Pandemic Reboot_Survivors

by J. F. Krause

  “Absolutely. There’s an international group? You’re right about not having time to discuss things like this, and I’m glad you worked it out between you. I’m also sorry that I wasn’t involved. I’m still getting used to the idea that people think I’m the leader.”

  “We know. You got drafted into a lot more than any of us expected. Don’t worry though, we’ll look out for you. And yes, there’s an international group,” Lydia was a good friend as well as a good manager.

  That led to the other big topic. “Have either of you heard anything more about Indiana?”

  Again they looked at each other before Lydia spoke. “I don’t know what the other West Coast communities are thinking because they all seem to want to hear from us, you actually. All of them have been training their members in animal control, and that’s starting to include self-defense. Sort of like our reservists are being trained. That reminds me, our training groups were so well received that we are having even more people sign up.”

  “What I’m hearing,” Anna began, “is pretty much the same thing. They’re waiting for you to talk to them. It has produced one thing that’s sort of different. We have several Air Force personnel scattered around the country. They want to congregate at Edwards Air Force Base near Lancaster and maybe a base on the east coast. Edwards has a huge state of the art solar power grid nearby and that will power everything they need for the foreseeable future. They also have major wind power turbines that can be hooked in as well. And just like the other groups, they want your blessing. I don’t know any other way to put it.”

  “So we are developing a navy, an army, and an air force. Right? Does Marco know about this?”

  And once again, the now familiar conspiratorial look passed between them before Lydia spoke. “Marco probably set it in motion. Did you know he’s gotten all the military types to take some sort of pledge to follow your leadership? There wasn’t any objection, but he made it more formal than not. And the military has always been used to civilian oversight, so, I guess it came naturally.”

  “Yeah. I’m sure it all sort of came naturally. Please tell Marco to go ahead with the Lancaster project.” It was my turn to be rueful.

  At the 11:30 AM meeting that morning when Lydia and Anna came back to my office with Todd, Jane, and Marco, I learned that Todd had already set up most of the group conference calls between the interested work groups; Anna was still in the process of setting up a conference call with all the different communities across the country; and Lydia had selected a week from now for a face to face meeting with the West Coast leaders. Details and the agenda would be forthcoming. Every community was asked to bring two people. We would be represented by at least two other members from our Leadership Team since I now seemed to belong to everyone and couldn’t represent anyone in particular. Who our representatives would be was yet to be decided.

  I couldn’t help but feel a bit like the Wizard of Oz in the movie. As soon as they saw that I was a shy, twenty-three year old whose only claim to fame was a penchant for righteous indignation alternating with moral outrage, I was sure they would collectively give up in disgust. If they only knew how little I actually knew, but of course, as long as I just kept my mouth shut and listened attentively, maybe they wouldn’t figure it out until it didn’t matter, and we had passed the danger point. My mom used to say that the most interesting people in the world were the most interested people in the world. I can pull that off, at least for a while. Besides, I am interested. Right now, our world is immensely fascinating.

  We met promptly at 12 PM in the fairgrounds theater. The theater was fairly small actually, but it still just about swallowed everyone from the two groups. While our conference room was too small for the forty or so people present, this room was way too large. It didn’t matter. We didn’t have anything smaller within walking distance of the fairgrounds. I wasn’t becoming any more comfortable being in front of a large audience than I had been before. I thought about the times I had been singing in my college performance choir not so long ago and thought it might be better if I were to sing my part of the meeting. That idea was so distractingly silly, I actually smiled. It worked better than thinking of the audience sitting in their underwear, an old stage fright trick that doesn’t really work, by the way.

  “This is a special called meeting of the San Luis Obispo Community Leadership Council. We use Robert’s Rules in our meetings, by the way. Thank you all for coming on such short notice. If we take a binding vote, only the members of the Council will be able to vote. However, I am allowed to take an advisory vote prior to any binding vote according to the Council’s own special rules. You are all invited to participate in any advisory vote taken.” George was already fit to be tied, if the color of his face was any indication.

  By now, I had a pretty good report of what was going on in Indianapolis so I decided to just lay it a out for them.

  “I know you’re busy so we’ll get right to the point. There’s a survivor in Indianapolis who was a member of the state legislature there before the sickness. He’s declared himself the legal governor and has declared martial law in Indiana. Soon after declaring martial law, he closed as many routes into central Indianapolis as he could given his limited number of enforcers. It’s been reported that he has had people killed and has also arrested a number of citizens over the next few days. His efforts at closing the city off to keep people from leaving have only been partially effective, and a number of Indianapolis’s survivors managed to escape. It’s from them that we have much of our information. He also has a radio station and has broadcast several proclamations as well as an invitation to like minded people to join him.

  According to some of the escapees a number of women ranging in age from young teens to over fifty years old were forcibly taken into custody after the declaration of martial law. Also, according to one of the female refugees, who was herself abducted and held in one of the downtown hotels, there are dozens of women of varying ages being held against their wills. She managed to escape and make her way out of the city and then to Chicago.

  However, we don’t just have their word for what is happening there. We also have his radio broadcasts. We know, and have recordings, of someone claiming to be Governor Stanley Hawkins. By the way, we know there really was a Stanley Hawkins from Indiana who was a member of the state legislature there. We have recordings of Governor Hawkins declaring martial law and stating that anyone leaving the state of Indiana will be detained. Governor Hawkins was also recorded calling for, and this is a direct quote, ‘all good, loyal, American men to come to Indianapolis to fight for the reconstruction of America, beginning in the State of Indiana.’ He goes on to say ‘the women of Indiana are ready and willing to show their appreciation of good red-blooded American men who are willing to fight for their God-given right to lead a New America’. I’ll leave it up to you to determine what he means. We’ve received reports of men disappearing from some of the nearby communities. The numbers of men who have gone missing are around a dozen so far, but as word spreads, it could become a concern. Not everyone who survived is a paragon on virtue it would seem.”

  As soon as he stood up I knew George was going to be a problem. “I don’t see how this is any of our business.”

  I called him out of order. And of course he ignored me so I did the next step. I turned to the body and declared that the chair had been challenged. I had to talk over George’s bluster. Fortunately I have a “teacher’s voice” from school so I easily carried over George’s office trained voice without sounding like I was yelling. Besides, I was in front of them and he was behind them.

  “I declared George out of order because he interrupted a speaker giving a report. Now, George, would you like to defend your action?” Of course, George wasn’t listening so he continued to scream from the back of the room that he had a right to speak and that I was a bully and a dictator.

  “Having heard George defend his actions based on his right to freedom of speech, I am ruling
that he is, indeed, out of order. All those in favor of the ruling that George is out of order, please say ‘yes’.” Everyone in the room seemed to say yes, even though most weren’t technically supposed to vote.

  “All those in favor of George not being ruled out of order, please say ‘no’.”

  George must have realized he was in the middle of something he didn’t understand so he yelled “no”. He was the only voice heard. I could have declared victory and had him removed, but I wasn’t ready for that.

  “Hearing both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ votes, I am calling for a division of votes. All those in favor of the ‘yes’ position, please stand.” Absolutely everyone stood up! Even George! After everyone but George sat, I called for the ‘no’ position to please stand. George was still standing. I know I should have found a face saving way for George to get out of this, but I didn’t want to right then.

  “George, you appear to have voted both ‘yes’ and ‘no’. I’m going to have to void your vote. The ‘yes’ position to support the chair in declaring George out of order has carried. George you are instructed to sit down and follow the rules or I will have you removed. Which is it to be?”

  Remarkably, George sat down! I also knew that now he really hated me, but honestly, he was going to hate me for something. What I needed to do next was to make sure that I didn’t snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. I decided to be polite.

  “Thank you, George. I’m glad to see that we have all made a decision to live as a civil society.” I looked out at a lot of very broadly smiling faces. I couldn’t stop George from disliking me, but I didn’t want to come across as a smart aleck either. I hoped I didn’t.

  “As I was saying earlier, we’re concerned that Indianapolis has become a center for kidnapping, rape, and possibly murder. As part of my report, I’ve asked Todd Hartman to play the excerpt of Governor Hawkins’ speech with the quotes I mentioned a couple minutes ago.” I nodded to Todd and immediately we heard The words of Stanley Hawkins. There were a lot of very intent faces as they listened. I hadn’t heard it before so I listened as well. I was a little relieved to note that every quote I made from his speech was accurate.

  Next I wanted them to know something about Indianapolis. “I’ve asked Anna Hartman to give us some information about Indiana and Indianapolis. Anna is our primary information gatherer. Anna?” I was really keyed up and needed a break. Lydia understood and took my hand as I sat on the front row next to her.

  “Based on a survival rate of around 1 in 4 or 5 thousand,” at this point, because most people in the room hadn’t heard that the survival rate was so low, there were audible gasps all across the room, “we estimate that the entire state of Indiana now has a population of around 1600 to 2000. Since Indianapolis had about one eighth of the state’s population, there may have been around 200 to 250 people there when Hawkins declared martial law. Indiana has a number of smaller cities and consequently smaller survivor communities that had not consolidated into fewer larger survivor communities at the time of Hawkins announcement. None of the other communities in Indiana has acknowledged Governor Hawkins, and the, presumed second largest survivor community in Fort Wayne has taken the additional step of declaring Stanley Hawkins’ claim to be bogus. Information is a little patchy, but there is agreement in the surrounding survivor communities that Indianapolis has become a haven of rapists, kidnappers, molesters, and murderers.”

  Now it was my turn again. “So far, I’ve tried to keep this presentation as objective as possible. Now I’m going to give you my personal take on this situation. Stanley Hawkins has made the case that as a state legislator before the sickness, and absent any higher ranking elected officials in his state, he is the rightful and legal successor to the governorship. I’m not going to disagree or agree with that. Without the checks and balances of a properly functioning government, a governor working alone is just another name for a dictator. What I’m really concerned about is this: If we are in fact still the United States of America, we have to recognize this as a takeover of an American city by a rogue element bent on stealing the only things of genuine value in this changed world: our freedom, or lives, and our human dignity. If we are still the United States of America, we must participate in the liberation of our fellow surviving American citizens. We cannot allow them to be enslaved and murdered.

  However, if we are no longer the United States of America, and we are acting in our own self interest, then we have to ask ourselves how long it will be before this kind or evil spreads to other communities and eventually to our own doorstep. Right now we are looking at a few dozen men who have decided to murder, and rape and molest for their own selfish amusement, and they don’t care about the lives they destroy in the process. Unfortunately, these people aren’t dumb, and they have the same ability to organize as we do. They’ll grow in numbers and strength and cunning until they are much more dangerous to confront. All tyrants start out weak and vulnerable, but they don’t stay that way for long. If we miss this opportunity to participate in stamping out this lethal menace, all hope of living in a world of peace and plenty for all will be lost, possibly for generations. I want to point out that we are where we are today because we didn’t wait. I’m sure most of us needed time to grieve and heal, but we have had to grieve on the run. There simply wasn’t time if we were to have the best chance to not only survive, but to preserve our lives in freedom and dignity.

  So that you know that we can make a difference even from two thousand miles away, I’ve asked Sergeant Marco Coletti to speak to you about what we can do to help, militarily. Marco?”

  Marco came forward from the back of the room. There were three other defenders there as well. “I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk to you about this situation. Right now, we have located 757 active and reserve military and police personnel throughout the United States. More are still coming into various survivor communities. When we include Canada, the numbers increase by even more. There are a number of recent retirees who have voluntarily been reactivated to help with militia and military training bringing us to a total of well over 1,000 trained men and women serving our various survivor communities. As I said before, these numbers are still increasing. Almost every survivor community has instituted self-defense training for their citizens. The surviving military and police forces have been working together to standardize this training so we can support each other in making our communities safer. We’ve only been at it here in San Luis Obispo for a few days now, but we’ve already got over a thousand adult volunteers. That’s almost sixty percent of adults between the ages of 17 and 55. Our numbers are better than most, nationally we are averaging about forty-four percent of that age cohort. We now have four patrol boats plying the waters between San Diego and Vancouver in Canada, and another six on the east and gulf coasts. We also have three air force bases, small ones, but functional nonetheless. We have the people and equipment to put an end to this nest of criminals, but we need the go ahead from communities such as ours to make this happen.”

  I came back up to the stage and faced a very somber group of people.

  “At this point I will open the meeting to questions from anyone in the room. I want to remind you, though, that I will not allow rudeness or incivility to be directed at anyone, whether a reporter or a questioner. I won’t hesitate to call an individual out of order.”

  Irma’s was the first hand I saw go up. “Irma?”

  “Yes. Is there a plan for dealing with this particular problem, and who developed or will develop the plan?”

  “Marco, would you answer this question, please?”

  Marco stood back up. “There is a plan, and it was developed by military personnel located in Chicago. They are the largest military group in the area. I can’t go into detail about the plan, though.”

  There were lots of hands so I picked one from a man I only knew by face. “Yes Sir?”

  “Will this be voluntary for the personnel involved?”

 
I could answer that. “Voluntary. No ifs, ands, or buts.”

  More questions were asked and answered. A couple of them at the beginning wanted to make a comment along with their questions and I stopped that. Comments would come later. People were so somber, I couldn’t tell what they were thinking. George ended up asking a question or rather questions that were actually on point.

  “Are all the survivor communities having a discussion like this? Are they going to contribute members, too? Have any of them committed to sending people to fight or whatever the plan is?”

  “That’s three questions, but since they’re all related, I’ll go ahead and answer them. Yes, all the survivor communities have been asked to have this discussion. Their decision regarding this discussion will determine whether they contribute members. As of this meeting, it is my understanding that many are waiting to see what our community decides.”

  For a second, my last comment seemed to freeze the room in place. Then Dr. Truitt raised her hand and ended the silence with her question, “What is your personal recommendation?”

  “I believe we must rescue those women and girls from their tormentors. I will be recommending that we send volunteers to Indiana as soon as we can assemble them so we can put an end to this torture before it’s too late. I fear it’s already too late for many of them.”

  “Can we vote?” came from somewhere in the room.

  “Yes, but remember this is an advisory vote. After you vote, the Council still has to debate and then vote officially. Now, I’m going to ask for someone in favor of my recommendation to speak first. One person speaks for the motion, then one person speaks against the motion, then for, then against until one side fails to have a speaker. Please don’t repeat previously stated arguments. And please limit yourself to one minute each. Ok, is there a ‘for’ speaker? Dr. Truitt?”