to laugh,
scream, dance, run somewhere or punch something or maybe just weep
uncontrollably. The caravan was becoming painfully
claustrophobic.

The man smiled at her. Nothing mischievous
or sinister in the gesture this time. Just understanding and
empathy. He motioned her towards the door, and she bolted out of
it, tripping down the steps and sprawling in the gravel driveway.
The recorder went spinning out of her hands. She frantically
crawled over to it and checked its integrity. It looked intact. She
hit play, and heard the first bass tones crackle out of the tinny
speakers.

She sobbed with relief.

***

Helms had been sitting in her cruiser in the
station parking lot for fifteen minutes. Her fingertips dug into
the soft leather grips of the steering wheel. She ground her teeth
together so tightly that she could taste the chalky dust of enamel.
Tears filled her eyes, blurred her vision, lending the external
spotlights little unfocused halos.

Beside her, the tape recorder sat on the
central console. She shivered uncontrollably. She thought about her
pistol, buttoned into her holster. She thought about how it might
taste. But every time her hand moved down for it, it started
drifting toward the recorder instead.

The back door to the station opened, and a
figure stepped out. Large and male, she could tell by the
silhouette, but the details were lost behind her haze of tears. The
figure peered toward the cruiser, ducked its head and shielded its
eyes against the light.

‘No, please,’ Helms thought. ‘Just walk
away.’

The figure approached the passenger side of
the cruiser. Helms heard the thunk of a handle being lifted, and
the interior lights flicked on. She kept her eyes locked straight
ahead. Her hands on the wheel. She felt the car shift as the man’s
weight settled in beside her. The door closed.

The man grunted, cleared his throat with
some difficulty, and croaked “what’s going on, Helms?”

She didn’t respond.

“Helms?” He tried again.

Price reached over and set his hand on her
shoulder. The contact broke everything. Her resolve crumbled. Her
shaky hand pried its nails from the wheel, and began moving
downward of its own accord.

“I’m sorry, Price,” her voice cracked. “It’s
not me.”

He watched with some confusion as she picked
up the tape recorder, and pressed play.

A few opening notes of static, a deep,
almost imperceptible bass, and a screaming whistle that danced
wildly through the registers.