Verde

Chapter 9: Communication

     As a matter of fact, Cassidy wasn't even sure if her information qualified as fair game for the task. Technically, it did have to do with Quarantine. 

     It was just that using the possible medium of contact with mainland as her topic for her report was the only way Cassidy could think of to bring it to the attention of her superiors. It was not an option to just talk to someone - it felt like too much. Cassidy would open her mouth and just freeze if she tried to explain it in person. No, using it as her topic was the best way.

     The communication unit was important. It could still work - according to the manual, the wireless unit was battery powered, which could, unused, last for at least thirty years at the time of Quarantine's construction. 

     It was hope. It was tentative hope, and Cassidy was so afraid to believe in it that she felt no excitement, no elation, and had not wanted to tell her closest friends in the world about her findings. But it was hope - a hungry, hungry hope, aching to grow into something more. And she would feed it.

     That afternoon, Cassidy made her way into the Comms Tower.

     By then, everyone was buys writing their reports. 

     When Cassidy had left Elle alone in their room, she had probably thought that Cassidy was just going to get some extra material from the library to use as extra reference. Partly true.

     But Cassidy could only construct a meaningful, well-formed report if she had the actual communication device in her hands. And, besides, if she couldn't find it, the whole thing - her idea, her report, her seed of hope - was pointless anyways.

     If it was anywhere, it was within the tangled mess of technology that was the Comms Tower. A piece of technology would have been to conspicuous anywhere else to go unnoticed for so long.

     Manual in hand, Cassidy set to work. She started at the largest pile of hardware, rooting through the pieces while glancing at a picture of the fully assembled unit that was so kindly provided in the manual. 

     She worked quickly, finishing with the pile in no more than fifteen minutes. Trying not to trip on wires, Cassidy moved to the next pile, rifling through cameras, sound mixers, headphones, microphones, and various unidentifiable gadgets. 

     Some of the devices looked nothing like the picture that Cassidy held, but some of them looked so similar she had to stare for minutes, going through each individual knob and switch, just to make sure she hadn't found it. 

     She hoped with all her heart that she would find it, yet at the same time she expected to walk out of the tower empty handed.

     The communication unit was in her hands.

     She held the slim little tablet in her palm, staring at this little, simple looking thing that she had been searching for for the past forty-five minutes. It looked like a phone, really. It reminded Cassidy of the smartphone her father had whispered into in the dead of night, when he would receive calls from work. That was a little less than fifteen years ago.

     This device had been built probably ten years ago, and it was the same yet different. The general shape of it was exactly like a phone - but it had so many more adjustments and appendages. It must have been a newly developed, more advanced technology, to have such an imperfect interface.

     But she had found it.

     "Elle," Cassidy's mouth was moving as soon as she walked into their room. "I found it," she clutched the device in her hand.

     "Found what?" Elle asked absently. She was lying on her stomach, on top of her bed, with notes and books spread in front of her as she wrote her report. She probably thought Cassidy meant that she had found the book she was looking for, or a sock she had lost long ago and had now unearthed from some corner of the dorm. Which, to be perfectly honest, had happened before. But, still.

     "Elle," Cassidy repeated. Where was she supposed to start?

     "And what is your topic anyways?" Elle turned over and surveyed Cassidy.

     Nothing about Elle's tone or demeanor was menacing. She was just curiously asking a question that she realized she did not have the answers to yet. She didn't even notice the smooth, oblong object her best friend was clutching in her hand, as if for dear life.

     "Elle," Cassidy took a deep breath and sat on the edge of her own bed. She could do this. She would start with Elle's question. "I found out about something else that the United States left behind in the Comms Tower - it's a communication device."

     Elle's eyebrows went up.

     "It was meant to connect the people here to the people on mainland - none of the other audio/video equipment works anymore because everything they were hooked up to is gone. But I think this does work," Cassidy held out the device in her hand, showing Elle.

     Elle's eyes widened fractionally. Her lips parted imperceptibly. She didn't know what to make of it. "This is good," she whispered.

     "Yes, Elle," Cassidy smiled, but every part of her body was shaking so badly, so did her mouth as it curved up at the corners. "It is good."

     "Are you telling anybody? Have you told anybody? Who will you tell? When are you going to tell them?" Elle looked and sounded as lost as Cassidy had been for the past day.

     "I'm writing my report on it." Was all Cassidy said in response. She couldn't waste any time - not a second. She had a report to write, and it had better be good enough to keep her in the Verde program.