She nodded toward a young couple pushing a stroller, each with one hand on the stroller and one hand holding up a cell phone. They gazed fixedly at their cell phones as they walked along. Occasionally the woman giggled.
“God help that child,” Mary Sue muttered, as the couple pushed the stroller around the circular sidewalk, past the faux house, without looking up from their phones or speaking to one another.
McGrue noticed someone else coming down the sidewalk. “And who’s that?”
The stranger wore a shabby gray suit, had noticeably muddy shoes, and toted a largish brown suitcase that looked to be heavy, judging from the way he carried it. McGrue could see the man had a scrappy short white beard, but his face looked fairly young. He wore a gray tweed cap, and had a long nose, a narrow face, red pouting lips.
The stranger paused by the fence and looked over at them. “Good afternoon,” he said, touching his hat. Some kind of northeastern accent, McGrue judged, maybe some place like Rhode Island or Connecticut. He set down his suitcase and rubbed his arm. “I’m looking for a house that was built last year—a decorative shell for transmitters…”
“That’s it,” McGrue said, pointing. “Are you here to burn it down? I’ll get you a match.”
“Elwin!” Mary Sue hissed. “For heaven’s sake!”
The stranger tilted his head and gave him a crooked smile. “The structure is, I take it, problematic?”
“It sure as hell is! You can hear it buzzing and throbbing—you can even feel it! Keeps me awake at night and gives me nightmares. Screws up my television so I can’t see the Home Repair Show! Is that problem enough?”
“I see.” The stranger looked at the house and said, just loud enough to hear, “Very good.”
“Very good, that what you said?” McGrue snorted. “Is misery good?”
The stranger looked back at him and pursed his lips. “No sir. Misery is not good. I hope to end some of mine, here.” He flexed his fingers. “Rather too much equipment for one suitcase.”
“You’re a technician, then? They send you to work on that thing?”
“Ah, well, as to that—I do intend to work on it, yes. I can make certain adjustments.” He looked at McGrue quizzically. “I am missing my usual assistant today. You look like a fellow who might be handy? I wonder if I could trouble you to assist me, for just a few minutes. When all is done, I may be able to…modify the device, so it doesn’t trouble you. I can even recompense you.”
“That right?” Maybe this fellow could make the damned thing less obnoxious. “Why not!”
Mary Sue cleared her throat. “Mr. uh—Could I ask your name?”
“Oh, yes, forgive me, Ma’am. My name is Tillinghast. Oswald Tillinghast.”
“I’m Mary Sue Ellsworth, this is Mr. McGrue. Don’t you have a company truck, of some kind? I’d think whoever was tasked to work on that thing would be, you know, in an official vehicle…”
“Ah yes, that too is absented along with my assistant. It’s a long story. And now I must get to work.” He turned to McGrue. “No time like the present, do you agree sir?”
“Sure, let’s have a look at the damned thing,” McGrue said, stepping out to the sidewalk. “Let me help you with this.” He picked up the suitcase.
“Very good of you, Mr. McGrue.”
“Elwin—are you sure you should be going into that place?” Mary Sue called after him. “We’re not supposed to get near it!”
Who does she think she is, my wife? McGrue thought. “I’ll be fine, fine…”
He led the way around the circle at the end of the street, to the final house on Skellon Way. The house where machines lived.
“Really quite extraordinary, their choosing this exact site for the transmitters,” Tillinghast said.
“Why’s that?” McGrue asked, breathing raspily, beginning to regret offering to carry the suitcase. It was damned heavy.
“It’s at the exact convergence of the sympathetic and disharmonious waves from a number of other transmission sources,” said Tillinghast, the words tripping lightly off his tongue. “One is a cell phone tower, one is a satellite. The third is a signal bounced from the ionosphere—a signal that started at the HAARP array, thousands of miles north. And then the additional electromagnetic field created by intense microwave transmission from within the house…”
“Seems to me those microwaves are dangerous, down at this level, close to the people living on this street. They said those transmitters were aimed away from us, but I’m not so sure…And look at that!”
They had reached the house, and in front of it, at the foot of the steps, were several dead animals. A dead blue jay was half covered by the body of a striped tabby cat, and, nearby, facing away from the house, lay a dead racoon. All of the animals, McGrue saw now, had no eyes. Only little pockets of dried blood where eyes should be.
McGrue put the suitcase down and pointed at the dead animals. “You see that? I noticed the dead bird the other day…”
“Ah, most disturbing,” Tillinghast muttered. “It appears there’s already been a preliminary resonance wave.”
“A what?”
“Resonance wave—ah, an unfortunate radiation leak as a result of the convergence of several resonation sources. It can be lethal. It’s not typical of these cellular telephonic devices. Extraordinary conditions here. And yet, contained and controlled, it can…it can be useful. But it seems there has been an uncontrolled resonance wave here recently, perhaps over several hours. The bird died, the cat investigated and died, and the racoon investigated the first two dead creatures and died itself, trying to get away.”
McGrue took a step back from the house. “So—how do you know it’s not firing up that way right now?”
“Oh, I would sense it, if it was. I’ve become quite…attuned to it.”
“Sense it?” That sounded kind of nutty. Could be Mary Sue was right? Maybe he shouldn’t be here with this guy.
“However, I will check for you…” Tillinghast partly unzipped the suitcase, reached in, rummaged around, and took out what looked like a modified EMR meter. “Now… let me see…” He peered at the instrument. “No, you see, it’s in the green range, here. No resonance waves. And I wouldn’t expect another for some time—we won’t have the full convergence here till tomorrow evening. Shall we go in?”
“You have a key to this place? That door’s double locked.”
“A key? Of a sort, come along, if you’re coming, Mr. McGrue,” Tillinghast said briskly. He picked up the suitcase, lugged it up the stairs, then took a tool from his pocket and did something to the front door locks that McGrue couldn’t see. He heard a humming sound—and the front door popped open.
McGrue hesitated, looking up at the house—or the faux house, really. It was the equivalent of a cell phone tower disguised as a tree. The microwave transmitters were inside the shell of the house, which at a glance looked like a new, two-story tract home, its dormer windows tinted dark, and four dead junipers in the front yard. The house was eyeless, and empty of soul, and yet it hummed with an unnatural life. He could hear it; feel it in his back teeth. To McGrue it stood for the stupefying excesses of civilization in the twenty-first century.
Should he go in? No. But then again, this guy said he could turn the damn thing down some, and he needed help doing it.
McGrue growled to himself and shook his head, but he went up the stairs.
Inside, he found that Tillinghast had already unpacked the bag in a space behind two humming, circular microwave transmission drums, facing the front windows. There were three metal “drums”, each ten feet across. Tillinghast was setting up a tripod.