by Mark Harritt
The people left behind started pulling supplies together. They stripped everything, leaving only the electrical system for the fourth floor. They repositioned the computer servers and quantum battery to the fourth floor. They stripped everything from the other floors, hoping that they would have enough out of the detritus to wire the new location. Powered pulley elevators were created to get everything to the top. They started with the necessary things, then moved down to the like to have things, and then to the ‘I don’t know what we’ll use it for, but it might be good to have.’
Finally, the recon team was back. Pang was in the front, rifle at the ready, looking like the littlest bad ass warrior. Not a stretch in the imagination there. To either side of her were the large bulks of Joseph and Murph. Rob brought up the rear, in the mech. M.A. sat on the top of the mech, eating some kind of plant as he rode it like the howdah on an elephant.
Mike clicked on his ear bud, “Hey Rob, what’s up, how’s things going?”
Rob replied, “I would be doing much better if I didn’t have to watch M.A.’s ass on my heads up display.”
“Just ask him to get off.”
“Not going to happen. He likes the height, being able to look around. Plus, he’s actually been able to spot a few nasty creaturesready to pounce. So, his ass aside, he does good riding up there.”
“Talk to your AI, maybe it can switch off that particular camera.”
“Hey, great idea, hang on.”
Mike waved at Pang and she waved back. He got a wave from Joseph and Murph. Then he saw a wide grin on M.A.’s face as he saw Mike. M.A. waved. Mike wondered how the hell M.A. was able to ride on the mech armor without falling off.
“Hey, is it a good idea to have him ride up there?”
“He’s a monkey. He can scramble up the mech armor while it’s walking. We talk to him about it, but he keeps climbing back up.”
Mike chuckled as Rob continued, “Hey, the AI was able to turn off that camera. Thanks Mike.”
Mickey clicked on, “Rob, admit it, you just like looking at M.A.’s ass.”
“Screw you, big man.”
“Get a ladder, short guy, you’re going to need one.”
Tom jumped in, “What did I just hear? Mickey wants Rob to screw him?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“That’s what I heard you say. You told him to get a ladder so that he could screw you. That sounds like an invitation to me.”
“How would you know, you haven’t had to chase ass in a long time.”
Everybody got quiet. Mickey spoke, “Oh man, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . . I mean, I didn’t . . . “
Tom waved it off, “Don’t worry, Mickey. I know, you didn’t mean to bring up Barbara and the family. No prob. I know that she and the kids are in a better place. If there truly is a heaven, that woman is definitely there. She put up with my garbage long enough to earn the right.”
Mike spoke to break the mood, “Alright guys, let’s get back to work.”
Pang walked up. Mike held out his fist and she did the bump.
“How did it go?” he asked.
She nodded, “It went well. We found a place that’s defensible. Rob thinks the surrounding area is pretty stable. He said the area is granite which is a good, hard rock to work with. He tried the pulse laser on it, and got a good straight cut on it. He thinks he can build what we need. Best of all, it has a pool of water that seems to be spring fed.”
Murph and Joseph said hello, and went into the cave, high fiving and fist bumping the crowd as they walked through. Mike returned their greeting and then turned back to talk to Jennifer. As they chatted about what she had seen, Rob walked up and parked his mech. M.A. shifted his body as the mech armor squatted down into its parked position. M.A. wasn’t even concerned, walking over the moving mech armor as it settled, hands free until he started climbing down.
When he got on the ground, he walked over to Mike with his hand out. Jennifer looked at M.A., “Bro hug coming, Murph taught him.” Mike caught the hand and then did a partial hug with the other arm, patting him on the back. M.A. walked into the cave, looking for chocolate. The door popped open, and Rob climbed down.
“Well?” Mike asked.
Rob nodded, “We found a place, a narrow cliff opening, widens behind, with enough area to cut into the face of the granite. Even better, though, I found a place that has some limestone so that we can make mortar. Oh, and water, we have lots of water. It runs out of the cliff opening in a small stream.”
Mike said, “Well, building is your expertise, so we go with your suggestion. With the spring there, it sounds like the perfect place to me.”
They talked some more, had some coffee, and then all three went down to talk to the brain trust.
--------------------------------------
It had been a long three months. During the building of the new facility, everybody else had been working to get all of the materials moved up for transportation. Then they built wooden wagons to transport everything out to the new site. As Rob drove his team to get everything built, Mike drove everybody to get everything moved. Teams took turns getting the wagons loaded and transported to the new location. Rob even figured out how to add plumbing and flush toilets to what everybody was calling the castle.
The team was in high gear, clearing out the cave. They piled everything on top of the wagon. They were the last ones out. Mike, Everett, and Tom had been fighting the incursions by predators while Rob and Mickey escorted the gear and people to the new location. Now, with everything transported, Mike and the team had filled the throat of the tunnel with dirt, and then piled rock six feet into the throat of the tunnel. Mike was hoping that this would keep predators out, until they could figure out a way to mine all of the rebar out of the facility.
“Well, that’s that,” Everett pronounced.
Mike nodded, grabbing his water bladder, and taking a long, cool drink. There was no more coffee. All of the MREs and licky-chewies were gone as well. Now, the entire group relied completely on what they found in this wilderness to sustain them. People were losing weight.
Jamison died, a month after they started moving. He had a malignant brain tumor, and it finally took his life. Humphreys and Nosstrand thought this might explain the questionable things he had done before the incident. Looking through the emails, they could see the shift in his personality, as he became more and more paranoid. His personal relationships with family had gone completely downhill about two months before Mike and the team arrived.
The null generator was exactly that. The big minds back at DARPA made a big discovery about gravity. This was going to lead the planet into a new age of space travel. The null generator was just part of the new technology that was being developed. Problem was, it hadn’t been set up correctly. Diagnostics weren’t done, and the internal cesium clock hadn’t been set. If Weitz had been able to set it up, they wouldn’t be one billion years in the future right now.
Waves were an interesting subset of physics. In fact, all energy and matter was waveforms. Once you understood the wave characteristics of the four fundamental forces, you could develop wave forms that would interact and cancel them. This created a null interaction with the reality around the field generated. When the cesium clock stopped working, this field stopped being generated. If it hadn’t stopped working, God alone knew where they would be. This information had devastated the small community. Now, they knew there was no going back. This was their life now. They were stranded on this island of time.
There were only three of them. Tom was already in the mech.
Mike pointed his chin towards the mechs, “Time to saddle up.”
Airman Babcock and Jamison were the only ones left. Everett was urinating on Jamison’s grave. He zipped up and walked to his mech.
They climbed up and into the mechs. Mike looked back at the cave, one more time. He looked at his past, then put his helmet on. There was nothing more he could do. There were no monsters he coul
d fight, no reality he could change, nothing he could do, to change the fate that he had been dealt. “I’m sorry Jo, I broke my promise.” The interface was blurry as he wept for his lost love, his heart breaking. He was trapped, no way home. The mech armor stood, and Mike strode towards his new future.
Epilogue
Jack watched Jo cry, and his heart was breaking. He was in the kitchen, pouring a cup of coffee. Jo was in the living room, her arms around her legs, sitting on the couch. Sarah was sitting with Jo, holding her as she cried. Jo had suffered the loss of the love of her life, and she couldn’t get through to her family in Syracuse to see if they were okay. Jack had been devastated by the news that Mike was at Malmstrom AFB when the missiles hit. But he dealt with it. His family wouldn’t survive if he let it destroy him. So he buried it, deep inside.
The entire world suffered. Nuclear strikes destroyed the major cities and military installations in the USA. The super volcano in Yellowstone had been hit by nuclear missiles and erupted. The entire Great Plains was covered in ash a foot deep. Nuclear winter settled over the land like the hand of death. The crazies were talking about the judgment of God. The cities that hadn’t been hit quickly succumbed to chaos and violence. Famine and disease wracked the world, continuing the killing that the nuclear war had started. Right now he was so thankful that he bought land in the mountains, away from the city. Still, it might end up turning into a slow death for his family, instead of the quick one Mike had endured.
The farm wasn’t too far from Higden, Georgia. They were situated well, back in one of the valleys in the mountains. The boys from the National Guard armory pulled out all of their equipment, and were dealing with the roaming, murdering gangs from Atlanta. They came, but they didn’t leave. Mass graves were dug for them after each incursion. The good people in the area were close, and were sticking by each other. The local meth addicts were given no mercy when they started stealing. The local sheriff wasn’t having it. Gone was the revolving justice that the United States used to deal out. Now, stealing was death. The locals of Higden dealt violence for violence, and were getting a reputation as a place people shouldn’t mess with. Still, when they could, they took in stragglers that had escaped the violence that surrounded them.
Jack sipped his coffee. He felt the arms go around his waist. He patted his wife’s hands with his.
“Hey honey, how’re you?” he asked.
“Sad, so sad,” Allison answered.
Jack nodded, “Yeah, it gets me as well.”
“Do you think that we’ll ever see him again? Could he have lived?”
Jack shook his head, “Multiple warheads, and a volcano erupting. There is no way he survived. Besides, it’s been four weeks. If he was alive, nothing would keep him from Jo.”
He could feel Allison’s body move as she cried. He sat down his coffee and turned to hold her in his arms. Gently, he kissed the top of her head, “Honey, we have Mike’s wife, and his baby. We’ll do everything we can to make sure that they survive. That’s the best thing we can do for Mike.”
She continued crying. He spoke, so gently, “Honey, the only thing that we can do is pray that, wherever Mike is, he’s in God’s hands.”
She nodded.
Jack was glad that he spent his days prepping for bad times. They had freeze dried food downstairs, enough to feed the family for a year. He had bins of beans, and other foods that wouldn’t spoil. He had heirloom seeds to plant. He had silver for anything else they may need. He also had enough weapons to dissuade bad men from trying anything stupid. Hard times were ahead. He just hoped that he could get his family through them.
He slowly moved Ally’s arms from around his waist. Then he led her into the living room to Jo and Sarah. Ally sat down with Jo, across from Sarah, and put her arms around her. They were all crying now. Jack was just grateful that this had been Jo’s first stop after she flew from Wyoming. If she had gone to Syracuse, he would have lost her and the last part of Mike, the baby. He was thankful that she had those last days with him.
Jack moved to the door, put on a warm jacket. He picked up his M14 rifle, opened the door, and stepped outside. He was going to walk the perimeter, and make sure that his family was safe.
Craig was outside. Craig was Jack’s step-son, but he loved him like he loved Mike. He became Craig’s stepdad when Craig was two years old and Sarah was one. Unlike Mike, Craig wasn’t interested in traveling, preferring to stay close to home. He was forest ranger in the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest. He was also a captain in the GANG, the Georgia Army National Guard. Craig used his position to start the local defense against the roaming gangs of people that came out of the big cities to plunder and murder in the country side.
Craig nodded at Jack, “Hey dad.” Craig was drinking coffee, the steam from the cup rising in the cold air. His Smith and Wesson Military and Police model pistol in .40 caliber was on his hip, and an M4 liberated from the GANG armory was strapped across his chest, “Getting cold out here.”
Jack nodded, “And it’s only going to get colder.”
