AWACS - An American With A Chinese System
Copyright© 2025 by PT Brainum
Chapter 34
I drove back to the coast and my rented house there, for sleep after dropping off the third trailer. It was now a pretty tight fit, but it would hopefully be emptied tomorrow.
I headed to bed after checking my text messages. Still no reply. I decided I needed to talk to Aida about what happened in San Diego.
“Hi Koby, what’s up?”
I told her about the raid, and what happened to Pete, and how my RV had been confiscated and pawed thru.
She was clearly pissed, “Anything missing?”
“Not that I saw, but I took it back, out of their impound lot.”
“Just as long as it disappears and is never found again,” she warned.
“It won’t be, I’ll drop it in the Mariana trench if I have to.”
“Whatever,” she sighed.
“Something wrong?”
“Had one of the guys I wanted to keep quit when learned I was going to be the new boss.”
“Oh, sorry. Well I’m going to go gamble at some new casinos tonight.”
“Keep your records, I don’t want to have the IRS after you too.”
“Will do.”
“You going to be at the coast this weekend?”
“Not sure, been bouncing around the South Pacific.”
She sighed again, “Ok, go have fun,” and hung up.
I took a one hour nap using my chicken alarm clock to fully recharge, and then hit the road. It was a two hour drive to the first casino. I found the roulette wheel, and placed a bet, the max was only ten thousand. I purposefully lost the first round, and bet again on the same number. I won that time. I got it in cash, they gave me a bag to put it in when they saw the one I wanted to use. Apparently Wind Casino was in a bit of rivalry with River Casino and didn’t want their cash in a competitors bag.
It was almost midnight, and there was one more casino nearby, it was also a River Casino. It played out the same way, I played a different number, but lost 10k first, then won. After they took 24% for taxes, and had me sign a publicity waiver, I had made a total of $532,000 between the two. It still seemed like it should have weighed more, it was only about five or six pounds.
Google said that the nearest Costco was two hours away, or that my rental house was three hours. It was only 2 am, so I drove there instead of staying at the casino. I was worried that people would know where I was, and that I had won big. The truck was comfortable enough, so I slept again, just in the crew cab.
I woke in the morning cold. The clothing skill had reached its time out, and I was back in cargo shorts, sandals, and a t-shirt. I reactivated it, and looked around. Costco wouldn’t open till 10 am, and it was only nine. I saw there was another Sherri’s nearby, so I headed there for breakfast. They did a nice mocha, and I dug into the stuffed hashbrowns again, choosing scrambled eggs and sausage to go with them.
I caught a glance of myself on the bathroom mirror, and despite sleeping in the truck, I was looking good. The skill had me in a nice pair of dark blue jeans, good quality work boots, and a light V neck sweater over a button up flannel shirt. Perfect for this weather. Pretty good Oregon camouflage too.
Breakfast over, and Costco was open, so I headed in, and got my membership. I had left the generator and the full propane tanks in the storage unit, with the full fuel trailers. If there was a fire or a leak, I’d be in big trouble, because most of what I was storing was on the no-no list. As it was, I dragged into the store the extra empty storage bins to fill with my purchases. Security wanted to know if it was a return, but I explained it was for taking my purchases home. He pointed me to the big flat carts, which I eagerly grabbed.
I filled one bin with cheese, another with fresh milk and butter, another with more booze. I started to gather a wide selection of clothing that I thought would fit the people, then decided that wasn’t really something I should be doing. I tried to buy stuff that they didn’t have. I ended up with eight full totes, 70 gallons each, stuffed full. They fit in the back of the truck just fine, and the lids locked down tight, so I wasn’t worried.
I found a rental storage place that could take the truck, and locked it, and the totes away inside. Looking around, I double checked I wasn’t being watched by changing the color of my sweater. The skill worked, which meant no one was looking.
I paused time, and shot into the sky, heading for my island home.
It was an easy 20 minute trip.
I landed, and waited for my clothes to shift to proper island wear, and then summoned my truck, the three trailers, and the generator and other stuff I had pulled out of the truck to make room. It was a nice flat spot near the tennis courts to put everything. I went back into the air, and came down again at the Mayor’s house.
Letting time again flow normally, I knocked.
“Hey Koby, was wondering where you were.”
“I went and got some stuff. You know that empty area by the tennis courts?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve got a couple fuel trailers, and building supplies for a house, plus my new pickup, and 8 big containers of food and clothing.”
His eyebrows went up, and he shut the door behind him, “Let’s go look,” he said excitedly.
He drove a bit faster this time, as we headed back to where I’d left everything.
He pulled up to my big white truck, and the three big white trailers. “You’re going to have to move this stuff, this is our emergency helicopter landing field.”
“No problem, where do you want it?”
“Can you just move it where I want?”
“Sure, just need to send it back first,” I said, returning all four items, plus the extra stuff back to their respective storage units.
He turned around, and headed around to another recently cleared spot, where a large backhoe was sitting.
“Set everything down there,” he said.
Getting out of the cart, I summoned everything back, putting them in a neat line.
“The trailer has building supplies, the bins in the back of the truck are full of food, some of it is perishable, so you need to get them to refrigeration soon. The batteries on the fuel tanks are charged, and anybody can come fill up, I just ask that you keep track of who takes what, so nobody abuses the fuel.”
“I’ll put Mick in charge of the fuel, are the building supplies for your house?”
“Yeah, and I got poles for running power out there.”
“That’s great, I’ll get Tom to start setting them up. We run internet on the same pole, so you’ll have that too.”
“Don’t worry about that, I’ll get my own starlink.”
He nodded, looking at the stuff, practically salivating.
“I could use some help designing a house, but I think I’d like to put up a house closer to town and leave my RV and the land there as a future project. I want to build something into the rocks, and thats going to take time to design.”
He pointed to where everything was stacked, “We created this for a potential resident that backed out.”
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