Radioman (A 2/19th Spinoff) - Complete

After Riding the Ferris Wheel

The two 5-ton cargo trucks were idling on the other side of the fence. The sight of the signs stating that beyond the fence and gate was a restricted area were almost a welcome back to the fucked up place I called home.

I got out of the sedan slowly, my thigh and back muscles screaming after having been uncomfortably twisted for hours. Sixteen hours of flight total, most of it over Soviet airspace. Then two days of debriefings by room after room of men in black suits, tables, and uncomfortable chairs. Sleeping in cells, like I had been sent to Leavenworth. At meals we had been handcuffed, with Stillwater, Bomber, and Stokes having been chained.

The DIA agents were more interested in my reports than the CIA had been. I had paid close attention to what bands were in use by who, how the Soviet commo tech had measured up to ours, their commo procedures, and what I'd picked up paying close attention. I'd even waited until nobody was looking to snap the grounding on one of their radios. The guy watching over me was afraid to tell his supervisor that it wasn't working, and I'd offered to help him fix it. He was grateful that we wouldn't tell his supervisor as I'd cracked the radio open, memorizing the circuitry.

To uneducated eyes a radio is a radio.

The US military had trained me to repair the radio, even after an EMP blast, even after combat damage. The Soviet radio, which the commo operator had assured me was very very new, only he was trained on it, was goddamn junk even compared to the 20 year old PRC-77 I usually carried on my back.

I'd "fixed" it, and he'd been very very grateful.

The fact that most of the commo specialists I'd worked with during the two weeks in Pripyat had taught me a few things here and there to help me work with them. The translator they had assigned to me had been a women, beautiful in the stereotypical Russian way. Leggy, blonde, large breasts, accent that was 'cute', and trying to spend extra time with her.

But that singing emptiness inside of me made me impervious to any of her flirting, any of her attempts to bring any emotion out of me. Her touch made my stomach twist, and when she had slid into my bed in the middle of the night, reaching down to grab my penis, by body had not reacted. She had tried with her mouth and hand, getting no results, and then left.

When a male sexually propositioned me, I told him flatly I wasn't interested.

My thoughts were interrupted as Aine took my hand and the warmth from her small hand pushed back that emptiness and the memories.

Her touch was the only thing that pushed those things back.

"Are you nervous, Paul Foster?" she asked me. I just nodded. "This dark cold place is our home, no matter what we tell ourselves," she squeezed my hand, "Even I am yearning to return to my small room," she gave a sharp, almost bitter, laugh. "Part of me yearns to return to that place of poison. I feel it calling me; I miss the whispering of the ferns and the grass, the murmuring of the trees and the bushes, and the singing of the rabbits."

"We'll be sent back soon enough," I told her. I jerked a thumb toward the 5-tons. "We better get a move on before the guys they sent have a stroke."

The 5-ton with the gear we'd taken to Ukraine and back went by, the automatic transmission whining at a high pitch as it tried to take the incline right after the gate stretch. It had the armored J-suits, my commo gear, the weapons, everything else we'd taken with us, begged or stolen, and returned with, that the Alphabet Boys hadn't confiscated.

"You two all right?" Stillwater growled from behind us.

When I turned around he was trying to smile, trying to look friendly.