Fortress Farm Trilogy: Volumes 1, 2 & 3 (Fortress Farm Series)

by G. R. Carter

  “You better, since you trained me, right?” Rebekah smiled. “'Failure of the troops means failure of command,' I think I heard someone say a million times. It’s bad, isn’t it, Mom? Not like ‘what a pain' bad but end of the world as we know it bad?”

  Julia smiled back. “I don’t think we can declare the end of times just yet, beloved daughter. But yes, I do believe this is probably more than just a run-of-the-mill power outage. I hope with all my heart I’ll be reprimanded by the Board for overreacting and the faculty will talk about how I’m a conspiracy nut not worthy of being in higher education! But every instinct I have tells me that we have to move quickly, or this is going to get really bad for our students. Remember those discussions that Dad and I used to have with you about how to survive at the farm without outside help? I’m afraid those discussions just went beyond hypothetical.”

  Julia and Rebekah stared at each other for a moment. They looked at each other as mother and daughter, leader and subordinate, maybe even as two best friends.

  “Bek, I need you to go out to the farm and tell Dad I believe this is a complete grid-down situation. He’ll understand what that means. And I’ll explain it all to you, too, when you get back. I can’t leave this building or else every other staff member will fade away. I’ve got to stay here, maybe for days. But you’ve got your RAs all set with the schedule, so you can sneak away for a couple hours.

  “I need you to go right now. And tell him exactly what I said, 'complete grid down situation.' Everyone else is at the farm by now so there’s no one else here in town to worry about. Gather my personal items and a couple changes of clothes for me. Tell Dad I love him and I’ll try my best to keep him posted. Tell him to think about bringing in the church family and our cousins and telling them what I think is happening. OK? Please be careful. By tonight, you probably won’t want to be on the road alone, so don’t hang around the house even though you’ll want to. Dad’s going to understand perfectly.”

  As Rebekah nodded and began to hurry away, Julia stopped her one more time.

  “Bek, you better grab two pistols out of the safe. One for you and one me.”

  *****

  “That’s the last of them for today, Mom,” Rebekah sighed. One thousand, seven hundred and fifty-seven people went through the lines and were served their meal. Or at least that was the last head count two days ago, and usually they all showed up for the daily meal. Just enough calories for one adult person to survive and get some work done. That plus one of the protein bars handed out in the morning and the evening had so far kept hunger from destroying the Old Main College community. Julia Ruff, who was still considered President of the College even after days of confusion and turmoil, finished her weekly stint as cook. She sank into the chair behind the serving counter, ripping off her apron and throwing it into the corner.

  She was exhausted, but thankful that for one more day her little flock had at least something in their stomach. From the trickle of news from outside their community, it sounded like most were dead, starving, or quite willing to make someone else dead for a meal. Just a few weeks since the power went out, and already America was gone. Julia knew her country was greatly weakened from the once-mighty empire of her youth, but she never expected the collapse to be so epic or quick. Only fast action and, she believed the grace of God, allowed her group to make it through so far.

  On the day the computers and everything that required electricity stopped, she had over three thousand students and almost five hundred faculty and staff on campus and living in the surrounding community. Only half were accounted for at the last head count. Many of the students made their way home, wherever that might have been. Those who couldn’t get home remained here on the campus, many still hopefully glancing into the parking lot to see their parents pull in to pick them up. That did still happen occasionally, but it was rarer all the time. Some of the parents even decided to stay here on campus; from the tales they told about the trip, at least some semblance of organization held hope, at least compared to what people were experiencing outside.

  The staff was a different story. Better than three quarters of the faculty and most of the support staff left and went home, never to return. Unlike her concern for her students, Julia simply couldn’t have cared less about what happened to those adults who left these frightened young people behind to fend for themselves. These kids were away from their families, sometimes hundreds of miles away from home. How could they have left them?

  Most of her Applied Sciences staff brought their families here to live on campus, and their fast work was helping save them all from starvation. The entire campus lawn was torn up to be planted with any seeds they could get their hands on. They brought in edible plants from the fields and woods. The little bit of livestock at the College farms and in the surrounding area was housed in the basketball arena under armed guard. Armed guard…more like the football team in their helmets with whatever weapons we could find for them. At least they’re brave!

  The Applied Science Department originally developed the formula for the government ration bars by mixing grain with available local fruit and vegetable matter with a special bonding agent. The College had intended to patent the process, hoping to use the proceeds to endow their college for future generations. Instead, the federal government nationalized the formula.

  None of that mattered now; those cities were mostly dead, and the government regulators right along with them. The College staff simply dusted off the formula and went to work producing food for all the remaining people at the college and in town. Grain from local farm storage was ground up and mixed with whatever edibles and vitamins were available. Owners of the few remaining school cafeterias and stores around town donated their supply and expertise in exchange for a safe place to stay on campus.

  “What’s the matter, Mom? You seem extra troubled tonight,” Rebekah asked.

  “Just worrying about food, Bek. Every time we sit down and run our calculations, we come up short on how long the supplies will last. I don’t think we can cut back any more on the calories we’re giving people, but were going to run out before the first batch of crops come in.”

  “Have faith, Mom. You always tell me ‘Good things happen to good people,’ right?”

  Julia nodded and smiled at her with reassurance. That’s right, my wonderful daughter, we could use a miracle right about now.

  Chapter Eight – The Pullback

  Shelby County, Illinois

  The Day after the Great Reset

  Unaware of the urban chaos brought on by the Great Reset, life didn’t start much different for Phil Hamilton and his family. Most electronics they used were simple appliances: refrigerator, coffee pot, lamps and washer. A family computer relayed news from the cities and occasionally they watched TV, though getting a signal these days proved difficult so they seldom tried. Brownouts and blackouts were a common way to start the day, and warned of possible Solar Storm activity. Their routine was simply to wait it out. Work was never in short supply around the Hamilton farm, and most of the time electricity wasn’t necessary to complete the task.

  After Phil floated the idea of Shelby County creating a source of their own fuel, he and a few other farmers in the area decided to give it their best shot. Any free time found like–minded families helping retrofit houses and barns to run off generators whenever the electrical grid failed. The same fuel ran their tractors and personal cars so they weren’t beholden to the fuel supply trucks that often didn’t show for weeks. After much debate, it was decided that the community would use soy diesel instead of ethanol because of the higher energy conversion rate than ethanol.

  Future soybean crops could also be planted from the previous year’s harvest. Modern hybrid corn was nearly impossible to keep and replant, having been bio-engineered and modified before farmers purchased the seed. But soybeans could still be cleaned and stored for replant in following years. Keeping their own seed supply hedged them against supply disruptions from the mul
ti–national seed suppliers who shipped the best varieties to the highest bidders around the world.

  Phil’s group organized themselves into something they called the Shelby County Cooperative, or just the Co–op for short. The Co–op worked with a couple of professors from nearby Old Main College, sorting out proper fertilization and rotation. In the fall, the Cooperative would plant wheat that grew to a certain height, went dormant for the winter, then revived and grew through maturity in early July. Immediately after, the planters would sow soybeans, taking advantage of the warm days to get the plants to maturity before restarting the process in the fall. The double crop strategy restricted the yields the Cooperative received for most crops. However, the goal of the Co–op was self–sufficiency instead of gaining digital dollars. Original Co–op members had already been through one rotation, and were planning for the next when darkness fell across the world that day.

  With the production of the crops off to a good start, the Co–op turned to the production of the biodiesel. Old Main College once again helped the Shelby County Cooperative, lending a graduate assistant to help with installation of mini-refineries on each member’s farm. When Delbert and Bob, the local Wizards, visited the Hamilton farmstead, even they were surprised by how small a footprint the process required. The whole assembly took just one corner of the Hamilton’s new Blue Ribbon High Efficiency building. The building also contained a purpose-built hydroponic system the Co–op was testing to provide fresh fruit and vegetables during the cold winter months. The fuel generated by the refinery – Delbert called it “The Still” – heated the building and nutrient-rich water, helping plants create more food for the family. Co–op members meticulously recorded their schematics and findings so their system could be replicated anywhere a new member joined.

  Smells of cooking vegetable oil permeated the landscape, leading to derogatory talk of “oilers” from some unsympathetic neighbors downwind. Many tried to install solar panels, but those were susceptible to the Solar Storms. Windmills were useful but needed constant maintenance in the Midwestern climate. Plus, the blades needed at least moderate wind to turn…and didn’t fit on top of tractors very well.

  Trial and error took a toll on budgets and nerves, but irony allowed them just a bit more experimentation before GRAPEVINE shut down the power for good. The morning the darkness fell, Phil was working on the Still. There were no background noises today, and Phil could hear the sound of a tractor motor off in the distance. Curious to see who might be out this morning, he stepped out of the door to see Bob Ford’s antique John Deere 4020 tractor coming down the blacktop road that ran in front of Schoolhouse Hill, the affectionate name the Hamiltons called their home turf. Phil’s granddad told him of a rural school building that once sat on the back slopes by the creek in a simpler time. Phil’s wife Anna liked the name, so it stuck.

  As Phil tried to figure out why Bob would make the trek with a vehicle barely making twenty miles an hour instead of his luxurious new truck, he noticed the tractor pulled a hay rack with Delbert Kuhn and three of his Shelby County Cooperative members seated aboard.

  The tractor pulled into the gravel driveway leading up to the house, and Phil spoke up immediately to give the Wizards a hard time. “You cheapskates. I knew you were tight with a dollar, but this is real redneck public transportation. Bob, Delbert will be complaining about the cold pretty soon, you’ll have to get some kind of shelter built up there,” Phil quipped, pleased that he could finally get a jab in at his friends.

  “Not today, Founding Farmer, we got major problems,” Delbert said as he jumped off the wagon. Though his age said otherwise, Delbert could still move as smooth as men half his years. Looks of concern covered each visitor’s face as they formed a semi–circle around Phil.

  “I think you better call your brains out here. That is, I hope she’s home and not at the hospital,” Bob said, using the grandfather voice Phil only rarely heard. Anna worked at the small hospital in town, though no one knew how much longer it would be open. The uncertainty of her job, even though supposedly nurses were in high demand around the country, was another reason for the Hamiltons' attempt at self–sufficiency.

  “She’s not here, Bob. She had a twelve-hour shift at the hospital, but she ought to be home in a couple of hours. I can try to call her again if we really need her. Phone's been down all morning, but she’ll probably get home a little early today,” Phil said. Suddenly, his stomach dropped. What in God’s name was going on?

  “You bet she’s busy. The phones aren’t working, the electricity is out everywhere, and nothing but old cars and tractors will start. Anything with a computer seems to be shut down,” one of the Cooperative members interjected.

  Phil paused for a minute, unsure of what to do next. “Let me get the kids, and we’ll get in my truck and head in to town. I know that the War Wagon will start,” Phil nodded over to his old International Harvester pickup truck. “You all are welcome to ride along, unless you want to stay on the Bob Ford Express there.”

  *****

  On the trip to the hospital, Phil and the Wizards sat in the front seat, with the kids and Trace Watson from the Co-op sitting in the back of the truck. The conversation was what to do next, just in case the power wasn’t coming back on soon.

  “We’ve already got the framework, now we have to ramp up production,” Phil said.

  “Agreed, Mr. Farmer, but we don’t have the equipment to put a still on every farm. And what about the townies?” Delbert demanded.

  “We can’t do it on an individual scale, I agree. But we can do it on a big enough scale for everyone, all at one location,” Phil assured the Wizards.

  “You’re talking about a massive project, lasting a year under the best conditions. How are you going to get materials for that when we agreed we can’t even afford the equipment to build new stills?” Bob asked. He seemed to be looking for someone to feel the brunt of his annoyance riding in this old junk trunk while his state-of-the-art truck sat like a chrome sculpture.

  “That’s the point, guys. There’s already a plant set up for this just a few miles away. Greenstem Ethanol’s refinery has been empty for a year now. That place is huge. We can use it!” Phil said, satisfied at the change from annoyance to intrigue overcoming the faces of the Wizards.

  Ethanol production facilities sprouted like the very plants that fed them throughout the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. Due to market forces and political games, most didn’t survive the initial boom. But the equipment that was used to create the biofuel still littered the landscape of the Midwest.

  Administrators in DC decided ethanol equated to a net negative in their Environmental Protection Agency formulas. The specter of millions in modifications prevented any privately-owned companies from getting the federal permits needed to restart the project. All that remained was for an EPA insider to secure the multi–million dollar contract for another environmental impact study and then take the entire refinery down for scrap metal.

  Despite the excess money created by the Pullback, unemployment outside the cities still hovered around 30%. Paul applied for every job available within a sixty-mile radius and still came up empty in his search.

  He had nearly given up and asked his wife to move their family to the city when Phil last spoke with him. Phil hoped that Paul heeded his advice to stay out of the major metros. “Better to stay here and make a way than get trapped in that urban jungle” had been Phil’s argument. If the power was out for a long time, that was certainly going to be the case now.

  The discussion on what it would take to restart the refinery continued until Phil finally pulled the old truck into a surprisingly full hospital parking lot. Just like many of the rural hospitals built in the early 2000s, the Shelby Community Health Center was surrounded by a much larger parking lot then needed. Consultants secretly funded by developers and bond issuers gave over-optimistic projections encouraging small town hospital boards to overbuild. They issued tremendous
amounts of debt, with everyone getting paid along the way except the small town taxpayers footing the bill for generations.

  One thing that fortunately hadn’t been upgraded yet was the hospital’s old emergency generator, which Phil could hear humming behind the brick façade of the service area. Shelby Hospital’s equipment was to be replaced with high efficiency batter powered units, but most doubted any more federal grant money would be flowing this far out.

  Some light seemed to emanate from inside the hospital, though the front doors were propped open, making it hard to tell for sure. Squinting through the glare, Phil felt an overwhelming sense of relief. Looking out the front windows he could see the beautiful face of his wife, Anna. His four kids recognized her at the same time, jumping out of the back of the War Wagon and running across the parking lot to the hospital entrance.

  Phil yelled instinctively at the kids to watch for cars as he noticed there were no cars moving. In fact, nothing was moving at all. Delbert and Bob seemed to notice the same as they climbed from the cab of the truck, glancing side to side as if searching for anything to tell them their fears were unfounded. Trace walked to the hospital without saying a word. His mother was on oxygen, recovering from heart surgery on the 4th floor of the hospital. Phil silently scolded himself for not remembering that – now he understood why the man wanted to come into town so bad.

  “This isn’t good, Mr. Farmer. I think some of those doomsday conspiracies you keep talking about have come true,” Delbert said in the quietest tone Phil ever heard from the man. In fact, everything was quiet except the whir of the generator.

  After a long hug for her husband, Anna gave Phil and the Wizards a thorough run down of the situation at the hospital.

  “Sometime overnight, no one seems to know exactly when, all the computers and the most sophisticated of the medical devices just started going crazy. Blinking and shutting off, then turning on, and then all at once they shut off and stayed off. That included the lights,” Anna said.