Chapter 3

"The town is almost euphoric," smiled John to begin the Core Group meeting. "Every one of you did a super job last night at the community meeting. Ellen, you were masterful in blunting concerns about our reading CAP card details."

Andy said, "The news that the sponsors are allowed an additional 'mother' concubine was wildly popular last night. It seems the implications began to sink in after everyone went home. If the estimates are correct, and every willing woman will be evacuated, then a lot of men will be alone after the pickup. It was tough enough to think about their children gone forever. Losing their entire families is almost paralyzing."

"I told Kathy about that on Monday night," agreed Bob. "When I told her, she thought that was great. She didn't realize that it applied to her. It wasn't until last night that it dawned on her that she and the kids will be kissing me goodbye forever. Actually, 'dawned on' might not be the right phrase. She was shaken to her core. She cried for a long time last night. She cried hard. She still hasn't recovered."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Bob," said Ellen. "If she doesn't bounce back in a couple of days, will you let me know, please?"

Bob answered, "She'll be fine, Ellen."

"I'm serious, Bob," answered Ellen. "This is important. There can be long-term consequences if she doesn't get herself on the right side of this problem. The men being left behind are vulnerable. Andy, you and Father Frank Murray and I are going to have our work cut out for ourselves."

"I haven't spoken to Father Frank in several days," said Andy. "Since last week, now that I think about it. My experience today was much more about the men facing abandonment. Ellen, how about you and Frank and I putting our heads together on this?"

Ellen said, "I'd be happy to do that. I can meet with you tomorrow over breakfast, over lunch or after 5:00. I can meet with you any time over the weekend."

"Let me check with Frank," said Andy, "and I'll let you know. I won't be able to ask Frank in time to do breakfast, though."

Jim said, "It hadn't really registered with me how devastating this will be for the town's men. I don't really have the training, but if I can help, Ellen and Andy, please let me know.

"If you don't mind, I'd like to change the subject. Your poor ol' lawyer friend is concerned about all of the teenagers in town suddenly having all of the privileges of adulthood. Rather than have me recite all the issues, would someone please speak to the matter?"

"Amy and I," said Jean, "may be closer to this than many of the rest of you. Sarah and Michael, listen, gather your thoughts and get yourselves ready to chime in on this.

"For me," Jean continued, "it isn't that much of a leap. We could all be swept up in a pickup, and nobody would think to question that the teens are adults. You could watch as many of them fuck someone during selection as you pleased. The sponsors, at least, could have all the booze they want once they reach the transports. We are asking these young people to grow tremendously in a few months. Conferring adulthood upon them now shows that we respect and trust them completely."

Amy added, "This will be more difficult for the youngest teens. I'm afraid that, for many of them, it will be just like winning a million dollars and there's no one there to curb their impulses. Sarah?"

"As one of those teens," Sarah said, "I am honored at the show of respect and trust that the community has bestowed upon me. It is a matter of my personal honor to live up to the expectations that go hand in hand with that respect and trust. I believe that the best among us -- those who will be qualified to volunteer -- will feel that sense of honor as deeply as I do. As for the rest, it will be a test of their self-control."

"Well said, Sarah," said Michael. "Amy, I think you are correct. I guess I am one of the younger teens of concern. I will work as hard as anyone for this program. Many of the kids I know will not have the necessary self-control. I guess it will be another opportunity for some of us to demonstrate leadership."

"The other side of the coin," Steve said, "has to do with the stores, the restaurants and, yes, the liquor establishments in town. I don't think anybody means that credit should be extended to the teens. But we have already cancelled classes at the school. We haven't discussed how we will respond if the State Board of Education finds out. Maybe the worst that the State Board will do is to make us resume regular classes.

"When we give the teens full privileges of adulthood, we put every liquor license at risk. Now, I know the entire town supports the program completely. Everyone will contribute to the program. But I think it is too much to ask that an entire business be put at risk."

"If I may," answered John, "I feel it's time to share another hard truth about the cost of our plan. After the pickup, there won't be an Edgar, Washington anymore. Sure, the buildings will still be here. There will still be a couple of hundred mature men, young men and old women. But there won't be enough people to make a community. All the businesses that remain open after the pickup will go bankrupt. Almost all of the people in town will have to move somewhere else. Yeah, maybe a few shops will survive, but not many.

"This plan has the wholehearted support of the entire community. We were just talking about honor. As a matter of my personal honor, I will see to it that the burden of this plan does not fall unfairly on a few. Tomorrow, I will visit with the owners of all of the establishments in town that have liquor licenses. I will make sure the owners understand our intentions. I will make sure they understand that I have put my honor on the line."

"Oh, my God," gasped Jean. "That hadn't registered with me at all. Andy, Ellen, your work is an order of magnitude greater than I thought."

"I hadn't thought that through, either," admitted Ellen, "but I'm sure you're right, John."

Andy wailed, "But how can we put this awful truth in circulation now? How can we say to a man, 'not only will you lose your wife and children, but you'll lose your home, your job and your community'?"

"I'd like to answer that," said Bob grimly. "I didn't get that far in my thinking, either. Before I told anyone about my idea, I thought for a long time about whether I could pay the price to see my children safe. I struggled quite a bit but, in the end, I knew I would do anything to keep my children safe. Later, I realized I would lose Kathy, too. That was really hard. But it didn't change my resolve to pay any price to see my children safe.

"Think about what kind of shape the remaining men will be in if we make them face that ugly truth just as they have lost nearly everything already. We can't do that. To withhold such an important, devastating truth would be deeply dishonest.

"The right choice for each parent in the community is this: see the children safely away, or withdraw yourselves from the pool of prospects and move away. For some men, the price will be too high. We have to leave it up to each individual to decide whether he is willing to pay that price."

"I agree with you one hundred percent, Bob," said Ellen. "You are so deeply committed to the success of this program, and working so hard at it. We may have to call on you to talk to some of the most distressed men."

"I'll be glad to do that," said Bob. "Let's move on, OK?" There were murmurs of agreement all around. "I have recruited Matt King to work with the kids for the entire two or three months. He will teach judo and he will instruct in use of pugil sticks."

"What are pugil sticks?" asked Sarah.

Bob produced a copy of the design drawing. He explained their original purpose and told them that, despite the padding, the sticks were dangerous. The group talked about the sticks, the protective gear and more. The group reluctantly agreed there appeared to be few more efficient ways to teach aggression to girls.

Dave chimed in to talk about the balance frame he had seen at Matt's studio. He explained its use and said he had arranged to have some made for the school. Dave also reported on the boxing gloves, neoprene vests, the helmets and mouth guards he had ordered. As they discussed the matter, it became obvious that the kids would not be able to cart around the mouth guards -- their gym shorts had no pockets. The guards were only needed for boxing and pugil sticks. Dave agreed to have a cabinet made to hold the mouth guards.

That led them to discuss how the guards would be identified. Amy piped up, explaining Janice's system of dividing the kids into color coded groups. Everyone thought the color-coding was a real hit.

Jean added that she and her secretary Heather had divided the kids into groups and had assigned color codes according to Janice's system. Jean had also had the lockers color-coded, four lockers per group.

Which brought them to face the fact that the girls and boys would be sharing locker rooms. The discussion was quite lively. Finally, all were convinced of the correctness of that decision. The decisions to have the students swim nude, and to strip on command, were not a great leap for the committee, and were adopted.

Sarah circled back to the idea that the students could not carry around their mouth guards, and asked whether Jean and Dave expected the students to keep their CAP cards with them. It was decided that the CAP cards could be used for a variety of purposes, from marking attendance and tardiness to making progress notations during training. A lanyard for the cards was agreed upon. Ellen tossed in that the lanyards should be the bi-colors of the individual teams. Bob agreed to have the lanyards made. Michael was asked to use a hole punch on his own CAP card and then see that it could still be read by the scanner. When he objected, pointing out the high risk of damaging the card, they settled on the use of clear plastic sleeves. Michael was also asked to work with Jean to make some kind of card to be used by the kids who did not yet have a CAP card.

Jim said, "We have had a very wide-ranging discussion so far this evening. I hope we have all been taking good notes. I for one have had several items that I wanted to comment on, only to have the subject changed before that was possible. Can we step back a bit, please?" There was no objection.

"First, Bob told us he had recruited Matt King to help for the duration. Are we going to have to pay him? What about other 'army volunteers'?"

Bob answered, "I talked to Matt about money. I think Matt has the CAP score to volunteer and he has decided that he has enough money to coast to the finish line. He would not consider taking any money for his efforts. He did promise that he would sing out if he needed help."

Jim said, "That sounds good. That sounds almost impossibly generous of Matt. Let's check back in with Matt in a month and see how his finances are holding up."

Andy said, "Matt makes one instructor lined up. How many instructors, or proctors, are we going to need? How many academic instructors? Are any more lined up?"

"I have some arranged," said Jean, "and I will tell you about them in a moment. I still need more. Tomorrow, we will hold an orientation session with all of the kids. I have some people to act as guides tomorrow who won't be able to proctor full time."

"As for the academic instructors," Jean continued, "we are planning on having 36 students at a time each in math and science classrooms. These 36 are going to be spread equally over five grade levels. Right now, I think we can only afford to have a total of four teachers in the two classes. We will be asking these four teachers to be teaching in an unstructured, accelerated, intense pace for a full eight hours a day. I want to let these classes self-organize. Let's see what the kids can do to get themselves and their teammates educated. No volunteers here -- this is going to be hard work. I have drafted the ninth through twelfth grade teachers for this duty. I'm holding Amy, our own eighth grade teacher, in reserve. I just know there'll be something we've forgotten. Also, there remains a great deal to be organized and executed. Amy's been volunteered for that responsibility.

"Dave, the coach and gym teacher, still has responsibility for grades one through seven. He will be scaling back his direct teaching and supervision of the gym periods for these kids, and shifting the duty to the grade teachers. Dave will spend as much of his time as he can watching and helping the physical training.

"Now," sighed Jean, "tomorrow during the orientation, two six-member teams will be guided by me, Dave, Amy, Toni Benedict, Susan Jackson, Carol Thomas, Janice Nelson, and Patti Hanson from the school staff. Also leading orientation groups will be Bob, Sarah's mom Gabby Edwards, and twins Katie and Kevin Lasher, who graduated last year.

"Toni, Susan, Carol and Janice are the academic side of the program starting on Monday. Patti will need to keep close to the first aid station.

"That leaves us with Matt, Gabby, Katie and Kevin as confirmed help. In addition, I was able to recruit Liz Andrews, a former cheerleader, and Jeff Peters, a former gymnastics team member, as permanent trainers. The plan is to train the kids to do back flips and handstands. If either of those don't work out, then they'll have to learn to juggle.

"Gabby has graciously agreed to work with Karen Innes, our Home Ec teacher, in the Home Ec element of the physical training. Having the boys sew their own clothes should be humbling. The girls have a natural opportunity to show leadership.

"We haven't made arrangements yet for anyone to advise and supervise the outdoor running, the balance beam thingy, or the swimming portion. Does anyone have a victim we should draft?"

Bob said, "I haven't told you yet, but I have decided to devote full time to this program myself. It isn't completely altruistic -- I hope being involved in this will do some good for my CAP score. I kinda like Kathy, and I wouldn't mind growing old with her. Besides, she's almost unbearably sexy when she's pregnant!"

Everyone laughed. "And your favorite sport is baby making!" laughed John.

"All right, Bob, you're hired," said Dave. "You may not like the remuneration. We'll hold you to the same promise that you extracted from Matt: if your finances deteriorate, you tell us."

"I will," nodded Bob with a smile.

"One more," said Jim. "I'm afraid, Jean, that you're gonna have to call up the reserves. Don't you want to volunteer your Heather?"

"I suppose you're right," sighed Jean. The State Board will have a fit anyway. Heather just volunteered."

Andy said, "I don't think any one of those three, or Bob either for that matter, will want to spend eight hours a day, five days a week out on the running track. Maybe these four should rotate -- two hours each outdoors and the rest indoors."

"That is a very good idea, Andy," said Dave. "I'll work something out for that."

"Folks, it's getting late already," said John, "and I worry we have more to cover. Can we move to the next topic, please?"

Ellen said, "Let's turn our attention to the back office portion of this project. Michael is working on the database that is so important to the success of this project. Michael, will you give us a report, please?"

"Sure doct ... err ... Ellen. I suppose you're gonna insist I use your first name, too?" She grinned and nodded. "OK, then. You have made me very proud of myself by asking me to perform such an important task. I have had to rely on Jean a lot so far, so I would like her to join me in making this report." Jean smiled.

Michael continued. "Jean helped me collect all of the data from the school. For the students, that includes the address, the names of the parents and siblings. If the student's parents have siblings in town, it shows those relationships and it shows any of that student's cousins. Also captured is fairly complete information on all of the teachers and staff in the school, including addresses and spouse names.

"The CAP card readers arrived on Tuesday. I hooked it up to my laptop and used it to scan my own card and a few others. It seems to work perfectly. The problem is how do we identify all the folks who aren't connected to the school in some fashion? Jean pulled a rabbit out of her hat. I'm gonna let her take some of the limelight."

"Aw, shucks, Michael," smiled Jean. "I didn't really do anything special. My neighbor is the postmaster. I had a cup of coffee with her. Of course, she couldn't do anything officially to help us -- privacy, you know. But she encouraged the five postal carriers to sit down with Michael and his friends. Michael met with Tammy Robinson on Wednesday morning at the café. Two and a half hours later, Tammy had recited the 122 names of everyone on her mail route.

"Later, Michael and I put our heads together, and figured out a way to speed up the work. This morning, Michael and three of his friends met with the last four carriers. How many names are in the database now, Michael?"

"Eleven hundred eighty seven," answered Michael. "Except for the people who move back into town, that seems to be the maximum universe of our possible extraction population. We don't know yet how many of them are unwilling to participate. We don't know how many are unqualified. That's why scanning the CAP cards is critical.

"By the end of the night last night, the database had CAP card scans for a total of 167 adults and 53 students. We needed to get a lot, a lot more CAP cards scanned, and we don't have a lot of time. Jean came to the rescue again."

Jean grinned. "We already owe Joe Butto a lot for hosting Michael interviewing the mail carriers two mornings in a row. Now we owe him even more. Michael made the database self-serve -- even I was smart enough to use the dumb thing. Heather used it, too, and she had to manually add her youngsters and her boyfriend. I called in chits on the grocery store, the bank and the café. Michael borrowed the equipment from his friends and installed computers in those three places. Michael corralled a bunch of his friends to distribute fliers all over town, asking people to go by any of those places and scan their CAP cards. Michael, how many have been scanned by our self-serve method?"

"Amazingly enough, those computers have been installed for about twelve hours. Just a minute while I do the math. The self-serve has resulted in 217 scans. Wait, there's another one, so 218." So, that's 438 scans captured so far." Michael was grinning broadly.

Andy said, "I think on Saturday you should have one installed at my church and one at the Catholic Church."

"I will," said Michael.

"You can put one in my bakery," added John.

"I don't know how many network-capable laptop computers I can scrounge up," laughed Michael.

"Can you upgrade the school's equipment?" asked Jean.

"Yes," Michael answered. "I had been trying not to spend any money, but I guess I should. It won't cost too much, I don't think. Can I get to the equipment tomorrow or Saturday?"

"Yes," Jean said. "We still need more 'get-out-the-vote' type workers. We need to encourage more people to self-serve scans."

"Let's work on that tomorrow, Jean," said Amy. "I think I might have some ideas."

"One more thing," said Michael, shaking his head. "I forgot to put in a question about whether the user is expecting the return of any elder children or such. I added that question this evening, but a couple hundred records don't have an answer. Sorry."

"You can add that without having to go to the remote locations?" Jim asked. "Cool!"

Jean said, "We'll deal with that some time in the future. It is pretty late already. I for one have had an exhausting day. Tomorrow will be full as well. I need to get home. Is there anything else we need to cover tonight?"

Bob said, "I would only like you to think about a few more challenges we'd like to throw at the kids. I don't want to talk about them tonight. I think the kids should learn to shoot a target, and shoot skeet. I think we ought to consider paintball for the kids. John Underwood is investigating all those things."

"Tomorrow, the kids get orientation. Monday, the program starts in earnest. I think we should plan on meeting again on Monday night."

"May we postpone the meeting until Tuesday night?" asked Andy. The entire group agreed.

Bob's report to the Core Group about Kathy breaking down on Wednesday night had been the truth, as far as it went. Bob had decided he did not need to share the rest of Kathy's reaction. The tears had started as they had readied themselves for bed. Kathy's anguish seemed to grow as the weight of utter despair settled on her. The tears started quietly. Soon, Kathy was bawling inconsolably. She drew him to her and hugged him fiercely. Suddenly, he was on his back. She had his cock in her mouth and was jacking the base furiously. Before he knew it, she straddled him and plunged herself onto him in one stroke. Still bawling, she proceeded to fuck him senseless. It was the most intense bout of sex he could remember. By the time they were done, her tears were gone. She rested her chest on his and was silent. Bob decided she would let him know when he should say something. They fell asleep.

During the night, she woke him with hungry, needy kisses. Soon, she pulled him over her and guided him deep within her. Still kissing him intensely, she hugged him fiercely and threw her hips up to meet his every thrust. When they were finished, she guided him to lie beside her, his cock still buried deep within her. Still she did not speak. She kissed him gently. They fell back to sleep.

In the morning, with window light filling the room, he awoke to find her gently, sinuously worshiping his rigid cock with her mouth, tongue and hands. She poured everything into the act, all the love she felt so deeply. When he raised his head to see, he found her looking deeply into his eyes, her intensity and her deep love painted all over her face.

Even with her slow, loving pace, he could not hold back very long. He flooded her mouth with great gouts of his spend. Still holding his eyes, she swallowed, licked her lips and swallowed again. She proceeded to gently suck every drop from his softening cock. When she was done, she crawled up and delivered a soft, long, loving kiss. Still she said nothing. She climbed off the bed and padded into the bathroom, her naked ass swaying.