Dan and the Bottle Ch. 17

Leeanne sat in her office, talking in low tones with yet another young woman about her experiences in the Chinese camp. This one had been a prisoner for over four years, and looked like a near skeleton from the meager diet of substandard food that was all that the soldiers had given her and her fellow captives to live on. The first thing she'd eaten in the hospital, a half of a roast beef and cheese sandwich, had nearly made her sick. It was too rich for her.

At every base, in every small town, the same scenarios played out, over and over again. They buried their dead, tended to the wounded; widows and now-fatherless-and in a few cases, motherless-children cried themselves to sleep, or just tried to understand why. Slowly, life returned to some semblance of normalcy; and slowly, life went on. The many small communities closed ranks, and a new determination took hold... summed up in six simple words... 'We take care of our own!'

It had been seven weeks since the last attack, almost to the day, and many of the more lightly wounded had been discharged from the hospitals at the three main bases.

Mickey sat back on the sofa in their small, suburban ranch house, watching a vampire movie, Doris beside him, while Cassie puttered in the kitchen, fixing a light lunch for them. He was still restricted to soft foods, easily digestible, but that didn't bother any of them... he was just happy to be home with his two lovers, and they were just as happy to have him home at last. His lung, and the ribs covering it, were well on the way to healing, and the doctor had told him just yesterday that he could smoke a little bit again; in fact, he encouraged it, as it would make an effective pain killer, just as long as he didn't overdo it.

Doris had gone out and gotten a small water pipe, and had taken several large buds from the drying rack just this morning, breaking up a small portion for him, ignoring his protests that he was ready for a full load in the small pipe's bowl.

Back at the Cave, Jeff sat back on the sofa in the living room of their apartment, a cup of coffee in hand, while Missy checked his bandages. He'd had BJ pick up an antibiotic ointment from the hospital on the day he was released, and was using it religiously; as a result, his wounds were healing quickly. He was still stiff in spots, and sore as hell, most of the time, but he was getting better. He'd surprised both of his ladies when he solemnly informed Missy that yes, he knew he still 'owed her shooting lessons', but they would have to wait another few weeks.

They hadn't thought he'd remembered that.

He still had to be pushed around in a wheel chair, much of the time, but he was getting better at walking, too, working out for short periods on an elliptical exercise machine, slowly regaining his strength.

BJ, of course, teased him a bit whenever he got on the thing... telling him the longer he stayed on it, the sooner he'd be ready for sex with her again.

He turned the tables on her, telling her he couldn't wait... to screw their mutual girlfriend, Missy.

He was getting frustrated, listening to the two of them making love without him; particularly when Missy went to one of the adult stores in the Cave and came back with a contraption of straps and an attached dildo. Bj had been particularly vocal that night.

Over the ensuing weeks, things settled into a routine once again, with a few exceptions... John Corcoran sent out several teams, who managed to come back with several dozen horses; breaking them to pull the trader wagons turned into an adventure in itself.

A few were broken and trained to saddle and rider; considering nobody in the Cave and the surrounding bases and towns had ever done this before, it was all a hit-or-miss subject. There were books on the subject, in the library, but learning it from a book and actually doing it were two different things.

Eventually, though, they got a handle on things, and soon had four trading caravans going out, hauling wagon loads of surplus gear they'd found in many of the abandoned homes and farms, and coming back with other trade goods, much of which they didn't really need... but it worked to keep up appearances, while the men and women discreetly gathered information on Chinese camps and movements around the regions.

It also turned out to be a good cover for policing certain areas; nothing surprised a gang of bandits more than attempting to rob a small group of wandering traders, only to find themselves facing M16s, 40mm grenade launchers, and men and women skilled in their use.

One particularly large group of the criminals thought they had the upper hand; that changed when the 'traders' they thought they had surrounded called out on their satellite phones, and had air support in less than ten minutes from two Blackhawk helicpters. One of the fools took a shot at one of the choppers, and found out, firsthand, what being the target of a .50 caliber M2 Browning was like... just before he was ripped nearly in half by a stream of rounds from the heavy machine gun.

The pilot briefly considered just touching off a Maverick at the entire group, but figured it would be a waste of a perfectly good rocket.

General Minn, Supreme commander for the Western region of the occupied United States, was beside himself... He had lost contact with yet another base in north western Wyoming, and could get no answers, because there had been no survivors at any of the bases that had been attacked. The only information he did have was that whoever was doing this was well armed, they were using American aircraft and armor the likes of which hadn't been seen since before the Great war, and they were, apparently, highly motivated.

One patrol group, which had been away from it's base, gathering provisions, had managed to avoid the attackers... these lucky men had reported that their base camp had come under attack by people in ancient American uniforms, carrying comparable weapons and using ancient aircraft and heavy armor. They had seen this and turned away at once, not stopping until they reached the safety of a Chinese base in northern California.

He had, at first, written off their accounts as pure fantasy, but after seeing what had been done to one of the bases, from the co-pilot's seat of an aging Hind, had been forced to re-evaluate that opinion. The base they had come from looked like it had been attacked by an angry god with a giant rake.

There was a new and deadly predator loose in his region, and it was hunting his troops.

What was worse, his spies had proven ineffectual; the few American peasants he'd managed to recruit, through intimidation and bribery, were frightened to death over what the price would be, if they were caught by this new force. Those few that did make reports to him about them didn't do so a second time.

Jim, Jan, and their small team of scouts and techs spent nearly a full day exploring the ruins of the small industrial park, finally finding their objective just after dark. It was in a sub-basement of the main building, and well hidden from casual view. It took the entire team nearly three days to dig out the hidden entrance, but in the end was well worth the effort, as the team spent several days thoroughly documenting the entire lab, moving nothing until every square foot of the place had been photographed from multiple angles. Jim wanted no detail, no matter how minor, overlooked; a decision his wife, and the rest of the scientists they had along, most definitely agreed with.

Jan settled at the worktable they were using as a lunch table, a short stack of notebooks in one hand, a plate of sandwiches in the other, and settled in beside her husband. He eyed the books for a moment, and she saw the direction of his gaze.

"As near as I can tell, these are from the head of research, his chief assistant, and the chief of the manufacturing lines."

"Manufacturing? You mean some of this stuff was in production?"

She nodded, absently, while reading a page in one of the books.

"Some of this technology was extremely advanced... the batteries they had developed, to power some of these weapons... they're incredible! If we hooked one into the main power grid, it could power a small town... for a month!"

"Can they be recharged, though?"

She nodded again. "Yes, lucky for us... though they'll take the entire output from one of those big diesel Generators to recharge... we'd better be glad they built a Lot of them... and a big recharging station."

He rubbed his eyes... he hadn't gotten much sleep in the past week. "Ok, so what should we do, haul all of this stuff back home, or get some more people up here, turn this place into an extension of our territory?"

"I don't want to move this equipment. I think we should repopulate this place, and rebuild the local farming community around this area to keep it supplied. If this man's notes are correct, this place got it's power from a hydro-electric dam a few miles away... plus some form of geo-thermal generators, located here somewhere. If we can get those back up and working, that would be a good start."

He nodded, stifling a yawn.

"Jim, how long has it been since you slept?"

"I don't remember."

"Well, dammit, go get some rest! You're no good to us if you're falling asleep at your post!"

"I don't have a 'post', dear... and this stuff is too important to leave on anyone else. There are guards to post, there are inventories to check out, there's..."

"Nothing more important than you being back up to a hundred percent." she finished for him, cutting him off in mid-sentence.

"You go find a place to lay out the bedrolls and curl up for a while. I promise you, if we come under attack or anything, I'll wake you up."

He nodded, going back up to the entrance, collecting his bedroll and two sleeping bags, and heading to one of the offices, where he remembered seeing a relatively comfortable, wide couch. He barely remembered to flip over the cushions, to keep the dust to a minimum, before covering the old furniture with a blanket and one of the sleeping bags, laying down and pulling the other bag over him and falling into a deep sleep.

He was walking down several flights of stairs, to a deep level they hadn't explored yet, when he found the main administrator's office. He walked straight from the door to the far wall, reaching up and taking down a painting of three horses drinking from a pond in the middle of a meadow from the wall, revealing a medium sized wall safe.

He spun the dial... 46-28-38. Instinctively, he knew that the combination was the measurements of the man's wife.

'Must have been a real looker' crossed his mind.

The safe unlocked, and he turned the handle, revealing several large-ish looseleaf binders full of what appeared to be mathematical equations.

He realized, without being told, that these were the last piece of the puzzle his wife and the other techs were working on.

Jim awoke from the dream to find Jan sleeping peacefully beside him, her body molded to his own. He realized he couldn't get up without waking her, so he gave in to the inevitable and rolled to his side, wrapping his wife in his arms and falling into another deep, and this time dreamless sleep.

Jan found herself in one of the upper levels of the complex, staring at a blank wall. Reaching up, she pushed at two corners of the drywall at once, and the entire section slid sideways, revealing a door labeled 'Satellite control'.

She floated into the room, took a seat at one of the computer consoles, hit the power switch, and waited as the mainframe booted up.

When the prompt came up, she typed in the words 'Strategic defense' and, after a bit over five minutes of serious hacking, was finally rewarded with a view of the earth from space.

Somewhere, on another plane of existence, a being once known as DJ sat back and smiled. 'That's enough of a nudge to get them started.' He thought.