The Forgiven The Fallen The Forsaken

by S. M. Armstrong

  So far fishing was of limited usefulness, but he had caught one halibut that made for a couple of good meals and bait.

  The winds were up today and he was being bounced all over the small boat, but he was making good headway.

  He had no idea how he'd make it to South America in the small craft, but he would, one way or another because there was no other choice. For the moment, at least, he felt very much alive.

  SAN FRANCISCO

  Julie was already in love with The City. The rumor of their landing permeated San Francisco and they were soon met by the mayor, Julian Bailey, and several of his staff. They went with the flow while insisting that it wasn't an official visit.

  The city was vibrant and alive. Julie and Helen couldn't believe the number of people living there. Restaurants and theaters were running. It was amazing.

  They hadn't dressed for an evening on the town so both of them wore what had become their uniform: black cargo pants, boots, and had their pistols in tactical leg holsters. Julie was a bit embarrassed but not only did the Mayor insist that they keep them in place, but he asked that they pose for pictures with him and his wife.

  Before they knew it, they were doing interviews for the local radio and television news about their new nonprofit companies. They were careful to point out that there would be for profit companies as well, but most would be non-profit.

  There wasn't any point in fighting it, so they had camera crews following them around the city. By the time they made it to a gala dinner thrown together by the mayor's office, the Board of Supervisors had approved a long term lease of a city owned wharf with warehouses to the Kunoichi Import and Export Company. When Julie pointed out that there wasn't such a company, the mayor said, "Until now," and had an assistant bring over the paperwork for them to incorporate in California with headquarters in San Francisco.

  Helen took the forms and said to Julie, "I think we've been claimed by a new hometown."

  The two of them walked up to the podium. Helen said, "Thank you Mayor Bailey. We would be delighted have our corporate headquarters in this amazing city." The applause was deafening.

  The rest of the evening was spent meeting people and talking about business opportunities. When the Mayor made it back over to them, Helen said, "I hope you have some suggestions as to personnel."

  He smiled and said, "As a matter of fact…"

  OCTOBER 10th

  Julie and Helen woke up early in their hotel room. As they had done in other cities, they purchased a hotel near their business properties and kept the current management and staff of the hotel. The hotel was only a few blocks from the wharfs, and they paid dearly for that. They would keep the hotel running and would use it for their employees as needed.

  The day before, they rented space in one of the downtown skyscrapers for their corporate headquarters of all things Kunoichi and hired staff to run it. It seemed insane, but the size of the growing businesses required it. Their businesses couldn't begin to touch demand, but there wasn't really anything to be done about it.

  When Helen checked the corporate accounts, she was shocked to see that the loans that had come through were not only many times what they had requested but were at no interest with payments delayed for the first five years.

  Helen called Aunt Susan immediately. Susan said, "We saw you on TV. You two are amazing! I twisted some arms and got more money for you. There's enough in your import company accounts to buy some ships, so get to it. And if you don't succeed, I'm going to take the two of you and break your knees. Got it?"

  "Got it."

  "Now get yourself some decent security before some kook puts a bullet in you. Love you two."

  "Love you too, Aunt Susan."

  Helen sat down as she hung up the phone.

  Julie asked, "So what's the word?"

  "We're working for the mob."

  Julie smiled. "Let me guess, Aunt Susan manipulated things and put in insane amounts of money into our companies and now she's explaining what will happen to us if we don't succeed?"

  Helen said, "She's a monster!"

  Julie laughed. "But she's our monster. Let's get moving."

  "Oh, and she said to get some bodyguards."

  "She's right about that, much as I hate to lose the privacy."

  "We need to secure our home too. I don't even want to think about what we have sitting there, unprotected."

  After a moment, Helen said, "You know we have to move here."

  "I like it, but I don't know how I feel about that."

  "Relax, Julie, it'll be just one of our homes."

  "All of this just seems so insane."

  "If it makes you feel any better, we're going to earn every penny then give most of it away."

  "Glad to hear it."

  "Alright, let's get down to San Jose to kick start Silicon Valley."

  KINGMAN, AZ

  OCTOBER 11th

  Luke, Jamie, Ron, and Skeeter each brought a truckload of supplies in to the Solar Panel factory. Deepak was thrilled to see them, almost dragging them in to see the first panels produced on the new assembly line.

  The factory was full of workers cheering at the accomplishment. Luke said, "You've worked a miracle getting things up and running so soon. Incredible." The workers heard this and cheered twice as loud. Luke was surprised by it for a moment. I don't think I'll ever get used to this, he thought.

  He and Jamie walked around the factory meeting everyone, then stayed around for the rest of the shift and learned some of the systems. They enjoyed the work, though Luke was sure he would get good and sick of it after a while.

  That evening they went to dinner with Deepak and talked about old times.

  Deepak said to Luke, "Your sister and Helen are doing something very special. These companies will take a year off the reboot time for American industries."

  Luke nodded and said, "I hope so. Is there anything else you need here?"

  "Not yet, but I'll have Matt send some things next week."

  After dinner, they dropped the semi trailers and traded them out for empties and drove up to Winslow to pick up produce.

  Luke and Jamie had the farm hands load the trailers and paid the farmers in cash. As always, they took the time to meet all of the workers as well as the farm owners. Luke didn't think he would ever get used to the celebrity treatment.

  By midnight they were in Phoenix, having their trailers unloaded at a Kunoichi distribution center. All four of them were thrilled to crash at the hotel around the corner. In the morning they would pick up more loads and would head to the next delivery point.

  They were tired, but it was good to be back in the game.

  PACIFIC OCEAN

  OCTOBER 12th

  Kemp lost the mast two days before and was adrift. At least the ocean is calm and the fish are biting every so often.

  He knew he'd die out here with the next storm if something didn't change but there wasn't a lot to be done about it. He cast his line out again and hoped for the best. This was definitely not ideal. He put the rod in the rod holder he'd jury rigged and went aft for some water.

  He stopped short, seeing a white speck on the horizon. He grabbed up the binoculars, and looked through them. It was a yacht. "Thank God," he said, as he started the small engine and steered towards it.

  As he got closer he noticed that there was a yellow quarantine flag flying and the craft appeared to be adrift. He pulled alongside, tied his craft to the back of the ship, and climbed the ladder to board the ship. Once aboard he moved fast and quietly, looking for survivors.

  He only found one body in a small cabin. It looked like the person had been dead for months. There was a note describing the experience of people getting ill and dying one by one. They would throw the dead overboard, until there was only one woman left.

  Kemp wrapped the body in a sheet and threw her over board to join her lost companions. He closed up the cabin. It would never be usable for habitation.

  The ship was 62 feet an
d, according to the log, had left Portland in January. The owner was one Frank Edwards who owned a software company and apparently an ego the size of an aircraft carrier. Kemp looked at the pictures in the ship and determined he could pass as a thin Edwards if he matched the beard and hairstyle. That was good. He would find the passport and ID later, but for now he wanted to check out the ships systems.

  The engines wouldn't start, but there was power in the batteries, so the solar rechargers were working. That was encouraging, at least. There was fresh water and a larger desalination system that was working. The freezer was full of rotten meat. He could deal with that later, but the most important thing was that the pantry was half full. He could last for months with that.

  He'd seen enough. It took just a few minutes to pull his gear and everything useful off the sailboat and cut it loose. He took great pleasure in shooting holes in the bottom of the hull and watching the sailboat gradually disappear beneath the waves.

  The rest of the day was spent working to get the engines started. He was able to start one of the generators and used it to recharge the rest of the ship's batteries.

  The real problem would be the intakes for the water to cool the engines. Kemp was relieved to find scuba equipment and wet suits. He spent a couple of hours with a crow bar finding and clearing the water intakes and propellers of barnacles.

  It took most of the day, but he did get the dual diesel engines running. He ran them on low power on autopilot for the next few hours while he worked on a bottle of whiskey from the bar and ate canned vegetables from the pantry.

  He checked his position on the GPS. Thank God that's working, he thought. He was far out in the Pacific with enough fuel to make it to California or Mexico, but South America wasn't going to happen without a refueling stop. He needed a plan.

  He emptied out the refrigerators while he thought, stocking them with beer, juices, and soft drinks afterward. For the freezer, he put on a diving mask and breathed from a scuba tank rather than risk being completely overwhelmed with the odor. He quickly emptied it all out, throwing everything overboard. It wasn't a task he ever wanted to do again.

  After he finished there, he took a quick shower for the first time in what felt like months. Afterwards, he threw on one of Frank Edward's robes and went looking for the man's Passport and ID.

  He found the safe within five minutes. Frank was a schmuck, he thought. Cracking the safe took another ten minutes after which Kemp took out the contents and dumped them on the bed. There was the passport and driver's license he expected and about two hundred thousand dollars. The rest of the contents were gold coins and DVD's.

  Kemp put a DVD into the player and was not in the least bit surprised to see that it was Frank's collection of porno starring Frank, himself. What a putz, he thought, though the girls are cute. Probably professionals.

  Kemp checked all the videos and once he had enough of Frank's mannerisms down tossed them all overboard.

  Examining the passport photo, he went to work on his appearance. By the time he finished, he thought he could pull it off as long as no one looked too closely. He bagged most of the cash, coins, and ID and stashed them in the engine room. From there, he went to work on the rest of the cabins. He collected the personal things of all of the passengers and crew and tossed them overboard, keeping only the passports and cash.

  By the time he finished, he had a plan. He would become Frank Edwards, an eccentric software designer who could no longer deal with people. Where Frank lived in Portland, new Frank would live in Southern California for now. Kemp would gather his caches and would work to develop a plan to get to Brazil and live a long and comfortable life with an obscene amount of wealth.

  In the morning he would set course for Catalina Island and get the hell out of this miserable ocean. Tonight he would get drunk and sleep in a real bed.

  ARIZONA HOUSE

  OCTOBER 15th

  Julie was happy to wake up in her own home. Helen was already up making coffee and the kitchen smelled wonderful.

  Their four person security team was staying in a pair of motor homes for the time being, but they had arranged to build two more buildings on the property to accommodate the staff.

  The two semi trailers full of loot had been moved to one of their commercial properties where the gold was now in an underground vault that they took great pains to keep secret on a property that was essentially guarded by a swat team. That was a huge relief for both of them.

  Julie saw that Mike Frazzetta and Helen were at the breakfast table already. He saw Helen coming in her pajamas and morning hair and said, "Good morning, sleepy head," in his thick Boston accent.

  Julie answered, "Morning, Boston. Just don't make me think before I have my coffee and we'll do okay."

  "Mike drove in early. I've been showing him what we need done and he's still thinking about it," said Helen.

  "It's just that you would do better with a ranch style house here with a deep basement, then another hangar over there. You'll appreciate it come summertime, believe you me."

  Julie gratefully sipped her coffee and asked, "So what do you think about the job, Mike?"

  "You're giving me too much. I thought you guys were completely nuts and you two saved my family in spite of it. Don't deny it. I know it was you two who had those trailers full of food delivered to my house, just like it was you who stocked that warehouse to the roof with food for after the city ran out.

  "I would do anything you ask within my power, but sixty percent ownership of a multi-million dollar company is huge."

  Julie said, "The work needs to get done. We don't have time to do it. The money we have is to rebuild the country, not for us to get rich. We need you and we're asking for certain things in terms of how you pay and treat the workers. They need to work hard, but they need to be treated well. They need to earn and spend and live again."

  "And at the same time, we need them to buy into an ideology of rebuilding and making the country better than it's ever been," said Helen. "We're paying them well because what they do is crucial."

  Julie said, "We don't have anyone else lined up to do this, Mike. You're the one."

  "You two don't make it easy to say no."

  "Read through these and sign them when you're ready. Your corporate offices are in Phoenix, but you can work out of anywhere you want. The first job is going to be rebuilding Flagstaff.

  "Frazzetta Construction? Are you sure?"

  Helen said, "With the exception of our import/export business, almost everything with the Kunoichi name is designed to be turned over to the employees as a for profit businesses at a later date. If we don't give away most of what we make, we'll eventually get skinned alive for having grown indecently wealthy off of the nation's misery. We'd rather keep yours as a profit based non Kunoichi venture so we have something to retire off of eventually."

  "You two are nuts, you know that?!"

  "Welcome to the sanitarium, Mike," said Julie with a large smile.

  BALTIMORE, MD

  OCTOBER 16th

  Jim and Susan were touring the East Coast, meeting with leaders there and looking at various projects to rebuild the country. It was impressive.

  So far the European immigrants had been a Godsend. The US was rapidly approaching a level of population that was minimally functional. Jets and ships travelled back and forth across the Atlantic moving food, supplies, and people.

  Jim wasn't sure if the Europeans would ever forgive him, but he would do all that he could to help them rebuild, regardless.

  Today he was watching Navy ships being loaded with semi tractor trailers with food, electronics, and generators. All of the trucks and trailers had the logo and name Kunoichi Shipping painted on the side and a large percentage were driven by very proud Native Americans. Truck drivers were the heroes of the day and that fact was lost on no one.

  Julie and Helen had their people working overtime to provide trucks and get the supplies to the East Coast. It was impressive work.
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  The good news was that not all of Europe was hit with the EMP. Mostly, it was North Eastern Europe, Norway, Sweden, and Finland. Western Europe was much less impacted, with the UK, France, Spain and Portugal not affected at all. It was fortunate as it allowed those countries to provide the staging for the relief shipments.

  The returning flights and ships were filled with refugees, but no one was questioning the fact that most of those refugees were form countries that hadn't suffered from the EMP. The truth was that most of the citizens of the Nordic countries were focused on repairing their own infrastructure rather than leaving, and there weren't many of the Eastern Europeans showing up to be evacuated.

  The radiation in Washington DC was diminishing, but congress wasn't interested in moving to a radioactive capitol. In the end, they passed laws moving the capitol to Flagstaff for a period of 20 years, after which the matter would be reevaluated.

  Later in the afternoon, Jim gave a speech aboard the USNS Bob Hope stressing the importance of the aid mission to Europe. He hoped it would be well received on both sides of the Atlantic. Already, he had coined the term The Great Mistake to describe the attack on Russia that was unavoidable once Kemp had fired those first missiles.

  The rest of the afternoon was spent in meetings with various Governors and new business leaders. He later said to Susan, "No wonder presidents age so fast. Having all these meetings piled on top of each other is kind of like an all day root canal."

  She just laughed and said, "Suck it up, buckaroo. Two more to go."

  CATALINA ISLAND, CALIFORNIA

  On the other side of the country, Kemp was fully into his cover story at this point. He looked and moved like Frank and he was his cover was completely believable. He steered the boat into the port at Catalina and went straight to the fuel dock where he purchased enough diesel fuel for at least a day's travel and overpaid greatly for that. He wanted to fill his diesel tanks, but he was told that fuel would be scarce on the Island until the next shipment. He was able to completely refill the propane and water tanks, however.