ASYLUM: Chapter 4

 Asylum

Chapter 4

   The actual trip to Hollywood/Burbank Airport was a nothing burger. We rented a car and drove to John Cameron’s home and when we parked in the driveway I just sat behind the wheel and stared at the front door for a moment before getting out, opening the trunk and grabbing Debra’s bag. Debra followed and stood beside me as I unlocked the door and then walked inside. The house was stuffy and overly warm, so I went to the thermostat and turned on the air conditioner.

   From outside, Dan and Danni entered with their luggage and left it by the front door. Like I said, though the house was stuffy and warm, it still smelled like John. Not an unpleasant smell, just John. Entering the kitchen, I checked the pantry and found it full; John was big on having a full pantry. Inside the refrigerator was a wide collection of John’s home brew, and just about anything you might want to fix a meal with. Next to the breakfast nook was the phone and John’s personal phonebook; I sat down and leafed through it until I found both his sister’s name and his brother’s. I dialed his sister’s number first and received a message to leave a voicemail, so I left my name and asked her to call John’s number because I had an important message involving her brother. Then I did the same for John’s brother.

   Through the Livingroom and down the hall, I heard Debra call out, “Daniel? Is this your room?”

   I walked out of the kitchen and down the hall where I found her in the doorway to the bedroom I had always used. “Yeah, this is mine, was mine.” I stepped inside and found everything just as I had left it months before. “Nothing is changed, nothing at all. John probably never even walked in here except maybe to dust; he was a stickler about respecting my personal space. It was the same for me.”

   “A good friend would be.” She followed me in and stood next to me, “It’s kind of small, but well-kept and neat; most guys are pretty slack about keeping their personal space squared away.”

   “I guess, I learned very early a messy room could have intense repercussions when I lived in some foster homes.”

   “Oh, I suppose a lot of foster parents were like that?”

   “Some, but most were okay.” I opened the closet and she gasped at the size of it.

   “Now that’s a surprise!”

   I smiled, “Yeah, this was one of the first projects we worked on together. Originally, the closet was about three by six feet. We pulled the wall out another two feet and extended the length so it encompassed the whole length of the wall.”

   “You have a gear stand? The only place I’ve ever seen those were in squad bays.”

   I looked at what she was talking about, it was a 4x4 post about four feet high. It had 2x4s screwed to the bottom for the post to stand on and about eight inches down from the top were two more 2x4s. The stand held my militia gear, or what John and I had always laughingly referred to as our ‘Oh Shit’ gear. “Yeah, John was big on fulfilling our responsibilities as members of the Unorganized Militia.”

   She gave me a quizzical expression, “So, you’re in a militia, a civilian militia?”

   “No, yes, I mean it’s the law. Title 10, Section 311 of the United States Code. All males between the ages of 17 and 45 are, by law, members of the Unorganized Militia.”

   “You’re shitting me; I’ve never heard of that.” She stepped closer and began poking through the equipment displayed on the stand. “Hey, this is old school MOLLE 2 gear isn’t it?”

   “Most of it, yeah. The FLC and the pouches attached to it are all MOLLE 2, but the pack is a medium ALICE that I modified a little, well, a lot. The main thing I did was remove the old straps that was on it and replaced it with the straps off a MOLLE 2 main ruck. I use the radio pouch inside to hold two, two-liter water bladders. Attached to the frame and the bottom of the pack is a MOLLE waist pack. I bought the ALICE pack used for only ten dollars at a yard sale, but the issue waist strap was missing, so I use the belt of the waist pack as the waist belt for the ALICE pack. You can see the PALS webbing I had added to the top flap of the pack, originally I was going to put three, two-magazine pouches on there for spare mags, but I ended up buying a MOLLE 2 bandoleer that holds six thirty-round magazines and adapting it to place on the lid of the pack or wear as a chest rig.”

   “Yeah, but you can only have ten round magazines here, right? Or does that only apply to handguns?”

   “Yes, you can only have ten round magazines, maximum, in any gun with a detachable magazine. What I did, was use military surplus pouches and shorten the pockets. I put the number of mags required in, then stapled the pockets at the bottom of the magazines, that way they didn’t slide really deep into the pocket and be hard to pull out when needed.”

   “Plus,” she said. “If you ended up with thirty-rounders someday, you wouldn’t need to change out your mag pouches; all you need to do is remove the staples.”

   “Exactly.”

   “Smart and economic.” She smiled at me, “Okay, so you have all this gear, what kind of rifle do you have? I know it’s not an AR because I could tell when we cleaned our weapons after practice you were unfamiliar with them.” Whenever we practiced at the range, I always helped clean the weapons afterwards; I figured it couldn’t hurt to know how.

   Stepping deeper into the closet, I picked up my carbine’s hardcase and carried it to the bed. After laying it down, I opened it and displayed the little rifle.

   “What…the hell…is that?”

   I laughed, “It’s a California Compliant bullpup carbine with a sixteen-inch barrel. The only way the manufacturer could sell it here was if they removed the evil assault weapon features, like a pistol grip, bayonet mount, stuff like that.”

   “Did it come new with the paint job?”

   “No, originally it was kind of an OD green; I painted it myself.” Returning to the closet, I removed my militia smock and spread it out on the bed. Removing the carbine from its case, I laid it on the smock. “John and I always figured MARPAT Digital Woodland camouflage was best for around SoCal, so I painted the carbine to match it. At the time, most of the surplus army gear was that grey green pixel stuff that was supposed to work everywhere, but it looked like it didn’t work anywhere. You probably noticed all the MOLLE gear is painted to match the smock?”

   She nodded.

   “It will make it more difficult for someone to pick out the person with the most capable weapon within a group. You know, like a Designated Marksman, like you.”

   She picked the bullpup up and examined it closely, “I’ve seen painted weapons before, but never like this. How did you do it?”

   “I cleaned the shit out of it first, after that I taped off the areas I didn’t want painted and then I misted it overall several times with a base layer of Coyote Brown spray paint. I think it's actually called Nutmeg. After it dried, I applied dark green, light green, black and tan with a sponge for each color. All the paints were flat base camo so they wouldn’t shine.”

   “Wow, it really blends with your…your…what did you call this camo cloth thing you have?”

   “John and I just called it a Militia Smock. It’s cut sort of like a rain poncho with a hood, but on a smaller scale. Military style camo clothing can be expensive and the average guy can’t afford to have a separate set of clothes that sit around just in case you need them someday, you know? I’ve always been partial to earth tone clothing anyway, so I would just wear my normal clothes underneath the smock.”

   Looking at me, she cocked her head to the side and I could see the wheels turning in her head, “Now that you mention it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear any kind of bright colored clothes.”

   “Yeah, one of my social workers, when I was around fifteen or sixteen, said I was trying to avoid drawing attention to myself. She was probably right, like they say, the nail that stands out gets hammered down.”

   “Did that happen a lot when you were in foster homes, get hammered down?”

   “No, not really, but I tried to keep a pretty low profile when I could. I guess I could be called an observer, I would watch the results of others’ actions and moderate my own. What about you?”

   “I was just the opposite; I went out of my way to irritate people like my parents because I disliked them so much. It usually didn’t work out too well and I normally got my ass handed to me. I guess I still have a tendency to do that.”

   “Really? I haven’t noticed you irritating me, I guess that’s a good sign?”

   She lowered the bullpup and held it with her left hand as she slid her other arm around my waist, “That’s because you don’t irritate me…at all.”

   Leaning down, I gave her a brief kiss. I had noticed myself anticipating kissing her because her lips were so full and soft.

   “Mmmm,” she murmured into my mouth. “Thinking of which, will we be sleeping in here tonight?”

   “Yes.”

   “Okay, show me where the fresh linens are and I’ll get them changed out and wash these.”

   “These are clean, I changed them before I left.”

   She arched an eyebrow, “You’ve been gone for months, Daniel, where are the fresh linens?”

   Sheets get dirty when they’re not used? Who knew that? “There’s a built-in cabinet in the hall; we kept clean sheets and stuff in there.” It was moving on towards late afternoon and I was starting to get hungry. “You good with me grilling some burgers, Babe? Maybe some Mac and cheese with baked beans for dinner?”

   She was in the process of stripping the bed and froze for a moment before turning around and facing me, “You called me, Babe.”

   I instantly felt a moment of panic, “Uh, yeah, too soon I guess?”

   Stepping towards me she wrapped her arms around me and pressed her face into my neck where she kissed me. Then she whispered into my ear, “For months I’ve been fantasying about you and in those fantasys, you always call me, Babe. No, it’s not too soon.”

   “Phew, I thought I may have screwed up.”

   “How about salad instead of beans?”

   “How about both?”

   “Salad, unless you want to sleep in separate rooms, I love beans, but they give me an enormous amount of gas.”

   I chuckled, “Salad it is.”

   “Good choice.”

   Walking through the living room, I waved to Daniel and Danni to follow and they did. In the kitchen, I opened the fridge and pulled out a couple of packets of frozen hamburger, then placed them in the microwave to thaw. From the pantry, I pulled out a box of Mac and cheese and handed it to Daniel. Back into the fridge, I pulled out cheese, and some assorted vegetables for salad. “Daniel, go ahead and get the macaroni ready; there’s a pot in that cupboard you can use. Danni, can I get you to prep some salad for us? I’m going to get the grill cleaned and heated up.”

   “Okay,” she said. Daniel started filling the pot with water.

   Back into the fridge a third time, I pulled out two of John’s bottles of home brew and set them out for Danni and Dan to drink, “This is some of John’s home brewed beer. This stuff is to die for.”

   Out on the back patio I glanced around, but didn’t see the gas grill, what the hell. Then I saw the new Barbecue. John had talked for years about building one out of brick; it looked as though he had. I checked it out and couldn’t find a propane tank, but when I turned the gas valve on, the electronic igniter popped and the flame started. Natural gas maybe? Behind a door built into the brick base of the grill I found the scrapers and wire brush we used to clean the grill. I scrubbed the grill thoroughly.

   When I was satisfied, I walked back into the kitchen where I found Daniel mixing in the rest of the ingredients of the Mac and cheese. Danni was chopping up vegetables and mixing them in a large wooden bowl. She pointed to the counter, “Hamburger is thawed, but it looks a little odd.”

   I looked it over and said, “Naw, it’s good to go, John always bought our hamburger meat from a Mexican meat market. They blended several types of ground beef and pork for hamburger meat. He even had some chile peppers chopped up in it too.”

   “Damn,” Danni commented. “Sounds like it might be pretty good.”

   “It is,” I said.

   Debra walked into the kitchen, she had changed from the dress she had worn before and was now wearing yellow shorts and a matching tank top. “Hey, what can I do to help?”

   “There are hamburger buns in the pantry,” I said. “Why don’t you get them out and start making patties that will fit them?”

   “Okay.”

   I grilled the patties when they were ready and we ate outside on the patio. Through the late afternoon and the evening, we spent quite a bit of time sampling John’s beer and just shooting the shit. I think the four of us learned more about each other that evening than we ever expected to. Debra told Daniel and Danni about my gear and the bullpup carbine, so I needed to bring all of it out and show it to them. Daniel was a bit dubious about clearing a malfunction in the bullpup because of the way it was designed, but once he saw how quickly it could be field stripped, he was surprised. He was even more surprised when he saw the weapon was piston driven instead of using direct gas impingement.

   I told them what Dak had offered, to hire me on permanent, and they became even more interested in my gear and weapon because I would be a member of EXSEC even if it was as an auxiliary. Danni and Debra both thought the militia smock was a great idea, especially for the auxiliary. Then they brought up the point that I needed body armor and they could probably help me out picking the best one to go with my load bearing gear. I think Debra was rather proud of me, for being picked for the new EXSEC Auxiliary. I think that was the moment I actually committed to going permanent hire. I found her approval meant an awful lot to me.

   The following day, the four of us went to the city morgue and I made the arrangements to have John’s remains picked up by the funeral home that John had made previous agreements with. His cremation and internment plans had already been paid for by John his self. I thought that seemed rather odd because John and I had never discussed his wishes in the event of his death, but I discovered later that he knew he had serious heart problems.

   John had a small floor safe in his closet for which he had given me the combination years earlier. When I opened the safe there was a sealed envelope with my name scrawled on the front; inside was a letter to me, his living will and the phone number of the law firm that had assisted him in writing it. His house, which was paid for, he wanted sold and the proceeds used to provide college scholarships for his nieces and nephews. The complete contents of the detached garage that he and I had built in his back yard he bequeathed to me alone. It might seem odd that he didn’t provide me with any property or money, but I had been renting a room from him for years and he would never accept more than $200 a month and I basically forced him to accept that meager amount. As a result, I had a significant amount of savings and investments which he and I were planning on using to buy a backup retreat for ourselves at some point in the future. Originally, between my cash and investments, and the worth of his home once sold, we figured we could set up a pretty nice place. The final point in his letter was to tell me that if his brother and sister had not taken possession of the funds from the sale of the house after one year, the full value would come to me.

   I admit that I slid into a fairly deep depression after reading the letter. I felt that taking the job at The Facility left him alone and that I should have been there for him. It was after we attended his funeral service two days later, which neither his brother or sister attended, that I actually entered the garage. The garage had two twelve-foot-wide roll-up doors and when we opened the door that was aligned with the driveway beside the house, there was a dual axle, sixteen-foot, enclosed trailer. Stepping past the open door I saw a cab-over truck with a crew cab, parked behind the second door. Mounted on the back was an enclosed box bed about fourteen feet in length. What the hell was he doing? What was his plan?

   Stepping up onto the footrest of the passenger side, I looked through the window. The front seats were buckets and the rear was a bench type affair. Then I noticed a three-ring binder resting on the steering wheel. Walking around the front of the truck, I opened the driver side door and retrieved the notebook. It was a complete list of the contents of both the truck and trailer.

   “John and I used to spend hours talking about things we thought might be needed if we ever had to leave the L.A. region because of an emergency. Both of us put together Bug Out Bags and we even bought game carts so we could carry more gear and supplies if we were reduced to walking, but this?” I waved at the truck and trailer, “He must have spent the major portion of his savings on this rig.”

   “He must have felt strongly about preparedness,” Daniel said.

   “Apparently more than I thought,” I answered. “Geez, what am I going to do with it? It’s not like I have room in my apartment for storage.”

   All three of them stared at me and then at each other before Debra said, “Daniel, have you made a decision yet about going permanent at The Facility?”

   “Yeah, I think I’m going to do it, but this adds another wrinkle.” I was leafing through the binder. “There must be tens of thousands of dollars worth of gear and supplies in the truck and trailer, not to mention the value of the truck and trailer. I mean, hell, the truck is even four-wheel-drive.”

   “Packer told us…” Debra started to say.

   “Debbie,” Danni said. “OPSEC.”

   Debra shrugged the comment off, “Daniel already said…”

   “No, he didn’t, he said he was thinking about it,”

   “What?” I asked.

   There was an uncomfortable silence, and then Daniel added, “Even if he told us he was committed to The Facility, we cannot divulge anything until he actually signs onboard, Debra, you know that.”

   “But,” she stammered.

   “No,” I said as I took her hand and squeezed it. “I am assuming that all of you know something I don’t and that’s okay. In my mind, I’ve already made the decision to go permanent for a couple of reasons. First, with John gone, I no longer have any personal ties to this place. The second, but now more important, I want to see where this thing between you and I is going to lead us. I know it’s only been a couple of days since we got together, but I feel like if I walk away, I’ll regret it the rest of my life. You are very important to me and I don’t want you to compromise your integrity for a perceived benefit to me. Okay?”

   “Wow,” Danni said. “Somebody’s got it bad.”

   Debra, without relinquishing her hold on my hand, slid her other hand up the inside of my arm and pressed her forehead against my shoulder as she nodded.

   “Look,” Daniel said. “We can’t talk about it now, but there is a new policy coming down from administration, let’s just say having someplace to store the truck and trailer won’t be a problem in the near future and leave it at that.”

   “You sure?” I asked.

   “Yeah, but that’s all I’m going to say about it.”

   “Okay, then as soon as we get back, I’ll notify Dak and he can make the necessary arrangements for me to become permanent. Now what do I do with all of this?”

   Danni answered, “We take it with us and find somewhere to store it until they…well, until better arrangements can be made.”

   “That’s kind of hard to do when I don’t know what’s happening,” I said.

   They all shared a look with one another and then Daniel said, “I’ll call the LT and run it past him; we’ll see what he says.”

   “When?” Debra asked.

   “No time like the present,” Dan answered. He left the garage and entered the house while I reopened the folder and started looking at the list again.

   Under the heading of ‘Food’ was a long list of items both packaged and canned; after a quick calculation I said, “Geez, there’s enough food here to feed two people for a couple of years.”

   Debra walked to the back of the truck and examined it, “There’s even a hydraulic lift platform on the back. If you want to check the interior, we’ll have to pull the truck forward; there’s not enough room back here to lower the lift.”

   Looking under the truck, I saw it was jacked up with blocks under the frame. The wheels were barely resting on the floor of the garage. “We’ll need to check the air pressure in the tires, then remove the blocks holding it up so we can move it outside.”

   “What do we need, to do that?” Danni asked.

   Debra had climbed inside the cab and then came back out, “Pressure gauge in the center console.” She handed it to me. After checking, I discovered three of the tires were under-inflated. After finding the first tire with low air pressure, Danni had searched the inside of the garage and found nothing to raise the pressure with. Debra asked, “Damn, does that mean we have to pull the tires and take them somewhere to air them up?”

“Maybe,” I said. “But when John and I discussed what a good bugout vehicle would need, we figured an air compressor would be good to have.” I started searching. On the driver’s side of the truck, under the box, was a large fuel tank that had a sticker next to it proclaiming ‘Diesel Only.’ Looking to the other side, there was a long tool box. Opening it, I found a large floor jack, two tall off-road jacks, and a compressor. The box also contained an assortment of smaller toolboxes. There was a switch for the compressor, but when I flipped it, nothing happened. Walking back around the front, I climbed into the cab and looked first in the center console and then the glove box. In the glove box was a smaller note binder. Opening the cover, I found two sets of keys, both identical. I began leafing through the binder until I found the section entitled ‘Air Compressor.’ Quickly scanning it, I discovered the truck engine needed to be running for the compressor to work. I removed one of the sets of keys and inserted it into the ignition switch, turned the switch to on and then looked at the dash. It lit up and I watched until the glow plug indicator light went out, then I twisted the key to start. The engine spun rapidly and then rattled to a start. When I pumped the fuel pedal, a deep throaty rumble belched black smoke from the exhaust pipe that rose beside the cab. Exiting the cab, I walked around to the compressor, but it wasn’t doing anything. I returned the switch I had flipped earlier to its original position and the compressor kicked on. Okay, but where was the air tank? I followed the air lines from the compressor and discovered the round tubular front bumper was the air tank.  Beneath a hinged flap, I found the air gauge and an airline chuck, and then I watched as the gauge rapidly built up pressure. When the compressor shut off, I pulled out a flexible hose, attached it to the pressure tank and filled the tires to the proper inflation.

   Danni, Debra and I closed up the garage and returned to the house. Daniel was sitting at the kitchen table and was hanging up the phone. “What did Lieutenant Packer say?” I asked.

   “I wasn’t able to contact him, he’s in some meeting with Major Phillips, but I left a message for him with a brief description of our situation; he’ll call back when he can.”

   “Okay, it’s getting late, so let’s fix something to eat and then call it done for today,” I said. “I need to start figuring out what to do with John’s belongings, but I’ll start on that in the morning.”

   “Are you going to try and contact his family again?” Debra asked.

   “No, I talked to the representative from his lawyer’s office and she said the firm would take care of it.”

    “I guess your friend didn’t get along with his siblings?”  Debra asked.

   “Not really, I guess. John never discussed his family much. All I know is there was some sort of blow up when his parents died unexpectedly and I guess there was some kind of BS to exclude him from the inheritance. Both of John’s parents were professors and both of his siblings were doctors of some sort. I guess they found it embarrassing somehow that he preferred the work he chose as a profession, and his political leanings; his family were really liberal.”

   “Geez, what is it with some people?”

   I shrugged, “I don’t know, I remember once John and I were doing a remodel in a law firm in Canoga Park and I overheard one of the young law clerks comment she thought I was attractive; the office manager told her to forget it because it was a proven fact that construction workers were below average intelligence.”

   “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

   “Nope, but I sort of got back at her.”

   Debra raised one of her eyebrows and said, “How did you do that?”

   “Because the job was in an occupied building, we had to put the water back on before we left each day. I installed a new sprinkler right over her desk, but I removed the fusible links so it was wide open. When we turned the water on, she was completely drenched.”

   “You…did…not!”

   Both Daniel and Danni started laughing.

   “Yeah, I did. The best part was when the young law clerk asked me what happened. I told her it was hard to say for sure, but when you have to deal with construction workers who are proven to be mentally challenged, sometimes shit happens.” I smiled, “The law clerk dated me twice before we went our separate ways. I guess no one in the office liked the manager.”

   Danni continued laughing as she said, “Damn, watch out Debra, your man has a vindictive side.”

   I chuckled and then said, “Sometimes I feel a little bad about the whole episode; I think maybe I should have been more understanding about the poor office manager. You know, cut her some slack.”

   Debra put a dubious expression on and said, “Really?”

   I smiled, “No.”

   Debra started laughing, “Damn, I better stay on your good side, right?”

   “You, have nothing to worry about,” I said.

   Packer called later in the evening and we spoke for a short time. He told me to bring the truck and trailer because the administration had ordered several vehicle parks graded out topside for the private vehicles of the permanents and their dependents. He also congratulated me on my choice to go permanent and was looking forward to seeing how the EXSEC Auxiliary played out. He thought I was a good choice for EXSEC. I thanked him and we hung up.

   The next few days were taken up with packing John’s belongings up and arranging for their distribution. Most of the clothing and household items went to local charities that John had mentioned in his will. I kept a few keepsakes for myself, items that held memories of better times. I kept his brewery notes, a shitload of bottles, caps, and et cetera. I also kept his militia ‘oh shit’ gear and his bullpup rifle. It was from the same manufacturer as my own, but his had a very good quality scope on it and a twenty-inch barrel. It probably wasn’t the most accurate rifle on the market, but it was serviceable. Unlike my gear, John had elected to buy MOLLE gear that was all coyote brown and left it that color; he figured if it was good enough for the Marines, it was good enough for him. He painted his bullpup coyote brown also. He liked my Ruger handgun, but couldn’t find what he considered a decent used one, so he bought a new Smith and Wesson MP9, I took that also. I knew he had a lot of spare ammo for the two weapons, but there was only enough in the house to fill the ten spare ten-round mags for the bullpup and the five magazines he had for the MP9; I figured the rest was in the truck or trailer.

   We ended up staying three days longer than the original ten days, but not because we needed the time to wrap up John’s affairs; we decided to spend a little time vacationing instead. None of my three friends had been to Disneyland, or Magic Mountain, and only Danni had been to the beach before. We spent one day a piece at each and then left to return to The Facility. We figured one day for the drive back, but it was a long, long day, especially after we stopped at a huge sporting goods place in Phoenix where I bought thirty-two, thirty round magazines for the two bullpups, and five standard capacity magazines for my Ruger and John’s MP9. We left So Cal at three in the morning and arrived at The Facility at seven in the evening. Lieutenant Packer and Dak met us at the main entrance and then showed us where to park the truck and trailer. There was a large area at the southern edge of the airstrip where they were grading and then spreading gravel for cars to be parked. I had a feeling that they were expecting a huge increase in private vehicles now that The Facility was almost done.

   The day after we returned, Dak took me to the main administration office and I was immediately signed on as foreman for sprinkler maintenance and as the first member of EXSEC Auxiliary. There was a significant increase in pay as well and health insurance that was actually better than the Cadillac policy I had through the union. Other than that, I continued finishing the installation of the Phase Six expansion while also learning EXSEC’s version of military life. Lt. Packer asked me to bring my ‘Oh Shit’ gear so he could go over it with me and the new Training Sargent who was none other than my friend Daniel. That was when Packer told me why he had chosen Daniel to train the Auxiliary. He said Smith had served under him during two combat tours in the Rangers and he trusted Daniel unconditionally. He was recommended for a Distinguished Service Cross, but was awarded a Silver Star during his first tour and early in his second tour he again earned another Silver Star. In both actions he was awarded Purple Hearts for wounds he received.

   I also found out how Danni and Debra had earned their medals of valor. Danni had served in the Marines as a member of a Female Engagement Team and had been involved in several firefights. On one occasion, she had gone out under fire and rescued three wounded men of the Afghan National Guard her team was patrolling with. After delivering them to safety, she single-handedly engaged the Taliban force that attacked her patrol and killed seven of them. Two Cobra gunships arrived and either destroyed, or forced the rest of the Taliban to retreat. She received a Silver Star.

   Debra was a member of an Air Force Security Team at Bahgram Air Base. The Secretary of Defense arrived for a tour of the base and while Debra was helping to provide security, three Afghan workers pulled pistols and attempted to assassinate the Secretary. She managed to deflect the first shots from the first attacker and stripped him of his weapon. Then she shot one of the remaining two, while the third was killed by another Airman. Unknown to her until after the fight was over, she had been shot while stripping the weapon from the first shooter. She was credited with saving the Secretary’s life and received both the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. My lady was a bona fide hero.  

   The evening I learned about all of their exploits, she and I were lying in bed and I asked her to show me where she had been wounded because I had never noticed any scars before. There was a slightly puckered mark in her lower left side and a slightly larger scar where the bullet had exited the left side of her back. Because of her darker complexion, the scars were actually a little difficult to see. She was embarrassed showing the scars to me and was afraid I would find them unattractive. I assured her she didn’t need to be concerned about that by making love to her.

   Eventually, my work installing the fire sprinklers in Phase Six came to an end and I officially became an employee of the Facilities Division. I was allowed to keep several Sprinklerfitters who had shown an abundance of knowledge about the trade and an excellent work ethic. I submitted six names and the one thing I noticed was all three, who were offered permanent employment, were under the age of thirty. I also noticed that most of the Facility employees were younger, but not all. Most of the administration were older scientists and business men. Phase Six had been mostly research labs and a great many scientists and lab workers moved into the adjoining residential complexes.

   I started avoiding Phase Six and Five when I could because of the attitude of many of the residents and workers assigned to the areas. For the most part they were seriously elitist in the way they treated those they believed beneath their selves. Felicia Ortiz, the young woman that Dak Sorensen was dating was a permanent hire whose lab had been relocated to Phase Six. She graduated from UCLA and had a Master’s in Microbiology. The lab she worked in was one of the laboratories that were completely contained and she said her work there was very enriching and interesting. She couldn’t tell us much about her work, other than that, but occasionally all of us would notice she was somewhat tense when the subject of her work was raised.

   Two months after I went permanent, a major change around The Facility took place. Out front at the main walk-in entrance, a monument was installed with the title of the complex engraved into it; it read ‘Global Virology and Biochemistry Research,’ and underneath that in smaller letters, it read, ‘A facility for the United Nations World Health Organization.’ I have to admit, the implication that I was now employed by the U.N., didn’t sit with me too well. I’ve never had very much respect for the United Nations and then to suddenly find myself employed by them; you can imagine how I felt. From what I heard around the EXSEC ready room, none of the External Security personnel were happy about it either.

   Shortly after the name change, I noticed an uptick in the frequency of EXSEC training exercises for both the regular EXSEC people, and the Auxiliary which now numbered thirty members. Lieutenant Packer re-assigned three men from EXSEC and put them in command of the Auxiliary’s three ten-man squads. My friend, Daniel Smith, became Sargent Smith and ran the squad I was assigned to. For the most part, the Auxiliary was used to man static positions, like the front gate and several watch towers around The Facility. Though manpower for the additional EXSEC personnel came from several different categories of workers throughout The Facility, most seemed to come from facility maintenance and housekeeping, janitors. I knew many of the new members of the Auxiliary. In fact, Dak Sorensen joined and was assigned to the same squad as me; we often trained side-by-side.

   Global Research allowed the members of the Auxiliary to be issued a boonie hat, two pairs of pants and two BDU jackets (shirts) each, in coyote brown for when we were on perimeter or gate duty. We supplied our own weapons and boots. I followed Debra’s, Danni’s and Daniel’s advice and bought several pair of Marine RAT boots because the soles could be replaced. We also needed to purchase a duty belt, sidearm holster and spare magazine pouches which were all black, for when we were on gate duty. All of the Auxiliary were issued Militia Smocks sewn like the ones John and I made for our ‘Oh Shit’ gear for when we deployed outside as infantry. My original smock was made from MARPAT Digital Woodland Camouflage material, but Packer ordered bolts of commercial Multicam for the smocks to be made of. I still thought the Digital Woodland was better, but Packer wanted the Auxiliary’s smocks to match the camo used by EXSEC, luckily, my painted gear was a close match to the new camo anyway, so I didn’t bother repainting my stuff. Lieutenant Packer’s wife, Gillian, sewed all of the new smocks and provided one for each new member as they were added to the ranks. We wore the smocks whenever we trained because Packer said it would help to provide a degree of esprit de corps.

   All-in-all, life progressed as I made friends within Global Research. Debra and I continued to develop our relationship and it became deeper and more meaningful. She would never discuss her past boyfriends and I learned not to press her about them. One thing I knew for certain, she was much more experienced than I. She taught me a great deal about how to satisfy her and she showed me things she used to satisfy me. I don’t think I ever felt any jealousy about her previous lovers, she was with me and that was all that mattered. She had pretty much moved into my apartment and slept there with me on the nights she wasn’t on duty or working part time at a child care center in Phase Five. The most important thing was, she never, ever, displayed any jealousy of her own. From the first night we spent together, I was hers and she was mine. I never asked her to marry me, it just seemed to be common knowledge that we would. I asked her if she wanted to have children with me and she answered of course she did. I asked how many and she said as many as I would allow. She was serious, she wanted a large family and saw her job in the child care center as training. I had never been with a woman that could make me feel the way she did.

   We, all of us, were living in a somewhat idyllic environment. Then things began to change.

   First came the pandemic. It was a new form of Flu and we had no vaccine for it. Like most of the time, it started in China and spread worldwide rapidly. Luckily, it was seldom fatal unless the infected had some serious precondition that weakened them. Then, it mutated. A second wave began to spread and it was more lethal than the first wave. Nations world-wide instituted quarantines and economies began to suffer. China, which held a great deal of American debt, began to hold up the transfer of medical supplies and not just to the United States, but anyone they wanted trade concessions from. They used the epidemic to try and force Taiwan back into the fold by blockading the island, but we dispatched the Pacific Fleet, reinforced by two Carrier Battle Groups. There were several instances of fire exchanged and a few ships were damaged, but China recognized we were not going to allow them to force their will on anyone and reluctantly withdrew.

   The death toll from the second wave frightened the world and the quarantines lasted longer than perhaps they should have, or maybe they should have lasted longer. The second wave had not even reached its peak when the third wave began, again, in China. There was talk the quickly mutating disease was actually a biological weapon developed by China that somehow got loose; they had a poor reputation for how effective their safety precautions were in their research labs. After the initial reports, the Chinese countered and said they were under biological attack perpetrated by the U.S. military. Since the U.S. had been slowly withdrawing funding and the Chinese had been stepping up funding for the UN, the United Nation’s leadership threw its support to the Chinese. During the third wave, the Chinese invaded Taiwan and America didn’t come to the rescue. It’s hard to send a fleet when half of your sailors are dead or sick from a pandemic. There were a lot of reporters wondering why the Chinese could man their ships and we couldn’t, but they blamed the President, just like they had always been blaming him for everything, whether it was true or not. However, he won the next election by an unprecedented landslide. It’s just as hard to gather liberal votes from the cities as it was to man ships without sailors. Large cities were primarily progressive breeding grounds; they were also pandemic breeding grounds.

   Whether from good fortune, or superior know-how, Global Research had exactly zero infections of the new flu, 1^st wave, 2^nd wave, or 3d wave. Yeah, that raised some eyebrows. I was still wondering about that when I returned to my apartment and found Debra had moved all of her things out. No Debra, no note, nothing, she was just gone.

   I immediately called the phone in her squad bay and was told she was on duty, but my request for her to call me would be delivered. The next three days I lost count of how many times I called trying to reach her, but every time, someone was running interference for her. The deflections started becoming brusque and then downright unfriendly. When I tried to call my friends in EXSEC I got the same responses, they were on duty, they were asleep, et cetera. Finally, I stopped calling. Then I was informed that I wasn’t needed for Auxiliary duty and they would give me a call when my participation was required. I even called Dak, at Human Resources to find out if he would tell me what was happening, but my calls were always put on hold, or something else. I was being shunned and I suspected I knew why.

   A week later, Sara Gupta called and said that she heard from Felicia that Debra and I were no longer together and asked if I was free for the evening. Sara was from India and worked in the labs for Global Research. I told her sorry, but I wasn’t, myself and the three guys that worked for me were involved in a remodel of one of the containment labs and we had been working sixteen hours a day to finish the job as quickly as we could. Sara was an acquaintance of Felicia Ortiz’s and that’s how my, now ex-friends, and I met her. She seemed fairly easy going on the surface, but several times when she was with us, she had been somewhat condescending, like she was deigning to lower herself to our level, or something. As part of my employment I had to submit blood for testing and Sara, as a geneticist, said she was privy to the DNA test results. She offered to give me, my heritage results, but I told her neither my mother, or father, had seen fit to stick around while I grew up, so frankly I had no interest in who they may have been. All I knew was, I was an American, and that’s all that mattered.

   A couple of days before Debra had so abruptly left, and Gupta’s solicitation for a date, I had been involved with a preliminary walk through of the work I needed to do in the labs and Sara had asked me to stop by her office when I finished the meeting. I did, and while I was there, she had kissed me. Not just kissed me, she literally forced her tongue into my mouth and fondled my crotch while she was at it. I broke the kiss and pushed her away, but I was incensed at the time and was probably a little rougher than necessary. She became angry and made some threats about me working at Global, but nothing came of it and I filed it away. I had decided not to tell Debra of the incident at the time because I knew there would trouble, but then I wondered if someone had seen the kiss and told Debra, but if they did, they must have seen my reaction as well, and there could have been no mistaking my feelings about it.

   Over the next three weeks, Sara continued to call and tried to set up meetings with me, but after a while, the calls stopped, just like my own calls to Debra and my friends stopped. I found myself becoming lonely and I began to wonder if I should look for employment elsewhere. I even contacted the union I had worked through in So Cal to investigate returning there. I stayed on at The Facility though, the pay was just too good to pass up and my savings account was blossoming. I figured another two years and I would be able to buy some land and have a small house built on it, especially if I did most of the work myself.

   Then we had a major influx of personnel at Global Research. I finally came to the conclusion that the majority of the new people were actually family members of the people already at The Facility and things seemed to be getting crowded. One afternoon, I returned to my apartment and discovered all of my belongings were being boxed and removed. The administration decided to award my space to one of the adult children of one of the VIPs that Dak and I had discussed my first day at The Facility. I was unceremoniously relocated to one of the rooms that were located in the barracks where the construction workers had been housed during construction of Phase Six.

   Most of the barracks were being converted to storage after the work had finished, but the rooms that the foremen used were still there. That’s where I was moved to and though it wasn’t a major inconvenience, it did become problematic. Along with my apartment, they also took my electric golf cart and from then on, I was on foot. The Facilities Office, which I was a member of, had their own electric carts, but they were reserved for the movement of tools, supplies, and crews to any work that needed to be done within the complex. From the barracks to the general population cafeteria where I began to take my meals, was a ten-minute walk through winding corridors, so I would have a light breakfast and then wait for a lunch meal to be boxed for me to eat later. I seldom ate supper.

   I no longer went to the rifle range topside because I had no one to shoot with, but I had to walk past it every time I went outside to start my truck and let it run long enough to charge the battery. Once, as I was walking by, I saw Debra with her EXSEC squad practicing their shooting skills, but I didn’t approach her, she seemed to be laughing and joking with her squad mates, so I simply walked by and she never saw me. I still had no idea why she had cut off all contact with me. I guess in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t matter. You would think that after the life I had from birth, I would be at least a little familiar with the emotion of being rejected, again. I found myself missing the steady presence of John Cameron.

   Then, all hell started.