“Yeah, and stop having to use that stupid yellow-brown rule for the toilets.” Doug said.
“It’d be nice to be able to shower more than once a week.”
“One thing at a time.” Brenna said with an air of having heard all this before. “It’s not killing anyone to take mostly sponge baths.”
“Let’s get back to your power.” Whitley asked. “How are you supplying this place with just a battery bank? For that matter, where are you getting good batteries?”
“We’re refurbing them from cars and trucks.”
“How?” Peter asked, picking up on where Whitley was going. “Car batteries aren’t designed for the kind of use they’re seeing if you’re powering lights and heaters and everything else around here.”
“Yeah, but we’re turning them into deep cycle batteries.” Justin said smugly. “And those are good for mass power storage.”
Whitley glanced at Peter as he furrowed his brow. “How are you managing that?” he asked after a moment. “I mean, I’ve always been told vehicle cells and deep cycle ones are entirely different.”
Justin shrugged modestly, but the aura of triumph was still all over his expression. “We’re stripping down the batteries we collect and rebuilding them as deep cycles.”
“How?” Peter pressed.
“It’s a long explanation.” Doug said, stepping in. “We’ve got a lot of documents in our database that discuss batteries for home power banks, things that off-grid types put out. And we’ve got a bunch of other stuff that details batteries in depth.”
“And one of the other people here is a chemistry teacher.” Max said.
“Yeah, but Gil’s the one who knows how to remelt the lead into the right kind of plates for deep cycles.” Justin shot back.
“The point,” Brenna said hurriedly, “is that between all of us, we figured out a way to take resources that weren’t going to be all that helpful and turn them into something that is.”
“You realize that if a big bank like you’re talking about short circuits it could set a lot of what it’s connected to on fire, right?” Whitley said.
“The Geeks say they’ve covered that.” Max said, gesturing at Justin and Doug.
“We’re not idiots.” Doug said, frowning at Max. “We’ve got fuses rigged up between the bank and the grid in here.”
“Those must seriously serious fuses.” Whitley said unhappily.
“We’ve been good so far. It’s actually not one single battery bank, we divide it up into manageable sections.”
“But—”
“Let’s not drift too far into shop talk.” Peter said firmly. Whitley traded looks with him, then nodded slightly. Peter cleared his throat. “So that sounds like Canton, more or less. What about Ellsworth?”
The locals’ faces clouded up immediately. Brenna rolled her head around on her shoulders for a moment, then shrugged. “We’ve received the same radio broadcasts you obviously did; probably more of them since we’re closer.”
“Yeah, our comms guy had to jump through some hoops to—” Smith started, only to trail off when Peter fixed him with a ‘shut up’ gaze.
“We’ve talked with them.” Peter said, returning his attention to Brenna. “They say they’re all that’s left of the government.”
“That’s what they say.”
“You don’t believe them?”
Brenna shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “They may be, they might not; but some of the things they’ve done — are trying to do — sort of make it questionable as far as we’re concerned.”
Peter blinked, then spoke slowly. “What are they doing?”
“We first ran into them a little over a month ago, on one of our scavenging runs into Sioux Falls. It was sort of how we encountered you; we were poking around in the outskirts and noticed some other vehicles further out that seemed to be watching us.
“So we extracted ourselves from the city and went out to meet them. We assumed they were . . . look, over two-thirds of the people here have come from straggler groups who show up or get found somewhere and get integrated into our community. It’s not like we rolled into Canton with a full roster.”
“How many are here?” Whitley wanted to know.
“About five hundred.”
“You don’t have an exact count?”
“I do, but why do you care?” Brenna answered sharply.
Whitley shrugged. “Just curious. The camp we were attached to back in Georgia was run by a FEMA coordinator, and she itemized everything down to the smallest detail.”
“We keep records.” Doug said.
“This group, the one from Ellsworth, turned out to be what they said was a survey and contact platoon. Three Humvees and a military truck, sweeping around taking stock of conditions. We talked with them a while, but their questions started getting uncomfortable.”
“Like, how?” Crawford asked.
“They wanted details about our encampment, about how many people we had and our supply situation. They wanted to know about our vehicles and resources.”
“Nothing terribly out of the ordinary about that.” Peter said mildly.
“I knew it.” Max exclaimed, smacking his fist into the table. “He’s just like them. We’re wasting our time.”
“Hang on.” Brenna said quickly.
“Calm down.” Peter said, holding out both hands a placating gesture. “All I meant was I’ve pulled duty with relief operations a number of times.”
“What’s that mean?” Craig asked, sounding vaguely receptive but still disgruntled.
“Like after a natural disaster or something, when you’d see military units rendering aid to a region?” Peter explained. “Marines units are often near those kinds of things because so much of the Corps is . . . was . . . usually forward deployed in overseas bases or cruising around in Navy task groups.”
“Okay, so?” Max demanded angrily.
“So, one of the first priorities is to triage the situation, the circumstances, so you know where and how to allocate what you’ve got to work with. So you know where to send what you’ve got, and where to send teams to leverage what’s already available. Like, an area might flood; but one town could be leveled and need everything, but another might just need a generator to get their water treatment plant working again, and a third might have a lot of unskilled but willing labor if they get some cadre leaders in to direct them appropriately.”
“Yeah, well, they weren’t suggesting anything like that.” Brenna said quickly before Max could speak again. “They were already excited to see Big Foot, and—”
“Wait, Big Foot?” Smith said.
“The truck.” Brenna explained. “You know, the huge dump truck you followed in here?” she added after a moment where the blank looks from Peter and the soldiers didn’t turn to comprehension.
“Oh.”
“Anyway, it was obvious they kind of liked Big Foot. And when they saw we were stockpiling supplies, starting to seriously fortify Canton, and had more than a few dozen people working on all of it, they said someone from the base would be out to talk to us the next day.”
Peter waited expectantly. Brenna’s face took on an even more unhappy cast as she drew a breath. “The scouts left. But the group that replaced them showed up with a list of demands as long as your arm.”
“Demands?” Crawford said, her voice taking that subtle flat tone Peter remembered from just after they’d all secured the FEMA camp in Cumming. The same tone she’d had after Swanson had died.
“Yeah, demands. Only they didn’t call them that; they used words like emergency requisition and drafting for the duration.”
“Like, what did they say, more exactly?” Peter said, still calm, still keeping his body language mild and unthreatening. There were too many guns in the room to risk letting things get too tense.
“They wanted nine of ten of our able bodied adults—” Max began hotly, but Craig interrupted him. The other man had to speak loudly to override Brenna
, who was also striving to get words in.
“Teenagers too.” Craig said.
“Let me—” Brenna tried.
“Shut up!” Max said, his voice rising to the loudest level yet. “They wanted our people to report to Ellsworth for assignment to duties in the ‘National Relief Force’. Plus all our best vehicles and gear, including most of the ammunition, all the trucks and construction gear we’ve assembled, and a big chunk of our food and other supplies.”
“That’s—” Brenna said before been overridden again.
“Plus they expected whoever was left to still keep scavenging,” Craig continued as Max took a breath, “and they were going to come by every week or two to pick up an ongoing share of what got pulled out of wherever.”
“Jesus.” Smith said.
“That’s illegal.” Whitley said.
“Wait, what?” Peter said at the same time. Everyone looked at each other, and Whitley gestured at him as if to signal she’d let him have the floor. But Brenna had finally managed to wedge herself back into the conversation.
“They had documents, they left them here in fact if you want to look at them.” she said quickly. “They claim they’ve legally reconstituted all three branches of the government—”
“They might be right about that.” Peter said, breaking in. “That’s what they told us when we talked on the radio; that the Secretary of Labor had been elevated to President following the legal order of presidential succession. And that they had surviving members of Congress, some Supreme Court justices, and part of the Cabinet too.”
“Yeah, but we’re due for an election a week or something aren’t we?” Smith said.
Doug and Justin, and Crawford, burst out laughing; while everyone else just sort of stared at the Guardsman. Smith reddened a little and frowned. “Well we are.”
“How in the hell do you know that?” Crawford demanded, her tone still vastly amused.
“It was in some of Sawyer’s stuff.” Smith said. “Part of her background packet for long-term emergencies.”
“I’m surprised you remember any of that crap.”
“Hey, that crap of hers was working out pretty good for us in Cumming.”
“Do you really think there’s going to be an election?”
“I don’t know.” Smith protested. “But legally it’s supposed to happen on the 6th of November.”
“He’s right, but it’s a complicated question.” Peter said. “The SecLabor can move up to the office, but the term he’s filling in expires in January.”
“Yeah, well, that’s not how Ellsworth sees it.” Brenna said, pulling eyes and attention back to her. “They say they’re the legal government; that they’ve passed a number of laws that give them authority to draft people and demand supplies in order to fund the reclamation effort.”
“They . . . they may be right.” Peter said slowly after several seconds of silence, as his thoughts turned through the information.
“You’re fucking kidding, right?” Max said, starting to rise. “How are any of us supposed to survive if they show up and strip everything bare?”
“Calm down.” Crawford said, standing up.
“Make me.” the bearded man said aggressively.
“Okay.” Crawford shot back, just as hot as Max.
Peter’s chair flew back, skidding along the carpet as he came to his feet in a rush. Reaching out, he grabbed for Crawford and managed to seize hold of her arm just as she cocked it back, her hand forming into a fist. “Stand down.” he said firmly in his command voice.
“I’m not scared of you.” Crawford said to Max, ignoring Peter except for how she jerked and twisted her arm, trying to break free from his grasp.
“You should be, I’m like twice your weight.” Max said.
“Crawford.” Peter said, moving closer as he maintained his grip on her. It was a struggle; the uniform the Guardswoman wore was as misshapen and loose as all fatigues tended to be. Beneath it, she was lean and in shape; and he was old and had a lot less snap in his step than he’d used to.
“Try three times you fat whale.” Crawford said.
“I’m not taking shit off some girl carrying a pink fucking gun.” Max said.
“Max, chill out.” Brenna snapped.
“Gunny, if you don’t let me go, so help me—”
“Cindy, shut the fuck up.” Peter roared, finally losing his temper; though, to be fair, he was also about to lose his grip on her arm.
She spun around and glared at him, her expression thunderous. “Goddamnit Gunny!”
Peter saw it coming and threw up his left hand, angled to block. Her punch deflected off his forearm, and he stepped in close and went for the cinch to wrap her up. “Don’t do it!” he warned as he saw her drawing her head back to headbutt him.
“You couldn’t keep your mouth shut?” she all but snarled, flexing against his grip. “Goddamnit!”
“How many times have I told you to let me handle shit?” Peter demanded.
“This guy started it.”
“And I’ll finish it.”
“Yeah right.” Max snorted.
Peter ignored the local for the moment, though he was getting short of patience with him as well. “Crawford, either sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up, or I’ll break something and you’ll be limping for months.”
“You wouldn’t.” she said. “You couldn’t either.”
“Try me.” he said, throwing as much convincing into the two words as he could, drawing on decades of stare downs and square offs to back his aura and attitude of menace.
Crawford locked eyes with him for several fulminating seconds, then shrugged once. “Fine. Let go of me.”
Peter released her and held his position for several more moments, testing to see if she was about to resume the almost-fight. When she just stood glaring at him, he stepped sideways and pointed at the chair he’d just vacated. “Sit down. Have a cigarette.”
She looked at him a moment longer, then moved past and picked the chair up. Peter turned his own evil eye on Max as Crawford began to seat herself again. “And you, jackass, what’s your problem?”
“My problem, soldier boy, is that my wife died in the outbreaks, and I’ve got three boys who aren’t even out of elementary school yet depending on me.”
“One, I’m a Marine, not a soldier.” Peter said, trying to modulate his voice back to something approximating reason and calm. “Two, everyone’s lost loved ones. Everyone. And three, none of this stops unless people start pulling together and work on fixing the problem.
“Consolidating people into safe zones that get steadily expanded is solid strategy, and is the only way to clear threat zones like this. And it keeps everyone from needing to hold their own little hideouts if people join together and focus on the big picture.”
“Who’s going to take care of my boys if I go off to fight zombies?” Max demanded. “Huh, Mister Marine? I’m all they’ve got left.”
“Who says you have to leave them?”
“Ellsworth.” Max and Brenna said at the same time.
Peter blinked. “What?”
“They’re not carving out or expanding any safe zones.” Brenna said while Max breathed noisily through his nose and shot daggers at Peter with his eyes.
“Why don’t we all sit back down and dial it back a couple dozen notches, okay?” Whitley said, patting the air with her hands several times. “Everyone’s tense as hell these days, and it’s easy for things to just blow up. Let’s just ease down some.”
“Yeah.” Peter said, nodding and grabbing Crawford’s chair. Sliding it back to the table, he plopped down in it and waited as the others did likewise. Crawford lit a cigarette, and Craig did likewise. Peter didn’t see an ashtray anywhere, but he didn’t really care at the moment. When butts were back in chairs, he looked at Brenna. “Let’s start over with Ellsworth’s requests.”
“Demands.” Max said.
“Max!” Brenna snapped.
He glanced at
her, then folded his arms and tossed his head to clear his beard and hair from beneath his arms before leaning back and glaring vaguely at no one in general.
Brenna went on. “They said there was a national draft of all able bodied adults ‘for the duration’, but they had a little leeway because of ‘our situation’.” She was making little quote marks with her fingers as she said certain phrases. “Because there are close to a hundred ‘non-combatants’ here, they would let ten percent of the ‘military age adults’—”
“And teenagers.” Craig said.
“Yes, damnit, and teenagers.” she snapped. “They’d let one in ten stay on here to help those who weren’t enlisted. Everyone else was to report to Ellsworth for ‘training and assignment’. The supplies they were going to take that day though.”
“Until we stopped them.” Max said sullenly.
Now Peter did wince. “How many died?”
“No one.” Brenna said. “Though we nearly had to shoot several of the soldiers that came along with the ‘delegation’ as security.”
That one threw Peter, but he gave up immediately trying to guess. “How exactly did you manage to not kill anyone?”
“It was a town meeting.” Brenna started, but Craig spoke again.
“They insisted.”
“Yes. They wanted to talk to everyone at once, so we pulled everyone together except a couple of volunteers who stayed on watch. When the meeting went south, and they started on about how we had ‘no choice but to comply’, people didn’t take it well.”
Now Peter saw how it had gone. “The delegation was only a dozen or so people, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, and we had them outnumbered.”
“And everyone is armed.” Max said.
“The town basically drew on them and we had ourselves about five minutes of standoff while their negotiators tried to ‘reason’ with us.” Brenna said unhappily.
“And while we told them to get the hell out and not come back.” Max said, glaring at Peter.
Peter sighed. “Yeah, I’m sure that didn’t go over well.”
“No. They’ve been hostile ever since.” Brenna confirmed with a nod. “We’ve had to abort several scavenge runs because we saw one of their teams in the area, and now they’ve started overflying us with jets.”
Apocalypse Atlanta (Book 4): Apocalypse Asylum Page 25