From Within (10 page)

Will looked around at the others, widening his eyes to see if they liked his idea at all. Alejandro was nodding his head in approval. He put his hand up to his chin and looked down as if he was thinking about the idea or planning how to begin the project. Will looked to Lea and his mother.

“What’s a spike strip?” Lea asked.

“I was wondering the same thing,” Beth said.

“Oh sorry,” Will said, “I suppose I should explain it a little better. It’s those strips that the police put across a road to stop a car. They are spikes of sharp metal that will pop all the tires. They have some that are just a slightly raised bump where the spikes stay down so others cars can keep using that route. When the car they want to stop comes up, they put the spikes up.”

“Oh right. I know what you are talking about now.” Lea said.

“Do you think you can make it so we can still drive over the spot?” Beth asked.

“I’m pretty sure I can. We’ll have to put all the spikes on a bar that we’ll attach a lever to one end. We’ll lay them flat when we want to drive over. They’ll have to be set into the ground a little bit so when we lay the spikes flat, they’ll be below ground so we don’t accidentally pop tires driving back onto the driveway towards the house. Going that way will be driving towards the spikes. I think our biggest challenge building it will be finding enough pieces of metal to turn into spikes.”

“Will,” Alejandro cut in and then paused for a moment, “do you think a spike strip will stop someone? Or a group? To be honest, I think a spike strip will only slow someone down. I bet it’s groups out there stealing from people, not just a single person. If a group comes in and loses tires on one vehicle then it’s only going to slow them down. They’ll have more vehicles and people. I think we need something more than spikes.”

“Well, what do you think we should do?” Will asked. “A moat?” He laughed at his own suggestion.

“Yes!” Alejandro answered excitedly. “That’s exactly what I’m thinking. We dig out a section of that lower drive.” He pointed down the driveway. “Then we build a drawbridge. We’ll lower it and then open the gate to get out.”

“Guys,” Beth said, “can’t someone just walk around the spike strip and lower it or around a hole in the driveway and lower our bridge?”

“I guess that’s possible,” Alejandro said. “The point is for it to be a deterrent.”

“I’d just hate for us to do all this work when it might not be needed,” Beth said. “I think a chained and locked gate will do the trick. If we see a lot of people coming through this area then maybe we’ll reconsider. You can’t even tell there’s a house up here from the road. I also think if someone gets in through the gate and doesn’t realize there’s a hole in the driveway and their car drops in, we won’t have any way to get it out and out of our way. We could have trouble getting out if we need to.”

“We’ll just make it deep enough for the car to go completely in the hole,” Alejandro said with a big smile on his face. “We should at least do this gate first,” his smile faded as his tone turned more serious. “No question in my mind that the gate should be done before anything else. Since we know there is looting, I think security becomes a top priority.”

Will wondered to himself if Alejandro’s heightened desire for security was a result of Juana being attacked. He didn’t mind beefing up the security on the property. He didn’t want any more trouble for them than they had already dealt with. It was just a thought in the back of his mind.

“I’ll go see what materials we have to work with,” Will said. “I know I have some wood already. However, if we are building it to prevent someone’s truck blasting through it then I’m sure we’ll want to cut down a few good sized trees. Something this heavy will probably need a wheel to help it move and to support the weight. I think I have something that will work. I’m hoping we won’t have to go to the hardware store for anything. I’m guessing there is a good chance they might be low on supplies as well. You guys should head down there and check out the fencing along the road. Might as well make sure we don’t need to do anything while we are going to be down there working.”

Lea and Alejandro went in to check on Juana and let her know they’d be down by the road for a little while working. She was awake from her nap and she told them that she didn’t need anything from them and that she was now perfectly capable of managing most things on her own. Lea didn’t like her mother’s stubbornness when it came to her recovery. Lea had become too stressed and too overwhelmed with her mother being out of commission for so long and for such a reason. She couldn’t think of any time in her life that her mother had to deal with something like this.

They filled up several bottles they found in the kitchen with water and rejoined Beth who was waiting on the porch. They began the walk down the drive. The driveway went downhill through the trees before reaching the road. This made Alejandro grunt in dissatisfaction. He was realizing the climb he would be making back up the hill once they were done. He wished he had kept himself in better shape.

It didn’t take them long to walk the fence line along the road. They found a few spots that needed repair. Fencing had either come loose from the wood or a log was rotted to the point of near collapse. Will arrived in his Jeep, the back open to accommodate a load of wood he gathered from the shed.

“How’s the fence? Will asked as he got out of the Jeep.

Lea explained the few repairs needed on the fence. Will wasn’t too surprised. He had always tried to keep up with repairs on the property. He usually kept himself busy working for other people so he could make some money. He was pleased there wasn’t much to do for that project.

“I don’t think we need to take a trip to the store. I found a lot of heavy duty hardware in the shed. There’s obviously plenty of wood,” he motioned a thumb behind himself to the Jeep. “Of course, we still want some heavy duty logs that we’ll need to cut down. I was thinking that the gate should open outwards. We’ll have a log the gate will lock to and butted up next to that, set inside slightly, we’ll post another log that will be a block. That way the gate won’t open inwards.” He was using his fingers to demonstrate what he was picturing.

“Yeah, that way it makes it even harder to ram open,” Lea said with a smile.

“Mom, do you and Lea want to design the gate?” Will asked. “I brought down some paper and pencils. If you two do that then Alejandro,” he paused, “...I mean Al,” he said sarcastically as he looked over to Alejandro. “he and I can get started on bringing down a few trees.”

Alejandro was shaking his head and chuckling. “See, I knew you’d get it down eventually. I hope we have a chainsaw and not one of those two-man blades to get these trees.”

“Yes,” Will said. “Oh man, I think we’d break our backs trying to work one of those big blades. I’m pretty sure there’s one of those collecting dust in the far reaches of the shed. I’ve never used it, but I bet it’s grueling work.”

“That’s fine with me,” Beth finally answered. “Lea and I will draw out a design for the gate. We’ll figure out final dimensions once the posts are set. I don’t want you taking any of the trees around the driveway. Go over that way,” she pointed off away from the driveway, “if you can get your Jeep over there. Are you going to drag the logs back over using your Jeep?”

“That would probably be the easiest way to get them back over here,” Will said. “Hey, what do you think about getting the trees from across the road? That’s all power line easement and they cut down trees every year anyway to make sure they don’t get close to the lines. It’s a lot closer too.”

“That’s fine with me. I don’t think anyone will mind,” Beth said.

They began the project right away. Will and Alejandro took the wood, tools, and other supplies out of the Jeep and then drove it across the street and began scoping out which trees they wanted to select, bringing the chainsaw along. Beth and Lea drew out a few designs based on Will’s description. They brought the designs across the street for them all to choose one. After they all finally agreed on one, Lea took the post hole digger from the Jeep and began the back-breaking task of digging out the location the trunks were going to be placed. Beth started measuring out and marking the pieces of wood Will had brought.

Beth took notice that no vehicles had come down the road. It wasn’t common for many to come by, but it reminded her of the others that lived further down the road away from town. All but one of the houses would be empty. There were four other properties with homes on them. Three were summer cabins used by families that lived the rest of the year in San Francisco and Los Angeles and would most likely still be empty this time of year. The other full-timer was a retired farmer, Lewis, that had been a good friend of her husbands. Lewis had stayed a good friend of Beth and Will over the years. He had a large farm in central California for many years before retiring and moving up the road from them. He had lost his wife to cancer soon after the move. He had a surprisingly positive attitude for being alone. He kept most of his property up by his house empty of trees and full of crops. The excess he didn’t use himself or give away to a charity through his church, he’d sell at a farmer’s market down in Fresno. Beth began to feel guilty they hadn’t checked in on him. She decided they should check on him soon and walked across the street to talk to Will.

“Will,” Beth said, “I think we should check in on Lewis today or tomorrow.”

“Ohhh,” Will said as his eyes widened and he shook his head. “I forgot about him. I feel bad.”

“Me too,” Beth said with a frown. “I’ve always hated that he’s alone up here. Do you think we should see if he wants to join us here? He’d be a really good resource for our garden. He’s got a lot of knowledge about the best things to grow and how to get good quality food out of them. He’s always talking about that kind of stuff.”

“I doubt he’ll want to leave that place,” Will said. “His wife is buried there. He’s far away from everything too. He’s the last place before the four-wheel drive trail begins. He’s close enough to us that we can check on him often. We can always ask if he wants to join us, but I highly doubt he will.”

“I know,” Beth said with a sigh, “I still want the offer on the table.”

“How about I go check on him in the morning?” Will asked. “Before we get back to working on this gate.”

“I’ll go with you,” Beth said. “It’s been a few weeks since I’ve seen him.”

April 2037

Marcus followed Anthony and Kenneth into a make-shift room within a large, white, canvas tent. It was a much larger tent than the others surrounding it that sat centrally in a CMA operations camp. The room was made of glass partitioned walls to make a barrier for sound. It wasn’t sound proof, but it did the job to keep the contents of the meetings held there only amongst the people that were invited. The rest of the tent had row after row of cubicles surrounding the central conference room. Administrative workers filled this tent. They supported the regional higher-ups that were now running this part of the country. There were no refugees at this camp. This was a CMA employee camp. Just as they had been prepped for, the majority of WWNL’s operations were now based at this camp as well.

Marcus was almost amused by the proximity of this CMA camp to Thomas’s ranch. He could drive there in fifteen minutes. Of course, he didn’t drive there. Thomas and the rest of the ARF leadership no longer wanted to be seen with him. They had to keep their connection a secret. They were sure that the CMA was suspicious of the American Right’s Foundation’s intentions. They were all especially spooked to find out the CMA had one of their headquarters locations right in their backyard. They became paranoid to the point that they only allowed Marcus to contact them through a series of encryption and closed network devices.

Marcus would have to type out his message on a computer that had no internet capability. The computer was provided by the ARF and had an encryption program that converted his message to PGP, which meant ‘Pretty Good Privacy’ format, or so he was told. He remembered getting a headache while the technician at Thomas’s ranch explained the process to him. He knew that both his computer and a computer at Thomas’s ranch held the cipher to decode his message. He would load his encrypted message onto a thumb drive. He would have to get permission to leave the camp, which was a process in itself that annoyed Marcus, and go to a local cafe. They only allowed Marcus to leave camp once a week on his day off. He was allowed to do work related trips in the helicopter almost at his own will. He was baffled by how little sense it made.

Thomas’s tech had set up an antenna at the cafe that transmitted directly to an antenna at the ranch. Marcus would have to sit in a specific seat in a back booth. There was a hidden USB port underneath the table to plug in the thumb drive. Once plugged in, the message would automatically download and transmit. Marcus could monitor the whole transaction from a small device connected right in the open. It was a smoke detector. A raging inferno could be right underneath it and it wouldn’t make a peep. All of this smoke detectors guts were removed and replaced with a simple circuit board that communicated with the antenna on the roof. It would indicate what was happening through a series of lights. If the red light on the left were flashing, it meant that his message was being uploaded and transmitted. If a steady red light on the right side appeared, it meant the transfer was complete. If a green light appeared in the center of the device, it meant a message was available for Marcus. He usually left the thumb drive plugged in the entire time he sat in the cafe and incoming messages were loaded to the drive automatically. He could then take the drive back to his computer and it would decode the message. Marcus thought it was all way too much work and worrying, but he didn’t mind the excuse to leave the camp. If anyone ever discovered the drive, they’d find some old pictures from Marcus’s college days and text files that looked like they were corrupted with a virus.

Marcus chose his seat at the conference table next to Kenneth. He dreaded coming to these meetings. He used to be able to be free at work. Free on the news. He had had his own segment for years where he could basically say whatever he wanted. Now he was an actor. He had a part to play. He had to be in character anytime he was anywhere outside of his room. He even wondered about his privacy in his own room. He had wished for at least a hotel to live in but the CMA wanted all the personnel, especially Marcus, living at the camp. His ‘room’ was a Conex container. He would have felt infinitely more comfortable in a cheap motel. Their strong desire for him to live nearby is what made him suspicious of his privacy. Was his room bugged? Had CMA personnel been listening in on his personal calls? Did he now have to keep up the act all the time?

Keeping up with being the CMA’s propaganda face was stressful and exhausting. Marcus’s mind was on a higher alert than it had ever been. His brain was working overtime. Any moment he thought he could relax and take the mask off, a CMA employee would arrive and he would have to instantly snap back into the role they expected of him. This wasn’t him. He wondered why he should be working so hard at pleasing them. They already knew his thoughts on much of what they did. He had broadcast it to the world for years.

“...and General Gray from the Southern region had reported the approximate death rate in his region has equalized with what other regions are reporting.”

What had Marcus just heard? Marcus didn’t even know who this man was. He looked possibly military. He wished he had been paying better attention now. Perhaps he could pull some of this information out of Kenneth later.

“Thank you for the report, General Bryce,” Anthony said. “That brings me to Kenneth, this is for you to pass on to the WWNL crew,” Anthony said, “the skeleton crew we’ve left behind at the WWNL building has now been relocated. They’ve had to evacuate several times in this last week because of fires on lower levels of the building. The levels of violence in the city only seem to be increasing so for the foreseeable future, this camp is work and home. The CMA, for the time being, won’t be getting too involved in suppression of these problems. We want to focus manpower on the camps.”

Marcus noticed that Kenneth didn’t seem affected by the news. He was taking notes like it was any other boring meeting he had been to in his life.

“Where have they been relocated to? Here?” Kenneth asked while still scribbling some notes.

“Um,” Anthony shuffled through some papers trying to find the answer. “I can’t tell you for sure but I think they are at a WWNL affiliate in Boston or Philly. I’ll find out for you.”

“As long as we are broadcasting without interruption. That is all I care about,” Kenneth said.

“We need to get Marcus out to Denver and Salt Lake,” the lone woman in the room said.

Marcus leaned forward in is chair. “What is going on there?” he asked. “And I’m sorry, who are you?” Marcus asked the woman.

“My name is Mara. I’m the head of the Western region camps. People seem to be more independent out West and the camps aren’t filling like we expected. We need you, someone that people recognize, know, and trust to help usher them in the right direction.”

“Oh, of course,” Marcus said. “Nice to meet you, by the way. What about other Western cities? Vegas? Los Angeles? San Francisco?”

“They each have their own problems,” Mara answered. “I want to focus on Denver and Salt Lake for now. Los Angeles is going as expected. It’s a nightmare. It’s ready for the next step.”

“Next step?” Marcus asked.

“We aren’t talking about that now,” Anthony said quickly. “We won’t be discussing that now.” His eyes shifted in between Mara and General Bryce. “We can have Marcus head out West right away. How about the day after tomorrow, Marcus?” Anthony was looking at his phone now, presumably checking a calendar.

“That sounds perfect,” Marcus said with a smile painted on. He pretended to no longer care about what the ‘next step’ was.

Marcus wanted to pay closer attention to the rest of the meeting. It wasn’t directly about him or his assignments so his mind seemed to wander. No, his mind wasn’t just wandering randomly, it was trying to process all the things he had just heard. There was probably plenty more he was missing right now as he was contemplating all this new information. It was as if every corner he turned there was some new surprise. What was this next step? Why would L.A. being a nightmare cause it to be ready for whatever this next step was? What had he missed about death rates?

*****

Marcus moved forward two steps at a time, sliding an empty tray down the long mirrored, metal surface. He was in the WWNL mess tent and hoped they might surprise him with some new mouth-watering dish. He peered ahead and saw it was another stew, his hopes shrank. He noticed the cooks had little to no creativity. The vast majority of the meals outside of breakfast were stews. They’d mix together all the food items for the day in a giant pot of water and serve it for lunch and dinner. Perhaps he was a food snob, but he thought it was getting too repetitive. He wondered if the CMA mess tent served more creative fare.

He retrieved his bowl of stew along with a piece of bread. He laughed to himself thinking this was the bland government bread he thought of in the past. He glanced around the tables. He spotted Kenneth alone at a table reading through his notes as he ate. Marcus’s mood brightened. He thought this should be easy to learn more about whatever these death rates were. He grabbed a bottle of water from an ice bucket located at the end of the food line and made his way to Kenneth.

“This seat open, boss?” Marcus asked.

“Please sit,” Kenneth said through a mouthful of food as he motioned across the table from himself.

Marcus situated himself across from Kenneth and repositioned some of the items on his tray. Kenneth brought all his pages of notes together in one pile and smoothed out the edges to straighten them all. He picked them all up and tapped the bottom against the table to help straighten them and then set the pile aside.

“Say, Kenneth,” Marcus said as he was bringing a spoonful of stew to his mouth, blowing on it, “what is meant by ‘death rate’? I know I’ve probably missed some meetings while out covering a story, but I don’t recall that being talked about before in any of the meetings I’ve been in.”

Marcus hadn’t planned on jumping right into the topic, but he just couldn’t hold his tongue with the level of curiosity he had. He shoveled a few more spoonfuls into his mouth waiting for Kenneth to finish a bite to answer.

“Yeah, you probably missed the meeting this was initially discussed,” Kenneth said. “It’s the rate at which the overall population is dying. It includes people killing each other, sickness from not being able to get medical help, the usuals such as old age. I’m sure there are some other categories that I can’t think of.”

“You are talking about this like it’s not a big deal,” Marcus said. “Are the numbers much higher than they were before all this began?”

“Look for yourself,” Kenneth said as he picked up his stack of papers. He flipped through a few before pulling a single sheet out and handing it to Marcus. “You really should pay better attention in these meetings,” he said with a chuckle.

“What!?” Marcus blurted out after scanning the page. “These numbers show over a thousand percent gain! Am I reading this correctly?”

“Lower your voice,” Kenneth said in a quieter yet commanding voice.

“Is the CMA doing anything?” Marcus asked, still not much quieter than before. “All this chaos began with the government’s recklessness and then escalated with the CMA takeover. How come I didn’t know all of this death was going on? I work for the news! Shouldn’t I be reporting this? I mean, I knew there was some violence going on, but this?”

“Marcus, are you trying to get yourself canned?” Kenneth said in a near whisper, hunched forward over his tray. He looked around at the surrounding tables to see if anyone was now focused on them. “The contract you had with WWNL doesn’t mean a thing anymore. It’s worthless. Anthony told me that he talked to you. He said you were on board with the CMA way. I was surprised to hear it since I’ve known you for so long and know how you think. I know you don’t agree with all of this. I just figured you wanted to end up on the good side of things. If you go spouting off things like you just said around the wrong people then they’ll boot you. I’m sure of it. They’ve kept you in the dark on some things because of how you lean...politically. They’ll bring you in fully, but you have to keep your mouth shut.”

Kenneth sat back and adjusted his tie. He glanced around again to make sure their conversation was only between them. Marcus looked around too, worrying that Anthony was about to pop up from underneath a table. He remembered the threat he gave him at the camp the day he met him. Was this task of being an inside man for Thomas and his group going to be too difficult for Marcus? Was he too vocal about his opinions? His life’s work was talking for millions to hear, of course, he was too vocal.

“Yes. Anthony did talk to me,” Marcus was now speaking quietly like Kenneth had. “I...didn’t realize this was something they didn’t want to be reported.”

“Of course they don’t want this reported. They want the CMA shown in good light. Ya know, how helpful they are being. They only have so many people. I don’t even know how many would even be trained to handle this,” he paused and looked up as if he were searching for a word, “civil war, I guess it is. People run out of food and supplies for a week and look what they do. I know it’s crazy. I don’t think the government or the CMA anticipated or wanted all these problems. They are dealing with it as it comes. There are just steps that need to be taken.”

“I just,” Marcus said shaking his head, “I don’t know. Do they know how many have died so far?”

Kenneth leaned forward again, “A few million,” he whispered. “I think it’s probably more than that. Don’t tell anyone else. And don’t tell anyone I told you. I don’t think we are supposed to talk about this outside of that meeting room.”