The Nest
Whatever was coming — The Great Winter, war, or some earthquake roaring up from beneath the earth — I asked only that we be given the smallest window of time we needed to prepare. It wasn't quite a prayer.
But I couldn't sit around waiting for an answer.
If I wanted a response, I would have to find it myself. Mike and I walked the farm and the vehicles together, Wolf matching my stride the whole way.
Mike spoke first, eyeing the jerry cans hanging off the trailers and the pickups.
"Chan, what do you say we pull all those jerry cans dangling off every vehicle?"
"Yeah. We've got a tanker now."
"Thirty jerry cans put together wouldn't even make five percent of what's in that tanker."
I nodded.
"Let's do it. And those empty holders — what if we packed them tight with almond sacks from the warehouse and threw tarps over them? Emergency rations in a pinch, plus a little camouflage."
"That's a damn fine idea."
Mike snapped his fingers and kept going.
"A dense sack of almonds would stop most pistol rounds, easy. Makes a hell of an improvised armor plate."
"Haha. Killing two birds with one stone."
"That a Korean proverb?"
"It's used all over East Asia. One stone, two birds."
"Right. In that case, we ought to reinforce the vehicle doors while we're at it."
Mike thought for a moment, then his face lit with that familiar confidence.
"It'll take some work, but we weld a thin steel-plate frame onto the outside of each door and pack the cavity with anything that'll stop a bullet."
He looked around, pointing out materials that could serve as ballistic filler.
"Cut rubber slabs from those abandoned tractor tires over there. Ceramic tiles rotting in the warehouse. Sandbags packed with dirt and gravel. Hell — even sugar sacks stuffed in there would do the job."
"Oh — and I'd like a gun shield around the sleeper sunroof on my truck."
"It's still a new truck. You sure?"
"Even an old truck's only worth something if you can keep it."
"Fair enough. You want to stand up on the bunk and pop out through the roof, then."
"That's the idea. And if we could put a small box up there for spare magazines, even better."
"Hahaha. All right, all right."
Our walk brought us, before I quite realized it, to a halt in front of my trailer. I told him what I had decided the night before.
"Mike, it's time we dump the Sorento in there."
"Heh. Smart thinking. We've got plenty of other vehicles now. No reason to keep hauling that extra weight around."
I climbed into the cab and hit the ramp-door switch. A hydraulic cylinder sang — a long, rising whir — and the massive rear ramp began to lower, slow and somehow ceremonial.
The heavy steel door met the earth with a deep thunk, and a perfect incline locked into place.
The Sorento crept down the ramp and rolled out of the trailer.
Mike watched the whole thing, then let out a low whistle at the ramp door itself.
"I'll be damned. That is one hell of a piece of equipment."
"How do you mean?"
"Think about it. You don't drop that ramp all the way like we just did. You lower it halfway. Instant cover — and a gap you can shoot through, straight out the back of the vehicle."
"True."
Even as I answered him, an idea flashed through my mind.
"Wait — what if we built a Gun Nest on that ramp door?"
"A Gun Nest? So not halfway — you mean drop it all the way to horizontal and shoot from on top of it?"
I nodded.
"Exactly. We weld an inverted U-shaped ballistic shield onto the inner face of the ramp door ahead of time."
Mike said nothing.
"When the door's closed, it just sits there like part of the wall. But in a fight, you drop it to horizontal, and you've got a three-sided firing position. Perfect."
"Huh. And the weight? If people climb up there, is that going to be a problem?"
"It won't be. The frame was custom-built from the start — reinforced for vehicle loading and extra cargo. A few people could jump up and down on it and it wouldn't even notice."
At that, Mike's eyes lit up like a soldier's.
"I like it. That's a damn good idea. If we're building it, let's put weapon mounts on it while we're at it."
He grinned and went on.
"An Mk 19 grenade launcher up on that Gun Nest would be just about perfect. Haha!"
I nodded at that. One problem, though, sat uneasily in the back of my mind.
"But if you drop the ramp to horizontal, the upper rear of the trailer — the roof line — is sitting there wide open. No cover at all."
"That's right."
Mike answered as if he had already seen the worry coming.
"So we weld a steel skirt onto the trailing edge of the roof, right above the ramp, hanging downward."
He let that hang for a beat.
"Then we put a shelf on the inside of that skirt and pack it tight with those nut sacks of yours. Instant extra armor."
"Good. I'm counting on you."
"I'll tell you what. When we're done, this thing's going to look like some kind of transforming robot. Hah."
"And… I'd like a few more of those Shotgun Tubes we built at Cyrus's farm mounted on the sides of Gunner's truck and the other pickups."
"Right. Doesn't matter how much fire you pour out the back — one or two stubborn bastards will find a way to overtake the column and hit the flanks. We need at least a minimum of defensive weapons on the sides."
"On Gunner's truck, put them on the front as well. He's the lead vehicle. I'd appreciate it."
"Heh. Looks like we're about to get real busy. All right — let's get started!"
Mike chuckled and headed for the farm workshop.
"Heh. Those boys finally get to earn their keep."
"Those boys?"
"My son Damon and that friend of his. Gotta put young backs to work while they're still fresh. Perfect timing."
With that, Mike conscripted his son and the boy's friend and threw himself into building the new defensive systems.
I gathered the last of my personal things still left in the Sorento.
Ten years in Canada. This car had never been just a way to get around. It had been a silent companion through a lonely immigrant's life. I ran a hand along the body and spoke quietly.
"You did good. Looks like… this is the end of the road."
Wolf must have caught whatever was in my voice. He pressed his head against my hand and let out a low whimper. I ran a palm down his back, as if I could scrub the bitterness off myself, and said,
"Wolf. Want to run?"
We ran together all the way to the farmhouse. Wolf was in high spirits, and I could feel the blood moving in my own body again.
When we arrived, Jake was at one end of the living room, checking drone batteries. Even at a glance, there were a lot of them.
"Whoa. How many batteries is that?"
Jake held one up as he answered.
"Twenty-four in total. Three of them have lost so much charge efficiency I wouldn't trust them."
"Even so, that's a hell of a lot."
"My father always used to say, 'Always prepare twice what you need.' And that count includes the batteries off the broken drone we set up at the OP."
I didn't say anything.
"The cold's killed a lot of the battery efficiency, too. If we want to play it safe, we should limit recon to about ten miles round-trip from here on."
I thought about that, then asked,
"What about wiring two batteries in parallel to stretch the flight time?"
"In theory… it's possible. But it's a dangerous way to do it. If there's even a slight voltage difference between the two packs, current dumps from the higher one into the lower. The battery swells — or, worst case, it cooks off in midair."
He pointed to the hot packs and thick scraps of cloth laid out on the workbench.
"That's why I'm going to start by building insulated battery cases and pairing them with low-temp hot packs. Cut the cold-soak as much as we can."
I nodded at his caution without a word. When I mentioned using the almond sacks on the vehicles as both emergency rations and improvised armor, Jake added something of his own.
"Raisin sacks would work too. They're sticky — that'll help bleed off velocity."
We kept talking after that — about using the drones for forward reconnaissance while the convoy was on the move. The conclusion we reached was that Jake and Cody would ride together in the bus motorhome, one driving and the other on the sticks, and that factoring in the convoy's own speed, we could push the recon range a little farther.
By the time lunch was drawing near, Frank and the others who'd gone to the truck stop came back.
As expected, the deal had gone well. Frank and Dave climbed down from the truck looking like they'd won the lottery.
"Sold every last bit and came back loaded!"
Frank slapped the side of the truck bed as he shouted it. Mike, who happened to be hauling materials past, looked over and asked,
"So how much did you move this time?"
"Don't even get me started on the goods. Cash alone? Fifty-one thousand dollars."
Even after the truck stop's thirty-five percent cut, it was a staggering haul. Then Gunner climbed down behind them, and the look on his face was suspiciously pleased — in the best way.
"Something good happen?"
Gunner didn't even try to hide his satisfaction.
"One Mk 48 Mod 1 and an M249 SAW. Got 'em at a damn good price."
Frank waved that off and jumped in.
"Ah, not purchased. We sold our goods and took these instead of cash, didn't we? Hahaha."
"We've finally got ourselves some real squad automatic weapons."
Everyone was still marveling at the new guns when Frank raised a hand and called out,
"All right, all right, listen up! Better news still."
Every eye swung back to him.
"Word about our goods has spread all over this area. That truck stop is now the de facto only wholesale produce market in the southern Central Valley."
"Wholesale market?"
"That's right! The shipment we dropped off yesterday was already long gone by this morning. Word got out, and shopkeepers from as far as Fresno — even little towns on the Nevada line — started pouring in to buy."
"It spread that fast?"
I asked, startled. Frank shook his head, still half in disbelief.
"That truck stop manager is no amateur. A businessman is a businessman. Once he got a taste of the money, he fired up the CB and every contact he had and carved out new sales channels himself."
"Damn."
"At this rate, everything sitting in that warehouse — two, three weeks, tops, and we'll have sold it all!"
"That's impressive, Frank. You're going to keep us all fed. But hold back at least five tons for ourselves. We don't know what's coming."
Everyone was still riding the high of Frank's success when his expression suddenly went grave. He dropped his voice, as if he were sharing a secret.
"And… I picked up some ugly rumors at the truck stop."
The cheers of a moment ago vanished as if they had never existed. Every gaze turned back to him.
"It's a Nevada thing. Raiders. Some people still call them Road Warriors. Some people say they're a whole new breed."
He swallowed and went on.
"What's certain is that every one of those rumors is coming off CB channels 19 and 9. And the strange part… I don't know why, but those lunatics aren't coming down into California. They're only raiding inside Nevada."
A deep shadow of worry settled over Mike's face. He looked down at the barren Nevada roads spread across the map, and spoke quietly.
Literally, a nest of guns. A small, hardened defensive emplacement built to operate crew-served weapons such as machine guns. Functionally synonymous with a machine-gun position.