Chapter 30

The Society of Sisters and their compound at Liberty Mountain were the pride and joy of Sheila’s existence. She devoted almost every waking hour toward her mission of building an organization that could withstand anything the apocalyptic whims of fate might send her way. The colony’s Boss was an innovator who served both as a leader and a follower.

Like the Caesars of old, she had the authority to issue any order necessary to secure the safety of the group. Unlike the dictators of ancient Rome, her power was derived from a five-woman executive committee that could instantly countermand any given order. Sheila could be removed from her leadership position without notice.

The Society’s membership kept the excom in check. Under the group’s charter, any five members of the clan could call a snap election and reshuffle the power deck. The colony was a compact dictatorship driven by pure democracy. It reminded me of a snake from ancient mythology devouring its tail. The net effect of the dynamic, interdependent tension within their compact organizational structure was a remarkably stable form of self-government. Sheila had served as the elected chief executive since the group’s inception.

After spending the first three days organizing Sheila’s notes and files, I was ready to throw myself headfirst into the paper shredder.

“What’s the matter; you’re awfully quiet?” Sheila asked as she dropped another stack of documents on the desk in front of me.

“I hate paperwork. Is the stable boy position still open?” I forlornly stared at the mountain of paper as I leaned back in my chair and took a deep sigh.

“You would rather shovel manure than do officework?” Sheila inquired with a sly grin.

I shrugged my shoulders and chuckled as I studied the folder in my hands and tried to figure out which paper pile was its home. Everything had its place; the trick was finding it.

One in ten of the papers I’d been sifting through contained detailed daily logs of production and consumption. Everything consumed was assigned a color code: green for food harvested or hunted by the Sisterhood, blue for imported dry goods and grains; red for non-renewable resources that could only be replaced by trading with the outside world.

There is an exception to every rule; iron was color-coded, both red and blue. Worn out equipment was smelted into ingots and recycled into new tools by a team of women who specialized in metallurgy and blacksmithing.

Broken, destroyed, or misplaced equipment necessary to the colony’s survival were, according to Sheila, “a critical loss.” Advanced electronics, radio transmitters, and computers at the top of her worry list.

“We’re going to have to make do with whatever we have on hand when the shit hits the fan. We won’t see any replacements in this lifetime,” Sheila noted as she took the folder from my hands. “Or the next.” She sighed and dropped the report into the red cabinet.

“You need to practice the OneTouch filing system, Sky. Touch a piece of paper only once. Don’t let a document in your hands go until you have a home for it.” Sheila picked up the file and scanned it for a moment before putting it away in the blue cabinet. “Ask me if you can’t figure out where it belongs.”

My Boss was an information Nazi. She tracked every aspect of life at Liberty Mountain. It was as if she was the brain of a living thing where data and paperwork were the central nervous system. My job was to sort through the debris field of previously chewed data and file it away for future reference. I was in the seventh circle of Hell. The section reserved for those who hated office work.

“Christ on a crutch, did you guys ever heard of digital records? They’re a whole lot easier to deal with then all this paperwork,” I grumbled and lit a cigarette.

“Electronic documents are incredibly fragile. These documents are part of our history. We lose our identity and our culture if we lose our history. I will not trust our survival in computers.” Sheila took a cigarette out of my pack.

“Then, why do you spend a million bucks a year on state-of-the-art equipment if you’re so skeptical of technology? You’ve got a God-awful amount of server space according to your archives, and you keep expanding your capacity. Your group has almost enough storage capacity to put the Pentagon to shame.”

I flicked the ash from my smoke into an empty coffee cup. Sheila looked at me, and she inhaled the puff and blew a perfect smoke ring at my face. I blinked as I passed through the circle of wispy gray.

“Enough of this. We’re going for a walkabout.” Sheila flicked the glowing tip of tobacco from her cigarette and rested the un-smoked remainder in the ashtray. “Come with me,” she said, as she stood and extended her hand to assist me in rising out of my comfortable chair.

“Walkabout?” I gave my Boss my best puzzled down-under grin and tunelessly hummed the soundtrack to Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport by Rolf Harris.

“We won’t find any didgeridoos or wallabies on this walkabout. Follow me,” Sheila instructed with a hearty laugh.

We emerged from the elevator and entered the underground cavern beneath the cabin a few minutes later. I followed Sheila through the maze of stalactites and stalagmites until we found ourselves traveling down a side tunnel to the entrance of a vast server farm hidden in an expansive underground cavern.

A massive sheet metal warehouse large enough to house a football field sprawled across to cave floor beneath the vaulted chamber. Endless rows of racks containing thousands of servers filled the windowless building with a maze-like labyrinth of alleyways and corridors. The dimly lit passages separating the walls of twinkling machines gave the structure a creepy supermarket appearance.

“This is Athenia, our digital version of the library at Alexandria. For ten years, we’ve been downloading knowledge,” Sheila said as we walked toward the farm’s control room located at the center of the complex.

“Let me introduce you to two of my favorite disciples, they’re the guardians of learning,” Sheila said as she rang the buzzer on lamp pole next to the center’s armored door.

I shivered in the warmth of grotto’s humid air and squinted into the shadows beyond the light. What a curious choice of words for a leader with no faith?

I chuckled as I read the sign over the entrance: “Welcome to the Department of Redundancy Department.” Somebody had a sense of humor.

Jennifer and Tammy greeted us with warm smiles. I got a chaste handshake from Tammy while two enthusiastic hugs smothered Sheila.

“Sky, meet Jennifer. She’s our head of computers and communications,” the Commander said as she gave the African lady a slightly sloppy smooch of sisterly affection. The many hugs and frequent kisses reinforced morel and mood the same way common affection synchronized immune systems. Everyone got what everyone had.

The center of the chief’s attention was a beautiful black woman in her mid-thirties. She carried with her an air of grace and casual beauty, which radiated certain innocence from within a cloud of pheromones.

An electric spark of desire jolted our bodies like a live wire on a rainy day the instant our hands touched in greeting. Our eyes widened in mutual arousal as the charge passed from flesh to flesh, and our libidos merged in a chemical connection where none had existed before. We were each on the other’s wavelength.

Our handshake lasted a few moments longer than necessary and ended with her thumb gently caressing the back of my hand as she gave it an extra affectionate squeeze. I gulped and shuddered as I looked into Jennifer’s surprised and puzzled eyes staring back at me. She had felt the same thing I had.

Jennifer and her co-worker were each dressed in gray and tan overalls, which served as the Sisterhood’s unofficial work uniform. The supervisor’s zipper was open to her navel and offered an excellent view of two plump and well-rounded breasts. I fought against the urge to rest my head against her bosom and took note of the quarter dollar sized gold, ruby, and silver pin in the shape of a flaming torch held aloft in front of a gleaming silver lightning bolt instead.

“Like it?” the supervisor responded to my attention to her jewelry.

“Uh, er, yes,” I stammered with an embarrassed grin. I had been caught dead to rights in the act of gawking. “What do these symbols mean?”

Flame and lightning symbols are potent icons. There was a message embedded in the enamel jewelry, and the supervisor held the key. Jennifer smiled, and her dark brown eyes sparkled as she answered my question. I think that she appreciated my inquiry.

“The flaming torch represents knowledge in service to civilization. It’s also a reminder that the secret of the fire was stolen from the gods by Prometheus at great personal risk. The lightning bolt is symbolic of the sinister forces of chaos and war being held in check by wisdom and learning. We are the keepers of the flame,” she proclaimed as Sheila and Tammy nodded in agreement.