Down The Rabbit Hole - Proven By The Body

[drewkitty]

Disclaimer: this LJ post is inspired by Down The Rabbit Hole.

I had a good night's sleep, all things considered. Only one alert, and that was a coyote nuzzling up against a perimeter sensor. Proven by the body.

to have to roll out of bed, grab one's gear, and get quickly to the nearest observation post. Especially when one falls out of the trailer in so doing. I'm just glad they finally put in the protective earth berm around the parking lot we've converted to impromtu trailer park. Bless Facilities, which usually has trouble keeping the power up and the sewage flowing downhill. I'm just lucky that my status as "Essential Site Personnel" kept me from being drafted for China. Punji sticks are so not my thing.

The morning news had three major incidents, about average, but none affecting our company, thank Goddess. Truck bomb in downtown (why anyone still lives there, I don't know), another attempt at Moffett Base (which went off in the Protective Action Zone, leveling an apartment complex), and last but not least, an attempted hostage-taking at one of the local junior high schools. Eighty dead. To quote the propagandist, "Zero Tolerance is the price we pay for victory." I keep my opinion to myself. A price I pay for survival.

Today I've got two missions on my plate: a foot patrol up into the hills to check on our water supply tanks, then a resupply mission leaving at 1400 for the other San Jose facility, which has it worse than we do. (Hey, we were fully built out before Firecracker Day . . . they were in the middle of retrofit construction.) I'll spend the night up there, doing perimeter checks and verifying system operations, including escort for the ever-so-fun radiation site survey. (Most of the fallout from SF drifted south and east, but we still get hot spots as far south as Gilroy.)

At least we've got two armored trucks, formerly belonging to a cash transport company. Now that the digital economy has eliminated cash, they're not essential equipment, and I talked our security manager into snapping them up while we still could. In convoy work they make a huge difference in survivability, even if they don't have any weapons.

I'd say that about two-thirds of our employees live on site now. It's much safer. The no-children policy was ignored during the Firecracker War, and bent a lot since. People are very well behaved. They know that without that so-important Corporate Dependent badge, they're on their own at the East Gate before you can say "not a team player."

I'm glad I got the trailer up here. The van is just extra living space -- at $10 per gallon (that's post-Deflation, mind you) and no armor and no income to pay for gas, I'm not going anywhere in it. I'm still technically a contractor, not that anyone's heard from My Employer except by E-mail for several months now, but the cafeteria is letting me run a tab and I've got a Corporate ID. (Hiring has been indefinitely frozen, but I'm Eligible For Hire.) I've got a good crew working with me. Most would have been considered disabled veterans before the Firecracker, but they can still operate equipment and think tactically, which is what is needed for Security Operations these days. With every fourth employee a member of the corporate militia, we've got plenty of shooters. "Software Wins Wars" is the sign above the employee entrance.

I understand that people are hungry and desperate. If I hadn't kept my head and been lucky on Firecracker Day, I'd probably be out there with them. Trying to guess whether the trains, the light rail, or the buses would get attacked today, and planning my commute accordingly. Standing in long lines at the stores, mostly for rice and beans and the occasional salvaged can of produce. Knowing how to use a Geiger counter to distinguish between fair salvage and contraband, and getting radiation sickness or worse if you get it wrong. Being very, very angry at the difference between what America is now and what she used to be.

And to think that people after 9/11 thought America had it rough. As any survivor of World War II can tell you, they had no idea. But we're going to survive the Global War, somehow, and then maybe bring America back to the way it used to be.

Comments

[caprine.livejournal.com]

Gaah. Well written.

Have you read Jennifer Government?

[drewkitty.livejournal.com]

Yes, I have. Nice book. Not so nice implications. I can also recommend Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age and Snow Crash.

"Any more of these guys and they'd be a government."

[bradhicks.livejournal.com]

*shrug* People still live downtown for three reasons, I always figure. Some of them take it for granted that when large-scale relief eventually arrives (from where they think it's going to arrive, I have no idea, I guess from that magical land called "the government") they'll just have to save the cities first. Some of them are old people who've never known any other home, and who remember times almost this bad at least once before, like the Zuit Suit Riots there in SD in the 40s or the Watts Riots in LA in the 60s. And I figure the rest are cranky people like you and me who Still Believe in America -- and for them, this takes the form of refusing to give up their way of life no matter how hard Those People attack it.

[drewkitty.livejournal.com]

I'm familiar with the psychology, as would be the "I" in this alternate universe. I just think it's not bright.

[bradhicks.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah, and I was replying in-character, in case I was subtle. Even in a nationwide crisis, if I had internet access, I'd be using it to talk about why people do what they do.

[alohawolf.livejournal.com]

wow