The True Enemy
The motorhome filled quickly with warmth and life.
Frank held forth like a bard reciting a saga, laying out everything we had been through for Bill and Tank in vivid, living color — from the first defense at the Nevada farm, through the running fight with the Road Warriors, to the two sieges in the Central Valley.
The more Bill heard, the less he could hide his astonishment.
"So the bounty those Road Warrior bastards put on you wasn't just a rumor? Haha. I figured as much, but you people really aren't ordinary."
Tank had been listening in silence. Then, as if seeing again how the whole crew had moved as one, he spoke in a low voice.
"Now I get it. Nothing trains you like coming through a fight you should've died in."
The evening wore on in that easy camaraderie. I set down my empty bowl and gathered every eye in the room.
"Tomorrow we hit Highway 50. Crossing Nevada and Utah isn't just a desert run. We'll do the final check in my trailer — all section leads, gather up. Bill and Tank too."
I was about to stand when Chloe's voice stopped everyone in their seats.
"Hold on, everyone."
She was holding a small pill bottle.
"Vitamin C and a multivitamin. Take one each."
Bill's face went puzzled, and she added, in that calm clinical tone of hers,
"Humans can't synthesize vitamin C — ascorbic acid — internally. It's essential for immune function and collagen production. In conditions like these, when fresh fruit and vegetables are nearly impossible to find, we have to supplement."
Gunner caught the look on Bill and Tank's faces and grinned.
"Chloe's a real doctor. Haha."
And without another word, everyone took a pill and knocked it back. A short while later, the key personnel gathered again inside the trailer.
I spoke first.
"Dave."
"Yeah."
"Brief us on current inventory. Start with supplies."
Dave flipped open a small notebook.
"Fuel first. Jed's tanker truck is sitting on 3,000 gallons, and Bill's tank trailer is topped off at 11,500."
A hush settled over the trailer.
"On top of that, we've got about a thousand gallons of reserve in drums and jerrycans. Grand total: 15,500 gallons. Even factoring in this convoy's godawful mileage and the overnight heating, that's a minimum of 5,000 miles. Enough to cross the continent and still have some left in the tanks."
Relief washed over every face. Dave turned a page and kept going.
"Food: canned goods, MREs, biscuits — emergency rations for about a year at our current headcount. The ingredients, frozen meat, and flour we pulled from the farm should cover another 300 days or so."
He let that land, then added,
"And that's not even counting the eggs coming off the chicken truck, the liquor and drinks, or the roughly seven tons of produce we hauled from the farm. We're in good shape on food."
"What about ammunition?"
Dave locked eyes with Gunner. Gunner answered for him.
"About 20,000 rounds of 5.56 rifle, 5,000 of 7.62, 10,000 of 9mm pistol, 5,000 of 12-gauge shotgun. Over 40,000 total. We've also got at least a thousand spent casings stockpiled."
"Casings?"
"We've got a reloading press and a full die set. Sooner or later we'll be making our own."
"Powder and primers?"
"Haha. You think I'd ship out without those? Counting the bullets themselves, roughly 400 pounds."
"Whoa. How many rounds does that reload?"
"Hmm... a hundred thousand's pushing it, but 80,000 easy. Haha."
"You've been hauling that since day one?"
"I rolled out with 200 pounds. The rest is farm stock plus what we captured."
Gunner paused, then looked at me and added,
"We're down to eighteen 40mm grenades, though. Those only get used when we truly need them — your call, boss."
I nodded. In our present circumstances, those 40mm grenades were as good as an asymmetric weapon. For a fleeting moment I caught myself wanting to fire an Mk19 automatic grenade launcher until the barrel glowed.
Dave apparently wasn't finished.
"That's not all, Chan."
He turned another page.
"We're flush on everything except one thing. Water. That we cannot call plentiful."
The trailer went quiet again.
"The bus motorhome and the extra tanks on your truck each hold 200 gallons. Raven's camper has 50. The two caravans have 70 apiece. Add the portable jugs distributed across the vehicles and we're looking at about 750 gallons total."
He paused to catch his breath, then went on.
"Figuring one gallon per person per day at our headcount, that's roughly thirty days. If we use it for drinking only, we could stretch it to twice that."
When he finished, Mike tapped the map.
"It's not too little to get us through the Nevada and Utah deserts, but we don't have any to waste either. From here on, we need to be tight with water."
"Right. But no need to panic."
Dave jumped back in.
"We've got plenty of personal emergency water filters, and the bus motorhome has a gravity-fed Berkey system. As long as we can find a water source, we'll be fine."
"Got it. Good work, Dave. If total volume drops below seventy percent, I want a daily report."
"Yeah. Will do."
"While we're crossing Nevada and Utah, we should resupply water at least once if we can."
With the inventory accounted for, it was time to plan how we were going to stay alive.
"Next: how we handle raiders."
Every eye turned back to me.
"From what Cody's been monitoring on the CB channels, the Nevada desert raiders post lookouts at intervals along the highway, scouting for prey. Once they pick a target, they hunt it down as an organized pack."
I looked at Jake.
"Jake, when you're scouting ahead in the helicopter, don't just look at vehicles on the road. Watch the shoulders and the ridgelines for anything that shows a pattern. Could be people. Could be camouflaged vehicles."
"Yes, boss."
Then I shifted my gaze to Gunner and Tank.
"If we have to force a breakthrough, you two are the spearhead. Gunner opens the gap with the V-Plow, Tank follows and punches the lane wide open. You two need to stay in sync."
Gunner and Tank nodded like it was nothing.
"And if a raider column tries to overtake my truck, Tank takes the lead and picks up speed. Gunner covers the rear."
"So I hold the left against anything coming up from six o'clock?"
"Yeah. That's it."
I turned to Frank.
"Whether it's a forced breakthrough or the moment pursuers catch the column, supporting fire from the bus motorhome's roof becomes the most important thing we've got. Frank, can you handle it?"
Frank nodded with easy confidence, as if to say don't worry about it. Right then, Cody's voice burst urgently from the radio.
I snapped on the trailer's radio and tuned the frequency. Through the crackle of static, a forceful anchor's voice came through.
Frank snorted, cynical as ever.
"Hmph. So they weren't just sitting on their hands watching after all."
The radio rolled on with other briefs.
Meanwhile, controversy is mounting as federal troops occupy resort grounds and several farms in Orange County to establish large field hospitals and refugee camps, raising questions of private property rights.
In addition, The Great Winter has dumped unprecedented snowfall across northern states including Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and North Dakota, shutting down several highways indefinitely.
Isolated citizens and refugees who crossed the border from Canada are resorting to every means they have to stay alive. Some states are exploring the use of underground facilities such as abandoned mines, while cities are clearing every vehicle out of underground parking garages and converting them into cold-weather shelters.
The Port of Los Angeles is expected to remain inoperable for at least a year due to tsunami and earthquake aftereffects...
The news was still running when the anchor's voice dropped, heavy and sudden.
A brief silence. Then a heavy, measured voice came through.
My fellow Californians. Yesterday the federal government announced a draft in response to the national emergency.
Accordingly, the State of California, in line with federal directive, hereby institutes a draft of all men between the ages of twenty and twenty-six, effective today.
This is not a draft solely to confront the Southern Confederacy. It is also a draft to secure the manpower this state requires for crisis response, rescue, and recovery.
Allow me to add the following. Anyone who refuses the draft without legitimate cause will be stripped of the right to purchase fuel at designated fueling stations, and will be excluded from all federal relief distributions.
Furthermore, the families of those who refuse conscription will permanently lose eligibility for the new refugee settlements currently being planned by the state government. I want that to be perfectly clear.
When the governor's address ended, the trailer filled with a cold fury and a bitter cynicism. Mike was first to speak, letting out a deep sigh.
"The timing is exquisite. They pretend to open the tap on fuel and food, then slip a collar around your throat."
"Cowards."
Gunner spat the word.
"Using families as hostages to drive men onto a battlefield — that's what a nation does? I already knew, but the bastards at the top are the most vicious of all."
Dave was just as heated.
"Who the hell does the federal government think it is? The southern states are all declaring independence anyway, and Quebec already split off from Canada. If California just went independent, what would actually change?!"
While everyone vented, I sat in silence. The words coming out of that radio were not news.
They were a vast trap — a cunning scheme that tossed a scrap of bread and a drop of oil to starving, desperate people and demanded obedience in return.
Then, like a flash, a comrade's words from the middle of the desert cut through my mind.
"The real enemy isn't those guys."
"What are you talking about?"
"The real enemy isn't the man standing in front of my gun. It's the ones who put me here."
Until now, we had treated the raiders and the collapsed world itself as the enemy.
But perhaps a greater enemy — more vast, more cunning, and wearing even the mask of justice — had been standing at our backs all along.