Reboot

In the morning, the garage guys came to pick us up in a 4x4. As we walked out of the hotel, we were very surprised to hear an engine purring.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“It’s you ride, sir,” one of the men said flourishingly with a smile. Then he came over and introduced himself. “Rudy. And this is my bradder, Tony. We are at you service today.” They were clearly Italian, and enjoying that fact immensely.

I looked at the car for a bit and said: “Ethanol?”

“Methanol.”

“How does that work?” asked Dutch. Tony craned his neck proudly. He liked talking about this.

“Ethanol is formed by the fermentation of sugars from a number of types of organic materials. Wheat, corn, rice, beets and cane are examples of materials with a high sugar content that can be used. They give a high yield when fermented and distilled and that’s the best stuff, but we’re short of veggies and fruit so we make do with Methanol, which you get by fermenting wood. It’s a bit messier than gas, and when it gets cold, we can’t start the damn things, but it works ok. Stinks though. We’ll get to that soon enough.”

“Sorry I asked,” continued Dutch.

I went up to them and said: “Nice to meet you Rudy, Tony. Are you Italian?”

“No, we’re American. Our parents was Italian,” said Rudy.

“Marvelous. Do you know what we’re doing today?” I asked.

“Mayor Stevens told us everything.”

“Everything?”

“Well, he told us enough. He said that it was a discrete situation. So let’s just go. We can discuss along the way. I’m sure you’ll tell us what we need to know. How does that sound?” asked Tony.

I looked at Dutch and William, confused, but they smiled, a “what the hell” expression. I smiled too and said: “Perfect. Let’s go!” And we all climbed into the car. These days you could simply choose any car you wanted and these guys opted for an Escalade pickup truck.

“Nice,” I said.

“American made,” said Tony proudly while hitting the roof with the palm of his hand. “Heavy and strong, dependable”.

“And comfy,” added Dutch as we all sat in the back. Dutch popped the button on his pants and relaxed. He’d eaten too much. Tony was driving and Rudy was next to him in front. I was in the center. There was plenty of room. The drive from Veneta to Eugene would take about thirty minutes. So we had time to talk. We left Veneta from the east gate and we kept going on the 126.

Trees. Nothing but trees zooming by. And we were very happy to see birds. So there was that. We were all looking out the window. What a miraculous thing it is to go fast on four wheels.

“I suppose you know how to get the radio station up and running, or else Stevens wouldn’t have sent you,” I said.

“We can get anything started,” said Tony. “A radio station is easy. Just need a big enough generator. And we know where to find those.”

“Marvelous!” I said.

“So now you can tell us what this is all about?” Asked Rudy.

“Well I suppose you’ll hear it with everyone else when we broadcast. No sense in saying it twice,” I said staring out front. “Interesting that the road is cleared up.”

“We cleared it,” said Tony sounding a bit exasperated. He didn’t like being kept in the dark. “It took two months.”

“Oy..That must’ve been rough,” said William. “Many dead?”

“No, no, not really. Just a few.” Rudy said with a weird smile, like he saw humor in it somehow, or maybe a coping mechanism. “Remember that nothing hit us here. It was like nothing happened. So the cars that were in the road were just abandoned because they’d run out of fuel. Mostly. People ran off. There were some crashes of course. Once we had to clear a twenty-five-car pile-up. I suppose there must’ve been fog or something. That wasn’t pretty. You don’t see the bodies as people after a while. You get used to it.”

“No thanks.” I said and paused a bit. “Where do we get the generator?”

“Well there won’t be any left in the shops, that’s for sure, so we’ll go to the next best place. We’ll need at least one thousand kWs.”

“And?”

“Well, rich people used to get those for their larger homes for backup, so we have to go hunting”.

“Ok.” I looked at William. “Looks like we’re going to be breaking and entering”.

“Finally,” said Dutch excitedly.

We all looked at him. He’d suddenly cheered up and was looking outside like a little kid.

As soon as we drove within city limits, things changed. There were many cars on the road everywhere, but the boys knew how to weave through them. It had been done many times before. You could tell that some cars had been moved to create a passageway. Tony kept talking.

“KLCC radio is the most powerful radio station in Eugene. It has a class A. It can reach people up to a hundred miles away. Even more. Hopefully, your message will be rebroadcasted. We use channel 90,2 FM for messages that are important to everyone.

Your message will get heard, but maybe slower than you’d like. People talk. The generator we’re looking for is fifteen feet by seven feet and weighs a ton. Luckily it takes diesel, which lasts longer than gas. We have a few liters and it might still work. I mean we could adapt it to methanol or ethanol, but it would take longer. So the plan is to find a generator, then go find a trailer and the tools needed to move it. We’ll find all that in a garage. Then we bring it to the radio station and plug it in. Then we’ll see if it works. You’ll have maybe fifteen minutes to send out your message, then we’re out of diesel. And believe me, this is the last of it. If Stevens let you have it, it’s because he really thinks your message is important. We’ll head near the University of Oregon campus. There are some really nice houses there. In fact, I have one in mind, the football coach’s house. It’s quite large.”

“Are we sure there’s no one around?” I asked.

“No,” answered Tony. “We’re only sure that there was probably no one here last time we came here two months ago.”

“Ah. So we could get shot by a nervous sedentary granny,” said Dutch.

“Yes,” said Tony in the same manner as the previous “No.”

“And someone might have gone back in …” I added.

“Yes.”

So we went looking for a generator. We headed straight for it since Tony knew where it was. The whole town was overgrown with weeds and bushes and there was an eerie quiet. In a forest, it’s quiet, but you feel life all around you even if you don’t hear it. Here it felt dead. As if death was a coat and I was wearing it. But it was cold.

It was a new house, very large. Of course, the grass hadn’t been cut in over a year now and it looked abandoned, but we’d still be careful.

We parked in front of it and sat still for a while, looking all around for any sign of life. After ten minutes we got out and moved towards the house with our hands clearly in front showing empty. But nothing moved.

“Hellooooo?” I yelled. “Anyone home? We’re friends. We’ll leave if you want us to.”

Still no movement, no sign, so we went for the door. It wasn’t locked. In fact it was broken. I supposed most houses had been broken into at some point so most doors would be similarly damaged. We walked in.

“Hello?”

No answer.

We made a careful room-by-room search to make sure we wouldn’t get jumped. We were all a bit jumpy after that armed granny comment. There was no one there so Tony showed us where the generator was, in the garage. It was large and heavy as promised.

“You disconnect it, here and here, and Rudy and I will go get the engine winch and the trailer,” said Tony.

So we stayed at the house and disconnected the generator. It didn’t take long, just a couple of pipes and a few bolts, so then we just had to wait for the others to come back.

We walked outside.

Sitting there on the curb was a man alone, just sitting there looking at us. He seemed quite relaxed. Not worried at all. As if he owned that curb. He was eating an apple with a knife. We looked around and couldn’t see anyone else. But as we walked towards him, when we got to about ten meters away from him, he said: “That’s far enough.”

We looked at each other, surprised. What the hell????

“Hello…. You have nothing to fear from us,” I said.

“Oh, I know that.” He smiled. “I’d keep my hands open and visible at all times please if I were you.”

--- Ah. Of course.

Now Dutch and William looked around more carefully, and they slowly brought their hands about chest high and palms out. I did the same of course.

“That’s good,” said the man as he stood up. He smiled. “You’ve done this before it seems. Can you please tell me what you’re doing here? I thought this place was abandoned.”

“We need a generator,” I said.

“Ok. Fine. Everyone needs a generator. But for where? No one lives here, so where are you taking it?”

“Well it’s a bit of a story. Why don’t you ask your friends to come down and we can discuss it. There must be coffee around here somewhere,” I said trying to buy time.

“No, I don’t think so. I like my friends right where they are, thanks. For now anyway.” He didn’t budge, we couldn’t move. Stuck. The man seemed like he had all the time in the world.

“We want to get a radio broadcast out. We need the generator to power up the radio station.”

He slowly walked right up to us. Big smile. No fear. Quite upsetting actually. He looked a bit like a Celtic warrior to me. Compact, strong, average height, semi-curly black hair, the smile making him look more dangerous, confident.

“Now that does sound like you have a story to tell. Well who am I to stand in the way of free expression. I’ll even help you. I suppose the first thing I can do is let your two Italian friends go. They said the same thing so it must be true. My name is Rourke.” He made a motion toward the ground while looking behind him. Like “stand down”. Then he grabbed my arm and turned me towards the house and we all started walking back up the driveway. This man was very comfortable with authority. He was used to having people do what he said. That was obvious. And his smile wasn’t devious; it was genuinely warm, friendly. I couldn’t really get a hold of it. Was he just a charming person who new how to stay safe, or were we in serious trouble. No way to know just yet.

“Rourke? Said William in a serious tone. “What’s going on? What do you want?”

“Yes. Good question I guess.” He walked a bit in silence. And as we got to the door, he answered. “I’m thinking of moving my bunch here. I like this town. It’s a fixer upper, but I think it’ll do. So I kind of already consider it my home you see? When I see people wandering around in my home, I get, um, perplexed. But wanting to send out a message… That’s worth some consideration, it’s intriguing. So everything now depends on the message. Make sense?”

“I…”

“Course it does,” he finished. “You, uh, Mr. …?” He looked at me with eyes wide open.

“Morgan.”

“…Have my full attention.” And we went inside. Now he was alone and we were three. Yet he showed absolutely no fear of us. Completely at ease. “Let’s see if there’s coffee in here. Did you look?”

“No, not yet.” I said. “We thought it would be doubtful.”

“Well that’s ok, I’ll have some brought in immediately. If you don’t mind?” He looked at all of us with open hands. My mouth just sort of popped open and stayed that way for too long.

And he clicked a radio that was attached to his shirt and he said” Coffee for four please. Actually, better make that six I guess.” Then he looked at me and said: “For your two friends Rudy and Tony, right?”

“Of course. Uh.. Thank you, Mr. …”

“Rourke. Just Rourke. And hey, no troubles. Milk and sugar?”

“Milk?” asked Dutch licking his lips.

“Yep. We have a few cows.” He said happily. “Now… Tell me. What do you want to tell the world? From my home.”

Rourke was calm, affable. But I got the feeling that he wasn’t someone to take lightly. Would he help us or get in our way. I really couldn’t figure it out yet. But the obvious course of action was to make friends.

“It’s sensitive,” I said. Why don’t you just wait until we broadcast it. Then you can hear our message when everyone else gets to hear it.”

“Because, Mr. Morgan, I am not like everyone else. And if you broadcast something from my house, I want to know what it is before you do so.” Two men and a woman came down from behind a few trees with cups and saucers and pots. I guessed that they were in another house very close by.

“Fair enough,” I said. I looked at William and Dutch. They nodded helplessly. Rourke had us. That was clear. And even if he didn’t, this is what we were here to do. So we had to tell him our plan, put our cards down so to speak and hope he’d be with us.

“Mooney started the war,” I blurted out.

Silence. Rourke, turned his head toward me and squinted his eyes.

“Well of course he start… What do you mean he STARTED the war?” he asked standing up, getting excited.

“The war was his fault. He started it for personal gain,” I said.

“Bullshit!” But there was no conviction behind it. He spilled his coffee.

“No. It’s true,” added Dutch.

“And you have proof of this of course.”

“Yes. We think maybe it was a mistake, an accident. He wanted to start a crisis to discredit the sitting president, Mr. Davies, but it went too far. People have to know. The current president of the USA is a criminal who caused billions of deaths.”

“Why?” He asked. “I mean, have you thought this through? What’s gonna happen when you let this out?”

Silence. And then he went on following his own train of thought.

“Well let’s think about it. He might run off, scared that he’ll be hunted down. Or, he might start a media campaign to discredit you. Or he could call an election. But you know what? Why should he? More likely? He’ll hunt you down and kill you along with many other people.”

“Yeah…. That’s pretty much our conclusion too…But we don’t see any alternative. People have to know. I couldn’t live with myself if I just let this be.”

Rourke lost his complacent demeanor. He first looked bewildered, than confused, and then, finally, determined. “Ok, tell me the whole story.” He hardly moved an eyelid during my entire tale.

“Crap. And here I thought I was just going to start a nice quiet life here…And boom. Thanks a lot…There goes my life of luxurious retirement.” And he sat down heavily. “Listen carefully. As soon as they hear this message, they’ll know it came from here and they’ll send someone. Immediately. Everyone around here will be in danger. As soon as you’ve done this, you have to leave and go as far as possible. Maybe you could go back to see your friends and tell them you’re leaving to Florida. Then they might….MIGHT be ok..”

“We’ve already seen to that. What about you?”

“We’ll go somewhere else. Can’t stay here now. Shit. After all this time..”

“What?”

“I’ve been holding my group together for over a year now. Barely holding it together actually. We finally get here where I thought we could start a regular life and now… Damn.”

“I’m sorry. I really am,” I said. “Maybe there’s another option…”

“Oh don’t be. No. You’re doing the right thing and I’ll help you. It just sucks. That son of a bitch. That… no, he has to pay. ”

“What people, what group? Where do you come from?” asked William.

“I head a survivalists group from up in the forests in Idaho. We had a camp up there. We were ready for all this…” He waved his hands around.

I looked at William and Dutch and smiled. We had our first survivalist group and their leader seemed rational. ’Magine that.

And so I had another friend.