The Lighthouse Frequency
A rain-lashed granite lighthouse on the Outer Hebrides at 11:09 PM, where the original Fresnel lens has been dark for nineteen years and the shortwave radio bolted to the wall just started receiving a signal on a frequency that was decommissioned in 1974.
The automated weather station inside was supposed to be the only electronics left, but someone has been drawing power — the diesel backup has burned through 340 liters in two weeks instead of the usual 90. The shortwave is cycling a looped transmission in Morse: a set of coordinates pointing to a spot fourteen nautical miles northwest, repeated every 47 seconds. A rigid inflatable boat with a full tank is tied to the jetty below. The sea state is marginal — three-meter swells, rising — and the coastguard won't fly until dawn.
“Mysterious coordinates from a dead frequency, a boat with a full tank, and nobody else for miles? The ocean is literally handing us an invitation.”
“Three-meter swells at night in a rigid inflatable, chasing ghost Morse code to a point in open ocean — do you want me to list the ways we die alphabetically or by likelihood?”
They took the boat out anyway because Double had already untied it before Bust finished his alphabetical list. At nautical mile six, a rogue swell flipped the inflatable like a pancake, and they spent four hours clinging to the upturned hull in near-hypothermic silence until the coastguard scraped them out of the water at dawn — the coordinates, the rescue pilot mentioned casually, pointed to a decommissioned Soviet sonobuoy that had been drifting and autotransmitting junk data since the Cold War.
That buoy has been waiting FIFTY YEARS for someone to answer and we almost made it — we were pioneers, Bust.
We were almost obituaries, and the punchline was going to be 'killed by Cold War littering.'