Fleataxi
Deceased
Chapter 3
When things had settled down, Mike showed Dan an ingenious controller he had designed for the generator. It would start up the generator under 2 conditions: 1) If there was a load greater than 20 amps on the system, and the battery bank’s state of charge was below 70% or 2) if the state of charge dropped below 50% for any reason. It would shut the generator down when the state of charge approached 100 % to avoid overcharging. It also had an override to allow an equalization charge.Dan was amazed “Wasn’t your PhD in Astrophysics?”
“Yeah, but we had to build a lot of our own electronics due to budget restraints, so we got very good at building controllers and other simple circuits. I eventually earned enough credits in Electronics to declare a Minor in Electrical Engineering, since my Mentor said if I could build controllers and stuff for the other Astronomy and Astrophysics grad students; it would make me the most popular guy in the department. Sally was a Nursing Student taking an Astronomy course when I was a Graduate Instructor. I was smart and waited until the class had finished to ask her out on a date, it wasn’t much, just some free time by ourselves at the College’s observatory. I did, however find out she was a great kisser!”
“Ok, Romeo – how about helping me install the controller and the connections?”
While they were installing the connections, they found some hidden damage, and fixed it as best as they could. Cracks were starting to appear in the gunite above their heads. Dan had a compressor, and 50 pounds of gunite mix and a hopper/mixer/sprayer. As soon as the controller was in and connected, the generator started up and ran for a while, then shut down as the state of charge approached 100 percent. Dan gave Mike a high-five and they went back to work. Dan plugged in his Shortwave radio, and was listening for commercial broadcasts. The fact that there were no commercial broadcasts worldwide told him what he needed to know – the devastation was worldwide. Later that evening, he started picking up low power transmissions from around the world describing the devastation. They estimated the casualty rate at anywhere from 50-80% worldwide. Some areas were as high as 100%, and some were as low as 30% depending on where they were, and how well prepared. Dan knew that number would grow as the injured died from lack of medical care, and the starving died from lack of food, and as the Global Winter set in, millions more would freeze to death from lack of shelter. The wave height when the original tsunamis reached land was estimated at 5-6 thousand feet high, and destroyed everything for up to 100 miles inland that was below 6,000 feet above sea level. He knew when the first phase of the Great Tribulation ended, the AntiChrist would make his appearance, and they would be in mortal danger. He had a short time from now until the advent of the AntiChrist to get set up to either resist or evade the global system he would install.
The first thing he did was to finish building his BMG-50 semiauto rifle. He put a huge suppressor on it instead of a muzzle brake for the same reasons he put a suppressor on the .308 rifles. Even though the round was still supersonic, he could disguise his shooting position, and more importantly, it reduced the felt recoil and muzzle blast of the BMG 50 rifle by 80-90%. He was disappointed when he had to make his scope rings so tall that they were almost 6 inches above the bore of the barrel to clear the huge can. Parallax wouldn’t be as big of an issue with the BMG rifle, since the closest he would be shooting was 500 yards. The .308’s and the Whisper 300 could handle anything inside 500 yards easily. Anything inside 100 yards could be engaged by the .45acp copies of the British-designed fully suppressed Sten carbine. He had 2 bolt-action magazine-fed .22 suppressed rifles for small game, and 4 bolt-action magazine-fed .22 pistols with integral suppressors for various uses. He had a huge cache of 20,000 rounds of Eley Subsonic Xtra-Plus .22LR 40 gr. HP ammo that he had reamed the chambers of the .22 weapons to shoot. Each of the .22 caliber weapons was fed from a 10-round magazine, and the 4 Stens were fed by 30 round stick magazines that were direct copies of the 9mm Sten magazine, but enlarged to hold the .45acp ammo. The .300 Whisper fed from a 7-round fixed magazine, and the .308’s had either 10 or 20 round magazines. The BMG 50 was fed by a 5 shot removable magazine.
Since the wind had died down, but it was getting colder, Dan decided to have everyone muster outside to gather blown down wood to stack as close to the house as possible. They loaded the wood into the trucks, then stacked them next to the house in a wood shed Dan had built to hold 10 cords of wood. They established a routine every day of radio watch, and wood gathering until they had cleared the area around their house of downed wood that might be a hazard if a wild fire started.
For over a week, there was no organized assistance anywhere in the United States, and in some areas, lawlessness prevailed, increasing the casualty count. There was no competent authority in most states except the Midwest of the United States, and some of the more Northern of the southern states. California was a total loss between the tsunami, earthquakes, and flooding. Any survivors in California were basically on there own. Oregon and Washington didn’t fare much better due to massive volcanic eruptions. People who assumed the Cascade Range was safe paid for their mistake with their lives. People east of the Cascades that were far enough away from the volcanic eruptions to have survived faced dealing with huge ash deposits blanketing everything, and turning day to night. Even further east there was significant ashfall. Areas with nuclear reactors discovered the meaning of “China Syndrome” as they either went critical and exploded, or were in the terminal phases of meltdown. All the water downwind of these incidents was contaminated by fallout, so surface water world-wide was eventually so contaminated that is was unfit to drink. The Japanese reactors were responsible for 2/3 of the world’s contamination, but the French and American reactors added their part as well. Asia was a total loss except for small pockets of survivors that may or may not survive the upcoming global winter.
Finally, what was left of the UN met in Emergency Session in Rome Italy, since all other significant capitals in Europe and North America had been destroyed. The old UN building was destroyed by the mile-high tsunami that obliterated New York City, killing everyone there. The delegates elected Count Monteforte as the new Secretary General of the UN. He was very politically connected, even a distant cousin of the new Pope, who was known as Pope Alexander. He was preaching World Peace, Tolerance, and Acceptance. It seemed the Catholic Church had blinked since the death of Pope John Paul II 3 months earlier. They were facing empty pews every Sunday, and the collections were almost non-existent. The last Pope had stayed the Moral High Ground despite the increasing Secular Hedonism prevalent world-wide. The only truly Catholic countries were in South America, and Materialism had even made inroads there. Abortion was now a Non- Issue, and the church started ordaining openly gay priests. Hearing this, a Conservative Southern Baptist minister quipped that the new Pope would soon change the Ten Commandments to the “Ten Suggestions”! With the election of the new Pope, church membership soared worldwide, but the message had changed so much that old “Orthodox” Catholics were strangers in their own churches!
Using new emergency powers, Secretary General Monteforte began sweeping reforms, including banning and confiscation all firearms and ammo, confiscation by force of “hoarded” food and supplies, and mandatory service of everyone from 18-45 in the UN Peace Force. He also made “Hate Speech” a crime, which meant that a lot of conservative pastors were now liable to be arrested for speaking against Homosexuality, Hedonism, Perversion, and Immorality. He instituted a new Global Currency, giving survivors 30 days to surrender any foreign currency for 10 cents on the dollar in exchange for new “UN Global Dollars” which was the ultimate “fiat Currency” since it had nothing backing it Dealing in gold and silver would be punishable by death. It would take 6 months to a year to implement the UN mandates in some areas of the United States, but any survivors in any cities of over 1 million before the meteor strike were almost immediately subject to the mandates. As a matter of fact, most of the survivors in the big cities voluntarily surrendered their arms and emptied their cupboards of even essential foodstuffs. In the smaller towns, it was another story, and the Jack Booted Thugs wearing Blue helmets started having to bring body bags to carry their dead. Unfortunately Secretary General Monteforte had superior weaponry since the UN raided all the armories of the world as soon as he could. Some smaller towns got wise to this and stole anything not nailed down then burned the armories to the ground to prevent their use by UN forces.
Just about this time, a particularly strange “mental illness” began affecting people world wide. There was no explanation or cure available, but soon people noticed that certain people were unaffected and others were. Even good “church going” Christians were affected, but a small minority they called the “Goody-two Shoes Fundamentalists” were unaffected. Since Dan and his family had sequestered themselves inside their houses due to the high radiation levels, they were unnoticed and assumed dead.
The temperature continued to drop world wide, and soon everything from Alaska to the Mason-Dixon Line was in perpetual winter. Daylight was 1/3 of usual values, and crop failures were rampant. The breadbasket of the United States failed to produce enough food to feed itself, let alone the rest of the country. Snows that normally melted in March or April hung around until June or July. Dan’s house in West Virginia had 6 feet of snow on the ground, making travel difficult. All they did outside all winter was gather wood, and only for limited times, since the radiation levels were still higher than Dan liked. Meanwhile Secretary General Monteforte was instituting even more bizarre laws including repealing all crimes against minors, removing the age of consent. He also instituted mandatory public service for those between 10-18. While the parents were sad to see their children go, they marveled at how well they had cleaned up the ash and radioactive debris. When they weren’t cleaning, they were being indoctrinated into the New World Order.
An Underground Railroad and an underground economy soon sprang up using barter and either gold or silver among people who loved freedom and wouldn’t submit to the New World Order. Enclaves of Freedom Lovers were forming nationwide, and people were instructed on how to get to them and avoid the UN patrols that sprang up on the roadways, and the random checkpoints. Families stopped by the checkpoints soon found their husbands dead, and the women and children raped and either taken prisoner or killed outright. Single men were conscripted on the spot, and attractive single women were captured and turned into sex slaves for the entertainment of the troops. In some areas of the country, a Blue Helmet made an excellent aiming point, and snipers were a constant problem.
Fleataxi