Egregoros

Carell did not allow himself to be provoked. “Surely. In the short term. That’s why I asked about the long term. I heard what you said about controlling civilians, and I understand. Once your fuel runs out, whether diesel or alcohol, you’re no different than anyone else here.”

He gestured about.

“What then, Mister Hartmann?” he asked, finishing his bourbon. “The question stands: what are you and your men going to do in the long term?”

Leslie paused to stare into his glass. It was not something he’d not considered before, but was something he’d rather deliberately chosen to not think about.

It was said that any city was three meals away from a riot. When the economy collapsed overnight, that was proven everywhere in the United States at once. The death toll was well into the millions: first by rioting, then killing, then starving. After Louisville, when he and the others mutinied and left, some wanted to use their AFVs to set up their own fiefdom. Leslie and those like him mutinied from the mutineers. Weeks later, they found themselves here. First, by just passing through, but then they were persuaded by the Mayor to stay on as a security force.

He took a last drink. But then what? Electric power was spotty; how much could the distilleries produce by burning wood or coal? When their value as security was gone, they were excess mouths to feed. Outsider excess mouths.

“I suppose we could settle down here,” he began. “There’s still plenty of unused land—” “As peasants.” Carell cut in.

“Excuse me?”

“Peasants. Sooner or later someone stronger will move to exert their authority over this area. When that comes, at best you’re a peasant; at worse, slaves. And remember this!”

Carell leaned forward, looking directly at Leslie’s eyes. “Once, we controlled the lightning!”

Leslie couldn’t suppress a shudder. That was true: the greatest, most technological civilization on Earth… and all he could think of was what field he might be plowing next spring.

Carell leaned back in his chair. “Things are going to be much, much worse, and sooner than you might guess. Winter will kill several million more. Outbreaks will start, and once the medicines on the shelves are gone, a few million more.”

“And you’ve a solution to all that?” Leslie asked sarcastically. “We think so.”

What?! Leslie looked to Fricker.

“Adam,” he asked, “how is it you ended up with this madman?” Fricker sighed. “Is there anything he’s said, Leslie, that’s wrong?” Leslie looked away.

“Yeah,” Fricker continued. “I got this speech two months ago. Like you, we had a good gig set up for ourselves around Bowling Green. Not quite as nice as you, but still….”

He paused and started again. “I’d been thinking about things like this when Carell and some of his people came through town. I think what he’s saying is right.”

“So, after this cargo run, you’re doing what?” Leslie asked. “I’ll be staying on in the Knoxville area.”

“Why? Doing what?”

“Rebuilding modern, technological Western civilization.” Carell cut in. “How?” Leslie demanded.

“Nuclear power.”

* * *

Leslie returned those two to their laager. Back at his depot, he parked and looked about. Twelve months…maybe only six, and all this will be gone. He entered the Merton Tavern and went upstairs.

“Sue? If you’d be so kind, please let the troop know that I need to address everyone tomorrow at oh-seven hundred.” Leslie said to his comm officer.

He looked awful. She wondered what happened. “Yes, sir.” Still, she asked, “Are you all right?”

He shook his head. “I thought I was; now, not so much. Thanks.”

He slept very little that night. Fortunately, the dawn saw another pleasant day. Easier to give his little speech outside.

As he’d done in the past when he needed to talk to everyone, he climbed onto the hood of the scout car. They all depended on one another to stay alive; this time was no different. He thought for just a moment about what Carell had said at lunch: ‘We controlled the lightning!’

“I had an interesting conversation yesterday,” he said, pitching his voice to carry, “and I wanted all of you to know, so we can get this sorted together….”

The next ten minutes were largely a recapitulation of what Carell had said. At the end, he concluded, “I know what some of you have already taken some locals as spouses, and I’m not forcing anyone to go. But I am going, and I will lead any who come with me. Thank you for your attention.”

He was surprised when the entire troop snapped to attention and saluted. They had become rather informal since they settled in at Bardstown. He returned their salute and jumped off the scout car, walking away from them, back toward the tavern. Let them talk it out without me hanging over them, he thought.

“Not bad. Wonder what the result will be.”

Carell sat on a bench just outside Merton’s main entrance. With him was one of the most beautiful woman Leslie had ever seen. Long, ice-white hair, even her eyebrows were almost invisible. Round face with a snub nose above a full, sensual mouth. Leslie tried very hard not to let his eyes wander, but in his peripheral vision, the rest of her was just as good. When they stood, she was taller than Carell. Just my height, he thought wryly.

“Mister Hartmann, this is my wife, Anna.”

Well, damn.

“A pleasure, Mrs. Carell.” he said amiably. She smiled as she shook his hand. Even her teeth are perfect, he noted.

“Mine as well,” she said. “It seems my John has stirred things up here?”

She was able to draw a smile out of him. Leslie shifted his eyes to Carell. Safer. “Yeah,” he said. “It wasn’t anything new; just things no one wanted to think about.”

She laughed easily. “Being part of the Remnant isn’t easy, Mister Hartmann. But saving the world never is!” She turned to her husband.

“I’ll be going back now.” They embraced. “See you at home!”

With a wave to Leslie, she walked to one of Fricker’s hummers and drove off. “Home?” Leslie asked.

“Oak Ridge. She’s taking over the Paducah convoy.”

“What?! A woman… like her… cross-country? Are you insane?” Leslie shouted.

“Well, Fricker is in tactical command,” he grinned at Leslie, “but she can full well take care of herself.”

“So, what are you doing?” He was starting to find Carell’s sense of humor irritating. “Hiring you, and however many decide to stay with you.”

Huh?

“For what?”

“There’s something in central Ohio that we want.” He pointed at the Dragoon AFVs in the depot. “Those will help me say ‘please’ when I get there.”

“Central Ohio?! I can’t even imagine the staff work that will have to go into—”

“I can. I’ve done this twice before, Mister Hartmann.” He regarded Leslie. “You must have a talent for it, having gotten your people here securely. I’ll just add what I know to your skill-set.”

Lord, but his self-confidence is as irritating as his humor. But Leslie’s mind was already working.

“Cincinnati is going to be the main problem,” he said out loud, but to himself. “Whether it’s a handful of vehicles or the entire troop… we’ll have to find some other way across the Ohio River…”

He came back to himself to see Carell grinning at him. He walked past him toward the tavern.

“Come on. This won’t plan itself.”

* * *

In two days, Leslie knew who was staying and who was going. That gave him sixteen AFVs and nine support units, including two tankers.

Two weeks later, the plans were complete. Very open-ended: there was no way to know what they might run into. Some of the contingencies Carell wanted him to consider seemed ludicrous, but he had just stared at Leslie when questioned.

“It’s already happened to me. This one,” he said, tapping a bullet point on the page, “twice.”

Their only major disagreement was the main route. Leslie favored crossing the river at Madison, north into Indiana, and turning east when they got to I-70.

“That puts on the wrong side of Columbus,” Carell had countered. “And what little intel we have all points to that city being a hellhole right now. How about we go through Kentucky, north, here at Portsmouth. Up old US 23, then we swing wide east to outside New Albany.”

While Leslie hadn’t been told their exact destination, he did know it was between Columbus and a little city called Newark.

“That’s a lot of hill-country through Kentucky,” he countered. “Ambushes.” Carell’s eyes took on a hard look.

“I’d rather ambushes by a few dozen than a human-wave in Dayton by a few thousand.” Recalling his last assignment as an NCO in Louisville, Leslie relented.

Hartmann and his forces pulled onto the Bluegrass Parkway on the fifth of October, headed east. It must take a special kind of crazy to want to save the world, he thought as his column picked up speed. From his perch on his scout car, he pivoted around to see the rest. Carell, on the Dragoon directly behind him, waved. A contagious form of crazy.

\ * **

Leslie sat on the crest of the small hill next to Carell. A light rain fell from the gray sky. Better than snow, he thought. They’d made better time than he had anticipated: most of the people they had encountered in the rural areas were just happy that they weren’t raiders. And that they weren’t stopping; food was still scarce. He looked through his field glasses again at the compound before them.

“Doesn’t look like much,” he said. Carell grunted.

“It was never meant to. Who wants a prototype reactor in their county, no matter how small?” He shook his head. “Between the NIMBYs and the eco-freaks, I was surprised it got built two years ago, but they needed the jobs.”

Looking at it more, Leslie noted, “The perimeter fence seems intact. You really think what that farmer told us yesterday was true?” Another grunt.

[continues]

“That this whole area is radioactive? Your people have detected nothing, though.” He stood. “If I was an enterprising chap that wanted to hole up some safe place, I’d want stories like that circulating, too.”

Leslie glanced at his watch: 0930 on Tuesday, the sixteenth. I wonder if that’s auspicious or not, he thought.

“So, we just stroll in, or should I shell it from here?” Carell turned, surprised.

“Would you? I’d love to watch that!” Damn. Leslie forgot for a moment that his employer was crazy. He raised his radio.

“Mitch? Hartmann. We’re headed to the main gate.” “Copy that,” his second in command replied.

“Let’s see who’s home.” They started walking down the slight incline of the hill.

Hanging from the chained and padlocked fence was a handmade sign: ‘Danger! Radiation everywhere! If you stay here you will die!’ Leslie glanced again at the detector on his belt. Nothing.

“If there’s this sign, why a padlock? They didn’t think that all the way through,” Carell noted. Crazy, but astute. He took the bolt cutters from Leslie’s rucksack. With a clatter, they pushed the gate open enough for them both to pass through. Leslie’s eyes kept snapping from window to window, waiting for a shot.

Carell went into the compound about ten feet and stopped. The buildings were fairly identical: about two stories high and fifty by fifty yards wide.

“The prototype was in building four,” Carell said. “We’ll need some of the controls from there and also the fixtures in building two.”

“If, that is, anything is still here,” Leslie said, coming up next to him, hand on his radio.

“I think your mechanic’s starting to wear off on you. Always with the negative waves, Mister Hartmann! Ah, there’s building two, let’s take a look.”

A large sign with the number two painted in blue over a yellow background hung over a door to their right. Carell twisted the handle and went in. Crates had been pushed to form a corridor about twenty feet long. Absolutely perfect for an ambush. Carell stopped after a few steps.

“Good morning!” he called. “We are neither thieves nor marauders. We are just here to retrieve some equipment! We are even prepared to pay for it.” Was he talking to the empty air, or would whoever was there take the bait?

“You may not be thieves, but you are trespassers. Hands up, please.” That answered that.

Right before he raised his hand, Leslie clicked his radio twice.

“Sorry about your chain. We’ll replace it for you. I’m John Carell, this is my hired help, Leslie Hartmann.” Leslie stared at the back of Carell’s head. Really? “And your name would be…?”

There was a pause, “I’m Steve Cummings. Come on forward. Slowly.”

At the end of the crate tunnel, they saw a bear of a man; balding, but with a large beard. He wore a camouflage jacket over his overalls. The trench gun in his hand was pointed just away from them. Typically, Carell walked right to him and extended his hand. Cummings stared at it.

“You do know there are others covering you two?” he asked.

“Certainly,” Carell replied. “But there’s no reason to not be civil, is there?”

Cummings slowly shifted his large shotgun and shook Carell’s hand, followed by the same for Leslie. Now out of the tunnel, Leslie could see that the entire building was a large open space. The left, or north, side was mostly a machine shop. Opposite that were stacks of electronics. He also noted the bedding and personal effects in a corner on the electronics side. Squatters.

“Dad!” There was a young woman’s voice from behind and above them. Turning, he saw a girl—late teens—with a rifle, looking out the windows from her perch on more crates.

“A bunch of tanks and stuff just came over the hill!” She looked out the other windows. “I think they’re all around us!”

Now the trench gun was pointed.

“Just retrieving some equipment, huh?”

“I never said we were alone,” Carell said easily. “And how did you think we were going to transport what we want?”

Cummings eyes remained cold and impassive. “But, tanks?”

“Armored fighting vehicles and scout cars, actually,” Leslie said. “Your sharp-eyed daughter mistook my Dragoons for tanks. You will please note that they’re staying put. Unless they don’t hear from me in about three minutes.”

Still staring at them, Cumming called out, “Laurie! How many do you count?”

“Uh,” she replied. “Seven that I can see. If they’re all around us, I guess that many more I can’t.”

“What I said is true, Mister Cummings,” Carell said softly. “We’re just here for some equipment. We load, we leave. You’ll never see us again.”

The shotgun’s nose went down. Better.

“Call your men, Mister…Hartmann, was it?” Then, louder. “Clay! Keep them covered while I tell the others.” So, at least one more in this building.

As Leslie raised his radio, Cummings withdrew a few paces and spoke in a low voice into a walkie-talkie. I wonder how many are in these buildings? Carell pulled a thermos from his backpack and gestured at a nearby table. Cummings nodded. The girl stayed where she was and there was no sign of ‘Clay.’ These are careful people.

“If you’ve a cup…?” Carell asked. Cummings pulled one from a nearby shelf.

“Honest to God coffee,” he said. “It’s been months! Oh. Here.” He passed them some jerky. Venison, Leslie thought.

“Are you familiar with this facility that you, your family, and friends, are calling home?” Carell asked.

“A little. Some kind of experimental nuclear reactor, but really small.” Carell nodded. “This was to be a proof of concept; not designed for large power output. It was just about

live when everything went to hell. I’d hoped that the facility was still intact.” He nodded over his coffee. “Thank you for that.”

Cummings shrugged. “We just live here. If I could have sold all this stuff,” he gestured about, “I would have.”

“Perfectly understandable. Family comes first.” Surprised, Cummings nodded at Carell.

“So, you don’t mind me taking what I want?”

“No….” he said slowly. “But you did mention being willing to pay…?” Carell smiled thinly.

“I will not pay you for property that’s not yours.” Don’t blow this, you idiot, Leslie thought. “However, I am more than happy to compensate you for your time. And the chain. More than happy.”

“Sounds all right to me.” Cummings said. “Help yourselves.” That drew a sound from above. The girl snorted.

“Callie’s gonna be pissed to hear that!”

* * *

The three men walked toward the fourth building. Leslie had radioed for the transport trucks to start in, covered by two scout cars. The other units stayed where they were; some pointed in, some out.

“…when the mobs stopped killing each other in Columbus,” Cummings was saying, “they started moving out into the suburban, then rural areas. Like a bunch of damned locusts. Burning everything they couldn’t take or eat. The farms along our stretch of road had about a day’s warning before they came down our valley. It was something of a fighting retreat until Bob Parks remembered this place.”

“And it’s you and the others that spread the rumors about contamination?” Leslie asked.

“Yeah.” Cummings smiled for the first time. “My wife’s idea, actually.” “A good one,” he said. “Always better to attack the mind than the body.”

Carell opened the door to building four. Unlike the other, this had fewer skylights. Beyond the small open office area just at the door, it was dark. A gas lantern stood on the corner of one of the desks.

“From a comment like that and all that hardware outside, I’m guessing you’re military?” Cummings asked. Carell lit the lantern and said he was going to take a look around.

“Careful,” Cummings said before he passed through a door labeled ‘No Admittance!’ with radiation trefoils on it. “There’s junk everywhere in there.”

“Perfect!” Carell smiled. Crazy.

“To answer your question, yes,” Leslie said. Let his crazy boss stumble around in the dark next to a reactor. “We were in the Sixteenth Cavalry, at Fort Knox. When everything began breaking down, we sort of struck off on our own.”

Cumming nodded. He didn’t seem to hold that against him. “And now?”

“We did have a nice arrangement at Bardstown, Kentucky,” Leslie continued. “Until that fellow in there came along and shook us up. Now we’re here to move him and his stuff to… wherever he wants us to.”

“What did he do to—”

There was a crash of metal. Carell shouted, “What the HELL have you done! Uff!” Another crash.

Leslie was through the door in an instant. His small flashlight from his pocket in his left hand, his pistol in his right. He could just faintly see light ahead.

“Carell! Are you okay?” Nothing. Then: “No.”

Around one pile and another, Leslie came around a huge pump to see Carell against a control panel with his hands up. The lithe figure in front of him held a long black dagger to his throat. He raised his pistol.

“I’m right behind you with a pistol. Lower your knife and live,” Leslie called. No one moved. He heard Cummings come up behind him.

“Put it down, Callie,” he said.

The blade came down slowly. Leslie now realized she was a girl. She turned, squinting her Oriental eyes into his flashlight. Her round face betrayed none of her thoughts.

With her knife still out, she looked to Cummings.

“Who are these guys, and what do they want with Pookie?”

What?

* * *

Leslie, Cummings, and the girl stood in the brighter office area. Carell continued his assessment. Her knife was back in its sheath at her waist, on a tool belt that divided her overalls. Her hands were dirty, but not greasy. Her long hair, brown as to be almost black, was pulled back with a band. She must have been about five foot six, or thereabouts. Thin, but who wasn’t these days, yet in surprisingly good shape. Nineteen or twenty, he guessed. Cute, too, he thought.

[continues]

“Sorry about the misunderstanding…” Cummings was saying.

“Some guy starts yelling and grabs me in a dark room, what else am I going to do?” she said flatly. She has a point.

“On behalf of my employer, I apologize for that, miss.” Leslie said. “He can be bit, er, absorbed in his work.”

She scowled, her brows knitting together.

“His work?” She looked again toward Cummings. “Who are these people?”

Just then they heard the rumble of the motors. Going outside, they saw the transports entering the compound. One scout car led them. The other parked at the gate. The light rain was now little more than a mist. Now her face showed shock.

“You… you’re taking Pookie!” That’s twice now….

“I’m sorry,” Leslie said. “Pookie?”

Cummings had to laugh at that. “It’s what she’s taken to calling the reactor. She dotes on it.”

“But why that name?”

Her face fell back to its reserved blank look. “Because it’s cute.”

Carell took that moment to step out and join them. He looked bewildered.

“Who… how did…? He stopped and started over. “That thing is further on than I was told! Who’s been doing that?”

Cummings looked puzzled. “So far as I know, Callie’s the only one that ever comes to this building.”

Carell stared at the girl.

“You. You did all that?” She held his look and shrugged. “What’s up?” Leslie asked. Carell shook his head.

“It’s almost ready to be activated.” He pointed. “She somehow finished prepping it. I’ve got to have her!”

Her hand went right to her knife. “Like hell, pervert.”

Leslie had to laugh at that. “It’s okay, miss! He doesn’t mean that in the way you’re thinking.” At least he better not. He looked to Carell. “You said ‘almost ready.’ What does that mean?”

“It can’t start itself. It needs power to get the pumps started and the control systems up.” He raised his hands. “After that, it’s self-sustaining.”

“How much power?” Carell considered that. Ah. He saw what Leslie was getting at. “One of your Dragoons should do it. This unit just isn’t that large.”

He smiled. “And there’d be a colony of the modern world right here. If,” he looked significantly at Cummings, “there are people willing to defend it.”

“You mean that you can get that thing running,” Cummings asked, “giving us electric power?”

“Enough for a village of about five hundred, yes.” Carell was thinking now. “I’ll have to train you as quickly as I can; I want to be out of here before it starts snowing….” He looked at Callie.

“She could probably run it, but I want her with us.” There went her eyebrows again.

“The young lady is staying wherever she wants, Carell,” Leslie said. He looked at Cummings. “Time is short; we can do this now and leave in a month, or retrieve what we came here for and be gone tomorrow. Your call, but we need an answer by nightfall.”

Cummings pulled at his beard. “I… I’ll get everyone together. Yes. Excuse me.” He pulled out his walkie-talkie as he moved off. Leslie went to the transport and told the men to get with Carell and start loading. Turning, he was surprised to see that the girl, Callie, had followed him.

“Who are you people?” she asked.

“Me? I’m just the hired hand to get him,” he waved in Carell’s direction, “where he needs to be.” She blinked as she took that in.

“So, who’s he?”“I don’t know, exactly. But it seems he and some like him are trying to re-boot modern civilization.” He paused. “And I meant what I said: we’ll not force you to go anywhere. You can stay here with, ah, Pookie, and the rest of your family—”

She stopped him with a sharp look. “My family abandoned me. I was staying with my friend Laurie when everything fell apart. The Cummings have been taking care of me.” She looked at the ground. “I guess I don’t belong anywhere.”

He sighed. The Breakup claims another victim.

“Hey,” he said. “Let’s start over. I’m Leslie Hartmann.” He held out his hand. “Better than you pointing a gun at me with it,” she said, taking it.

“I’m Callie Barrett.”

* * *

They stayed a month.

There turned out to be six families living at the compound. Leslie and his men set about training them as best they could while Callie instructed Carell as to the changes she’d made. When he’d asked, she said that she’d always been good at math and had a knack for puzzles. ‘Pookie’ was a combination of the two.

Leslie also suspected it was a way to keep herself occupied and not thinking about what might happen next.

After two weeks, they started the reactor. It was Carell’s show at that point: first getting it up, running, and stable; then, training a cadre to keep it up, running, and stable. That had left both Leslie and Callie with time on their hands. Time that they seemed to spend more and more with one another.

As the day of departure grew nearer—and Carell increasingly concerned about the weather—some of Leslie’s men from central Ohio asked if they could stay. With an armored car. Thinking about that, Leslie knew he’d still have enough strength to get them to Knoxville, and leaving such behind would be a huge deterrent to wreckers and raiders. Cummings was overjoyed at the news.

On Thanksgiving Day, they loaded the last of their gear and went to their vehicles. Just at his scout car, Leslie saw Callie come out of building two, with a bag over each shoulder. She walked across the muddy ground to him.

“I’m coming with you,” she stated in her steady, quiet voice.

“Excellent!” Carell called. “You’ll be a great addition! I’ll make room in my hummer—”

There go her eyebrows again, thought Leslie.

“Not you, pervert!” She took one more step, not quite touching him.

“I’m coming with you,” she whispered.

* * *