“Love and Family During the Great Death”
Chapter 14: As If Life Wasn't Depressing Enough
“So, as I was saying, this guy was out hunting, when he discovered the deer he shot, out of season, appeared to have the same symptoms that the hospitals are reported that people are dying from. As a result, they’re anxious to get some tissue samples from a ‘reliable source’ so they can determine whether it’s the same pathogen, how it crossed species, and whether it mutated when it crossed the species barrier.”
Sheriff Adams just looked at David for several moments before responding, hardly blinking.
“So this random poacher just happened to reveal this to a complete stranger over a drink or something?”
“Actually, I heard it from someone second hand, but they didn’t recognize the guy as a local, and hadn’t seen him before or since.”
“And yet, you got enough of a description to draw me an accurate map of where to find the body?”
“Hey, what can I say,” David replied with the beginnings of a smile, “I’ve just got a wonderful mind.”
“Yeah, I bet you do. Well, as you might have guessed, the Forestry Service and Game Wardens have been affected the same as every other organization has, with many of their employees abandoning their jobs either over lack of pay or to be with their families, so they’re unlikely to be of any help.”
“That’s why the hospital suggested you might be a good candidate to collect the samples. After all, you’re used to collecting biological samples, and you have the equipment to do it without exposing yourself to the disease it was supposedly suffering from.”
“And why didn’t they think you wouldn’t be a…, never mind, I can guess the answer to that question,” Ben said, shaking his head. “They need a reliable impartial source, one who won’t be implicated by reporting the incident.”
“Exactly. Besides, you know me, I’m a city boy, and wouldn’t be any good in the woods at all,” David replied with a knowing smile.
“I’m sure. You do know that I’d never have given Officer Riggins authorization to give you that gun if I thought you were as green as you’re maintaining.”
“What can I say, I’m good at faking it.” At this the two girls, Alice and Amy, lost it and broke out in giggles. David stared at them, letting them know they weren’t helping, but the effect was lost as he had a hard time resisting laughing himself.
“And just how dangerous is this disease supposed to be?” Benjamin asked.
“No one really knows. There have been a lot of deaths from it, but they don’t know how many people have been exposed, so they have no statistics for what the survival rate is. But you shouldn’t have to worry, the current thinking is that it’s an airborne toxin, and that since the animal is dead, it shouldn’t be a threat to you as long as you use gloves and watch what you touch. But just between us, I’d use that face mask of yours the whole time you’re in the woods, because if one animal has it, there’s no telling how widespread it is.”
“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind,” the Sheriff answered, grimacing slightly. “Oh, by the way, some kids at the college want to talk to you. It’s a bit of a drive, but they’ve heard that you still have power and that you have access to a high elevation structure. The school has a radio tower and some broadcasting equipment that they can’t use any more. They’re offering it to you, since you’re the only one who’s able to use it. They think it would be the best way of getting information out, since even those without access to electricity or gasoline have radios and some spare batteries lying around. It would be a real service to the community if you could arrange it.”
“Gee, I don’t know. I’d have a hard time mounting a radio tower to the top of my mountain,” David answered, looking skeptically at the girls. “After all, about all I have are a bunch of girls to help me mount it.”
“I’ve already talked to them about it. They’ve probably already dismantled it and gotten it ready. They’ve also offered to drive it over and help you install it if you can find them enough diesel to drive a semi there and back. Not many people had the foresight to invest in battery powered fuel pumps.”
“That might just be doable,” David considered, rubbing his jaw in thought. “I’ve got facilities in place to anchor and lift a heavy load from when we mounted the wind turbine. It would be relatively easy to set the equipment up again. With a couple of strong hands we could probably manage it.”
“And with someone as talkative as your daughter, I’m sure you’d have no problem broadcasting, either,” Ben answered with a smile.
“Hey, I resemble that remark!” Alice complained, smiling as she said it, already imagining what it would be like being the only radio personality in the region. The other girls would be so jealous.
“I’ll tell you what,” Ben continued, “I’ll claim your deer for you in exchange for your taking on the radio broadcasts. That’s going to be the only way to inform people about what’s happening. Right now, we can only tell a few select individuals and a few shop owners, so it’s hard to get the word out about anything, like avoiding exposure to other sick individuals.”
“That’s fair. I realize I’m imposing on your good will with this, but I’m not sure the hospital would accept my word for the handling of the samples,” Dave said.
The two men said their goodbyes, with Ben wishing David’s women good luck, and they went their separate ways.
“What was that about?” Ellen asked when he got back to the truck.
“Seems we have a new task to accomplish today. I hope you brought your gloves, as it looks like we’re going to have our hands full.”
“Whew, that was one hell of a lot of work,” the young man said, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
“Well, thanks for the effort. I really appreciate it,” David replied, offering the men his hand in thanks. “And what’s more, both the girls and I appreciate that extra little gift of yours,” he added with a wink.
“You’d better believe it,” a couple of the girls agreed at the same time. “That’s going to save our asses, and we mean that literally.”
“It’s no problem. We’ve been stuck in the empty remains of the college because we have nowhere else to go, and it’s pretty boring with no one there. Besides, the gasoline you connected us with will help us out a lot. We’d managed to exhaust what little we had. We mistakenly used most of it without taking into account how important it would be generate electricity.”
“Yeah, it was really helpful having you guys here,” Caitlyn told them, “while we’re all glad to help, it took some real muscle to maneuver those things around.” The young men seemed to have appreciated the girls’ help, even though they seemed to be distracted most of the time they were around. Alice and Amy, who’d worked just as hard, didn’t bother to say anything, still feeling like the guys had come in and usurped their positions as David’s helpers.
“Do you guys want anything before you leave?” Ellen asked. “Some more food, something to drink on the way back?”
“Already taken care of,” Linda told her. “I put a little to-go container in their truck. They should be set for the evening.”
“Yeah, we’d best be getting back. Although we’ve got lights, with so many people without power there’s no telling what we’re likely to encounter once the sun sets.”
“Again, thanks for all the help and for offering the equipment in the first place,” David said, thanking them again. However the girls went even farther in their thanks. While they were too fearful of the risk of disease to kiss them, they did give them quite a few heartfelt hugs.
“Hey, if anyone can help out the people around here, it’d be you. We don’t have the facilities or the people anymore. Now just remember, it’s best to establish some definite broadcast times so the people without power only have to turn on their radios for certain select periods. Noon, six and ten are probably the best times, as they correlate to the traditional times for news broadcasts. There’s no sense waiting until eleven, since most people without electricity will sleep as soon as the sun sets anyway. Ten o’clock should be fine to catch both them and anyone with power both.”
“Thanks for the advice, and if I can help you out in any way in the future, let me know,” David reiterated.
“Hey, we think you’ve paid us in full already. You’ve taken over the job we couldn’t do, you’ve given us a day’s entertainment and socializing, you fed us, and you gave us the means to do something ourselves for the next week or so.”
“That may be, but you’ve given me a whole house full of thankful women,” David added as they headed off.”
“It’s hard to believe we got that thing all the way up there,” Sara commented.
“Believe it, honey,” Maggie replied. “I’ve got the blisters to prove it. Though, if you still have doubts, I can lend you a few of mine just so you’ll be more convinced.”
“No, thanks, I’ve got enough of my own.”
“Hey, anyone want to test out the equipment?” Erica excitedly asked.
“I think we can wait, right now we have plenty inside the house,” Alice answered teasingly.
“I meant the radio equipment,” Erica insisted.
“We’ll have to check with Bobby,” David reminded them. “He’s handling the equipment setup inside. He’s converted my office he’s been using for his radio into a broadcast booth. But I’m pretty sure he’ll have it set up for us to test tonight at ten.”
The girls’ enthusiasm was understandable, both about the radio and the other delivery. It seems the guys had found an abandoned truck full of paper products, which mostly consisted of toilet paper, paper towels and feminine hygiene products, which was one of the few things that David had never stopped to consider stocking up on after the emergency has struck. Thus the girls were greatly relieved about the future.
“So who’s going to be the first DJ?” Erica asked, walking backwards to converse with everyone heading to the house, now that the young men from the college were driving away. David took the opportunity to wipe his hands with some sanitizer. Both Ellen and Maggie, seeing that, asked for some as well. There was no point taking any chances.
“There’s no DJ, we’re broadcasting news, not playing records,” Alice explained. “I was thinking I might be the best choice, since I know the region around here and my diction is so good.”
“Hey, I speak pretty well, too,” Caitlyn argued.
“I think the difference between ‘diction’ and ‘speak pretty well’ proves my point,” Alice pointed out with a grin.
“OK, but how about we alternate, or work out some way we can all take part,” Caitlyn suggested.
“Actually, I’ve been helping Bob with his radio transmissions, so I’ll focus on that,” Amy said. “It’s probably better if each of us specialize on something different, with at least one backup, rather than each of us trying everything.”
“David and Bobby have been helping train me on how to keep the cars in good repair,” Julie offered.
“Yeah, and Amy and I have experience with the wind generator,” Alice said.
“I’m sure there are plenty of things for each of you to do, but how about some of you help me get dinner on the table,” Linda suggested to groans from each of the girls. David just rubbed his back, trying to ease the sore muscles he’d managed to gain from all the work wrestling the radio antenna up the side of the mountain and securing it in place. He’d be ready for sleep long before they finished with that night’s broadcast, assuming there weren’t any unexpected problems with it.
“Why are you so down, Bob?” Ellen asked over the dinner table, after she noticed he was barely responding to the dinner conversation.
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize I was spacing out. I’m a little distracted, I guess,” he replied. “I haven’t heard from Ma all day.”
“How often do you normally speak?” Linda asked, trying to gage how upset he was.
“I usually talk to her in the morning, we’ll have a quick update at noon, and again before dinner. But so far I haven’t heard anything at all today. In fact the hospital hasn’t responded either.”
“That’s unusual, but I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” David said, hoping to assuage his worries. “Chances are their generator seized up from overuse. It’ll probably take them a while to get it either repaired or replaced.”
“Yeah, that’s probably what happened. I hadn’t even considered that possibility,” Bob replied.
No one else said anything, afraid of making a bad situation worse, but they each continued to imagine any number of less reassuring possibilities.
“So, any other news?” Caitlyn asked, hoping to distract him.
“Oh, there are a couple of things, but I wasn’t really concentrating on it. There are more reports of increasing sickness, whole apartment complexes being closed off in several cities, and the hospital Emergency Rooms being overwhelmed. But there’s still a lot of debate about what’s causing the sicknesses, as the symptoms seem to vary widely. Some people have one set of symptoms, others have a completely different set, and others have various combinations. So no one is sure whether it’s one illness with various symptoms, or whether there is actually more than one disease at play.”
“Any word on what happened to the sample I had the Sheriff collect?” David asked.
“Someone from his office contacted me and said one of the officers drove it to the hospital. Since the hospital hasn’t responded, I didn’t hear anything other than that, and I probably won’t hear anything about the officer who drove it there until tomorrow, since it’s likely it took him all day to drive down and back. The roads are still pretty poor. Apparently other communities didn’t do quite the job all of you did. The person I talked to told me to thank you for the excellent job you guys did on the local roads.”
The girls thanked him for the compliment, although they didn’t want to play it up and take away from what he was telling them, though they all sat up a little straighter, feeling pride in what they’d been able to accomplish.
“What about reports of the government?”
“That’s fairly interesting as well,” Bob responded. “People have been fleeing the Washington area due to the heavy handed nature of the government, so they’ve belatedly closed the roads leading in and out. Not only that, but they’ve started ordering the military to stop anyone traveling between cities, although that order has been largely ignored, mostly because the ranks of the military have been decimated by people going AWOL to return home. On the other hand, several cities surrounding Washington have been organizing their own militias to defend themselves from an anticipated attack from the army units garrisoned around Washington. The Pentagon seems to be the ones orchestrating most of these actions.”
“How could things spin out of control so quickly?” David asked, not really expecting him to have a ready answer.
“Well, it seems President Daniels has appointed a minor General that no one has heard of before to the position of Secretary of Defense, putting him in charge of military affairs for the entire country. It’s largely seen as a repayment for his support in propping up the fledgling government, but many people suspect it’s more than that. Daniels seems to be terrified, and this General Pendril keeps saying the right things, both encouraging and terrifying him about imagined revolts.
“General Clarence Pendril is only a one-star General stationed at the Pentagon. He apparently has never had any combat experience, and there’s virtually no public history on him, as it appears he’s from one of these secret agencies in the Pentagon. Thus he’s pretty paranoid himself and is distrustful of the public, of Congress, and of any oversight committees like the GSA, and feels he should have freer access for the military to act however he thinks they should.”
“Sounds like civil war isn’t far off,” Maggie suggested.
“That’s how it looks, although it’s limited to the Pentagon in DC. Everyone else is still trying to respond to what’s happened to them. Needless to say, Baltimore and Richmond have been so busy building tank barricades they haven’t been able to respond to cleaning up their cities for the past couple of days. Reports from Norfolk are that the Navy there has declared itself independent from the military command in DC, claiming the government’s actions are evidence it is no longer in control and no longer speaks for the country.”
“It sounds like that would be the first place the Pentagon will try to strike against, in order to keep that mindset from spreading,” David suggested.
“Yeah, unfortunately they’ll have to barrel through Richmond in order to do that. And if they expect to take Norfolk, they’ll have to do so with a large number of tanks and heavy equipment, which is likely to destroy what’s left of the roads in that region. But what complicates things is if the other cities think the Pentagon is taking this action against Richmond and Norfolk, they’ll likely make a preemptive strike while they’re distracted, so the Pentagon will probably be afraid to commit too many troops and leave the city exposed.”
“Shit, it sounds like a mess. They should be trying to reestablish the country, helping people survive long enough to recover. This is going to leave everyone exposed to a whole host of troubles.”
“Hey, I doubt the military cares. As far as they’re concerned, they can live for months off of stored MREs. I suspect they’re more concerned with establishing their position and keeping the armies stationed across the country in line.”
“If they did attack Norfolk, the Navy could just put out to sea. I know most of the Air Force is probably grounded, but how’s the Navy holding up?”
“I’ve got no idea, and I’m sure they’re not going to broadcast that information for the Pentagon to overhear. Chances are, with the size of the ships in the Norfolk harbor, they’re likely to have suffered a lot of damage. Damage that would take a lot of time and energy to repair.”
“Yeah, but chances are they’ve got enough firepower to pound any military force heading towards them, firepower that doesn’t rely on an existing electric grid to keep them functional. Shit, this sounds like a real mess.”
“Not only that, the Navy has nuclear powered submarines, so they’d have plenty of power to both sail and fire on DC, so there’s no telling how this may turn out.”
There wasn’t much else to say after that, so the girls started discussing what was involved with broadcasting that evening. They got Bob to describe everything he’d been doing to get them online, and after dinner was over they walked him back to their new studio to go over how everything was set up. With them gone, the other adults took it easy and just relaxed.
“So, any plans for the evening?” Maggie asked.
“I’m just planning on sleeping. I’m exhausted. It’s not easy hauling that equipment around, and while those young men were down on the ground hauling the levers, I was up on top of the cliff manhandling everything into position. I’m not likely to last very long. I just hope the girls can get this radio broadcast set up without needing my help.”
“Would a massage help you feel better?” Maggie asked. “Maybe help you feel a little more energetic so you could do some… other things?”
“While I’d appreciate the massage, I can’t make any promises, and nothing is going to happen without Ellen’s say so,” David responded before turning to her. “Please say no this time,” he pleaded.
“Hey, you want the massage. Decide how much you want it and whether you’re willing to pay the piper. I’m OK with anything you decide, as long as I’m kept appraised.”
“Hey, what did I ever do to you?” David asked in a bit of a whine. “Couldn’t you at least pretend to be jealous for my benefit?”
“Don’t worry,” she said, letting down her demeanor, “I’m just teasing. I can tell you’re not up for anything tonight. I was assuming you’d refuse.”
“Well, it’s not much, but at least it’s something,” David relented. “Now could anyone wheel me upstairs? I’d just fall asleep here, but I know the girls will be in and out all night.”
“Honey, the girls will be in and out of your room all night, because they’re going to be bubbling over with excitement about the radio broadcast,” Linda told him.
David just groaned, excused himself, and limped upstairs. The women laughed at his response before Ellen got up and went to assist him. Linda was tempted to help, but decided against it, figuring Bob would need some assistance controlling the girls.
“This is radio Scott. This is our first broadcast. We’re broadcasting over local FM radio to reach as wide an audience as possible. We’re going to be online every day at noon, 6:00 and 10:00 every day. The idea is to keep to these hours so that listeners won’t have to waste their batteries waiting for information. We’re broadcasting because we have an independent source of power and we have a reliable source of information. We have a number of items to cover, so we’ll try to relay them as quickly as we can. Also be advised that we’ll be broadcasting a short informational message hourly between 6:00 AM and 12:00 midnight alerting everyone when our regular broadcasts will occur, hoping anyone scanning the radio airways can discover us.”
Alice continued with the rest of the news that the girls had gone over, trying to present it in the most concise form possible. She covered the national news, as depressing as it was, the widespread damage and how far it reached, and how much it would impact both the US and the rest of the world before she went on to what was happening locally. But then she finally reached what they considered the most important news.
“On the health front, it is vitally important that everyone realize that there is a new disease spreading. No one really knows much about it yet, although they continue to research it. What we do know is that it has a whole variety of symptoms, so if you are sick you should consider yourself exposed, whatever your symptoms. We don’t know what the fatality rate is, though the death count continues to mount each day.
“It most often includes a general weakness, coughing, sores to the face and body of various forms and the coughing up of blood, but this should not be considered a full list of symptoms. So far there is no treatment for this illness, but hospitalization is beneficial since they can respond to complications, such as breathing troubles or potential anaphylactic shock.
“The most important thing is that everyone should start wearing masks in public. Especially if you are sick, or have been exposed to someone who is sick. It appears to be transmitted via the air, much like the flu is, as well as via bodily fluids. Therefore, the best safety measures are to avoid congregated areas. Also be sure to wear gloves when treating anyone with the disease, and to either wear gloves or use hand sanitizers whenever touching either other people or anything that someone may have touched. Also be aware that it may have spread to animals, so be careful of exposure to animals as well. If you have any knowledge of, or have been exposed to any outbreaks of this disease, please contact the police so they can be aware of who is at risk. Also let them know any information they can convey to the scientists who are studying the condition, as everyone is anxious to get a handle on the condition.”
“Well,” Alice said, clicking off the microphone and removing her headphones, “I think that went pretty well.”
“Yeah, it did. You know, as much as I wanted to do the report myself, you did a really good job of it,” Caitlyn told her.
“You may want to watch how you talk about the sickness, though,” Ellen commented from the doorway, where the adults had been listening to the broadcast. “It isn’t going to take much to panic people and make them turn against those who are sick, whether they actually pose a serious risk or not. You did well, but we’ll have to see how people respond to it.”
“Unfortunately we’re as cut off as anyone else is,” Bob reminded them. “Unless the local police respond to a crime being committed against anyone as a result of the broadcast, we’re unlikely to know how it’s been received. We’re essentially shouting out into the darkness, with no way for anyone to respond.”
“Well, we’ll discuss the implications tomorrow. It’s late, and you all need to get to bed. I suspect we’ll take it easy tomorrow so we can recover from today, but you kids will be busy preparing for three more broadcasts tomorrow.”
So everyone quickly settled everything, with Bob shutting down the equipment while the girls talked excitedly about their experiences broadcasting on their way up the stairs. Ellen glanced at Linda, both considering what could happen if they somehow said the wrong thing over the air, especially if they had no way of knowing what response they were engendering.
“David!” Amy called out as she helped Bob into the kitchen, knowing she’d find people there. The other girls seemed to already be following her, having observed her walking through the living room. “Bob’s in bad shape. I think you need to speak to him.”
“What’s wrong?” David asked, sitting up, watching the two of them for any sign of what had occurred.
Seeing as how Bob wasn’t responding right away, Amy answered for him. “He got some very unsettling news from the hospital.” However she wanted him to work this out himself, so she hoped he’d say what he’d heard.
“I know you’ve been upset about their silence lately,” David said, also trying to prompt Bobby to respond. “After you spoke to the police this morning, when they reported that the hospital was operational but the officer who transferred the samples there yesterday hadn’t noticed whether the power was on or not, I thought maybe it was just something minor like a blown generator.”
Finally Bob looked up, tears beginning to form under his eyes. “I spoke to one of the hospital administrators. He informed me that Ma has the plague. I’d known she’d been working with patients suffering from it, but since we’d been acting as a clearing house for information, she’d have been better equipped to cope. But, if you’ll remember, they initially stationed her with the sick people when they first quarantined them, hoping to keep her out of the general rotation so she could concentrate on her radio transmissions. He thought she’d contracted the disease then.”
Both Ellen and Linda got up and hurried to console him, but David was more concerned with specifics at the moment, and Maggie got up and stood behind him, being as concerned with their old friend as he was.
“Did they say how bad she is? Apparently she’s worse than just showing a few symptoms if she couldn’t call and tell you herself.”
“No,” he croaked, choking back tears. “She collapsed. No one had noticed, since she didn’t seem to have any symptoms, but when they examined her they noticed little star like sores over her body. I think I’ve described them before. They’re like a small closed sore, but they have these radiating blue lines coming off of them. They’re a fairly specific and unique identifier. There’s no other condition that causes those specific symptoms. They took her to the quarantine ward, and she hasn’t been very responsive since.
“That was yesterday. Since then she’s been in and out of it, most of the time she’s hardly coherent. She started spitting up blood early this morning.”
“No one contacted him because no one else had bothered to learn how to use the radio,” Amy explained, taking over the explanation since Bob seemed so distracted. “It took some hospital tech guy a while to figure out how to operate it. Luckily it was already tuned to broadcast on the right frequency, and some of the staff had overheard both her and Bob’s call signals.”
“Do you want us to take you to see her?” David asked immediately.
“They advised against it,” he answered unsteadily. “She’s in the quarantine ward, so I couldn’t… see her anyway. And even then, she’s nonresponsive.”
“That’s terrible,” Linda said, stating the obvious. The other girls moved closer, trying to hear everything being said. Several reached out to touch Bob, letting him know they were there for him.
“Is there anything we can do?” David asked, not knowing how to react other than to try to find some way to take care of the situation.
“No, it’s in the doctors’ hands now. And not even in theirs, either, since they’ve got no treatment for this. They’re watching out for her, but they tell me she’ll either recover on her own or she won’t. There’s really nothing anyone can do. But they… they have her quarantined because she’s considered… highly contagious at this point.”
“One of us can travel there to speak to the doctors, one on one, to see if they can tell us a little more privately,” Maggie suggested.
“No, as they say, it’s out of everyone’s hands. But I think I’m going to be out of it for a while. I think I’d rather… just lie down and have a good cry on my own. I’m sure I’ll… need reassurances later, but right now I’m just trying to… deal with all this.”
“That makes sense,” David said simply, while Ellen and Linda helped him move slowly upstairs. David glanced at Maggie, hoping for some way he could make this better for their friend, but she simply shrugged. There was nothing that either one could think of that would ease his pain other than for Ma to get better, and so far no one knew enough about the disease to know what was likely to happen. They knew that a lot of people had already died from it, but no one had any idea what the survival rate was, nor even what would happen afterwards if she did manage to recover. There were just too many unknowns.
“Well, that was disappointing,” Amy said, watching them walk off. “I was hoping that by getting him to talk about what’s happening elsewhere in the world we could engage him a bit more, get him to refocus and distract him from what’s happening to his wife.” She sighed, but David knew she was leading up to something.
“Look, before you say anything else, let’s wait until the others get here, as I’m sure they’ll want to hear this as well.”
Amy simply nodded, seeing the wisdom in that, but it was obvious she was burning to reveal the information she had. She’d only been working with Bob for a short while, and usually she let him describe what was happening. But now she was busy fidgeting in her seat, continually glancing up the stairs, waiting for Ellen and Linda to return. Seeing that something was developing, the other girls congregated around the table, leaving Linda and Ellen’s seats empty, and busying themselves in the kitchen until they returned. They continued to talk about Bob and how he was reacting among themselves.
Finally the two women returned, looking concerned about Bob.
“I’m worried about him,” Ellen reflected. “This isn’t like him. He’s normally so engaged, so focused on helping everyone, so interested in informing everyone of what they needed to know.”
“I know,” Maggie added. “It’s like he’s giving up.”
“I’m not sure I’d go that far,” David argued. “Give him time to adjust. This is a lot to take in. He may recover soon.”
“Yeah, but if Ma gets worse, I can’t imagine him getting much better, at least in the short term,” Ellen replied.
“Well, I think Amy had something to say to us,” David said, hoping to get the subject off of such a depressing topic. He was still uncomfortable reflecting on things he couldn’t control, that he couldn’t make better. Emotions were never his strong suit.
“Well, before Bob got the depressing news about Ma, we’d been gathering a lot of other news throughout the day that I think you’ll all want to know, and that we’ll need to report on in our broadcast, though we may need to consider how to approach it.” Having said that, she took a moment to consider how to best present the information.
“We discussed how the Pentagon would react to the Navy in Norfolk VA refusing to go along with their dictates. Well it looks like they’re not the only ones questioning the wisdom of General Pendril’s and President Daniels’ recent decisions. It seems there was an assassination attempt this morning. Not only that, but it took place in the Pentagon itself.
“The information is scarce, since it looks like they locked down the entire Pentagon afterwards. But word has continued to leak out, though we may have to question where it’s coming from.
“It seems that during an early morning conference, an orderly entered the conference room with some fresh coffee, and after putting it down, stepped back, withdrew a personal handgun, and fired on the participants of the conference.” The others listening all recoiled at the mental image of such violence, but they could also see how the wanton acts of a military so out of control might provoke such a reaction, especially if the actions of those in charge left them no other way to argue against the current course of action.
“The word is, and of course all of this is very unofficial, is that the shooter used his last bullet to blow his own brains out, so there was no way to interrogate him to see if this was a solitary action or part of a conspiracy.”
“Is there any word on how they reacted to it?” David asked. “Either the military or the President?”
“Oh, there’s a lot more. As I said, they managed to lock down the entire Pentagon almost right away. Apparently Clarence Pendril wasn’t killed and was taken away to the hospital soon afterwards. The word is that he’d escaped by shoving someone else in front of him, thus while he was injured, he wasn’t hurt as badly as he would have been otherwise. Of course, as I said, we need to be careful of the source of the information. Since there has been no official announcements, and since the entire Pentagon is in lockdown, we have to assume that the leaks are coming from the people involved in the attack themselves, so it would make sense they’d be putting their own spin on things. And there’s no way to confirm any of these events, since no one is taking a stand, and no one is admitting where they received their information from.”
“But about the response?” David prompted her again.
“Right. It seems it didn’t take long for people to respond. As you know, President Daniels seems incapable to making many decisions on his own, but he almost immediately issued a series of Executive Orders based upon his State of Emergency, the only way he could hope to get away with such things. He effectively shut down virtually all the watchdog agencies, both those of Congress and those in the military itself. Including the GSA, which as you know is mostly known for counting how much the military spends for pencils and toilet seats. President Daniels also made some vague threats to shut down certain ‘overly aggressive groups’, which most people are assuming to mean groups like the ACLU, who have been protesting his actions. But, if he goes after those, then he may very well go after other groups, possibly the Supreme Court or even Congress as well.”
“Wow, this is really a detailed analysis,” Ellen told her, proud of how professional Amy’s presentation was. However Amy simply waved the compliment off.
“It really wasn’t mine,” she replied. “Everyone across the country has been talking about it all day. I’ve just been listening, taking careful notes, and trying to organize them so we could report on what’s happening.”
“Still, you’re showing a very professional attitude, and you presented it in a very mature style, addressing everything in a very adult manner. I’m very proud of you, just as I am all of you girls,” David announced to the entire room.
Amy couldn’t help herself, she sat a little straighter, puffing her chest out a little unintentionally as her smile grew. The other girls also congratulated her as well.
“How did President Daniels know what was happening, and how to respond if he’s so hapless and the General was injured?” Linda asked.
“We’re talking about the Pentagon here. They’ve got tons of long range encrypted walkie-talkies they used in Afghanistan, so they aren’t quite as hamstrung as the rest of us. They still can’t make phone calls or fly in or out, but they’ve still got access to the best in technology.”
“Oh, I hadn’t considered that,” Linda admitted.
“Now, how do you think we should try to report this? Keep in mind, we want to avoid panicking people, and we probably don’t want to make the military aware of us as a possible source of embarrassing information. After all, we’re not that far away from DC ourselves.”
“I don’t think we need to worry about that for a while,” David explained. “We aren’t operating from an established license, and the military is hampered by bad roads and an inability to get aircraft into the air. I don’t think they’ll be likely to locate where we’re broadcasting from, and we’re hardly likely to broadcast far enough to reach DC, although I wouldn’t be surprised to reach either some soldiers’ homes, or the homes of their relatives. But again, I suspect they’re keeping the military on a short leash, seeing as how many people are simply going AWOL, so they probably aren’t letting anyone go home anymore. I think we’re safe broadcasting whatever we want. We’ll just have to figure out what’s the best way to convey the information in the short time span we have, without depressing everyone in our audience.”
“Well, I think this officially marks the moment that all our ideas of life returning to normal are forever erased,” Alice reflected. “There’s no going back from here, and life is never going to be like it was again.”
“But at least we’re holding our own, here,” Caitlyn observed.
Thus they all huddled together, working over the details of their next upcoming broadcast.
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