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report covers 14 August 2140 to 16 August 2140

Sunday, 14 August 2140

weather:  sunrise at 5:06 a.m., sunset 6:25 p.m. (CT). The moon was waxing gibbous this night, about 93% illuminated. High temperature during the day was 82° F max, 69° F low at night, with a humidity of 94% during the day, 65% at night. Fog in the morning until about 10 a.m., then 5mm of rain fell between 1 and 3 p.m.. Wind from the northeast, 8 kph, gusts up to 15 kph. Visibility 10 km at most (before and after the rain).

the front of the R36 bunker, in 2140 after being partially opened

     The team's monitor received and decrypted the activation signal at about 2 p.m. Central Time. It activated the "defreeze" cycle on the cryoberths, turned on the vehicle computer and downloaded the "action message", turned on the bolthole lights (which promptly died) and then self-destructed.

     Attracted by the plume of cold nitrogen vapor, Captain Sam's road pirates arrived about an hour later, and by 4 p.m. had pulled the main door open.  A couple of hours of looting went by, and the pirates took the loot back to their camp at Dothan, about sunset. They left a single vehicle and 4 pirates to guard the bolthole; they planned to come back the next day to force the door all the way open, and retrieve the hovercraft.

     The actual opening of the cryoberths was at about 10 p.m. -- fortunately they all had backup batteries to complete the defreeze cycle. The team opened their eyes to see the cryoberth lids slowly swinging open, with electroluminescent strips outlining the lids.

this color

     Sore, hungry and thirsty, the team members stumbled from their berths. Besides the expected cold, chemical smell, there was a hint of burnt electrical equipment, blood, and wood smoke. Pale moonlight and some flickering firelight shone faintly through the partially-opened bolthole main hatch; the dome light inside the hovercraft shed some light inside the bolthole.

     Torn plastic wrappers, discarded packaging, and general litter indicated that someone had looted all of their portable gear! A mostly-dried puddle of blood, a lot of dirty footprints, were left by the looters. Only the team's personal effects boxes (sealed in the cryoberths) and some installed equipment in the hovercraft remained. Booth stared at his new team mates -- but before any general conversation could begin, a harsh piratical laugh was heard from outside!

     The team froze, but the road pirates were just amusing themselves around their campfire.

     Opening the cofferdam exit would certainly alert the pirates. Turner peeked around the edge of the door and saw four shapes, standing around a campfire next to a rusty, Mad Max-y van. The moon was nearly full, and almost directly overhead.

     While his team mates looked through their personal effects kits, Jake pulled down some of the wiring for the bolthole lights, and made a simple electrocution lance! The team was otherwise armed with pioneer tools (shovel, prybar, axe, sledge) and a few personal knives.

     Turner saw all four of the pirate guards clapping their hands, and going, "Ooh, aah" as a 40mm parachute flare burst into view a couple of kilometers to the south. While the pirates faced away from the bolthole, the Morrow team crept out, attempting to be stealthy -- and failing!

     As a pirate cried out, "Hey, what's that?" the team sprang into action, charging across the dirt to the pirate van. In less than a minute of stabbing, bashing and a couple of gunshots, the Morrow team was victorious. Three of the pirates were dead or dying, one was just wounded; Turner had some shotgun pellets and bits of burnt black powder embedded in his leg.

     Realizing that the road pirates at their base a mile away might have heard the gunshots, the team began a hurried escape. Begay sweated to get the van's gasogen generator going. The dead pirates were loaded into the cryoberths, and all the berths were closed; dirt was kicked over the blood around the pirates' campfire. The pirates' gear, and the wounded prisoner, were loaded into the van.

plus lots of garbage, scraps of porn, crusty blankets, personal effects, jewelry and shiny things, etc.

     Within ten minutes, the van was ready to move; it was terribly hot inside, as well as being stinky, sticky, and filled with all the junk that a murder-hobo lifestyle now included. "Off to the cache" said Jeff, and Begay headed south to the highway.

     After a couple hundred meters, the team was at the highway, where Begay turned off the headlights (there was plenty of moonlight to drive on the road).  -- There were shortleaf pines, longleaf pines, and loblolly pines growing through the asphalt; the road had clearly been used over the years, without any maintenance; but the trees were at least 20 years old in Turner's opinion. In the distance, south towards the old airport, some headlights could be seen moving around; the team turned west and followed the highway towards Midland City.

     Midland City was a collection of concrete foundations, chimneys, and porcelain fixtures; some of the pine trees were growing through the rusted remnants of car or truck frames. "More than 20 years .. ." said Turner, frowning. Sputtering along the highway, the team pressed onwards; the ten kilometer journey took about half-an-hour.

     South of the remains of Newton, the team turned off the road, and bounced over the dirt and brush for a few hundred meters, until they came to the concrete slab which marked the location of cache AL06. Begay quickly shut down the vehicle, dumped the fire, and began hiding the van's tracks (starting at the road).

     After shoveling off some dirt, the cache lid was removed, revealing the pristine contents within.

     After a few celebratory chuckles, the team dug into the cache. The spare tire was on top ...

Monday, 15 August 2140

weather:  sunrise at 5:07 a.m., sunset at 6:24 p.m.; end of nautical twilight at 7:20 p.m.. The moon is waxing gibbous, at 97% illuminated. High temperature is 84° F, low temperature is 69° F, maximum humidity is 100%, minimum is 62%. Wind from the NNW, averaging 6 kph. Fog from dawn until 9 a.m., brief rain after midnight, drizzle 10 to 11 a.m. -- only 1 mm. Humidity drops to "only" 70% in the afternoon. Visibility 10 km at best.

     After midnight, the team was re-equipped and re-armed, and felt prepared to catch some sleep. They had asked a few questions of their prisoner, but between their own tiredness and his own pain, fear and ignorance, not much useful was gotten that night. He didn't know the date. They closed up the cache, spread some dirt on it, and rolled the van on top of it. A quick meal of freeze-dried Project rations began to fill their aching stomachs.

     Around 1 a.m., during the first watch, two methanol-burning motorcycles howled along the highway, heading west; they returned to the east just before dawn.

     The team woke a bit late, and as they were having their breakfast around 9 a.m. they heard the distant echo of a diesel-powered bulldozer at the airport -- probably crawling onto a low-bed trailer. Realizing that the road pirates would be into the bolthole soon, Jeff had the team load up for a quick attack. Eric was left behind to guard the prisoner and van, and to start the gasogen after about 90 minutes and drive to the bolthole.

     By 10:30, the rest of the team had "ruck marched" the 10 kilometers back to the bolt hole. The drizzle made sneaking through the pine forest to the northern (back) side of the bolt hole fairly easy; the roaring and clattering of the bulldozer made it unlikely anyone would hear them. The road pirates had a half-dozen slaves clearing with shovels doing the "fine detail" work, as the bulldozer moved the dirt blocking the bolthole door.

     Present near the bolthole was a pickup truck, a big semi-tractor and the low-bed trailer, Captain Jack's "boss wagon", a high-ground-clearance jeep-y thing, and a couple of other lightly-armored vehicles. A dozen or so road pirates were standing about or supervising; they clearly weren't expecting an attack. One of the road pirates was carrying Turner's rifle.

     Carefully positioning themselves at the military crest of the bunker, they took aim -- Jeff signaled the start of the attack by firing a 40mm tear gas grenade at a group of pirates which included the leader. After a couple of minutes, most of the pirates were either incapacitated by tear gas, wounded or dead. Led by Jeff, the team rushed forward and took the remaining pirates as prisoners.

     As before, the pirate camp at Napier Field heard the explosions and gunfire, and showed up in ten minutes or so. By that time, Begay had used the pirate bulldozer (a 1950s Caterpillar D8E) to open the bolthole door completely, and the team was ready to negotiate.

Begay had a brief but meaningful encounter with this bulldozer ...

     Negotiations, and the actual transfer of equipment and hostages, took all afternoon. In the end, the team recovered all of their equipment (minus the flare-type 40mm grenades from Benefiel's gear, a small amount of ammo, five LRP rations, and the booze from the trade pack). They kept the gasogen van and the items that came with it.

    While the pirates eventually proved somewhat talkative, none of the Morrow Project team members wanted to spend the night within any short distance of them. The gasogen van was hidden in the woods, with its tracks covered; the Gull hovercraft was all re-filled with equipment, and the team slid off to the southwest, planning to visit the coast the next day.

     At a convenient creek, the "non-potable" water tank of the Gull was filled; the team had also taken a jug of water from the pirate van.

     The prisoner taken from the van crew was released, since he'd been bound and blindfolded during most of his captivity.

     That night, the team camped near the ruins of Sweet Gum Head, a village just over the Florida border. The radio and computer were re-installed and checked; Booth heard some distant CD radio broadcasts from far to the west, and stronger AM broadcasts from the south (probably Latin America) ... all of them in Spanish (if any language could be made out at all). None of them were very technically sophisticated broadcasts ... people talking, then perhaps poorly-transmitted music.

information retrieved from the vehicle computer ... with incorrect time and date, it turned out

     Paula carefully cleaned and patched up Turner's leg, and then ran her Medkit over it ... all better! A hearty meal of freeze-dried rations began to fill the entirely empty digestive tracts of the team members.

Turner was still down at least half-a-dozen Blood Points, however.

Tuesday, 16 August 2140

weather:  sunrise at 5:07 a.m., sunset at 6:23 p.m.; end of nautical twilight at 7:19 p.m. The moon is full. High temperature 88° F, low temperature 70° F, maximum humidity 100% (during the fog), minimum at 53%. Wind 5 kph from the west, fog from 1 a.m. to 8 a.m., mostly cloudy after that. Visibility about 10 km once the fog lifts.

Along the Gulf Coast, the high temperature was only 80° F, and the night-time low was 71° F; humidity was about 75%. A 6 kph wind blew from the WSW; light drizzle during the afternoon, and a very brief thunderstorm around 3 p.m., kept everything wet. Visibility was 8 km at best over the Gulf.

     In the morning, feeling much better than the previous day, the team waited until the fog lifted (mm, more LRP rations) and headed south towards the Gulf, Small individual farms, hoofprints on the ruined roadbed, and wagon tracks were the signs of a low population density at early 19th Century "pioneer" level.

     Near DeFuniak Springs at about 11 a.m., they came across the ruins of Interstate Highway 10, at about what used to be Exit 14. There were some tracks by motor vehicles on what was now two wide gravel roads, along with quite a few rusted frames and engine blocks embedded in the dirt. The overpasses at the big cloverleaf intersection had fallen decades ago. Hurricanes, fires, scavengers and a lot of nuclear detonations about 25 kilometers to the west (at Eglin AFB) had not left much remaining from before the year 1990.

     The pine-forested hills around DeFuniak Springs gave way to the coast along Choctawhatchee Bay. There was almost no sign of the 20th Century along the coast -- the Atomic War, decades of hurricanes, and 7 meters of sea level rise had destroyed, swept away, submerged or buried bridges, towns, roads and everything else within a few kilometers of the current shore. Choctawhatchee Bay wasn't even a bay any more -- the low, long sandy peninsula which had supported Seaside, Santa Rosa Beach, Miramar Beach and other vacation communities was entirely gone.

remnant of a coastal road

     To a botanist, the most notable evidence of the 20th Century were the descendants of various non-native decorative plants and trees.

     The Gull hovercraft settled onto the wide, white sand beach, and the crew stepped gingerly out, at about 2 p.m. The sand and water were clean and free of any detectable pollution -- the nearest recorded offshore oil platforms were south of Mobile Bay, by the way. The CBR kits detected less radiation than if you had been living in Hanford, Washington or ten kilometers from Three Mile Island in the mid-1980s. There were no footprints visible on the beach, and no boats or ships visible in the Gulf (within the 8 kilometer limits of visibility). The radar detected nothing; keep in mind that it would only detect a wooden boat out to about 5 kilometers range.

     The team spent a couple of hours re-sorting their equipment, mostly staying inside their hovercraft under cloudy skies (and an afternoon thunderstorm, which was also when the high temperature was reached). They were a couple of kilometers from what used to be Portland, Florida.

The team needs to decide what was taken from -- or left at -- the cache;

or for that matter, what items they wanted from the pirate van.

Map of the Gulf Coast for R36; brown oil drops are the Strategic Petroleum Reserve sites. The red X shows the team's location at the end of the first episode.

Orange titles represent information gained from pirate interrogation.