Gunner
The evening wound down in a strange kind of peace, where the relief of having survived crossed paths with the shadow of new threats. Before everyone scattered to their quarters, I called Mike and Gunner over to the trailer, then pulled a thick North American road atlas still in its wrapping from the shelf, along with a waterproof notebook and a few pens, and handed them to Mike.
"Insurance, for whatever we can't see coming. Take them with you."
The meaning was clear enough. If the worst came and GPS and every digital device went dead, that old paper and ink would be the only guide left.
Mike took the atlas without a word and ran a calloused hand across the cover.
"Heh. That's you, all right. Thank you."
I looked at both of them again and got to the point.
"And we need to make our own code for the CB radio."
"That's right."
Gunner agreed at once.
"Channel 19 is too hot. Everybody's listening. We might as well be advertising where we're going and what we're doing."
He thought for a moment, then offered a few substitutions.
"How about we swap fuel for water, and cops for suits?"
"That's not bad, but nobody's going to remember a whole glossary, and you can't pass anything complicated that way."
"Got something better? Something from the Legion?"
"Not exactly. I've got something simpler and more solid. Look here."
I wrote out the alphabet in the notebook as I laid out the alternative I'd been thinking about.
"You shift each letter by its position in the word or abbreviation. Say you want to send AB."
"Yeah?"
"A becomes B. The second letter, B, shifts two places to D. So AB becomes BD."
"Ah, so if the radio says 'come to BD,' it actually means AB?"
"That's it. PB for Polar Bear becomes QD. Numbers work the same way. In 123, one becomes two, two becomes four, three becomes six."
"And we won't be using words that long, but after the tenth position you wrap back to a one-place shift."
Mike closed his eyes for a moment, as if running something through his head, then opened them and asked me back.
"So... if it were Washington, D.C.... that would be 'X, EE.'?"
"That's right."
I was genuinely impressed that Mike had assembled it in his head without writing anything down. From that moment on, we had a voice of our own that no one else could overhear.
The moment dawn broke the next morning, Mike was packed and ready to go. His van was topped off with fuel, packed with extra diesel and rations, and fitted with the CB radio Gunner had installed for him.
Dave made no effort to hide how much he hated to see him leave.
"Damn it, old man, do you have to go right now? Stay a few more days."
"My boy's driving a gasoline vehicle. Fuel might be hard to come by at the state line. I've got to go."
Frank chimed in, his face uneasy.
"He's right, Mike. Going alone is too dangerous."
But I didn't try to stop him. I trusted Mike. I trusted the hard years that had taught him how to survive alone. We shook hands without a word, and Mike set out on the long road toward his son.
And then an ordinary day on a farm that was anything but ordinary began.
Dave and Frank spent the whole day covered in grease, stripping parts off the wrecked vehicles. I walked the farm perimeter with Wolf, checking the defensive ground one more time. That was when I spotted Gunner, transformed into a drill instructor, putting Liam and Adam through firearms training in the clearing behind the farm. His booming voice carried on the wind as he drilled the boys from a distance.
"I'll say it again. You never point a weapon at a person, even if it's empty. You want to shoot a friend instead of an enemy?"
"Yes, sir. Understood."
"And your finger! Until you're ready to fire, it stays outside the trigger guard. Finger safety. That's the first rule that'll keep you alive."
Watching them, I fell into thought. This farm. Too good to just walk away from. If a larger force hit us all at once — bigger than yesterday's...
There could be remnants of the raiding party we'd already put down. And even if there weren't, as the world grew more savage, raiders would instinctively swell their numbers. It wasn't a question of firepower or manpower. Early warning against a surprise attack was the real headache. The one mercy was that the farm, ringed by thousands of acres of cropland, had only a single way in or out.
Put a checkpoint on the highway off-ramp?
A checkpoint had its own problems. Even if a dozen people pulled twenty-four-hour sentry duty, I couldn't trust it to be airtight. And the mere existence of a post would be a billboard telling anyone coming off the highway that something was worth finding. On top of that, taking down the tripwire at the entrance when Mike left and putting it back up after he was gone had been a pain in the ass. The shotshell traps were probably going to have to stay night-watch only.
And we couldn't stay bottled up on this farm forever. While we still had supplies, we needed to start sourcing from outside — or start trading. We needed something more fundamental.
Evening came around before I knew it, and we gathered at the table again. Mike's empty chair felt especially large. Dave's mother, Eleanor, offered a short prayer before the meal, asking that Mike's road be a safe one. I thanked the women who'd prepared dinner, then spoke.
"I know everyone is working to hold this farm. But we cannot forget that we may have to leave again at any moment."
Frank backed me up.
"Chan's right. There's no telling now whether those crazy Texas bastards are going to start a real war."
Jake spoke up, his face serious.
"We know. The two of us can't hold this much ground anymore. We'll be ready to leave whenever we have to."
After dinner I gathered the men in a corner of the living room. The only sound filling our heavy silence was the crackle of the firewood in the hearth. I spoke first.
"We'll leave when we have to. But while we're here, we need a new watch system."
"Taking the entrance traps down and putting them back up every time someone comes or goes, like today — that's too inefficient. And if all we're watching is the farm gate, we won't know about an enemy until they're right on top of us. We need real-time eyes on the highway off-ramp, or we can't defend this place properly."
Everyone agreed. Then Dave spoke up, sounding frustrated.
"If we just had a camera out there, that'd be perfect."
"We've got cameras."
Every eye in the room turned to me.
"I've got spare CCTV cameras and monitors in my trailer."
Frank shook his head and stepped in.
"Chan. That's a good thought, but running a hard line over half a mile is no small job."
I said nothing.
"Power's the first problem. You can't just drag eight hundred meters of cable out there. And even if you did, the voltage drop over that length would keep the camera from working right, and the video signal would be so full of noise you couldn't make out a damn thing."
Frank's practical objections took the air out of the room. The hope that had briefly risen sank again. That was when Jake, who had been listening quietly, raised his hand. Every gaze swung toward him.
"Um... what if..."
"Yeah, spit it out."
"Would a broken drone work?"
"A drone?"
"Yes. We used it for farm management. It crashed a little while back, so it can't fly. But... the camera and the gimbal still work fine."
At that, Frank clapped his hands and picked it up.
"That's perfect. A drone camera's way better than a regular CCTV."
He went on, getting excited.
"If we manage the batteries right, we can watch the feed from here remotely — and pan, zoom, the whole works. That's a damn near perfect idea."
"How long's a battery going to last, though? An hour or two and it's dead, right?"
Dave shot back. Frank waved him off like he didn't know what he was talking about.
"No. The motors that keep a drone in the air are what eat the power. If we're not flying it — just running the camera and the transmitter — it'll last a lot longer than you'd think. If we build a decent insulator so the cold doesn't kill the battery, we should get a full day out of it, easy."
Frank looked at Jake.
"We've got enough batteries?"
"Yes. We used to take four or five batteries out with us every time. There's still plenty in the shed."
It really was a perfect idea. I felt a smile tug at the corner of my mouth.
"All right. Jake, Frank — you two get that drone camera set up at the OP first thing tomorrow."
"Yes, sir."
"No problem."
I looked around at the rest of them.
"How are we sitting on remaining stores?"
Dave pulled out a notepad and started in.
"Well... I ran the numbers roughly. Setting aside toilet paper, which takes up the most volume, the rest of the food and essentials should last at least three years. Food alone, we could go five — maybe more."
I asked him back.
"And the toilet paper?"
"Toilet paper's good for a year, easy."
Frank snickered and needled him.
"Haha, so toilet paper's a strategic asset for Dave, huh?"
"You saying it's not? Don't come crying to me for a square when you're desperate later."
Dave shot back, and the living room broke into laughter. I changed the subject and asked Jake.
"How's the power looking?"
"It's coming in fine right now. If the grid goes down, the farm equipment will stop, but the emergency generator can cover household use, no problem."
"Good. And just in case, let's top off that tanker truck we picked up."
"No problem, Chan. I'll have it done first thing in the morning."
Dave answered. Then, from the other side of the living room, a low murmur of whoa rose from the women and children watching TV. Our eyes followed. On the screen, thousands of people inside a massive supermarket shoved and trampled one another, fighting over goods in a scene of pure chaos.
Watching that horrific footage, Frank asked me.
"Hey, Chan. To me, Chinese people and Koreans all look pretty similar. So why do they act so different? The news said Korea's been completely orderly."
"France and Germany sit right next to each other too, and they're completely different people, aren't they?"
I shot back, and Dave piled on.
"Chan's got a point. Try telling a Frenchman he looks like a German. He'll go through the roof."
"Yeah, fair..."
"Think about it. Tell those Texas boys they look Mexican just because they're sitting right on the border. They'll draw on you before you finish the sentence."
Dave's comparison set us laughing again. Even in the middle of tragic news, we found a little comfort in each other's jokes.
The warm evening wound down, and people began drifting off one by one to their quarters. Then I said to Wolf, "Want to go for a walk?" He spun a circle right where he stood and dropped his shoulders in eager anticipation. That was when Gunner fell in beside us.
"I'll come along. I could use a walk myself."
And so Gunner joined the walk. We talked about things we hadn't had time for, walked back through the last fight, and confirmed that our tactical codes lined up well. It occurred to me, then, that he was no ordinary Marine.
"Gunner. Were you Force Recon?"
"Well... a little deeper than Recon. Places where they don't even know we existed."
I had a pretty good idea what he meant. Deeper than Force Recon meant Marine Raiders under SOCOM — the Marine Raider Regiment. He was a man who had walked the same kind of hell I had, just under a different flag. I didn't ask any further.
We kept walking, and then, uncharacteristically hesitant, he spoke up carefully.
"Uh, Polar Bear. That F-550..."
I caught on to what he wanted immediately, and grinned.
"Yeah. That thing suits you. We already pulled the CB radio out of it, so you might as well take the truck."
"You serious? Thanks, boss."
Gunner's grin stretched from ear to ear. He looked like a kid on Christmas morning who'd just gotten the one thing he'd wanted most, and I thought that monster of a truck suited him just fine. It was a good thing, seeing a brother who'd fought back-to-back with me wear a smile like that.