I stopped in front of the last one, surprised that the Army had taken the time to craft such nice nameplates…or maybe they just carried a steady supply of these things around with them for when they needed to take over civilian spaces. “This looks like the place,” I said.
Tony and Dax looked at me. “Well, Fearless Leader, go to it,” Tony said.
Evie put her nose up against the crack between the door and the floor, sniffed, and wagged her tail.
I sighed and twisted the handle, then gave the door a push. It swung inward, releasing stale-tasting air. I reached to the right and flicked on a switch, but nothing happened.
“No power,” I said. We had a little bit of light from a window placed high up on the wall, but that was it. “Alyssa said there was a generator…oh, there it is.” At least, I assumed the big red box in the corner was the generator. There wasn’t much else it could be.
“Keller cut off power to a lot of the abandoned parts to keep fire risk down,” Tony said. “One of the occasional smart things he did.”
“Are you sure it was him?”
“On second thought, that does sound more like a Durkee decision.” Tony led the way inside, flashlight held up so he could bludgeon someone if necessary. “I don’t know when they shut this place down, though. Was it when Durkee was in power? May he rest.”
I shrugged.
The radio itself seemed largely undisturbed, propped up a bit precariously on what had once been a computer desk. An old PC—which had probably lived on the desk before the military moved in—had been unceremoniously stashed beneath it.
“Should’ve gotten a Mac,” Tony said. “Place looks clear.”
We drifted inside. I pushed the door slightly shut behind us. There were no big pieces of furniture or anything else for an unsavory ghoul to leap out from behind, and the dog seemed unconcerned, so I figured we were pretty safe for the time being.
Evie seemed fascinated by some metal pipe in the corner, and she set about to investigating that while the three of us checked out the radio itself.
I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting or hoping for. I pulled out the directions Alyssa had dictated to me and stared at them, then at the radio itself. While writing them down I had certainly gotten the idea that maybe we were in for a bit of a project, but looking at my handwriting and then at the loads of buttons and dials on the radio made me woozy. Maybe I’d overestimated our ability to figure it out.
“First,” Tony said, “let’s clarify. Do any of us know how the fuck to use this thing?”
Alyssa’s directions looked even more cryptic in the poor light, but hell, we were here. “Turn on the generator on the right,” I said. “Give it a minute. Then power on the unit. Then set it to the Elderwood frequency. Then…”
“Stop there,” Tony said. “Right there.”
Dax leaned in front of the radio, squinting at the keypad. “This seems to be how we pick channels” he said. “Which one is Elderwood?”
“They changed it,” Tony said. “Either channel three or four, I think.”
Evie scuttled back to the door and sniffed at it, her tail zipping back and forth.
“Come here, girl,” Dax said distractedly.
She came back over and rested her muzzle on the table.
“Do you know how to use this thing?” I asked her.
Evie regarded me very seriously, her eyebrows lifting. Her tail thumped again.
“Even if she did, she’s not much help to us,” Tony said. “She lacks opposable thumbs.”
I decided not to hold that against her.
“Well, turn on the generator,” I said.
Tony and Dax looked at me expectantly.
Oh, hell no.
“You are men,” I said. “One of you has to know how to turn on the goddamn generator!”
The door creaked as it swung inward.
“You flip the switch,” a male voice said. “That’s about all there is to it.”
We spun around. Tony raised the flashlight like a pistol. Dax lifted his fists. I snatched the computer’s mouse from under the desk and held it in as threatening a fashion as I could manage—which, I must admit, was not really all that threatening.
Logan Andrews squinted away from the light, holding up a hand to keep it from blinding him. “You three look ridiculous,” he said. “What are you going to do, medic, pummel me with the trackball?”
“I’ll kick your ass,” I said.
They all rolled their eyes at me. All of them!
“Logan Andrews, of the Food Truck Brigade,” Tony said, “what are you doing here? Are you bringing us lunch?”
“Alyssa sent me.”
Tony glanced at me. “That your radio girl?”
“That’s my sister,” Logan snapped. “And she told me you all meant well but you were probably going to blow up the city if you wandered around on your own. She said to help you.”
Wow. Alyssa had more of a bead on us than I’d realized.
“Now put down that fucking flashlight, man. My peepers are burning.”