Signal Moon(6)

You’re probably wondering who I am—a special duties linguist in the Women’s Royal Naval Service. I have no idea what rank an ST1 is, but I know you are a petty officer in the United States Navy—as a fellow petty officer, I am begging for a moment of your time. Please hear me out.

He couldn’t read the looping signature—L something. Matt laughed out loud. Definitely a prank. Mentally thumbing through which friends might have pulled this off at long distance, Matt glanced at the clock. Nearly two hours to noon, but the wireless was old and tricky, and it took him a while to get her going. He ended up calling down to room service for water, vinegar, lemon juice, and salt (“Tea to go with that, sir?” asked the puzzled woman on the other end) and hunkered down to polish the flakes of rust out of the dials, figure out how the old-fashioned band worked, and test the battery. He was already composing a reply once he figured out who was on the other end: Thought you got me, you assholes; think again.

Noon. He glanced at the handwritten list and tuned the receiver to the first scribbled frequency. “Jackson here,” he found himself saying, leaving off his rank. “That’s Juliet Alpha Charlie Kilo Sierra Oscar November, any station this net, QSL QSB K.” Pause. “OK, guys, what’s the joke? Over.”

A crackle of static, and then a woman’s voice came blaring out, so loudly that he jumped. “Oh my God. My God, it’s you. I didn’t think—oh my God.”

Upper-crust voice, very British, definitely female. He’d guess early twenties. Matt’s buddy Dailey from C-School had a Brit girlfriend; had he enlisted her for the prank? Matt grinned, leaning back on one elbow in the fluffy stack of pillows. “OK, joke’s up. Where’d you get a forties-era set? Over.”

“Absolute bally nightmare, let me tell you,” the woman said, words still clipping out in a gulping rush. “No one’s s’posed to have transmitters—they should have all been turned in—but my father, you know, Foreign Office, thinks rules don’t apply to him, or maybe he just blinking forgot, because there they were, three sets with transmitters in the basement when I went back to the town house on leave. I’m lucky he’s always been a bit of an amateur ham-radio fanatic—”

“Look—” Matt tried to say, but she was still transmitting in a headlong flow.

“And I’m utterly in the basket if he finds out I borrowed two of his sets, but I couldn’t take any from the listening station; I’d be in the brig and no daffing about.” She swallowed audibly, cutting herself off. “This is really Matt Jackson? And it’s really the ninth of March, two thousand twenty-three?”

“Yeah,” he said, utterly mystified, sitting up with a faint prickle in the back of his mind. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Because I didn’t know if my uncle would take me seriously and set up the delivery for something that far ahead, no matter how important I made it sound. Because I didn’t know if his firm would still be around to do it. Because even if it was, I didn’t know if you could work the receiver, or if it would even function by that time, or if you’d chuck my note in the bin.” Another gulp that sounded half like a laugh and half like a sob. “Because apparently I’m not crazy. You’re Matt Jackson, and that’s two thousand twenty-three.”

“OK.” Matt swung his legs off the bed, still speaking into the transmitter. “You’ve got thirty seconds before I file this whole joke under ‘Life’s Too Short’ and head to the nearest bar. Who are you?”

“Petty Officer Lily”—crackle of static; sounded like James—“Women’s Royal Naval Service.”

“That’s your name, huh?” Matt raised an eyebrow, even if she couldn’t see it. “Lily James plays you in the movie, right. Look, whoever set this prank up, did you really think no US sailor has seen Downton Abbey?”

Her turn to sound mystified. “What?”

“OK, Lady Rose, it’s been fun. Nice try, but I’ve got beer to drink and dinner to eat. Talk to you later.”

He thought she’d try to keep stringing this along, but she just sighed. “Keep the wireless. I’ll be here at the same time tomorrow, on the second frequency on the list. Come back when the USNS Invincible goes missing in the North Atlantic.”

Matt straightened abruptly. “Hey. What?”

But she was gone.

Somehow, dinner at the local pub wasn’t quite as relaxing as he’d thought it would be. He pushed the last of his salad around the plate, trying to ignore that uneasy prickle in the back of his mind as well as the smell of fish and chips—with Physical Readiness Training season right around the corner, it was all salad and chicken until weigh-ins were done. DMing his friends, he sent out the call:

Which of you assholes set me up on the radio prank with the “Downton Abbey” chick?

Nothing in response but a lot of cheerfully obscene memes, typical navy. He was fishing around for pound notes to pay for his dinner, when his phone lit up: alerts from all his various navy group chats, only this time it wasn’t memes.

Holy shit

Jesus Christ

The fucking “Invincible”—they’re saying it just disappeared off the map??????

DMing my buddy Eovaldi, he’s on the “John Paul Jones” in the same area, maybe he heard something . . .