Joe twisted the wire-nut on the last three ground wires, wound a short length of electrical tape around them, and closed the panel front. “That's it,” he said, as he stood on the sharply pitched roof.
thunk ... thunk
“Me too,” Frank said, handing the hammer back to Gary. Gary turned and dropped it over the edge, close to the house, the nail apron went the same way.
Joe grinned. “Let's go try it,” he said.
Seven months of scrounging solar panels, back-up batteries and wiring, and now the moment of truth. Joe waited anxiously while Gary negotiated the ladder, a slow trip. Gary did fine going up the ladder, it was down that was hard, he knew.
Frank waited nervously beside Dell, Annie, and Peggy on the ground, until Gary finally reached the end of the ladder. Joe fairly flew down behind him, the excitement evident on his face. They all walked inside the cabin.
It was the largest cabin at Snoqualmie settlement, built the first year with some help from Jeremiah and Anson, when they had come up. They needed a large cabin, so that all of them could get together. Snoqualmie had grown a great deal in the last year. Joe and Becky had bought Dell and Peggy when they had come cross country from the east. Six months later Frank had come without Jessie. Shortly after that Annie had come and they had become an item: Jessie had come on her own, but she had not stayed long. Lisa and her man Sam, six other couples had followed. Now there were better than seventy people here in the first encampment, and over three hundred in the small valley by the lake: The numbers kept rising.
In addition to the larger cabin, there were seven others scattered in a semicircle, and more than eighty down closer to the lake. Most had been part of an old summer camp for kids. Joe walked to a large electrical panel, mounted just inside the doorway, and waited for the others to catch up.
The panel held the main breaker. They had wired the eight cabins with florescent lights. No outlets, they didn't have enough panels for that yet. Six large sodium lights ringed the cabins outside. Joe hesitated, his eyes locked on the overhead light fixture. “Here goes,” he said, and then flicked the main breaker.
For a split second, nothing. And then, softly, a low hum, almost insectile, as the fluorescent light stuttered to life.
Gary levered the front door open. The sodium lights had a sensor switch that would automatically turn them on at dusk, but Joe had installed an override switch next to the door. Gary flipped the switch as he stepped out the door, and the sodium arc lights glowed softly. Within five minutes they were at full power, shining brightly in the late afternoon air.
“Think it'll run anything else?” Dell asked.
“Eventually, if we can hunt up a few more panels,” Joe answered smiling. “We did it, can you believe it?”
“So long as you don't want to build a nuclear power plant next, Joe,” Gary said and laughed. The others joined in, their laughter rolling across the clearing. As they turned to walk back to the cabin they heard the sound of a motor on the quiet mountain air.
“Damn,” Gary said as he dodged inside the cabin and came back with an armload of rifles.
He passed them around as the motor grew louder. “Sarah?”
“I doubt it,” Joe said.
There was one road into the old forest preserve, but none of them had heard the sound of a gas motor in close to a year, the entire settlement used horses. Their outpost was the entrance into the actual settlement a half mile distance deeper into the forest, spread around the lake.
Joe took a rifle from Gary. He ejected and checked the magazine, then slammed it home once more. The rifles were the real deal, full auto at the flip of a switch, taken from some dead soldiers they had come across on one of their excursions for supplies.
Sarah ran Snoqualmie settlement: She had since Jessie Stone had left more than a year before, and had never come back. Snoqualmie had risen from a disorganized settlement of outlaws, desperate men and women, to a respected settlement that was ruled with a somewhat iron hand.
He could clearly hear more than one motor now, maybe three, Joe thought. Frank looked over at him and arched his eyebrows, but the truth was that Joe had no idea who this might be. There were gangs from the larger cities that sometimes raided the smaller encampments, but none had ever come this far out, and Snoqualmie was far from small. Over three hundred people were here. Armed men and women. Gardens were planted. Houses had been built. It was home and they all felt the same about it. No gang would be taking this place from them, stealing their children, raping their women, murdering their men. It was a question that came up often living so close to what was left of Seattle Washington. It was why the rifles had been picked up, cleaned, and put into service. It was why this house was the outpost you had to pass to get down into the actual settlement.
Becky came from the house with her own rifle. She took up a position by a tree on the other side of the main road where it turned in from the old park road and then angled down toward the lake and the settlements. The motors grew louder as the vehicles turned the last corner and rolled out into the clearing that fronted the house. Three sport utilities that had seen better days, Joe saw. Their drivers shut down the motors and silence fell on the day. The tick of cooling motors came to Joe's ears. The door on the closest sport utility began to open and Becky called out from across the yard.
“I would step out unarmed if I were you,” she told them. The others in the yard had raised their own rifles and pointed them at the door and the person who was stepping from the sport utility.
A short woman stepped out, long black hair, black-lensed glasses covered her eyes. Joe began to lower his rifle. She stripped off the heavy leather coat she wore and tossed it back into the truck. She pulled the glasses down her nose and stared over them to where Becky stood, a wide smile on her face.
“Oh god, no way,” Becky said. Her voice caught as she lowered her rifle and moved toward the woman where she stood next to the truck. “Jessie... We thought you were dead, Jessie. We thought you were dead.” she told her when she reached her. Becky wrapped her arms around the smaller woman and hugged her tightly.
“I get that a lot,” Jessie joked. She made room for Joe as he came over and wrapped his arms around the two of them. “I get that a lot,” Jessie repeated.
April 11th 1952
Jeremiah Edison
Jeremiah Edison drove the old tractor carefully down the side of the slippery hill. It had been raining for close to three days, and it didn't look as though it was going to let up right quick, he thought.
The rain was causing all sorts of problems, and not just for him, he knew, but for the cows as well. The biggest problem was the creek, and the only way the creek wasn't going to be a problem was to unplug the thing.
He sat on the tractor as it slipped and slid its way down the hill through the gray sheets of rain. Jeremiah let out a sigh of relief once it reached the bottom. For a second there, he had been sure both he and the old tractor would end up in the creek, but God was smiling on him today.
He slipped the worn gearbox into neutral, and sat looking at the rush of muddy-brown water. The creek was a good four feet above the point of flooding, and he wasn't sure it was a smart move to try to put the tractor in that. The tractor was sure footed, but so was a goat, and he'd seen more than one goat end up on its ass. But there wasn't anything else for it. If he didn't move the trees that were clogging the creek, and flooding it out and over the banks, then he might as well just sit back and watch a couple more cows drown.
Jeremiah knew cows, pretty much anyhow, and every one that he and Maggie owned were just as stupid as any other cow he'd ever seen. The cows didn't understand flooding, they didn't understand how the water could weaken the banks, and so the big dummies just walked on down to the creek, just like any other day, and got swept away when the bank crumbled under their weight. Three days of rain and four dead cows, and though cows were stupid, they weren't cheap.
Jeremiah sat in the pouring rain and stared at the creek
. Normally, the creek was no more than eighteen inches deep at the most. Course normal wasn't what it was today, he thought, and wishin' it was wouldn't make it so. It was his own damn fault, he reminded himself. Two of the trees that were clogging it had been there last summer, and hadn't he promised Maggie he'd take 'em out before fall? He had, but he hadn't, and so here he was in the pouring rain fixin' to half kill himself to get 'em out.
Looked like the best way, Jeremiah thought, might be to try and snag the biggest one right from the bank. He squinted as he shielded his eyes to peer through the rain. One thing was for sure, sittin' on the tractor and thinkin' about it, wasn't gonna get it. Reluctantly, Jeremiah climbed down off the tractor and edged closer to the bank. The rain was coming down hard, but the section he stood upon seemed solid enough. "Probably what the cows thought," he muttered as he moved closer.
He walked back to the tractor, unwound a long section of chain from behind the seat, and walked back to the creek. The top of the bigger tree was sticking a good three feet over the bank, and he was glad that it was. He could see that the water was rising faster, and moving along quicker, and he had no wish to get any closer to it than he had to. Quickly, but carefully, he wound the chain around the tree and pegged the links with an old bolt to hold them. Looks good, and solid as well, he thought as he slipped the other end of the chain over the bucket. He genuinely didn't want to try and turn the tractor around. In fact, he thought, as muddy as the ground was, he'd be damn lucky just to get it back up and away from the creek when he finished.
He gave an experimental tug at the chain, and then climbed back up on the tractor. Carefully, without grinding the gears any more than he surely had to, he shifted into reverse, played the clutch out slowly and brought up the slack in the chain.
"Well God?" He asked, looking skyward, "You keepin' a watch down here? I could sure use a hand about now, Lord. Amen," Jeremiah finished.
He let the clutch out a little further, playing the gas pedal as he did, and let the tractor go to work. The over-sized tires spun, caught, and the tractor began to slowly back up the steep bank, pulling the tree out of the muddy water as it did. Jeremiah released the breath he had been holding, and just as he did the chain snapped in two. Jeremiah barely had time to register what had happened when the old tractor flipped, crushing him beneath it.
THE STORY OF THE FOLD
ONE
February 26th
Year One
Jeremiah Edison
Jeremiah Edison stared at the squared board lost in thought. If he moved to the right, he would surely lose two checkers. Maybe, he thought, as many as four. Moving to the left would not help either. There was actually only one semi-safe move to make, and that was straight ahead. But even that move could put a hurtin' on his few remaining checkers, he thought. Nothing to do for it though, but move it, and see what happened.
He stared into the thoughtful eyes of the older man across the table, trying to read them. No good, he was a master at hiding his thoughts. His face was calm and carefully composed, not so much as a smile played at the corners of his mouth.
Jeremiah gave in and decisively moved one checker forward and then leaned back into his chair, waiting to see what the older man would do.
"Well, I see you have left me little choice, Jeremiah," the older man said. He picked up one of his own checkers and carefully slid it forward as he finished speaking.
"That was what I was hoping you'd do," Jeremiah said grinning as he jumped two of the older man’s checkers.
"No doubt about it, Jeremiah, you're just too good for me," the older man replied. He smiled widely, and pleasantly, and then changed the subject. "How about we take a short break, Jeremiah, maybe go for a walk. You must get tired of beating me all the time?"
"Well," Jeremiah replied, "I kind ‘a get the idea you let me beat you some times, but sure, I wouldn't mind a break at all."
"I would never let you beat me, Jeremiah. It is a good thing we don't play poker though. I might gamble the entire kingdom away trying to beat you," the older man replied laughing. "Besides I have my reasons for wanting to take a break right now. I see it like this, if you and I take a break, maybe once we return your concentration will not be so keen, and then maybe I will win one of these games for a change." He rose from the small table as he finished speaking. "Ready, Jeremiah?"
"Yep."
Jeremiah closed his eyes. He could have kept them open, and a few times he had, but the trip was unnerving enough without adding the visual aspects to it. Not that there was anything to see except darkness for the split second they would be traveling, he thought. Still...
He opened his eyes. They had actually only been shut for less than a second, but in that space of time they had traveled a considerable distance, or at least seemed to have. The small table that had been before him was gone, replaced by a lush green valley. A calm blue river flowed across the valley floor far below. He followed it with his eyes as it wound away in the distance.
"It's beautiful," Jeremiah exclaimed, "but will it still be…?" He let the question trail away.
"Yes it will, as will several others, Jeremiah, but it need not be this place, there are so many to choose from," the older man informed him. "Come."
Jeremiah blinked, and when he opened his eyes they were standing in a high mountain meadow. Wild flowers covered the meadow, and a large, summer-fat herd of deer grazed peacefully among them. A large buck raised its heavily antlered head and stared at the two men, but perceiving no threat went back to grazing the field.
"This is also beautiful," Jeremiah said quietly.
"It only matters where, Jeremiah. There are so many. There were even more, and there will be again."
"I'll have to tell Maggie about this place, and the other," Jeremiah replied, still watching the deer graze.
"You should, Jeremiah. In fact, there will be many things to tell her. Things she will need to know, Jeremiah."
"Tonight?"
"Yes. The time is short."
"I was afraid of that," Jeremiah said slowly.
"There is no reason to be afraid, Jeremiah."
"I know that. I guess I mean afraid, as in I wish it didn't have to happen."
"I knew what you meant, Jeremiah, but it is necessary. As much as I would wish that it was not, it is."
Jeremiah nodded his head slowly. "I know."
The two men stood in silence for several minutes, watching the deer in the field. It seemed so peaceful to Jeremiah, a good place to be, a good place to live, and that made it harder to accept that most of it would soon be gone. The older man spoke, breaking the silence that had fallen between them.
"Would you like to look at some others, Jeremiah?"
"I believe I would at that. I think I'd like to look at as much as I kin before it's gone, I guess. Does that sound wrong?"
"No, Jeremiah, it does not, I too wish to look... Ready?"
Jeremiah nodded, but did not close his eyes. Darkness enveloped him, and a sense of speed. The absence of light was complete; he could only sense the presence of the older man beside him as the traveled through the dark void.
Bluechip
Watertown, New York
Richard Pierce
Far below the small city of Watertown New York, Richard Pierce sat working before an elaborate computer terminal. He had just initiated the program that managed the small nuclear power plant hidden deep below him in the rock. The nuclear power plant fed project Bluechip, and something else that was hidden from him. He wondered about that briefly but shut it out.
The government had designed all of this project precisely that way, to be unconnected. So that any one person or group working on a particular section would not know what any other group or person working on some other section was actually doing. It made things difficult at times, but he supposed it was for the best. When it came to the government and what they did, it was sometimes best not to know.
A small handset beside the computer station chime
d, and he picked it up and listened. He did not speak at first, but as he listened a smile spread across his face. "Very good," he said happily, when the caller was finished, "keep me advised." He set the small handset back into its cradle and turned his attention back to the screen in front of him. The plant had powered up just as it was supposed to, no problems whatsoever, and that made Richard Pierce extremely happy. Two more days tops, he thought, and then maybe I'll get out of this dump.
He supposed he should feel honored that he was even here. It was after all one of the biggest projects in the country, albeit top secret, but he could not help the way he felt. He was close to a mile underground, totally cut off from everything and everyone, and he hated it. If he had a choice, which he had not, he would never have come at all, but he had written the software that handled the power plant, as well as several other sections of the military base and that made it his baby. There were a couple of small bugs, mainly due to the fact that no one had been allowed to know what the entire program was supposed to do. The way the rewrites were going however, it looked as though he would not be stuck here anywhere near as long as he had originally thought, and that was something to think about. He had begun to feel that he would never leave this rock bound prison, and wouldn't that be a real bitch.
Gary Jones
At a large gravel pit on the outskirts of Watertown New York, Gary Jones carefully maneuvered the wide mouth of the loader bucket over the dump box of the truck, and pulled back on the lever closest to him to release the load. Ain't this something, he thought, as he slowly topped off the dump box, barely 10 AM and we've already sent out twenty-seven truckloads of gravel to the base.
Six men out sick, and another forty truckloads to deliver before five tonight. What in hell are they doing with all this gravel? He wondered. It was a question he had asked many times before, and still had not gotten an answer to. Uncle Sam paid well though, and on time to boot, so he guessed he probably shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. He signaled the driver, and he pulled away with a whoosh of air as he released the brakes. Another dump truck lumbered up to take his place, and he pushed the questions out of his mind as he began filling the box.
Earth's Survivors: box set Page 167