by Jessy Cruise
He examined the rest of the box and found nothing but more packaging material. He then took another look at the radio itself to make sure that it was not in fact an explosive device of some sort before he carried it back. Though he was far from an expert on explosives, he was able to reasonably ascertain that there was no C4 or TNT attached or hidden in the parts. Finally, more than five minutes after he first kneeled down, he stood back up and walked over to the crowd.
"It's a portable radio," he announced, carrying it inside the box from which it had come. "And there was an envelope attached to the front of the box."
"What's in the envelope? What does it say?" asked nearly twenty different people in nearly twenty different ways.
"Let's go inside the cafeteria," he said to them. "Pass the word. I'm calling an emergency community meeting right away and I'll read it aloud."
It took almost twenty minutes before everyone gathered inside the school's cafeteria (with the exception of the guard force of course). Though the room was the largest in the school, indeed in the remaining township, there was not nearly enough seating for everyone. Well over half of the room was standing, many of them with small children in tow.
"Listen up everyone," Pat said from a podium near the front of the room, his words amplified via a PA system powered by a generator. "I'm sure that by now that all of you know a package was dropped from a helicopter onto our town a little over an hour ago. We are reasonably certain that this was the same helicopter - a former California Highway Patrol aircraft - that flew by and probed us not too terribly long ago. Inside of the package they dropped was packing material, a fire department portable radio that used to belong to the California Department of Forestry, and an envelope addressed to "the citizens of El Dorado Hills."
There was a considerable babble that rose up in the room at his words as he confirmed what most of them had already heard via the rumor mill.
"Now," he continued, "without any further ado, I will open up the envelope and read what is inside to you all. From there, we will then have an open discussion on what the meaning of it all is."
While the babbling rose back up, Pat utilized a pocketknife, the same one he'd used to open the package, to slit open the seal on the legal sized envelope. He peeled back the flap and removed a single piece of paper upon which rows of neat, typewritten text were printed. He unfolded it and set it down before him, his eyes taking in the first sentence: To the citizens of El Dorado Hills.
He put a pair of reading glasses upon his face and began to speak:
"To the citizens of El Dorado Hills," he read, "Greetings to you from your neighbors and fellow comet survivors in the town of Garden Hill. Before we go any further in this correspondence, let us reassure you first and foremost that we attempt this contact with you in the name of peace. We have no wishes of harm or conquest towards you and if you do not wish contact with us, we will respect that decision and leave you alone. Our purpose in this endeavor is nothing more than the wish to touch bases with others in the same predicament as ourselves, namely those that have managed to stay alive after the disaster that has stricken our planet and our civilization. We understand that talk is cheap and that, throughout history, many hostile undertakings by one group of people towards another have begun with peace overtures such as this one and that we have no way to convince you that we are sincere. But it is our hope that others out there our like ourselves and realize that the first step towards rebuilding after this calamity is communication with others. Trust has to begin somewhere so we hope that it can begin right here and it is our decision that we will start this process by being truthful and open with you.
"You are probably wondering just how we know about your existence in the first place. As you are aware, we are in possession of an aircraft that used to belong to the California Highway Patrol. You are also undoubtedly aware that this aircraft flew by your town a few weeks before during daylight hours. At that time we saw no hint of habitation in your town, most likely because your defensive strategy is to hide when faced with a potential threat. This is understandable given the current climate in the world. However, this helicopter is also equipped with a forward-looking infrared pod, or FLIR, and a reconnaissance mission at night did reveal the fact that your town is populated. Please forgive us for this spy-like activity. We are not proud of it, but we did feel it necessary to look at the surrounding terrain under all conditions just to see what, if anything, is out there. Do be advised that we have learned much with this aircraft and that we would be happy to share this knowledge with you if a relationship is established between our communities."
There was quite a bit of uproar from the floor of the cafeteria as they heard this. Some of the voices were angry, some fearful, some excited. Everyone, it seemed, had something to say however.
"Folks," Pat said, raising his voice a little, "please, let's keep nice and calm, okay? Let me finish reading the letter and then we'll have a nice, orderly talk about what it says."
Slowly the voices died down and the attention of the people was returned to him. "Okay," he said. "Continuing..."
"In the package we have dropped to you, you have found a VHF portable radio with a fully-charged battery. This radio is capable of talking to our helicopter up to a distance of ten miles or so, as long as there is a direct line-of-sight. The setting to place the radio on is channel 7 on the selector switch if you wish to do this. We will return to the vicinity of your town tomorrow at 12:00 PM (Pacific Daylight time - we have not made the adjustment in light of other considerations - this will be 11:00 AM if you have made the adjustment). We will hover nearby and attempt to contact you on this radio. If you do not wish to have contact with us at this time you can either ignore us completely or tell us on the above-mentioned frequency that you do not wish to contact us. If you do either of these things, we will leave you in peace and not bother you any further. If you do wish to make contact with us however, please reply when you hear our hails and we will take things from there.
"Please be advised as you decide on this Micker that we, in Garden Hill, are just as scared and alone as you in El Dorado Hills and that we will be taking as much of a chance by attempting contact. We are a small community that has barely managed to hang on through the recent events and we suspect that you are the same. Maybe together, we can help each other. Please remember that the first step is to establish trust between one another.
"Hoping that we will hear from you tomorrow, Garden Hill."
With that, Pat put down the letter.
"There you have it, folks," he said into the microphone. "Let's start hearing your thoughts on what this all means and what we should do about it."
The discussion that would follow would last until well after the dinner hour.
Mick had been left behind for the return mission to El Dorado Hills, replaced by Paula. Jack, as always, was in the observer's chair while Paula and Paul crammed themselves into the back. The flight was almost completely silent as everyone was lost in his or her own thoughts. Jack simply stared ahead of them, not watching the ground with the FLIR as he usually did. Paula nervously wrung her hands together, occasionally chewing on her lip as if in deep concentration. Paul, perhaps the most nervous of all since he had helped push this idea through, only looked down at his lap, his hands twisting a small scrap of paper into an unrecognizable shred.
"Five minutes," Skip announced when the passed over the Cameron Park airport. "We should be in radio range in less than three."
"Copy," Paul said automatically.
"I'm gonna cut to the south a little bit," Skip told them all. "I want to approach from an unexpected direction just on the off chance that they've laid a little trap for us."
"That's a comforting thought," Paula said with a frown.
"Hey," Skip said lightly, "it's my job to try to anticipate every eventuality. I like to think that they wouldn't do something like that, whether they want to talk to us or not, but I certainly can't say it's impossible."
Relying mostly on his own instincts to navigate by, Skip brought them around in a broad circle, passing over some low hills and a large debris field that had once been the south part of the developed area. He slowed his airspeed but increased his altitude and soon the main part of El Dorado Hills became visible in the distance.
"There it is," he told his back seat passengers.
Paul, not bothering to crane his head to peer out the front, checked his watch. "Right on time," he said.
"Are you ready to talk to them?" Skip asked.
"I'm ready."
"Okay," Skip replied. "Jack, if you would be so kind?"
"Right," Jack answered, reaching down and fiddling with the VHF radio for a moment. "Okay, Paul," he told him when he was finished, "your headset is patched in. Just key up that transmit button and you'll be live."
"And be sure to un-key it if you want to talk privately to us," Skip warned as he pulled into a high hover.
Paul nodded, putting his fingers on the button, which was located on the side of his earpiece. "Here goes nothing," he muttered and then keyed it up. "El Dorado Hills," he said. "This is Paul Terra onboard the helicopter from Garden Hill. Is anyone out there?"
Everyone was quiet as they listened for a reply in their headsets. They waited ten seconds, hearing nothing.
"El Dorado Hills," Paul repeated, "this is Paul Terra, representative of Garden Hill speaking to you from the helicopter. Is anyone out there? Please reply."
"Good afternoon, Mr. Terra," a male voice answered a few seconds later. "This is Patrick Wilson, representative of El Dorado Hills, speaking to you on the radio you dropped to us."
A sigh of relief was breathed in the aircraft as everyone let out the breath that they had been holding. Careful smiles were exchanged.
"Mr. Wilson," Paul said, speaking formally. "I'm glad you decided to communicate with us. You probably have us on visual hovering just to your south. Are you reading my transmissions all right?"
"I'm reading you just fine," was the reply. "Please state for us exactly what your intentions are today."
Paul was somewhat taken aback by the curtness of the tone. "Our intentions," he answered, "are nothing more than establishing contact with another group of survivors. As we stated in the letter we delivered to you, we come in peace and we mean no harm to you or those in your town. We just want to talk, maybe find some common ground. As we also stated in our letter, if you do not wish to talk to us or communicate with us, we will go away and leave you alone."
"Well," Wilson answered back, "we decided that we would leave that option open for the time being. Suffice it to say that your appearance and the drop you made has created quite the turmoil among us down here. We finally decided to hear what it is you have to say before we elect whether or not to maintain any kind of contact with you."
"Understandable," Paul said. "And let me assure you that the decision whether or not to attempt this contact has created quite the turmoil in our town as well. Eventually the decision was made to give it a whirl, so here we are."
"Here you are," Wilson replied. "How are things up the hill where you came from? Are you the only group of survivors in the area?"
Paul took a few breaths before replying, a part of him very reluctant to share information with strangers. Was this really a good idea? Good or bad though, it had been decided that they would be truthful with these people as much as practical. "Things are going fairly well for us up there," he said. "Many of our houses are still intact and livable and we have recently secured enough of a food supply to carry us through, hopefully, until the sun comes back out. Armed men at one point attacked us but we were able to fight them off before they did too much damage. As for other groups, we've done recon of the Interstate 80 corridor from the snowline at six thousand feet all the way to the valley and along the Highway 50 corridor from the valley to Placerville. There are a lot of dead people out there but not many living ones. The only other group that we've taken note of is in Auburn."
There was a long silence on the airways, probably while this Patrick Wilson person was discussing what had been revealed with others. Finally, after about a minute, he came back on the air. "Forgive the pause in conversation," he told them, offering no explanation for it. "Have you made contact with Auburn as you are doing with us?"
"We have not," Paul told him. "We don't know what the exact population of Auburn is at this point but it is obvious from our observations that it is considerably more than what we have. There were also certain things about the town that made us a little uncomfortable with it. We elected to avoid contact with them for the time being."
Another long pause occurred. "Please clarify," Wilson said when he came back on, "what you mean by 'certain things'. Do you believe you have something to fear from Auburn? Do we have something to fear from them?"
"We don't really know if anyone has anything to fear from them," Paul said. "We're just being careful at this point. There is really no single thing that made this decision for us; it's more a combination of many things - their larger population being one of them. They also have a lot of guns. After some discussion among ourselves, we just thought it best to leave well enough alone."
"I see," came the reply, again after several moments of silence. "And where did you get the helicopter?"
"We got if from the airport at Cameron Park," Paul told him. "One of our townspeople is a pilot and we had an expedition out that way a few weeks ago. We've airlifted the fuel from the airport and returned it to our town. We should warn you that there is evidence of a group of people that are armed and practicing cannibalism out here on your side of the canyon."
"Cannibalism?" he returned, his voice showing strong emotion for the first time.
"Yes," Paul said. He explained about the bodies that Skip and company had found that had literally been butchered.
"I must say," Wilson said slowly, "you've managed to shock us here."
"I'm sorry," Paul said, "we just thought that maybe you should know."
"I understand and agree," he told them. "Thank you for sharing that with us." There was another pause, this time with the microphone open. They heard Wilson take a deep breath, as if deciding something. After a moment he asked, "Can you stand by on the air for just a minute? There's something I wish to discuss with my companions here."
A look was passed around the chopper. "Uh... sure," Paul finally answered. "We'll be standing by. Just start talking again when you're ready."
"Thank you, I'll be back with you in a moment." With that, there was a click as the connection was closed.
"What was that about?" Paula asked.
"I think Paul gave him some food for thought," Skip answered.
"It would seem so," said Paul. He turned to Skip. "Skip, what's your take on this? You're good at listening to people and hearing deceit and all that. What do you think so far?"
Skip thought about that for a moment. "I'm not sure," he said. "It's hard to read people over a scratchy radio link. You have to be able to see their body language. He seems sincere enough based on what I've heard, but we don't know what's going on down there."
"What do you think they're doing right now? Why the pause for discussion?"
"I couldn't even begin to guess," Skip said. "Jack, how we looking on the FLIR?"
Jack, who had been scanning the area since they'd first pulled into a hover, looked up. "Nothing down there," he said. "No people, no animals, nothing. Just trees and mud."
"Well, they're not setting up an attack on us," Skip said. "At least there's that."
"I'm just glad they answered us," Paula said. "It would've been depressing to waste all of this fuel and sacrifice one of our radios just for nothing. I think they're a lot like us."
"Why do you think that?" Paul wanted to know.
"I don't know," she said. "Woman's instinct? Psychic flash? Something just tells me that they're being on the up and up down there."
"Interesting," Paul said thoughtfully.
&nbs
p; A full five minutes went by before the click of the transmission being opened reoccurred. "Mr. Terra," said Wilson's voice, "are you still there?"
"We're still here," Paul replied.
"Mr. Terra," he said, "I have discussed this with my fellow townspeople here and we have come to a decision. We would like to extend an invitation to your group to meet with us face to face. It seems that you have much information that we would be negligent to ignore. We, in turn, have information that you might find useful as well. Is there any way that you would consent to landing?"
"No," Skip said immediately, before anyone else had a chance to respond. His words were only transmitted to the helicopter occupants since he had not keyed up his headset.
"Stand by on that, Mr. Wilson," Paul said. "We need to have a discussion of our own."
"I understand," Wilson returned. "Please be advised that if you do not wish to land in our town, perhaps you could drop someone off outside of it and we could pick them up. We would be agreeable to this as well. I know that promises do not mean very much in this day and age, but we will promise to return your people safely whenever they wish to go."
"We'll take that into consideration," Paul said. "Please stand by, we'll get back to you."
"Standing by," he told them. The click of closed transmission came again.
"Absolutely not," Skip said firmly. "We will not land this helicopter down there."
"Skip," Paula started.
"No," he repeated. "It's too risky. Establishing contact is one thing. Risking giving those people hostages is quite another. We have no idea what their intentions are."
"I think we should do it," Paul said.
"What?" Skip said, taking his eyes off his instruments to look at him. "Are you crazy? You want to land right in their town and take the chance that they'll capture us and the helicopter?"
