Bootstrap Colony (26 page)

A giant black man, towering like
a mountain stepped out of the shade, wrapped in a leather apron. He waved, did
a stretch to work his back and shoulders and then returned to his work. Sparks
could be seen as each hammer blow rained down on the glowing ingots. “The
charcoal is a pain to make, but John did a stint at a Renn fair a few years
back and was taught how to make it. Bitch to cut the hardwood down though when
we ran out of fuel.”

Mitch smiled “Well, we don’t have
gas, but we do have electric chain saws, and if all else fails hatchets and
axes. Mike’s iron works are churning out some pretty good iron now.” Jack
nodded. “I noticed the piles outside; I take it you're sorting the gear that
came with you?” Mitch asked.

“Yeah, I have a few plumbers that
would like to run pipe, but without a clean source of water inside the
perimeter we are SOL for now,” Jack replied. Mitch nodded. “We got all the
food, blankets and snivel gear we could, the rest is furniture, keepsakes, and
odds and ends. Even some vehicles, we siphoned the fuel for the chain saws till
they ran dry,” Jack sighed.

Helen offered them a meal, while
Sam took the bobcat out to the gravel pit with a dump truck to work on the
road. Jack asked how the vehicles could be powered, Mitch smiled.

“I had all my engines built as
ceramic hydrogen hybrids. They use superconductor batteries to store power.
When they just move around unloaded and on easy to travel ground they use the
electric, when under load they switch to hydrogen. Have to be careful not to
overload them though,” Mitch explained. Jack pursed his lips and nodded
thoughtfully. Once the forklift driver was finished unloading, he refueled the
tank on the back then took a wrench and cordless impact gun to the arms. He
popped them off with a bit of work, then with the help of a couple crew members
popped on a dozer blade.

A little tightening with the
wrench and impact gun and he jumped back in the cab with a jaunty wave to the departing
crew. He fired her up and went off to follow Sam. “Nice design,” Jack
commented.

Mitch smiled. “Yeah, cost a
pretty penny, but it was well worth it. I am not too fond of uni-taskers. I
guess it came from watching too much of Good Eats,” he said with a small smile.
Jack laughed and slapped his shoulder.

“Do you have extra radios?” Axel
asked, mumbling with his mouth full.

The teenager next to him piped
up. “We are using these!” He pulled out a walkie talkie/ cell phone and showed
it proudly. “We only have a few though.”

Mitch nodded. “Well, you see that
tower there?” He pointed to the radio tower Sara and a couple helpers were
putting together.

The group looked at the truss
tower going up nearby. “Yeah?” The kid asked, “So?”

Mitch smiled. “It has a couple
roles; one of them is a cell tower.”

Jack looked up. “You’re shitting
me, a cell tower? Here?” He turned to Helen. “Honey did you hear that? That
thing is a cell tower!” He pointed to Sara’s project. Helen looked startled,
and then does a yes yes yes shimmy. Several people nearby who overheard cheer.

Jack turned to Mitch. “Damn, I
didn’t know you could do that.”

Mitch smiled. “Well, as I was
saying, it is a cell tower, Ham tower, Internet Wifi link, and a lightning
rod.”

Axel whistled. “Dog gone, that
will be a big life saver.” He pointed to a ruined blackened object near the
Forge. “That was a generator, till it got toasted in the last storm.”

Mitch nodded. “I ran into that
problem a few times too until I got my act together and the lightning rods up.”
Jack grunted.

“The tower will let you use your
cells like radios. If you still have them,” Mitch sighed. “Most people probably
tossed theirs when they couldn’t use them.” The teen looked dubious.

“Ned, why don’t you go check,”
Jack ordered. Ned nodded and rushed off.

“We placed five other towers on
high ground on our way here. I kept one in reserve just in case of problems.”
Mitch pointed to the last flatbed with a tower on it.

Axel, always the conservative
mechanical engineer, nodded. “Yeah, good idea that, never want to get caught
with your trousers around your ankles.”

Jack gave him the eye. “I am
never going to live that down am I?” he demanded. Axel snorted. Mitch looked
back and forth between the two and then shrugged.

“We should have limited coverage
between our three villages soon. We can also keep in touch with the convoys.”

Axel nodded. “But cell towers
only have a short range, three to four miles right?”

Mitch nodded. “Yeah, but we added
a little tweak, anything out of range is sent to the HAM to the next station,”
Mitch explained. Axel nodded.

“Wait, Wifi?” Axel asked,
dubiously.

“Yeah, we have a network,” Mitch
responded with a smile. He pulled out his tablet and showed it to them. “This
allowed me to access the network, and send data in burst packets from tower to
tower to the central computer.” He tapped the stylus, showing them as he pulled
up a file. “We even have e mail again, and the network can integrate any
wireless device.” A laser projected a keyboard onto the ground. Mitch moved so
the laser projection was in his shadow so they could see it better. Axel gave a
low whistle of appreciation at that.

Since the unloading was completed
the crews stood down for lunch, and then got to chores while a smaller crew
loaded the sacks of ingots. Jack pointed out that it would be easier to
transport more processed metal, and Mitch heartily agreed, and said he would
see about making an induction furnace as soon as possible. Jack was startled
and asked just what he had back at base.

“Sam told me about the giant
fortress, caves, a farm, greenhouses, domes...you got all that?” Jack demanded,
clearly curious.

“Oh yeah, and more.” Angie
stepped up, sipping a drink. “Yeah he is our resident pack rat,” she teased.
Jack looked to her then quirked a questioning eyebrow. “He packed everything,
including kitchen sinks.”

Jack chuckled as he wrapped one
arm around his approaching wife’s side. She hugged herself to him, whispered
something into his ear a moment. He nodded, face sobering. “Helen here said Doc
said Natali is still in labor. She might have to do a field C section.”

Mitch winced, Angie paled. Mitch
turned to Angie, had her get Paul to pull the med kit out and get it to Doc. He
called Brian on his walkie talkie, telling him to pack the surgery kit and plasma,
and ask Cassie and Dora to get a kit together. He waved to Sara, asking her to
hook the plane up to the lead hummer to give it a charge. She did so, muttering
about the heavy weight.

“Angie, can you get back to base,
do a turn around and pick Cassie and a med team up?” Mitch asked.

Angie nodded. “That serious?”

“Yeah. If the girl,” Mitch
started but Angie interrupted.

“Natali boss, her name is
Natali,” Angie supplied.

He looked to her. “If she started
losing blood, she could go quickly. Speaking of which bring back some O blood
and a transfusion kit too.” Angie nodded as she tossed him the empty cup and
jogged to the plane. She did a quick preflight then unhooked the lines with
Sara and taxied away to the runway.

Sam and his road crew were doing
a booming job with the gravel the village had stockpiled, piling loads near the
wall trenches, as well as along the path of the dirt road. They work until
dark, stopping only to charge their engines from the auxiliary tanks the crew
brought along.

Sam wanted to set up lights to
continue working into the night, but Jack and Mitch shot that idea down,
pointing out his team was tired and it was dangerous with predators out and
about. They retired for a late dinner and rack out. The yowls of nearby
predators, and the chitter of bugs kept a few up and nervous for a time. A few
members of the convoy decided to rack out in the cabs of the vehicles.

Angie returned in the night,
calling in for them to set up for a night landing. From her voice she sounded
extremely nervous. Mitch rousted his team to drive out, setting the vehicles up
with their lights to form a perimeter around the landing strip. They had to
chase a few animals off the strip; Angie had a close call with a wompi deer as
she landed. She was still a bit hysterically amused by the experience for hours
after she landed.

“Damn, looked like they had a
rough trip,” Mitch observed, taking in the raggedly torn skin on the wings and
left side. He panned his flashlight over the tail, noted the rips in the
rudder. “Yeah, something tells me this isn’t storm damage though,” he observed.

“Great, now what?” Jack turned to
look out into the depth of the darkness. “We need to get in soon, something is
coming, and I don’t want to be on the menu.” He shuddered a bit in the cool
night breeze.

A shaken Cassie grabbed a bag and
hustled off in the direction of the lit village. Paul called her back, getting
her to jump in with him and the rest of the gear before they hauled ass to the
village. Their vehicle roared off into the night, bouncing in the dark, making
their headlights jitter all over the path.

The team returned to the village
towing the plane a few minutes behind them. Angie was exhausted, muttering
about a few close called with Shriekers in the air. The next morning the angry
cry of a newborn infant woke them. Mitch smiled. Breakfast crews were at work
and Angie whistled shaken when the morning light hit her plane and she finally
got a good look.

Mitch came over, looking over the
plane. He noted the damage to the wings. The Shriekers as Angie called them had
been a closer call then any had thought. Aluminum and plastic were shredded on
one wing; the rudder had also take damage. They used hand tools and duct tape
to patch the damage. Angie wasn’t comfortable flying though so they broke the
plane down and loaded it onto an empty flatbed.

Sara ran a water hose to the
trucks. When Jack asked why she told him they were making hydrogen. He turned
and headed over to Mitch.

Jack asked if they had fuel,
Mitch shook his head. “We haven’t been looking for oil, and everything I
brought is either electric of flex fuel. I can make some oil, but only in very
small quantities.”

“We ran our trucks, the dozer,
and saws until they ran out of fuel.” Jack commented with a nod.

Mitch nodded. “Okay, since we are
going to be here another day or two waiting for Doc, why don’t we let Sam and
his crew play in the dirt and if you can whistle up a few volunteers..” He
reached into the back of the nearby hummer and pulled out a hard hat, gloves
and then an electric chainsaw. “We can do a little lumber jacking,” he
suggested. Jack nodded with a smile. He hollered to Axel to get a crew up. Sara
tagged along as one of the guards.

They broke for lunch, happy at
having cut so much, but a little weary. Mitch talked with Jack, finding that
they have a couple electric saws, and a diesel generator. He had them hook the
saws and power tools up to draw off the convoy’s batteries. The solar panels on
the roofs of the vehicles would recharge them. They used the hummer to drag
logs back to a cleared area to dry in the sun.

Brush was pulled back to piles
for burning, or left in place. Axel wistfully wished his truck hadn’t run out
of gas. Jack patted him on the shoulder. Mitch asked what it had for an engine,
and Axel told him proudly it is a V eight four on the floor, with four by four.
“Can it handle flex fuels?”

Axel shook his head. “No, I
bought it back in 2005.”

Mitch scratched his chin for a
moment. “Okay well, you can either save up and when we get the engine works
going trade to convert the truck to flex fuel, or pull the entire engine and
replace it with a biodiesel one,” he suggested.

“Biodiesel?” Axel asked,
wrinkling his nose.

“Yeah, I have surplus methane and
ethylene, so we convert it to biodiesel for the emergency generators,” Mitch
explained.

“Oh.”

“You could convert it to run
hydrogen, pump it directly into the carburetor. But it has a nasty habit of
flash backs and explosions.”

Axel shook his head. “Saw that on
Mythbusters, thanks but
NO
thanks.” Mitch chuckled.

“A complete drive transplant
would work too, but not well. Electric is nice on roads, but there aren’t any
here.” He chuckled. “At least not till Sam and his crew get done.”

Axel looked over to them in the
distance and snorted. “Yeah, he is having a ball,” he said gruffly. Jack
laughed.

Doc came out, weary and dragging.
Cassie propped her up, but even her youthful energy was clearly flagging.
“Natali is okay; she lost a lot of blood. We almost lost mother and daughter
both,” Doc said, wiping her brow with the back of her hand. The father came
out, cradling the child. The women folk rushed over, cooing and oohing and
ahing. Sara led Doc and Cassie over to the mess area to get some food. Doc
looped her stethoscope behind her neck and followed.

Mitch stepped behind her and gave
her a neck and shoulder rub sometime later. She groaned in appreciation,
lowering her head and arching her back. Cassie piped in with a “Better do me
next.” He snorted. Doc sighed in contentment, and then wrinkled her nose at the
smell of sweat registered in her tired brain. Catching the look of disgust
Mitch chuckled. “Sorry Doc, been cutting trees.” He turned his attention to
Cassie.