John O'Brien - Awakening

“You have to be fucking kidding me?” I say.

“What the hell?” Robert says at my side. “Why would anyone do that?” He says looking at a stack of chairs, tables, lamps, gurneys, pillows, and other miscellaneous stuff piled against one of the walls.

“Oh shit!” He says as the realization of what happened filters in.

“Oh shit is right,” I say feeling the icy feeling of dread sink to my stomach.

Just when things seem to be going right and we actually seem to be becoming more secure and safe. Staring at the piles of objects stacked against the wall, I now feel as if we were actually barely treading water and are now sinking. I walk over to the area and notice the grass trampled flat to the point that most of the area is bare earth. There is no doubt in my mind they scaled the wall and escaped. The sheer number of night runners it took to trample the area flat like this must have been immense. It almost makes me feel like giving up as we just can’t seem to get ahead. The walls, which we’ve spent an eternity on and relied on to provide safety, are not exactly rendered moot but they aren’t as secure as we thought.

“Base, Jack here,” I say into the radio staring at the large pile of crap still not believing what I’m seeing.

“Go ahead, Jack,” I hear.

“Get Bannerman and Lynn but clear everyone else away from the radio,” I say.

“Will do, Jack. Stand by.”

“Jack, what’s up? Why clear everyone away from the radio?” I hear Lynn ask.

“Can anyone else hear me?” I ask.

“No, Jack. You’re good. What’s going on?” Lynn says. I tell them what we just found.

There is a pause on the other end. “That’s all kinds of fucked up. Are you sure that’s what happened?” Lynn asks.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” I answer. “Is Bannerman there?”

“Yeah, I’m here, Jack,” I hear Bannerman say.

“Okay. We need to divert the wall crews now. We’re going to need an inside walled compound built with towers. Lynn, if you can still hear me, gather the other team leaders. I’m on my way back. Think about how to tell the others as well,” I say.

“I’ll call the crews now and divert them. Lynn says she’ll get the others. See you when you get here,” Bannerman says.

“Okay, let’s turn this around,” I tell Red Team.

“Sir, what does this mean?” McCafferty asks.

“It doesn’t mean we are exactly fucked right now but the doc is lubing up his gloved finger,” I answer.

“We’ve been through worse. We’ll get through this as well, sir,” Gonzalez says.

“Damn straight. We’re going to get the manuals right now and study them hard. Then we’re going to turn the Spooky (AC-130) loose,” I say.

“Hooah, sir,” Gonzalez says. I sincerely think she says that just to see me roll my eyes.

After dropping by the aircraft and picking up the manuals, we head back to Cabela’s to discuss this new development. The fact that the night runners were able to get over the walls drastically changes our plans and our measure of feeling secure. The knot that has formed in my stomach tightens even more with the thought that the night runners have the capability to penetrate the walls.

Pulling into the parking lot at what I once thought to be our secure sanctuary, I hurry inside. Lynn has gathered the team leaders that aren’t out on assignments. I quickly detail my observations at Madigan which brings a silence to the group as each ponders for themselves what this means.

“Well, it’s obvious our walls aren’t going to be able to hold the night runners out on their own,” Lynn says breaking the silence.

“So much for our move to base housing. At least I’m assuming we won’t be able to do that as the houses themselves aren’t secure,” Drescoll says.

“Yeah, I think we need to drop the idea of moving to the bases for now,” I reply.

“That still leaves us with the problem of housing then,” Bannerman says.

“True. I believe we need to think about building quarters here in the compound. I think that will be quicker than fortifying the houses up there and it will leave us with the building here as a secure fall back point. Let’s table that for now though and talk about what we need to do to beef up our security here,” I say.

“I think your idea of building another inside wall to create an inner compound is a good idea,” Robert chimes in.

“I agree,” Frank says. “I’m thinking that should be our priority.”

“We need to put up some towers along the perimeter and have them manned at night. They should be self-defensible in case the night runners scale the walls. In other words, they should be designed so they can’t be scaled and far enough away from the walls that they can’t be leapt on from the top,” Lynn adds.

“My thinking is that, if we do build the additional walls, then we need to plan it so that whatever housing we build and the storage containers with our supplies are inside of the inner compound,” Bannerman says.

“I agree with that. I think building the inner wall and towers are our priority right now. I want to make sure we have the entire inner area covered by cameras with thermal imaging and the monitors manned at night along with the towers. There should be plenty of cameras on the bases. We should think about putting an overhang on the walls like we have on the roof to make it more difficult to scale the top,” I say adding my two cents.

“What about mining the outside of the walls?” Greg asks.

“And lay claymores around the exterior of the building here?” Drescoll adds.

“All great ideas,” I say watching Bannerman madly scribble on his clipboard.

“We should seal up the shipping containers at night as well,” Bannerman says looking up from his writing momentarily.

“Shouldn’t we build the barns and stables up more too?” Bri asks. Trust my wonderful girl to be thinking of the animals. Bannerman nods in her direction and his pen dances across the paper.

“We’ve mentioned a lot here. We also have a lot of projects going on. How are those going to be affected? I guess I’m asking how we want to prioritize all of these things. We have the water tower that I think needs to be in place prior to winter. The walls around the vehicle maintenance and storage hangars will be finished in a day, well, two now that we diverted the crews. Let’s see, we also have the inventory and movement of supplies from the distribution centers. We won’t need the teams on supply runs for the time being so we have those freed up,” Bannerman says.

“Don’t forget the searches for other survivors,” Drescoll says.

“There is also the search for families which is time critical and clearing out the area,” I say.

“Well, like Bannerman mentioned, we have a lot going on. We have a lot of resources people-wise but it’s not unlimited. I think we need to prioritize what we are going to do and Bannerman can assign crews. We keep going down the list until we run out of people keeping in mind we still need security and there are our daily tasks as well,” Lynn says.

“Are we at a point where we can create additional teams?” I ask Lynn.

“No, not yet. I think we need to increase the teams at the earliest opportunity but we can’t forsake training,” she answers.

“Okay. We’ll work with what we have. I think our first priority is building the inner wall and towers. Any disagreement with that?” I ask.

“Not going to find any disagreement here,” Greg says to which the others agree.

“We have some time critical elements and need to decide if we’re going to do them or at least where they fit on the priority list; the water tower, vehicle storage facilities, and the search for families,” I say.