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GWOT 2 - Ration Of S---
GWOT 2 Ration Of S---
I've had to delegate or drop all other operational tasks. Food security is the top of my to do list.
Damn you, Alan Cartwright!
I got an E-mail from my Corporate. Technically I'm a contractor. And I'm not supposed to receive billing E-mails. But it's good to have friends in IT, and I'm therefore monitoring the accounts of three dead Client security managers.
"Notice Of Pending Account Termination. We deeply regret that due to nonpayment of invoices exceeding 180 days, we will soon be forced to terminate the provision of security services. Please contact your Accounts Team immediately to work out payment arrangements. We accept payments by EBT, wire transfer, hard check to our lockbox, and all major credit cards."
I contacted Corporate. After some circling E-mails, we figured out the problem. Nevada cancelled and sent back invoices not just for their site - where they fired the guards a few days after the Firecracker - but for all of our services in North America. But especially in San Jose.
I packaged all the invoices - from the week of the Firecracker War to present - and resubmitted them. Through the SLE.
An hour later, I started getting a flood of E-mails. Client Accounts Payable, confirming receipt. Confirming approval of payment. Confirming wire transfers. Then my Corporate, confirming inbound wire transfers. A puzzled E-mail from our C suite, addressed to the SLE and CC'ing me by name for once. "We have received your wire transfer of $8,322,400 bringing your account current in full. We greatly appreciate the opportunity to support you in this time of national trial. Please let us know if there is anything else we can do."
The problem is that most vendors just don't have the strategic depth that we do. Normally, the cafeteria just has an account with a local food distributor, or about a dozen of them, and the food is delivered by truck from a local distribution center. The cafeteria manager endorses the bill for payment, and we're done.
We'd had to literally burglarize -- well, technically a hijack, but it was on the plant property so burglary as well -- the nearest distribution center still up, which did not have private scum like us on its dramatically shortened authorized customer list. That had been risky. And wasn't going to work a second time. Recon (motorcycle plus tripod plus high resolution camera) indicated that they were now putting in sandbagged machine gun nests on either side of the main gate.
We had been ordering from two vendors in Bakersfield - one a big box grocery store that also sold to the public - and paying a contract trucking company truly larcenous amounts of money to haul the stuff to Gilroy. There, a security team from the site would meet the authorized convoy and escort them through the unsettled south Santa Clara Valley. Minus whatever Gilroy PD, CHP, Morgan Hill PD, San Jose PD, the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office, etc. 'confiscated' for themselves.
Cartwright had fucked up the invoices for the vendors. So neither of them would accept commercial paper from us anymore. Credit cards or cash only, and not until we settled outstanding balances that were too big for credit cards and cash to settle easily. They weren't set up to receive EFT, SWIFT or other bank wires.
So we are all about to starve to death over a fucking billing issue. Literally.
I don't know if Cartwright understood what he was doing. I suspect that he thought he could force the site to close by cutting off the food supply. But he'd moved the guard housing to an undefended stretch of perimeter and then sent someone to tell the local criminal element it would be a good time to attack us. Possibly as a cover for his planned coup, but just possibly in the hopes that the attack would justify shutting down the site.
That had been his entire tasking, I suppose. Shut down the San Jose operation at any cost. Well, he'd paid with his life, and we were still here.
It was too late to evacuate, even if we could lay hands on the buses. Two thousand people can't fit on two buses anyway, even if we hadn't expended them getting the H1Bs out.
As for the black market, Cartwright had poisoned the well there too. Arranged for one shipment, confiscated it, and sent the middlemen away by muzzling them. They don't accept wire transfers, checks or credit cards. And greenbacks are merely an eye catching form of toilet paper. Bluebacks at a discount, or trade goods, and that's it.
And we already owed them, with interest. And in their business, interest is usually collected in fractions of body parts.
A collection of the more inane questions collected over the last few months:
"But why not just go down to the grocery store?"
Because there aren't any! There are empty shells that still contain displays, greeting cards and unplugged freezers. But they aren't getting restocked either.
"Why isn't everyone else in the Valley starving to death?"
Because they are. It's slower because so many people 1) self evacuated, 2) have been interned, 3) are being fed from public or quasi-public sources, 4) are being helped by absolutely heroic efforts from churches, charity organizations, the regional food bank (now employing armed guards from a competitor) and the Red Cross.
But people are starving to death down the street. And they're not going to divert food from hungry people to a corporate site. Except black market, interest in body parts, etc.
"Why can't we grow our own food?"
We're trying. Math. We have about ten acres under cultivation, which from a standing start is not bad. On paper, one acre can feed somewhere between one and one thousand people, with a global average a lot closer to one. The effort to feed more people on less area is very intensive. We're feeding about 300 people off that 10 acres, which is really not bad.
"What about livestock?"
What about them? They eat (a problem) and poop (a help) but they aren't efficient at turning plant into meat. We are keeping chickens which is helping enormously. But they are a _supplement_ to an effective farm operation, not a replacement for one.
"Fish farming?"
Oy. A severe pain in the ass, and technology intensive. We have a pilot project running and its entire output is devoted to children with chicken or beef allergies.
"Orchards? This is the Santa Clara Valley."
None had been left on campus at the time of the Firecracker. Trees take two years to mature. We have planted trees, but this is a gesture of hope not a solution. What little fruit we have, we trade for with neighborhood groups.
"Aha! You mentioned trading!"
It's not enough. They're scrambling for food too, you see, and the kind of trades we're doing is essentials for essentials.
We don't feed two thousand people on six bags of lemons, but we do chase off forgotten diseases like scurvy.
"We're rich, we can pay!"
See above.
So there was only one thing left to do. On our next convoy, I stopped at a particular spot. While the convoy went through the motions, I chalked a curb and hid a note under a nearby paving stone. A prearranged dead drop for contact with one of our black marketers.
Later that same day, someone emptied a septic tank truck on that spot.
Message received and understood clearly.
Fortunately, I'd used similar methods to contact our other black market contacts, and one had indicated back that they were willing to meet. Neutral location, two vehicles only, as heavily armed as we liked, no trading during that meet.
I had no choice; I accepted.
###
The dapper Asian man in his business suit was still guarded by two angry boys with rifles. They looked older now, although only a few months had passed.
"I thought I had seen the last of you. Where is Cartwright?"
"Dead," I said, and passed over a tablet with the scene photo. I especially liked the shot of just the head, clearly unattached.
He passed it back.
"That man burned me. I lost goods. More importantly, I lost face. Your note said you would make up the losses."
I nodded. It pained me to do so, but a team started unloading - out of the limited bed space of the Hate Truck - the valuables Cartwright had promised and not delivered.
He inspected the items cursorily. This was not good enough, I sensed it.
"I need more," he said calmly.
And not more stuff either.
"I have only one coin left. What do you want me to do for you?"
I could see him savoring my predicament. I'd refused, on moral grounds, to give him the data laden servers he'd wanted in the mad days immediately after the Firecracker. They were gone now, mostly salvaged, some destroyed.
"Nothing. Your people are OK, but I now employ better. I have all that I want for myself."
"Then why agree to the meet?"
"Turn down a deal so very beneficial to us both? Your word is good. So is mine. We have a basis for future deals. Walk with me."
We walked sideways, out of hearing of his people and of mine. Their eyes followed.
"You have a problem. Your site is riddled with Homeland eyes and ears. You are a suspect. Others are actually targeted. Anyone brought into your campus after your recent vacation should be viewed with great suspicion."
And he had his own agents among us as well. This was getting better by the minute.
"I have been asked to ask you to compromise ... I must get the acronym right ... CFI."
Shit.
"I won't do that," I said flatly.
Customer Facing Information. And given our customers, we were now talking treason.
"And I won't ask you to do that. But we are both men under certain pressures. I want a private trade, between you and me. If your campus collapses, you are welcome to take service in my organization, with any who will follow you. If my own situation falters, I may need to seek employment with you, under the same terms."
"Accepted," I said at once. It was a revealing trade. We were both men riding tigers.
My tiger was starving.
"You need something desperately. I can sense it. So can others. Others will come asking the questions you cannot answer. Be warned."
He turned and walked back to his crew. The meet was over.
We still hadn't gotten the food.
But I couldn't trade a site killing thing for a site killing thing.
###
Resources utterly exhausted, I had two more arrows in my quiver.
One was the Latter Day Saints. The reply was polite but in the negative. They had a little excess, but they were commanded by religious law to hang on to it. I was politely reminded that some of us were not apostates, and that those people could therefore shelter with the Church as a last resort.
What a tactful way of disinviting me and anyone under my authority.
The other note was never replied to. Whether they had stopped servicing that drop, had nothing useful to contribute, or were dead (plus or minus screaming under interrogation) was besides the point. No answer is its own answer: unable to respond, or unwilling to respond is almost besides the point, and thank you Mr. Spock.
###
Dinner that night, in compliance with my orders, was somber and sparse. I did not eat.
###
I refused to accept defeat on this one. I racked my brains, with Wyatt in the Room, for a way to turn this around.
I put on a business suit and went to the VP of Human Resources.
She seemed shocked at my appearance. I was shocked too, and also weaponless.
"I need your help. We need to go to Homeland in San Jose. Right now."
She also changed clothes. Then we checked each other's papers.
A minimal convoy, minimally armed, delivered us to a security checkpoint. Past that we walked, just the two of us, through the control zone that had been San Jose's downtown.
We reached the front desk. Our appearance had gotten us past several checkpoints. But the receptionist required us to state our business.
"We are here to register two thousand, one hundred and thirty one persons. We've submitted their documents but have not received a reply."
While we waited for a Homeland official, we were expertly body searched.
Then we waited together on a cold bench.
A team of four heavily armed Homeland goons came out the secured doors and marched towards our bench. They stopped short of us, by a woman crying quietly to herself.
"Mrs. Kaur? You asked for news of your husband?"
She nodded, her face terrible with hope.
"He is dead. Do not return here or you will be interned."
The team backed away carefully.
She blinked twice, wrapped her dress around herself, and walked out.
(Two weeks later, she did come back. Six dead, eighteen wounded.)
Ten minutes after that, two Homeland auditors came out and escorted us to a side conference room. We presented our IDs to support the Client picture badges we wore.
"We've verified our records. We see that all of your campus occupants are registered properly. What is the concern?"
"We have not received proof of registration. Therefore none of them can apply for ration cards."
The two auditors eyed each other.
"They all have ration cards and have been drawing rations for three weeks now."
"Someone has been drawing rations. Not them," I said calmly.
There were two ways to solve this problem.
1) Cancel the fraudulent ration cards and reissue them.
2) Disappear the two annoying minor officials who brought this awkward situation to light. (Note: that could be us, the two auditors, or all four.)
The auditors withdrew to consult their superiors. We waited.
An hour later, we were handed a folder containing third party ration procurement authorizations with the Homeland seal, contact information for three licensed area food distributors, the business card for our future Homeland point of contact (as the old one had been 'transferred') and a vaguely worded release of liability which would absolve Homeland of all crimes and/or sins.
We both signed it and walked out with our lives.
Of course, detailed imagery of both of us was now in Homeland's files.
A small price to pay, for two thousand lives.
I've had to delegate or drop all other operational tasks. Food security is the top of my to do list.
Damn you, Alan Cartwright!
I got an E-mail from my Corporate. Technically I'm a contractor. And I'm not supposed to receive billing E-mails. But it's good to have friends in IT, and I'm therefore monitoring the accounts of three dead Client security managers.
"Notice Of Pending Account Termination. We deeply regret that due to nonpayment of invoices exceeding 180 days, we will soon be forced to terminate the provision of security services. Please contact your Accounts Team immediately to work out payment arrangements. We accept payments by EBT, wire transfer, hard check to our lockbox, and all major credit cards."
I contacted Corporate. After some circling E-mails, we figured out the problem. Nevada cancelled and sent back invoices not just for their site - where they fired the guards a few days after the Firecracker - but for all of our services in North America. But especially in San Jose.
I packaged all the invoices - from the week of the Firecracker War to present - and resubmitted them. Through the SLE.
An hour later, I started getting a flood of E-mails. Client Accounts Payable, confirming receipt. Confirming approval of payment. Confirming wire transfers. Then my Corporate, confirming inbound wire transfers. A puzzled E-mail from our C suite, addressed to the SLE and CC'ing me by name for once. "We have received your wire transfer of $8,322,400 bringing your account current in full. We greatly appreciate the opportunity to support you in this time of national trial. Please let us know if there is anything else we can do."
The problem is that most vendors just don't have the strategic depth that we do. Normally, the cafeteria just has an account with a local food distributor, or about a dozen of them, and the food is delivered by truck from a local distribution center. The cafeteria manager endorses the bill for payment, and we're done.
We'd had to literally burglarize -- well, technically a hijack, but it was on the plant property so burglary as well -- the nearest distribution center still up, which did not have private scum like us on its dramatically shortened authorized customer list. That had been risky. And wasn't going to work a second time. Recon (motorcycle plus tripod plus high resolution camera) indicated that they were now putting in sandbagged machine gun nests on either side of the main gate.
We had been ordering from two vendors in Bakersfield - one a big box grocery store that also sold to the public - and paying a contract trucking company truly larcenous amounts of money to haul the stuff to Gilroy. There, a security team from the site would meet the authorized convoy and escort them through the unsettled south Santa Clara Valley. Minus whatever Gilroy PD, CHP, Morgan Hill PD, San Jose PD, the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office, etc. 'confiscated' for themselves.
Cartwright had fucked up the invoices for the vendors. So neither of them would accept commercial paper from us anymore. Credit cards or cash only, and not until we settled outstanding balances that were too big for credit cards and cash to settle easily. They weren't set up to receive EFT, SWIFT or other bank wires.
So we are all about to starve to death over a fucking billing issue. Literally.
I don't know if Cartwright understood what he was doing. I suspect that he thought he could force the site to close by cutting off the food supply. But he'd moved the guard housing to an undefended stretch of perimeter and then sent someone to tell the local criminal element it would be a good time to attack us. Possibly as a cover for his planned coup, but just possibly in the hopes that the attack would justify shutting down the site.
That had been his entire tasking, I suppose. Shut down the San Jose operation at any cost. Well, he'd paid with his life, and we were still here.
It was too late to evacuate, even if we could lay hands on the buses. Two thousand people can't fit on two buses anyway, even if we hadn't expended them getting the H1Bs out.
As for the black market, Cartwright had poisoned the well there too. Arranged for one shipment, confiscated it, and sent the middlemen away by muzzling them. They don't accept wire transfers, checks or credit cards. And greenbacks are merely an eye catching form of toilet paper. Bluebacks at a discount, or trade goods, and that's it.
And we already owed them, with interest. And in their business, interest is usually collected in fractions of body parts.
A collection of the more inane questions collected over the last few months:
"But why not just go down to the grocery store?"
Because there aren't any! There are empty shells that still contain displays, greeting cards and unplugged freezers. But they aren't getting restocked either.
"Why isn't everyone else in the Valley starving to death?"
Because they are. It's slower because so many people 1) self evacuated, 2) have been interned, 3) are being fed from public or quasi-public sources, 4) are being helped by absolutely heroic efforts from churches, charity organizations, the regional food bank (now employing armed guards from a competitor) and the Red Cross.
But people are starving to death down the street. And they're not going to divert food from hungry people to a corporate site. Except black market, interest in body parts, etc.
"Why can't we grow our own food?"
We're trying. Math. We have about ten acres under cultivation, which from a standing start is not bad. On paper, one acre can feed somewhere between one and one thousand people, with a global average a lot closer to one. The effort to feed more people on less area is very intensive. We're feeding about 300 people off that 10 acres, which is really not bad.
"What about livestock?"
What about them? They eat (a problem) and poop (a help) but they aren't efficient at turning plant into meat. We are keeping chickens which is helping enormously. But they are a _supplement_ to an effective farm operation, not a replacement for one.
"Fish farming?"
Oy. A severe pain in the ass, and technology intensive. We have a pilot project running and its entire output is devoted to children with chicken or beef allergies.
"Orchards? This is the Santa Clara Valley."
None had been left on campus at the time of the Firecracker. Trees take two years to mature. We have planted trees, but this is a gesture of hope not a solution. What little fruit we have, we trade for with neighborhood groups.
"Aha! You mentioned trading!"
It's not enough. They're scrambling for food too, you see, and the kind of trades we're doing is essentials for essentials.
We don't feed two thousand people on six bags of lemons, but we do chase off forgotten diseases like scurvy.
"We're rich, we can pay!"
See above.
So there was only one thing left to do. On our next convoy, I stopped at a particular spot. While the convoy went through the motions, I chalked a curb and hid a note under a nearby paving stone. A prearranged dead drop for contact with one of our black marketers.
Later that same day, someone emptied a septic tank truck on that spot.
Message received and understood clearly.
Fortunately, I'd used similar methods to contact our other black market contacts, and one had indicated back that they were willing to meet. Neutral location, two vehicles only, as heavily armed as we liked, no trading during that meet.
I had no choice; I accepted.
###
The dapper Asian man in his business suit was still guarded by two angry boys with rifles. They looked older now, although only a few months had passed.
"I thought I had seen the last of you. Where is Cartwright?"
"Dead," I said, and passed over a tablet with the scene photo. I especially liked the shot of just the head, clearly unattached.
He passed it back.
"That man burned me. I lost goods. More importantly, I lost face. Your note said you would make up the losses."
I nodded. It pained me to do so, but a team started unloading - out of the limited bed space of the Hate Truck - the valuables Cartwright had promised and not delivered.
He inspected the items cursorily. This was not good enough, I sensed it.
"I need more," he said calmly.
And not more stuff either.
"I have only one coin left. What do you want me to do for you?"
I could see him savoring my predicament. I'd refused, on moral grounds, to give him the data laden servers he'd wanted in the mad days immediately after the Firecracker. They were gone now, mostly salvaged, some destroyed.
"Nothing. Your people are OK, but I now employ better. I have all that I want for myself."
"Then why agree to the meet?"
"Turn down a deal so very beneficial to us both? Your word is good. So is mine. We have a basis for future deals. Walk with me."
We walked sideways, out of hearing of his people and of mine. Their eyes followed.
"You have a problem. Your site is riddled with Homeland eyes and ears. You are a suspect. Others are actually targeted. Anyone brought into your campus after your recent vacation should be viewed with great suspicion."
And he had his own agents among us as well. This was getting better by the minute.
"I have been asked to ask you to compromise ... I must get the acronym right ... CFI."
Shit.
"I won't do that," I said flatly.
Customer Facing Information. And given our customers, we were now talking treason.
"And I won't ask you to do that. But we are both men under certain pressures. I want a private trade, between you and me. If your campus collapses, you are welcome to take service in my organization, with any who will follow you. If my own situation falters, I may need to seek employment with you, under the same terms."
"Accepted," I said at once. It was a revealing trade. We were both men riding tigers.
My tiger was starving.
"You need something desperately. I can sense it. So can others. Others will come asking the questions you cannot answer. Be warned."
He turned and walked back to his crew. The meet was over.
We still hadn't gotten the food.
But I couldn't trade a site killing thing for a site killing thing.
###
Resources utterly exhausted, I had two more arrows in my quiver.
One was the Latter Day Saints. The reply was polite but in the negative. They had a little excess, but they were commanded by religious law to hang on to it. I was politely reminded that some of us were not apostates, and that those people could therefore shelter with the Church as a last resort.
What a tactful way of disinviting me and anyone under my authority.
The other note was never replied to. Whether they had stopped servicing that drop, had nothing useful to contribute, or were dead (plus or minus screaming under interrogation) was besides the point. No answer is its own answer: unable to respond, or unwilling to respond is almost besides the point, and thank you Mr. Spock.
###
Dinner that night, in compliance with my orders, was somber and sparse. I did not eat.
###
I refused to accept defeat on this one. I racked my brains, with Wyatt in the Room, for a way to turn this around.
I put on a business suit and went to the VP of Human Resources.
She seemed shocked at my appearance. I was shocked too, and also weaponless.
"I need your help. We need to go to Homeland in San Jose. Right now."
She also changed clothes. Then we checked each other's papers.
A minimal convoy, minimally armed, delivered us to a security checkpoint. Past that we walked, just the two of us, through the control zone that had been San Jose's downtown.
We reached the front desk. Our appearance had gotten us past several checkpoints. But the receptionist required us to state our business.
"We are here to register two thousand, one hundred and thirty one persons. We've submitted their documents but have not received a reply."
While we waited for a Homeland official, we were expertly body searched.
Then we waited together on a cold bench.
A team of four heavily armed Homeland goons came out the secured doors and marched towards our bench. They stopped short of us, by a woman crying quietly to herself.
"Mrs. Kaur? You asked for news of your husband?"
She nodded, her face terrible with hope.
"He is dead. Do not return here or you will be interned."
The team backed away carefully.
She blinked twice, wrapped her dress around herself, and walked out.
(Two weeks later, she did come back. Six dead, eighteen wounded.)
Ten minutes after that, two Homeland auditors came out and escorted us to a side conference room. We presented our IDs to support the Client picture badges we wore.
"We've verified our records. We see that all of your campus occupants are registered properly. What is the concern?"
"We have not received proof of registration. Therefore none of them can apply for ration cards."
The two auditors eyed each other.
"They all have ration cards and have been drawing rations for three weeks now."
"Someone has been drawing rations. Not them," I said calmly.
There were two ways to solve this problem.
1) Cancel the fraudulent ration cards and reissue them.
2) Disappear the two annoying minor officials who brought this awkward situation to light. (Note: that could be us, the two auditors, or all four.)
The auditors withdrew to consult their superiors. We waited.
An hour later, we were handed a folder containing third party ration procurement authorizations with the Homeland seal, contact information for three licensed area food distributors, the business card for our future Homeland point of contact (as the old one had been 'transferred') and a vaguely worded release of liability which would absolve Homeland of all crimes and/or sins.
We both signed it and walked out with our lives.
Of course, detailed imagery of both of us was now in Homeland's files.
A small price to pay, for two thousand lives.