Space Bats Submission
 - Jay Cummings

Broadcast

Grampa Joseph plugs the TV in once a year on the Fourth of July. No one's sure why. We burn an awful lot of mass powering that behemoth up. There are plenty of teenagers around who don't have a clue what the thing does. I remember, though – all those talking heads and crazy cartoons. I remember we couldn't get enough TV when I was a kid, though we didn't get to watch very often.

It was gradual, but eventually, it just kind of went away. I grew up. The farm makes demands. Nights became about other things. The cute girl at the next place over, for instance.

But not for Joseph. He was constantly on the search for a working broadcast. It's been a dozen years or more since anything regular came across, and a fair few years since we picked up anything at all. So now, he just powers the thing up once a year, like a part of some kind of ritual ceremony.

We don't expect to see anything, just electric fuzz. That's fine by me. At night, I prefer the moon, the stars, and the warmth of that girl from the next place over, who is my wife now. But we all come out to see Grampa plug it in, and hit the search function. We all know that when he's gone, we'll get rid of it for good.

Except this year, we found a broadcast. It was a crazy mess of stuttering images in black and white. Some guy with a camera moving around a ranch talking about this and that and a bunch of crazy stuff. Half the time the sound came in all garbled.

We were all stunned. Even Joseph was surprised, who, if you'd asked him before he found it, would have told you he was expecting something like this. At some point during the broadcast, the guy held up a sheet of paper with directions to his place written on it. Then it went back to fuzz.

We were quiet, as though none of us could believe that what we'd just seen was real. My brother was the first to speak.

“That guy's a lunatic.” He said.

My sister chimed in, “But we saw it, so doesn't that make us just as crazy?” After this, there was more silence.

Joseph finally turned to me. “What do you think?”

“I think,” I hesitated. I'm always in the middle. Mister pragmatic. “I think, that if he's broadcasting from so far away, he's got resources. If he's broadcasting his location by television (I said the word as though the thought is impossible.) then he's trying to connect with other people with resources. The fact that we have picked up his signal and watched his message means we are just the sort of people he wants to meet and connect with.”

Everyone digests this.

“I think,” I continued. “That he probably has something to offer, and we'd be no worse off than we are now by investigating.”

***

“The danger is minimal.” I told my wife. She was pacing the floor as we were preparing for bed. I hate it when she does that. “It's summer now, the wildlife is up the mountains.”

“It's not bears I'm worried about. You know that.” She stopped pacing and sat down beside me on the bed.

“I get it.” I said, “but it's also the time of plenty for . . . undesirables.” We avoid words like 'bandits' or 'marauders.' They seem overly melodramatic, and don't really describe those sorts of people very well. Yes, there are folks out there who would rob a fellow blind at gunpoint, but the years have been hard on those kind too. Any of those left don't work their evil when they don't have to, and midsummer is a time when anyone can live off the land or find some work if they want it.

“But why does it have to be you?” She complained. “Why can't they send someone else?”

“You know as well as I do, that I'm the only choice that makes sense. And besides, I'll have Jess and plenty of firepower, you know that.”

My wife harrumphed at the mention of Jesse. Jesse is my nephew. He's kind of a hothead, and has a reputation for acting before thinking, but I have faith he'll grow out of it. He is very handy with horses and a gun, though that's not why I insisted he come.

I knew mentioning my nephew wouldn't ease her anxieties a bit, but I did have to try. I love this woman more than trees love sunshine, but she knows that when I say I'll do a thing, I do it.

The next morning Jesse and I got up early and hit the road.

* * *

The road was blessedly uneventful. The place was out of the way, but with the directions from the broadcast we didn't have too much trouble finding it. We were greeted with great enthusiasm.

“I'm Alex.” Said the man from the broadcast quickly, but easily. He seemed younger than me, but this fellow clearly had so much energy he might've just seemed young. A much younger woman – a grand daughter maybe - walked up and carefully took the reigns of our horses. “This's Genevieve.” He turned to us. “Gen'll take your rides if that's OK. She'll take good care of them.” Jesse looked at me and I nodded as she led the horses away.

Alex's hospitality was exceptional. We were fed, and got a mini tour of his place. We saw the usual: gardens, orchards, livestock, workers and managers. Everyone we came upon greeted Alex with genuine respect and enthusiasm, and he seemed to give that out freely as well. You couldn't miss the towering wind turbines, which were obviously the source of power for his broadcasts among other amenities I noticed. They had a well pump that was doing quite a few gallons per minute from what I could tell, electric lights here and there. I wondered what else they had hooked up to power that I couldn't see.

When we got back to the main compound and were sitting around a large, old table drinking cold beer, I asked the obvious question, “Why do you spend power broadcasting . . . whatever that was?”

He didn't wait for me to elaborate on the question. “I know, right?” He looked from me to Jess and back. “Who has a TV these days? Who wastes time and electric on that?” Jesse nods, but I prefer to remain impassive. He continued, “And I don't exactly have what you'd call a 'Showbiz Personality.'” I smiled at the archaic language. “Except that you're here, right? And you're clearly from a well-resourced outfit yourself. You must have power too. Tell me, what's your source.”

That was a question of a very proprietary nature, and I wasn't sure if I should go into so much detail about our setup so early on, but I found myself a little beguiled by his openness and enthusiasm. “Well,” I said, “We're mostly biodiesel.”

He sat back into his chair. “No kidding.”

“No kidding. We've got an incredible small engines guy.” Jesse smirked a little and shot me a knowing glance as I continued, “He can hack just about any engine.”

“Hack?”

“Sure,” I said, “You know get inside the things, fix them. Make them work on what our still produces.”

“Ahh, uh huh.” Alex contemplated this and then there was silence for a minute. “A still.” He said, and then let a long slow smile spread cross his face. “Jackpot!” He said suddenly.

* * *

“Jackpot?” I found myself becoming a little weary of his excessively enthusiastic manner.

“Yes,” Alex continued, talking fast, words tumbling out one after the other. “Jackpot. See, anyone who watched my broadcast, must have the resources to do so. Anyone that came must have the resources to send someone. And chances are - and I was betting on those chances, Gen'll have to eat so much crow - that those somebodies would have resources that are different, but no less capable than our own.”

“I had the first part there figured.” I said, “but I don't quite follow that last part.”

Alex smiled. “We're turbines, you're biodiesel, we've both thrived because among other things, we know how to harness, produce, and protect our electric.” I nodded agreement. He continued, “It's like elephants.”

“Elephants . . .” He'd lost me.

“Elephants.” Alex makes his arm and hand into an elephant trunk. “See, the trunk of an elephant, or different elephant species, evolved separately like five different times over the course of history. Convergent evolution, it's called. The development of similar systems in separate organisms. In today's world, to have the resources to watch TV you must have sophisticated energy systems and quite a bit of know-how. But how you got there would be different than how we got there. Same end, different means.”

I let this sink in. I got it now, what he'd been talking about, but I still wanted to know why we were here. So I just asked. “All right, you've found us. We're here. What do you want?”

Alex spreads his hands. “But just think. You have a small engines guy. What if you didn't?”

“I don't know, I haven't thought about that too much.” I said honestly.

“Well, you should. I have.” He waved his hands dismissively. “I mean, not about your guy, but about our own situation. We have a similar someone who keeps our turbines running. More than that really. He . . .” Alex paused, as though considering whether or not to continue his thought. “He, builds them.”

I was a little taken aback. “Builds them? Like from scratch?”

Alex smiled. “Well, we don't smelt ore from rocks or any of that, but yes, he builds them from easily obtainable salvage.”

“Bull shit.” I looked him straight in the eye. “You mean to tell me that big turbine out there was built here at your place?”

He smiled and simply nodded. Well. I'll be damned. I was right to come here. If they know how to put something like that together, they'd make very good friends indeed.

Alex continues. “Well our guy got sick last year. Real sick. He almost died. And almost dying makes a guy think about the future, and how it can possibly be better. We ran into the broadcasting equipment on a salvage run, mucked about with it, made our little production, put that sucker on repeat and, well, now you're here.”

It's my turn to lean back in my chair. I see the truth of it. “On our place, we run well pumps and lights. We have a front-end loader and two ATVs. We run a small electric fence intermittently.”

“Holy shit.” He's genuinely surprised.

“Yes sir, we don't advertise all that, by the way.”

“No kidding.”

“No kidding. Our engines guy is good.”

“He must be.” Alex has stopped grinning. He looks as though he's doing some mental arithmetic. “So then . . . where do you . . .”

“We don't.” I finish his sentence. “We also make our own from what you call 'readily available salvage.'”

There's silence in the room. Jesse looks a little nervous. Not even our trusted hired men know the extent of our operation.

Alex looks at me. I look at him. And by what, I don't know, but we both know in that moment.

“You're . . .” He says first.

“Yes.” I reply. “And you're . . .”

Alex nods.

* * *

“Are you familiar with the seven generations concept?” I'm asking Jesse as we're loading up for the return trip early the next morning. He hasn't talked to me much since our meeting with Alex. Jesse has good reason not to trust complete strangers. I've been open with these folks in a way that might be dangerous. He needs to know why.

“No.” He says, simply.

“It's the idea that when you make a decision, like a major decision, you think about how that will affect your descendants seven generations hence.”

Jesse grunts a little to acknowledge that he heard me. I'm quite certain he has never thought about descendants, except for the fun part where you make them. I smile, thinking about that cute girl from the next place over. “Think about it.” I say. “What would happen if I get snicked by a ne'er-do-well, or catch something nasty?”

“I don't know, Uncle, our family seems strong.” He replies.

“Well sure it is, but project seven generations down the line, is our situation stronger, or weaker?” Jesse gives me the respect to at least appear to be considering that. I answer for him. “Weaker.” He nods tentatively. “What's the key to our family's success?” I ask.

Jesse again thinks for a minute, “Hard work.” He replies.

“Horse pucky. Any fool can work hard. Try again.”

This time he screws his face up a little and takes a minute before replying. “Smarts?”

“Closer.” I stop my horse, he does the same, and I look him right in the eye. “The right answer is: vision. Your father, your aunt, me and Grampa and his dad could see things clearer than most, and we could envision where we wanted our family to be and how to get there. Sure, hard work and intelligence are important, but seeing where you want to be decades down the road is the real trick. Most folks can't see past this harvest season.”

There's silence between us as we spur our horses back to a walk. After a while, I break it. “Now. Imagine what the family will look like seven generations from now.”

More silence.

“I. . . I can't, really.” He says.

“You will.” It's more of a command than a word of encouragement. “I can. Maybe we'll have electric, maybe not, but our compound will grow and our sphere of influence will double, triple. We'll be the law for our region, and a good one.” Jesse starts to nod. I can tell that vision appeals. “Now. How do we get there?”

“I . . .” This is an important moment for this young man. “I'm not sure, Uncle.”

This is the small step away from the hothead stage Jesse's at the end of, that I've been looking for. I'm glad he came. I'm glad he's here. I recognize that it takes him a great deal of courage and humility to admit he doesn't know.

“We must be solid, Jesse. When the wind blows, we must be a sheltering wall. When the droughts come, we must be a spring of water. When the snow falls, we must be a welcoming fire. We must have more than we need, so we can give some away . . . on our terms.”

Jesse nods. “Like the Knox family.”

Good. He's really listening. “Right. We took them in when they had nothing. We have enough surplus to take a chance on people like that. It turned out they're honest folks. That's generations of strong backs and wary eyes loyal to us. You can't buy that kind of trust.

“Alex knows this,” I continue. “He wants the same for his place. Look at the way he treats his folks. He respects them and their work completely, and so they respect him and his leadership in return. I'll bet a great number of the people working that outfit came to him the way the Knox family came to us.” I pause to let this sink in. “Someday our outfits will meet in the middle. I hope we can be friendly when that happens.”

We ride in silence for a minute. Then Jesse asks, “But how do we, you know, make more than we need?” The idea of a surplus seems foreign to him. “It never seems like even we have enough.”

“Yes, I know. But really we do. Think, what happens when we lose a few ewes from the flock, when there's less lamb meat to go around?”

Jesse shrugs. “We eat less.”

“No.” I reply, “We eat different things. Barley and potato soup, things that stretch. We succeed because we diversify. When our chickens get wiped out by racoons, we eat lentils until we can build the flock back up. If our wheat gets knocked down by hail, we ration out beef bones for broths and soups.”

It's a beautiful morning and the horses are making fine progress on the overgrown road. “Jesse,” I say, “It's the same with electric. We trade what we know about engines with Alex for what they know about turbines, and now we have two sources of power. Shit, we've always felt pretty good about biodiesel, but what happens when our first turbine goes up?”

“We make more than we need.” He says.

“Right.” I agree.

“So we can give it away . . . on our terms.”

“On our terms.” I echo. “On our terms.”

Jesse's horse whinnies just a little as he spurs her slightly to canter up ahead of me. He's got it now, he's starting to see that distant time in his minds eye. And like a good young buck, he's anxious to get there.