The Crest

A month after the attack, life for the residents stabilized to a post-trauma normal. At the FORC headquarters, work became healing. Karl instructed the staff in the science of manual radiotelegraphy.

“It’s an old but reliable technology. The sending operator controls a switch called a telegraph key, which turns the radio transmitter on and off. Got it?”

They nodded. Eyebrows raised.

“The transmitter produces pulses of unmodulated carrier waves of different lengths called “dots” and “dashes.” These are the basis of Morse Code.”

They listened as the AM radio received its first message.

“Okay, who’s going to decode the message?” Karl yelled.

A junior researcher stepped up and listened attentively and wrote on a piece of paper.

The radio popped with pulses. dot dot dot dot, dot dot dash dot dot, dot dot dash dot dot, dash dash dash.

“It says ‘hello’.”

Karl looked at the message.

“Interesting. We haven’t received a message like this before. Be cautious, it could be the enemy trying to make contact,” Karl told the trainees.

The radio came alive again. Dash dot dot, dot dot dash dot, dot dash dash dash dash, dot dot dot dot, dot dot dash dash dash.

“It says ‘DF-152’.”

“DF-152 must be the name of a research tree. Would someone find out where Douglas Fir 152 is located?”

The researchers checked the data logs. “It’s located thirty miles to the south near Timothy Lake. Dennis Fournier visited it last year.”

“Hmmm, Timothy Lake, that’s interesting, the last visit must have been around the time he died.

“So now we have three transmissions. Timothy, Lake, and DF-152. The pattern is apparent. The signal is either from Timothy Lake or it's trying to get us to go there.”

“Who is sending the signal?” one researcher asked, intrigued.

All eyes were on the senior scientist now. “I don’t know.

It’s odd. I’ll check if we have any researchers out that way.”

Karl called his boss. “Hello, Karl,” she answered.

“Hello, Danielle, I’m just calling to make sure we don’t have any investigators out near Timothy Lake.”

“Should be none. We pulled everybody in, the Antisis are out that way now. Too dangerous,” she said. “Why do you ask?” she inquired.

“Because we’re getting telegraphic signals from tree DF-152. Know anything about that?”

“Nope.”

“Okay, I’ll keep you posted.”

“I’ll be in shortly, Karl.”

“Sounds good, bye.”

“Bye.”

“Well, my students, we have a mystery tree calling us.”

The class looked intrigued. “Who could be calling?”

“More than likely its Antisis,” Karl said. “They may have found Dennis’s research logs and are using them to get us to open the gates to the Crest.”