When brute force meets backwoods genius, miracles happen. In Chapter 11 of Signal Drift, the crew unleashes the Beetle Bomb, braces the tower with scrap steel, and watches Bill weld like a madman fueled by bourbon and solar power. The signal’s coming back online — whether the world’s ready or not.
Bill’s back. The Beetle Bomb is real. The transmitter site might just have power. Chapter 10 of Signal Drift kicks off a new phase in the story with hidden stashes, solar surprises, and 2,000 bottle rockets lighting up the sky. Oh—and there’s a whole room full of hand-crank radios waiting for a reason to be used.
Cronauer took a step closer, then another. He laughed, then choked, then laughed harder—tears forming before he could stop them.
“You kept it,” he said, voice cracking. “Jesus Christ, I thought it got crushed.”
Bill grinned and gave the truck’s fender a smack. “Still runs. Still kicks. She’s been resting, but she’s hungry.”
Across the tailgate, in faded black spray paint, the name still read: THE BEETLE BOMB.
Cronauer has been walking for days, sleeping in abandoned sheds and listening to static on the radio — until a clipped, coded broadcast near Richland Center sparks something familiar. The Viroqua repeater is offline, and it sounds like Norm’s voice behind the warning. Now, with the rain returning and Viroqua on the horizon, he pushes forward — hoping he’s not too late.
Cronauer’s breath fogs in the cold air as he weaves through ghost towns, surviving on instinct and static. But near Richland Center, he hears something unmistakable—a clipped broadcast about the Viroqua repeater going silent. It’s not just the words that catch him. It’s the style. Norm’s style. He’s close now. And if the roads still follow the old maps, Viroqua waits just over the ridge.
Cronauer strung a short antenna wire into a tree, hands steady despite the chill. The rig crackled softly—static, static, then a voice.
“…Truax… holding south end of Park Street…”
His pulse jumped. That was Madison. That was someone alive.
He leaned in, trying to pull more from the ether, but the signal vanished like smoke.
Still, it was enough. He was heading the right direction. Tomorrow, Viroqua.
The road west gets rougher. Trust, survival, and the things you carry when the world has stopped carrying you.
Cronauer thought he was just keeping the signal alive — but what he really found was the last thread of humanity.
When the grid went dark and the bombs silenced the coasts, Cronauer fled west with nothing but his training, his gear, and a stubborn refusal to disappear.
After the collapse of the coasts, Cronauer rebuilds in the heart of the Midwest — with a transmitter, a weapon, and a whisper into the dark.