Ethan nodded. They reached _Cafe Bianco_ and sat at an outdoor granite top table. The Cafe was one of the few places which had sustained no damage due to the building’s architectural history as the town’s first government office; it was built from adobe with eighteen-inch thick walls.
He played with the small rocks June had placed in front of him. “These are really polarized,” he said. Some of the rocks had slight attractivity, and others stuck to each other like glue. “I think there are theories about friction along the San Andreas which creates magnetic fields, but I wouldn’t have guessed they would be strong enough to align the iron in these.”
June nodded and sipped a Snapple. Palletes of the drink had been flown in as a corporate donation during the water and electricity emergency. Anything hot was unavailable. She was sure the beverage stock included ample quantities of her favorite flavor, but unsure of the corporate motivations behind the sudden generosity.
“Some earthquake detectors monitor very low frequency electromagnetism,” Ethan said. “I’m not sure anyone has proven why, but there is a powerful signal which always preceeds earthquakes.”
“Powerful enough to magnetize rock?” June asked.
Ethan shook his head. “I doubt it. Maybe, if there were incredible heat and pressure involved. But this rock is slightly porous, too, like they were stuck in an outgas. I can take a few of these into the lab, give them to the Geology guys. Maybe from their composition they can be matched to the island, or at least dated. It could be this island is some kind of prehistoric relic.” He checked his watch. It was late afternoon and he wanted to check his phone messages in case Dr. Lindsay had called.
June straighened in her chair at his mention of prehistory. Her favorite fossils were the mysterious older pieces which created more questions than answers. “I’d like to suggest something,” she said. Ethan gazed at her curiously. “If I get us a boat into the channel, would you be able to find out how deep it is? I mean,” she said, leaning towards him and lowerig her voice, “could we… _dive_ to it?”
A smile spread across Ethan’s face. He nodded. “This discovery could be big. Huge.” He glaced around him, suddenly suspicious he might be overheard. “Talk about funding–my department would be set–the project could take years of research.” The two made plans to meet the next afternoon. Ethan excused himself. June promised to have a lead on a boat and to have a few larger rocks, if she could find them, even if she had to go barefoot again.
* * *
“_What_?” Jeremy said, the e-mail attachment staring back at him. The e-mail attachment was encrypted and his private key unlocked the text which was for his eyes only.
“This is _not_ a hardware malfunction, I already _said_ that,” he continued, talking to himself, as if the e-mail author could hear him.
He could begin the process of checking his hardware again, but he would have to sneak into the engineering lab to use their frequency generator. “I should explain how they kicked me out of the lab last time,” he said. “Just because I’m not an engineering student yet. What kind of idiot would electrocute themselves from a wall outlet. I can do that at home just as well as in their cheesy lab.”
He read the email again. “The only other way you could be getting a signal like that is by a constant power source which would corrupt all traffic on the band, and everyone would immediately call the FCC,” the message said.
“Wait a minute,” Jeremy said. “First, this band is unregulated, and second, it’s not yet standard, so there aren’t many people listening or transmitting. Heck, they probably think they have a software problem.” He sighed. “You guys are no help.”
He stood up, grabbed his backpack, and powered down his laptop. He packed his equipment carefully in his backpack and put his bus schedule in his pocket. “FCC, yeah, right. I’m going to triangulate this signal myself, and then we’ll see who has the hardware problem.”
