John O'Brien - Reckoning

It’s like being in an eternal race that will never end and only gets harder as you go along. Any stumble or fall and the things chasing you will catch up. We’ve managed to overcome the challenges we’ve faced only to be presented with more difficult ones. And we’ve paid for it with our blood at times. Now we’re up against probably the hardest one we’ve had to face as a group and I don’t have the slightest notion of how to solve it. We have to do something about it soon though as I doubt the other group is sitting idly by waiting for us to make a move.

At a bare minimum, we have to hit them before spring, and during winter will make that even more difficult. If they are truly trying to take us out, for whatever reason, when we lose our ability to fly, we will be out-matched in every category and the gig will be up. We must do something before then, and really much sooner, before they strike again.

And then there’s the night runners flowing south out of Seattle. The best we can do there is to make sure our defenses are strong and hit them nightly when we can. Maybe we need to clear out a larger area around Tacoma, but that would be quite an undertaking. I remember Frank saying something about the numbers, but if I have it right, there were almost two and half million in the surrounding Seattle area before the shit went down. That would mean there were nearly two million night runners. If even half of those survived until now, that’s a fucking lot of them. Even if they spread out evenly heading north, east, and south, that leaves the potential of six hundred thousand night runners heading our way.

There’s no way we can deal with that amount. We may have to rethink our strategy; maybe burning large tracts to turn them away. However, for now, we have a more pressing matter with this hostile group outside of Denver. As I told Bri, with Greg lying unconscious, his team dead, and Allie taken from us, the time for talking is way past. We need to figure out a way to eliminate this immediate threat to our survival.

Putting those thoughts aside for the moment, I lay back on the top of the Spooky, staring up at the blue sky, watching the occasional cloud slowly float across, flowing from one shape to another, the breeze blowing across me. Even chilled as it is, it feels refreshing. My mind drifts and I let images swirl through. A relaxed feeling, like the one flying the evening prior, comes over me. My thoughts flash from memory to memory, some bringing a smile to my face while others bring sorrow.

After a time, I come out of my reverie, feeling more refreshed and confident. We’ve come through a lot and we’ll get through this somehow. Whatever the future may hold, we’re here and alive today. And each day we’ll strive to continue.

I climb down and drive back. I needed those moments alone and come back feeling like a different person than the one who left. The one who left felt already defeated. Now, although it won’t be a walk in the park, I feel ready to meet the challenge.

Walking back into the building, I see Frank going over several pictures with a magnifying glass, stopping at times to make an annotation. I walk past and check on Greg. The swelling of his cheek looks to have gone down and his respirations seem deeper. However, he is still unconscious.

There really isn’t much to do until we meet in the afternoon. I don’t feel much like resting so I join the others gathering outside. The smell of burgers and hot dogs cooking wafts across the lot. A line has formed next to the BBQs with some finding seats at tables with plates full of food. Other mill about in small groups, taking bites between snippets of conversation. The sorrow of laying our brethren to rest is slowly being replaced by an atmosphere of gaiety. The idea of setting a day aside to barbeque, which we took from Tim and the others we brought with us from McConnell AFB, seems to be having its desired effect. I make a plate and take it to Frank, who nods his thanks and turns back to his pictures.

I spend most of the day and early afternoon mingling before heading upstairs to grab a nap before the meeting in the afternoon and the flight afterwards.

Waking after a short while, I make sure the kitchen will save some food for the Spooky crew. Thankfully, we won’t have to make the drive north, into night runner-infested territory, to get to the aircraft so I can linger a little longer. I want to be in the air and on station before dark. If Frank is ready with his analysis of the facility, the meeting will be a long one so we’ll need to start it earlier than normal. We may not get a lot of planning time and it may be that we spend our time ‘eliminating water’. That really means that we will identify the things that won’t work and remove them from our planning process. That way, we’ll know what we have to work with and come up with something.

We meet in the mid-afternoon, some bringing plates of food from the barbeque. I bring everyone up to speed on the events we encountered on our flight out and then turn it over to Frank. We all know why we’re here so he doesn’t waste any time with preliminaries and he hands out packets. They contain the information on the bunker as supplied by Harold and high-resolution photographs pulled from the video on our fly-by.

“What you have with regards to photographs are still images I’ve taken from the video. You’ll notice on the pictures that the entire complex is surrounded by a chain-link fence with what I’ve determined to be razor wire along the top. Judging from the shadows and time of day that the video was taken, I estimate the fence height to be ten feet.

“You’ll note that there are two sets of buildings spread apart from each other, which I’ve circled and designated as #1 and #2. The structures are one-story buildings and made to appear as if they are old, dilapidated tin constructions. However, looking closer, I noticed that the structural roof beams poking out from the sides seem newer than the siding and the steel sheets covering the roof. This may or may not mean anything…but just something I spotted. It could be the structures were rebuilt with the old siding.

“Each set of structures has a dirt road leading to them. There are close up pictures of each set of buildings and the roads. Note the tracks on that road leading to building set designated #1. It appears to have been traveled on recently, whereas the dirt road leading to buildings #2 is trackless.

“I’ve super-imposed a diagram of the facility, trying to match the scale to the photographs. I oriented it with the cardinal points as that seemed to be the logical method of construction. It took some time but, once completed, you’ll see how the buildings and facility diagram match up. The buildings denoted as #1 approximately correspond with what looks like the equipment storage on the facility diagram. The offset could be because some form of ramp system has been built to allow the vehicles to drive out. I’m concluding that the exit is hidden by the large shed in group #1 and could be where the armored column originated from. The tracks certainly correspond to an armored column passing over it.

“You’ll notice on the picture showing a wider overhead view, to the northeast, another fenced-in area within the overall compound. Those black rectangular objects are a vast array of solar panels.”

“So we can hit them there?” Robert questions.

“Let’s let Frank finish before we start speculating on any plans,” I state.

Frank continues, “There are other smaller buildings scattered throughout the compound. They could be storage or perhaps hiding air intakes. I really can’t tell. We have to assume there is some sort of high-weight lift capabilities. Somewhere in this is also a main entrance with both elevator and stair access. If I had to guess, I’d put them with the buildings denoted as #2. One last thing, all of the other buildings, including #2, have roads leading to them but without tracks that I can see. As a matter of fact, those roads are partially overgrown.”