Radio Raleigh

Three Years Later

I woke up when the car veered to the right, the cardboard box on my lap falling to the floor with the momentum. Groaning, I curled up, pulling my legs close to my chest and gripping the itchy blanket with my fingers. They were still raw from last week’s burning; every few months the Colonel took a match to my fingertips until the ridges of my fingerprints were gone.

Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on the way you look at it, the body has a way of repairing itself. After a month or three, the prints begin to come back. Maybe the body wants a way to be identified, I don’t really know or care. It’s hard to wax philosophical about a situation when you’re purposely burning off several layers of skin.

Maybe I’m just a cynic.

Idly, I stared out a blackened window, dimly being able to see the silhouettes of trees interspersed among rusting bumpers on the highway. Each night, we traveled to a different radio station in time for my nightly broadcast, aptly titled Radio Raleigh.

Most people assume it’s because we’re stationed in Raleigh, which is exactly what we want them to think. There are twelve Raleighs in the United States, and if people are trying to find me, they flock to Raleigh, North Carolina.

I give it another year before someone figures out it’s my name.

I was pulled out of my thoughts as the car jerked to a halt in front of a small building, the radio tower intertwined with poison ivy and tree branches as a disguise.

The soldier driving the car pulled a walkie-talkie from the belt at his waist. “The Voice has arrived,” he barked, his own voice rough and devoid of emotion. It sounded like tires running over gravel.

It was a habit I developed a year or two ago. Picking out the qualities in voices. Very few people in my own unit know my name, so I’m just referred to as the Voice. It’s a lovely tactic – remove everything from me that makes me human and instead enhance the only unimportant part! I supposed that they could argue that it’s my voice that gives me power, but it’s still an insult.

They devalue me, I devalue them. Rule of thumb.

With a grunt, the soldier left the car to walk around and open my side. I would have done it myself if I didn’t feel pain any time I so much as tried to scratch my nose. Stepping out of the car, I nodded my head in thanks. I’d been under strict orders to not talk unless directly addressed with a response beyond ‘yes’ or ‘no’, lest someone heard me and recognized me.

It didn’t happen very often.

The solider tipped his hat and reached for the cardboard box filled with my microphones, headset, and the script I’d prewritten. Most of the intel I used for the military statistics on the Western Front came from smuggled copies of a propaganda magazine called The Californian Loyalist.

Of course, along with a little something else I couldn’t put my finger on. No one could, really, because as much as that magazine helped, it didn’t give specifics.

I knew specifics.

The moon was full but hidden behind clouds as I walked into the radio station, pushing the door open with my palms. Instantly, I was overwhelmed by the musty scent of disuse mixed with an enough air freshener to create a chemical bomb if a match were lit. Judging by the coughing on the soldier behind me, he registered it too.

“There she is!” A voice boomed, too loud as if to compensate for something with an extra-special quality that enabled it to grate on the ears.

Colonel Smith.

“Our little Siren! Come along, girl, I’ll show you where your studio is.” I followed him wordlessly, the stars on the Colonel’s uniform catching faint ribbons of moonlight.

Studio was too grandiose of a word, if I were going to be honest. It was a storage closet recently cleared of dusty boxes and had only a single light with a pull string. Dust motes swirled in the air beneath the cone of light.

Everything seemed to be in a shade of brown and gray.

Colonel Smith pulled out a chair for me and I sat, pulling off the thick army coat that was several sizes too big for me but I was forced to wear anyway. Somehow I’d have to get the Colonel to splurge and get my name embroidered on it. For sentimentality’s sake, of course.

I cracked my knuckles and rolled my neck around on my shoulders. An old clock hung on the wall in front of me, declaring it to be five minutes to eight. Perfect.

The soldier put my box down beside me and I didn’t look at him as he left. I wasn’t a fan of putting names to faces when so many refused to do so for me. I didn’t give a damn about security concerns. A name is an identity.

The box was already opened, to my surprise, but I didn’t have the time to think too much of it. I plugged my microphone into the transceiver, pulled my script out, and slid my headphones on.

I looked to the Colonel and he gave me a nod, a positive signal that I was on the right frequency to broadcast to the entire Western community.

For the first time in twenty-four hours, I began to speak.

***
Aired September 9 2095, 8PM EST

[RALEIGH]: Hello, Loyalist Listeners! This is Radio Raleigh with just a few facts and tidbits to keep those of you still lucky enough to have shelter in the know! Maybe even a few good ol’ Eastern listeners joined us, who knows? It’s not as if the West has bombed every major city on the eastern seaboard, right?

[pause]

[RALEIGH]: Oh wait. They did. However, I do so hope that General Scott is sitting close enough to the radio this time, you don’t want to crank it up too loud and have your hideout in Everett High School, fondly located in Lansing, Michigan, to be found by an Eastern squadron, do you?

[Buzzer]

[RALEIGH]: Now, on to more important things… like nuclear activity!

***

The soldier left the room just before the broadcast started. He made it to the car in time to tune in, grating his teeth at the sound of her voice. He had driven her three hours and hadn’t heard it once. After the second hour, he began to wonder if her voice was real at all; it could have been a myth fabricated by the East.

The East fabricates a lot of things.

But then, as her voice drifted out of the speakers, honeyed and sounding like a lullaby that promised only the very best of dreams, he knew that she was no myth.

She was very real, and most of all, she was a threat.

Speaking into the pin attached to his lapel, the soldier spoke only a sentence. “Was the hand-off successful, Colonel Horan?”

“The box is in our possession, Lt. Colonel Styles."