Pandemic Reboot: Survivors

by Krause, J. F.

  “We had a few Brits, too, and some Argentines and Brazilians!” added Marco. “It appears that once the small clusters of people came together, they learned that resources are everywhere, but human resources are really limited and really spread out. We need each other. People know that. Most people know that, and they’re willing to help.”

  “Mary just said those exact words. They’re willing to help.” Carl could be a very persuasive speaker. “This meeting may be a very good opportunity to get a lot of talented people together to bring about some foundational changes in how we as a species treat each other. People all over the world, really, are willing to help each other, because that is the only way to help themselves. Ourselves. So should we plan on coming up with a local blueprint for the west coast, or should we plan on using west coast expertise to set the stage for all of us who are interested in finding a common cause and come up with a blueprint for that? In reality, I think we are already helping each other, at least with information and advice. Maybe the next thing we need to do is to consciously do what we are already unconsciously doing.”

  “Conscious competence! I remember that from school. We go from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence to conscious competence to unconscious competence! We just witnessed ourselves make the journey from not knowing what we don’t know, to knowing what we don’t know. And now we can plan how to learn what we don’t know! This is an ‘epiphany’, and ‘aha’ moment, folks.” LaWanda had our attention with that. The conversation stopped as we took a moment to think about what she had just said.

  At that moment, I remembered that we were being broadcast live on radios all over the continent, and maybe the world. I hope we hadn’t said anything to offend anyone. Then again, the age of secrets got almost everyone killed. We would have to get over it.

  The meeting went on until lunch. I got a couple of boxed lunches and went home to check on Kevin. Avery Wells fell in beside me along with Mary Truitt and Jane. It appeared that Kevin was about to have a lot of company. Everyone had at least one lunch, with Jane carrying four, one for herself and three for Julie, Kyle, and Eric.

  Avery had some ideas about training a new generation of art curators. I’m a little on the artistic side so he was preaching to the choir. Avery, himself, was trained in many of the skills we would need if we were to preserve even a small amount of the abandoned museums and art gallery’s that were literally everywhere now.

  As we approached, I heard piano music coming from my new home. I thought it was a recording, but something about it made me think it was live and coming from the grand piano on the main floor. I wondered if it were a player piano. I hadn’t looked too closely. As we entered, I saw the back of Kevin’s shock of red hair. He was sitting at the keyboard playing something way beyond my meager skills. Julie was sitting beside him on the left side of the bench, and Kyle and Eric were standing on his other side. Kevin was a pianist?

  “Jeepers, Kevin! I didn’t know you could play piano!” I just sort of blurted that out.

  “You never asked. Of course, I haven’t had time to play anything since this began. Jane knew I played, though.”

  Jane just shrugged.

  Kevin stood up and gave everyone a hug. Mary immediately became a doctor again. “I think we’re witnessing history! An American doctor is making a house call, and we were there! First, we have an ‘aha moment’ and now this!” Avery had a sense of humor after all! He and Mary looked at each other and suddenly she looked down and blushed. Avery, being exceptionally courteous, quickly apologized, but he still had a small smile. I looked at Kevin just then and saw his eyebrows go up. Then he saw me looking at him and winked! I blushed, too.

  We all had lunch at the big dining room table, and then we cleaned up after ourselves. Conversation was very light for the first few minutes, then Mary brought up her ideas about a medical school or schools again. She had given it some thought since discussing it with the large group this morning. I suggested that she make a point of talking with Carl in his role as a member of the education group. We were going to break into three smaller groups when we got back. Our job was primarily to prepare questions that needed to be answered, or at least more fully nuanced by the west coast group beginning tomorrow.

  One of our groups would be working with training our next generations in the new environment. The other would be to prioritize the maintenance and goods and services going forward. Of course, these two areas were very intertwined. The third areas was collaboration between the communities of survivors, and it would impinge on both of the other two. Each of them, to different degrees, depended on the others. In reality, nothing was as simple as having just three areas for study and discussion would imply. But we were too few in number to make it as complicated as we could if we had more people and the even more skills.

  As we got back to the conference area we were met by George and a couple of other men. They were mad as wet cats, all three of them. Of course, they had heard the broadcast of our meeting. Every meeting I had was recorded and almost all of them were broadcast on the radio the same day if not as they happened. In a world with little news, I was always making headlines. I could see that Mary Truitt was really taken aback since she hadn’t seen him in action. I hadn’t seen the other two men but I could imagine that George was out recruiting since he didn’t have a job to speak of. Avery actually stepped between George and me. I’ve never been in a fight and probably should have been a bit more afraid than I was, but I found Avery’s response a pleasant surprise. Of course, Jovantha Barnes was right there, too. She didn’t say anything; she didn’t have to. Jovantha sort of radiated what a Marine meant to me. She was the one who heard Todd on the internet and set up a siren that attracted all the other Marines to her meeting area. From there, they found the dependent survivors and eventually came to the Richard Nixon Library.

  Seconds later, Marco was right there as well as was Carl, Todd, and Zach, who had just delivered three people from Eureka. The Eurekans, two women and a man standing several feet away, were transfixed by George and his companions. Zach immediately came over to stand next to me.

  “Listen you fuckin’ little bastard! You’re not giving my country away to some grasping foreigners. Why didn’t you tell us that there were foreigners shooting at Americans. Who gave them permission to come sniffing around our country? You?”

  As he took a breath to continue, Jovantha stepped in front of him and very firmly said, “Mr. Francis, step back. And you, sir, take your hand off your weapon. Now!” The man she was addressing about the ‘weapon’ actually had a gun in a holster at his hip, like a gunslinger. And yes, he did have his hand on his gun just like he intended to do something with it.

  I’m sure George saw the other soldiers appearing from three different directions all with rifles ready. He stepped back, as did his gunslinger who also lifted both hands, and the other guy with them peed his pants. I was glad we were on a tile floor. Piss can be hard to get out of a carpet. I also noticed that two of Todd’s colleagues had cameras in hand and were catching the entire scene. I guessed we must be getting ready start television, too.

  This was actually pretty interesting and would be a good snippet for TV, at least that was going through my head at the time. Stressful things seem to slow everything down for me, and I don’t panic. I prefer to do my panicking later when I’m alone, and I knew that I would be as soon as I could take the time, just not now.

  “George, you don’t get to veto anything this group is discussing. You don’t get to dictate what anyone else is going to do. On top of that, one of your companions brought a gun into this office and appeared ready to use it against unarmed people. When you can talk to me in a civil manner, I’ll be happy to schedule an appointment. My time is not at your beck and call. And you, Mister,” I said rounding on the guy with his hands in the air, “don’t ever bring a gun into this office again.” I wasn’t exactly angry, but I wasn’t not angry either.

  “And what about all the gun
s your people have?” George never knew when to call it quits.

  “Every person here with a gun is a sworn defender. Except for your friend here. By the way, what’s your name?” I thought I was being pleasant. After all we hadn’t met that I knew of, and he’d already almost pulled a gun on me.

  “My name’s none of your business!” Mr. None of Your Business had a surprisingly high voice for someone his size.

  “His name’s Thomas Carvel” contributed Jane, who knew everyone. “He’s not a member of any work group. Neither is George’s other friend ,Harold Johnson. For that matter, neither is George Francis.” I think Jane said that for the cameras. I don’t think George missed that fact either.

  “Well, gentlemen, go home, put your feet up, take a valium, chill. Nothing is going to be done without the consent of our community.” I proceeded to the conference room.

  Just before I entered, I turned to Jovantha. “Thank you. You’re a brave woman. I’m very grateful we’re on the same side.”

  “Thank you, sir. It was my honor.” No smile, just resolve.

  After we settled into the conference room, I addressed the group. “That was exhilarating! How about we break into three groups to develop a list of questions for the west coast group to tackle tomorrow. Feel free to make suggestions of your own. I was thinking we need to address questions about what and how to educate our future children. We also need to set up a sort of triage of goods and services we need. Finally, we need to start asking questions about whether we should collaborate with different communities, beginning with the west coast and continuing across the whole continent. Now, after our conversation this morning and this little confrontation just now, perhaps we should begin discussing the efficacy of collaboration beyond the North American continent. Is it doable? Is it a good idea? And if it’s doable, how would we go about doing it? Okay, that’s all I want to say right now.”

  No one wanted to add anything so we got right to work. Carl and Mary went next door to gather a few others to talk about training and education. Avery and LaWanda went to a room across the hall to talk further about goods and services with a few others they called in, and Irma and Marco went to one of the office next to mine to discuss intercommunity dynamics. I went to the reception area with Lydia and Jane to meet our guests. Most of them were already here. Surprisingly, the further they had to travel the earlier they got here. The Canadian settlements were very interested in the George Francis confrontation. Of course, they already knew of George from earlier broadcasts. He was famous it seems and not in a good way.

  We had finger food and schmoozed. I hate schmoozing, but I can do it if I have to, and I had to this time. Before long, it was time to break for dinner, which we did altogether. Not everyone was here yet. The Hoover Dam group was driving instead of flying. They stopped in Las Vegas to pick up the LV people and they caravanned in several vans. We expected them by later this evening. I really didn’t know why they decided to drive.

  Then, after all I had been through during the day, I was suddenly tired and all I wanted was to go home and go to sleep. I remember walking with Hector on one side of me and Jovantha on the other.

  Fourth Tuesday

  I woke up in a strange room. Kevin was dressed in white and was doing something to the tube in my nose. His smile was all I remember.

  Fourth Wednesday

  I was alone this time. Or at least I thought I was. The room was darkened and I was a little confused. I didn’t know where I was, so I moved a bit to look around. Immediately, Kevin stirred himself from a chair over by the window. He was over to me in a moment looking down with concern all over his face. I felt better already. I was safe, but I didn’t know where I was. A few minutes later, Dr. Truitt came in to see me. I could see by the clock on the wall that it was 6 something. I didn’t know if it was six in the morning or the afternoon. It seemed sort of dark outside. When I tried to talk, Kevin shushed me, gently.

  Dr. Truitt spoke to me softly. I could just make out that she was asking me questions. Did I know where I was? Did I know my name? Did I know who Kevin was? Did I know her? Did I remember what happened?

  I knew all the answers except the last one. What happened to me? I remembered walking out of the dinner hall with Hector and Jovantha. Where were they? Something must have happened when we walked out of dinner. Where were the boys? How long had I been asleep?

  I asked about the boys and Kevin told me they were fine. Irma was with them. They were home. They were very happy that I woke up yesterday and they would be here to see me as soon as I was a little more alert. I had been in a coma for almost over a week!

  I learned that Jovantha was shot in the left arm when she stepped in front of me after the first shot grazed my head. She probably got the bullet that would have killed me. Unfortunately, she didn’t keep the bullet and it lodged in my chest. In addition to that bullet which would leave a scar, I now had a perfectly placed permanent part in my hair. Jovantha was going to be just fine and was now at her own place being looked after by her friends and the occasional doctor. Hector was not hurt and got off a shot of his own. He hit someone because they found blood, but the shooter or shooters got away. George, Thomas Carvel, and Harold Johnson were all gone from their places when they went to look for them. The Hoover Dam and LV people passed a speeding car about half an hour from town so it was presumed to be the shooter. We hadn’t heard any reports of sightings since then and it was presumed they were hiding out somewhere in one of the empty towns or farm houses that were everywhere.

  The meetings had all taken place just as we planned last week. Most of the west coast leaders had returned home last Friday, and several were back again this week along with an even bigger group from outside the west coast area. We had just hosted groups from almost every state and most provinces. Much to the delight of most everyone, there had been “observers” from countries all over the place. Most of the delegates were leaving Friday afternoon to start discussions with their own people. The mood was very upbeat, and they were pleased to tell me that I would be proud that they had done it on their own, albeit following my ideas and vision. I had a vision?

  On the down side, there were places, and more than we were able to completely identify, where civil behavior had completely broken down. The populations had either been so decimated that they fragmented or they had become victims of their own versions of Indianapolis. If the survivors weren’t able to get together soon enough, they lost electrical power and that created a major stumbling block to assembling enough people to put basic power back together.

  Iceland had been a near miss purely because of low numbers of survivors. Someone quickly started organizing survivors, but their numbers were fewer than 100 and no one could fly a plane. No one felt comfortable navigating a boat in the middle of winter, and they almost lost power before they figured it out. Being very computer savvy, they established a connection to a survivor group in Scotland and managed to get themselves connected. Their big decision was still to come: should they stay or should they abandon their ancestral home. The same was true of Greenland, which had fewer survivors than almost any political entity. A group in Newfoundland had connected to them.

  In some cases, there was an even direr situation that developed. The first organized survivor group in some areas had taken the Indianapolis route and no one had been there to stop them. That happened more than a few times. Fortunately, many of the survivors in those places had been able to disappear and make it to a safe place. but sometimes there was no option to escape. Large swaths of the planet had simply begun the fall into a new Neolithic age. Others had kept some technology but had reinstated feudal societies. Hearing these reports had added a lot of motivation to finding ways to work together to preserve everything we could of our time before.

  Dr. Truitt and the guy who had actually done surgery on me, Dr Cyrus Rouhani, were by my side almost as soon as I was awake. I asked them if I could at least meet the delegates tomorrow, and after much discussion, it
was decided that we would have a sort of reception in the arboretum, which was attached to the clinic on Friday, that is if I were a good patient and if I continued to improve. Dr. Truitt was my hero and also my chief jailer. She finally tilted the discussion toward allowing me to at least say hello and speak briefly to everyone but I would not be allowed to get into heavy discussions. I understood the hard work would all be completed by then anyway, or mostly so.

  As it turned out, it had been 6AM when I woke, and now it was almost 8. The boys and Dinah were able to visit briefly before they went off to their school and day care. Irma was with them since she was staying at our house while Kevin stayed here with me. He’d slept in my room every night since the shooting.

  They came back after school for a while. Irma told me she thought I would be very pleased with the results of the meeting and that Lydia would bring over a full report tomorrow when I could keep my eyes open. All of the children kissed my cheek, even Dinah. They have all been practicing their instruments.