Refuge - 7. Chapter 7: Planning and Protection

Calvin

Gary was conducting the meeting, even though we were in my office. Tom, the construction foreman, and a couple of his men were there. So were Casey and Kevin, Uncle George, and two of Gary’s Army guys. Richard had brought his friend, the new guy, Paul, and Paul’s boyfriend, Bryan. When Paul wasn’t looking, Bryan caught my eye and gave me a thumbs up. We grinned at one another, and I made a mental note to get to know him, better. He was smart, he was cute, and he had courage. He would make a great role model for the younger boys, and a good friend—maybe, a good boyfriend.

“We’re going to plan for a population of 3,500 people,” Gary said. “That number is based on a couple of things. One is how much more construction material we believe we can bring in, and how fast Tom’s crews can work without cutting corners. Another is how much storage space for food, gasoline, diesel, and other stuff we can create. Casey will explain the main reason, though.”

Casey was our planner. He and Kevin, both of whom were computer geeks, had put together spreadsheets to track construction, material acquisition, people, everything you could think of.

“We don’t know how long we’re going to have to do without outside help,” Casey said. “We’ve always grown corn, wheat, sorghum, peanuts, rice, potatoes, and silage. We’re going to add some different kinds of beans, including soybeans. The canyon is huge, but the ground that’s suitable for crops is limited. The 3,500 number matches closely what our calculations say we can feed.

“Every cabin will have a vegetable garden, and those are being staked out, now. We’ll be able to use gas-powered tillers as long as we can get gasoline. After that? Shovels and hoes.”

He paused to make a note. I guessed that the note said, “Order more shovels and hoes.”

“All the lakes have been stocked with tilapia and catfish,” Kevin added while Casey was busy. “They were already stocked with bass and bream. We’ll not be able to harvest the new fish until next fall—it’s going to have to be catch and release until then.”

It was my turn. “We’re changing the composition of the herd, going to long-horns that can survive on scrubby pasture. We’re reserving the better pasture for the dairy cattle.

“What’s the status on those?”

One of Gary’s opsec guys answered. “The trucks started leaving Kansas City this morning just before dawn. Staged about an hour apart, the last one will leave tomorrow around midnight. It’ll take them about 12 hours to reach Midland, where they’ll offload at a ranch, there. The guy who owns the ranch was in our company in Afghanistan. We trust him. He’ll load the cattle onto closed semitrailers that will get here starting in four days. These second set of trucks will make two or three round-trips, each over several weeks. He’s bringing his herd of dairy cattle and longhorns here, too. They’re in Calvin’s plans. The man and his family have already been cleared to move here. They’re going to be house parents in . . . Cabin 87.”

“We will start taking delivery of MREs in a few days,” Gary said. “The Meals Ready to Eat are used by both the military and FEMA following a disaster. The ones we’re getting were ordered, but not paid for, by FEMA. The manufacturer is happy to sell them to us for half-price.”

“Who do they think they’re selling to?” Tom asked. He’d been in the Army, too, and the opsec stuff fascinated him.

“A survivalist group in Montana,” one of the opsec guys said. “The trucks will be from Crete, Nebraska, and they’ll head west just like they were going to Great Falls, Montana but instead of turning north at Denver, they’ll turn south. The trucking company is exclusive carrier for a company that buys a lot of cattle and ships a lot of dog food. The trucks will be manifested for that, in case they ever get stopped.”

“The problem that’s going to face us as soon as the MREs arrive is where to put them. We just don’t have the room, and they should be kept in a cool place . . . the cooler, the better.”

“Um . . . ." That was Casey. He looked at me. Calvin? Please don’t punish me. I’m sorry, I disobeyed, really I am, but this is important!

I had no idea what he was trying to tell me, but I sent back. Casey? I’ve never punished you! If you know something important, tell us . . . at least, tell me. I promise I’ll not punish you. You’re my brother! I love you!

Casey nodded. “I know where we can store all the MREs in the world, at fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit, year around.”

Several eyebrows were raised. Paul nodded. “You know where there’s a limestone cave?”

Casey’s mouth opened wide. “How did you know? I mean, yes. Calvin and I found it a long time ago. He made me promise never to go in, because it might be dangerous. I did, though. It’s huge! But how did you know?”

“The topography and the geology, as well as all the water, especially the springs. A lot of this canyon rests on limestone parent material. When you said fifty-five degrees, year round, I knew it had to be a cave. Will you show me?”

Paul blushed a little. “Sorry, I hope I haven’t crossed a line.”

I knew instantly what he meant. He was the new guy. He wasn’t a god. He hadn’t been in the Army with Gary. He was a little unsure of his place. So I answered. “Paul, you hadn’t been here more than a couple of days before you showed us how to quadruple the capacity of the solar farm just by fixing the existing equipment to work the way it was supposed to. You are a full member of this community. Please believe that.”

“Thank you, Calvin,” Paul said. “When can we . . . ?”

“Right after the meeting, if Calvin says it’s okay,” Casey said.

“Of course it’s okay, and I want to go too. Maybe one of Tom’s men?” I asked.

Tom nodded. “I’d like to take a look, myself. We may need to enlarge the entrance, make a road, and definitely build some dunnage racks.”

“That really solves one problem. There are a couple of other things to think about,” Gary said. “Gasoline and diesel are going to be problematic, since they break down after a while. We’ll have fuel stabilizers, but they can only keep the fuel useable for a couple of years.”

Paul sort of umm’ed like he had something to say. I caught his eye and raised my eyebrow.

“You’re sitting on a huge natural gas deposit,” he said. “The geology of this place clearly shows that … well, if the deposit could be tapped, all the trucks, tractors, HUM-Vs, can be converted to run on that. And, it would be available for heating, and hot water. You know the electricity that can be generated here won’t be enough.”

“Shit!” That was Casey.

“What?” I asked. And don’t say shit!

Casey grimaced, and then grinned, and then said. “I’ve got to find and buy more than 100 institutional-sized gas stoves and water heaters. And spare parts. And figure out how to get them here.”

“And about 400 miles of pipe,” Tom added. Casey giggled.

“Don’t forget well-drilling equipment,” Paul said.

I laughed at that. “Well-drilling equipment? Not a problem. This is Texas, and you can get that kind of stuff at the Five and Dime.”

Paul

I felt a lot better after Calvin’s little speech. The ranch was swarming with high-powered people. It was easy to tell who the gods were, and there were a lot of them: Calvin and Casey, who owned the ranch; their boyfriends, Aiden, Kevin, and Bobby. Uncle George, of course. Richard and Zhang when they were in residence; Gary and Nemesis; Tisiphone and her sisters; and Dike, who was a frequent visitor. The ranch hands were something more than human, too, but I hadn’t figured them out, and no one had volunteered to tell me.

I was more worried about Bryan than about me. Because he was my boyfriend and Zhang’s, he was thrust in the company of boys who had powers: Authorities and Attributes. I was afraid he’d feel inadequate, and I needed to keep an eye on that.

After the planning meeting, Casey invited Bryan and me to lunch with him and Calvin. Tom, too, since he was going to explore the cave with us. And Kevin, and Aiden. We were all pretty excited. It was like we were kids—even those who weren’t kids—going on an adventure. Then I realized, these people were under a lot of pressure, and for them, this was an adventure, a break from the stress.

Casey and Kevin were bent over their iPads the whole time we ate, poking in notes and whispering to one another. When lunch was over, Kevin announced that equipment was waiting for us. “Hank has a HUM-V outside with flashlights, rope, hiking sticks, hard hats, canteens, a camera. Anybody besides me need to change to boots?”

Kevin and Aiden, who were wearing trainers, rushed out of the kitchen, followed by Calvin and Casey. Bryan and I had been planning to continue our exploration after the meeting, and wore hiking boots. Tom, of course, wore steel-toe work boots. Casey and Calvin wore cowboy boots: okay for horseback riding; not so good for hiking and caving.

The cave was all Casey said, and more. Tom did a little back-of-the envelope surveying—actually he drew on Casey’s iPad and emailed the drawings to himself.

“We’ll not be able to get semis this far,” he said. “I want to put in gravel to this point . . . ." He gestured. “We’ll offload the trucks at the pavilion, and use a HUM-V with the trailer to bring stuff to here. After that, it’s going to be manual labor. I don’t want to do any blasting, and we don’t have time to enlarge the opening any other way. I’ll get dunnage racks made from scrap lumber. Actually, we’ll haul the lumber here and make the racks once we’re inside. We’ll run a cable across the ground for electricity for lights; later, we’ll bury it.”

“Why not run gravel all the way, and why not put in utility poles,” Casey asked.

“Opsec,” Tom said. “Gravel road can be spotted in satellite imagery. So can utility poles. I don’t want anyone to know where the cave is.”

Satellite imagery, I thought. And not just DHS. The French still have a satellite in orbit. The Chinese, Soviets, Japanese, and South Koreans, too. Who else? India, maybe. Someone is sure to spot the new cultivated land, the new buildings. This place is going to stand out like a redheaded child at a family reunion.

“Calvin? May I talk to you for a minute?”

We were walking back to the HUM-V after exploring the cave. He nodded.

“Sure,” he said.

“You heard what Tom said about satellite imagery. But it’s more than a gravel road and a few power poles.” I explained what I was concerned about.

“Shit,” Calvin said. Then, he really scared me. He spoke to the empty air in front of us. “Uncle George, I need you.”

And Death stood before us.

“Tell him, please,” Calvin said.

I described my concerns. Uncle George got pale. “It may already be too late,” he said. “What can we do?” His question was addressed to me.

“Not too late,” I said. “But it soon may be.”

“We have some options. Camouflage. Hack the downlinks and delete any future photos of us—replace them with old stuff. Hack the control system and keep them from photographing this area—and others, too so that a holiday area in Texas doesn’t tip them off. Destroy the satellites. Destroy the main databases. Destroy the ground stations.

“Those are my first thoughts. We might want to get some other peop . . . uh, folks in on this. Some of the Army guys?”

Uncle George and Calvin probably were talking mind-to-mind because they both grabbed one of my hands and Bryan’s, and we were back in Calvin’s office. He started making phone calls. In minutes, the opsec guys were there. I told my story once again, including some of the ways to hide us.

The opsec guys looked at one another and shook their heads. “Calvin, I’m sorry, but this is way above our pay grade . . . and security clearances,” one of them said. “Paul knows a lot more than we do. Who were you with? Homeland Security? CIA?”

I shook my head. “What I know is from open sources,” I said. “There’s probably a lot more, out there. It might help if there were some way to get into military or intelligence data bases, though.”

# # # # #

The Very Large Array radio telescope observatory near Socorro, New Mexico, had not been operational for years. There was no immediate military application, and there certainly was no profit to be made nor any contribution to homeland security. The liquid helium that had chilled the receivers to near absolute zero in order to increase their sensitivity had long ago boiled away. That was okay. We weren’t going to listen to the stars, but to satellites that were a lot closer. And, we were going to talk to them.

Bryan

Paul was the leader of the expedition. I knew he was uncomfortable with that. There were a bunch of gods along on the trip: the Alpha Computer Geeks, Kevin and Casey; Nemesis, Gary’s boyfriend and god of Retribution, even though his powers were limited unless someone needed to be retributioned. And Tisiphone, but none of her sisters. Paul had asked me if I wanted to go. I knew he was still worried about me . . . a mortal boy in the company of greatness, so to speak. Of course, I said yes. I didn’t want my mortal daddy running around with all those gods by himself!

In good times, it would have been an eight-hour drive. We couldn’t translocate—too much heavy equipment. Paul had built a transceiver to attach to one of the radio telescopes, and a backup transceiver. We figured we’d need our own power, so we had a trailer with a generator and a tank truck of fuel—and gas for the vehicles, too. We ended up with quite a convoy. Casey drove a Mercedes SUV; Paul drove an F-450 dually crew-cab with a trailer. The transceivers were boxed up in the bed of the truck; the generator was on the trailer. Kevin drove a truck full of supplies. Nemesis drove another SUV—something Swedish, I think. HUM-Vs with ranch hands led and followed. More ranch hands rode in every vehicle.

We were ambushed just outside of Hatch, New Mexico. A landslide partly blocked the Interstate, and we had to slow down. And bunch up. I guess that’s what the ambushers had in mind. We made a compact target. A rocket-propelled grenade exploded in front of the lead HUM-V, which stopped abruptly. The rest of us bunched up, even more. Then, men in hunting camo swarmed over the sides of the road from where they’d been hiding.

The ranch hands saved us. The three in the back seat of the crew-cab opened the doors, and stepped out with weapons I hadn’t even known they had. Paul pushed my head down, but not before I saw cowboys with automatic weapons lined up on both sides of the road firing at the ambushers.

I’m not sure our attackers got a shot off except for the first RPG. Paul kept his hand on my head and lay on top of me until the shooting stopped.

“We’re okay,” he said into the radio. I heard Casey and Nemesis acknowledge, then Kevin, and then the men in the HUM-V’s, “Escort One,” “Escort Two,” “Escort Three,” “Escort Four.” Just like on TV. I giggled, but my laughter was tinged with relief.

# # # # #

There was only one guy at the VLA. He was living in a camper parked outside what the signs said was the control building. He thought we were official--maybe his relief come with food and fuel.

“I’ve got another couple of days of gasoline for the generator on the camper. And food for another week,” he said. “You guys got here just in time.”

“I’m sorry,” Paul said. “We’re not from the government or the university. We just need to borrow a little time on the system.”

Paul chuckled after he said that. Back when, observation time on the VLA had been more precious than gold to radio astronomers who were making some incredible breakthrough observations. Not SETI—the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence—or anything like that, but on the nature of the universe. What they discovered had contradicted the views of the evangelicals—it frightened them, and they’d lobbied successfully to get the system de-funded.

The guy in the camper, who had introduced himself as Dr. Adams, chuckled, too.

“That generator will power no more than one dish at a time,” he said. “And unless you brought liquid helium . . . well, even one antenna won’t be of much use.”

Paul explained that we only needed one of the twenty-seven dishes, and that we’d be working some satellites in both geosynchronous and what he called Molniya orbits.

Dr. Adams was clearly puzzled, but agreed to help. “It’s not like they can fire me,” he said.

It was three days later before we were ready. Power was easy. We hooked up the generator to a dish, cranked the generator, and ran a self-test. The first antenna we picked froze before it could slew in a full circle. The second one, however, tested out okay. Then Paul insisted on testing until we had identified two, working backup antennas.

“If anyone figures out what we’re doing, we’ll find ourselves under time pressure. If the first antenna fails before we’re finished, we won’t want to waste time identifying another.”

Next we replaced the receiver on the working antenna with the transceiver Paul had built, making sure it was perfectly aligned to get the most out of the antenna’s reflective surface. The transceiver slid into the old receiver slot, perfectly. Dr. Adams was impressed.

“That’s pretty amazing. You won’t have to align it, will you? How . . . ?”

“The specs were on-line at Berkley. Well, at their backup in Kansas.”

Dr. Adams looked away for a few seconds. Tisiphone was the one who figured out something was wrong.

“Are you okay, sir?” she asked.

Dr. Adams straightened up. “Yes, thank you.”

He shuddered like he was shaking off something that I couldn’t see. “When the rioters burned the Berkley campus, I lost several friends, including one very special friend. I’m glad, Paul, that you were able to retrieve the data from Kansas . . . it will be a memorial to them. They were all part of this program.” He waved his hands at the acres and acres of antennas.

The next day, Dr. Adams opened a safe in the control room and pulled out a three-ring binder. Red letters on the cover spelled out TOP SECRET. There were other words, too, funny ones.

“We have to know when satellites are transiting, and which ones send data back to earth so we can filter out their transmissions. This data base is two years old, but it’s a safe bet that nobody’s launched anything since then.”

Paul had explained to Dr. Adams what we were going to do. Paul was a little anxious, but Dr. Adams had nodded and opened the safe.

Kevin and Casey put information from the binder into their scheduling software.

“Three more satellites, Paul,” Kevin said. “It will make the schedule tight on days two and four, but it’s do-able if there are no problems.”

Paul nodded. “Thanks Kevin. Casey? Would you give the flash drive to Dr. Adams—”

“Uh, Paul?” Dr. Adams interrupted. “I’m not the only one here with a PhD. I recognized you the first day. But I’m the only one who doesn’t seem to have a first name. My fault, I guess. Please, will you and the youngsters call me Bob?”

“Sure thing, Dr. Bob,” Nemesis said. He was the closest to Dr. Adams—now Bob—and gave him a hug. And read him. And let the rest of us know that Bob was not gay, and that the special friend who had died in the Berkley Riots was a girlfriend. Naturally, we all started thinking about who to hook him up with. Except Tisiphone, who heard what we were thinking, and snorted her derision.

Oh, yeah. I heard Nemesis pass the word. Don’t know if he made sure I could hear his mind, or if I was getting powers—the ones Apollo said I’d get. I kind of hoped I wasn’t getting powers. I was afraid of how Paul would react to that.

Within an hour, we were ready. Paul read numbers from his iPad. Dr. Bob typed them into a computer hooked to the antenna we’d selected. The rest of us stood by the window, fingers crossed, watching. The antenna slewed. As soon as the sensors reported that the antenna had stopped vibrating, the computer transmitted the hack that was on Casey’s flash drive.

Tisiphone read numbers off a computer screen and compared them to ones on her iPad. At first, she hadn’t wanted the iPad. “Boys and their toys!” she said. But when she found the iBooks app, and downloaded a bunch of books from the iTunes store, she was hooked.

“Antenna was on target when the transmission was sent. We’ll know in … three orbits if we got into its system.”

“Thanks, Tisiphone,” Kevin said, and poked at his iPad. “Ready for the next one, Paul.”

Actions and conversations like these were repeated for the next four days. They were interspersed with reports of success.

“India-zero-one reports hack accepted and has shut its receiver to any message without our unique header,” Tisiphone reported. The next day, there were three successes. On Day 3, we had to re-hack a Russian satellite. We didn’t find out until Day 5 that we’d succeeded. Paul was getting antsy. I was getting worried about him.

We had set up a small tent city near the control building. Paul and I were the only boyfriend pair, but I was pretty sure the gods were polyandrous, and that no one, except perhaps Dr. Bob and Tisiphone was doing without. Actually, I wasn’t sure about the two of them.

After Paul’s breathing slowed down, I asked him what was worrying him. He hugged me so tight I was scared.

“If we don’t get the last two satellites tomorrow, we may be exposed. The USA and China will get to them before we can, and lock down their software so tight even Kevin won’t be able to hack it.”

“I don’t understand? What happens tomorrow? I mean, the satellites are just supposed to not take pictures of the ranch and some other places so people won’t be suspicious, right?”

I felt Paul tremble. “You and I, and Kevin and Bob are the only ones who know this,” he said. “The whole world will know after tomorrow . . . if it gets past the military censors. We’re not just reprogramming the satellites. Each of the satellites has maneuvering thrusters so that their orbits can be fine-tuned. In wartime their orbits can be changed to focus on specific targets rather than just winding around the earth like a ball of string.

“Kevin has reprogrammed the satellites not to take pictures of the ranch, all right. But he’s also programmed them to self-destruct. Tomorrow, at midnight our time, the satellites will begin turning their maneuvering thrusters so that they point forward, directly into the orbital vector, and fire them until the fuel is exhausted. They’ll fall to earth rather quickly, after that. The programs we’ve loaded will cause them to land in Antarctica, since a lot of them have nuclear power supplies, and that may be where they’d do the least damage.

“Dike said that we weren’t the only Refuge, but she wouldn’t or couldn’t say where others were. However, they had to be protected, and this was the only way to do that.”

We got the last two satellites. Paul was confident enough in Kevin’s software that the convoy was packed up and ready to roll by 9:00 AM. We put the generator in a shed, after draining the fuel.

Paul looked over the VLA. “Some day, somebody may come back here,” Paul said. We all knew he was kidding himself, but none of us was willing to say it, not even Dr. Bob.

“Bob?” Paul said. “We’re going back to a place that we hope will survive what we believe to be the coming collapse of civilization. You’ve helped us immensely. However, we don’t make this offer from gratitude, but because we think you may be able to help us . . . a fair trade of your knowledge and talents for the hope of safety we offer. Will you leave here and return with us?”

I knew Paul and Nemesis had talked about this, and that Nemesis had talked to Gary.

Bob nodded. “I understand why you were doing what you were doing, you know. You’re protecting your refuge, and other places of safety, aren’t you?”

Paul nodded.

“Yes,” Bob said. “You’re good people and what you did with the radio telescopes to help save people is the real memorial to my friends, not some drawings on a server in a salt mine in Kansas, which probably won’t survive long, anyway.”

The satellite news channels that were all we got at the ranch talked about heavy meteor activity over Antarctica for the next weeks. Paul had done a program on meteors from Mars that fell on Antarctica, and reruns of that show made him quite a celebrity. He declined requests for interviews, though. We could communicate with the outside by email and VOIP through surrogates that Kevin, and therefore Calvin and the Army opsec guys, trusted. But a video feed would have had too wide a bandwidth, and would have been too hard to secure.