by G. R. Carter
“I’m loyal to my organization. To MC, and by extension to GangStars. That could have meant Jalen, but it also means you. I know you were close to the senior partners at MC. They spoke highly of you during our debriefings.”
“I don’t know whether to be flattered by the praise or irritated at the fact you were reporting on me,” Malik said, nearly spitting with contempt.
“Listen, Malik, this is just how we do business. We weren’t skimming anything off the top and we weren’t plotting. There are other organizations around that we look out for. The most important thing is that we keep you safe while figuring out what’s going to happen,” Pavoni instructed him.
“I’ve already got that taken care of,” Malik said proudly.
“You mean Davis and his crew?” Pavoni asked.
“Yeah, that’s right. Him and Robbie are gonna help keep an eye on things for me.”
“Robbie’s your cousin. Not real bright, but at least loyal. So there’s that,” Pavoni said.
Malik began to interject in anger but Pavoni stopped him, “You need to hear the truth from someone, and being king means lots of folks are going to tell you what you want to hear instead of what you need to hear.”
Malik paused, saving the look on his face for the next outburst.
“Good, thank you. Let me ask you, do you know Davis’ background?” Pavoni continued with a raised eyebrow.
“SWAT team leader for the state police.”
“You know why he’s not there anymore?”
“I just assumed he got sick of it and quit. I never really asked him,” Malik admitted.
“Have you talked to him about Continuity?”
Malik paused…he never spoke about his faith to anyone except Robbie. He remained silent while Pavoni continued: “When the Interior Department took control of the state police, they required all of the top commanders to start the Progressions. They didn’t really call them that, of course. Global Inclusion I think, something that wouldn’t scare the masses. Anyway, Davis called the whole program crap and accused his superiors of trying to cram a religion down his throat. Said he already had one and that he didn’t need another. Interior gave him the option to retire early, so he took it.”
“That’s how he ended up in the private sector?”
Pavoni nodded. “As much as there really was a private sector. The firm he went to work for was going to start requiring their own version of the Progressions soon. Guess Davis would have really lost it then, eh?”
“Wait, Aldo. So you’re a follower of Continuity also?” Malik asked hopefully.
“Of course. Why do you think I’m here? This tour would have raised my Profile to Elite status,” Pavoni said, pausing to gather his thoughts. “I’m just not sure what it means for anybody’s Profile if Grapevine really crashed. Where will Profiles live now if there’s no power grid to feed the Network?”
“I thought the same thing. Once we had this territory under control, I was heading for St. Louis to get some guidance. What’s your suggestion?” Malik asked.
“So far, you’ve handled things about as well as anyone could hope. Let’s just keep going with your plan, see where that takes us. Once the chaos clears out a little, we can try to reach St. Louis again. You got enough firepower to blast your way in right now, but I don’t know what it would gain,” Pavoni advised.
Malik nodded. His first thoughts ran to a search and rescue mission for his advisors at MC. But Pavoni was right, if they were still alive now it would be nearly impossible to find them after a week’s worth of anarchy. Better to let the fires burn themselves out and hope for the best.
Should I pray? I guess I don’t even know who to pray to anymore.
Pavoni recognized the look on Malik’s face. “I know you want to get to the MC guys in St. Louis. I do too. Some of them are family to me remember? But you’ve got your own family waiting upstairs, huh? Marti will accept what’s happened. Heck, she seemed more upset about Elijah than Jalen for some reason. She’s smart and tough. She’ll come around to things that need doing. And I can just about guarantee she’ll stand behind you. Especially once we get her started on the Progressions.”
Malik raised an eyebrow. “Do you think that’s wise right now? So much turmoil to navigate during the switch over, I’m not sure introducing a new belief system would be well received. And what about people like Davis who’ll resist?”
“You don’t need Davis anymore. You’ve got me. Besides, if you can’t change your people, then it’s time to exchange your people,” Pavoni said with a chilling grin.
“I’ve got big plans, Aldo. I want to make history, not just survive. And I want to spread Continuity.”
“I’ll help you,” the older man replied. “But we’ll have to be patient. I’m talking about laying low for a few years. There are going to be others that survive this collapse. Some we’ll make deals with, and others we’ll destroy. Getting your prison army put together was brilliant, but we should find some real army types also. See if we can come to an agreement with them. We’ll really need them if we’re going to return to St. Louis and take down ARK someday.”
Patience. Malik was good at that. There would long hours, and yes probably years, to consolidate their power around here. The prisons were a great start. He’d release the inmates into the surrounding countryside to let them live off of the other survivors for a while, and then make it clear that they were to return when he gave the command. The Syn would help make sure they kept coming back.
Maybe he shouldn’t have let those local National Guard guys leave. He’d have to find out from Robbie where they were heading, and see if he could get in touch. Be nice to have some more weapons and guys who knew how to use them.
“Okay, Aldo. That’s good advice. I’m going to take it into consideration. Get started putting a plan together on how we’re going keep everyone in communication. We’ll get back together first thing in the morning, ok? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to have a talk with Marti.”
Shelby County
The Tenth Day
“Clark should have been back by now,” Maryanne Olsen yelled, her face pinched in anger. “It should have been you on that trip, not him. Clark’s too important to risk on some wild goose chase.”
Phil ignored the slight. He sat calmly in the courthouse boardroom, handwritten food inventories lay scattered in front of him. He was alone and trapped with a worried spouse - Mayor Horath was somewhere else, which was precisely where Phil wished he was right now.
“Clark’s the one who decided to lead the salvage group, Maryanne. He said one of us needed to stay behind, and he chose me.”
“Oh sure, because you’re so important, right?”
Phil remained quiet.
“Well aren’t you going to go find him?” she asked.
“How would I do that?”
“You’re the one who’s so smart, why don’t you get in that old piece of crap truck of yours and start driving!”
Phil sighed, trying to maintain his composure. “Maryanne, you’re tired and irrational. I get it, I’m nearly there, too.”
Her face turned a bright red and she took a step towards Phil.
“What’s going on here?” Nellie Horath asked as she stepped into the room.
Phil let out a deep breath, somewhere between relief and embarrassment.
“You need to find Clark. He should have been back by now,” Maryanne said as she turned her anger towards the mayor.
“We knew it might be at least a couple of days, Maryanne. They might be loading everything by hand. Leave a few guys to stand guard, and considering how heavy the material is they’re working with, I have no idea how long they might be out.”
Phil took the opportunity to change the subject. “I hope they have time to find some more food. I don’t like the projection numbers from the shelters. People aren’t bringing in as much of their own food as I thought they would when they moved in.” He handed one of the sheets to Horath with a cir
cle around a number at the bottom.
Each family was supposed to bring any food they had left in their homes when they checked into the community school shelters. In reality, each family stayed in their homes as long as they could. When they came to the realization that they were out, they gave up on independence and moved into the school shelters set up around the county.
Even though the rural county population plummeted over the last decade, there were still thousands of people living in the local small towns and farms. Despite greenhouses built from every available spare window, decent levels of food production remained several painful months away. For the second time they’d readjusted servings of rations in all the shelters. Clark’s salvage run to Decatur wasn’t just about getting materials to fortify their town. They were running out of food, and alternative sources were desperately needed to get them by.
Paul Kelley and Delbert Kuhn entered the room and plopped down in high back chairs. When Delbert gave a smile and wink at Maryanne, she huffed and stomped out.
“Have we searched all the empty houses yet?” Horath questioned without acknowledging the comings and goings. People came and went from this room at all hours, a revolving door for everyone involved in the struggle to save their county. “At this point, people aren’t coming back for them.”
Phil replied. “Not yet…are we all in agreement that we violate our one millionth law and start breaking into absent citizens' houses?” No one laughed. “Ok, then let’s do it. I’ll volunteer people to start going house to house.”
“Phil how are preparations going for our new fortresses?” Horath took her que to change the uncomfortable subject.
“We’re done with the first Fortress Farm,” Delbert answered for him, using the Wizards pet name for the project. “Looks like Frankenstein and a skyscraper’s illegitimate child, but I think we can secure it from a group of raiders with just ten trigger pullers. If we move some townsfolk out to the farms, we’re going to take a lot of pressure off the school shelters and give a great deal of security to the farms.”
Phil continued, “Now, I’ve got the equipment and the concrete forms on site for the priority buildings you gave me. But I need to ask you another crazy question.”
“Can’t be any crazier than putting Americans into fortified farms,” Horath moaned.
“Wait till you hear what I have to say,” Phil said. “I want to tear down any buildings and houses we’re not using.” Phil paused until the gasps finished. “Most important, I want to tear down all houses and buildings surrounding the schools and churches we’re using as shelters.”
“What’s the point of that? I mean, we’re talking about demolishing our own towns before the bad guys even have a chance to,” Horath asked.
“If we believe it’s important enough to fortify these buildings, and to move our people into secure locations, then there is nothing too radical to consider,” Gordon Steinbrink, mayor of Strasburg, said with a hint of accent. No one had noticed him enter the doorway, where he leaned against the beautiful oak frame. He’d attended a meeting with Horath and Phil yesterday to discuss working together. Phil became acquainted with the man over the years through 4-H and county fairs respected him. Yesterday, he realized he’d found an ally.
Steinbrink continued, “I’ve been thinking about this situation we find ourselves in. We just aren’t moving fast enough. We’ve had families killed by some group, we still don’t know who they are, and we believe that major cities have completely collapsed. I agree we have accomplished a lot just keeping people from starving so far. But I fear the real crisis will reach us any day.”
He paused, looking down at hands scarred and nicked from decades of hard work in the machine tooling plant he founded shortly after emigrating from Germany.
“What Phil is talking about is opening fields of fire around our shelters. If and when those shelters get attacked, those bandit scum will have to cross open fields to get our people instead of hiding and sneaking up. Think about a prison. There are usually open fields all around prison walls. No sneaking out in that case…and no sneaking in, for our shelters.”
Horath smiled. “That makes sense, I’m in. Give the critics something new to complain about. We can blame it all on Phil!”
Honking horns startled the group. Some went to the windows to see what the commotion was. Others headed directly for the stairs.
Relief and concern greeted them as they reached street level. A line of heavily laden trucks pulled to stop along Main Street. Phil looked up and down the line. Jagged holes opened sporadically in the door of one truck, across the hood of another was an opening the size of a fist. Others were missing glass where a windshield or side window fit just days before. Phil was pretty sure there was at least one fewer truck then there had been when Clark Olsen led the convoy off on its mission.
Anna was there, running with a pair of EMTs towards the passenger side of a truck suffering significant damage. Two men helped an unconscious figure out of the truck, with a clearly concerned Anna already checking the limp man’s blood pressure. To Phil’s relief, the hulking figure of Clark Olsen climbed from the passenger side of the lead truck. Olsen's face expressed a wide range of emotion…exhaustion, relief… What’s that other look? I’ve never seen that before. The Sheriff headed straight for Phil. The two men had become friends in a short amount of time and there was a lot to talk about.
“Phil, I’m heading to see Maryanne, and then I think we need to talk,” Clark huffed out.
“Sure, Clark. Whenever you’re ready,” Phil said.
“I’m ready now. Will you just walk with me to the house? I’d like to talk in private. Things are even worse out there than we first thought.”
*****
Clark hugged a very relieved Maryanne for a long time. Long enough to make Phil really wish he had waited outside for a while. No matter what Phil thought of Mrs. Olsen, Clark clearly loved his wife. Finally, Maryanne went off to warm up some food and Clark snuck upstairs to wash up and change. The Olsens were staying in their home for the time being; they intended to move out to one of the Fortress Farms when the time was right, but for now they stayed put.
Clark and Maryanne joined Phil sitting in the study. The sheriff began to relay the story of the convoy's journey, and as they listened, they realized that they needed to completely reconsider how they imagined the outside world.
The convoy made the trip to Decatur with little drama. The biggest problem came in negotiating their way through a couple of small-town roadblocks; some other communities had managed to get organized, barricading themselves against dangers prowling the countryside. Once convinced the Shelby County men weren’t there to loot their towns, the townsfolk let the convoy continue to their destination.
“Found a fixable loader tractor sitting at the plant. We made decent progress getting the materials loaded,” Olsen told them. “I decided by the second afternoon to chance a food patrol. They managed to find a few promising locations to search. I told them to stay out of the buildings and instead just mark the prospects on a map and bring the info back.”
“Did they run into any people?” Maryanne asked hopefully.
“None that were still alive,” he said, shaking his head. “At least, that’s what they thought on the first trip. I was going to get the empty trucks together and send them out to check out the locations with the most promise. We only used about three quarters of the trucks for the concrete supplies. I figured both groups would be large enough to discourage anyone we might run into from messing with us.” Then the Sheriff grew very quiet and stopped his story to stare at the table.
There’s something big coming, Phil thought. Something big that he’s having trouble telling us.
Maryanne sensed the same thing, and she spoke up. “Clark, what is it? What happened then?”
Olsen sighed and continued, “Unfortunately, some unwelcome guests followed the scout group back. Whoever it was just started blasting us from all directions. Caught me an
d the entire crew by surprise. I’ve never faced gunfire before, and neither had any of the guys with me. Even that one deputy of mine who’s retired Army spent his whole time in the Sandbox as a mechanic.”
Phil thought he could see the Sheriff's hands trembling a bit as he continued. “Adrenaline or something kicked in and me and two of the deputies started firing back. We couldn’t see what we were shooting at, but at least the incoming fire seemed to die down a little. Men scrambled to jump into the trucks, one even put the trucks in gear and began to move away. Unfortunately a couple of the guys were hiding beneath the trucks when they moved…” Olsen’s voice trailed away and cracked as he recalled the scene in his mind.
He gathered himself and looked back up for a moment, “We got enough concrete supplies to last for months. But we high-tailed it out before finding much food. We even had to abandon our fuel wagons. We drained fuel from one of the empty trucks and refilled the ones carrying the materials we found.
“I seen the elephant,” he said quietly. “That’s what the vet told me. When soldiers see combat the first time, that’s what they call it. Now I understand what that phrase really means,” the small town sheriff said as tears clearly formed in his eyes.
Olsen wiped his eyes and sniffed with a loud cough. “Phil, we have to be better prepared if we’re going into these cities. I never even got a look at who was shooting at us. Don’t have any idea what they wanted. Bullets just started raining down. All we could do was escape. It was the worst, most helpless feeling in my life. I got good people hurt because I didn’t know what to do.”
Phil felt terrible for this good man, his friend. I hoped I wouldn’t have to make any more decisions affecting other’s lives. I never considered how he would feel when facing that situation.
Aloud he spoke: “I’m not going to patronize you or tell you not to be so hard on yourself. I know you’re going to be. So just let me say, let’s not let these lessons go to waste. Clark, our food isn’t going to hold out long enough for harvest. Paul is running out of spare parts for the refinery. We’re going to have to go back out on salvage trips, and soon. At least until we can make everything we need.”
