Part 8: Jericho - Part 5

3rd of November 2077, Sometime later - Jericho, Town Hall:

It has been a few hours since Kaidan and the team that went with him to the underground facility. Kaidan had to admit he was glad that Alice didn’t stop him from going, seeing how many monsters they had to deal with. Who knew that as the Commander, someone who meant to be in charge of everything, he was so limited as to what he could and couldn’t do. He had to wonder who really was in charge here.

In fact, there were hive-like structures that spit out wasp-like creatures, these wasps would attack them. With how many that came out of the hives, Kaidan realized that they were magical and had to be destroyed fast so that they couldn’t spawn more wasps out. The problem they had was finding these hives, they were hidden in rooms on the floor, protected by plants and other monsters.

The majority of the monsters were around the conference hall which Kaidan and his team were clearing out today, it was big with a few loges along the walls. It was at the far end of the floor, with offices and workstations around it. Seeing how the front of the conference hall had a stage like a theatre, to show off whatever it was they were showing off here, Kaidan got the idea that once this area was cleared of water and plants, he could knock down the offices and workstations turn the area into a conference hall/theatre that could hold a few thousand. This way they would have a place to hold meetings when needed, and when not being used for a meeting area, people could use it to put on plays for others. As Kaidan didn’t know how long they would be down here for, so to keep people from getting bored and losing hope, they could put on plays for people to watch, to have some kind of normality.

In fact, as he was clearing the area up, he began to think about turning the area into a kind of shopping centre/sports bar. So this way, the people living down here could have some kind of normality whilst waiting to return to the surface. Sure they would have to work out some sort of currency, later on, to add more normality to their lives, so that when they return to the surface, people would understand about currency, even if money isn’t a thing anymore. But they could deal with that later on, they would have to set up the area first and deal with the currency later.

But Kaidan wasn’t there for long though, as he got a report that Jake who went out for information was already back though he was only gone for a few hours. The idea that Jake gave to everyone was that they would be gone for a few days, even weeks depending what they found out before returning. For him to return so soon, he must have found something important and needed to report ASAP, so he went to the City Hall to see the man.

“Is everything alright Jake?” asked Kaidan when he entered the City Hall and saw Jake, standing behind the mayor’s desk, with a big red box with the words ‘Black Box’ written across it, which he was opening up, “I thought you would be in Wichita by now.”

“As I just told my mum, Smoky Hill Bridge is blocked,” explained Jake, “few pilots tried to use the highway as a landing strip, with mixed results, hence why the bridge is blocked.”

“And the black box?” asked Kaidan.

“Found it in one of the plans, only one that wasn’t damaged by the landing.” explained Jake.

“Were there any survivors?” asked Kaidan, hoping for the best.

“Two commuter planes that didn’t make it.” explained Jake, “But I did find a 757 that was empty.”

“Where are they? In town somewhere?” asked the commander, but a look from Jake told him everything he needed to know, they weren’t there and he had no idea where they were. “So is anyone getting us a reel-to-reel so we can listen to what happened out there?”

“I’m getting Deputy Bill Kohler to bring one to us now,” the young man informed Kaidan, “I’m waiting for my mum to return with dad so he could hear it.”

Just then Deputy Kohler returned with the reel-to-reel radio, where Jake started to put the reel from the Black Box onto the reel-to-reel and began to listen to it. Cleaning it up so that they could listen to the recording. It took about ten minutes to do so, by the time he was done the office was full of adults and children. They heard about the recording, they were there wanting to know what was going on, like Kaidan.

“Dad’s here.” Eric told his brother, Eric only arrived a few minutes ago, who was standing next to Jake, just like Kaidan was.

“I’ve gone through most of this recording from the plane that crashed.” Jake informed Kaidan and his father, “This is the last thirty seconds or so. There’s a lot of background noise. You can also hear pilots from planes in the area talking to each other.”

“Wait.” Johnston stopped his son from playing the recording, “The kids.”

“Oh, yeah. Come on, girls, let’s go.” said Gail Green, as she and a few others led the kids out of the office, not wanting them to hear it, just in case it wasn’t good. A few seconds later, Gail returned to stand next to her husband.

Once she returned, Johnston give his son a nod and he started to play

“Is anyone on this frequency? There’s no reply from ATCC.” they heard a pilot say from the recording, “Please advise. We’re 827 in emergency descending coordinates for approach. Give me full flaps. It’s about to get bumpy.”

“This is Chinook 116 heavy.” they heard from another pilot, “We missed our handoff to Kansas City ATC. Does anyone read us? Over.”

“Chinook 116, this is Clem 56. I’m reading you.” said another pilot.

“Bingo fuel, lost all VFR heading out of Chicago.” Chinook 116 pilot replied, “I’ve tried all frequencies. There’s no one out there -”

“What does that mean?” asked a young lady named Heather.

“They’re out of gas and blind.” explained Jake.

“This is Primary 221. I’ve got a mushroom cloud sixteen kilometres in height somewhere northwest over Denver.”

“I’ve got a visual on two separate plumes. One over in Kansas City and one south somewhere in Texas. Does anyone read ATC?”

“Negative. There is no ATCC anymore.”

The group listened to the pilots on the Black Box recording, then with the last message, Robert Hawkins said, “They’re saying there’s no traffic control. That’s ten thousand planes with no place to land. That’s about a million people in the air.”

“Were those fighter jets? Do you have a visual?” asked a pilot as they heard a plane going past them at high speed.

“Confirm. Probably the Missouri Guard, 131 st settled amber. These guys are hauling ass somewhere. Chinook 116, this is Clem 56. We found a stretch of highway long enough. Follow us in. Setting down. On final approach. Stand by. Here we go. Flaps. I need more flaps. I’m losing it. I can’t hold it. We’re flying here, pull up. Pull it up! I can’t! Chinook 116, this is Clem 56. We found a stretch of highway long enough. Follow ... Chinook 116, this is Clem 56. We found a stretch ... Chinook 116, this is Clem 56. We found a stretch of highway long enough ... set down in a field.” The group heard the final moments of Clem 56, before they crash-landed, shocking and horrifying the people there.

“Emily, come here.” Jake called his friend over, after a few moments playing with the reel-to-reel as if he heard something important, “Roger was on Trans Shore 724, right?”

“Yes he was.” admitted Emily, before asking after hearing some things that they heard before, “Jake, what is this?”

“Just listen. The background chatter.” said Jake, as he played around with the reel-to-reel until he got what he wanted Emily to hear.

“This is Trans Shore 724. We’ve set down in a field.” said the pilot of the plane, “GPS malfunctioned. I think we’re north of Kansas with minor injuries.”

“He’s alive.” Jake told her happily, “He’s alive.”

Emily and the rest of the people were happy to hear this, finally some good news, at least Emily’s fiance was alive. It wasn’t big, but at least it was some good news that gave people hope, hope that their loved ones might be alive somewhere out there, trying to get home. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Kaidan knew that they needed hope if things were to get better. But he also knew that hope wouldn’t last for long when the loved ones didn’t make it home, so he had to prepare for that outcome when it came.

For now, they had hope, something they needed so he wasn’t going to kill that just yet. He watched as the group left the office, starting a small party at the good news. Something they needed, as it could be a long time before the town would be as happy as this, only time would tell.

o0OoO0o

6th of November 2077 - Jericho, Town Hall:

It has been three days since that night and things were starting to get back to normal, or a new normal seeing how the world had more or less ended. Yes, people were worried and afraid as to what would happen, but the people of Jericho knew that there wasn’t anything that they could do about it. They were getting very limited news on the TV and radio now that the signals were cutting out thanks to the radiation, but the little that they could get is that it wasn’t good. Many dead and many more to come.

To keep them busy and not to think too much about this, Kaidan had them do jobs. Mainly having groups help clean up the first floor of the underground facility now that it was safe to do so. He had his people going floor by floor to make sure they were safe. Thankfully, apart from a few monsters here and there, the other floors weren’t too bad as they feared that they could be.

The only thing bad that they found was the horrifying truth about the place. Whilst all information was destroyed, it was safe to say with all the dead bodies that they found, many of them chained up or locked in rooms, they experimented on people here. As there were many people deformed and altered in some shape and form. People were sick upon hearing this, they couldn’t believe that such a place existed so close to their town.

Many people didn’t like the idea that they were going to in fact live down there, many wanted to stay above. But Kaidan put a stop to this, telling them they had no other options. As at some point in the future, it was going to get really cold and start to snow, a nuclear winter, where only the strong and the lucky would live through it. So if they want to be the lucky ones, they would need to live down there.

Some people asked about the dome, why couldn’t they live in it. Kaidan put that down too, telling them that apart from the hospital, he had plans to destroy all the buildings inside the dome. This upset a lot of people, as they didn’t like the idea of this. But Kaidan pointed out that he was planning to make the dome into a farmland area, building greenhouses and creating small patches of land for vegetables and some animals. The dome would be their main lifeline, giving them food for the upcoming years. They would need it with how little food there would be in years to come.

This quietened them down a bit, as they realized that Kaidan was doing something about keeping them fed. So they knew better than to fight over this, as they wouldn’t know where they get their food next. In fact, some even volunteered to hunt for some animals for them to breed for food. This was one more job to keep them busy, but Kaidan told them to be careful, as many animals would be dead by now thanks to the rain and the ones that were alive would be hard to find.

Either way, before going back to the underground facility, he was going to the Great Hall to make sure Heather was okay and to see if she needed anything. Along his way to the City Hall, apart from hearing about looting and small crimes have done mainly by children doing this, he heard people talking about some stranger breaking into the pharmacy trying to steal meds there. The talk around the town said that this person had a bad case of radiation poisoning, and he somehow got over the wall that he had his people create to get some RadAway and Rad X to counter this.

Too bad for him that there was no medical treatment left in the pharmacy. He had moved all the medicine and medical items from the pharmacy to the hospital, which was under armed guard. Kaidan was afraid that something like this might happen, in fact, he was suspecting one of the townspeople might do it, not an outsider, so he moved everything into the hospital and was guarded so that this wouldn’t happen. With their world ended as they know it, he didn’t know how long this medical stuff would last or when/if they could make alternate medical supplies. So with that in mind, he knew he had to protect the stuff that they had. To use themselves or to trade with for things that they might need later.