Many Moons

AfterVox

"How does it work?"

I told her about my first experiments with the frequency generator and the centrifuge and how I had created a spectrum of wavelengths.

"Then I wondered what would happen if you took one wave of a specific wavelength, and placed it directly on top of another, slightly longer wave, and another, and so on. Pretty soon you'd have a wall of waves."

"But what would that do?"

"I assumed it would rip a hole in the fabric of this dimension, opening up a portal to another."

Mona hesitated a moment, then asked, "Did it?"

"No. It never did much of anything. I don't have the space or money to create every single available wavelength, but I thought I had a good representative number. But I didn't. It just makes a squelching noise."

"Maybe that's what it sounds like in the other dimension." Faruk said, entering the garage.

I thought about this but dismissed it. "Nah. I'm pretty sure I heard truckers on the interstate in the background noise."

"Turn it on." Mona said, with Faruk nodding in agreement.

I had all of the oscillators and generators and baby monitors and other equipment hooked up to a power converter, which I plugged into the wall. After a few seconds the entire unit was humming softly, not entirely unlike the equipment from my mother's hospital room.

I spent a few minutes flipping switches and turning knobs and synchronizing waves but all that came out was a loud, oscillating squeal.

"See?"

Faruk and Mona played with some of the instrumentation but it only made the noise go octaves higher or lower.

"Does it need more power?" Mona asked.

"Maybe. Or more waves. Either way I don't think it's something we can do here."

"Huh." Said Faruk. "Would you like me to unplug it?"

I nodded.

And that's when it happened.

I had always turned off the power converter before unplugging the device. And that had always been that. But Faruk yanked the cord out of the wall forcing the unit to drain itself out. It only took a second or two, but that's when it happened. Clear as anything.

"Soon."

And then the power was off. "W

"There it is!" Mona shouted. "The sound!"

"I don't think so." I said, reflecting on what I'd just heard.

"Wahama," Faruk whispered. "I do not think this could be a trucker from the interstate."

"I don't think so." I told them. "I think it was my Uncle Will."

"Is he a trucker?" Faruk asked, but my mind was racing too fast and too far ahead to answer.

"The voice I just heard was a woman's." Mona said.

"Plug it back in." I directed. A few seconds later the unit was making the familiar, annoying hum.

"Should we turn some more dials?" Mona asked.

"No. Don't change anything. Now unplug it."

Faruk complied and as the unit powered down again, the same voice said, "Hey, kid."

And there it was. The familiar voice I had never heard out loud. I was more moved than the others.

"Are you picking up a radio station, or a cell phone?" Faruk inquired.

"No. When the unit powers down the waves don't lengthen or shrink. They just become weaker and fade. So we wouldn't pick up a specific signal out of all of them."

I opened the door on the main electrical panel in the garage and flipped the breaker for the wall outlet the unit was drawing power from. A few lights popped off as well, but there was still enough to see what I was doing. There was a dimmer switch on the wall that allowed the light levels to go higher or lower.

"What are you doing?" Mona asked.

"I think that the answer isn't more power. It's less."

I removed the faceplate, and then the wiring, and attached the dimmer to the power converter.

"Does your Uncle Will live around here?" Faruk asked.

I loved the fact that Faruk wasn't at all phased about me messing about with the wiring in his house. I was too busy working out the process in my head to answer so Mona did it for me.

"He passed away." Mona told him. I didn't look at her but I knew that if I had, she would have had a concerned and confused look on her face.

"I am very sorry." Faruk said solemnly.

"That's okay, Faruk. It happened before I was born. I never actually met him."

Faruk looked perplexed. "Then how do you know it was your Uncle?"