Story Market Day

Ladies and gentlemen,

I was late on my anniversary post.

July 31st 2019, I plopped a little 3000 word story here for the rest of you to read. It was a bit of put up or shut up. I had grown frustrated with the formulamatic stories I had been finding and decided I needed to at least try to do something about it. I set out to write a story that went across the normal flow. no tragic SF Superspook and the requisite female prairie wife who just wrung their hands, canned and baked.

Military people and civilians with real jobs, problems, imperfect relationships, not everyone with the same perfect solution, not everyone with a warehouse , a thousand acres of crops and 10 billion in assets.

This board looked at what I wrote and didn't tell me it was garbage. Several said "More, Please"

So I did more. And you guys keep asking me to keep going for the next seven years.

Along the way, the cast of characters went from the one actual and one other mentioned in the first post has increased by a couple (300+ and climbing)

Two books have been published, a third is being edited, 8 others sit waiting for the edit and publish process while Book Twelve is working it's way onto the site currently. There are at least three more on the drawing boards as well.

Today I sat and stuffed all 12 into a single word doc as I sometimes do

12 font,
4269 pages
1819221 words

I hope I can keep entertaining you. I enjoy the process. I sit back and watch what Bekka, Garen, Angelique, Kara , Allyson, Doug, Heidi, Emilia and the others do, then I report my observations to you guys.

Without your feedback and encouragement, I'd be back to Highlander/Buffy Fanfic writing.

Now, let me see what these guys are up to now...
 
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Later


Allyson and Angelique were sitting on some lawn chairs on the roof of The Center. They had gotten the truck pulled in and everything reset to run out and scoop up Kara and the others if they needed to, not that the reset took any real amount of prep. Once they were done, they had a quick meal before retiring to the roof of the parking garage to sit and wait. At first, the talk was mission and food specific, but as they sat there relaxing with a warm beverage, it wandered to other things.

“I finally got a look at it. Poor kid looks like she was hit by a truck.” Angelique said.

“She looks better now. You should have seen her the other day when Ruby drove them over. I thought Penny was going to blow a gasket when she saw Olivia’s busted nose and all the blood down her face and shirt.”

“I bet. I never got the full story about how it happened either.” Angelique said.

“I don’t know if we will. Best we could get them to say was it was a missed block during some sort of sparring practice since Violet was coming back up to work with them and they needed to practice more.”

“And what part did Jennifer have in it all?”

“I don’t know but she was sporting a serious shiner as well. Ruby said by the time she got there, Jennifer was stunned on the ground, the wind knocked out of her, but she was holding a cloth on Olivia’s nose, trying to help her. Ruby wouldn’t say who else was there, but let it slip that several of the others are probably going to start calling Olivia ‘honey badger’ from now on. She was still in the fight, broken nose and all.”

“And Ruby?”

“Threw both of them in the cart and brought them over to the Training Building to have me, Kara or Garen to look at them since you were elsewhere.”

They sat there in the quiet before Allyson spoke again.

“After they got Olivia all cleaned up and she saw herself in the mirror, she said something like ‘hey! I’m in the club now’. When I pressed her on it, she said ‘Sabine, Angelique, Kara, and now me’ pointing at her nose.”

Angelique’s hand went to her own long nose, and it’s corresponding mild marks of trauma.

“Not a club I’d be racing to join.” Angelique said as she brought her hand down.

“Well, in her defense, I don’t think she walked out and said ‘please break my nose so it looks like Angelique’s’. And yours isn’t that prominent. Out of the three she named, yours is in the middle. Sabine’s is more prominent and Kara’s is more of dinged up. She hasn’t seen Ewa’s. That nose has a Z shape to it.”

“At least she doesn’t have to worry about going through the last two years of High School being compared to an eagle.” Angelique answered.

“Better an eagle than a Pelican.” Allyson shot right back as she turned her head to look at her.

“What?”

“If those stuck up assholes you went to high school with saw you now, they wouldn't know what to do. You’d be the queen of the prom, if anyone had the balls to ask you to go with them.”

“Yeah, right!” Angelique said, the color warming her skin.

“Hell, girl. You got a body fit for the cover of a swimsuit mag, or a muscle and fitness mag. Only Ruby has more dramatic hair, and if they gave you shit, you’d just scowl and they would burst into flame.”

“Now you’re picking on me.” Angelique said.

“I’m serious. You don’t believe me? You could go right over to the farm and snap your fingers, and you would have Brody and any of the others falling to your feet in a heartbeat.”

Angelique didn’t say anything for several long moments. She was thinking about Emilia and her unknown elements and her attraction to Derek and Gretchen. Did she have feelings like that for anyone? Did she WANT feelings like that for anyone.

She was always reading about romance and passion, but as much as the abstract ideas stirred her, she wasn’t sure what she actually WANTED.

“I’ll worry about that when the time comes.” Angelique finally said as she sat back in her chair as she stared up at the stars.
 
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Got mine broken about 10 times. Twice with being hit by a baseball bat and a third time by a metal rod woke up in hospital. Nose had already been set, I could still see the indent in my cheek and nose in the mirror from the rod. The last time was a grounder in softball that hit a rock or something and came up right under my nose. The shortstop walked over and picked up the ball and said, "You knocked it down why didn't you throw him out." Then laughed and handed me a towel someone had brought out to stop the blood.

Thanks CCG!
 
Morning, Garen and Bekka’s Garage


It was mid-morning and Bekka was in the garage working on the interior of the latest addition to the Inkspot Fleet. She had the center console out and on one of her sawhorse workbenches and the headliner and other interior trim from the doors and walls in a stack against a cabinet out of the way.

She was inside the Interceptor measuring her cable runs now. She was using an old trick Jesse showed her. She had a small bucket of magnets with hooks and a length of cord she had previously marked in one foot and six inch segments. She would put the magnets along the path she needed the cable to go, then run the cord through the hooks. This let her get a better guestimate than her old way of just running it from the spool and cutting it later.

She had a dozen different colors of parachute cord as well. She would run them, a different color for different radios and power runs. Then she could look at where they run together. She would use twist ties to make bundles and designate where they split and where they went, along with number tags to correspond to the destinations of all the parts.

Once she had it all figured in cord, she would take pictures and make diagrams. Then she could pull the cord out and build a full-on harness outside the vehicle instead of contorting herself inside it. This would let her put on the spiral wraps or split wraps or whatever else she thought the cables needed to protect them without having to tug and pull and all the other hassles of doing it in the vehicle like normal.

If she did it this way, and did it right, as long as she had all the same radio and antennae packages, she could build all the harnesses for the three Interceptors at once on the workbench. Then a thumbdrive of the pictures, diagrams, manuals, along with the harnesses, radios and roof pods, could go south so someone else can do the other two installs instead of her doing them all. One was enough right now.

She felt like she was fighting a squid. Even with it separated out into function, there were a shitload of cables, especially with the redundant stations and switches she was building in. There was the laptop mount for the front and the second one she was putting in for someone in the back seat. This would let them do computer-based radio operations as well. This would be the force-multiplier for more sensitive scanning and offensive electronic work.

A large amount of that info came from Ivar and Bron. She was originally wanting to mainly be able to find the frequencies others were using and either listen in or flood them with a much more powerful signal to jam them. Ivar and Bron were talking about direction finding, spoofing, and a bunch of other elements. This is what had her building the ECM pods for the roofs. She concentrated on what antennae they said she needed and what radio components she should put in, focusing on ones that could be accessed easily with the computer lash ups.

When she explained it all to Garen for the third or fourth time, he just told her if it was something she needed his help for let him know, but if he had to understand what he was doing, she better have labels, pictures and diagrams for him to follow.
 
Later


Bekka was measuring cables and setting out plugs when she heard tires on the driveway. She looked up to see Ruby in the cart along with several passengers. Evelyn was in the front passenger spot.

“What brings you up this way?” She asked as she walked towards the front of the garage.

“I brought you some helpers. Garen said you needed fingers for some detail work.” Ruby said as she stepped out of the cart.

“I thought you were helping Alonzo on the other medivacs?” Bekka asked Evelyn.

“Too many hands and Garen said you could use help more up my alley.” Evelyn said as she walked up. Bekka noticed she had a cane with her but was holding it in her hand by it’s shaft instead of using it right now.

Bekka saw several other step out of the cart. She looked at them. Lydia, Jennifer and…

“Damn! Olivia, what the hell happened?”

Olivia uncharacteristically looked down and pulled her toe across the pavement in front of her as she answered.

“I missed a block. It’s no big deal, Ms Bekka.”

“You didn’t miss it! You took it on purpose so you could get in closer.” Jennifer said quickly. “She took the shot so she could win.”

Bekka looked from Olivia to Jennifer, then a little closer at Jennifer.

“Looks like you took a few too, Jennifer. Do I want to know what the hell you squirrely girls have been up to?”

“Nothing, Ms Bekka. Just training.” Olivia said quickly, followed by a glare at Jennifer.

Bekka just shook her head for a moment, glancing from Olivia to Jennifer and then to Ruby, then over at Lydia.

“At least you don’t look to be wrapped up in the bangs and bruise club.”

Bekka saw a subconscious hand movement towards her face where Lydia’s nose seemed to wear the results of such activity in her past.

“No ma’am.” Lydia said softly.

“So, here’s your crew of nimble-fingered elves for the day, Bekka. Odina will have some lunch ready in a couple hours, and someone will swing up and deliver so you don’t have to feed this crowd.” Ruby said.

“Thanks Ruby.”

“No problem.” Ruby said as she stepped back to the cart.

As Ruby turned away, Bekka looked at Evelyn.

“OK, the biggest thing I need you guys to help me with is the sound-deadening and mesh that goes all over the inside. Lots of cut, measure, peel, stick and rolling. The first part is sorting through the paper patterns I have and making patterns for the sections we don’t have patterns for. When we cut the mat material, we will make three of each one so they are already done for the other two vehicles.”

“Sounds like my kind of thing. Lots of benchwork.” Evelyn said.

“Yeah, and once we get them started, if you can backcheck my electronics assembly…”

“Sure thing. I haven’t burned the shit out of myself with a soldering iron in a week or two.” Evelyn said with a smile.

“Yeah, it will keep you in practice for the rat’s nest I’m sure you will be working on with Oskar’s boat project.” Bekka said with a grin.

“I’m still waiting for Mia and Erich to finish laying out the inside and outside cockpit layouts.” Evelyn said.

“Not Oskar?”

“He’s comfortable on the water, but not the one you want designing. Nadia is the one with the sailing experience and she’s working with Erich and Mia on how to make it all workable and usable for the ride north.”

Bekka could tell Evelyn wasn’t wanting her to dig deeper right now. No matter. There was plenty to do and focus on.

“Ok, here’s what we are doing.” Bekka addressed the group to get underway.
 
High in the Hospital


The toughest part so far was getting through the jumble of trash and debris in the parking structure. They had to be careful. They were moving in the dark. The goggles were good, but they only did so much. They were splitting time between scanning ahead and around themselves and trying to pick out details and signs in the main building before they made entrance.

As they moved along, they found various interesting tidbits. There were signs of earlier activity. They actually found spaces where things had been cleared and some trails made, but these were old and long abandoned. Part of the problem with the parking structure was it’s location on the seaward side of the building, exposing anything here to the wind and weather.

They didn’t see any recent activity, so they moved to the next problem-finding a way inside without using the main entrance.

One thing to their favor in gaining entry was the shattered windows on the seaward side. This also made them fearful of what they might find inside. Their biggest hope was the supplies and resources they were after were on upper floors above the destruction.

The lowest of the windows were still a good height from the ground, but they had come prepared for that.

The stick ladder sections were usually strapped to trees by hunters to get them access to their tree stands. Now, they had some with a couple reinforcing collars for the joints that when assembled, would give them a thirty foot head start up the side of the building. They calculated coming in the third story window would be unexpected by any still inside.

Kara was the first one up while Hanna and Rahel held the ladder. She moved up fast and quiet. The ladder placed her at the side of the window. A couple quick glances and she knew the room was empty. A simple patient room, the beds damp and growing a green carpet. The door was closed. She saw no hint of light below the door hinting at anyone nearby.

She crossed to the door. As slow and delicately as she could, she pulled the door open a crack. Nothing in the short hallway. Nothing moving in the NVG, nothing warm in the thermal. She pressed the door closed again, this time twisting the deadbolt.

Returning to the window, she leaned out and looked down. Hanna and Rahel were there looking up at her. She waved them to come up before she ducked back inside the room. She reached out with one arm, taking hold of the top of the stick ladder and leaned back, bracing herself against the inner wall to help steady the stick for Hanna to climb.

In short order, Hanna was climbing in the window. Kara stayed in place as Hanna waved for Rahel. Once Rahel was in the room, The three of them pulled the stick ladder up and in, breaking it down int its pats again. They didn’t want to leave a neon sign that something new had happened. Especially one that pointed out the exact floor and room it happened in and gave an easy way for someone to come in behind them.
 
The room was quiet and they were able to rest and regroup. They wouldn’t drag the sticks with them, and some other non-critical supplies would get stashed here until they had a better lay of the place. They wanted to be light, fast and quiet as they explored.

To that end, they were armed, but focused more on the ‘break contact, run and hide’. Kara was carrying the suppressed MP5, while Hanna and Rahel had stubby ARs, light and fast.

It was Kara in the lead when they left the room. She made sure they all took a solid mental picture of their cache room number and location. They didn’t want to do anything obvious like mark the door, otherwise if anyone else was in here, it could alert them and they could also loose the supplies.

One of the big tools for this reconnaissance was the cellphones clipped to their chest rigs. They were there primarily for picture taking and review. With these, they could do an inventory and reference, then when. They had a good batch of info, they would compress and send it back to the others.

The first task was finding out where they were and where everything else was.

Kara led them out and around. It turned out this floor was broken into three sections. The part they came into was some sort of VIP or Isolation area. The patient rooms were only on one side of the hall, the one with the sea view. The opposite side was storage rooms for cleaning supplies, nurses station, telemetry monitoring station for the section, a small conference room, a waiting room, a staff breakroom, and even a staff sleep room.

One of Kara’s first thought was ‘this would be the floor to live in after the quake’ but although there seemed to have been signs of scavenging around the outside of the hospital, this small wing seemed untouched. That fact sent shivers up her spine as they continued along.
 
They moved through the hall checking things out. It didn’t take too long before they found a strange anomaly. There was no stairs. They went back and forth, thinking they missed something. They didn’t find a stairwell, nor a door at the end of either hall.

“How the hell are you supposed to get out of here?” Kara asked after the second pass as they stood by the main nurse’s desk.

Hanna looked up and down the hallway. She tried to solve the puzzle.

“OK, there’s an elevator, but no stairs…”

Rahel had an answer.

“VIP Suite. Key Access elevator. Cuts down on the lookie-loos. Ensures privacy.”

“…and no power, no elevator, no obvious stairwell access so no looters.” Kara finished the thought. “So how did people get out of here after the wave?”

“No VIPs, not in use when the wave hit?” Hanna said.

Kara looked up and down the hall again.

“Damn. I hope the elevator’s the whole double door type so when we pry it open, we can go straight across.”

“If the elevator’s stopped on this floor. Otherwise, we’ll need to get a board to walk across on.” Hanna said.

“Painter’s scaffolding. We could use a couple of those.” Kara said as they moved towards the elevator.
 
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At the Elevator


The elevator door was easy since they came anticipating needing to open them to take measurements and such in the shafts.

The emergency key and prybars made quick work of the door. They slid it open. There in front of them was conformation and the next headache. The elevator car wasn’t here, but there was another set of elevator doors across the open shaft. A glance into the shaft itself showed the car was below this floor. The car was pretty far down, below ground level.

One other surprise was this elevator had no cables. It had to be a maintenance or staff only elevator. Since there were no cables, that meant it was hydraulic, which could explain why it was in the basement. In a power out scenario, they usually settled to the lowest accessible floor by default.

“This makes sense, but it doesn’t. This elevator is big enough for supporting this hidden section, but there has to be a stairwell for here too.” Hanna said.

“Hidden access, hidden in plain sight…” Kara said, half to them, half to herself. She started walking back to the nurse’s station.

The other two caught up with her and watched her sweep the shelves and work surfaces, pull open cabinets and drawers.

“What are you looking for?” Rahel asked her.

“There has to be reference books. Joint Commission and all the other inspectors sort of thing.” Kara said as she kept looking. “Ah ha!” She said as she pulled out a big three-ring binder.

She threw it on the counter and began flipping through the tabs until she found a map of the floor. Sne checked the references and flipped to the appendixes. She smiled as she looked up at the others.

“OK, this was set up like the Greenbriar. The whole wall at the end of the hall is a door. In an emergency, like a power outage, the latches open and the whole wall pushes open on a big hinge. But there’s no sign on the outside to give it away.”

“So does it tell how to undo the latches?” Hanna asked.

“They should be undone already. We just have to push from in here.” Kara said.
 
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The Training Building


Garen was working in the upper Armory Connex when he heard steps on the scaffolding steps. He glanced out just in time to see Heidi’s head coming up the steps. He went back to what he was working on.

“What the hell is that thing?” Heidi asked as she stood next to him at the folding table.

Garen glanced over at her as he answered a question with a question.

“You know Bekka’s long gun, right?”

“You didn’t chop it into….” Came Heidi’s horrified voice.

“No, no, nothing like that. I value my life too much. Paige came across this in one of the bins and has been holding onto it for me so I can give it to Bekka as a present.” Garen said as he stepped back a pace so Heidi could get a better look at it.

“You know, it’d probably be kinder and gentler to just get one of those beer-cozy helmets and put two flashbangs in it.” Heidi said as she picked up the stubby little thing with the big muzzle brake.

Garen laughed as he started to explain.

“Same company as hers, but they went the ‘limbo, how small can you go’ route, just because they could.”

Heidi turned the thing over in her hands, shouldering it a time or two. The collapsed stock let it fit her shoulder. She pulled it back down and turned it around a time or two more.

“If the barrel was any shorter, it’d just be simpler to thread the muzzle brake onto the chamber itself.”

“Hey, hey, hey! There’s an eight-inch barrel there.” Garen said with a grin.

“And a four-inch brake. This thing has to throw a fireball bigger than my MG3.’ Heidi exclaimed.

“Paige said it would work better for the shooter as an APC firing port weapon, so all the boom and flash happened on the other side of some armor.” Garen said.

Heidi looked at the thing in her hands and at the iron sights.

“No red dot or optics?”

“If she wants to add some, that’s up to her, but three-hundred WinMag is tough on those things. I’m just sticking to irons for her for now.”

“When are you giving it to her?”

“After we get done with the hospital thing probably, unless the right time shows itself.”
 
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