“Nelson,” Ronald grinned. “Your shape last night is what made me relax; you’re not exactly small in stature. I knew your build and height but didn’t want to say anything, and I thought it was your face, but when I saw Matt, I knew.”
“See, I’m not the only one that needs to put a pillow over their gut,” Matt chuckled.
Reaching out, Ronald put a hand on each of their shoulders. “I can never repay you, but thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Nelson grinned. “Not to be a nag, but that was over a week ago, and you just now made it here? Even with kids, you should’ve moved faster than that.”
“No, we headed east but ran into military checkpoints in a town called Van Buren. Tried finding a bridge that wasn’t guarded to get across the Current River, but I couldn’t with the kids. So I decided to try to head to the Free States, but we would find an empty house, hole up, and stock up, dodging the reclamation patrols.”
“Reclamation patrols?” Gerald asked, walking over.
“Forced labor that searches houses, taking food stores and weapons,” Ronald said.
“So we are going to have patrols coming here to take food?” Bernard said.
“Maybe,” Ronald shrugged, “but I’ve never seen them get out of sight of a paved road. When we stopped for the day, we always found a house at least a mile back from the road and never had any problems. I talked to a few other survivors, and they said the same thing. I’ve only seen and heard of reclamation patrols during the day.”
“Makes sense. Searching a house at night gets expensive when you do it large scale,” Nelson said with a nod. “You have any run-ins with gangs?”
Nodding with a long face, Ronald looked off. “They will go back into the sticks, and it’s never pretty. Saw a motorcycle gang roll through that checkpoint in Van Buren. The military just let them pass. That night, they hit a house not far from where we were hiding. We didn’t wait around to see if they were going to come further down the road.”
Turning around looking at the electrical conduit, Nelson asked, “Tell you what, if we hang this shit, will you wire it up?”
“Sure.” Ronald grinned and stepped over to the wire rack. “What kind of draw are you thinking of wiring for?”
“Fifteen thousand watts at seventy amps,” Nelson said, and Ronald spun around.
“What the hell are you powering?” Ronald asked, and Nelson pointed at the computer towers and monitors. “You better have a good generator.”
“It’s pure sine, and I hope I’m way over calculating for those damn things,” Nelson said, grabbing another piece of conduit. “Can’t tell you much about the generator.”
“I can work on it for you,” Ronald said. “You have a wire marker booklet?”
Nelson pulled the booklet out of his tool belt and handed it over. “We’ll talk about it later,” he said as Ronald took the booklet.
When the conduit was up, they watched Ronald run wires and wire up all the outlets then went to the electrical supply box. “Hold on; I’ll cut the power off,” Nelson said, coming over.
“Hold on, I don’t need the power off,” Ronald said, looking at the electrical box. He then stepped over to the original one for the house. “You wire this up?” Ronald asked, pointing at the new box.
“Yeah,” Nelson said in a low voice.
“You studied from a book, didn’t you?” Ronald said, pulling the wires into the box.
“I didn’t have time to take classes.”
“Hey, it’s a good job, but you have more inline fuses in here than you need. I would leave the EMP fuses, but the other fuses just create resistance. On a grid, you don’t have to worry, but if you’re making your own juice, I would shed some,” Ronald said, grabbing the test meter and putting the probes in at different spots. “Whatever your generator is, it puts out the purest sine wave I’ve seen,” Ronald said, moving the probes. “You need to put bigger breakers in here to reduce your resistance. I know what the books say, but it increases line resistance, which brings heat that breakers don’t like. Trust your power strips and down line fuses to protect your equipment. ”
“Yeah, whatever you said,” Nelson said, moving over behind Ronald. “You sure you don’t want me to cut the power?”
“Why? Until I put the breaker in, the juice can’t hit me,” Ronald said, stripping wires. “I only cut power if I’m working on wires that are connected to the grid.”
“Okay, Nelson, you were right,” Matt said, heading upstairs.
Nelson watched Ronald’s hands moving rapidly over the wires, and when he started mounting them to the empty slots, Nelson cringed, expecting to see Ronald get shocked. Never slowing, Ronald hooked up the wires. “You have some twenty-amp breakers?”
“That big? I was going to do ten.”
“You can, but it would just increase resistance, and we just ran the wire twenty feet, and it’s shielded, so you don’t really have to worry about a short.”
Nelson dug through the box until he found the twenty-amp breakers and handed them over. “I would still be stripping the wire putting the connectors on,” Nelson said as Ronald snapped in the breakers.
“We’re live,” he said, throwing the switches, and carried the meter over and tested all the outlets. “You can hook them up now. Need some help?”
“Dude, I’m not touching that shit,” Nelson said, waving his hand at the computers. “I don’t even know where the power button is. If we mess that stuff up, I’m certain Nancy will kill us and tell everyone we ran away.”
Laughing, Gerald walked over, grabbing Nelson and pulling him to the stairs. “You got that right. She has over sixty grand tied up just in one of those towers,” he said.
Ronald looked at the stuff and followed them. “If she needs help moving it, just tell her to ask,” he said.
They found everyone at the table, and Ronald sat down with his kids, who were both smiling. When lunch was over, Nellie led the kids out to help gather eggs and feed the chickens and hogs. When they were gone, Nelson stood up. “Ronald, we have a proposition for you, but I want you to listen to it before answering, okay?”
“Okay,” Ronald said with a serious face.
“We are offering you a spot in our group. You will be no different from us, but I want you to realize that we spent a lot of time and money before this happened setting this up. You and your kids will have to help any and every where you can,” Nelson said, grabbing a glass of tea and taking a drink.
“You or them won’t be asked to do anything we don’t do,” he said, putting the glass down. “If we are attacked or attack someone, you will be expected to pull your weight. We don’t surrender here. If one of us falls, you along with everyone else are expected to take care of those left behind. Now you being an electrician, you will be over the power. I’ll help, as will the others, but that will be your domain.”
Ronald held up his hands. “So if I’m killed, this group will care for my kids?”
“Yes, and we’ll die to protect them,” Gerald said, leaning back in his chair. “But it’s the same the other way. If one of us dies, you have to step up and help the others, supporting who’s left.”
“What if the feds roll in here in force? I’ve seen it,” Ronald asked, looking around the table.
“We fight and kill them all or die trying,” Nelson said. “I’m not letting my family be taken to a concentration camp. I refuse to be cattle and have my kids live like that. We live free or die here. The forbidden and forgotten dream of America is here, and we will die to live that way if necessary.”
“I would need to have weapons to teach my kids,” Ronald said.
“If you stay, you will be supplied as they would,” Michelle said.
“Hold on, Ronald; we’re not done,” Nelson said, holding up his hands. “If we’re attacked and you try to leave, you will be shot,” Nelson said with a straight face. “If Gerald tries to leave, he’ll be shot. If I try to leave, I’ll be shot. We tolerate no slackers here. If you give
your word, we expect the honor to follow it. Now if you don’t want to join, we will outfit you with weapons and gear to help you on your way.”
Ronald looked around the table then back at Nelson. “I can see how much this group has put into this place, and you’re willing to accept me and my kids in at the same level as all of you, and you think I would turn that down? You actually have a chance to survive this here, and I can assure you, I will kill and if necessary die to protect a place like this if my kids were taken care of. If this group will accept us, we would love to stay, but I want to teach my kids how to fight. I want them to be able to defend themselves.”
Nelson nodded. “Ronald, I had my soon-to-be nine-year-old son as you saw last night and two ten-year-old boys with us. Believe me, we understand.”
Bernard handed over a manila folder. “These are the rules we follow. We want you to talk this over with your kids and give us your answer at supper tonight. There will be no hard feelings if you don’t stay. Like Nelson said, we will outfit you and your kids to help you on your way.”
Taking the folder, Ronald looked up at Nelson. “I know it’s a long shot, but if my wife…” he said, and tears rolled down his face.
“She is the only one that could come in without a vote from the group. She is part of your family, but no brothers, sisters, cousins, or friends are accepted in without the group’s approval. I wanted you in this group, and the others brought valid arguments against it. But if they would’ve said no, I would’ve accepted it,” Nelson said, sitting down.
“And made our lives hell,” Matt snickered.
Nelson looked down at him. “No, I would’ve made everyone here wire up shit, and I wouldn’t have raised one finger to help.”
The snicker fell off Matt’s face. “Dude, that’s cold. You said you would learn electricity.”
“Because no one else would!”
Ronald laughed. “Nelson, you’re pretty good at it.”
Nelson leaned over the table, narrowing his eyes. “Electricity is the power of gods, and mortals shouldn’t fuck with it. I’m glad others have and will use the power they have harnessed from the gods, but I hate it.”
Leaning back in his chair, Ronald looked away, slightly nodding as he thought about that. “You make being an electrician sound really cool and awesome,” Ronald said, looking back at Nelson.
“Shit yeah,” Michelle said. “I want to harness the power of the gods now.”
Leaning back and looking at her, Nelson said, “I have two shelves of books that you can read then.”
Ronald stood up. “I’m going to talk to my kids,” he said, walking out.
“I’m sure Nellie has told them, but don’t approach the berm from the outside, or you’ll break your legs,” Nelson said and pointed at the gun rack. “The AR on the end is mine; if you’re outside the berm, keep it on you. My vest is on the porch, and you can wear it as you talk to them.”
“Thank you,” Ronald said, taking the AR out of the gun rack and heading to the front door.
When the door shut, Matt said, “I like him,” looking at everyone with a smile. “Nelson, if he doesn’t stay, do we still have to work with electricity on our own?”
“You do.” Nelson grinned, getting up. “I’m going to work on our basement; I trust you want to come?” he asked, looking at Michelle.
“Damn right,” she said, getting up. “If I don’t see where you put stuff, I can’t tell you where it is when you ask for it.”
As they walked out, Michelle asked Nelson, “You feeling okay?”
“Yeah, how about you? You’ve been awake just as long as I have.”
Michelle grabbed his arm and held it as she walked beside him. “What had you upset last night?”
Opening the door to the cabin, Nelson sighed. “We have so much to do, and everyone finds projects for me to do, but everyone helps me on them, so we don’t get anything else done.”
“You’re mad the others are helping you?” Michelle asked in shock.
“No, I’m glad they are, but we don’t all need to work on one project unless it’s big. You and I could’ve done that desk, but the others helped when they could’ve done other things.”
“Babe, they knew you were tired, and everyone asks you to do stuff because you learned how to do a lot of stuff, and they don’t want you to get overloaded,” Michelle said, hugging him. “I would’ve helped on the desk, but I was about to lay Matt out when he wouldn’t let me use the Skil saw.”
“That boy can’t cut a straight line to save his life,” Nelson snorted. “And my saw has a laser to show you where you’re cutting.”
“He’s trying.”
“Yeah,” Nelson sighed, leading her downstairs and stopped at the bottom, staring at the piles of stuff he had gotten from his store.
“I hope you didn’t think we were going to find a home for all this shit,” Michelle said, shaking her head. “The containers are full, so don’t even think about it.”
“We have any more storage bins?”
Waving her hand at the piles, she said, “Nowhere near this many. Maybe a few dozen.”
“Let’s get them and start packing the clothes at least.”
“What is your goal?” she asked, not wanting this project to start with no hope of finishing.
“I want my work bench and area cleared out so I can get to my gunsmith stuff and I’m able to work on the R/C stuff.”
“You want to work on yours and Gavin’s cars?”
“You don’t think my plan will work?”
She shook her head. “No, I’m positive it will work, but I’m thinking it’s a large use of resources to take out one target.”
“One tank for a remote controlled car—seems like a great investment to me. Put a claymore on one and drive it up to a group of troops, one remote-controlled car for a dozen fighters that can’t attack us.”
“I hope you don’t think they will just sit there as a remote controlled car drives up,” Michelle said, running up the stairs. “I’ll get the bins.”
Nelson started organizing the clothes in each pile into sizes. When Michelle came back, she started on the stuff near his work area. They barely talked as they worked, and when Gerald came down carrying Devin, they stopped. “You two made a dent,” he said, looking at the open space.
“Don’t tell Michelle, but she’s right; I got a lot of shit,” Nelson said, glancing over at Michelle, who was grinning.
She walked over to Gerald, clapping her hands, and Devin reached out for her. “Don’t tell Nelson, but he should’ve gotten ten times this much,” she said, taking Devin, and felt his body was wet. “You two battle bubbles?”
“No,” Gerald laughed. “It’s raining. Nellie sent me to get you for supper.”
Nelson looked at his watch and jumped. “Shit,” he gasped, seeing it was supper time.
“Your son is here, and I’ve let you off on your language, but please control it,” Michelle said, walking up the stairs.
“Me? Have you listened to your mouth lately?” Nelson shouted as she reached the top of the stairs as Gerald came over, looking at Nelson’s workbench. “Does Nancy have any more cameras?”
“Nelson, between me and her, I bet we have fifty more cameras.”
“And we’re only putting out twenty-six?”
“Twenty-eight if you count the camera on the remote gun station. But Nelson, we don’t have any more cable. You realize we went through like four miles of it, right? I got a lot from bases that were throwing it away, but we still spent over eight grand, and I stole one industrial roll of five thousand feet off the back of a cable truck that was parked at a truck stop.”
“How in the hell did you pick it up?” Nelson asked with wide eyes.
Gerald ran his hands over Nelson’s tools. “Wasn’t easy, but I pushed it off the back of the truck and rolled it across the parking lot onto my trailer,” he chuckled.
“So if we had more cable, we could put out more cameras?”
“Sure, but where are you going to get it?”
“Well, it’s hanging on telephone poles all around us. Can’t we just cut it off from there? Bernard has a bucket truck,” Nelson said, moving over to his work area.
“Never thought about that, but yeah, the only thing that would limit us would be how many cameras she can hook into the computer.”
“How about remote cameras?”
“Yeah, we have a few, but she doesn’t like them because they can be jammed and put out a radio signature.”
“No, I mean to put one on my remote controlled planes.”
Turning around, Gerald laughed. “You want to make a UAV?”
“Well, I have a quad copter that has a camera, but it can only stay in the air fifty minutes. Gavin and I were working on a large plane that could stay in the air for three hours. We saw a guy at a remote air show that built one. I have button cameras, but they don’t have enough resolution. The quad copter does. Hell, that camera is high def, but it’s not FLIR, and it’s easy to hide from it.”
“Can you show it to me, the quad copter?” Gerald asked, getting interested.
“Sure,” Nelson said, heading for the stairs. “I just want some way of looking around us without having to actually go out and look.”
“Hey, completely understand here. I’ll talk it over with Nancy tonight,” Gerald chuckled and looked down at the much neater and open basement. “Can you and Michelle come over to my cabin and do this?”
“Give me one of those containers so we can move some of this shit away from here, and I’ll ask her.”
“Yeah, we need to do that, but you two have an amazing way to organize chaos,” Gerald said, following Nelson out the backdoor to see it was still raining. “Glad we shored up the sides of that trench now.”
“Hey, after we put shit in that trench, I’m not going in it,” Nelson said, walking down into the entry room for the buried containers. Four sets of container doors were at the bottom as Nelson went to the last one and knelt down at a combination lock.
Forgotten Forbidden America:: Patriots Reborn Page 21
