by Rod Carstens
As they neared the trees, she heard a voice. “Blondie, over here.”
It was Cat! They made the tree line, and Cat appeared out of the trees, jumped into Blondie’s arms, and kissed her. They hugged for a long moment before Blondie put her down.
Cat slapped her hard across the face. “If you ever pull that shit again, I will kill you!” Then, seeing the bruises and cuts, she said, “Oh, baby, I’m sorry…”
“Would you shut up and get Vin out of the middle of the goddamn interstate?”
Cat raised her rifle and fired a three-round burst, then turned and led Blondie and Chris away from the river up the hill.
When Vin heard the three-round burst, he jumped back into the car and gunned it in reverse. The guards were startled by the blast just long enough for him to get the SUV turned around before they started to fire. He raced the SUV over the hill and stopped out of sight of the guard towers. The first to break the tree line was Matos. He ran to the SUV and scrambled in. It wasn’t long before Cat, Blondie, and a girl ran for the SUV. They all jumped in, and Vin tore off down the road.
“You picked up a hitch hiker,” he said as he swerved potholes.
“Long story,” Blondie said. “It is sure good to see you guys.”
“It’s good to be seen. We’ve got a long drive, so why don’t you tell us how you found this kid?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Blondie and the girl slept most of the way back. They never got the whole story. Tanner thought sleep was better than talking about the events on the bridge. Besides, he was still trying to deal with the loss of Johnny, and he needed the time to think.
What had happened to Blondie, Nikki, and Johnny was on him. He had to rethink the security arrangements until they reached the mall. None of them should have been put in danger. Sure, Johnny was bad luck, but he had put him in that spot. He had to think smarter and tougher.
Tanner also needed more trained security people. He was going to have to reassign some men and women if they were going to get to the mall in one piece. This was only the beginning. Those tilt-rotor folks were the first of the exodus from the cities, and there would be more of them ahead. He needed to make sure the community was ready to face those challenges. He would sit down with Cat, Matos, and Mike, the most experienced fighters in the community, and make some changes before they left the tilt-rotor compound. If they didn’t, then there was no telling what price they might pay on the road.
It was late afternoon when Tanner finally pulled the pickup into the hilltop compound. The complex had changed dramatically in the short time he had been gone. A guard opened the large chain link fence that surrounded the buildings. Others were walking the perimeter, and he saw one on the second-story balcony of the house with binoculars. They hadn’t had any binoculars when he left, so they must have scavenged them from the house.
The kitchen bus was set up, and they had taken tables, chairs, and an awning from the house and arranged them in front of the ramp so there was a dining area. He could see Peter and his mechanics working on the other vehicles, and beside them there was a big rolling toolbox that Peter must have found. People were busy doing laundry and hanging clothes up to dry near a faucet that was pouring water into a washtub.
Everyone dropped what they were doing and came running up to the SUV. Tanner glanced down at the fuel gauge; they had less than a quarter of a tank. It had been a close thing. Peter needs to work on the SUV and refuel it, Tanner thought, among the thousand other things rolling around in his head.
“Vin!” Julia said, throwing herself into his arms. Her body against his felt wonderful, and Tanner allowed himself the luxury of a long hug and kiss hello. It was very good to be back with the settlement.
“We were beginning to get worried,” Dr. Rule said.
“Yeah, it was quite an adventure. It got festive for a while there.”
Peter walked up to Vin and said, “How did she work?”
“She did great, but all the armor has made the fuel mileage go to hell. I’m bouncing on empty.”
Peter frowned then said, “I can work on it. It’s a balance between protection and fuel economy.”
“We need to talk about it later, buddy. I got no complaints, but it’s going to be a problem from now on. We need to come up with a strategy to get all these vehicles to the new mall. So let’s be sure we make time for that to happen.”
Peter went to the SUV and opened the hood to begin working. Blondie and Cat were standing arm in arm, with Chris staying close to Blondie, when Julia walked over and said, “Who do we have here?”
“This is Chris. She was held by the people on the bridge. She escaped with me.”
Julia held out her hand, and Chris looked up at Blondie for approval before she took it.
“Nice to meet you, Chris. My name is Julia, and this is my father, Brandon.”
“Nice to meet you,” Chris muttered.
Danielle walked up and introduced herself to the girl. When she did, Tanner looked Chris over carefully for the first time. He had not had a chance to during the return trip. Chris was older than he’d first thought. He could tell by the way she carried herself. And she had the beauty of the women in the City. Her hair wasn’t uniformly long. She must have been wearing it very short like the women from the City, then let it grow out in different lengths.
“How did you end up on that bridge?” Danielle asked.
“My family was moving to a new settlement, and they kidnapped me.”
“Oh, you poor dear,” Julia said. “Danielle is our doctor. Why don’t you go with her, and she will get you cleaned up.”
Tanner watched as Danielle led her away. He looked over at Blondie and said, “That girl is not what she seems. She’s not from a settlement. She’s from the City.”
Blondie looked at him, puzzled. “I guess she could be. It looked like Jo had chosen her as a companion and she wanted to escape, so I brought her along. She was terrified every time I saw her on the bridge, so it was hard to judge what she was. She just wanted out of there. Something wrong?”
“She’s from the City, and why is she lying about it? It worries me,” Tanner said.
“Why would she lie?” Julia asked.
“Good question,” Vin said. “I’m going to have to think about it for a while.”
Vin looked out at the beautiful view the compound had of the valley below. Then he asked quietly, “Where did you bury Johnny?”
“Johnny’s dead?” Blondie said.
Cat took Blondie aside to explain what had happened while Julia led Vin to the grave site. It was a flat area on the west side of the compound. The grass was a lush green and still manicured. It had a beautiful view of the valley below; it was a very peaceful place. The sun was beginning to set, and the valley was filled with golden light. Julia held Vin’s hand as he walked up to the grave and stood looking down at it.
“We made the city people dig the grave,” Julia said. “They weren’t ready for that much work. It tore their hands up.”
“Good. It’s an excellent place. He has a great view of the valley every sunset. I think he will enjoy that.” Vin was silent for a long time before he said, “It was my fault. I shouldn’t have let him come.”
“Bullshit.”
They turned to see Blondie and Cat standing behind them.
“Johnny may have been young, but he’d been scouting ahead by himself since we started the trip, and he grew up fast. He was ready, and you do him an injustice by not recognizing the fact that it was his choice and he was old enough to make it. Damn it, Vin, he was the same age as you were when you joined up. Now respect him for being a stand-up guy,” Cat snapped.
Tanner had been wallowing in his guilt instead of recognizing what Johnny had done. Cat was right. He’d been old enough to make the decision, and he had thought he was ready. Vin knew that no matter how good you were, sometimes your time was up because of bad luck. Someone hitting a target out of that tilt-rotor when it was going down was pure luck.
It had been Johnny’s time. Vin had seen it in the teams over the years—some of the best men and women eventually running into bad luck or karma or whatever you wanted to call it.
This flash of understanding didn’t make the pain of his loss any easier, but it did put it in perspective. If he was going to lead this community there would probably be other deaths as a result of his decision-making. He was going to have to get used to it. If anybody else had chewed him out, it would not have had the same effect, but he and Cat had been through too much together, and he respected her wisdom. It came from as many years of experience as his did.
Tanner put an arm around Cat’s shoulders and said, “Thanks. What you said helped.”
Cat looked up at him, “I know. The first time you lose someone, it’s always bad.”
“Does it get any easier?”
Cat looked up at him and said, “You saw other team leaders when they lost someone, same as I did. What do you think?”
Vin knew that it would never get easier. But it came with the territory, and he just had to prepare himself to face the consequences of his decisions. They all stood there silently for a few more minutes before Julia finally said, “Look, you need to get cleaned up. These people had running water and electricity, so you get to take a nice, long, hot shower. And you won’t believe the beds, with mattresses to die for. We’ve set up a schedule, so everyone will get a chance to experience one, but we decided that you guys would go to the head of the line when you returned.”
Before Tanner could say he could wait, Julia looked up at him and said, “Not this time, buster. I don’t want to wait a couple of days before I welcome you home properly.”
Cat and Blondie laughed as the four headed for the main house in the compound.
The shower was the best shower he had ever had in his life. No limit on hot water, and the longer he stayed under the spray, the more relaxed he became. It was as if he hadn’t relaxed at all in the last months.
He was still toweling himself off when he stepped out of the bathroom. Julia was lying on the bed in a black bra and panties; he had never seen her like this before. The bed was a huge king-size, and the sight of her lying on it with her head propped up was simply the most erotic thing he had ever seen. He had thought he was too tired, but the fatigue was suddenly gone.
With an amused smile, Julia looked him up and down, and seeing his excitement she said, “Is that for me? Get your ass over here, buster.”
They made love in the luxury of a real bed for the first time and then ;Vin fell asleep in her arms. When he woke Julia was gone, and he had no idea what time it was. He glanced at his watch, and it said four o’clock. He saw the sun was out, and judging by the light, it was late in the afternoon. He must have slept for over fifteen hours straight.
When he stood he found new clothes laid out on the bed for him. They must have belonged to one of the City people, but they fit him perfectly. There were even new boots. Vin slipped them on and walked out of the bedroom. A short hall led to a great room with a large kitchen on one side and a wall of windows overlooking the valley on the other. In the kitchen were Nikki and a couple of her crew. It looked like they were beginning preparations for dinner.
“Well, look who finally got up. Are you hungry?”
“Starving. When is supper?”
“Not for a couple of hours. You’ll have to wait.”
“Sure smells good. What’s it like working in a real kitchen?”
“Heaven. I am going to make sure everybody gains weight before we leave.” Nikki turned to a warming oven and brought out a big bowl of stew she had saved for him. “You don’t think I was going to let you go hungry, do you?” Nikki said with a big smile. “The others have already had theirs. You’re the last one.”
“Thanks. You’re the best.”
Vin sat at the counter and began to shovel the stew into his mouth as quickly as he could.
“Say, Vin, what’s with the new girl?”
“What do you mean?”
“She complained about the stew. Said it should have been better since I had a real kitchen to cook in.”
“I don’t know, but I’m sure going to find out.”
That was all he needed on top of everything: a new member who could be a problem. While it was the least of his worries, it didn’t take much to disrupt a community. He would have to determine what this girl’s problem was before they took her on.
Vin finished his stew and walked down the stairs to the yard. He saw Peter first, bent over the SUV they had used to rescue Blondie.
“How’s it look?” Vin asked.
Peter stood and said with a smile, “She looks great. With the tools I found and some useful parts they had lying around, the vehicles are in their best shape ever. There should be no breakdowns between here and the mall. I knew we were pushing them, but I didn’t know how hard. We needed this stop, or we might have lost at least one bus and one gun truck. Now they are all ready to go. I also had time to convert the last batch of cooking oil into biodiesel, so all the tanks and barrels are topped off for the trip. Come here. I need to show you some up-armoring I did.”
Peter led him over to the kitchen bus. “You know how worried I’ve been about getting the tires shot out? Well, we pulled panels off the tilt-rotors and attached them over the wheel-well openings so only the very bottoms of the tires are exposed.”
Tanner was amazed at the ingenuity that Peter and his crew continued to show almost every day keeping these vehicles running. The tires were almost completely covered now. It was a great addition to the protection.
“What about weight?”
“The tilt-rotor panels are aircraft aluminum and significantly lighter than scrap metal or old signs, so they don’t add much weight at all.”
“Terrific. You did this to all the buses?”
“Yeah, and the gun trucks. We’ll have your SUV done in a couple of hours. We solved all the installation problems on the other vehicles. Let’s go back to your vehicle. I want to show you one last modification I’m going to make.”
When they got back to Tanner’s SUV, two of the mechanics were working on the front of the vehicle.
“I got to thinking,” Peter said. “Most of these roadblocks, except back at the bridge, have not been substantial—just trees and brush across the interstate. I thought we might be able to bust through those without stopping if we had a plow.”
Peter turned to the two guys working on the SUV and said, “Show him what it’s going to look like.”
The two mechanics working on Tanner’s SUV picked up two panels and braced them against the front of the vehicle. When they were in position, they formed a plow blade on the front of the vehicle.
“Now we can bust through the easy roadblocks and the debris in the road that we normally have to stop and move with a working party. I think this is going to significantly speed up our travel time.”
Tanner immediately began to think of all the times they’d had to stop just because the road was blocked with debris. If the plow worked like Peter thought, this could make a significant difference in their travel time.
“Out-fucking-standing, Peter. This should work like a champ. Will it take long to finish?”
“No, your wheel protection is already on, and all we have left is to put a plow on your SUV. We’ve already done the others.”
“So all the gun trucks have plows?”
“Yeah, I thought they might come in handy.”
Tanner could only shake his head and smile. It was incredible what this community could do. “So you’re ready to go if we have to leave right away?”
“In a couple of hours, yeah. I could always use a couple more days, but we could bug out if we had to.”
“Thanks. Outstanding work. Just outstanding. This is going to change things on the road for sure. I’m going to find Mike and check on security.”
Tanner walked around the compound. It was a very well designed facility, with all the modern conveniences. Th
ey had no backup generators and once they lost power, they would lose their water. He didn’t see any stream or spring anywhere near the compound. Water would be a real problem for them. It was essential for any settlement. Just about everything else could be hacked or jury-rigged, but without a reliable source of water, you were asking for problems.
He continued his inspection until he found Mike checking the perimeter, and joined him.
“This is a sweet little compound, Mike said. You could really set yourself up here, but it’s not big enough for all of us. We have good security with a good view of all the approaches. But the best is yet to come. Let me show you.”
Mike led him over to a table that had been set up with a laptop, where people were working some controls. On the laptop’s screen was an aerial view of the interstate. The camera was flying then hovering over anything interesting on the ground.
“Turns out these three tilt-rotor pilots spent a lot on their hobby drones. They have three state-of-the-art hobby drones with a range of like five miles. We now have aerial coverage wherever we go. They had these laptops, all the batteries, and tools to keep them flying. Peter and his guys have adapted a solar panel to charge the batteries. We’re going to have eyes in the sky from now on. How do you like that?”
“You’ve got to be shitting me. That is terrific.” Vin could hardly believe his eyes. They could have the drones up and flying when they stopped or when they needed to scout ahead. This was great.
“How many pilots do we have?”
“There’s a list of about twenty-five people. We’re training them as fast as we can. We set up a pilot-test flight, and we grade everyone. The best scores go to the top of the list. They’ll be our pilots.”
“Great. Make sure they know how to maintain the drones as well as fly them.”