“We could’ve won!” Melanie shouted. “Danny had already slapped the phone out of Matt’s hand, we were in the finals!” Coming back to the table and sitting down, Carl had tears running down his face.
“If that was just a psych job, it was the best one ever! Sandy still had Gene pinned, riding him like an electric horse in front of Wal-Mart when we went to clean the shop. Three hours after we left!”
Danny leaned over to Matt, “You’re forgiven,” she whispered.
“You just gave up, Gumby,” Melanie said in a normal voice and picked up her fork. “I could’ve kept going.”
“Well, excuse the hell out of me!” Ted shouted getting up. “I don’t have a concrete dick. Wait, what did Sandy call it, ‘phallus of kaleidoscope exhilarations’,” Ted said waving his arms. “I have no fucking idea what that is or means except phallus, but even if I did, eleven hours would break anything. I like my pee pee just the way it is,” he snapped and walked out. Everyone at the table rocked back and forth fighting not to laugh, except Gene and Sandy as Melanie kept eating.
Taking a deep breath, Bruce exhaled looking at Gene, “Win anything good?”
“Don’t know,” Gene grunted picking up his fork. “Never saw the pot, just threw in my k-bar knife.”
“What possessed you to enter?” Bruce asked as Stephanie wiped the tears from her eyes and tried to help PJ eat.
Reaching over, Sandy moved Gene’s plate closer as she answered, “After he told me what the tournament was, I asked Gene if he liked me and he said I was a hell of a woman with big balls. I asked him if he wanted to win the competition and he said he didn’t think both of our balls were that big,” Sandy smiled. “I pulled him to the shop and showed him they were.”
With a weak smile, Gene nodded slowly as he brought a fork full of food up to his mouth. “She’s stronger than she looks,” he grunted.
“You really didn’t want to leave,” Sandy said patting his cheek. “So I just kept pulling you back when you would try and crawl away, to show them our balls were bigger.”
Letting out a yelp, Bruce jumped hitting his knees on the table as he shoved the side of his hand in his mouth and bit down. “I peed,” Stephanie whimpered and took off.
“Sandy,” Carl warbled. “Gene was crying and begging saying his dick was broke when he crawled toward the door to leave the last time you pulled him back.”
Laying her head on Gene’s shoulder as she looked at Carl, “He was just exultant we’d won, so we had to celebrate the copulating competition,” she said with a smile.
Gene looked over at Bruce with pleading eyes, “Can I please have today off, I’m begging you. I need time to recoup,” he begged.
Standing, Bruce nodded with tears in his eyes as he snorted, “Take two,” he said in ten different octaves. “I’ll be back, I peed,” Bruce said and ran for the door.
Seeing Gene struggling to eat because he didn’t want to move, Sandy took his fork, “Here, let me,” she said and started feeding him. Willie and his wife left laughing when they hit the door. “You need to get your strength up,” Sandy smiled and hugged him.
“Yes, I do,” Gene smiled, taking a bite.
Taking a deep breath, Nancy picked up her fork, “Very good call, Mike. We never stood a chance,” she said chuckling quietly.
“Shit, I would’ve liked to have just seen it,” Mike giggled.
“No, you wouldn’t have,” Jake said struggling not to laugh. “They aren’t kidding about the stuff Sandy yelled out. Matt pulls his phone out to start looking up words,” Jake busted out laughing slapping the table and Mary slid out of her chair as the table erupted, except for Gene, Sandy, Danny, and Matt.
Catching his breath with his face three different colors, Jake squealed, “With his phone in his hand, Matt looks at Danny and asks, ‘How do you spell supererogatory’. Danny slaps the phone out of his hand, yelling, ‘This isn’t a god damn spelling bee!’.”
The table started howling with many beating the table as Danny looked at Matt and smiled, “Well, at least everyone got a good laugh out of it,” she said.
“We aren’t doing that again,” Matt said, slowly eating as the table roared around them. “You can’t concentrate when you hear words you don’t know. I mean, she could’ve been making fun of us, we don’t know.”
Danny started eating, “Why didn’t you just ignore her?”
Matt dropped his fork, “Danny, you remember when Sandy kept shouting out ones and zeros?” he asked and after thinking a minute Danny nodded. “That was binary code for ‘fuck me’; she was talking dirty yelling out binary code! How can you sit there and say you expected me to concentrate with that?”
Turning back to her plate as many at the table were getting lightheaded, “Matt, you’re taking time away from your computer. You should’ve never been able to tell me that,” Danny said.
Chapter 7
Several days later, Bruce was at the head of the table in the command bunker. He looked over at Stephanie and Angela and smiled. “Sure you don’t need to go to the bathroom before the others get here?”
“Bruce, I’ve peed like six times since I’ve woken up,” Angela snapped. “I hate having a bladder the size of a dime.”
Walking over between them, Bruce leaned down kissing both of them. “I’m just saying, when you hold it, you get really bitchy.”
“Bitchy, hell,” Stephanie mumbled. “Last night she started yelling at the commode like it was the reason she has to pee.”
“I can’t sleep more than an hour without having to get up and pee,” Angela moaned, putting her head on the table. “I just want to sleep without having dreams of peeing.”
“You’ve only wet the bed once,” Stephanie said patting her back.
“Yeah, and Cade made fun of me,” Angela snapped.
They looked up as Mike and Nancy walked in. “Whoa,” Mike said seeing the irritation on Angela’s face. “What’s wrong?”
“She’s mad because she has to pee every hour,” Stephanie chimed in shaking her head and Angela scowled at her.
“Oh man, I don’t miss that,” Nancy said sitting down. “I peed on myself when I was pregnant with Matt. I was doing a central line on a kid who had coded, so I was sterile and I was the only doctor on the floor. The nurses just threw towels at my feet.”
Mike nodded as he sat down with a notebook. “That’s why God gave the responsibility of carrying the species to the female. Men would act stupid with that and just hang it out.”
“I wish I could just hang it out,” Angela huffed. “I know I’m meant for the family now. I want to punch someone in the face when I take off running for the bathroom.”
“Debbie did,” Stephanie chuckled. “When she was eight months pregnant with Danny, Bruce took her to a restaurant she loved, Panchos, and they’d closed the bathrooms to clean them. The cleaners wouldn’t let her in, so she punched one.”
A grin split Bruce’s face, “Yeah, she knocked the guy out and jumped over his body and ran to the toilet.”
“I’ve got to read the journals faster,” Angela mumbled.
“Oh, I haven’t got that far,” Stephanie said as the others in the command group filed in. “Debbie told me when I went to Nebraska with the family.”
Angela gave a sigh, really missing Debbie as everyone felt the same. “What did you do, Bruce?” she finally asked.
“Called the Sheriff’s office and told them I was about to get arrested,” he said with a grin. “I walked to the bathroom and the cleaning guy was getting off the floor and spit out a tooth.”
“You kick that guy’s ass?”
“Nope, only hit him once,” Bruce said. “I grabbed ahold of Debbie because I knew she wasn’t finished. To be truthful, if the guy would’ve kept his mouth shut I wouldn’t have hit him, but he mouthed off and spit three more teeth out after I broke his jaw.”
Stephanie leaned over to Angela, “Debbie yelled at Bruce when he picked her up to carry her out of the restaurant. She told B
ruce, that man and everyone he knew had to die because she’d wet her panties.”
“Yes, but she added a lot more,” Bruce said shaking his head. “She screamed, ‘what the hell good was having a man around, if they weren’t going to beat the shit out of someone when they wouldn’t let her use the bathroom’.”
A smile spilt Stephanie’s face, “Bruce, I heard her apologize for that several times.”
“Oh, I know, but it was after Danny was born and if the guy would’ve shut up, I would’ve just carried her out. But when he called her a whore, I just slung Debbie under one arm and punched him. Hell, I figured he’d have been humiliated enough, a five-foot-tall pregnant woman had knocked him out, but he was stupid,” Bruce said.
“You get in trouble?” Angela snorted with a grin.
“Yep,” Bruce sighed. “Didn’t get arrested, but got cited. Debbie kept yelling at the cops because they wouldn’t shoot the man when the ambulance came to pick him up. The judge let me off with a fine after the Sheriff and officers on the scene testified.”
“Judge felt sorry for you,” Mike chuckled.
“Yeah, after the bailiff escorted Debbie from the courtroom, telling the judge the cleaning man should be hung,” Bruce said as the kids walked in. He was relieved that they were recovering quickly. Danny still favored her arm and Buffy had a slight limp but unless you knew them, one couldn’t really tell.
“Talking about momma beating up that guy at Ponchos?” Danny grinned sitting down.
Jake let out a laugh as he sat down. “That is the only place we went to regularly and they always gave us a table far away from anyone.”
“And never closed the bathrooms while we were there,” Nancy added.
“I didn’t have to pee this much with Cade,” Angela huffed, sitting back in the chair.
“How much did Cade weigh at birth?” Nancy asked.
“Oh, he was a big baby,” Angela said rolling her eyes, “Seven pounds, one ounce.”
Nancy grinned, “You know, Danny was the smallest of Debbie’s kids at birth at eight pounds, fifteen ounces.”
Angela’s jaw fell open as Stephanie sighed. “Yeah, Jake was the biggest at nine pounds, eleven ounces.”
A shiver ran down Angela’s spine. “They didn’t take him C-section?”
“Debbie refused,” Bruce said in a groan remembering. “When I heard her hips pop when Jake crowned, I got lightheaded and the nurses made me sit down.”
Angela looked down at her lap. “I don’t know if I can even pass a baby that big. They wanted to take Cade, but I wanted to try.”
“You don’t be worrin’, baby,” Carroll said. “I’ll be there, and that birthin’ doctor is a good un.”
Pushing the thoughts of childbirth from his mind, Bruce looked down the table at Jake. “Jake, I want you and Matt to pull together a team to go after the europium, starting the last week in February. Steve, you arrange the air assets.”
Jake let out a snort as Matt opened a laptop. “We’ve done that already.”
“We drew it up, using half of Omega team,” Matt said turning on the laptop. “With the helicopters and tankers we drew up in the primary plan, we can secure over two tons in a month.”
“Thought that was all you found,” Bruce said picking up a pen and making notes.
“Close to us,” Jake said as the largest screen on the wall came on and Matt opened a power point presentation. “That’s within eight hundred miles. There are huge stores on the west and east coast. We can only make guesses but from records we can get, it’s going to be in the neighborhood of thirty tons.”
Letting out a soft whistle, Bruce looked up. “Give me a list of those places.”
“Dad, it would take our entire force to get them,” Jake said. “They are far away, and in or very close to large population centers.”
“Just get me the list,” Bruce said and looked back down as he continued writing. “You will use all of Omega to secure the europium near us, and have until the middle of March to be done.”
Mike opened his notebook then dug in his cargo pocket, pulling out a bottle of aspirin and setting it on the table. “What’s the hurry for obtaining all the europium? I know it kills blues, but you’re going after all of it.”
“I don’t want any gangs figuring out what we are using,” Bruce said, still writing. “Has anyone in this room told anyone about the europium?”
Everyone shook their heads, looking around as Bruce continued writing. “Ah no, Dad,” Jake said. “You were insistent that nobody talk about it outside of the command group.”
Setting his pen down, Bruce looked up with a somber face. “And until I say, that is the way it will remain.”
“You don’t want to broadcast that we have a means to wipeout the infected?” Mike asked, grabbing the aspirin bottle and popping the top off.
“No, and to answer your next question, the reason is to shorten this war,” he said, watching Mike toss two tablets in his mouth. “If the gangs out there know how to kill infected on a large scale, they will become a bigger problem to us. As of now, the blues will keep them in check until we take care of them.”
“There are still a lot of survivors out there that could use the information,” Willie said.
Pushing back from the table, Bruce stood up. “It wouldn’t do them any good because they can’t get any, but several gangs out there could get their hands on some,” he said and walked over to another monitor that showed the continental U.S. “We have found over fifteen hundred gangs so far and are adding more every day. We thought the military unit who are just a gang in Pennsylvania was big but as you know, we’ve found two others that are bigger and we are still looking. I’m not losing soldiers by giving the gangs the means to secure the area around them. I’m in charge and this is my decision.”
Swallowing the aspirin, Mike put down his coffee mug. He turned to look at Bruce. “I take it you have your battle plan drawn up?”
“Yep,” Bruce said but didn’t smile. “Any that have a problem with this speak your mind, but I’m not changing mine.”
“Bruce,” Carroll said slowly. “We done told ya, you in charge until this war be over, so get on with it.”
Looking around the table, Bruce saw everyone nodding. “Very well, on the punishment of banishment, none here can tell anyone about the europium. Any that are told must be approved by the command group as a whole, no one, not even me, can grant permission to divulge this secret.”
“Um, how are we going to make the bullets?” Paul asked, reaching for the bottle of aspirin.
“Oh man, y’all are going to love this,” Angela said getting out of her chair followed by Stephanie. They moved behind Bruce and grabbed stacks of printed booklets and passed them out.
“None of these booklets are to ever be shown to any not in this room. You will store them here,” Bruce said and pointed to a safe that had been put in the room. “The combination is in the back and after we cover the plan, only three copies of this will be in there.”
Nancy grabbed the booklet and flipped to the back, looking at the combination and sighed, seeing Bruce used the date of Debbie’s death. “Very appropriate,” she said and flipped to the front.
Flipping through the book and scanning the hundreds of pages, Mike looked up with tired eyes. “You didn’t do this over the last few days.”
With Angela on one side of the table and Stephanie on the other, they passed the last booklets out. “No, he’s been working on this before we contacted Gene,” Angela said, moving back to her chair.
“He added the chapters on the europium yesterday,” Stephanie said walking past Bruce. “I tried to talk him into letting me make a power point presentation for him, but he wanted paper booklets.”
“You are willing to deviate from this battle plan if we encounter problems, right?” Gene asked scanning the pages.
“Of course,” Bruce said moving to his seat. “Willie, Conner, you two are in charge of setting up the ammo area to make the mag
ic bullets. You will tell those that you choose to work there, the stuff they are putting inside is radioactive, and they must wear protective gear at all times. Under no circumstances, should they be told.”
“Dad, we will have to let some members of Omega know,” Jake said flipping through the pages. “They will be the ones getting it and if they hear it’s radioactive, they will freak out.”
“Page forty-three addresses that, Jake,” Stephanie said and Jake looked down to see her booklet was closed, sitting on the table.
Shaking his head, “Man, I wish I could memorize like that,” Jake mumbled, flipping to the page.
“The command group will agree on twenty troops from Omega that will be told but beforehand, they will be told about the banishment for them and who they tell, if they ever tell anyone,” Bruce said with a sigh.
Willie let out a soft whistle, looking at the maps of attack across the states. “You aren’t playing about taking the states back, are you?”
Mike picked up his pen and looked up at Bruce, “I trust you are going to outline each section?”
“Yeah,” Bruce said. “Paul, you need to get teams set up to start pouring concrete barriers. The outline is on page-,” Bruce stopped to flip through his book.
“One hundred and six,” Stephanie helped as she pulled a laptop to the table and opened it.
“Thank you, baby,” Bruce said as everyone flipped pages and Stephanie started typing.
She looked over at him smiling. “You’re welcome. Hope you don’t mind, but Angela and I did a power point anyway.”
“I really didn’t want this in any computer,” Bruce said.
“Dad,” Jake said from down the table. “Unless she gives someone the password, you can’t hack her computer.”
“I told you,” Stephanie grinned, looking at the laptop’s screen.
Matt slapped the table. “How in the hell can you do that? We ran over a hundred hacking programs.”
“The twenty-character password changes every hour,” she said typing and the screen behind Bruce showed a diagram of a thirty-foot-tall concrete barrier. It looked like a Y turned upside down. “It’s a numeric code based on the time and date using a basic logarithm that only I and Angela know.”
Blue Plague: Hope: Book Seven Page 8