Carly smiled back at her. Or tried to. “I know. So why does it take me so long to go to sleep, and I keep waking up in the middle of the night?”
“Because you love him.”
“So that’s it?”
“That’s it.”
She sighed. “Love’s depriving me of my beauty sleep.”
“Amen, sister.”
They both laughed.
“Please don’t say that ever again,” Carly said.
“Shoot me if I ever do,” Lara said.
“Deal.”
Lara glanced down the pier at Jo, who was standing on the boat shack at the other end with a shotgun poking out from behind her back. The sight of the tall, skinny girl with the weapon was borderline absurd. Lara waved, and Bonnie’s little sister waved back.
“Has she fired that thing before?” Carly asked, looking back at Jo.
“Not yet,” Lara said. “I don’t want her to, either. She might hurt herself.”
“I’m more concerned about her hurting me with that thing.”
“Let’s all hope it doesn’t come to Jo saving us with a shotgun.” Lara unclipped her radio and said into it, “Maddie, what do you see?”
“The lake’s clear from up here,” Maddie said through the radio.
Maddie was back in the Tower, pulling overwatch with the M4 rifle equipped with the ACOG scope. Just like with the beach, someone was always in the Tower to keep an eye on the surrounding lake and the shore to the east and south of them. Another one of Will’s protocols that everyone had taken to heart, because the alternative was unacceptable.
We’re like a well-oiled machine. If by machine you mean a bunch of amateurs with dangerous weapons they don’t actually know how to use.
“No traffic on the roads?” Lara asked.
“None that I can see,” Maddie said. Then, “Lara, when you’re done down there, I need to see you back up here.”
“Something wrong?”
“Something good.”
Carly and Lara exchanged a curious look.
“I was playing around with the radio and I heard something that you’re going to want to hear,” Maddie continued.
“What is it?” Lara asked.
“I think you should hear it for yourself. It’s hard to explain. But your message, the one you sent out into the world? Someone just responded to it.”
“Is that good?” Carly asked.
Lara shook her head. “I have no idea. Can you…?”
“Go. A boss lady’s work is never done.”
Lara sighed.
Boss.
The very idea that she was the “boss” of anything, much less an island full of desperate survivors, still sounded wrong in so many ways. Despite what Will had said this morning, Lara had doubts. But then, she always had doubts. It stuck with her when she went to sleep and when she woke up.
Doubts. There were always doubts.
Carly must have seen the look on her face. She smiled and patted her on the shoulder. “Get used to it. When Will comes back, we’ll have to call you guys co-bosses. You’ll be CBL.”
“CBL?”
“Co-Boss Lady.”
“How long did it take you to come up with that?”
“I spent all night thinking it up. I mean, I couldn’t sleep anyway. Awesome, right?”
“Yeah, no,” Lara said.
“This is the United States government, trying to reach the person or persons responsible for the message that has been broadcasting across the radio frequencies. If you can hear us, please respond. I repeat: This is the United States government, trying to reach the person or persons responsible for the message that has been broadcasting across the radio frequencies…”
“The United States government?” Lara said.
“That’s what they’re claiming,” Maddie said. “Though Uncle Sam sounds like a sixteen-year-old virgin if you ask me.”
Lara was back on the third floor of the Tower, staring at the ham radios sitting on the table. She had used one of them to talk to Will earlier. There were three, with the most visually interesting one connected to a laptop by a tangled mess of wires duct-taped together. That radio was still broadcasting, sending out the recorded message, though they had muted the sound on their end.
The second radio sat undisturbed on its own part of the table. It was tuned in to a very specific frequency — their little private designated emergency channel, because no one else but Song Island’s residents knew to monitor it.
The voice they were listening to now was coming from the third radio. The all-purpose one, free and clear of any special use.
“…trying to reach the person or persons responsible for the message that has been broadcasting across the radio frequencies…”
“Is it a recording?” Lara asked.
“Doesn’t sound like it,” Maddie said. “You can tell he’s reading from a script, but he’s definitely doing it live on air.” Then, “Should we answer it?”
“I don’t know.”
What would Will do?
“The less people that know about the island, the better,” Lara said. “It’s fine to bring new people like Bonnie’s and Benny’s groups every once in a while, but when we start opening the place up to just anybody….”
“Lollapalooza,” Maddie finished.
“I don’t know what that is.”
“It’s an alternative rock concert. I went to it once when they came to Austin a few years back.” She waved her hand. “Never mind. Neither here nor there. But is it possible? Do you think the United States government really is still functioning out there?”
Lara shook her head. It had been nearly a year since they knew of anything even remotely resembling an official government broadcast. To hear it now, out of the blue, was unreal. The fact that they were responding to her message was, frankly, unsettling.
“Is it just on the FEMA frequency?” Lara asked.
“As far as I know,” Maddie nodded.
“How long have they been broadcasting?”
“No idea. I heard it about thirty minutes ago while playing around with the radio.” She shrugged. “It gets boring up here by yourself.”
“…this is the United States government,” the voice repeated on the radio, “trying to reach the person or persons responsible for the message that has been broadcasting across the radio frequencies…”
Lara reached for the radio’s microphone and lifted it to her lips but didn’t press the transmit lever right away. She took a deep breath, and then, only then, answered. “This is the person responsible for the broadcast, responding to your message. Over.”
She released the lever and waited, but the only response was silence from the other end. The “sixteen-year-old virgin” had stopped broadcasting.
Lara pressed the transmit lever again. “Hello. If you can hear me, please respond. Over.”
She waited five seconds, then ten…
“Hello,” a voice finally answered. It was different from the one she and Maddie had been listening to. Older, with an authoritative tone that came through even over the radio. “Who am I speaking to. Over.”
“Identify yourself first,” Lara said.
“Colonel Beecher,” the man said. “Commanding officer of what currently remains of the United States of America.”
She looked back at Maddie, who frowned. “That can’t be a good sign. My dad used to say the military is good at a lot of things, but running a democracy isn’t one of them.”
Lara turned back to the radio. “I wasn’t aware the military had taken charge of the country, Colonel.”
“I assure you, I didn’t come to this command voluntarily,” Beecher said. “As far as I know, we’re it. We haven’t been able to make contact with any other civilian or military authority. So I’m left to assume there is no one else out there. Now that I’ve identified myself, would you mind responding in kind, Miss?”