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IT WAS A STRANGE THING, apologizing to a computer. After N302 forced its two spare units to shut down, 62 and the others felt awful. First, they were embarrassed that the computer had heard their conversation. They’d spoken poorly about it when they thought it couldn’t hear them. And second, they felt terrible for having projected their fears onto the Machine. In the end, their collective anxieties had come from not truly understanding N302’s programming, or its need to be interconnected with other devices in order to be comfortable in its shell.
62 wracked his brain for a way to make things up to the bot, and he wandered the jailhouse until he found himself standing beside 00 in the cafeteria. 00 was distracting himself by poring over the books that they’d brought back with them from the radio room several days before. 00 was immersed in the materials and hardly noticed 62 standing there. Eventually, 00 issued a grunt of acknowledgment, but there was no additional greeting or invitation. 62 shrugged the detachment off. 00 had been the same way when he was reading about building computers for the first time back in Hanford. 62 sat down beside his brother and caught a sideways glimpse of the book 00 was reading. On one of the pages there was a picture of a tower very similar to the one beside the radio room on the summit.
“Learning anything?” 62 finally asked.
“Yes,” 00 muttered without looking up. He turned the page and his gaze shifted to the top of the next set of text.
“Anything I might find interesting?”
00 heaved a great sigh and pushed the book away from him slightly as he leaned back in his chair. He ran a hand through his hair, appearing frustrated that his concentration was broken. “Maybe,” he answered. Irritation dripped from his voice, and his glowering expression told 62 that he truly had interrupted something important.
“I’m sorry,” 62 apologized. “I came to ask you if there was anything we can do to show N302 that we messed up, and we want to make things right. I don’t know enough about bots to figure it out on my own.”
The frustration bled from 00’s face, replaced with an interested curiosity. “Actually, I think I might have something in mind. I’ve been reading about those gadgets up in the radio room. It looks like radios are data transmission devices.”
“What does that mean for us? We don’t have any data to send.”
“You and I don’t, but N302 does.” 00 turned the book and flipped backward a few pages to a diagram of a basic radio device. “Look, the device this book is about is called a radio mixer. They’re those big boxes up in the radio room with all the dials. See?” He flipped back a couple more pages and showed 62 a picture of the device. “They take the sound coming in from the microphones and pass it to a transmitter. The transmitter sends the radio signal into the atmosphere so it can be picked up somewhere else by a receiver. The received signal is analyzed, reassembled, and comes out the other end as audio again.”
“Kind of like how the computers were talking to one another upstairs?” 62 asked.
“Yes. Although, when radio waves are being sent, they’re silent. The only way to hear them is by using a receiver. Someone standing outside the radio station probably wouldn’t even know a signal were being sent.”
“That’s interesting and everything, but how is this going to make things up to N302?”
“If we build a transmitter here, and move one of the computers back to the radio room, we might be able to power up the radio room out there. Maybe N302 could talk to itself remotely.”
Blue came in from the kitchen, gnawing on a hunk of bread. He sat down across from 62. Between bites, he asked, “What’re you all up to?”
00 described his understanding of the radio room equipment once more, and Blue nodded as he ate. He looked at the pictures in the book, getting crumbs all over the pages. A light of recognition flickered in his eyes. Blue set down what was left of the bread and pointed to one of the smaller antennae shown in the book.
“I think one of those is up on the roof,” Blue said. “I saw it when Parker was showing me the water collection system.”
“Really?” 00’s eyes went wide. “Can you show us where it is?”
“Sure,” Blue answered. “Go grab your masks. I’ll meet you at the top of the stairs.”
62 and 00 raced through the building, grabbing their masks. They took the stairs to the top floor of the jailhouse two at a time, excitement building and legs burning as they went. They found Blue on the top landing and followed him through a side door labelled Roof Access. When Blue opened the door, they found a tall metal ladder that reached up beyond the ceiling line. They climbed it, one by one, reaching a small room at the top. Blue opened another door, and they walked out onto the roof.
The unobstructed view over the roof’s ledge was breathtaking. The desert stretched out below them seemed to glow in the angle of the evening sun. Blue led his friends around the rooftop, pointing out the water collection system, the housing of the long-defunct heating and cooling system, and showed them where one of the building’s generators stood. A large, square framework sprang up from the center of the roof, and Blue explained it was the top of the elevator lift. Very cautiously, 62 inched toward the mechanism, amazed at the simplicity and danger of the device.
Then, as they rounded the far side of the elevator, they found the very same antennae that Blue had pointed to in 00’s book. The radio antennae wasn’t nearly as large as the tower higher on the mountain, but it still rose high in the air above where the Boys stood.
“Do you think it works?” Blue asked 00 as he poked around the antennae’s base.
00 shrugged. “Don’t know. The tech is pretty simple though. I think if I dig around a bit, I can probably figure out how to get it going.”
62 wandered to the edge of the roof as his brothers discussed the metal rod pointing to the heavens. He wanted another look at the desert beyond the roofline before the sun set. As he looked over the landscape, he noticed something moving far below him on the desert floor. A dark shadow of a thing, it crept closer and seemed to grow in size as it came nearer. After a few minutes, he realized the figure was heading toward the trail at the base of the mountain.
“Hey guys!” he shouted over his shoulder. “Come look at this.”
Blue and 00 picked their way across the roof to where 62 stood. He pointed down the mountain, at the shadowy figure nearing the boulders at the bottom of the trail. The movements were deliberate and measured. There was no question by now that the being was human, and that it was headed to their front door.
“Someone’s coming,” Blue said quietly.
“I’ve got to put away all my books down in the cafeteria,” 00 said.
“I’ll lock up N302,” 62 said with a nod.
“And I’ll tell Sunny,” Blue added. He pulled back from the roof’s ledge, and the others followed. As Blue walked toward the door that would lead them back down the ladder to the stairwell, he said, “Okay, Boys. Let’s get ready for company.”