“A mold too,” Ratliff suggested. “A mold of the stump would be helpful.”
Meadows shook his head at Ratliff. “Make your mold if it makes you feel better but a 3D laser scan is the way to go. It’s a virtual, digital mold. We’re making a precision device not some Bronze Age casting.”
The chief nodded. “Meadows, you get scanning, and the rest of you go back to work. Scan, mold, measure.” He gestured at Boss. “I’m going to turn you over to Meadows to get what he needs. Then I’ll need to know where to find you when we’re ready for you to come back.”
“I’ll check back in with you,” Boss said. “Don’t worry about that.”
The chief couldn’t hide his dread. Nobody liked to work with someone staring over their shoulder.
“It will be okay,” Boss said. “I’ll give you all space to work. I appreciate your assistance with this. It won’t be forgotten.”
“You know anything about machining?” the chief asked. “We could use some help around the shop.”
“No, but do you need anyone killed?”
The chief broke into laughter. As funny as it was, he was certain Boss wasn’t joking.
8
The Valley
Jim hated meetings with a passion. He hated attending them, hating planning them, even hated seeing them on his schedule, back when he had a job, for the pure sense of dread that came along with knowing they were approaching. Before the collapse, when he was working every day at the state mental health agency, the knowledge that he had a meeting on a particular day was enough to dampen his mood from the moment he woke up in the morning. He came up with all sorts of ways to miss them. He would ask friends to call him during the meeting so he had an excuse to leave. He would set an alarm on his phone that sounded like a ringtone so he could claim he had to take the call. Anything to escape.
With the world gone to shit, here he was in a meeting again. The irony of it was that he was the very person who'd called it. It made him feel like a hypocrite, that the person in the valley who probably hated meetings the most had found it necessary to have one.
The fire pit area behind Jim's house had been the informal meeting space since the early days of the disaster. It was where they made important decisions, gathered to support each other, or shared meals together. While everyone could fit into Jim’s house if they had to, it was not comfortable. The house had been cramped before the collapse, but now it was worse. Moving Nana and Pops in led to things being stored in the hallways. Also, gear that used to be stored away—packs, Go Bags, tactical gear, weapons—was now stored in easily accessible places. This usually meant piled on the floor beside the front and back doors. The clutter and congestion in the house was something the family could tolerate if it was just them. With twenty more guests thrown into the mix, it was too tight.
The day was sunny with a blue sky and temperatures in the mid-fifties. After a particularly brutal winter the day felt nice and some folks wore short sleeves, basking in the warm spring sun like cats in sunbeams. The tribe was gathered. There was Randi’s family, Gary’s family, Charlie, Hugh, and Lloyd. The sheriff and his family had been invited but chose not to attend. Jim had the feeling that the sheriff’s family was struggling. They had supplies but were in a dark place emotionally. He was going to have to do some outreach and see if he could get them to engage. They were going to have to work this summer to survive another winter. They needed to plant food just like everyone else. They would have to accept, just like Jim had, that they could not go it alone.
Jim scanned the assembled faces. The adults looked back at him expectantly, waiting for him to get this show on the road. The children wouldn’t be particularly interested in what he had to say but they needed to hear it. It wasn't only the heads of households who would be part of the spring planting, but every able member of the assembled families. Like it or not, there would be work for everyone.
"I'm sorry to make you come to a meeting on such a pretty day. God knows I hate them as much as the next guy, but we need to talk about getting some crops in the ground. It's going to be labor-intensive and will require every set of hands we have.”
"It’s kind of nice to see everyone," Ellen said. “A meeting isn’t such a bad thing.”
Jim curled his lip into an involuntary sneer. "We see each other all the time. Having a meeting just takes a relaxed, casual interaction and turns it into drudgery."
Ellen held a hand up toward Jim, warding off his negativity. "Don't project your grumpiness on me. It's a beautiful day and I'm glad to see everyone here."
“Yeah, Mr. Grumpy Man,” Ariel piped in. Jim could always count on his daughter to keep him humble.
Jim tried to give her a glare but couldn’t hold it. It turned into a smile, then a laugh.
"I agree," Pops said. "It’s good to see everyone. You’re all looking well.”
Jim sighed and launched into the reason he’d called the meeting in the first place. He wanted to get it over with and go on about his day. "The sooner we get this started, the sooner it’s over with. We need to talk about planting. Several of us have been scouring the valley for seeds and had pretty good luck with it. From this point forward we’ll need to make an effort to save seeds every year, or until such point as we can go to the store and buy them again. We have enough for a good start. We’ll need to utilize existing garden spots right now. The soil there has been prepared before and will be the easiest to deal with. If it comes to it, we can try preparing some new ground in the future, but it will take a lot more work, especially without machines. Just getting the sod out can take a serious effort.”
"Will we have any machines to assist with gardening?" Gary asked. “Tillers? Tractors?”
“We will. There's a little gas left and I'd recommend we go ahead and use it. It probably won’t last much longer. Machines running it might be hard to start so we may have to use starting fluid. There're a couple of gas tractors in the valley we can outfit with plows, disks, or tillers."
"What about diesel?" Gary asked. "I would assume we have more diesel tractors out there."
"We do have some diesel left stored in heating oil tanks. It’s been treated and should last a while longer but we don’t have much. I’m really hoping to save it for emergencies. If we have to make an emergency run in a vehicle that diesel will be nice to have around. Even it won’t last forever, though. The days of no fuel will be here soon if the world doesn’t get back on track."
That statement fell on everyone like a wet blanket. Any moods elevated by the beautiful day were soured by the thought that things could get worse than they already were.
"So where do we start?" Randi asked. “Do we all grab what we like to eat and start planting our gardens?”
“Definitely not,” Jim said. He gestured at his dad. “Pops has more gardening experience than any of us. I'd like him to take a look at each garden and figure out what might best grow there. He can help plan the planting. What needs to go where and all that. Once the seeds are in the ground, it's a matter of watering, keeping the weeds beat down, and fencing out the animals."
"We’ll be using some of those solar-powered electric fence units," Pops said. "Scarecrows would help too and that might be a good project for the children"
"Oh, I can help with that," Nana offered. “I’ve got all kinds of ideas."
"We need more gardening implements too," Jim said. "People used to throw a tool away rather than attempting to repair it. I’m guessing that there are damaged gardening tools all up and down this valley that could be repaired and put back in service – hoes, rakes, shovels. Even if you just find a head, we can make a handle for it.”
"So, be on the lookout for old hoes?” Randi asked with a smirk.
Jim cracked up but there were some disapproving expressions that didn’t bother Randi in the least. "Glad you said that and not me," he said.
"When do you want to get started?" Hugh asked. “Takes me longer to get down into the valley so I need to plan in advance. It
’s a long walk up and down that mountain. And there’s no good garden spot up that high. The soil sucks.”
"We can start today. We need to burn the old gardens off if they’re dry enough to plant," Jim said. "I want to do them one at a time with everyone present so there’s no chance of the fire getting out of control. We can’t call the fire department if we catch this valley on fire." Jim shot Gary a look.
“What?” Gary asked. “What’s that look about?”
“Nothing,” Jim said with a smirk.
“Something!” Gary shot back.
“You know what it was for,” Jim replied.
Gary sneered. “A guy starts one wildfire and he’s labeled for life.”
“Just one?”
“Two!” Gary admitted. “Fine, okay? Two wildfires. For anyone who doesn’t know, I’ve started two wildfires from burning brush in my backyard. It’s all out in the open now. Happy, Jim?”
Jim grinned. “Yep.”
Randi cackled.
Pops cleared his throat. Gardening was serious business to him. "We can start planning immediately. I’ll try to get around to everyone’s garden spots today and check out the soil conditions. Then we’ll see what seeds we have and go from there. It would be good if someone could collect all the seeds and make a list.”
"Is that it?" Jim asked, rubbing his hands together and already preparing to get up from his seat.
“No, it’s not,” Pops said. “Everyone should be on the hunt for solar fence chargers, extra rolls of electric fencing, and the yellow clips that hold the wire to t-posts. If we don’t find enough we’ll have to take down some existing fence and reuse it.”
“Got it,” Jim said, pointing at Pops and repeating his list. “Fence posts, wire, solar chargers. Anything else?”
"Do you have to go to the bathroom or something?" Ellen asked. “Why are you in such a hurry?”
Although Jim didn't want to get into it and this certainly wasn’t the place to address it, he wasn't comfortable with the role he found himself in. He felt like he was in charge of this group, which was honestly the last thing in the world he wanted. Every time something came up they turned to him. He couldn’t escape it. Some days he wanted to take his family and move further back in the hills. He wanted to disappear and leave this feeling of responsibility behind him.
He couldn’t do it. He hadn’t been able to do it on that long walk home. It had been a constant struggle to accept he was part of a group and they needed him. He didn’t want either of those things. He didn’t want to be part of a group and he didn’t want the responsibility of being needed. The whole experience of surviving up until this point had been a lesson in accepting what the world threw at him. He didn’t get to control every single facet of his life. If he wanted the people gathered around him to survive this challenge then he had to push aside his personal feelings. He had to lead even if he hated leading. He had to accept responsibility even when he hated to do so.
He had to be a better person even when he was content being a selfish bastard.
“What are your thoughts on going into town?”
Jim was surprised. It was Gary’s wife, Debra, asking, and she was fairly quiet. “Uh, I think town sucks and I hope to never go back. I’d prefer to go hours out of my way than to pass through there ever again.”
“What about for the more normal of us?” she asked.
Randi and Ellen cracked up. Jim was taken aback.
“I’m joking,” Debra said. “It’s just that Gary mentioned there was some sort of flea market thing going on in the supercenter parking lot and there are things we need. I have things to trade and I was hoping to do some bartering. I’ve been growing some herbs, spices, and greens by the fire this spring.”
“They asked me about that this morning, Jim, and I wasn’t sure what to tell them,” Gary said. “I have a few things I’d like to barter off too. Some of the men we killed since coming here had decent knives on them and I’ve got more knives than my family needs. I thought they might trade well.”
Jim processed the information. Part of him wanted to stand up and shout, “Are you people nuts? Stay out of town!” yet he couldn’t do that. Already uncomfortable with being seen in a position of authority, he didn’t want to move on to being dictator.
“That’s a decision every family will have to make for itself,” Jim said. “I wouldn’t recommend taking children because it can be ugly and hostile. The risk of violence is pretty high, especially if you have anything that someone else may want to take. You have to go prepared for a fight and stay on your guard.”
“Can we borrow horses?” Gary asked.
He directed the question to Jim. Some of the horses belonged to Jim and others to Randi. They were all living at Jim’s place because it was better set up for caring for them. When Jim hesitated a bit too long, Randi spoke up.
“You can take my horses. You should double up, though. You don’t want to give the impression that you have a wealth of anything. People would probably try to trade them from you. If you refuse, things could get out of control.”
“She’s right,” Jim said. “Those of you who haven’t been out in a while have no idea how bad it’s gotten. We’ve probably lost more than half of the folks in the powerless areas of the country.”
“I don’t get it,” Lloyd said. “Why aren’t trucks rolling in with aid already?”
“The scale of the disaster is too big,” Jim said. “There are too few areas that have power and fuel for them to take care of everyone.”
“Plus, we haven’t exactly welcomed them with open arms,” Hugh said.
“You guys know why we did that,” Jim said. “They basically wanted to trade food for freedom and I’m not making that trade.”
“Hence the anger of the people in the community who feel you made the decision for them without giving them a vote in it,” Randi pointed out.
Jim was getting pissed now. They were only stating the obvious but he felt the comments were attacks on him, or at least put him in a position of having to defend his decision.
“To hell with those people!” Jim snapped. “I’m not sitting by and watching something like that happen. Even if we agreed to give up our rights temporarily, just until order was restored, they’d never agree that the time was right to give our guns back. If we accept surrender, you can’t back up and change your mind. Once your rights are gone, you don’t get them back.”
“Sit down,” Ellen said, trying to soothe him. “No one is attacking you. We’re just making sure everyone understands the situation.”
“Along those lines,” Gary said, trying to change the subject, “we need to make sure that anytime anyone says they heard a rumor that the folks in this valley were involved in the attack on the power plant, we need to shut it down. We need to tell them we heard there was an ice dam on the river that flooded the valley. Or you tell them that you heard there was an explosion that caused a landslide. Whatever you say, do not further the rumor that we played a role in that. We saw some hostility about that on our last trip to town, though most of it was directed toward Jim.”
Jim grimaced and bit his tongue. He wanted to unleash a torrent of profanity but not in front of the children. “I need to go split wood,” he growled. “You all can keep talking if you want to. I’m done.”
He stalked off toward the wood lot, mumbling as he went, the occasional stray word indicating that his profanity had found its voice.
9
Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling (JBAB)
Boss gave the machinists a couple of weeks to work on their project unmolested. He resisted the temptation to lurk in their shop and watch them. They’d probably have found his presence menacing even if it was not his intention. He had that effect on people. He didn’t want to rush them and he didn’t want to alienate them. He had a respect for the precision of machinists–they were technicians like himself—and he wanted them doing their best work. That would not come from him hanging over their shoulders and making
them nervous.
He assumed they’d contact him for more measurements, to test the fit, or at least ask questions, yet it never happened. The complex measurements they took in the beginning with the 3D laser scanner had measured his arm with a precision that no hand tool could match. It took thousands of measurements from thousands of individual data points in the time it would take have taken Meadows to close an old-fashioned manual caliper around his arm. Apparently, they had all they needed. He truly hoped that was the case. He would be extremely disappointed if they’d not contacted him because they hadn’t been able to commit any time to his project.
During his wait Boss distracted himself with his new assignment in the war room. He wasn’t just going through the motions; he put his extensive field experience to work running teams for Owen. Despite the state of things, Boss was surprised by how much was going on out there. Besides the general effort to get power restored to as many regions as possible there were projects aimed at building, supplying, and staffing “comfort camps” in the affected areas.
Getting fuel to places it was needed required a tremendous effort. There were heavily-armed tanker convoys transporting fuel on the interstates. Many secondary roads were blocked by abandoned vehicles. Clearing the roads was part of the effort. There were airlifts of fuel, filling massive bladders on the ground in remote locations. A lot of manpower was required to work on repairing the damaged refineries. Finding parts and getting them where they were needed was a logistical nightmare. The functioning refineries required significant defensive capabilities to deter theft. Raids were constant and the assignment had a high mortality rate.
On the black ops side of the coin there were covert missions being run every day, in every corner of the world. Communication challenges, as well as a lack of news coverage, made it the ideal time to strike against anyone you didn’t like. The powerful were eliminating their enemies in business and in government. Politicians were silencing those who had dirt on them. The intelligence community was assassinating their enemies at an alarming rate. Anyone who didn’t play ball with them disappeared. Around the world, terrorist leaders were being killed in their sleep, poisoned in cafes, or shot by snipers when they crawled from their holes. With scant oversight and no press, it was a great time to settle scores.
The Ungovernable Page 7
