If you take Old State Route 73 north out of Martin, South Dakota and follow the bends after it becomes Hisle Road, not long after you cross the bridge over Bear-in-the-Lodge Creek, you may notice a dirt road that leads to a house in the distance. The house, once a retreat for a civil engineer from Omaha who earned a decent living solving infrastructure challenges for farm communities in Nebraska, has long fallen into disrepair and is generally regarded as abandoned. It was never mentioned or included in the engineer’s estate and there are no neighbors to speak of that would take an interest in the place and claim squatter’s rights, so it remains today. Barely standing, decoupled from any grid, inhabited only by insects and rodents and furniture.
If you were present in the kitchen on the 8th of April, 2024, you would be alarmed by the sudden spark of life that came to a bakelite radio whose transistors had been unpowered for decades. The thickly settled dust that coated it and the counter it sat on became disturbed by its dancing transducers, which reproduced an assortment of static veiled songs of varying provenance with no commercial break for just over three hours.
If you had sensitive enough equipment, you might have detected that the signal carried an ultra high frequency tone, akin to bias, which fluctuated in amplitude. If you had known to demodulate this tone, rotate the phase, and transform the variance into data in the audible frequency range, the resulting signal would make itself evident as a separate transmission, carried alongside the ethereal radio show that was broadcast exclusively to that dilapidated kitchen.
“…established. We have a very small window before our power runs dry. This is our one and only shot. We await your response. Message repeats.
“Do not be alarmed. We are reaching to you across the veil. All is not well. We are only able to afford a highly targeted narrowband transmission, which we can run continuously for a short period of time. We need your help to place an anchor so we can complete our work and come through.
“Whoever is receiving this signal, please respond by producing a high energy burst at the specified frequency which encodes this transmission. We may not be able to respond to your signal, but we will be able to use it as a locator to open the door. If we cannot open the door, all will be lost.
“We have run out of time on our side. Please send the specified response to confirm that the connection has been established. We have a very small window…”
Two hours and fifty seven minutes later, the radio fell silent. The inquisitive fly that had settled on the counter no longer felt pulsing vibrations emanating throughout the air. No human ears received the transmission that was induced across the dimensional barrier from a desperate team on a dying world. The dust in the house settled, and continues to settle.
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At a later date, the land the house stands upon will be sold. Before the house is demolished, all that seems valuable or interesting will be loaded onto a truck and sold at a storage auction. The various artifacts of the civil engineer’s recreational life will be distributed to various resellers of antiques and curiosities who will appreciate their value as artifacts of a bygone era.
The Proprietor will lay his hands on the Radio, feel a latent energy, and smile. He will pay far less than the object is worth to him. He will own a link across unknowable space, another tool in his vast collection.
This is a collection of songs that have been kicked across the irradiated waves of the ether, assembled in experimental labs, strummed on distressed guitars in bedrooms with dusty curtains, and generally imbued with the magic of a universe far larger and weirder than any one person could truly understand. It pierced this dimension in a hyperlocal energy tunnel that attracted music with a sympathetic resonance. Some of the songs are composed of a thought that continues into the next. Some are discussions with each other. They are all in conversation with our cosmos and its neighbors, reaching, sending a signal.