by G. R. Carter
He was halfway there when he remembered the militia from Old Main still stuck waiting. He turned and shouted, “Follow us in your trucks. I’ll tell one of the Turtles to bring up the rear.”
Each Turtle’s engine roared to life as the drivers approached. Before they were even buckled into their harnessed seats, the clumsy vehicles lurched forward towards the open asphalt of a four-lane divided highway only partially reclaimed by nature. The movement caught the attention of pointing and shouting soldiers. Their officers watched in shock as one, two, three armor-plated trucks passed them just a couple of hundred yards away. Unable to process what they were seeing, no one thought to give the command to fire, and the SDC wasn’t in a mood to get into a firefight with a well-armed foe. They were bandit hunting now.
The caravan made its way up the interstate until they came to what had once been a country road. The chip and oil lane still held, and slowly the lumbering Turtles made their way down the highway embankment to the field below. Each one then gunned their engines; no use for quiet now. Cornfields still waiting for a harvest that would never come stood on both sides. Their stalks were half bent where wind and bugs had done their part to bring the plant down, but the cover was still good enough to hide a group of men, and the crop rows in central Illinois once went on for up to a mile.
Each Turtle crew disembarked, and the Old Main militia followed close behind. Breaking up into teams of five, Phil left one group behind to guard the vehicles, then his allies spread out to listen for any movement. The idea of trying to find a handful of bad guys in what amounted to thousands of acres of overgrown fields now felt a little silly. Phil had let himself get caught up in the chase, now the reality of the task settled in.
Hank Tripp, one of the ten veterans the SDC had recently rescued from the clutches of their crazed National Guard leader, appeared beside him.
Sensing Phil’s doubt, Tripp said quietly, “Look up over the fields.”
Phil had been staring intently at the field in front of him, trying to spot movement somewhere that he could take his frustration out on. He glanced up and saw a cloud of thick smoke beginning to drift over their position. Tripp continued, “That’s the fire the Grays set. Looks like it’s spreading pretty fast. And based on the way the wind's blowing, I estimate it will be on top of this position in less than ten minutes.”
Tripp said nothing else, allowing Phil to come to his own conclusion about the next course of action. “Back to the trucks! Everyone mount up and head back to the interstate ASAP! That will provide a firebreak for us!” Phil shouted. Faith in his orders overcame confusion from the men and everyone scrambled back to their respective vehicles.
He kicked himself as another lesson in armored vehicle warfare went into his memory banks – never put your men in a position where they have to back up multiple vehicles down a narrow road with the threat of cooking to death bearing down on them. The Turtle drivers used every ounce of calm they possessed to keep from running over the truck in front of them as they slowly made the climb back up onto the concrete and asphalt strip above.
A twenty-foot wall of flame inhaled the dried plant material and swept past their position like a tidal wave. As they watched Phil caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned to see the tattooed ex-cop standing a hundred yards away, both hands in the air with middle fingers extended. Phil reached for his 30-06, but before he could raise the rifle the man dropped down into a culvert below leading to the drainage ditches crossing underneath the road.
“Well I guess we got most of them,” he muttered to himself, concerned that he had let a very dangerous predator slip through his fingers.
Mt. Sterling
“Don’t seem hardly fair, them makin’ us work this hard for nothin’, ya know?”
Darwin King was trying to keep his patience. He tapped the big wooden desk left behind by Issa Marduk when she abandoned the Western Illinois Correctional Center. It was a beautiful piece of furniture, art really. After what had occurred in this building since the world changed, it was a miracle it survived.
His mind drifted away from the collection of reprobates surrounding him while he imagined the chaos of a darkened prison packed with strung out inmates. He hadn’t been with Malik Masen’s National Guard troops when they stormed Mt. Sterling and captured the prison. But Heath Bohrmann had, and he didn’t care to discuss what he’d seen. For a man who’d been in countless conflicts all over the world to be shaken told King all he needed to know.
The weeks spent cleaning the prison had paid off. King now had a fantastic base for his rapidly expanding operation; the town had been largely ignored.
“King, you hearin’ me?”
Darwin shook out of his fog and glared at Erline Kaplan. “Yeah love, I’m hearin’ ya. Matter of fact though, we owe our tribute to our friends in Springfield.”
“We ought not owe ‘em a thing, King. We’re strong enough without ‘em.”
King shook his head. “We’re stronger with ‘em, Erline. We gotta think long term. They helped you get control of this town.”
“Late comin’ and you know it. Waited for us to lose half our men before they showed up to help,” Kaplan grumbled. She took a pull from her hand rolled cigarette and exhaled towards the ceiling. King stole a glance at Heath Bohrmann, a human machine fanatic about his health. Bohrmann simply watched the leader of the Kaplan clan with a mixture of morbid curiosity and disgust.
King’s crew was a strange collection of surviving townsfolk, a handful of National Guard loyalists, and the Kaplan clan from the hills surrounding Mt. Sterling. He’d been asked, maybe drafted would be a more appropriate term, by Malik Masen to lead the rebuilding here. The why had escaped him at first, but Masen’s master plan was slowly coming into focus.
“Not much can be done for it now, darlin’,” King said. “All we can do now is make the best of it. World’s burnt down all over, at least we got some sort of peace here now. Just gotta do our part for the new world order.”
Kaplan waved her hand, sending ash to the floor. She didn’t seem to notice and wouldn’t have cared if she did. She’d been nothing but loyal since King took charge, a harvest of the attention he’d invested in their relationship during his time at the Ridgeview Lodge. But with every passing day, her and all the Kaplans grew restless with the orders handed down by Springfield.
“We still got all those gangbangers runnin’ around in the woods, raiding our outposts. We ain’t got enough men to guard everything. How’s come Springfield or Jacksonville don’t send us some more men out to help?”
“Everyone is stretched thin. Malik is trying to get security established as many places as possible. That’s why they need us to ramp up Syn production. We’ve got the materials and expertise here. Why don’t you move all your people into the prison. There’s no reason to be exposed out there in the brush,” King said.
“Weren’t the deal, King. Springfield said we got to keep our land, and get the lodge, too. We’ve saved it and half the people from the bangers attackin’ it. I ain’t givin’ it all up and movin’ to their reservation,” she said. She threw down her cigarette butt and made a half-hearted attempt at putting it out with her boot. Before that smoke cleared, she had another lit.
“Well, can we at least move all the production here into the building? Maybe the bangers won’t attack your people if they know what they want is in here.”
Kaplan glared at him for a moment. He could feel her probing eyes searching for deception, suspicious as always of betrayal.
“Erline,” King said in exasperation, “I’m just tryin’ to make things work here. You figure I want to be producin’ drugs in a prison in the middle of nowhere, tryin’ to fight off Syn zombies?”
Kaplan threw her head back and laughed, showing off the teeth she had left. “Shoot, King. I know you’s one of the good guys. We’d a not done the deal if you hadn’t been involved.”
King knew that to be true. His only worth to Malik Masen had been an unli
kely friendship with the Kaplans. And the Kaplans were only worth anything to the Masens because of the remarkable quantities of Syn they could produce. The synthetic drug was the currency Masen needed to control the empire he was trying to stitch together. Matched with the Bradshaws ability to get the surviving farmers to produce food – Masen knew the Ration Bars recovered from the holding warehouses wouldn’t last forever – and Mt. Sterling was becoming an important asset.
If he could just pacify the surviving prison gangs running loose in the area, he’d be firmly entrenched into Malik’s inner circle. The Masens had a grand plan, that was clear. King didn’t like being on the outside. He knew his safety, and the safety of Kara Bradshaw, depended on him being close to Malik, at least until he could figure another play.
“Right then, love. Tell me what you need to get every extra little bit out of that magic factory of yours.”
Schoolhouse Hill
Alexander Jefferson Hamilton, still known as AJ to his family and friends, sat bundled up in the loft office of a forty-year-old metal machine shed. He could hear the light rain tap against the roof panels just a few feet above his head. Crazy stupid weather, Alex lamented. Staying too cool too long to get an early crop in.
From this small office, he ran what history teachers of the past may have mislabeled a plantation. Originally a country elevator built for farmers to sell and ship their grain, everyone for miles around now knew this place as the Schoolhouse Hill Fortress Farm. The model for the Okaw’s modern concrete fortresses, flanked by support buildings and surrounded by earthen and concrete walls, was already being replicated all over Shelby County and the surrounding area.
He made one last adjustment to the weekly labor allocations for Schoolhouse Hill. Soon, this would be his brother Sam’s responsibility. Alex was set to begin his two-year training tour as an officer in the Okaw Valley SDC.
He thought of his father and mother, off somewhere meeting with someone about something. To Alex, this farm was seemed the only place in the Okaw lacking his parents' attention. Phil and Anna were in constant motion among the Fortress Farms and small towns that made up the Okaw Valley SDC. I’m proud they trust me, but I’d also like just a little help and guidance sometimes. Sam helped immensely, and they rapidly became best friends instead of falling into the trap of power struggle.
Alex closed the ledger book and leaned back in the comfy office chair. It was a little luxury, presented to him as a gift after the campaign to establish control over the city of Decatur. Defeating the rogue military commander in charge of the city had turned out to be the easy part. Rooting out the criminals unified under the GangStar banner, house by house and block by block, turned out to be much bloodier and brutal. But once the leadership had been eliminated, the rest seemed to fade away. No one seemed to know if they moved on to other towns or perhaps joined the ditchmen gangs still roaming the unpopulated areas.
One of the militia he’d served with in that misery now led an SDC salvage team. The chair was a token of appreciation for the time they served together. The fancy piece looked out of place among the collection of ragtag office furniture on the loft. The chair probably once came with a high price tag, and there would be no way to replace it when it inevitably busted. He wondered briefly about the prior owner; probably dead of starvation or disease or maybe murdered by ditchmen.
Millions of people once sat in chairs like this, working on computers in huge buildings. He was old enough to remember occasionally visiting the mega cities before the Reset, or watching shows about them. That old life seemed like a movie to him, and he didn’t burden himself with the nostalgia of his parent’s generation. Mom and Dad talked about their old life sometimes. Far from perfect; in fact, they had been trying to build a simpler life for the Hamilton family when the Reset happened. In this world they were wealthy Land Lords, before they had been just struggling small town folk.
Alex and Sam talked a little about a world where young people partied at night instead of securing fortress gates against robbery or death. People their age once traveled the world. They could blow off college classes to go to the lake on a sunny afternoon. The older generations spoke about youth with a far-off look in their eyes, as if they were going to burst into tears any moment. Now traveling a hundred miles seemed a dangerous dream. The area the Okaw Valley SDC controlled was huge, but then, twenty miles in each direction was a huge area for a small population. Blowing off an assignment here could mean the difference between survival and starvation.
The world the Hamilton boys lived in woke up before the sun, beginning the day by relieving a security detail or tending livestock so needy for the help of man. Mom and Dad insisted that all Hamiltons lead by example. Ever since the completion of the Great Hall, all residents of the farm ate their meals together on the long tables, though often at different times. Alex longed for an occasional private meal with his immediate family, but his extended family, the residents of Schoolhouse Hill, were always there. It was a feeling of community that surrounded the dining hall. Something the private family homes of the Old World apparently lacked.
Breakfast and lunch were both served in the Great Hall starting at about 5 am and wrapping up around 1 pm. In the meantime, school at the farm was also taught at the tables, as well as the occasional staff meeting for some particular segment of the farm. All day, the Hall only closed about an hour around 4 pm, reserving private time for cooks and servers to eat. The semi–quiet allowed final preparations for the most anticipated time of the day. Shortly after evening chores, the doors reopened to a roaring fire in the giant fireplace that dominated the South wall of the open space. Musicians assigned to play for the evening began their tunes while kitchen staff prepared the tables, making the workload lighter for all.
Excepting those on Night Watch, which was rotated on a weekly basis, all residents of the Fortress Farm were expected to eat together at the evening meal. A quick Chapel service was held, and then something resembling the Old World concept of a company meeting. As acting Land Lord of this particular Fortress Farm, Alex took the opportunity to distribute information, give encouragement, and make special announcements. After cleaning up, the young people of the farm would Dance the Ring at least two or three times before heading off for final evening chores or bed. Homemade beer flowed freely, but the wise guarded against excess. Everyone knew that regardless of how bad your head hurt, your assignment awaited you in the next morning.
Old DVDs still played on Saturday nights, giving a glimpse of a previous world. But once those broke, there were no replacements. Life reflected in those movies got harder to relate to all the time. Young people on the farms especially seemed to prefer the live music and dancing present almost every night in each farm’s Hall.
The Hamilton family invited several older folks to join them on the farm, something not considered by most Land Lords just looking for strong backs to help with chores. Phil and Anna valued education and believed that wisdom came with life experience. Gordon Steinbrink, the former Mayor of Strasburg, was just such a man, and they aggressively recruited him them to tutor the young people living here.
Steinbrink immigrated to America from Germany in his youth. He was a self–taught scholar in European history and a wunderkind in the art of metal machining he used to make his family one of the wealthiest in the county before the Reset. That wealth disappeared when the computers erased the spreadsheet digits that represented his life’s work, but Grapevine’s actions couldn’t erase his lifetime of knowledge.
As single-family homes became less practical, the entire Steinbrink family accepted the Hamilton’s invitation to join them in their prairie fortress. Ever since, the elder Steinbrink advised the family on fractured societal politics he studied in the tribal nature of European peoples. Though obscure, the relevance to today’s world gave the SDC insight in managing the politics of small groups. Younger Steinbrink generations served by carrying on the family’s metallurgical expertise. Their engineering work proved invalua
ble for the growing fleet of Snapping Turtles and armored tractors based at the farm.
Heimat, Mayor Steinbrink instructed them. The word was German for a feeling of community and belonging, right here in this place they now lived. No word in the English language quite captured the concept…you just had to feel it. Symbols of wealth were tangibles a person held in their hands: your people, the food, weapons, even the soil itself. Not plush chairs like Alex sat in or the corner office where a captain of industry once reclined.
The recent resurgence in religion also reflected the change in attitudes away from the virtual and to the palpable. People recognized the hand of the Creator in a plant arising from the soil, exploding from tiny seed to become a factory of nutrition for their loved ones. You could see the miracle of life when a new calf was born. You could also see the evil of the Enemy in the destructive aftermath of a deadly ditchmen attack. There was no luxury here in this life, no Heaven on Earth. Survivors could grasp a better life in Heaven in contrast to their daily toil.
All except the very young or the very new residents remembered the 2 am ditchmen raids against farmsteads. Sneaking in through the farm tile creeks and drainage ditches that spread like arteries throughout the fields, the bandits appeared as if from nowhere. Raiding and pillaging whatever or whoever they could carry, ditchmen were universally feared and despised among the residents of the frontier farms.
The area surrounding Schoolhouse Hill itself held few uninvited guests at this point. Concerted efforts to remove the undergrowth that gave ditchmen daytime cover yielded fast results. As the farm population grew, so too did the cultivated acres being tended. Daily activity pushed the ditchmen further out until they were squeezed by overlapping pockets of civilization.