After twenty minutes of searching I finally dug up instruction materials for the solar panels. Most of them dealt with assembly and placement, but hopefully there would be something helpful in figuring out how to switch them back on as the house's only power source. It would be worth browsing through them even if I had to do it alone.
I also found a lawn tool locker in the corner with hooks inside the door holding at least forty keys. The head of one of them bore the same logo as the cabinet. I felt like I had just struck gold. I gripped the key tightly in my hand as I turned to walk back into the house, passing over a metal drain grate.
CHAPTER FOUR:
Though the gun cabinet that we discovered in the office did not house a complete armory, it pretty much felt like it to us. We had been making do without guns for so long. The couple rifles that we had, confiscated from Earl and John, were so low on ammo that they were mostly for show. We were prepared to use the limited ammunition in desperate situations but worried that our inexperience with aiming would almost make it worthless.
The only one among us that had fired a gun before was Jada. Her grandfather up in Lancaster Pennsylvania had her shooting target practice as a teenager with a twenty-two rifle. She didn't become a marksman by any means, she claimed, but had grown comfortable at handling a firearm at least. The other girls were noticeably hesitant to even touch one. I added one more thing to my long list of items to admire Jada before. Just then, she pulled one of the rifles out of the cabinet. After checking its weight and balance, she cocked it like a badass and raised it up to look through the scope.
When she returned the weapon to the locker, we all just stood then in awe, or possibly in fear for some. Jada then turned to us with a smile that I was delighted to see, and asked, “What?”
We all shrugged, feigning nonchalance. I myself had never actually handled a real gun before. My parents were against owning any, claiming that guns invited violence. In the old world, I could see how that made some sense. However, in dystopian DC, a ballistic weapon could easily make the difference between living or dying. Better yet, several guns could help keep us safe from invasion for a long time.
Inside the hidden vault were three distinctly different rifles, and three handguns. Two of the pistols were identical, Glock nineteens. They used a nine-millimeter bullet that fit fifteen in the handle magazine, plus one in the chamber. Total rounds of ammunition found with them was ninety-eight. Wow. We could even consider warning shots now.
The third pistol was a forty-five. It was a revolver style instead, holding six shots in the revolving chamber. There was a box with it that still had thirty rounds. Handling each of them, empty of ammo of course, I felt more empowered by the six-shooter. However, Riley claimed that one of the men that she had encountered a few months ago loved the Glock because the trigger was so easy to pull.
"Was he too weak to pull the trigger on the bigger gun?" Jada smirked.
"Not at all," Riley replied. "An easier trigger pull meant that you could hold your aim steadier as you shot."
That was good to know. If I could get comfortable with the Smith and Wesson, I should leave the Glocks for the girls. As excited as I was about the handguns, I was even more so with the rifles. There were three different models, each with their own size ammunition.
The wood grained Weatherby hunting rifle was the least intimidating to handle. The shape of the stock and weight balance had me thinking I'd probably be a decent shot without even practicing. Though I had never held the real thing in my hands before, firing guns at enemies used to be a regular activity on the video games that my friends and I played. The Weatherby was a three-oh-eight and had forty-two rounds between the three boxes below it in the cabinet.
The black Beanfield Remington was heavy to hold, and long, too. I was not confident that I could fire it in the right direction without resting the barrel on something. It was a beautiful piece of equipment, though. There were thirty-three rounds of seven-millimeter ammo for it.
The prize of the arsenal was undeniably the automatic rifle. Well, I assumed it was automatic from its appearance. I had thought it was illegal to own one, though, but what did I know? Chances were that the owner of this house had purchased it in whatever acceptable form was available. It was a scary jet black and reminded me of my days playing Rainbow Six, though I had no idea what guns were used in that game.
The manual that sat on top of its ammo tray called it a Smasher three-hundred Blackout. The only disappointing thing about it was that there were only eighty rounds. I had envisioned firing it off like a mob boss in all directions, taking down foes that I didn't even see coming for me. Instead, each of those shots would have to be cherished. The best value of the assault rifle would be intimidating our enemies, no doubt. Militia groups might not flinch, but regular clans like the one we had recently defeated would at least think twice.
We left the rifles resting there with the cabinet door open but placed the pistols in key areas in the house without ammo. I still wasn't ready to carry one around in my pocket or belt. Instead, I carried some ammunition for each in my pockets, while Riley and Jada held onto one nine-millimeter clip each. We needed to develop a plan of defense with these newly found weapons, but it would have to wait until I read over the solar power manuals.
Most of the printed material covered assembly and mounting, as well as how to hook it up to your electrical box. None of it seemed to explain why they weren't already sending power to the house. That was, until I got to the information regarding the Inverter's function. That was the device responsible for changing the energy collected by the panels into AC current that could be sent to the electrical circulation system of the building.
Apparently, there was a display on the device that would explain everything. Unfortunately, when I located it, the screen was blank, powerless. The trouble-shooting section of the manual liked to end every stream of suggestions with, contact the installer for more information.
"Maybe the person that installed it is still alive," Camilla suggested. I wouldn’t call her stupid, but her suggestions were not always helpful.
"I bet his phone isn't," Jada replied. "If he managed to survive, I'm sure he is not keeping regular office hours. The chance of finding him now is extremely low."
"I agree," I said as I continued to search the documentation. "We'll have to figure this out on our own."
When we first found the Inverter, the switch was turned off. I had hopes that flipping it on would be the solution, but it was not. However, when I flipped the circuit breaker labelled 'Solar' off and back on, the Inverter's screen lit up and listed three error codes. Digging through the trouble-shooting some more, each error code said that we needed to contact the installer to find a solution. Every stream of progress ended with the same result.
I took a break from the problem to have a meal with the girls, during which Riley updated me on our current inventory levels. Despite our serious upgrade in housing, our diet was slowly returning to a boring lack of variety. If only we could get the refrigerator working. That would open up a lot more possibilities for us.
I decided to fiddle around with the Inverter controls until I ended up doing several combinations with a few system reboots. Just when I was about to give up hope, the system powered up. I heard screams from the girls as the lights kicked on, quickly followed by the sound of the blender. Someone had probably pushed in the buttons on the small appliance while the power was off, thinking nothing of it.
Whatever lights or appliances that didn't begin working immediately were later powered by flipping additional breakers. It wasn't long before everything in the house was working except for the treadmill and the laptop computer left on the office desk. Well, at least everything electrical. It turned out that the stove, oven and fireplace were actually gas powered. So was the water heater, but that didn't make any difference since there was no clean water coming through the pipes anyway.
As the sun began to set, I was thankful that we had boar
ded up all the windows. A house full of lights these days would draw all kinds of attention. There were two breakers assigned to the pool pump and pool house. I flipped those off. Any outside lights that couldn't be controlled with a switch I decided to remove the bulb. Duct tape over the switches should prevent any careless mistakes.
Riley and Alexa worked together to clean out the refrigerator thoroughly. Most of the rotten stuff had been trashed shortly after we moved in. When we stumble across any fruits and vegetables during our future travels, we will now be able to keep them reasonably fresh much longer. It not only improved our survival chances it was also a serious morale booster.
Once the sun was down the lights began to dim until we finally decided to shut them off an hour later. We didn't have enough sunlight after powering up the system to last us through the night. I hoped that things would be different tomorrow, but I didn't want to just chance it. Reading the production and usage reports for the day on the Inverter alerted me to a new problem. The system was only operating at about forty percent efficiency. Most likely the panels had taken some damage over the last year and might even be covered in dirt and soot from nearby fires.
It was possible that I could go up on the roof and make some repairs and clean all the panels while I was at it, but that might require more studying and a lot of risk. I believed the better solution was to ration our power usage. We had gone completely without electricity for a very long time. Surely, we could make do with just a little power now. The frig and security system could stay operational all the time. We'd only use the lights when absolutely needed, and maybe watch a DVD on the big screen television just once a week. On a sunny day.
Most of the cameras outside had remained undamaged, and all of the ones indoors were working great. There was a monitor set up in the kitchen specifically for the system, but it could be accessed online by any computer. Well, the only computer that we had left in the house was busted, and online no longer existed. So, the kitchen monitor would have to be our eyes.
We toyed with a few ideas of giving us some sniper locations. It could be done from the attic, but the heat up there was downright unbearable. From the main floor we could cut small squares in the window boards to shoot from, but that could expose us to nasty stuff being tossed in by intruders. If we needed to fire a long shot it might be best to step outside to do it. But that would of course expose us to danger. Hopefully, we wouldn't need to actually use the guns very often. I decided the attic plan was best and would work on it periodically myself.
Every change of circumstances comes with its own new problems, and we were definitely experiencing ours. But when it all came down to it, everything was still about survival. Don't get killed. Find food and water. And that was what we planned to do next. Well, find lots of food without getting killed. The problem with living in a wealthy neighborhood was that nobody had their own garden. We would have to find fruits and vegetables growing wild on their own.
"Well, it’s a shame that you didn't claim Stella," Camilla told us in passing conversation.
"Who the hell is Stella?" Jada asked. Her voice had recently gotten an edge to it when she had to spend much time with Camilla. Her aggravation with her own injury combined with the new woman's arrogance was testing her tolerance.
"She was the brunette with the yellow eyes," Camilla replied, completely ignoring Jada's issues with her. "She was the one that looked like a teenager, even though she is twenty. Yeah, Stella is good with plants. She would find us onions, berries, mushrooms and all kinds of things to eat when we were hungry. The girls encouraged her to start a garden while we were staying at the White Oak Library, but the military group rolled up the street and spooked us out. I'd bet she could grow us some food in the backyard."
"I hadn't really considered that," Alexa said. "I guess we could grow some of our own food in the yard. What do you think, Mason?"
I nodded in response and said, "We'd have to fence it in pretty good to keep our stuff from getting stolen. If it looked like it was planted it would also point out that someone was living here, but it might be worth it. Maybe we could disguise it somehow."
"What's next?" Jada spouted. "Are we going to pen in some farm animals? Raise us some chickens?"
"Oh my God!" Riley exclaimed, which was so unlike her to get excited in conversation. "I've been craving a chicken sandwich for weeks."
"Any kind of meat sandwich would be great right now," replied Alexa. "Except Spam. I'm sick of that stuff."
"Is it even meat?" I asked.
"Let me guess," Jada said as she turned to Camilla. "You have another friend that was a goat herder."
"No," Camilla answered like it was a serious question.
"Gator wrestler?"
"What the fuck is going on with you, Jada?" I lost my temper, surprising everyone, including Jada. It shocked her enough that I could see fear in her eyes. Certainly, it couldn’t be fear of me. Maybe it was fear that she was going too crazy or becoming useless.
"I don't know! I'm sorry! Maybe I should go to bed now. Good night!" With that Jada limped down the hallway to her bedroom. We all watched her go except for Camilla. She acted like she hadn't even noticed the outburst. The two overly sexy women of our clan were obviously incompatible.
"Should I go talk to her?" Alexa offered.
"No, let me go." I remembered how well she had responded to me in the basement. She didn't answer when I knocked, but a few seconds later she pulled the door open. I half expected her to be too angry to let me in, or maybe breaking down in tears like before. Instead, she stood there with a relatively blank look on her face.
"Can I come in?"
"Of course."
She sat down on the bed facing away as I closed the door behind me. Glancing around her room I noticed that she had cleared away all the personal items of the previous tenant, which was likely a teenage girl. Memories of our passionate sex just a few days ago in that same bed came rushing back and nearly had me forgetting why I was there.
Jada was still all kinds of beautiful, and sexy, and desirable. However, her pained expression and depressed body language took away from it more than I thought would be possible. Depression had a way of stripping off your pretty veneers. It sounded like something my mother would have said. And it was true.
"What's going on?" I asked my friend.
"I don't like Camilla."
"Yeah, I get that. She's not a good fit. If I recall, you were wanting to keep her around for her battle ability."
I sat gently beside her on the bed. It gave way to my weight more than I thought it should. Perhaps the box springs were old. Or, maybe the girl that used to sleep here liked it soft and bouncy. Perhaps I was just getting fat.
"I have changed my mind. I want you to get rid of her."
"Okay, I understand. But now she's been integrated into our family. Sending her out on her own would feel like abandonment. Do you think you might feel differently after you have healed up?"
Jada pulled away from me slightly as she shook her head with one of those ghetto-attitude moves I used to see in the movies. I always hated them then. Now, on Jada, they were just funny. But not ‘laugh out loud’ funny.
"No. Stop thinking that every problem we have is because I'm injured. You did this to me, by the way. It's your fault and you need to fix it!"
"Whoa! What exactly did I do?"
"You made me fall in love with you, for one thing. Then, you let that bitch confuse you. She has you wrapped around her finger. That's what she told me and Riley. She said that she has to be the top girl in your clan or things were going to go poorly for us."
"What did she mean by that?"
"I don't know, and it doesn't matter if you just get rid of her."
Another spark of attitude and this time I chuckled. The glare that she gave me was the ‘I cannot believe you just did that’ look that an urban woman gives her husband daily. She tensed when I touched her shoulder, but it was just an act. I persisted until she mellowed ou
t.
"Okay, okay. I'll take care of it. I promise. She will never... Look at me, Jada. Camilla will never take your place or outrank you in any way. You will always be above her, and my number one in battle. Stop worrying about that."
"Can you at least keep Alexa or Riley around every time you deal with her? Alexa is already picking up on some bad stuff, but only when she's not one on one with Camilla. And Riley is immune. I think she is using her ability in small doses on the rest of us as a test before trying to take over."
"Alright, I will. But I think you are wrong about her confusing us. She's just hard to get along with. That's a personality issue. How about you go with me on the next food run?"
"I'll just slow you down,” she replied. But I could tell that the idea sounded good to her. She was just fishing for a compliment before she agreed to go.
"No, you won't. You'll be a great asset like you always are. Besides, now we have guns to protect us. Just us two. What do you think?"
A meager smile crept up on her face, yielding a hint of happiness in her eyes. I was starting to get used to how to take care of my women, in more ways than one. I smiled as well when she replied with a yes, then leaned in for a kiss. It was more than a peck this time, but no tongue. I took it as a 'I miss you and appreciate you.' When she pulled away, she almost pulled off a bashful look. Almost. I had never seen that side of her before and it was intriguing me. I began to wonder if our next sexual experience would be different than the first.
CHAPTER FIVE:
The next morning, I woke up extra early, feeling like something had drastically changed. The sensation throughout my body was subtle and hard to explain. I tried desperately to remember what I had just been dreaming, but of course I couldn't. Whatever the dream had been, it certainly had done a number on me.
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