GWOT 2 - Reinforcements
Nov. 11th, 2022 06:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyGWOT 2 - Reinforcements
[Author's note: this was written on Veteran's Day.]
The hills were different now. Scarred by the grass fire the last set of intruders had set to try to cover their advance.
Boot Hill now had crosses half way to the top. Our funeral procedures were practiced now. Although that next day had been a little rushed.
I had dug four graves. The SLE had personally dug a grave himself. I'd worried for his heart, but he'd insisted.
"They gave their lives for us. I can dig a little."
He needed the catharsis.
The landscapers who normally dug graves, among their many other tasks, were mostly the ones we were digging the graves _for_. The nature of their emergency duties in this last attack had exposed them to great risk despite every effort we could make to protect them.
What I hadn't done was spend much time helping in Infirmary. Sniper fire tends to be an all or nothing deal. Except some minor burns and smoke inhalation, which the medical staff could easily handle ... there was nothing to be done for a head shot, and little for a penetrating chest injury from high powered rifle fire.
The Site had enemies. The first massive attack had been a bold attempt at an overrun, and it had nearly worked. If not for Brooke and a hatful of luck, and a dead man who had been my first client rep, it would have. The second massive attack, the one with the truck bomb and the taxi full of shooters, had been worse. But we hadn't had to bury as many of my mistakes as the first time.
This was now the fifth. And yes, I was counting.
I was getting sick of Boot Hill being the visual measurement of my ability to fuck up.
I now badly needed people. Some of that was because my guards had taken up their final posts on the Hill. But a lot of it was because some of my guards had promoted. We needed programmers, first and foremost. So any guard who didn't want to become a statistic, and could be taught to code, was an Employee coder now.
Gunfire is excellent motivation to learn C++.
I could code. But we needed people to run the security even more than we needed coders. Not many of us could do that.
(Qualification question for a duty security supervisor: a sniper has interdicted the main gate. The first patrol you send out doesn't come back. The second patrol refuses to go out. You have a pistol and it is raining. What do you do?)
I'd asked - nay, begged - for additional human resources. But adding uncleared people to our security team struck me as a prescription for conspiracy to commit suicide.
I'd added a few. The data center takeover had gotten me two good ones. Now and again, someone trickled in and was vouched for. Friends of Employees were good; family was better.
Below, on the long winding driveway that was now the only access to the Site, a nondescript white van approached.
I started trudging back to the golf cart where Shreve patiently waited.
One way or another, unexpected visitors meant more work for me.
###
The white van was a handicap van labeled Veteran's Affairs - Menlo Park, with US government plates.
It contained six people - four men, two women - who had one bag each and mobility devices appropriate to their impairments.
The E-mail informing us of their assignment had been misplaced. There was a lot of that going around recently, ever since the Utah trip where I'd shot a Company executive. They didn't know I did it, but it hardly mattered that it had been merely with a digital camera, when the photos of him leaving his house magically materialized _on his desk, in his secure office_.
We hosted them in the cafeteria, with Brooke and Anderson to keep them company, while I made some pointed phone calls.
My reinforcements had arrived. The E-mail followed.
The VA hospital in Menlo Park was shutting down. They'd made a valiant attempt to stay open, and had saved many lives during the first month of the Firecracker, but keeping up with the constant need for radiation decontamination was just too much for them.
So they were discharging their residents to alternative placements.
I'd requested personnel, and specified veterans in the hopes of getting more people like Brooke.
Well, I'd gotten veterans all right. Disabled veterans. Two of them were on colostomy bags. All had mobility impairments. Three were in chairs. One had a TBI with moderate affect. Issuing them firearms would be a sick joke.
That didn't mean I couldn't and wouldn't use them.
I called Training. Not our training, the security team was too busy and small to afford a dedicated trainer. The Site training shop.
"I need a huge favor. New employe evaluation and workup. If they're coders, they're yours. If they're anything else, they're mine."
Then they would report to Infirmary for their _medical_ needs assessment. They would need medical care; we would provide it. Somehow.
###
That evening, over dinner, I met the five of them. One had coding skills, so the Client hired them on the spot.
"My name is Echo 18. I'm the security site manager here, and I'm your new boss."
They were delightful. Utterly unafraid.
"Fuck. That. Shit," said an elderly woman with frizzy hair from her chair. "I did my time and ate my crayons. Show me the exit from this fun house."
"Would love to," I shrugged, "but anywhere else is worse. You are free to wheel yourself to the exit and try to make your own way in a Valley overrun with starving, irradiated refugees. From your E-mail account you are more than welcome to apply for any other job you can find, and we'll even give you a free ride there. Until then, you work for the Security Department as a trainee dispatcher."
"Do I look like a fucking dispatcher?" said a man with big burly muscles, if you only looked at his arms. You couldn't look at his legs. He'd left them somewhere or another for his Uncle Sam.
"I've got a number of other openings. You're welcome to roll through the Kill House. If you can roll and shoot at the same time, and qualify, I'll put you on as an armed guard. Otherwise, yeah, you look like a fucking dispatcher, Sarge."
He nodded. I respected their service, and their sacrifice, but I wasn't going to take their shit either.
The other three were biding their time, letting the two loudmouths test me and take point.
That was OK. Human material was human material.
Both my own Employer and the Client had ferociously favorable hiring policies towards veterans.
When you know how to work, and have relied on other people for your life, and held them to that same standard, you become a very valuable commodity.
Even if the total limb count for the five was fourteen.
###
I watched as the chair rolled forward through the Kill House. One hand on the left chair hand wheel, one hand on the pistol. Occasionally just a touch on the right for correction.
Damn he was a good shot.
Then the chair reached the stairwell down. No accident; we didn't want anyone on Security who couldn't do stairs. No Daleks here.
He looked. Got out of his chair.
Pushed the chair down the stairwell with a stiff forearm.
Started crawling down, leaning against one wall with the handgun at present, covering his advance.
"Stop the test," I ordered.
Everyone stopped and looked at me.
"He passed. He works H1 desk. Armed."
We put an extra high retention holster on his chair.
You know, reasonable accomodation for disability. It's the law, after all.
###
Dispatch had been pretty good.
Four duty dispatchers, all military veterans, all who gave a shit and took no shit, made dispatch into something pretty damn awesome.
They had crisp radio discipline. They learned quicky how to get best use out of our cameras, then demanded more and better ones. They made the internal phone system sit up and beg.
I could occasionally get some solid sleep.
Four good pairs of eyes on the watch. Never mind the missing limbs, the changing of the bags and the slight sewer smell, the constant pain, the occasional blinding headaches.
They had a job to do and they were doing it, making themselves part of the nervous system of the Site so that we were a lot less likely to be surprised by anything ever again.
I mentioned the part about me getting to sleep now and again?
I shit you not.
They saved us all.
They'd already saved us all, long before ending up at the VA. Just in other places most people hadn't even heard of and would never see. Especially now.
Now people could see it.
Little gifts started appearing at the service window. From Employees, from other guards, from Space Planning, from the landscapers.
Thank you for your service.
[Author's note: this was written on Veteran's Day.]
The hills were different now. Scarred by the grass fire the last set of intruders had set to try to cover their advance.
Boot Hill now had crosses half way to the top. Our funeral procedures were practiced now. Although that next day had been a little rushed.
I had dug four graves. The SLE had personally dug a grave himself. I'd worried for his heart, but he'd insisted.
"They gave their lives for us. I can dig a little."
He needed the catharsis.
The landscapers who normally dug graves, among their many other tasks, were mostly the ones we were digging the graves _for_. The nature of their emergency duties in this last attack had exposed them to great risk despite every effort we could make to protect them.
What I hadn't done was spend much time helping in Infirmary. Sniper fire tends to be an all or nothing deal. Except some minor burns and smoke inhalation, which the medical staff could easily handle ... there was nothing to be done for a head shot, and little for a penetrating chest injury from high powered rifle fire.
The Site had enemies. The first massive attack had been a bold attempt at an overrun, and it had nearly worked. If not for Brooke and a hatful of luck, and a dead man who had been my first client rep, it would have. The second massive attack, the one with the truck bomb and the taxi full of shooters, had been worse. But we hadn't had to bury as many of my mistakes as the first time.
This was now the fifth. And yes, I was counting.
I was getting sick of Boot Hill being the visual measurement of my ability to fuck up.
I now badly needed people. Some of that was because my guards had taken up their final posts on the Hill. But a lot of it was because some of my guards had promoted. We needed programmers, first and foremost. So any guard who didn't want to become a statistic, and could be taught to code, was an Employee coder now.
Gunfire is excellent motivation to learn C++.
I could code. But we needed people to run the security even more than we needed coders. Not many of us could do that.
(Qualification question for a duty security supervisor: a sniper has interdicted the main gate. The first patrol you send out doesn't come back. The second patrol refuses to go out. You have a pistol and it is raining. What do you do?)
I'd asked - nay, begged - for additional human resources. But adding uncleared people to our security team struck me as a prescription for conspiracy to commit suicide.
I'd added a few. The data center takeover had gotten me two good ones. Now and again, someone trickled in and was vouched for. Friends of Employees were good; family was better.
Below, on the long winding driveway that was now the only access to the Site, a nondescript white van approached.
I started trudging back to the golf cart where Shreve patiently waited.
One way or another, unexpected visitors meant more work for me.
###
The white van was a handicap van labeled Veteran's Affairs - Menlo Park, with US government plates.
It contained six people - four men, two women - who had one bag each and mobility devices appropriate to their impairments.
The E-mail informing us of their assignment had been misplaced. There was a lot of that going around recently, ever since the Utah trip where I'd shot a Company executive. They didn't know I did it, but it hardly mattered that it had been merely with a digital camera, when the photos of him leaving his house magically materialized _on his desk, in his secure office_.
We hosted them in the cafeteria, with Brooke and Anderson to keep them company, while I made some pointed phone calls.
My reinforcements had arrived. The E-mail followed.
The VA hospital in Menlo Park was shutting down. They'd made a valiant attempt to stay open, and had saved many lives during the first month of the Firecracker, but keeping up with the constant need for radiation decontamination was just too much for them.
So they were discharging their residents to alternative placements.
I'd requested personnel, and specified veterans in the hopes of getting more people like Brooke.
Well, I'd gotten veterans all right. Disabled veterans. Two of them were on colostomy bags. All had mobility impairments. Three were in chairs. One had a TBI with moderate affect. Issuing them firearms would be a sick joke.
That didn't mean I couldn't and wouldn't use them.
I called Training. Not our training, the security team was too busy and small to afford a dedicated trainer. The Site training shop.
"I need a huge favor. New employe evaluation and workup. If they're coders, they're yours. If they're anything else, they're mine."
Then they would report to Infirmary for their _medical_ needs assessment. They would need medical care; we would provide it. Somehow.
###
That evening, over dinner, I met the five of them. One had coding skills, so the Client hired them on the spot.
"My name is Echo 18. I'm the security site manager here, and I'm your new boss."
They were delightful. Utterly unafraid.
"Fuck. That. Shit," said an elderly woman with frizzy hair from her chair. "I did my time and ate my crayons. Show me the exit from this fun house."
"Would love to," I shrugged, "but anywhere else is worse. You are free to wheel yourself to the exit and try to make your own way in a Valley overrun with starving, irradiated refugees. From your E-mail account you are more than welcome to apply for any other job you can find, and we'll even give you a free ride there. Until then, you work for the Security Department as a trainee dispatcher."
"Do I look like a fucking dispatcher?" said a man with big burly muscles, if you only looked at his arms. You couldn't look at his legs. He'd left them somewhere or another for his Uncle Sam.
"I've got a number of other openings. You're welcome to roll through the Kill House. If you can roll and shoot at the same time, and qualify, I'll put you on as an armed guard. Otherwise, yeah, you look like a fucking dispatcher, Sarge."
He nodded. I respected their service, and their sacrifice, but I wasn't going to take their shit either.
The other three were biding their time, letting the two loudmouths test me and take point.
That was OK. Human material was human material.
Both my own Employer and the Client had ferociously favorable hiring policies towards veterans.
When you know how to work, and have relied on other people for your life, and held them to that same standard, you become a very valuable commodity.
Even if the total limb count for the five was fourteen.
###
I watched as the chair rolled forward through the Kill House. One hand on the left chair hand wheel, one hand on the pistol. Occasionally just a touch on the right for correction.
Damn he was a good shot.
Then the chair reached the stairwell down. No accident; we didn't want anyone on Security who couldn't do stairs. No Daleks here.
He looked. Got out of his chair.
Pushed the chair down the stairwell with a stiff forearm.
Started crawling down, leaning against one wall with the handgun at present, covering his advance.
"Stop the test," I ordered.
Everyone stopped and looked at me.
"He passed. He works H1 desk. Armed."
We put an extra high retention holster on his chair.
You know, reasonable accomodation for disability. It's the law, after all.
###
Dispatch had been pretty good.
Four duty dispatchers, all military veterans, all who gave a shit and took no shit, made dispatch into something pretty damn awesome.
They had crisp radio discipline. They learned quicky how to get best use out of our cameras, then demanded more and better ones. They made the internal phone system sit up and beg.
I could occasionally get some solid sleep.
Four good pairs of eyes on the watch. Never mind the missing limbs, the changing of the bags and the slight sewer smell, the constant pain, the occasional blinding headaches.
They had a job to do and they were doing it, making themselves part of the nervous system of the Site so that we were a lot less likely to be surprised by anything ever again.
I mentioned the part about me getting to sleep now and again?
I shit you not.
They saved us all.
They'd already saved us all, long before ending up at the VA. Just in other places most people hadn't even heard of and would never see. Especially now.
Now people could see it.
Little gifts started appearing at the service window. From Employees, from other guards, from Space Planning, from the landscapers.
Thank you for your service.
