Cascadia Fallen: The Complete Trilogy, page 20
18
“We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope.”
- Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Tahoma’s Hammer + 9 Days.
Payton woke up because of back pain. Cots suck, she thought. I miss my bed. I miss showers. I miss a lot of things. Savannah was still sleeping. Her dad’s cot was empty. Of course. Always has to be out and on top of stuff, doesn’t he? She pulled off the thin, warm base-layer pieces Phil had provided. He had set aside some clothing for her and Crane years ago as part of the boxes he packed out of his shop. The undergarments were stretchy enough to compensate for the girth that came with both age and pregnancy. She slid on her favorite purple leggings. Gonna have to wash these soon, she thought, giving them the sniff test. Ugh. Nothing like having to pee every two hours during the apocalypse, she mused to herself. She put on more used clothing and a camo-colored military poncho—what on Earth is flecktarn? she wondered, looking at the weird pattern. She opted to let Savannah sleep, wondering if she was putting too much trust in the range’s perimeter and guard network. She made her way to Bay 9 to take care of morning business.
Dawn was starting to break and there was only a mist. The rain had stopped an hour earlier. Someone’s kept the burn pit going, she noticed. It was decently sized at just under seven feet across. Pre-Hammer, its purpose had been for disposing of natural vegetation every time they had a range clean up. Now it had become a source of heat, light, warmth, and trash disposal. There were mounds of firewood up at the field, and several members had moved some down near the pit. Somebody had used scrap metal to rig up two supports and a pipe across the pit. There was a kettle and a Dutch-oven hanging on the pipe. Maybe we can build a clothesline here, too…
She wandered past the bay where their tent was set up and continued up the path towards the office in search of her water bottle—and coffee. Several people had set up their propane camp stoves at the kitchen. There’s always old people up by now, and that means coffee is ready. She got a wave from her dad as she passed the office. The candle in there cast a soft glow in the gray of pre-morning. There was a lantern lighting up the kitchen end of the chow hall.
“Mornin’,” she mumbled as she strode into the small space.
“Oh! Hi!” It was Donna Gladstone, wife of one of the range officers, Vic. “You snuck up on me,” she said, laughing. They were spry for their age, probably mid-seventies, Payton decided.
“Sorry. Just looking for some go juice. And a bite, maybe.”
“Yes. I was, too. I thought I’d left a jar of cinnamon apple slices out. I can’t seem to find it, though…”
“Hmmm…” Payton said, sounding more like Phil than she realized. “Haven’t seen it.” She poured herself a cup of the real stuff and walked out. I’ll have instant on cup two.
Payton sat at one of the tables in the bigger room and stared out the window at the parking lot and roof to the pistol line. She was realizing that the events that had driven her out there were not going to resolve themselves anytime soon. Normal pregnancy thoughts about reveal parties and baby showers were starting to replace themselves with real worries. She couldn’t help but think about things like having enough diapers or pre-natal vitamins. She was also continuously worried about what she would do out there if the event didn’t wrap itself up. What am I doing here? Laundry? Meals? It all sounds so boring. Lastly, she was stressed about her baby brother. She hadn’t heard from him and the thought that he might be dead was too much for her to bear.
She headed across the lot to the office and found her dad inside.
“Have you noticed things disappearing?” she asked her dad.
“Um… no?” Phil said half questioningly. “Why?”
“Donna can’t find something in the kitchen. And yesterday I had to find batteries for a flashlight that had them the day before.”
“Great…” Phil said. “Just what we need.” The look on his face told Payton he wasn’t pleased to hear that. He was continuing to look over the lists of people staying at the range.
“Whatcha doing?” she asked as she sipped her coffee.
“Just thinking about the watch-bill. Trying to see if we can get the back corners manned—maybe start a twenty-four-hour command post up at Jerry’s HAM shack.” He eyeballed her coffee, sniffing jealously. “Whatcha up to, honey? Where’s Peaches?”
“Sleeping.” Duh…
“What? You’re kidding, right?”
Oh. My. God. “Why are you starting with me so early?!” Payton exclaimed.
“Lose the attitude, kiddo,” Phil responded in his best dad voice. “Pardon the pun,” he said while eyeballing her mojo, “but you need to wake up and smell the coffee.
Crap’s gone sideways!”
“I don’t see what the big deal is! Your wannabe mall-ninjas are guarding us! She’s fine!” She’s my daughter, old man. You raised yours—let me raise mine!
Phil set down his papers and stood as close to his original 5’ 11” that his false leg would allow. It always seemed that those closest to people knew exactly which buttons to push.
“It is a matter of time, Payton. The rule of law is dissolving. One day soon people out there are going to decide they want what’s in here. It’s no more complicated than that!” There was no hiding the emotion on Phil’s face when his kids pulled his strings. He wasn’t as upset with her decision as he was with her know-it-all attitude. “You’d better realize that you need a plan to guard her at every moment!” His voice was raising as his blood pressure went up. “Lose the sarcasm. Now!”
Payton slammed her coffee mug down on the glass display case. With fiery eyes she turned and stormed out.
The rut. That’s what Crane had started calling his life. Get up. Eat. Bus. Work. Eat. Work some more. Bus. Eat. Sleep. Repeat. He was starting to lose his sense of humor. Everyone was. I don’t know how these sailors can do it for months on end. He was sitting down in his old locker room near Dry-dock F, eating a partial MRE for lunch. The sailors at the camp were issuing them to the workers whenever they headed back into the shipyard. I wonder how long until they start cutting these in half to make them last longer.
He had been reunited with Billy and Tracy. Just like “The Day,” Crane thought. Previously Billy had been working at the east end of the shipyard, monitoring the leaning Hammerhead crane with a transit. The old tower had finally given up the fight the day before, crashing to the east. It was a loud death as tons of eighty-year-old concrete and re-bar twisted and broke, releasing the green steel skeleton. The giant crane only damaged its own pier as she went, landing in the water south of the next pier over. The stout turntable had miraculously withheld the force of the impact, and now the crane’s boxy engine compartment stuck out of the water, pointing up and westward almost a hundred feet in the air. The boom rested near vertically, smashed into the bottom of the inlet. The proud behemoth that had once placed barrels into battleship turrets had now finished her own history, another victim of Tahoma’s Hammer.
The trio were part of a fifteen-person scaffold team assigned to that dock, trying to save both it and the aircraft carrier inside. The shipyard was operating on back-up power provided by their own power plant out on the base. The boilers ran on both natural gas and coal. There’s irony, Crane thought. Using coal to save nuclear ships. Nobody was saying how much coal they had, but Crane figured it wasn’t much the way they were pushing to get things done. He was pretty sure the gas lines were all broken. He also knew they were up against the invisible wall called “time.”
“Dude, I can’t stop shivering,” Billy said.
They had come up for a meal and to dry out. The day before they and several others had built a forty-eight-foot tall scaffold tower. It was to be placed at the worst of the leaks on the west end of the Dry-dock F caisson. That morning they and the crane-riggers set the tower into place directly in the gush of seawater. The shipyard had propane-powered shower trailers which were lukewarm at best. The trio had donned coveralls after their showers. The petite Tracy was even worse off. She was short and skinny, lacking the necessary body fat to maintain any warmth. Crane felt sorry for her.
“You two should hug it out. You know—to keep warm,” Crane snickered.
“Uh—ewww!” Tracy said. “You know you’re older than my dad, right?” she said to Billy, ensuring there were no false impressions on his part.
Crane and Billy started laughing. It turned into one of those moments where they all started laughing hysterically, feeding off each other. If we’re not laughing we’re crying, I guess. “What’s next?” Crane asked Billy.
“Well, Geoff says we need to stand by and be ready to add, raise, or lower levels at the welder’s request. Personally, I don’t think this is going to work.”
“Why not?” Tracy asked.
“Heat,” Billy guessed. People who worked in the shipyard for entire careers started to pick up key aspects of the trades around them. “How many times have either of you gone and built a rain cover for the welders?”
They were both dumbfounded by the simplicity of the question. “Countless,” Crane said. “It’s Washington State, for crying out loud.”
“Yeah, well, that’s not just cuz they’re pansies. The steel needs to be dry and hot.”
“Ok, but what about underwater welding?” Tracy countered.
“Look, I’m no welder,” Billy stated. “But I do believe that underwater welding uses different processes, like gas-curtains and such. I don’t know…maybe I’m wrong. I just got a feeling.”
Yeah, Crane thought. And just yesterday your last feeling came true in a crash of glory.
“Mel, you have to trust me,” Charlie pled with his wife. “You don’t know how bad it’s getting. I do. The stores have been robbed blind. Honest people are stealing from each other.”
“What about the curfew?” his wife asked earnestly.
“We can’t enforce it. There’s just not enough of us anymore.” What he didn’t say was that they were outnumbered by the gang patrols. Charlie was pleading with his wife to move out to Phil’s camp.
“But I don’t know those people,” she said. “The only one I’ve met is Phil. You don’t know most of them either,” she reminded him.
“I’ve been out there a few times since it started. Phil has set up the real deal. And since when have you been afraid to talk to people?”
“Shouldn’t we just go to one of the FEMA centers then?”
“The FEMA—” Charlie cut himself off as his voice started to raise. “Hon, the FEMA centers are crowded. We go there almost every night to break up fights. They have food, but they’re jam packed, and they don’t have much in the way of security.”
“I thought the National Guard was protecting them?”
“The ones that showed up are.” He knew something his wife didn’t. The Guard had a less than sixty percent show up rate and had been seeing a slow increase in soldiers going AWOL. They’d go out on a task and never come back. “But they’re overworked. Pretty soon we’ll have to start backing them up. And we’re overworked.” Some of the deputies have quit coming in, too, he didn’t add.
They sat in their living room, quietly debating because neither wanted to upset their kids. The kids were in their rooms listening to every word, duly aware that their police officer father was scared about something.
“Give me one good reason—besides our safety—that you want me and the kids to go stay at this gun range of yours.”
Charlie had been prepped and waiting for this argument, but he pretended to think for a bit. “How about my safety…”
“Huh?” Melinda wasn’t expecting that.
“Hon, it is a dangerous time. We’ve been seeing an increase in violence like we’ve never seen before. Every night we get stopped by people running out of their house. They’ve been tied up. Beaten. Robbed.” He choked up thinking about it. Raped, he didn’t add. “People are hungry and thirsty, which makes them desperate. People who’ve never stolen a thing are stealing.” His closing argument in this court of debate was, “I can’t do my job if I’m constantly thinking bad things are happening to you and the kids.”
If that doesn’t get her...
After an extended silence, “Alright. What do we need to do?” the middle school teacher conceded.
“How bad is it?” Sandy McCallister asked Major Adam Matsumoto. The Port Angeles resident normally managed a Home Depot. He had done his six-year active-duty obligation after college, separating from the Army nine years earlier. He’d worked for the national retailer most of the time since, taking the manager’s job in that city’s branch a year earlier. The Guard had allowed him to transfer to the unit in Bartlett from his original one in King County just four months earlier. He was the Commander of Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion, 191st Infantry Regiment, 61st Brigade Combat Team, known locally as “The Huntin’ Cougars.” Adam was not personally pleased with the company’s moniker, likening it to many of the women that frequented the bars in the Navy town.
“Not good, ma’am. We’re running at about fifty-five percent strength.” The major had been on active duty long enough to remember to only answer the question asked and nothing more.
“And what is the Guard doing to fix that, Major? May I remind you that the police are over-taxed? Some of them go home and don’t come back! The charities are running out of food, and the crowd down at the sports field is starting to get vocal.”
“Well, ma’am. We have the best show up record in the battalion and second best in the regiment. Honestly, there is nothing to do. Regarding the unrest, I thought there was a curfew…”
“Ineffective.” Sandy paused. “And your muster rate just isn’t satisfactory, Major,” she said, not wasting any of her charm on a reserve officer.
“No, ma’am. I can’t disagree.”
When people use double negatives, they’re hiding something, Sandy thought. “Well I’m glad for that, Major,” she said sarcastically. This goofball really doesn’t like me, does he? “Major, you’re going to need to lockdown your AWOL rate. I have some friends down at Camp Crandall that can help you if you need me to call them.” Camp Crandall was what they were calling the state’s replacement EOC down in Vancouver. She could tell by the look of anger that he was getting the message. “Have your superiors mentioned anything about regular troops?”
“You mean, as in active-duty, ma’am? No. I believe posse comitatus would interfere with that. Right?” He was referring to the law that made it illegal for the American armed forces to perform civil policing.
“Until it doesn’t,” Sandy said. “You see—if you all and the police and everyone else quits coming to work, things are just going to get worse. Aren’t they?”
“I suppose so, Director McCallister.” He was ice cold.
“Enlightening. Thank you for coming over, Major.” You’re excused.
The citizen-soldier picked himself up out of the cushioned chair in front of Sandy’s desk and left. She gave him a five-second head start and then followed him out into the county’s EOC. “Gerry? A moment,” she ordered her Number Two.
“On the way, Director.”
Geraldine closed the door behind herself as she entered The Godfather’s lair.
“Just before the Major showed up, I was on a secure call from Camp Crandall. Things aren’t well.”
“How so, Director?”
Sandy was blunt. “The feds. They’re not coming.”
“Ma’am?” Gerry choked. “What does that mean, ‘not coming?’ They can’t just... not come.”
“Well, I guess it’s a ‘straw and camel’s back’ thing. The assistant state director said that FEMA Region X told them we’re on our own. Something about blackouts, hackers, riots… Every darned city west of the Mississippi is in lockdown, not just us.”
“The ‘trickle-down’ scenario…” Geraldine reasoned.
Very good, Gerry. Do you remember what comes next? “That’s right,” Sandy said, smiling softly. She was pleased that her protégée was catching on.
“When are we telling the County Unified Command?” Geraldine asked.
“Have the radio room set up a video-chat for an hour from now,” Sandy said. “And see if Suzanne knows where those bio-chips are.”
19
Baser Instincts.
Tahoma’s Hammer + 10 Days.
There were sixteen official bridges, dams, and railroad crossings between Oregon and Washington, plus one ferry service. That’s where Oregon started securing their border on the eve of the tenth day. The people migrating south were starting to bring their problems to The Union State, and they had enough of those already. Chief amongst those problems was an aggressive form of flu the horde was carrying, followed closely by dehydration, hunger, and crime.
Early on after the crisis began, Oregon and Idaho had activated their National Guard units. Both states had begun to prepare for a border sealing almost immediately. Oregon established control points on the south end of every Columbia River crossing, including the railroad crossing and four dams. They secured them all in the course of that one night. It took them about two days to secure the roughly one hundred miles of land border east of where the river turned north.
Not to be left holding the welfare bag, Idaho noticed what was occurring and began their own border securing operation by lunch on Day 10. Canada merely reinforced the international border crossings with local police and extra patrols by the RCMP. The leaders of the other states and provinces went onto their local news programs, vowing to continue humanitarian missions and shepherd people across the borders with speed and minimal red tape. What happened in reality was quite different.
