Dark Grid (10 page)

“Yeah, we’re thinking one per vehicle and maybe a couple of handhelds,” Rachael chimed in.  Chuck had mentioned the handhelds during the barter discussion prior to coming in.

“Y’all want all the same kind?  We’ve got a couple that I’ve got at least five of.”

“I think our major criteria are reliability, not too complicated, and plugs into the lighter.  We don’t want to have to hard wire anything, and I don’t know about anybody else, but I don’t have much experience with these.”  It was Chuck’s turn to contribute his two cents.

“Well, believe it or not, you don’t have to go with the more expensive models with all the bells and whistles to get a decent radio.”  This was a voice that came from behind and above them.  They all turned to see that one of the truckers had taken an interest in their conversation and decided to weigh in.  “If all you’re looking to do is be able to talk back and forth, and maybe be able to call out to about eight or ten miles, just about any of the lower end models that come with a microphone should be just fine.

“You don’t need all the flip switches and knobs and dials.  Get one with a digital channel display though; seeing what channel you’re on in the dark is a stone cold bi…um, can be rather difficult, otherwise.  I’d suggest you just get a magnet mount antenna too.  No reason to get a 5 foot whip antenna unless you just really feel the need to compensate...there really isn’t any reason for most folks to get a whip antenna.”  The newcomer was turning red from trying not to put his foot in his mouth in front of strangers.

“Timothy Grace,” he stuck his hand out in introduction.  “Sorry for barging in like that but I figured you might be able to use a little advice.”

“No apology necessary,” Eric replied.   “Like Chuck here said, we don’t have a whole lot of experience with any of this.  I used some two-way radio gear in the Army, but I doubt it was much like this.”  Eric was actually pretty sure it had been a lot like this, but he didn’t want to dismiss the trucker and he really did appreciate the offer of help.  Someone who used these brands on a daily basis would have a much better idea which ones were worth anything.  Tim’s experience would be invaluable.

“In that case, I’d probably go with ‘D’, even though ‘B’ is on sale.  You have five of those, Laurie?”

“Lemme see.” Laurie had to check behind a couple stacks but came up with a total of five boxes--one of which was empty.  “Looks like it if we sell the display.  That should be ok.  You folks ok with the display unit?  Works just fine. We just take ‘em out of the box and put ‘em up.”

“As long as we can test it right away, I don’t see a problem,” Eric said.

“No problem with that.  Now, Tim mentioned you’d need to get antennas too.  He’s right about the whips.  Unless you’re trying to go a long distance you shouldn’t need a long whip.  Most folks won’t suggest a whip unless you are going to permanently mount it, too, as whips have a tendency to hit stuff.  You don’t want to knock it off, or scratch the paint--and if you hit enough stuff you
will
knock off a magnet mount, no matter what the manufacturer says.”

They ended up getting 18-inch antennas for each vehicle as well as the mobile CBs for less than $100 a set, plus $100 for each of the handhelds; then Joel started wandering around.  “Hey, Eric, c’mere.”

“What’d you find, Joel?”

“DC powered refrigerators.”

They both stared at them for half a minute and then Eric shook his head.  “As small as they are, I’d rather find a generator and a regular fridge.”

“Yeah, I guess so.  Maybe we should grab some coffee and sodas while we’re here though.  Aren’t you supposed to make sure you have some kind of treat or snack food during an emergency to keep the natives from getting restless?” Joel said.

“Good point, and we have the room.  Man, I wish the fountain machines were working.  A can just doesn’t taste the same.” Eric suggested.

Everyone made a couple of trips through the store, making like 21
^st
century hunter-gatherers in search of the elusive sour gummy this or salty vinegar that or oddly shaped chocolate covered peanut pretzel other thing.  Then they grabbed all the twelve-packs of soda they could carry and six bags of coffee.

Tim was standing at the counter chatting with Laurie when they were finally ready to ring up—after carefully dividing everything into piles of stuff $250 or less.  He glanced over their piles of CB radios and hoarder-style junk food stashes and chuckled, “So, I guess you guys heard, huh?”  Everybody stopped and looked at each other--no one willing to say anything.

“Oh my goodness, people, I drive a truck for a living; I’m not an idiot.  Why do you think we’re all just sitting here?  You’re obviously not all related, except for you two married folks and you two kids who I’m guessing ‘belong’ to you two,” Tim pointed at Joel and Rachael.

“You’re buying CB radios and you already said you’re going to hook up the display unit in the parking lot.” Tim said.  “You’d be fools not to hook up all five before you leave.  I was, and still am, going to offer to help you get them all hooked up.  I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.  I drive a freezer truck and there isn’t a store in the state with power.  Where am I gonna go?  At least if I keep the truck running the stuff’ll stay frozen!”

“When you get the radios hooked up you’re going to hear the same thing we’re hearing.  The power’s out.  Capital ‘O’.  Some solar thing which blew some giant fuse somewhere and you can’t fix this one by wrapping it in tin foil, so the power is out nationwide.  You’re getting out of town; you’re buying six bags of ground coffee for Pete’s sake.”

“Dude, you used to be in the military--said so yourself.  You must have been a staffer man, because your OpSec sucks.  No offense, because all my military experience comes from Space Opera, but c’mon, six bags of coffee in one trip?”

Eric was turning red, and that had led to the ‘no offense’ remark from Tim, but it wasn’t because he was mad.  He was trying not to laugh.  At ‘Space Opera’ he felt his diaphragm start to spasm, and by ‘in one trip’ he just couldn’t hold it in any more.

He sputtered; then he snickered; then he was chuckling, and then he was laughing hard enough to bring tears to his eyes.  By then, everyone else had realized just how obvious they’d been and were laughing too.  Tim was laughing in relief.

 “Guilty on all counts. Yeah, we know, or at least think we know, what happened; and yeah, we’re on our way out of town.  We’d also be grateful, again, for any help with getting these things installed.”

“Happy to help, I really am, and I’m just glad you were building up to laugh.  I was afraid I’d really pissed you off there for a minute.  You were turning purple.”

“I really needed the laugh I think.”  Eric was actually wiping tears from his eyes.  “Ok, let’s get you folks paid up.  Speaking of which, if you guys know what’s up how come you’re taking checks?”

It was Laurie’s turn to laugh.  “Frank, and yes that’s his real name, is a skinflint and a prick.  If things are really going to go downhill and a few folks need to grab a few things on their way out of town, I’m going to do everything I can to make sure they get what they need.  If the power comes back on I’m sure the checks’ll clear, if it doesn’t it’ll be the least of anyone’s worries.

“I’ll know I did right by some folks when it mattered and I’ll be taken care of by the folks around me.  I’m sure y’all need the radios and the coffee more’n Frank needs a couple hundred bucks, that’s for darn sure.  And like I said, he left it up to us and then he went home…prick.”

“I’d like to make a couple of suggestions if I may, though.  I did say $250 per person and I only see five piles of stuff and six adults.  I assume that both of your names are on the checks,” Laurie looked at Joel and Rachael.  When they both nodded she went on, “In that case, and no I’m not just trying to get more money out of you, but do y’all have enough food for the four legged member of your party?  We do sell dog food, treats, and biscuits,” Laurie finished with a grin.

Joel and Rachael glanced at each other with the remainders of the earlier grins on their faces and then Joel nodded to Maya and Josh.  “You heard the lady, go get Millie taken care of too.”

Rachael looked back at Laurie once Josh and Maya had headed off towards the dog food aisle.  “You said a couple of suggestions.  What’s the other one?”

“Well, the radios are only good as long as they have power,” Laurie replied.  “The vehicle units are going to be kinda stuck where they are but the handheld jobs will need to be recharged.  If things don’t come back to normal real soon then gas is going to get real hard to come by.  We’ve got some solar chargers that I’d be willing to cut you a deal on, say buy one, get one free?  They even have adapters for cell phones and most game systems.”

Ten minutes and three trips out to the trucks later, they had everything packed up, the radios out, and were plugging them in to make sure that they all powered on.  Tim gathered them around one vehicle and gave them a crash course on how to use the rig they had bought.  He showed them how to change channels, use the microphone, and more in between rubbing Millie’s stomach and scratching her hind end.  She’d taken to him as soon as he walked out of the store.  Twenty minutes later he was helping them get the antennas situated and cables run into each vehicle.  It was almost 10:00 by the time they pulled back out of the parking lot, but now they were able to call each other.

With CB radios nothing is private; it’s a completely open system--unless you have some sort of scrambler.  The best you can hope for is that you are on a channel nobody else is monitoring; the next best thing is to get on a channel that nobody else is actively using.  They decided to monitor channel nineteen, which was the de-facto trucker channel and should keep them up to date on anything going on around them.  If they had anything they wanted to keep private within their group, they would simply get on and say their name and “go daily.” Everyone in the group would then change channels to the current day of the month.

Since the citizen band is broken into forty channels, that would work for every day but the nineteenth--for which they would move to channel thirty-nine.  If they heard someone on the daily channel they would also move to thirty-nine.  It wasn’t perfect but it made a moving target--and made Eric feel a little better about his “sucky OpSec”.  He also hoped it would keep the flat-tire group from hearing his group until they were completely out of range.

Chapter Twelve

Tennessee is The Volunteer State.  The nickname is said to have originated during the War of 1812 when thousands of Tennesseans volunteered to fight under Andrew Jackson in the militia.  The nickname was then proven again when, during the war against Mexico, the U.S. Secretary of War requested 2,600 infantrymen and 30,000 men volunteered.

It came as no surprise to anyone, then, that the Army National Guard Armory parking lot was virtually full at 10:30 when they arrived.  Nobody was even surprised to be greeted by an armed Guardsman at the entrance to the parking lot.  Joel had wisely suggested that Eric lead the way to the Armory as he would probably be better equipped to talk to any of the Guardsmen there.

As they pulled up, Eric already had is IRR, or Inactive Ready Reserve, card out and his window down.  “I need to speak with Lieutenant Parker, First Sergeant Jensen, or Staff Sergeant Ramirez.  It’s rather important.”

“Yes, Master Sergeant, please wait one moment.”

“I’m IRR, take it easy,” Eric smiled as the Specialist on guard duty used the radio clipped to his shoulder to call into the Armory proper.

“If you will wait right here for just a minute, Staff Sergeant Ramirez will be right out.”

About thirty seconds later a red-headed human fireplug came out of the Armory and jogged over to Eric’s truck.  Ramirez was taller than he looked--because he was so wide--but absolutely none of it was fat.  Ramirez came to attention and bawled, “Staff Sergeant Ramirez reporting.”

“Oh cut the crap, Ramirez, I’m IRR and you know it.  I’m here hoping to appeal to your better nature and if that doesn’t work, your sense of self-interest.”  When Ramirez kept standing at attention, Eric kept going.  “You’re fifteen years older than me if you’re a day, and anyway you look silly standing like that.”  When that didn’t work either, Eric barked,  “What I meant by all of that was AT EASE SOLDIER!”

Finally, Ramirez smiled and stuck out his hand.  “Good to see you, Eric.  I didn’t know how much longer I could keep standing there with a straight face.  I was hoping you’d crack first because I was just about to bust a gut.  I never was any good at the political BS, why do you think I’m still a Staff Sergeant?”

“Well, let’s see; you’re good at it, the guys love you, they don’t WANT to promote you, and they can’t promote you because nobody’s died--how about those for starters?  Can we get off the street?  We need to talk about what’s going on and I’d like to introduce you to these folks.”

“Sure, sorry, been a little hectic what with no commo today.  Thank God we’re a Signal Company.  Can I hop in?”  He was already on his way around the front of the truck.

“Please do, easier than leading this group with you walking.”  Eric picked up the CB, moved everyone to the daily channel, and then let everyone know to follow him.

Once they had everyone past the zigzag concrete barriers and into the parking lot, they all piled out and Eric introduced Kyle Ramirez.

“Ok, you stressed what both Chuck and Sheri here used to do for a living.  I’ve got a bad feeling we need to go inside and sit down for this little chat you mentioned.  We have at least 6 MW of power generating capacity inside of the Armory, but we’ve only got a limited quantity of diesel so we’ve only set up one building with power.

Inside, the building was much quieter with the noise of the generator muted.  They also noticed the lights!  Shining fluorescent and incandescent lights—the first they’d seen in two days.  It was amazing how quickly you got used to some things being gone.  Kyle led them to a conference room down the main hall and asked them to have a seat inside.