Archive for the ‘#launch’ Tag
The night
of the pulse, Geo Tully and Wes Marcus were in the basement of Wes’ aunt’s home
that had become their safehouse.
Wes, a wiry com tech barely
old enough to shave regularly, held up a photo album that showed a man standing
in front of the post-World War 2 bungalow with a shovel. The front door stood
behind him, but not the view of the house that Geo recognized. The articulated
arm of a backhoe could be seen on the edge of the frame.
“The porch is an addition,”
Geo acknowledged.
A Navy Seal from Kansas, Geo
towered over his Seattle-raised compatriot. They’d thrown in together when
Bunnell & Wilson’s Knights Industry division seized control of the city by
murdering military personnel. Wes’ uncle Fred had been an urban survivalist
before he died a few years ago and his aunt Connie had died in Portland’s bomb
attack. Their house had been a safe haven for two fugitives, so far.
“And look at how deep the
hole is behind him.”
Geo turned to the front wall
of the basement. The shelves had kept him from investigating here. They
appeared to be attached to the wall, but when he ran his hand along the back
edge of the shelving unit, he found a throw-bolt. He pulled it down and tugged
on the shelves, swinging them out away from the wall. Hinged on the far side,
they glided on hidden casters. Behind the shelves an open space stretched the
length of the porch. Geo tried the light on the ceiling, but it didn’t turn on.
He used the flashlight on his phone to illuminate the small room. A ham radio
sat at one end, covered with plastic, while storage boxes filled the other end.
“I knew that tower had to
still have a use.” Wes squatted down to look under the table the radio sat on.
As an Army communication tech, he knew radios. “He left it disconnected. It’ll
take me a moment.”
The light bulb in the main
basement flared and popped off. Wes smacked his head on the underside of the
table. Geo’s phone light went out.
“What’s that smell?” Wes
stood, sniffing.
“My phone just fried, I
think.”
They fumbled around in the
dark to find the stairs and make their way to the kitchen. Duke, the Labrador
retriever, stood in the living room, staring at the window and whining.
Geo peeked out the curtains
as the neighbors came out on their porch, staring around.
“You smell that?” Wes asked.
“I’m going to go check for fire.”
“Do you hear that?”
Duke whined louder. Raucous
voices filtered in through the glass. Geo watched as the neighbors ran off
their porch. Wes swept the front door open.
“What the hell?” Geo growled.
“They need help.” Wes ran
into the street.
“Stay, Duke,” Geo ordered and
followed his stupid partner into the street, where the neighbors could get a
full view of their high-and-tights. They’d agreed they wouldn’t do that, but
Wes had forced them all in. A municipal bus sat at the corner, smoke pouring
out of its windows as the people inside tried to get out, screaming, kicking,
punching at the glass, but when one window shattered, it just fed the fire that
doomed them.
Wes ran to the rear passenger
door and tried to pull it open, convulsing and chewing his tongue, smoke rising
from his body.
Like this:
Like Loading...
Today is the launch of Gathering In (Book 5 of Transformation Project series).
I’ve put my characters through a lot (terrorist attacks,
radioactive rain, an air-handling system failure, a corn-field fire, confiscation
of crops by the USDA) and they’re going to lose big in this latest book. Such
is life for characters in an apocalyptic novel series.
Have you ever thought about how food gets to your local
grocery store? How would it get there if the major transportation hubs were
destroyed and rendered no-go zones?
Have you ever thought about where antibiotics come from and whether
those avenues would be available in an apocalyptic situation? What about heart
medications? Antidepressants? You name it. It’s unlikely it was made within a
few miles of your home. So what do you do if the apocalypse happens? What can
you do?
I live in Alaska, where everything comes through the Port of
Anchorage. In fact, Anchorage International Airport is the second-busiest cargo
airport in the United States. Last year Anchorage was hit by a 7.1 quake (which
is NOTHING compared to the Anchorage Quake of 1964 – 9.2 or the Denali Quake of
2002 – 7.9) and roadways collapsed all over town. The airport was closed for a
few hours. The railroad was offline for about 24 hours. The main road between
Anchorage and Fairbanks was fine, but there are three “structurally deficient”
bridges between here and there, so maybe it might not have been. So imagine
what happens here if the Port or the airport are rendered unusable? Starvation,
people without meds, no heating fuel which is a disaster if it’s winter.
I have to imagine that because I live at the end of a
tenuous supply chain in a place where certain kinds of natural disasters are
expected. We build for those disasters, but even then … roads collapsed all
over Anchorage.
You should imagine it for wherever you live because the time
for these thoughts is not after the damage has been done. It’s too late to do
anything about it then.
Like this:
Like Loading...
They’d been told to expect a friendly village, an increasingly elusive concept in the Mirage these days, so they’d all opted to carry for their own safety. A young boy of about ten met them at the town entrance and jabbered away in a patois mixture of the local dialect, the Miragan central tongue and English. Although it seemed impossible for foreigners to master Miragan, Shane’s grasp of Arabic and the months spent with Sera meant he understood enough of the boy’s chatter that they could at least communicate rudimentarily.
“What’s he saying?” Commander Roth asked Shane.
“The levees came through about a week ago, but they haven’t been back. They took his older brother despite being younger than draft age. They took his father last year. He’s hoping for some food aid as he’s feeding three younger siblings by himself.”
“Do you believe that?” Logan demanded.
“I do. Take a look. You see any adult males around here?”
“Not on the ground, but I’ll bet there’s plenty squirreled away in the attics.”
“Where’s the headman’s hut?” Roth asked.
The boy seemed eager to cooperate and they moved deeper into the village’s narrow lanes, leaving squads behind as they went, until only Mike, Killgore, Roth and Shane continued. One moment it seemed friendly, and the next an icy finger ran down Shane’s back. He turned his head toward the left to see the barely perceived danger. A woman in a dark cotton hijab materialized in a doorway. Shane opened his mouth to call a warning and several shots to his chest slammed him back into a stone wall.
Like this:
Like Loading...