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Back inside, conversations in the mess hall ranged from guardsmen wondering what was going on, to when the Governor would call to officially activate everyone, to how long it would last, to whether or not it would affect this or that sporting event.  It was nice to hear normal conversation interspersed with the speculation.  The First Sergeant was sitting at their table, but the conversation remained completely casual.

“So you still haven’t decided between Sprint and AT&T huh?  I’d heard that they both want you, but you keep pitting them against each other.  How long do you thing that’s going to work, Tripp?”  Kyle was giving Eric a hard time about still not having a full-time job.

“I swear, worm poop, that’s what it says right on the bottle.  No kidding, liquefied worm poop.  I might never know how well it works but there are whole discussion boards on the Internet that swear by it.  Smells to high heaven though.”  Karen was telling Sheri and Rachael about her latest foray into home gardening.

“Actually, there are quite a few Sergeants in the Army.  You start as a Private, and you have no insignia on your uniform at all.  Your goal is to become a Private 2 as quickly as possible because frankly, a Private, or Buck Private is lower than whale crap and that’s on the bottom of the ocean, son.”  It was obvious that Mallory had had this talk more times than she could count but she was still giving Josh and Maya her attention while taking in the conversations around her.

At 12:15 everyone headed back to the conference room.  On the way there the First Sergeant disappeared, and when she showed back up she had was joined by three more guardsmen.  “I need my platoon leaders up to speed.  Gentlemen, please have a seat.  I had Staff Sergeant Ramirez brief them at the end of lunch so they may actually be further along than I am.

“Mr. Taylor, you mentioned that there were more things to discuss than just the initial power going out via the grid going down and the collapse surrounding that.  The floor is yours, Sir.”

“The specifics that need to be addressed that I’ve come up with begin with medications.”  Joel looked around the table because he didn’t want to appear to just be talking to the First Sergeant.  “People, like myself, for example, who are on anti-depressants or who are in chronic pain and on pain killers or who are, and this is where it gets really serious, diabetic or on chemotherapy or immune-compromised and in need of constant antibiotics.  In some cases, there is a vast store of those medications sitting in warehouses or even in pharmacies that can simply be given out manually if people present their expired bottle.

“A lot of those drugs--like insulin and chemotherapy drugs--need refrigeration, at least some of the time.  Without it we are going to start losing people.  Just insulin-dependent diabetics are between two and three million people.  That’s a ballpark figure off the top of my head from research when we found out my dad was diabetic.  Both Rachael’s mom and my dad are type 2, but type 1’s need insulin.”

Joel held up his hand and two fingers.  “Next, we have hospitals--which may or may not be on generator power--but even if by some chance the generators are working, and the equipment inside wasn’t damaged, and is online and functional, are only going to last as long as the fuel.  How long is that rated for?  Anyone know?  I know our datacenter at work was rated for eighteen hours before we needed to have diesel standing by and constantly coming in thereafter.  If it was natural gas, that’s great, as long as the pressure stays up, which it won’t because there’s…dramatic reverb…no power.”  Joel took a drink of the warming Coke.

“But back to people and medicines.  People on chemo won’t be able to get it anymore.  I have no idea what the long term outlook for those people is but it’s obviously not good or they wouldn’t be on chemo.  Same for the folks needing to be on antibiotics; you don’t do that to yourself if you don’t need to.

 “Like I said, I’ve been diagnosed as needing anti-depressants and being bi-polar.  Maybe if I just exhaust myself with physical labor every day I’ll be so tired I’ll be fine but there’s a bunch of folks out there that are pretty messed up.  I’m on a pretty low dose of the stuff I take but there are people out there that take lithium every day.  I personally don’t want them to miss a dose because when they do they’re going to have a psychotic episode.”

Nobody was saying anything because everyone seemed fascinated by what Joel was saying, and he was just getting warmed up.

“I would guess that within a couple of weeks pharmacies will be raided for anything they have.  It will start with narcotics, dare I say obviously, and in the rush for the
good
stuff a lot of
useful
stuff will get ruined.  Within a month the remains will have been picked over fairly thoroughly by people who got desperate when their thirty-day supply ran out.  Two weeks after that, if not sooner, if it was a life-sustaining medication, those people will have died.  The exception will be people like me and my family who get ours through the mail and have a ninety-day supply, but the end result is the same without the picking over window at the end.”

The only noise in the room was the electronic ticking of the battery powered clock on the wall next to the door for a good fifteen seconds.  It was, not surprisingly, the First Sergeant who spoke first.  “And you don’t write horror stories for a living, correct Mr. Taylor?  You’ve been thinking about this for how long?  A couple of hours?  A day and a half tops?  With all due respect, Sir, please remind me never to get you drunk.  You have a scary, scary mind.”

“First Sergeant,” Kyle started.

“No, Ramirez, there is no way out of this Mickey Mouse outfit, don’t even ask,” Mallory didn’t even turn to look at him.

“Right,” Kyle said.

Everyone laughed, which was the point.

“Mr. Taylor, you said the specifics
begin
with medications, what did you mean by that?”

 “Well, that was what I was originally focused on when I started down this train of thought but the more I thought about it the more things came to mind.  For instance, this Armory doesn’t seem to be the most secure base in the world--not that you all wouldn’t do a fine job defending it but the location just sucks.  I mean it’s in downtown Nashville for crying out loud!”

“Like the old saying goes: When seconds count, the police are just minutes away, and that’s only going to get worse.  I think people are going to start counting on the military for protection and this is where they’ll turn.  If they can’t get refuge or relief or whatever it is they think they need here, it might turn ugly; and that’s a big perimeter out there to defend against an armed populace.

“Then, going back to the first point I made; well, it’s June.  We’re in the South.  If my calculations are right, the first large waves of dead bodies could be in six weeks or so, which would be the end of July.  In the South--in the middle of the summer.  We’re going to have a major health problem on our hands in very short order.”  Joel looked around the room again.  “People who aren’t used to the heat without air conditioning are going to succumb like they do every time there is a blackout for more than twelve hours or so, except
this
is going to last for months, potentially.  And this is nationwide.  The entire country is going through this.  Everywhere.  Even the people who have windmills and solar power are going to be victims of this, because as soon as the rest of the neighborhood sees the lights on they will become victims of a different kind.  It’s that old ‘Twilight Zone’ episode where the only guy in the neighborhood to build a bomb shelter gets it torn down by everybody trying to get inside.”  Joel had to stop again, his throat was getting dry and he finished the Coke.

“Ok, Mr. Taylor, all good points.  I’m going to ask you to stop at this point, not because they aren’t valid points, not because they aren’t things that need to be thought about or even acted on.  We can, however, only do so much at one time and the human mind can only assimilate so much in one sitting.  There is a reason that there is a Joint Chiefs of Staff after all, we don’t leave it ALL up to one person, really we don’t.  Yes the President has the football but even he doesn’t go around issuing orders just because.

“I would like to continue picking your brain and have you continue to think about it because you are, frankly, quite good at coming up with these things, scary as that is.  I would be surprised to find out that all of this hasn’t been thought of in infinite, gory detail by some group of eggheads in DC.  We may even have an OP Plan here that tells us how to deal with it.  It’s also probably on the one computer that wasn’t on the UPS or it’s backed up on a tape drive that will take us two weeks to track down and get access to and print out.

“Change of topic.  Are you planning on pushing on to whatever your final destination is today or have you reached your final destination?” Mallory asked, wearing her diplomat’s hat.

Everyone was looking at Eric now so he felt compelled to answer the question.  “Not necessarily, and no, why?

“Multiple reasons,” Mallory replied, “not the least of which is that  I’m sure you could all do with some additional rest after the last couple of nights.  Joel, you’ve brought up a very good point about this particular location and one that I would like to address.  Finally, there is the nature of the Guard specifically and the Army and military in general.”  Mallory stopped for a moment to gather her thoughts.

“In principle the Guard is here to protect the civilian population and assist the full time military or, in the case of a natural disaster, local and state law enforcement.  It’s more complicated than that in practice because people and politics end up getting in the way, but the idea is pretty straightforward.  In order to do that, however, we need to be able to function as a unit or units and in order to do that we need to protect ourselves.”

Mallory nodded to Joel, “As you mentioned, this is not the most defensible position in the world or even in this city.  Staying here is probably not the best long-term solution and thinking long term is where everyone’s head needs to be right now.  You’ve left your homes for what I assume is the same reason.  Unfortunately, making the decision to leave and actually doing so are a little more involved for a group the size of the Armory.

“For example, we have over two hundred vehicles that would need to be moved to wherever we’re going along with all the materiel that goes along with supporting however many people come with us.  No matter where we go we will have a huge impact on our destination, assuming that we do in fact relocate.”  Mallory held up her hand to forestall any interruptions.

“We’re not making decisions right here, right now, around this table.  That isn’t what this is about and please, don’t take this wrong, but none of you are in the military chain of command--at any level.”  Mallory’s glance lingered a little longer on Eric than any of the other civilians at the table, but not by much.  “It behooves any leader to have as much information as possible at her disposal before making a decision, which is what I’m trying to do but this is still a military installation and as such it
must
remain a military decision.”

“All of that being said,” Mallory broke off and her head whipped around as a number of things happened at the same time.  Mallory, Ramirez, and all three of her platoon leaders were out of their chairs and crouched down in a number of positions that could only be described as tactical with their side arms out.  Eric shouted, without actually shouting, for everyone to get on the floor
now
and Joel heard yelling and the echo of gunfire.  Finally, there was the sound of boots coming down the hallway and a voice calling for the First Sergeant.

“Top, we have a situation,” the voice said.

“HALT!” one of the platoon leaders barked, and the footsteps stopped.

“Sergeant Jackson, Specialist Davis reporting.  Zulu duress Sergeant”

If he’d actually said ‘zero duress’ or ‘no duress’ they would have known he wasn’t alone.

“Proceed at a walk on the far side of the hall, son.”

All three platoon leaders had their firearms trained on the door and Ramirez was physically between the door and Mallory.  Joel thought to himself, “I never realized how seriously they take this.”  Then again, he, Eric, and Chuck had once again made a human wall in front of the women and children--even crouched down as they were.

Once Davis came into view he stopped and waited to be recognized, with his hands visible, and the Sergeant who’d identified himself as Jackson did a quick head bob out the door to verify that nobody else was in the hallway.  “Come in, Davis.  What just happened?!”  Everyone slowly got up and Eric motioned his group back to their chairs.

“Sergeants…Top,” he nodded to everyone.  “We just had another group show up, but this one tried to ram and then shoot their way into the Armory.”  Although he said it like he was reading the weather report his face told a different story.

 Jackson asked, “Any casualties?”

Davis’s eyes flicked to the civilian group before answering the question.  “None whatsoever from the Guardsmen or their families.  Unknown for certain on the, uh…Sergeant, what in the world do I call US citizens who attack the Armory?”

Mallory stepped in before Jackson could answer.  “You call them misguided, scared, and in the end you call them to account for what they’ve done.  If you have to put a label on them, though, call them the OpFor.  That way they can simply be the other guy without being the bad guy.”  Jackson nodded, almost to himself, at Mallory’s response.

“Fair enough, Top.  Uncertain number of casualties for the Opposing Force as they took off when we fired back.  We do know that they didn’t leave any vehicles or people but we weren’t aiming to miss.  If anyone was armed and aiming at us,” Davis closed his eyes and took a breath, “I’m pretty sure they got hit.”

Mallory held up her hand for Davis to stop and turned to Eric.  “E.T., folks, I’m afraid I need to be devoted to some strictly military matters for the time being.  I can’t hold you here but I would suggest that leaving right this minute would be a very bad idea.  Before I duck out for a while I would like to offer you a place to stay until tomorrow morning.  We’ve got a number of squad bays and we won’t be using them all tonight.  I don’t know everyone’s situation, but…”