by Td Barnes
In his mind, he saw himself the savior of the world from the excesses of military recklessness responsible for the firestorms in California that blocked the sun to cause the drop in temperature. He donned the beret and acquired a mean look while he mentally transformed himself from an out of work cab driver into a Rambo, a modern-day Superman.
The self-proclaimed leader squared his shoulders into a Napoleonic stance of importance and impatiently glared back at the rest of his army awaiting his signal.
"Friggin amateurs," he thought disgustedly. He made a walking motion with two fingers and then a finger-to-his-lips motion to remind the followers to creep to prevent alarming the wildlife again. He nervously searched through the brush around them for the enemy that he feared waiting in ambush.
The four followers had rendezvoused late yesterday evening with the man who claimed to know where they could obtain a stash of food. Today, he wore the same desert-colored, army camouflage suit, army surplus combat boots, and a beret cap with the rank designation of a full-blown bird colonel clipped in the center of a homemade patch depicting a flying saucer. His uniform displayed several self-designed sew-on patches to describe or insinuate talents or achievements that required no imagination to identify.
He wore a military combat web belt supporting two canteens around his waist and carried a first aid pouch, a trenching tool, and a fanny pack containing toothpicks, two packages of "Frills" peanuts collected during a raid on the home of a Southwest Airlines flight attendant. He wore yet another OD-colored web belt across his chest that supported a small pouch containing three cans of Vienna Sausages acquired during an earlier home invasion raid for which he killed an old man and his wife.
He retrieved the scarf and placed it over his nose to reduce the stench of decaying bodies lying along the small trickle of water running down the wash.
Any sources of water since the EMP attack attracted people from the city seeking to quench their thirst. He understood that decaying bodies lining the shores of Lake Las Vegas and Lake Mead made the water undrinkable. The starving people initially died from heat stroke from exposure to the hot sun, followed by starvation. They now died from a combination of all three of these lethal causes.
He had considered his chosen sector of Las Vegas near the Silver Bowl Stadium easy picking for food and water until three days ago. This changed with the loss of nine of his army during a running gun battle along Boulder Highway and with his being wary of the competition for possession of his turf. Yesterday, he had decided to abandon the urban area for the Vegas Wash where abundant water flowed through brush filled with wildlife for food, providing him a secluded location to replenish his army and prepare for territorial conquests to follow.
One of his men stiffened up, apparently seeing something in the bushes ahead. "Look!" he excitedly whispered. "Shhhh, hide, someone, is coming."
The men hastily followed the leader into a shallow drainage ditch where from the prone position they watched a small group approaching two hundred yards to the left of their concealed positions. They lay breathlessly in wait, paralyzed with anticipation while the group approached, expectation turning to grins when they saw a young girl in the group. It no longer mattered this obviously not being the gang of thugs sought by the invaders. The group could not be more than high school age. However, the boys became game — the girl a bonus.
One of the young men in the approaching group carried a .22 rifle while the others took plastic water jugs for filling and return to their camp outside the wash.
The ensuing battle lasted only seconds with the intruders waiting in ambush until the group passed a mere five feet away and then jumping them. The leader shot and killed the kid carrying the rifle, ordering the others to drop their water jugs and line up near a large bush.
The boys begged for mercy while he systematically executed two of them with a shot to the head. Two of the aggressors stripped one of the boys who initially attempted to defend the girl, raping him and then cutting off his penis laughing all the while before fatally shooting him several times while forcing his girlfriend to watch. An even more cruel fate awaited her!
The skinny girl weighed maybe 90 to 100 pounds. A couple of the guys stripped her clothes off — not so much her top, but her bottom, pulling her pants down and holding her down while the first, a large, brawny man violated her. They passed her back and forth between them when he finished.
The girl screamed and pleaded with her attackers while they beat and gang-raped her in every way possible. They cruelly laughed, while taking turns urinating on her. One of the men picked her up and unceremoniously pitched her into the shallow water. “Clean yourself up for later,” he snarled.
****
T plus 25 days - Yucca Mountain - A little past 0200 hours.
Being unable to see the sun, moon, or stars at the mountain quickly eliminated the sense of night and day. Using innovative thinking and available digital technology, a brilliant emergency planner at the mountain created a virtual means of displaying on the rock walls in the individual alcoves the visual atmosphere of any time of day, or even the season of the year desired by the individual.
Though only 0200 hours outside the mountain, the display chosen today by Bradley in the Command Center depicted a sunrise to jive with his poring over the morning report, an electronic compilation of data considered relevant to the mountain’s mission. The report broke down into sections that included manpower numbers, personnel assignments, sick call, training sessions, troop status, etc., — everything necessary to determine the readiness level of the mountain. At his feet lay a two-year-old chocolate Poodle belonging to one of the cooks.
The cook, realizing early on that the dog could not accompany her to the kitchen, noted how the colonel and her dog bonded. The dog ran to meet him whenever he passed her quarters. One day she suggested that Bradley take the dog with him on his daily walk. The dog had accompanied him ever since and only joined his owner for her “night.” She called him Precious. Bradley called him Sarge.
For the third time in the last thirty minutes, Bradley glanced at the falling black rain showing on the wall monitor. The Pyrocumulus clouds formed by the intense heat from the firestorms still raging in the cities leveled by the bombs were now producing black rain, a natural phenomenon that had started two days ago, from soot precipitated into fallout during the fire storms. To him, the rain represented a blessing, a good sign because it washed large amounts of carbon out of the atmosphere, cleansing the heavens and shortening the nuclear winter. Nonetheless, he realized that the worst lay in wait.
Bradley had studied Course of Action (COA) development at the DIA, a major part of the Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB). The many survival strategies open to the unwashed masses other than sitting down and starving to death bore on his mind.
He knew well the consequences of the power grid dropping and the food shipments ending. Those lacking an impregnable shelter faced a total collapse situation, a quick, nightmarish spiral into anarchy with most of the population alive and hungry.
People would be unable to acquire drinking water or even dispose of their own waste and sewage. He thought of the cities where millions of people were by now experiencing serious acute hunger, but refusing to starve to death quietly, becoming the most dangerous predators on earth.
He glanced again at the monitor while dismissing the negative thinking about things that he could not do anything. The sound of his daughter Sammie rescued him from his heavy thoughts.
“I see it is still raining,” she commented. She stepped behind Bradley’s chair and began giving him a shoulder massage. “What are you working on?”
“The morning report,” he responded, holding it up for her to see. “These days it is called FORSTAT, but to me, it is still the morning report from when I signed them while a company commander. The civilians do not like it, but we’re doing this the Army way.”
Sammie laughed. “Your limp wrist Ph.D. types liked you better as No
ah. They are pissed that you are making them do PT. The youngsters are angry because you are restricting the amount of time allowed them to watch videos and play their video games.”
Bradley chuckled. “Is there anyone who isn’t pissed at me?”
Sammie pretended that she needed to give his question some thought. “Well, the soldier boys still like you,” she said after a pause. “They are suckers for your Rambo suck-it-up stuff. They believe your regimented protocol is awesome.”
“Awesome?” He asked with a grin while mischievously looking up at her.
“Well, perhaps that’s not the word,” she said with a laugh. Turning serious, she said, “Dad, I believe we have a problem. Some of the younger kids are complaining about, the older ones bullying them. One of them is Doctor Hubbard’s son. He’s like his dad, a total asshole.”
Bradley stared at Sammie a moment in thought before replying. “I can believe that. Dr. Hubbard has been a pain in the ass to my men ever since he arrived. Isn’t he one of your Homeland Security guys?”
“Close enough,” Sammie replied. “He is a big wig with NEST, which went over to NNSA, the National Nuclear Security Agency after 9/11. His men say he is a bastard to work for.”
“Thanks for letting me know, Sammie. I will put a stop to the bullying now before it goes any further.” He stared across the room in thought. “Are you familiar with the Stanford Prison Experiment?”
“No, I am not,” she replied with interest.
“Well, the Stanford prison experiment involved a study of the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or a prison guard, which is not too far a stretch from what we have here. We are prisoners of the elements outside. Anyway, a team of researchers led by Psychology Professor Philip Zimbardo conducted the experiment in 1971 at Stanford University, where twenty-four undergraduates selected out of 70 played the roles of both guard and prisoner living in a mock prison in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. To obtain a representative sample, they selected the chosen for their lack of psychological issues, crime history, and medical disabilities, assigning roles based on a coin toss.”
He paused when out of the corner of his eye, he saw on the monitor a massive bolt of lightning. Adding to the weather phenomena were huge chunks of black ice bouncing off the ground and banging on the steel doors to the portal. A few black snowflakes showed up in the lighting covered by the cameras.
He turned his attention back to Sammie and continued. “Prisoners and guards rapidly adapted to their roles, stepping beyond the boundaries of that predicted. They advanced to dangerous and psychologically damaging situations where one-third of the guards exhibited genuine sadistic tendencies. The experience emotionally traumatized many of the prisoners and two required early removal from the experiment. A graduate student even broke down from the inhumane conditions.”
He lifted his eyes to the rock ceiling above them in mock perturbation. “Doctor Zimbardo realized his passively allowing the performing of unethical acts under his direct supervision and terminated the experiment after only six days when both prisoners and guards became too grossly absorbed in their roles.”
“I see your point,” she said. “This bullying thing is the last thing in the world we need here in our closed society.”
“You know, Sammie,” he said, starting conversationally with his raspy voice turning to criticism. “We have a delicate situation here at the mountain. We must enforce rules and restrictions that parallel the socialism and communism that we fought wars to prevent. We have set a limit on how much our youth may watch videos or play their video games. We make them study things that they might not want to study and do military things that I am sure they find repulsive. Listening to that damn, nonstop paging system reminds me of a prison camp.”
“Dad,” Sammy said in a scolding tone. “Knock it off. You must lead these people. We must teach them how to survive, and that is what you, our leader, are responsible for accomplishing. Consider it basic training. It will not take you long to establish our leaders and get everything back to routine.”
He gazed away in thought. “I suppose you are right.”
She continued. “Most people expect and depend on someone leading them. Your leadership policies will prevent what happened with Doctor Zimbardo’s experiment. Regarding the kids, I see them gaining self-responsibility daily. Your role here at the mountain is no different from that of the captain of a plane or a ship. It is your mountain and your sole responsibility. So, like I said, knock it off, SIR.”
“Consider it knocked off, counselor,” he said with his usual chuckle. Thinking about this later, he would recognize his finding one of the leaders that she stated that he would establish.
Sammie did not say anything more for a moment but made no motion to leave.
“You have something more on your mind. What is it?”
“I’m not sure how to proceed. Dad, it’s a need-to-know situation.”
“You need something, but can’t tell me because I have no need-to-know. Right?”
“Well, yes. It’s complicated.”
“No, it’s not. If I do not have a need-to-know, do not tell me. For Christ’s sake — you are my daughter. If I cannot trust you, well . . . . Hell, girl, merely tell me what you need.”
“I’m sure you must have wondered how and why the CIA guy from Area 51 came to me for securing some documents and experiments. You saw how we joked around about him being CIA working at a DOD facility, and me being DHS working at a DOE venue.”
“That’s no different from me being Army and working at DIA. I know how it works. Hell, I knew you were into something big when I found your name on the essential protection list. I also assume that you could not have become this important only a few months out of college so I would expect you went to work for the CIA or the NSA while in college. Am I to assume that you are doing a bit of fence straddling and the little experiment you are hiding is a bit more than a little research? Do not answer. Stop beating around the bush and tell me what you can, what you need, what you want, and what I can do to make it happen. It is that simple. Welcome to my world.”
Sammie laughed. “Dad, I am deeper in your world than you could ever imagine. Remember how I collected your publications and notes on EMP.”
“Go on.”
“You’re right about college and my being recruited by an entity most often referred to as No Such Agency. My specialty is directed electromagnetic energy weapons.”
“NSA, huh? That computes. This smells a bit like Project Pandora. The last I heard, DARPA shut the RF weapons project down after the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research started investigating adverse health effects.”
Sammie shook her head in disbelief. “Dad, is there anything that you don’t know?”
Bradley laughed. “We hoped the project would go forth so we could jump on the bandwagon. I must confess that we were not interested in it for non-lethal crowd control.”
Sammie smiled at his “are not” futuristic thinking. “Nor are we. Remember the three large boxes we brought here to the mountain from Area 51. We stored them, but we need to hide them — we need to bury them where no one can find them unless we want them to do so. That includes the people in this mountain. The wrong people must never gain access to what is in those boxes.”
“Wow!” Bradley whispered loudly. “So, the science fiction version did work. Say no more. Do you have a place in mind to bury them?”
“Yes, I located a small alcove next to the hog pen to put the boxes and seal to look like the wall the tunnel. No one would ever think of wading through pig shit to find something hidden, especially if no one knows we brought it in. We have fiberglass that we can use to seal the entrance to make it look like a natural rock.”
“Let me know when you want me to clear the area, and the south portal is yours. Be sure there are some user’s manuals in the event we ever need to use your toys.”
“Thanks, Dad.” She could see that he needed to get back to his repo
rt. “I’ll let you get back to work,” she said while rising out of her chair to leave.
He did not answer, having already returned to his morning report.
Bradley found it difficult to concentrate on his work after Sammie left. He thought for a moment and walked out to the guard post shared with the officer of the day the shift officer. His adopted dog, Sarge followed.
“Lieutenant,” he said to the officer on duty. “Get word to the staff officers on shift that when the new shift reports in, I want to see both shifts here in the Command Center. Have someone locate Dr. Hubbard and his son; I do not recall his name, and have them here also.”
Bradley reached over, retrieved the lieutenant’s clipboard, and wrote some names on it. “Have these people here also.”
“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant replied. They could hear the muffled sound of the radio operator in the background making his hourly “is anyone there” transmission from the data systems and radios in the Command Center.
Bradley glanced at the radiation level readout monitor on the lieutenant’s desk. “It’s still climbing, sir. We are now at 230 Rads.”
Bradley nodded acceptance. “That’s to be expected. The rain is dropping the soot, dust, and about anything thrown into the atmosphere by the blasts. I am surprised the count is not higher.”
He returned to his desk and returned his attention to the morning briefing report. He studied it for a moment and made some notes. Suddenly a thought occurred to him.
“Specialist,” he walked to the entrance to the small radio room and called over to the radio operator. “Are any of you radio operators checking the amateur bands? Ham radio operators are scattered over the planet, and I am sure some places survived this madness.”
“We check other bands from time to time. So far, no joy, sir.”
“We have an excess of radios. See if you can rig a couple of them to scan the ham amateur radio frequencies continuously.”