A New World: Storm

by John O'Brien

  “Well, I don’t rightly know what to make of that,” I murmur, signing off the radio with Leonard. “What do you think?”

  Frank ponders for a moment before replying, “I don’t know either. He mentioned it appeared to be an automated message so it could have been triggered by anything. Maybe a power surge or something falling and hitting a switch. I don’t know. It would require power to send so maybe something triggered the power supply, allowing the message to start. We could ask Harold to take a look when we talk with him tomorrow.”

  “At least we won’t have to worry about them showing up anytime soon. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing, but at least we can clear it off our plate. Okay, well, I suppose it’s time to get airborne and see what our neighbors are up to,” I say, rising.

  “Stay dry,” Franks says, smiling.

  “If I get hit by a single raindrop, I’m calling it off,” I say.

  At the aircraft, the wind is gusting, but there isn’t any sign of rain. The clouds have broken up to the point that I can see a fair amount of sky, which, to the west, is glowing orange from the sun descending to the horizon. Near the coastal mountains, clouds are building up, but not moving in our direction. Small masses break off from the buildup and race across the sky, driven by strong winds aloft. It’s going to be a bumpy ride for the night, but at least we’ll have visibility. It does that a lot in the northwest: Rain during the day and clear at night. The showers will be back come morning.

  The Spooky was reloaded as we showered, warmed up, ate, and met with Harold and Leonard, although the latter was only for a brief moment. With the sky’s brilliant light show in the west fading and the day darkening, we quickly run through our checks. Lining up on the runway, I move the throttles forward and we begin accelerating down the muddy strip. For a split second, I think about stepping on one of the brakes and throwing the aircraft into a skid just to see what would happen. Yes, I do have odd thoughts at times. It’s not a serious one, but it does flash through my head.

  Airborne and turning north, the Spooky shakes as we fly through pockets of turbulence. The ground below is turning a dark bluish-gray as the day progresses toward night. We position ourselves over the southern end of the once-populated corridor, waiting for the night runners to emerge.

  “Holy shit!” I exclaim, as the monitor lights up with figures emerging in seemingly all directions.

  I haven’t flown up in this area for a while and had forgotten how many had spread out of Seattle. However startling their appearance is, it seems much the same as before. Small and medium-sized packs branch out from numerous buildings and spread rapidly. I can only imagine the incredible volume of shrieks that must be echoing through the streets.

  “Damn, that’s a lot of images,” Robert says, mentally.

  “You have to keep that part shutdown or it’ll overwhelm you,” I reply in the same manner.

  I mentally open up for a brief moment, and although I can sense the multitude below to a degree, my mind isn’t overwhelmed with images. Perhaps he’s better able to sense them, or he can reach out to a farther distance. I don’t know, but it warrants more research, if we get the time.

  We don’t immediately begin firing, but instead drone to the north and east. I want to get a bigger picture of how far they’ve spread. Frank will be looking at the live feed from the satellite parked in orbit overhead, but I want to take a look for myself.

  As we fly onward through the night, it really does seem like the night runners may have taken a time out, or perhaps they’re settling into their new digs. As far as I can see, they are in numerous packs, yet still scattered. That’s not great news, but it isn’t as bad as it could be either. The ideal situation would be for them to suddenly jump up and run into the mountains. Well, the super, ultimate ideal would be for them to just vanish off the face of the earth, but that’s not going to happen.

  The Spooky bounces, sometimes shaking hard, at other times experiencing a series of shudders. Moonlight shines through the breaks in the overcast, streaming down in rays and lighting the edges of the clouds in a silvery white. Driven by the winds, smaller clouds race across the sky.

  Heading down the southwestern part of the city, just north of where the soldiers conducted the burns, Robert begins tagging some of the larger packs. We want to hit those farthest south and west in our effort to push the horde east. More than likely, though, any area we clear will only become filled with new packs. If there’s food and shelter available, you can bet the night runners will move in. Any vacuum created will be filled.

  With the moonlight shining off the rain-soaked streets, red streams of light pour downward to intersect the night runners racing through them. Ricochets streak into the air from the two-second burst of the Gatling gun. Rounds tear into a pack of eight, ripping through their flesh and leaving their corpses cooling on the wet and chilled pavement. It’s much the same as the other evenings when we’ve chased the night runners. We find a few and hit them with Gatling or 40mm cannon fire before they vanish into nearby buildings, which we then hit with one or two 105mm rounds before moving on. The clouds begin closing in, covering the openings between layers and bringing rain showers. Before we can expend our ammo, it’s time to call it a night and head home.

  We’ll have the video from the Spooky that Frank can compare with the satellite feeds. In the morning, we’ll see about altering our tactics. My hope is that we can be effective hitting their lairs during the day and perhaps taking a few night flights. Although we’ll never be able to take out all of the night runners, keeping constant pressure on them will help. We’ll just have to see what Frank comes up with. With our early return, we are able to get some rest.

  The showers don’t let up in the morning. Piling into several Humvees, Lynn, Frank, and I head out with Red Team providing escort. The fields and trees fill the air with the fresh scent of new rain. Traveling along wet roads that meander through the countryside, we intersect the old highway and arrive at the smaller concrete bridge we hit the prior afternoon. The road ends abruptly at the point where it begins crossing the waterway. Twisted rebar extends out from the concrete supports with deep cracks in the pavement several feet back. Peering into the river, there isn’t much of the structure to be seen.

  The wooden railway trestle is much the same, ending abruptly with timbers angling down the embankment. The current has carried away much of the remains, sweeping some of the debris onto the shorelines on both sides.

  Making our way to the interstate bridges that spanned the narrow river, we see a different story. Steel beams stick out of the water below where the bridge used to be. In all, it’s a twisted mass of wreckage.

  “I really don’t see anyone making it through that mess,” Lynn comments as we stare at the current rippling around debris.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” I say.

  I can completely envision the night runners throwing something from bank to beam and forming a bridge they can cross. I’m not sure what their engineering capabilities are, but I remember the shock of seeing furniture piled against the wall we had built around the hospital.

  “Well, be that as it may, I wouldn’t want to try and cross that. Besides, what else can we do?” Lynn speculates.

  “I suppose we could have someone swim out and plant charges, but if the 105 didn’t have much effect, I really don’t see what C-4 will do. I mean, we could shape the charges, but that may not do anything and we could end up worse off,” Frank states.

  “You’re probably right. We could hit it with a few more shells and see if that does any good. If not, then we’ll just have to hope this will be good enough. After all, we’re just trying to nudge them around us,” I comment.

  Arriving back at Cabela’s, having avoided the heavier rains drifting through the area, Karen lets me know that Harold has been trying to contact either Frank or me. It’s not long before I have Harold on the line.

  “Jack, I have the pictures from northern Canada you requested and am s
ending you updated satellite imagery on the area surrounding Fort McMurray. The images are both daytime and nighttime images, and I think you’ll find the IR ones from the day quite interesting. If you want to get them, I’ll hold and we can go over any questions you or Frank might have,” Harold briefs.

  Frank leaves to pick up the satellite pictures, returning shortly with a small stack placed in a folder. Pulling them out and laying them across a small table, we begin looking at what Harold sent. The first images we look at were taken in the daytime. In several of the pictures, light plumes of smoke drift upward from some of the buildings at the nearest refinery.

  “Harold, is that smoke we’re looking at?” Frank asks, holding one of the images up.

  “Yep. Now, take a look at the same shot with an infrared overlay,” Harold says.

  Rifling through several of the pictures, Frank extracts one and lays it next to the one he was holding. The new one is mostly gray, but with dramatic plumes of heat emanating from the source of the smoke.

  “So, from these, can we assume they have part of the plant in operation?” Frank asks.

  “It certainly appears that way, although there’s no way to be certain. But, from the heat sources and smoke, that would be my guess. They may be refining fuel for their own needs,” Harold answers.

  “Do you have any idea about what kinds of fuel they are able to refine?” I ask.

  “I have no idea, Jack. It could be kerosene for their lamp oil or fuel for vehicles. Or a combination. There’s just no way to tell,” Harold replies.

  “Okay. We’ll look over the rest of them and get back to you on what we decide to do,” I state.

  “Jack, Frank, before you go, take a look at the nighttime images, concentrating on those of the town itself,” Harold says.

  Frank pulls several photos from the pile.

  “Okay, what are we looking at? Or for?” Franks asks.

  “Notice something missing?” Harold responds.

  I feel like a third grader being asked a question that the teacher wants me to deduce for myself. Why doesn’t he just come out and say what we should be seeing…or not seeing.

  “This is an IR shot?” Frank asks, referring to an image number.

  “Hang on…yeah, that’s the one,” Harold states.

  “There’s no one on the streets. I see heat plumes from several of the houses, but no one actually out,” Frank comments.

  Frank seems to know what Harold is referring to. Apparently I’m the only one who needs things explained.

  “Exactly,” Harold says. I can imagine a smug look on his face with that comment.

  “So, that means the night runners are staying inside – or there aren’t any around,” Frank states.

  “Aside from apparent use of the refinery, that’s the other thing I thought interesting. I put together a video taken at intervals throughout the night. There’s not a single moment that showed the activity we’d expect from night runners hunting. Over the course of the night, the heat sources from the houses faded. It’s my guess that there aren’t any night runners, which would account for the large population up there,” Harold briefs.

  This news represents an exciting potential. It doesn’t really answer our immediate problems, but it sure could be beneficial in the future. The odds are against the refineries being able to produce jet fuel, but if they can manufacture a form of diesel, that would be a tremendous boon. We wouldn’t be reduced to staying in our immediate area and could, down the road, start manufacturing some items. My thoughts tumble along the lines of possibilities. Frank stares at the pictures lying on the table before us, lost in his thoughts as well.

  Bringing me out of my reverie, Harold mentions that he doesn’t have any good news with his efforts at restoring communication with the satellite, but states that he’s devoting all of his time to it. That’s the best anyone could hope for. Frank mentions the conversation with Leonard and asks Harold about getting some satellite footage of Pearl Harbor, to include the source of the radio signal.

  “We’re asking a lot of the satellites we have, but I’ll see what I can do,” Harold replies.

  Frank thanks Harold, and without anything else to share from either side, we sign off.

  “Well, what do you think about the town up north?” I ask Frank.

  “It’s too hard to tell anything, but it looks promising. Personally, I think we need to be up there in person to verify the information, but if it turns out to be true, that will help us immensely,” he answers. “Perhaps not in the immediate future, but definitely down the road.”

  “I think you’re right, we need to get someone up there; but when?” I comment.

  “That’s something we should bring up at tonight’s meeting. By then I should have also had a chance to go over the footage in more detail and will hopefully have some additional information,” Frank says, gathering the pictures and placing them back into the folder. “Mind if I take these?”

  “Not at all,” I answer.

  “See you tonight, then,” Frank says, leaving the room.

  Staying seated, the images of the refinery play through my mind. We have a lot of things to take care of, and several decisions to make, but we also can’t afford to miss this opportunity. It’s a matter of when we do each one, and if the night runners behave. I call Harold back and have him send a moving radar display of the weather covering the last couple of days. The satellite he is using has the capability to take that a step further and display a forecast of the weather patterns.

  I head down to the airfield we scraped out to see that the Spooky is ready to go, should we decide to venture into the skies come nightfall. Frank commented in passing that the satellite imagery he received the prior evening covered what he wanted, so we wouldn’t have to rely on the gunship. If we go aloft, it will be for the sole purpose of whittling down the night runner population.

  By late afternoon, low ceilings whip across the area, bringing steady rainfall and wind. With the heavy drops falling in the parking lot and surrounding fields, we gather inside to meet. Most of the crews have returned early with the weather setting in, creating a din inside. Bannerman and the assigned crews have managed to make a lot of headway on our living quarters, but they’re not ready for habitation yet. Slices of conversation and greetings rise and fall in the general murmuring. Thumps add to the mix as equipment is put away or dropped.

  Opening up the meeting, Frank covers what he saw on both the satellite footage and the video from the Spooky.

  “The overall structure of the packs hasn’t changed since the last time we were able to get video. There are large numbers of night runners in the area between Seattle and just to the north of here. They remain in small to medium-sized groupings with the average pack numbering nine or ten. I’ve marked several buildings into which some of the larger ones disappeared as dawn approached. Between you and me, you could hit just about any building up north and the odds dictate that you’d kill something.

  “Keep in mind that this is the first night we’ve been able to track them to this extent. I’ll look each evening and see if I can identify a trend with respect to their movements. Some of the buildings that I’ve tagged we’ll leave alone for the time being so I can see if they remain in the same lair, or move around. I’m going to attempt to mark certain packs to see if their sizes increase, and if they do, what the extent of that might be. Also, I want to look at the packs as a whole to see if the overall numbers shift in a certain direction. That way, we’ll see if our efforts to push them east and then south are working. It will take some time to see any definite trends, if there are any,” Frank briefs.

  “Seeing that’s the case, do you have any idea why they haven’t joined up in larger packs like the one we identified earlier?” I ask.

  Franks shakes his head. “No. I don’t have any idea why they keep to the sizes they do. Or why there was such a singularly large pack like that. From what I’ve seen, that appears to be an anomaly. It could be that they are
territorial, or that the ones up north have developed different habit patterns. Perhaps the food supply is scattered in such a way that makes it easier to hunt with smaller packs. Any guess that I make at this point will be the equivalent of throwing a dart in a darkened room.”

  “So basically we just keep looking in on them until we can identify something one way or the other, and hit any lairs you identify during the day. Perhaps even going up on some nights to assist them moving to the east,” Lynn states.

  “I believe we’ll be able to pinpoint some of the larger lairs, which we can hit during the day. That may yield better results in decreasing their numbers. However, we’ll want to concentrate on the ones in the westernmost areas. That may or may not help push them around us, but it can’t hurt to try,” Frank says.

  “Okay, so you’ll mark the buildings for us to hit during the day and we’ll go up for the occasional night foray. With the bridges gone and their shelter locations decreasing to the west, that will hopefully give them the impetus to go around,” I comment.

  “I think that’s the best solution we have at the moment,” Frank replies.

  “All right. I’d like to bring up the location we found in northern Canada,” I say, passing around the images Harold sent. “I think it’s important that we take a hard look at what’s up there.”

  The group looks at the pictures as I relay the conversation Frank and I had with Harold, mentioning that there may be as many as seven hundred people may be in the area.

  “How could that many people be alive with night runners around?” Lynn asks.

  “That’s the interesting part. Harold compiled footage of the area at night and there isn’t any indication that there are night runners prowling the streets or the encircling countryside…and that includes the refineries themselves. Also, from the IR images, the heat plumes show that the people up there may have parts of the refineries operational. At least that’s what Harold believes…and so do I,” I answer.

  “Is there anything we know that would account for that?” Greg asks.