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“I’ll take that as a yes.  In that case, and keep in mind I’m only speaking for me--I’m not a duly elected representative of this here little band--I’m following you on the way out if that’s alright.  I made my mind up a couple hours after they left the truck stop on Thursday that if I ran into him again I’d tag along with him if he was willing.”

Halstead stepped in at this point, “Mr. Grace, Sergeant Wilson has apparently confirmed that Eric and the group you encountered Thursday afternoon are indeed with us, but he isn’t in charge…”

“Oh, I’m sure of that, and call me Tim, please, but he wouldn’t still be with you if you weren’t worth sticking with, I’m also sure of that.”

Alan spoke up, for the first time since introductions, and it was obvious why he’d let Tim do the talking.  He had a slight stutter which was more pronounced around people he didn’t know very well.  “I’m with th’the other f’fuel tankers.” Alan cursed under his breath.  “If I say we go, we go.  If Tim goes, we’ll go.”

“Tim, you’re laying the humility on a little thick!  You know good and well that anyone who doesn’t roll out of here when you and Alan do is either asleep or having sex in their bunk and I guarantee that they’ll finish quick when they hear us all leaving.  There isn’t anyone here that hasn’t known you fifteen years or more.  We’re all sittin’ here because of you.”  Aaron said.

“I’ll need a list of how many total rigs you have here to make sure there’s space ready for everybody.” Halstead said.

 “Not a problem,” Aaron said. “We’ve also been hearing from a couple of other groups not too far out that would like to join up, and there are some relays going on between people with shortwave/CB combo units.  Once you get set up you could get some more company fairly quick,” he continued.  “There’re some neighborhoods that seem to be doing ok for now and might be ok for the long haul but Pete’s not the only one out there raising a ruckus.” Tim’s jaw was clenching again.  There was something more going on there than Pete and his delusions of grandeur.

“Based on what you’ve seen so far last night and today, do you think you’ll be ok until tomorrow afternoon?” Halstead asked.

Tim looked at Alan and Aaron, both of whom nodded.  “Yeah, I think so.”

“My guess is that we’ll be in touch fairly early tomorrow, then.  I don’t know if it will be one of us or someone from the Armory though.”

“Sounds like a plan.  Sergeant Halstead, is it?”

“That it is, Tim.  Until tomorrow, then, hopefully.”

They all shook hands again and everyone headed back to their vehicles.  “Well, that certainly went well.  Sounds like that was the guy who helped Eric pick out the CBs, too.  Fancy that.” Wilson said as they neared the Humvees.

“Certainly looks that way.  I’ll phone home and let Top know how this went; you go ahead and prep Ramirez to begin thinking about where to park thirty-four semis.  I’m beginning to think we should have just taken over a small town.  At this rate that’s what we’re going to be, and we’re starting from scratch.”

“Roger that.  We’re going to need another Reverse Osmosis Unit going pretty quick at this rate too.  I’m glad the engineers took the extra day at the Armory.  They came up with some pretty sweet field expedients for sanitation and plumbing.”

…

“That’s good to hear, for a number of reasons.” Mallory said.  “I’m glad about the people, the materials, and the fuel.  Things are starting to break down around here already--which is almost unbelievable.  There have already been two fires at night that we could see from the glow, if not the flames, and several more during the day.”

“Oddly enough, there have only been a handful of, well, refugees for lack of a better term, coming to the Armory.” Mallory continued.  “I don’t know how much longer that will last, though.  The neighborhoods they came from are coming apart fast.”

“Any word from higher yet?” Halstead asked.

“No direct or indirect orders and nothing countermanding our current course of action.”

 “Good copy, I read you, Lima Charley.”

“I’m sure you do, Halstead.  In fact, I’m absolutely certain that you do.”

…

“Yeah, sure, things will go quicker with heavy equipment, but it’s a matter of degrees.” Kyle said to Wilson.  “Anything is an improvement over how slow things were before.  But a thousand-fold increase over a snail’s pace is still pretty slow!  Thirty-four tractor trailers by tomorrow night?  At least Halstead had the presence of mind to have
you
tell me so I could swear,” which he proceeded to do, profusely and with great relish.

“Fine, ok, one parking lot coming right up,” Kyle sighed.  “We should have the parking deck done by tonight and the elevator finished in the morning.  Too bad Bun-Bun probably killed Dr. Schlock in this universe.  Inflatable tech would really come in handy right now.”  Kyle was muttering now.

“Say again?” Wilson was lost now.

“Never mind, obscure geek web-comic reference.  You’ll probably never get to read it now unless someone’s got a copy of ‘Little Evils’ lying around.”

“Oookay, how about I act like I want to know at some later time?”

Kyle snorted, “Fair enough.  How far out are you?”

“No more than five minutes from the exit, I assume the bulldozer’s showed up already?”

“Roger, it should be off the trailer by the time you get here.  They’ll be going back for the backhoe within the hour.  See you in ten.”

“Wilson, out.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Karen had been on the outside looking in as a civilian in a military man’s life for the last four years--pretty much ever since she’d started dating Eric.  Not that she’d ever had anything against the military, or guys in it; she’d just never dated anyone in any branch of the armed forces before.  Then she’d met Eric, fallen head over heels in love, and ended up following him around the country.  Truth  be told, they’d only moved twice-- but still, she gave him crap whenever she could.  That was her job after all.

They’d lived off base the entire time; which, while a bit odd, wasn’t unheard of, and made the transition to a completely civilian life a little easier for Eric.  It had also, unintentionally, kept a bit of a barrier between Karen and the other NCO’s wives.  The end result had been to make Karen work that much harder to be included in their circles, as it was important not only to Eric but to Eric’s career.  That experience was coming in handy again now.

“Rachael, I don’t know that this has really ever been done before.  We’re breaking new ground here so we’ll have to make the rules up as we go.  Don’t get hung up on ‘how does the military do this’ or ‘what does the Army think of that’.  Don’t get me wrong, the Army is a
very
important part of the group here, but they are only about a fourth of the people here right now.”

“We are determining how we’re going to integrate everything together, and I think Mallory knew that when she put you, Sheri, and I together to start getting things set up.  She knows my background and some of the things I’ve been through with Eric’s postings.  She knows that this isn’t going to be a military base, and it isn’t going to be a town--it’s going to be something in between.”

“Is it that obvious that’s what I’m thinking?  You know, I could probably get caught up in what already exists fairly easily.” Rachael asked

“It’d be easy to fall into the same trap I did when Eric and I first met.  It took me about six months to realize that I wasn’t an Army wife because we weren’t married, stupid as that sounds.  It took me another six months to realize I wasn’t an officer’s wife, because Eric wasn’t an officer--again, stupid as that sounds.  Some time in there, I also realized there was this ‘glass wall’ between me and the other significant others, because we didn’t live on base.”

“Part of that was because Eric made enough that he wanted something nicer than base housing for us--for me.  Part of that was because he wanted something more convenient to my job.  Just before we moved, I clicked with a couple of the NCO wives.  I’m not entirely sure how or why, but I did, and things started to gel.  I was a person to them, I was real, I was a part of Eric’s life, and I was someone that they would have to deal with, and that they wanted to interact with.

“Then I got to do it all over again.  At least I didn’t have the learning curve the second time and it only took a couple of months, which I’m pretty sure is normal for everyone.”

“So, what are we going to do, Karen?  How do we integrate these two completely different cultures?  How do we create this thing that hasn’t ever existed before?”

“Well, ok, I lied.  If it hasn’t existed before, something like it has, but not quite like this.  But to answer the first question, look at it like this.  Would you ever want a police officer living on your street?  A good police officer, the quintessential officer of the law, the epitome of law enforcement, truly one of the good guys?” Karen asked.

“Um, I’m afraid this is a trick question, so I’m torn between answering truthfully with ‘Yes’ and lying and saying ‘pineapple’,” Rachael replied.

“Go with your gut, and good answers, both, though I’m not sure where pineapple came from--it can’t hurt, especially if it’s in season.  Yes, you want a police officer on your street.  How about, say, a couple of them on your street?  Still sounds good, right?”  Rachael nodded.  “Ok, in a community with a militia--yes, I said a militia--everyone is expected to muster in defense of the community.  But even with a militia, there is still typically a standing Army, capital ‘A’.”

“In a community such as this,” Karen spread her arms out and encompassed the general area, “you don’t also, necessarily, have separate law enforcement.  That can be the job of the Army, or a portion of it.  It has to be spelled out legally, and recognized as such, but it has and can be done.  Ever hear of the Roman Empire?  Before its collapse, Rome had upwards of a million inhabitants and technically, no police force.  If push came to shove, the Vigiles, who were more night watchmen and charged with watching out for fires, could call on the Praetorian Guard who were, you guessed it, a part of the Army.”

“Ok, um, I’m not feeling better about this.” Rachael was giving Karen the stink eye now.

“Oh, stop.  I’m not saying we need to reinstate Imperial Rome!”  Karen rolled her eyes.  “Please, like I would stand for one second being a second-class citizen.  Eric wouldn’t even get to die in his sleep and he knows it.  I said it hasn’t existed quite like this.  My point was that integrating a military and a civilian culture, having them live side by side, creating a new culture out of the two can be done.  Regardless of what HBO would have had you think!”

Both of the women were laughing at that when Sheri walked up.  “I have a feeling that either the ultimate good or supreme evil can come out of that.  Do I get a peek?”

“Absolutely, but you can’t be the virgin sacrifice.  Sorry.”  Karen said.

“Shoot, one girls’ night out too many.  Oh well, more’s the pity.  So what’s up?”

“We’re recreating the Roman Empire but without all the gratuitous sex and pagan rituals--unless you want either or both.  Come to think of it, they did have a decent sanitation system.”

“Karen!”  Rachael barked.

“Oh, all right!  We were just discussing how we’re going to integrate this group together into a functional community, and I was explaining how as far back as Imperial Rome, the military has been used for ad hoc police duty in a pinch.”

“Ok, with you so far.”  Sheri nodded.

“Well, that’s actually as far as we’d gotten,” Rachael admitted.

“Ah, gotcha.  So, it’s certain feasible to have the Guard basically continue to be the guards.”  Sheri crinkled her brow into what the folks at work jokingly called her ‘hound dog brow’.  “So the problem is finding a happy medium, huh?  Not everyone here is going to want to be in the military, and the military needs to maintain a certain amount of structure and strict discipline.”

“She’s a quick study.  If Eric were here he’d ask you where you’d been all his life,” Karen laughed.  “Now if only we can come up with that happy medium, we’ll be all set.”

“Don’t look at me,” Sheri said.  “I’m great at compromise so long as the give and take involves you giving me everything I want and you don’t complain too loudly when I take something I decided not to ask for.”

“And the problem with that is…?” Karen laughed.  “I knew there was a good reason we got along!  Seriously though, we all will have things to contribute to this, but I want to hear your take on this Rachael.  Being married and a mom, I’m sure you’ve got some insight there that will be unique to our little command group here.”

Rachael was gazing off into the distance as she thought about their situation, trying not to think about any one specific thing too deeply.  It was a habit she’d developed in college when dealing with whatever big-picture problem had cropped up, either in class or in life.  She’d found that if she focused on one aspect of the problem too much, it became all consuming, to the exclusion of all else, and the problem not only became insurmountable, but she simply lost sight of what she was supposed to be solving in the first place.

“What are we trying to do here then?” Rachael asked.

“Um, hello, earth to Rachael.  Remember all the people running around with the pretty green and brown and black splotchy clothes, and the living side-by-side with people without the splotchy clothes we’ve been talking about?” Karen was squinting at Rachael now.

Still gazing at nothing, Rachael replied “That isn’t what I mean, and I think you know it.  What are we truly trying to accomplish?  Are we trying to create a new kind of society?  Are we planning on the electricity never coming back on like it used to be?  Are we planning on the central government failing, and if not permanently then for a long time--as in a generation?  Are we just trying to survive until someone bigger, stronger, more prepared, or just plain meaner comes along and tells us what to do?”

“What is the real point of this exercise?  Do we plan on linking up with other groups eventually, and if so, what does ‘eventually’ mean?  This is an awfully big country ladies.” Rachael’s gaze was back to Karen and Sheri, from wherever it had been.  “We are a tiny, miniscule part of it.  We haven’t been thrown back into the Stone Age either; we’ve simply been cut off from the central supply of power and communication.”