by Jessy Cruise
It was the Cessna that provided the long-range recon of the area. With a range of more than 1000 miles, Skip, Jack, and Pat had flown as far as Boise to the northeast, Salt Lake City to the east, Las Vegas to the southeast, and San Diego to the southwest. What they had found in all of these places was starkly depressing. The constant rainfall of the first six months post impact had drowned the desert and flatlands. All of the cities and towns in this area were flooded out and choked with mud, the only residents left, small groups of disorganized survivors, probably living off of the meager pickings left over from the collapse of civilization. Circling such places showed evidence of crude defensive walls built around enclaves, signs that the groups were constantly fighting among themselves. This was the view they had in all of the major desert cities: Reno, Salt Lake, Boise, Las Vegas. Los Angeles and San Diego were simply not there anymore, the very landscape that they had once stood upon washed clean of the towering high-rises, the endless subdivisions, and the millions of people that had once lived there. It was only in the mountain areas, high above the floods, outside of the mudslide areas, that any sign of organization existed. Here, near the communities of Nevada City, Alturas, Murphy's - tiny towns that had managed to roll through the earthquake intact - were places similar to El Dorado Hills or Auburn found. Circling such areas showed unmistakable defenses and inhabited buildings. In several cases the people themselves had been spotted. Review of videotapes made on the overflights had shown buildings where food was being stored, pens where animals were being kept, even greenhouse type facilities in Alturas. In contrast to the depressing views of the cities, the few thriving mountain communities brought hope; hope that there might be a future to the human race after all.
"Okay," Skip told Penny once the rotor was in the neutral position and the engine was throttled back down to idle. "Go through the shut-down procedure."
She did so, performing each action on the short checklist without problem. The rotor spun down to a halt and the engine died with a last whine, leaving only silence behind. They both unstrapped from their seats and stepped out. Skip's leg gave a strong protest when he placed weight upon it. Christ, he thought, it was really hurting today.
Sherrie, Paul's second wife, came walking out from the small maintenance shack where the aircraft supplies were kept. Her job in town was to keep the various planes and helicopters of the El Dorado Hills Air Force fueled and ready to take off at a moment's notice. She also oversaw the maintenance on each one, although others did the actual tasks. It was a job that she was very well suited for. She had had a baby less than four weeks ago and was still slightly pudgy with postpartum fat. She was also limping quite badly on the leg that had been shot in the First Battle of Garden Hill, much worse than normal.
"Hey, Sherrie," Skip said as he limped over towards her. He gave her a smile that one gives to others that are sharing their exclusive misery. "You too huh?"
"Yes," she groaned good-naturedly. "It's killing me today. I don't think its ever been this bad before."
"The barometer is surely going crazy on us, that ain't no shit," he replied. "I guess because it dropped so low during that last storm."
"Go get a couple of Naprasyn from Renee," she suggested. "I did and it took the edge off a little."
"Maybe I will," he replied, intending to do just that.
Sherrie turned her attention to Renee, who was standing shyly next to her instructor. "So how'd you do?" she asked her. "You didn't crash my chopper, I can see that."
"It was really cool," she beamed. "The bomb!"
"And we're going to do a lot more of it tomorrow," Skip reminded her. "So why don't you go get your notebooks and head on home. I want a three page essay on the physics of ascent and descent before we lift off."
"Awww," she groaned. "Not more homework."
"More homework," he confirmed. "And no bitching about it or I'll give you even more."
"All right," she said, exaggerating her annoyance. She headed off to the main bank of classrooms, whistling as she went.
Skip looked over at the empty parking spot on the other side of the twin-engine plane. It was for their smaller recon plane, the former Highway Patrol Cessna 182 that had been next to the MD-500 in the Cameron Park hanger. "Jack still out on patrol huh?" he asked. "I'd of thought he'd be back by now."
"He said they were going to shoot some film of the Tuolumne forest area. Our maps are a little vague on that part of the foothills."
"Oh," Skip said, nodding. "I guess that will take a while then. I'm telling you, you give that kid an assignment and he certainly takes it seriously. How much longer until the 182 goes down for a thorough?"
"Another twenty hours or so," she told him, knowing the answer without having to look at her books.
"Good enough," he said. "Hopefully Jack will have the map done by then and we can start concentrating on recovering that jet fuel from Winnemucca. I know it isn't going anywhere, but I just don't like leaving those tanker cars sitting there." He was referring to another group of tankers and boxcars that had been found sitting on a cut through some hills outside of the small, demolished Nevada town. Three of the tankers were full of jet fuel bound for a military base in Nebraska. The logistics of getting it back to El Dorado Hills were something that was still being worked out.
"Well," Sherrie told him, "I'd better get the Bell gassed up and ready to roll. Any problems with it?"
He assured her that there were not and they said their goodbyes to each other for the moment. While Sherrie limped off towards the fuel truck, Skip limped off towards the elementary school.
He found Renee, their resident doctor, inside one of the classrooms. The room was decked out with anatomical posters that had come from her former office and the blackboard was filled with drawings of the human circulatory system. At the desks, watching her lecture on anatomy and physiology were three men and six women from town, the first class of the El Dorado Hills School of Medicine. It had been decided even before the merger of the towns that the perpetuation of specialized knowledge such as medicine, piloting, and mechanics, would be the most important goal. In the world that was forming in the wake of the comet, knowledge and skills would be power. As such, Skip was teaching people to fly and the basics of military tactics, Steve Kensington was teaching engine repair and basic engineering skills, and Renee was teaching medicine. Stacy, Jack's first wife, was sitting in the front row, staring intently, her stomach already starting to swell with her second pregnancy. She was the star pupil so far, having been liberated from the kitchen on the basis of her extremely high test scores on the general knowledge exams that had been given.
Renee, seeing him standing in the doorway, paused in her lecture and offered him a smile followed up by a questioning look. He asked if he could have a word with her for a moment and she excused herself.
"Knee bothering you?" she whispered when she reached him.
"You must be psychic," he said.
"I must be," she confirmed. "Is it bad?"
"As bad as it's ever been. How about kicking down some of that Naprosyn you gave Sherrie?"
She pulled a prescription pad from her pocket and wrote "Naprosyn - 2 tabs" on it. The reason for the pad was that a few people in town had been helping themselves to some of the drug supplies - particularly the painkillers and the Valium derivatives. This had prompted the ruling committee to place all pharmaceuticals - over the counter and otherwise - under lock and key, releasable by the supply staff only on written order from the doctor. This did not include the alcohol and marijuana supply, which was releasable by a mere order from the ruling committee. "Are you flying any more today?" she asked him.
"No," he told her. "We've wrapped it up until tomorrow. Unless of course, someone attacks us in the meantime."
She laughed a little. "I guess we'll just have to take that chance." She scribbled a little more on the pad. "I'm adding a couple of Vicodin for you too. I couldn't give Sherrie any of that because she's nursing, but you're not lactating
currently, are you?"
"I don't seem to be," he said with a grin.
"It must be nice to be a man," she said, rubbing her own swelling stomach a little. She tore the prescription off and handed it to him. "See you at dinner tonight."
"Right," he told her, taking it. "Thanks."
It took him the better part of ten minutes to get the supply clerk to get his pills from the locked room. Once they were handed over he washed them down with boiled water from the dispenser in the hallway. He then made his way upstairs - wincing at each step on the risers - to the main office where the ruling committee met.
The office was not terribly opulent by any means. It had once belonged to the principal of the school and it retained much of its original furnishings. Pat, Bonnie, and Paul, the committee members, were sitting around the desk having an informal discussion about initiating contact with Auburn. It was an old argument and one that they never seemed to make much headway on. Of course the change in government there had long been noted. It was not hard to notice that the women were the ones with the guns now and the men were the ones scavenging in the mudflats of the valley for whatever it is that they looked for there. Auburn was watched very closely by El Dorado Hills. Recon flights during the day were contacted three times each week - always by approaching from the east, as if they'd come from Garden Hill - and night flights were conducted weekly. So far it did not appear as if the women were planning any kind of military operation soon, but you never could tell. Bonnie was of the opinion that contact should be made, just in the interests of being the neighborly thing to do and perhaps to see if any sort of trade could be worked out. Pat and Paul however, were both opposed to the contact on the grounds that they didn't want to have dealings with a community that treated one sex as slaves. Sometimes they argued viciously about this for hours at a time.
Currently the discussion was much lower key. They were sipping out of glasses of boiled water with lemonade powder in it and behaving almost calmly. They looked up at him as he entered and he told them that unless they had something else for him to do today, he was going to go home and lay down.
"The leg bothering you?" Bonnie asked, noting how he was carefully keeping his weight on the right one.
"You could say that," he agreed. "Renee cut me loose some pills for it. I want to see if I can sleep it off."
"Sure," she said after receiving no dissent from the other members. "Take the rest of the day off. You're not the first one being bothered by the barometer today."
"It really is spiking, isn't it?" said Paul, whose job it was to keep an eye on such things.
"It really is," he agreed. "I'll catch you later. If you see Jack when he comes back, will you have him stop by my house on his way home? We need to go over the lifting procedures for the Huey some more so we can get that fuel lift figured out."
"I'll tell him," Paul said, "but that might be kind of late. He stays here until almost 9:00 some nights working on those maps."
"Well, I'll probably be up," Skip said. "The baby, you know."
"Oh, we know," they all echoed. All of them were living in houses with infants.
He bade them farewell and headed back downstairs, exiting the school by the side door and limping his way out to the street in front. Fortunately, the house he shared with his three wives was relatively close by, less than three blocks in fact. The streets were damp as he made his way home but the precipitation was non-existent, not even a mist was falling. The wind was icy and moving at a fairly good clip from the west. It seemed almost dry outside, though very cold. Skip pulled his coat a little tighter and soon he was home.
The house that he and his family had been assigned was a two-story, four bedroom that had probably been pretty expensive before the comet. He entered through the unlocked door and stepped into the formal living room, where the previous day's laundry was hanging amid dry linen placed there to absorb the excess moisture. He wound his way through all of this and into the family room, which was modestly, though tastefully decorated with its original, pre-comet furnishings. Christine was sitting in the recliner, a paperback book folded open in front of her. Her walkie-talkie sat next to her on the end table. In her arms was three-month-old Laura - named for her maternal grandmother who had been shot to death a year ago. It had become somewhat traditional in town to name children after parents that had died in the impact. The boys were generally named after the father's father and the girls after the mother's mother. Christine had her shirt unbuttoned and her bra pulled up. Laura was suckling contentedly at her right nipple, drawing the life-giving milk from her mother's body into her own.
"Hey, babe," Skip hailed, walking over and kissing her lightly on the mouth. He then leaned over and kissed the infant's head as well. Laura stopped sucking long enough to give him a toothless smile and then she went right back to work on the engorged nipple. "What're you doing home? Just feeding or are you here for the day?"
"Just feeding Laura," she said. "I still have tomorrow's roster to do and a training rotation to schedule for." She gave a crooked grin. "It'll be nice when Shellie pops out her little package and gets her milk. Then I won't have to keep coming home every four hours to feed the machine here."
"I heard that," said Paula, emerging from the bathroom. Like roughly three-quarters of the childbearing age women in town, she was well knocked up. Nearly six months along now, her stomach had gotten huge. "And if you think I'm gonna stick a baby on each of my tits, you're out of your freakin mind. They'll suck me dry."
"I love it when you talk like that," Skip said, kissing her.
Paula was currently pulling a shift as the mother of the family. Since Christine's position was much more important than Paula's - who was a mere guard supervisor - Paula was allowed to stay home each day and take care of Laura. She offset these duties with Maggie, who was one of the guards and who was three months pregnant herself, on a rotating basis. It was somewhat of an unconventional arrangement but it was a somewhat unconventional world these days.
Paula plopped herself down on the sofa next to Skip and immediately snuggled up to him. After the routine questions about why he was home so early and how his day had gone, she began nibbling on his neck, giving soft sucks and kisses that soon had him to a full erection.
"You guys," Christine said, feigning exasperation. "Don't do that in front of the baby. Go in the bedroom for Christ's sake."
"I think she's got a good idea," Paula said, nibbling a little on his clavicle. "Care to join me, Skip?"
"We already did it this morning," he reminded her, playing hard to get.
"And we'll probably do it tonight too," she said, giving his erection a squeeze through his pants. "Now I know why Christine was such an animal while she was pregnant. Now let's do it."
"If I must," he said, faking a sigh.
They retired to the bedroom and did it. It was up to its usual standards of excellence.
After, as he lay curled up next to Paula's swollen body, feeling the perspiration drying on his skin, he was just starting to drift off to sleep, the combination of Vicodin and sex putting him under. Just as the last plugs of consciousness were being pulled free, just as his breathing took on the slow, regular patterns of slumber, a commotion from outside jerked him back upward.
"What the hell?" asked Paula, who had heard it as well.
It was the sound of voices raised in excitement. Many of them. They were loud enough to be heard even through the double-paned glass of the house's windows. This particular part of town was densely populated, with no unoccupied houses on the street at all. It sounded like all of their neighbors were standing outside and babbling. Individual words could not be made out due to the glass and the sheer number of speakers, but something had obviously riled up everyone.
"I'd better see what's up," Skip said, pulling himself free of the covers and rolling out of bed. His knee was only throbbing distantly now, thanks to the pain medicine, but his mind was a little groggy. He picked up his jeans and sat down to p
ut them on. As he was doing this, a loud knock came on their front door.
"Who is it?" he heard Christine call from the living room. A voice muttered something excitedly in return. This was followed by the sound of the door opening and a faint, female voice telling Christine that she had to come outside. She had to see, and quickly.
"Oh my God!" he heard Christine exclaim. "I have to get Skip and Shellie! They have to see this!"
Skip and Paula shared a look, wondering if there was some kind of trouble. Obviously something strange was going on out there. But what? They both continued to dress. Skip made sure that his gun was strapped on to his waist.
The door to the bedroom was ripped open a moment later and Christine stood there, her face flushed and excited, Laura dozing in her arms. "You have to come see this," she said. "Hurry, come outside."
"What is it?" Skip asked.
"Just come on!" she said. "You have to see it for yourself. Hurry, before it goes away!" With that she rushed out of the room once again, heading for the front door.
Skip and Paula exchanged one more look and then threw on the rest of their clothing. They hurried through the house and out the front door.
The first thing they saw were the neighbors. They were gathered in the street outside, everyone from every house up and down the block, nearly sixty people in all. They were looking skyward and pointing. The next thing they noticed was that the light was brighter than normal. It was almost as if...