Ryann punched him in the throat. I think she broke his nose and maybe dislocated his kneecap.”
“Okay,” Ahmed said firmly. “Do you never want to talk about any of this ever again, or do you want to talk about this until you feel better?”
Shannon thought about that for a moment. “I think I’m done talking about it for now. Thank you for asking.” She turned to Alexandria. “I took something from your house. I thought you should know.”
She pulled the radio out of her pocket.
Alexandria looked irritated, but also just extremely tired. “Why?”
“I figured we could maybe find a better place to listen for recordings. Ryann told me your dad doesn’t like when you do that, so I wanted to help. As a thank-you for last night.”
Alexandria seemed surprised.
“My brother used to do radio stuff in college,” Shannon continued. “He has a better radio, and it has a recorder. He moved out a year ago and left it behind. I don’t think he’d mind if we just took it. It’s super old, but it’s bigger, and probably has a stronger receiver. Plus, it’s battery-operated; most receivers of this size need to be plugged in. We’d have to change the batteries every so often, but if we find a good enough place, we could let it record twenty-four hours a day. That way you’ll have more time after school to potentially catch messages.”
“How would we find any place like that?” Alexandria asked.
Ryann shrugged. “This town isn’t that big. We could walk around the whole thing in a couple of hours until we catch a strong signal, then follow it until it’s super crisp.”
“Would … you really spend your Saturday doing that?” Alexandria asked warily.
“Yeah,” Ahmed said. “It’s important. Or at least more important than anything else we’d be doing today.”
1 HOUR
They started in the residential part of town and worked their way toward the woods at the edge. They switched holding the handheld radio between them, depending on whose arm began to hurt the fastest, waiting for that distinctive static. After an hour Ahmed broke down from boredom and started asking Alexandria hundreds of questions.
“How long have you been doing this?”
“Six years.”
“Did your dad ever help you?”
“No. He has a bunch of complicated feelings about SCOUT. He doesn’t like talking about it.”
“Can’t you just contact SCOUT and ask them to send you their recordings?”
Alexandria thought for a minute. “No. It’s like … I guess if SCOUT was NASA it would be easier to get stuff from them because NASA is a government organization. But SCOUT is a privately owned company and all the data they receive they distribute at their discretion. My dad asked once when I was a lot younger, and he told me they said no.”
“Did he just tell you that, or did you try again later when you got old enough to check?” Ahmed asked seriously.
Alexandria frowned. “I don’t think my dad would lie to me about that.”
Ahmed bit his lip as he thought about it. “Parents keep secrets sometimes. Often to protect us. I’m not insinuating that your dad lied to you. It’s more of a ‘maybe we should just look into it more again’ sort of thing.”
Alexandria scowled deeper and handed the radio to Shannon, who held it high up in the air.
6 HOURS AND 13 MINUTES
They trudged on until it was nearly sundown and the buildings gave way to fields and trees. Suddenly the radio—which had been broadcasting light static off and on—crackled loudly. Ahmed shook it to make sure, then they turned to follow the sound. The radio crackled in and out of silence until they entered a vast clearing.
Rising up out of the grove like a monolith were the twisted, charred remains of an industrial warehouse.
“Gross,” Shannon said.
“What is this place?” Alexandria asked quietly.
Ahmed grimaced. “A structurally unstable remnant of my dads’ criminal past,” he said bluntly.
“Why do you think the signal is strongest here?” Ryann asked.
“I don’t know.” Ahmed threw his arms out in exasperation. “It’s probably haunted.”
“It can’t be haunted,” Ryann countered. “Your parents are still alive.”
“It might just be well-positioned globally or something,” Shannon said. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” She pulled her hair into a ponytail. “Okay. Let’s go.”
Ryann stopped her. “No one should go in there without hard hats or masks. Plus, we have to get the stronger radio anyway. Let’s go back, get some food, get Tomas and Blake, and actually do this safely.”
Shannon threw her hands up and sighed. “Fine. Do I have