GWOT Baked Roll

[drewkitty]

GWOT Baked Roll

Big convoy today. We have rescued everyone that we can rescue.

Now we need to feed everyone. And that promises to be really hard.

Since the crunchy debacle that cost us John, I've managed to run some recon on motorcycles. My recon bikers are a crazy bunch even for guards. Basic qualifications: ability to ride a motorcycle, ability to report accurately on what is observed, willingness to go out and sufficient luck to return. I'm lucky to have three of them.

One was asked to check key points in south San Jose. He reported winding his way amidst a maze of little checkpoints, mostly private, and not being able to get near any of the interesting locations.

Another was asked to recon west into Campbell and Cupertino. He was politely refused access to the former by police supervising resident militia. Approaching the latter, he was actually shot at on sight by paramilitaries outside a major corporate site, which occasionally fantasizes that they are a competitor with us. Stick to retail and fruit, is my advice.

The third punched north. By abusing bicycle trails, he actually managed to get as far north as Hayward. Unfortunately, every distribution center on his list was either 1) heavily guarded, 2) looted or 3) burnt to the ground. This included three of the four major food distributors we normally did business with.

So much for conventional food supplies. So we are going to have to do things a little differently.

I suppose I should sketch out the situation for those of you who have never been in a city under siege. All the stores either sold out of everything or were looted within days. This included the back shelves and the stockrooms. The stores in turn are restocked from distribution centers or DCs, which supply any number of stores via truck. The DCs in turn are stocked from buyers and major logistics hubs.

Now add nuclear holocaust. The trucks aren't coming into the Bay Area because they can't get the diesel fuel to get back out. They are being jammed up in Tracy for the most part. Awkward because the biggest grocery store and the biggest membership big box store DC are both in Tracy.

So the survivors who fled San Francisco are out on the street, and running out of food. They are being fed, in drabs and dribbles, by a desperate rescue effort mostly spearheaded by Salvation Army and the Red Cross. They are too weak and desperate, and often too injured and/or hurt, to be a security issue.

The residents are another matter. Most people have between a week and three weeks of food in their homes. But desperate people start breaking into empty homes, and then occupied homes, when the fear of hunger starts overriding the fear of being shot. Add to the fire the unpleasant fact that many people in California believe (incorrectly) either that guns are illegal or that the police will protect them.

We know from scanner traffic that police have given up responding to home intrusion calls at night. Therefore bad guys know this too.

We're trying to feed over three thousand people. And we have a full cafeteria to do it with, and a lot of clever people.

What we need is food. We've made a point of salvaging all the food we can from the houses of people we evacuated to the site. But we're going to have to get creative to get at food sources that haven't already been scavenged by hordes of hungry people.

One of the most arrogant, foul mouthed assholes I've ever had the pleasure of dealing with is driving for us today. Once we steal him a truck, that is, because he won't take his beloved heavy duty tow truck off our site - and I wouldn't let him anyway.

"Buddy Nolastname" is what his site access badge reads. He's mad because I'm making him carry a length of pipe instead of a gun. We've only got the one .45 on the campus, and it belongs to the Site Location Executive.

So we are punching our way east and a little south.

First stop, the address of the rancher that we rent out our industrial parkland to. We haven't seen him since the Firecracker, and there's a business relationship there.

His house is a burned out shell. Fuck.

A crew of men is working around his barn, loading stuff into three jacked up muscle pickup trucks. They have rifles.

I muse about this briefly.

Aw, fuck it.

"Stick it in," I call out on radio as we herringbone the convoy right into the middle of their loading operation.

Brooke and George dismount - my two trained soldiers - with their rifles. They are shouting, "Hands up! Hands up! Who's in charge here? You? You? Show me your hands!"

The other guards follow their lead.

The looters? loaders? are too shocked to reach for their own weapons.

"Hey, fuck you," calls one with a particularly high tattoo to skin area ratio. He has a teardrop tattooed next to his right eye and his tats are of wildly uneven quality. Some are very expensive, and some look they were done by a kindergartner with a crayon. The latter are prison tattoos.

He also has a handgun tucked behind his belt, which he keeps starting to reach for.

I extend a hand, "[Echo 18], Site Security. Looking for Mr. Estrada."

He spits in my face. So I kick him in the balls and follow up my dirty blow with more dirty work, flurrying him with full force punches and kicks. His hand drops to his ankle, my hand drops to my holster, and as he comes up with the knife I shoot him point blank twice in the head.

One of the bandits goes for his rifle and George double taps him in the chest. He flinches, looks bored, slumps over and dies.

"Secure the prisoners," I call. "Search the area."

I start with the man I just killed. He has Mr. Estrada's keys in his pocket - I recognize the site perimeter key stamped Do Not Duplicate. He is also carrying drugs and cash in addition to the chrome handgun.

Nothing I want - I give the firearm to Buddy. He tucks it in his belt.

Sharon is already poking the ashes of the house. "Cremains," she calls out.

Well, damn.

"Search the barn," I reply.

The five remaining prisoners eye me warily, hands zip tied behind their backs. George is taking their pictures with his cell phone, which no longer has a network to connect to but makes a handy tactical camera. They have already been searched and any weapons confiscated.

I walk over to them.

"There's nothing you know that I want to know. So y'all fuck off now. Start walking south. If we see you again, we kill you on contact."

Three of them do. Two glare more. I draw my pistol.

"Walk or die, I could give a shit."

They walk. I holster.

What they had been loading was animal feed. Good enough for what it was. But what we wanted as much or more was farm tools.

I gave it an hour before our departing friends would tell someone who might be able to come back in force.

We are mounting up when Brooke walks past me and whispers, "Contact. In the bushes over there, movement."

I don't look. But someone is watching us from the bushes.

I brush George in turn and pass on the news. He tells Sharon.

Suddenly all four of us take up a half-circle facing the bushes and I shout, "Come out or we fire!"

More rustling and a frightened teenage boy limps out of the bushes, wincing with each step. He has his hands up.

"Don't shoot, sir! I'm Jaime Estrada."

Vendors don't have personnel data records, so I don't have full family information. Just the vendor's name. "What is your father's middle name?"

"Ernesto."

"You are welcome to come with us and we will keep you safe. Where is your father?"

He wordlessly points to the burned out house.

I look again. The boy is hurt. I can tell by how he's moving that his injuries are more severe than it appears.

"Brooke, triage."

"I'm not a medic."

"Combat lifesaver. Take his pulse, head toe, ask him questions."

I could have triaged him. One: I'm busy. Two: I need a female guard to assess him right now, because I think I know exactly what was done to him.

"Sir."

I am watching carefully as she finishes a minute later. "Pulse 120, possible head injury, cuts and lacerations ..." a pause as she tries to think of how to say what she has to say next. I shake my head to stop her.

"Help him on a truck. Triage immediate. O2 at 2 LPM by cannula."

He sits sideways on the seat he is offered, trying hard to not actually sit down, supporting himself with his leg muscles.

Oxygen is a renewable resource for us; we have concentrators. It's not actually necessary, it's a symbol. He's injured, we're going to take him directly to what little medical care we can offer.

As we depart, richer by three re-stolen trucks and quite a bit of animal feed - only some of which can be eaten by humans - we see that two of the five prisoners have stopped at the roadside driveway and are watching carefully.

"Brooke," I order quietly over the radio.

Two gunshots later, we proceed past their bodies.

There isn't much justice in Apocalypse. What little there is, you have to make.