Kaelen stood in the gutted carcass of what used to be a shopping mall on the edge of the Omaha Dead Zone. The wind keened through broken solar panels, and his scavenger suit’s filters worked overtime to scrub the metallic taste of oxidized rust from the air. He wasn’t looking for copper wire or pre-Collapse med-gel. He was looking for ghosts.
He stared at the screen. Casey Kasem was mid-sentence, introducing a “Long Distance Dedication” from a woman named Maria to her husband, a firefighter in New York. “He’s not a hero because he runs into burning buildings,” Maria had written. “He’s a hero because he always comes home and reads to our son.” The song was “Hard to Say I’m Sorry” by Chicago. american top 40 archive
Kaelen stepped out of his container, hands up. Behind him, the transmitter was still live, still sending Casey’s voice into the dark. Show #412. April 19th, 1986. The story of a young saxophonist who practiced in his father’s garage until his lips bled. His name was Kenny G. Casey was marveling at his new single. Kaelen stood in the gutted carcass of what
As Casey’s voice faded and the opening piano chords swelled, Kaelen heard something through his open mic. Not a voice. A sound from outside his container. A half-dozen people, standing in the toxic drizzle, listening to portable scavenged radios. They weren't speaking. They were just… listening. He was looking for ghosts
The mission, as dictated by the Archive Guild of New Santa Fe, was simple: retrieve any pre-2030 solid-state storage media. Hard drives. Flash chips. Optical discs. The Guild paid in calories, clean water, and ammunition. They didn’t pay for questions. But Kaelen had his own reasons.
He looked up at the polluted sky, where no stars shone, and whispered to the ghost of a radio DJ who had died a century ago.
At first, no one responded. He was just a ghost talking to ghosts.