A scurry of activity flitted around the grounds of the, no longer makeshift, camp that had taken shape in the oil-rich wasteland. More supplies had arrived with Third, as well as an additional team interspersed with amateur ham radio fans. Third had heard them passionately discussing Yagis and Atmospheric attenuation as he drifted to sleep on the flight over.

If there was any benefit it was that the flight had gone much quicker than the first had, now that a proper airstrip was cleared, and they weren’t restricted to only Helicopters and VTOL. This also meant the number of supplies they were able to haul in had increased significantly, feeding the continued evolution of the strangely co-inhabited new settlement.

Third, after meeting with the uncomfortably reverent three chiefs, eventually settled in to watch the excitement of the mapping process. Or so he had assumed originally but now watching over it all. It was the picture of boring.

The filled-in map was currently a large, pixelated circle consisting of all the imaged zones with a small protrusion now jutting off around the wasteland on the eastern side.

The progress of the mapping had already been slow and as the distance from the complex grew larger, the range of the UAVs stretched further and further past their standard operating procedures. For this reason alone, the change in origin points was greatly beneficial.

Third watched blankly as another small, highlighted square on the map flickered from yellow to green until eventually filling in with its fine detail once the uplink had been completed. With this square done, the next closest blank zone became highlighted with yellow as the drone made its way toward the next course of scanning passes.

“Oh, that might be it!” One of the technicians excitedly reported while roughly pointing in the direction of a small glimpse of water in the very corner of a newly scanned zone.

After a short round of busy chattering, another technician having inspected the sensor readouts from the area, burst the excitement abruptly “No airborne salts.”

A few curses rang out as everyone's attention returned to their monitors.

♫Near, Far, Wherever you are, I believe-♫

“Hello?” Third asked into the shattered phone, shooting a glare toward the chuckling few who had overheard the familiar ballad ringtone.

The muffled noise from the phone stirred like a furious hive, and Third’s expression quickly morphed to match.

“Hold on,” Third attempted to fit in, but Gary’s voice didn’t halt. Instead piling on more with his mention of the suddenly missing wife of Foreman Falcotini.

At this, Third nearly lost grip on the phone. He couldn’t believe it. He had seen her less than twenty-four hours ago, how could she vanish so suddenly?

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Finally, Gary finished his report, but by this point, Third couldn’t locate any of the words that had been at the tip of his tongue.

An unusual silence filled the line as neither could find words for the other.

“Have you-” Third began, but a few loud cries of excitement separated his attention from the call. Turning to the source, Third saw a marble of a man dripping bullets as he jogged excitedly over while holding a laptop. “Hold that thought.”

“What’s going on?” Gary asked, but Third answered with a dial tone, instead leaping up and towards where the curious technicians and developers had begun gathering.

“It’s real!” The portly man reported passionately to a question Third had missed.

“What’s going on?” A bystander asked, noticing the excitement and coming to investigate a moment after Third had maneuvered into the crowd to catch a better glimpse.

On the screen dribbled with oily sweat, a grey window with poorly aligned drop-shadows displayed an array of strange graphs and charts labeled with familiar units like dB and SNR.

With Third’s minor understanding of Rf equipment that he’d picked up in school, it looked to him as if they were comparing a signal strength against distance and cardinal direction in a wide complicated matrix. A few of the squares were left blank but only one mattered. Amongst the smaller and occasionally negative entries at various ranges and frequencies, one direction stood above the rest. Somewhere out there, a radio transmitter in the vast wilderness is howling out into the empty airwaves.

And now, they had a direction to look for it.

“If we can bring more drones out of storage and…”

“Should we just stop the…”

“—B-21’s out of the hangar and…”

“—and then with the next tests, I propose we tape a ph…”

“No, but…”

Dozens of voices clamored to be heard, each increasing in intensity to outweigh the previous. Third, was used to this kind of noise, but that made it no less grating. Clamping his eyes as the drone became pain-inducing, he mindlessly roared out a powerful shout, “Shut up!”

He commanded it, almost not expecting to be heard over the crowd.

But to his surprise, the crowded air cleared at once. Breathing deeply in relief, he opened his eyes, only to meet countless more staring back at him. The canary within his nervous system whom he’d often relied upon, pleaded to unfurl its wings, but he fought the desire and stepped up onto a nearby chair.

“We aren’t abandoning our goal of mapping this land, not after we’ve already been set back just moving the scouts and equipment.” Third reasoned, passing his eyes across the growing crowd who’d come to see why so many had gathered. “I get your excitement, but more tests and tied-up resources aren’t always the solution.”

“We aren’t suggesting stopping.” The Technician who’d excitedly suggested just that complained with reddening cheeks.

But, before the rest of his backpedal could apparate, Third’s enforcing tone split the air once more. “Captain Oveur, how soon could you be ready?”

The flight of Third’s question struck the Air-Force Test Pilot at random. Its suddenness caught him off guard and he nearly spat his whole-grain bagel. He cautiously swallowed without bothering to chew. “Uh, an hour maybe?”

Third’s eyebrows twisted uncomfortably at the vague response. “Maybe? Alright, then maybe have the Crown Osprey ready in thirty minutes. Otherwise, we may as well twiddle our thumbs until we see the source scouted safely from afar on our little tv screens.”

“Yes Sir.” With a firm salute, the Captain peeled his radio from his belt and rapidly begins dictating orders over the pilot’s private frequency.

Countless eyes averted as the fear of becoming next reverberated into a chill. Many more on the other hand glimmered with a near-forgotten fire. A few images overlapped as they gazed at the third President Reynolds of Arna and He.