“Nah, Bob. It’s in a small nook waaay up in the ceiling. Too high for a ladder. They have those extendable poles with like the suction cups on ‘em, for grip. I checked Home Depot and they had some but they’re still super expensive. Can’t imagine why, I doubt the demand for ‘em is very high. Whiskey Delta Zero Juliett India, go ahead.”
“Yeah, that’s a toughie John. If it’s just the one bulb, I might recommend just leaving it and waiting until more go out, then you could probably call a contractor to fix it. You don’t want to, uh, mess with that kind of stuff if it’s too high up. Good way to break a limb. Kilo Delta Seven Golf Oscar, over.”
“Normally I’d agree with you, but it’s kinda distracting during service. The older folks ‘specially have been complaining a lot about it. Now I’m thinking on it though, I can probably put a plunger on a pole and call it good. I’ll let you know how it goes. Sorry to hog the air with this nonsense, bud. How’s the Mrs? Whiskey Delta Zero Juliett India, go ahead.”
Sunken eyes stared into gray steel, wandered over the knobs and meter plates of the blocky transceiver. Chillicothe had been listening to these guys for years.
“Oh, don’t worry about it John. She’s doing just fine, thanks for asking. Still a little rough after last year but picking up steam. The kids and grandkids visited last week and she perked right up, haven’t seen her that peppy in a while. How about you, any luck on your end? Kilo Delta Seven Golf Oscar over.”
For how much she had talked to them, which was literally not at all, she knew an astonishing amount about John and Bob, callsigns WD0JI and KD7GO respectively.
“Oh, you know how it is. The dating scene ain’t too good for guys our age. There’s a nice lady at work but I don’t think she’s interested, go ahead.”
She knew things like the fact that John had gone through a particularly violent divorce a couple years before the Unveiling. Bob almost did too, after he cheated on that beloved wife of his.
“That’s a shame to hear, she’s missing out. Lady Luck’ll pay you a visit soon, I’ve got a feeling. We’re praying for you over here, over.”
She couldn’t remember when she had first tuned into their favorite wavelength, but she had been pretty young. These two gentlemen hailed from hundreds of miles away from each other: John a local right out of Holden here in Missouri, and Bob from up over in bumfuck Montana.
They used shortwave to talk on a biweekly basis. Carved out an hour or so on Saturday afternoons just to ragchew. She honestly wasn’t sure why she was still listening after so long. Just ingrained at this point, she guessed.
Listening to these conversations on her grandfather’s old HAM had gotten her interested in shortwave radio. At just twelve she had obtained her amateur license and got a wallmap going, calling CQ on high frequency whenever the air wasn’t quite so busy.
A year later she had contracted. Six months after that, the Unveiling occurred.
She had been pretty lucky: far from disrupting her hobby, it was a unique opportunity to use her skills for something good. During the DuPage administration, more conventional methods of communication were completely fucked. Barely any phone, absolutely no internet unless you were unfortunate enough to live in the city.
Didn’t stop the radio though, and her family had a gas generator. She had been able to maintain some contact with various radio buddies, though the rural areas suffered from lots of power outages and the cities were chaotic.
About a month into all that, when she was thumbing through various HF bands, she had stumbled on a CQ from another magical girl. KW9TH, Terre Haute, just a hop skip and a jump over in Indiana.
From this, she birthed the idea of the Shortwave Magical Network.
Not as secure as MagNet had been obviously, but it was a hell of a lot more reliable in a pinch. She figured that if another emergency like the Unveiling occurred–-Madoka forbid-–this would be an effective way to keep girls in contact. The confusion that stemmed from the loss of communication had really messed with people in ways they were still feeling all this time later.
Like in St. Louis.
But it looked like the boys were finishing up. “... as always, nice chatting with you John. Seventy-three, this is Kilo Delta Seven Golf Oscar signing off.”
“Same to you bud. Seventy-three, seventy-three. Whiskey Delta Zero Juliett India going off air, the channel is now open for general use.”
Then the transceiver was silent.
Just as well, it was getting close to time for the net.
Without delay, she adjusted the frequency up a couple megahertz to the proper channel. She listened for a few minutes just in case anyone was already using the frequency, but no voices floated out of her radio. That was good; last week she had to chew out some assholes from Vermont who didn’t know when to pack up. No etiquette at all.
Just in case, Chillicothe decided to test the waters. Clearing her throat, she moved the microphone closer to her cracking lips. She keyed in, slowly and clearly: “CQ CQ CQ MG. Kilo Echo Zero Delta November Bravo, this is KE0DNB,” she pronounced each letter fully and distinctly. “KE0DNB calling CQ on 40 meters. Hello CQ CQ CQ MG this is KE0DNB, standing by for a call.”
She waited five minutes, tapping patiently at the transceiver key. Breathing deeply, she looked up at the wallmap above her station. The whole world was spread out on thick paper, with pins stuck in all over. The USA was riddled with them of course, but Europe had a healthy smattering too. China was decent, but the rest of Asia and South America were in a pitiful state. Of Africa, she had only two, and both were blue.
After the Unveiling she had come up with a color system: red were just chance encounters, unchanged from before the world had turned upside down. Green were closer friends that she had managed to reestablish contact with: they were far less numerous than she would have hoped. Blue were friends she had yet to talk with again. She was slowly starting to hate the color blue more and more.
The wallmap also had a few yellow pins, slightly larger than the rest. There was one in Canada near Ontario, one in London, one in Japan, one in a town called Christiansburg in Virginia, and one of course for Terre Haute. Over the last year, this was how far she had spread the Shortwave Magical Network.
Chillicothe hoped one day to exhaust her supply of yellow pins. Wasn’t holding her breath though.
She keyed the mic again. “CQ MG, CQ MG. Kilo Echo Zero Delta November Bravo monitoring. CQ MG, CQ MG.”
A couple breaths later, her heart fluttered as the speakers flared with the voice of another girl.
“Uh, hey there.”
Excitement evaporated instantly. God damn it, probably some idiot messing with a kit they found at a Goodwill… but the girl sounded very clear in her speakers, which was unlikely for any random monkey with a transceiver. Maybe she knew what she was doing. Chillicothe keyed back in: “Please identify yourself. Your signal is strong but we have a net scheduled soon, go ahead.”
“Oh, uh, sorry. It’s been a while since I’ve done this.” The stranger cleared her throat. “Ah, shit. What was my callsign? Gonna be honest, I don’t really remember.” A few seconds went by. “Over.”
Chillicothe had both elbows on the desk, fists grabbing her tangled hair and tugging. The FCC had more important things on its plate than monitoring every single HF band, but this girl was still asking to get her fucking door kicked down by the feds.
“... Okay,” she keyed back in after composing herself. “For the record, this is Kilo Echo Zero Delta November Bravo, broadcasting from Chillicothe in Missouri. Just call me Chillicothe. Remember that we have a net starting very soon, go ahead.”
“Oh, wow, someone else from the area. Yeah, I heard your call Chillicothe. You can call me Boonville. Over.”
Chillicothe quirked one gray eye open. Odds were rising that this wasn’t just some brainless random wandering in. “Reading you loud and clear, Boonville. That’s pretty close, no wonder your signal’s good. You’re welcome to join the round table if you can answer my question, over.”
“I’m sure I can guess what that might be. From what I’ve been hearing, MG isn’t as subtle as it used to be. Go ahead though.”
Her heart was racing again, just a little bit. “First: who contracted you? Go ahead.”
A few seconds went by. “Oh, come on. You cribbed that from MagNet. Look, the cat’s out of the bag already, isn’t it? I can tell you what color my gem is if it’ll make you feel better. Over.”
Feeling herself deflate in real time, Chillicothe punched the mic. “That won’t be necessary. Welcome to the Shortwave Magical Network, Boonville. I’ll put a pin in for you.”
“Ah, well,” the other girl cut in, clearing her throat again (Chillicothe immediately started fuming at the impropriety). “Don’t worry about that. I don’t actually live in Boonville anymore. Oh, sorry, I didn’t wait for you to say ‘over,’ did I? Over.”
“No, you didn’t. It’s fine,” it really wasn’t, but whatever. “If I can ask, where do you live now? Kilo Echo Zero Delta November Bravo, go ahead.”
“That’s kind of a long story, Chillicothe. I’ve been busy with a lot of stuff, and judging from what I’ve heard I’m pretty far out of the loop. Could I bother you to give me the low down? Back to you.”
What?? The hell kind of rock was this girl living under? “Uhm. I’m not really sure where to begin. How much do you know already? Over.”
“I know who the President is and that shit went sideways for a little while, but I was pretty preoccupied while all that was happening. Safe to assume I know close to nothing about what’s happened since then.” A few seconds pause. “Over.”
“Must have been pretty involved, Boonville.”
“You can say that again.”
“Please don’t interrupt while the mic is hot.” Chillicothe ignored the obligatory ‘oh shit, sorry, jeez,’ and thought for a second. “Well, you’re from around here: St. Louis is pretty much gone.” She paused for an interruption, but got none. “That was kind of where it all started last year. I don’t know how you managed to avoid hearing about this, but at some point the city was attacked by those weirdos from Chicago, the girls that called themselves an Empire. Denver was asking for people to help defend, but the next thing we heard, St. Louis was swallowed up in a miasma. The girls in KC and Columbia thought it was an archon at first, but they were never able to find one. It was just… teeming with wraiths. Too many for them to get under control in a decent amount of time.
“The normies had no idea what was going on, it was reported as a city-wide blackout. Soon after that was the DuPage administration, and we got outed. This all tracking so far? Over.”
“Damn. So the Cardinals are gone? That’s some shit. I knew about the presidency, at least vaguely. Go on.”
“That’s the gist of it, really. St. Louis got the worst of it so far. The rest of the world is trying to recover as best as it can, although it’s a lot more difficult for us now that the government knows what’s going on. I’m less clear on other places, but after the President created the Magical Force we’ve all been trying to avoid interaction with that as much as possible. Some ugly talk about forced conscription.
“For us, St. Louis is basically a wasteland. Some people still live there, but no one else really knows how. If it weren’t for the ‘Magical Catastrophe,’ I think the rest of us across the state could have gotten it under control, especially if anyone from Little Rock or OKC were willing to help. But then those girls from Chicago fucked everything up. And then DuPage fucked everything up even harder.” She swallowed her spit, keeping the microphone tapped on. “Everything was an absolute mess for like four months. I got off pretty lucky up here, but the city got hit bad. Every city did. We thought it was the end of the world.” She thought for a few seconds, but neglected to continue. “Kilo Echo Zero Delta November Bravo over,” she rushed out.
“Huh.” There was a brief cut of static over the speakers, making Chillicothe wince. “So the secret really is out, then. I’m sure the Incubator is pleased as punch about that. But things got better, yeah? Over.”
“They’re stabilizing, but it’s a mixed bag. Some places are doing okay now, but I hear plenty of others like São Paulo are hanging by a thread. Columbia has been trying to fill in St. Louis’s shoes, but it’s complicated,” she bit her lip. Should she really be talking about this on open air?
Ah, fuck it. There were no secrets anymore. “Columbia just doesn’t have the support to handle a lot of girls. The city’s growing really quickly with refugees from the east side of the state, but that comes with problems of its own. There’s more wraiths than usual for the population. I think there’s a lot of growing pains happening. And, there’s fierce competition for the area: St. Louis left a power vacuum in the region, and there’s a lot of desperate girls out there right now looking for a place to carve out for themselves. Back to you.”
“Where’s Kaycee in all this?”
Chillicothe decided to ignore the hanging breach in etiquette. This conversation was already a mess, and if the feds were listening they were fucked regardless of adherence to protocol. “Depends which one you mean. If you were familiar with her before you were off doing… whatever, then she’s dead. The new Kaycee has been running a very tight ship, sends away girls that are weak or temperamental. Go ahead.”
The radio crackled briefly and a new voice cut in. “Kilo Whiskey Niner Tango Hotel. Hate to cut in, but it’s time for the net. New friend, Chillicothe? Over.”
Inhaling with some relief, she smiled again. “Reading you loud and clear Terre Haute. Yeah, this is Boonville. I’m not sure how, but she needed some catching up on the last year, go ahead and introduce yourself Boonville.”
The transceiver stayed silent. Puzzled, they waited a few minutes, but their strange guest was not forthcoming. “Well, that’s odd. I guess she had something come up, maybe she’ll be back later. Just a warning, she’s rusty on the radio. Very rusty. Either way, good to hear from you. How’re things looking in the Crossroads of America? Kilo Echo Zero Delta November Bravo, back to you.”
“Same ol’, same ol’. Running out of cubes, so I passed through Columbus to Cincinnati this week to see how they’re holding up. Got ran out of each for my trouble. They all seemed rattled about some magical girl who came through a couple days before, go ahead.”
“What was so special about her? Terminatrix?... Clownmuffle? Over.”
The radio garbled with something that sounded awfully like laughter. “I don’t think so. Doesn’t match any descriptions up on MagNet, all I got on this one was a blurry picture: white robe, a scythe. Apparently has some sort of sedative effect on people nearby. Someone insisted on calling her a Witch. Over.”
Dead air greeted Terre Haute. “Uh, Chillicothe? This is Kilo Whiskey Niner Tango Hotel, come back girl. We’ve got the net starting here. Over.”
But Chillicothe was nowhere near her transceiver. The instant she heard “scythe,” she had instead launched herself out of the sound room and was furiously punching numbers into her phone.
Columbia and Kaycee needed to know that Momo was back.
Chapter End Notes
“Hey Meg! Communication implies sound. Communion doesn't."
I've been to Chillicothe a grand total of one time in my life, and my knowledge of it is approximate at best. It felt very forlorn and quiet when I went, and I like the name. Other places like this that I toyed with using for this chapter instead were: Clinton (shit place), Carrolton (alright place), Macon (shit), Eldon (nice but too tiny), Butler (shit), Bolivar (very shit), Lebanon (nice place, has a great trout hatchery called Bennett Springs I fish at if I can ever get the time to drive two and a half hours), California (funny name but no), and Wentzville (too close to St. Louis).
I did a relatively large amount of research on this chapter to make sure the radio conversations sounded good, and even considered taking courses and a test to obtain my own broadcast license just to make it more authentic. I never bothered to do that, but this section was inspired by listening to stories about my grandfather (born and raised in Boonville) building a radio set from a kit as a kid back in the 1940s or something, and some other real life experiences. He was a communications officer during the Korean War, had a degree in chemistry, and was a high school teacher in a tiny place called Fort Osage, if I recall correctly.
He had all sorts of esoteric doohickeys in the basement of his home. Among these items were the remnants of his personal broadcast station, an assortment of devices used for measuring the local weather, and an Erlenmeyer flask with a quartz crystal he had grown himself, so large it could not be removed without breaking the glass. There was also a large wooden box in a far corner with the symbol for radiation spray-painted on it which my father made very sure that I never approached. None of this is exaggeration.
Apparently my grandpa's skill with radio technology was so advanced that he could wrap a copper wire around a toilet paper roll, adjust for frequency based on the exact number of turnings in the wire, and you could hear the signal by holding the roll up to your ear. That's always kind of sounded like bullshit to me, but I hope it's true.
I feel some regret that I didn't list Chillicothe's wish or powers here, a problem she shares with Blue Springs (and others, now I think about it). Kind of an oversight in a story about people fucking called "Magical Girls." That being said, I feel like my focus was less on the magic shit, so I'm not that bothered about it. Sometimes you just can't naturally fit that kind of detail in.