Chapter 4

Year Two: Day Twenty-Two: Monday

We were all gathered in the large conference room awaiting the beginning of the Commander's Conference. On the agenda were several weighty topics. Our population was holding steady as most of the remaining survivors in our area seemed to have either made it to us or been captured by the few small bands of surviving renegades still in the area. All of the ground in the area between our four small bases had been combed over multiple times. The searches had been made easier by a fortuitous discovery made by Kim.

Since the beginning we had plotted the location of each rescue. About six months after the collapse occurred a pattern began to emerge. Kim actually pointed out the pattern one afternoon when she was studying maps Kari had made of the survivor locations at the time of the collapse. It was her day off and as usual she was spending the afternoon with Kari who was on watch. Having tried everything that she could think of to find some pattern she was really just playing around when she made a circle of her fingers and looked at the map through that circle. All of a sudden she yelled, "Kari, come here quick! Look at this."

Kari, who was having a hard time with the duty roster and wanting a distraction asked, "Look at what?"

Kim said, "Put your fingers together like this and then look at the map."

Kari half-heartedly did as Kim suggested for several minutes, shrugged her shoulders and said, "So? We've done that before. You can't make a circle around any of the groups of survivors."

Kim, obviously excited, said, "No, not around the survivors, make the circle around the areas without any survivors."

Kari, puzzled at that point, tried doing what Kim suggested. As she looked at the map it was as if a light came on. She saw what Kim saw. She grabbed the piece of paper, a copy of the actual map, and took it over to the navigation plotting table. There she took a ruler and started measuring. After a few minutes she took a compass and scribed a circle. Then more measurements and more circles were made. When she finished she was so excited that she was shaking.

Rhetorically she asked, "What could have done this?"

Kim looked at the overlapping groups of circles on the map. The survivors had all been in areas not covered by any circle. The circles were all roughly the same size and seemed to center on what had been fairly heavily populated areas. Where a populated area was larger than the blast circle, which was approximately 40 miles in diameter, several circles could account for the disappearances. These weapons seemed to be based upon a concept similar to the neutron bombs designed but not believed to have actually been constructed during the cold war. This concept was to kill people but leave the infrastructure unharmed. The weapon used to foment the collapse, unlike those neutron bombs, left no residue and had not only killed but completely removed any trace of those killed.

It was almost thirty hours and many meetings later when it was decided to scribe similar circles over other nearby population centers. The first set of locator maps was crude and some of the centers had to be readjusted, but when we started concentrating our searches in the areas not touched by any circle we began to find people. Not a lot of people at first, because these areas were by definition sparsely populated, but in total quite a large number. A few people had relocated and some towns had attracted small populations, but most of the people we found were in the areas we expected them to be. Around some larger cities the areas not covered by what we began to call blast circles were small. Where population centers were further apart the uncovered areas were larger and there were more people to be found. The scientists tried to statistically fathom a circle's existence based upon the existing circles and known populations of those areas and the maps got even better; not perfect, but better.

All of that had allowed us to quickly find the slightly less than four thousand people that now populated our four small towns. It was also the primary reason that the existing towns were located where they were. The military bases themselves had been targets but for the most part the area around these bases was sparsely populated. The main reason for the conference today was to decide whether to expand outside our present area, and if so, where. This was one decision that I decided to leave for others; letting the decision made here today determine our future direction.

The conference got off to a good start when Kari brought us up to date on the areas that had been searched and the time and effort expended in that search. That area consisted of the land area east and south of New Orleans and stretching as far east as the big bend area of Florida. This area included the southeast third of Louisiana, the lower sixth of Mississippi and Alabama, the entire panhandle of Florida and the southwest portion of Georgia. The total area included approximately 53,000 square miles. In addition to this area a small beachhead had been scouted around Kingsville, Texas. The total area was larger than the states of North Carolina or Arkansas. We estimated the population in that area at the time of the collapse to have been about three million. It was hard to believe that only slightly more than 1/10^th of one percent of the population remained.

I knew the facts, but was still astonished when I thought of what we had accomplished with our limited resources and pilots. I remembered that we had trained every flier that participated in the search. It seemed obvious that any continuation of the search for survivors would require expanded resources or it was going to take a lifetime. The question was whether we should expend those resources. Most of us had sat around discussing the pros and cons until we each knew every argument. I had deliberately remained neutral during those discussions.

Kari looked to me as she finished her prepared remarks. I had told her that I wanted to speak last but she knew a few words from me would settle the matter quickly. I shook her off and she moved on to Chuck Swanson, who as the senior detachment commander present was to speak for the security detachments. Chuck's remarks were off the cuff. From a security standpoint there were also pros and cons to our expansion. More territory meant more security would be needed, but it also gave us an opportunity to clean out pockets of renegades outside of our perimeter. There also would be resources and people outside our area that would make us stronger.

In closing Chuck made one point summing up his feelings that I thought was compelling and well articulated. He said, "I'm just a soldier, I go where and do what I'm ordered. I don't usually expect to have any voice in policy decisions and appreciate being asked my opinion. I will support any decision we reach but I believe we need to continue to expand. We are still only a small group. We may have an advantage over others because we have consolidated ourselves fairly quickly and in good order. To my thinking we are the good guys. Still, we are not the only group likely to be out there. Someone ruthless could match our strength and then decide to take what we have. I have always believed that the best defense involves a good offense. If we continue our efforts, hopefully at some point we will become too big to fight. If we just try to consolidate what we have it won't be long until a bigger dog will be trying to take our bone."

At that point Chuck ended his remarks and again Kari looked at me from the podium. Again I shook my head. The next speaker was the mayor of Keeslerville. Bubba Thornton was a big man, not given to public speaking. He was mayor of Keeslerville because he worked harder than any two people that I have ever seen. The same was true of all of our mayors. I had not talked to Bubba about this and had no idea what he was going to say.

Bubba looked right at me he said, "I'm only a poor coon ass from back there in the swamp. I have no idea about this thing, Steve, except this. Where would all of us be had you not decided to find us? I'll tell you where we'd be. We would still be back there in the swamp with no lights and no water fit to drink. Some of us would be dead. I'm just glad you did find us."

I had expected to hear some opposition to continuing the search. I didn't want to make the mistake of not listening to everyone who had a different opinion. After each speaker had his or her say I found that the only remaining question was where we would search next. Kari cornered me during the first break and said, "I told you this was a waste of time. It's not like before. Everyone sees the need to continue searching."

I smiled and said, "I suspected that, but now it's their decision. It's important that this be a consensus. I don't want them to grow too dependent on my decisions."

After that break we listened to each express his or her idea of where we should search next. The one common thread to all of their ideas was that we secure any military bases close by and search the areas around those bases for survivors. Of course there were military bases all over the southeast and southwest. It was finally decided to move out towards the northeast coast of Florida and the contiguous southeast coast of Georgia. This was primarily to secure the nuclear assets at Kings Bay, Georgia and any shipboard assets at Naval Station Mayport, Florida. There were also large P-3 Orion patrol aircraft and SH-60 Seahawk helicopters at NAS Jacksonville. Along the way we would secure any assets at the National Guard Armories, including the large armory at Camp Blanding west of Jacksonville.

Another priority was securing the libraries at the universities along the way. Of special mention in this area was the McGuire medical library at Florida State University. Preserving the technical and research information in large libraries had become the focus of a small group headed by one of the scientists located at Eglin AFB. Dr. Matt Nelson had been the project coordinator of the digital maser program at Eglin. One of the things the collapse had accomplished was to kill those specialized defense weapons programs. Matt realized, as did the other scientists at Eglin, that they would have to retrain into other specialties. Along the way each had moved away from the narrow boundaries of their individual specialized fields and migrated towards becoming generalists.