Dispatch No. 2: I Have Been in the Field for Eleven Days and What I Found Near the Cell Tower Is Exactly What I Expected

Filed from an undisclosed vehicle, parked at an undisclosed distance from a cell tower in a state I will not name but which has a rectangle for a border.

Day eleven. I have been living out of the Field Vehicle — which longtime subscribers will recognize as the 2009 Subaru Forester I refer to in the newsletter as “the Vessel” — for just over a week and a half. The thermos situation has become critical. I mention this not to complain but because it is relevant to the timeline.

The Cell Tower

I will not give the coordinates of the cell tower. I will say that it is taller than the surrounding towers by approximately 15%, which is not standard, and that it has an antenna array on the eastern face that does not appear in the FCC filings I was able to access before the database went down for “scheduled maintenance” on the specific day I went looking.

What I found near the tower was an access road that does not appear on Google Maps. It appears on a 2003 county survey map I obtained from a library that no longer has a librarian on staff, only a kiosk, which I find convenient for exactly the wrong reasons.

What the Road Leads To

I did not go down the road. Not out of fear — I am not afraid of roads — but because the Field Vehicle has a slight hesitation on inclines. I photographed the entrance. The photographs are on a memory card in a secure location. This dispatch is the day-eleven contact. The memory card remains secure.

The Thermos

The thermos is relevant because it was a gift from a woman who attended one of my speaking events in 2021 and who mentioned, offhandedly, that she worked in telecommunications. I have been thinking about that a lot this week. — Reverend Cyrus Hale, Day Eleven, Rectangle State, The Vessel