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Sunday, 17 September 2141

weather:  high temperatures 102° F, low 50° F. Clear skies, calm or very light winds. Humidity during the day, 17% to 21%.

East Diamond Lake Highway in the 22nd Century

      A surreptitious visit to Crater Lake had given the team a lot to think about; and had nearly given Benefiel and Turner heat stroke (there was nearly no wind, and they'd spent more than four hours hiking).

      The team drove back to Klamath Lake, where everyone had a swim. They decided at dinner that evening to visit the Foundation, and see if the fate of the Fillmore bunker could be determined.

Monday, 18 September 2141

weather:  high temperatures 102° F, low 60° F. Clear skies, calm or very light winds. Humidity during the day, 14% to 36%.

     The Morrow team returned to the vicinity of Alturas, and then turned southwest. The Ancient road had been re-graded, and the various fords improved, about a year ago; but little-used since that time.

     About 10 kilometers northeast of Burney, traveling through thick forests of pine and fir trees, the team's vehicle came round a bend in the road and found a road-block! Fortunately for them it was unoccupied. A set of old railway rails had been sunk in the road surface to force motor vehicles to travel very slowly; some barbed wire and log barricades kept infantry or vehicles from easily bypassing the road-block; and a few sandbagged fighting positions, and two low wooden towers would give any defenders some protection. The position had been visited since the last rains; and a simple telephone line led away on poles beside the road. Painted on the towers in blue paint was this symbol:

     Proceeding with a bit more caution, the armored car approached the location of Burney, and observed it through binoculars. While the Ancient community was long ago erased from the landscape, an army camp was present -- complete with vehicle sheds, tar-paper barracks, a fence and fighting positions all around, some empty artillery positions, and a command post complete with antennas. More substantial power and telephone lines led further southwest from this base; the flag was blue, with the "sword and book" symbol in white.

     While the camp could hold perhaps a thousand soldiers, there were only forty or so soldiers present, ambling slowly about their duty in the heat and dust. They wore light tan uniforms, in cut something like those of the American army in the Korean War era (the color was about the same shade as the team's Resistweave coveralls).  A few wore steel helmets, painted tan, some with blue bands on them. Most weapons were bolt-action rifles in 7.62mm caliber,

     ... but a couple of Low Maintenance Rifles were visible; a couple of belt-fed machine guns were in the towers, unattended in the middle of the day.

the Low Maintenance Rifle, a firearm only built in any quantity for the Morrow Project

     The team decided to approach -- without any hope of surprise, since the armored car was raising quite a bit of dust. The soldiers at the base began to gather their weapons and take up defensive positions -- but not with any appearance of alarm. The Morrow vehicle stopped outside the gate.

     An officer and a sergeant walked out to the vehicle, with only sidearms. On closer inspection, the sergeant's uniform was a (patched and slightly ragged) Resistweave coverall!

The officer actually had been issued one also, but the day was too hot for him to wear it comfortably.

      The officer, Knight Kearney, and Sergeant Beddow, spoke with the team. The team was asked who they were, and where from:  "We come from far to the east, and are looking for Fillmore."

      Kt. Kearney asked "Who is Fillmore?" The Morrow team members glanced at each other. The team agreed to have a chat, and entered the camp; an empty vehicle-shed was provided for them to park in. Some back-and-forth, over some cold beers, took place:

• The Morrow team claimed to be part of the Tool Collective, from Bluegrass Country. They managed to keep their reasons for visiting California vague, but mentioned that some friends had sent them to find a place called Fillmore, near the coast.
  

• The camp at Burney was part of the 4th Military District, within the Foundation of Mankind. The mountain range formerly called the Sierra Nevada were now called Sierra Gehenna.

• Knight Kearney, the commander of this base, had sent a message (via telephone line) to Fortress Dis, the headquarters of the Foundation, describing the team. 

     The Morrow team asked some questions about the slave camp around Alturas -- Kearney told them it had been destroyed by the Foundation. The slavers had sold slaves up to the towns of Bend and Burns, in Oregon. 

      The main enemies of the Foundation (as far as Kearney knew) were the Brethren (around the San Francisco Bay Area), and the Communists from Oregon. The area with Foundation communities was all north of what had been Sacramento before the Atomic War, up to roughly Mount Shasta.

      He knew that strange folk lived at Crater Lake, but hadn't heard that they were Malaysians. They had been present at that lake for at least 20 or 30 years, and used aircraft to travel out over the Pacific Ocean and back.

     The city of Styx, at the upper end of the Grand Canyon, was known to the knight; he had heard it was controlled by a group known as the Iron Society.

      A message came back from Dis and Knight Kearney gave the Morrow Project group permission to travel to Dis. He sent along Sergeant Beddow and a driver, in a biodiesel-powered Hummer, to lead the way (and avoid a lot of questions at watch-posts).

      Driving down out of the foothills, the 20th Century people saw wide farmlands spreading across the Sacramento Valley, with roads and small towns dotting the flat land. There were not utility poles connecting all of the communities, and a fair number of horses were in use. A few motor vehicles and farm machines were in use; no railways were seen.

      The towns the team passed through were sort of drab and utilitarian, with men in various uniforms -- but not many "military" uniforms out on the valley floor. Not many women or children were seen.

     Taking a route that passed south of Redding -- entirely destroyed by the Atomic War and the waters released from Lake Shasta -- the little convoy approached the site of what had once been Weaverville. A big covered canal (about 5 meters in diameter) carried water from Trinity Dam to the Sacramento River. Past the canal a low circular fortification became visible, surrounding a large concrete citadel in the middle.

one of the Foundation's major forts; location 3 is the helipad mentioned below

     The outer gates stood open, and the Morrow team sped into the area within the kilometer-wide circular outer walls. Warehouses, groups of barracks, radio towers, parade grounds, etc. gave the town the look of a hot, dusty 20th Century American military base. Some armored vehicles, mostly from the 20th Century, were seen parked near repair shops -- a couple of them were probably former Morrow vehicles, showing signs of years of use.

Some of them had been salvaged from the Sierra Army Depot.

      Most people seen were in some sort of uniform (though again, not usually a "military" uniform).

      Our Heroes were directed to park near the hulking central citadel. Gun turrets, radio antennas, and thick concrete walls projected an aura of military might. Flags flying atop the building included the Foundation insignia, along with an American 50 star flag and a California state flag.

      Walking inside, the air was a bit cooler than under the California sun. Most of the light fixtures, doors, pipes, and other hardware looked to be either salvaged 20th Century remnants, or close copies. A sort of rattle-y elevator took the team up to an upper level, where they were shown to a conference room and offered ice water. Floor-to-ceiling windows gave a view to the south and onto a roof helipad; just outside the fortress walls to the west was an airfield, with a few hangars, and some small parked aircraft and rotorcraft. 

     On the roof helipad a strange rotorcraft was parked.

     After a couple of minutes, three senior officers were shown into the conference room:

• General Gideon Schmidt

• General Joshua Donovan

• General Caleb Wakihara

     ... along with three aides. The generals spoke with Our Heroes into the evening. Some facts and opinions extracted from them:

• They knew that the vehicle used by the team was a "U.S. Army" vehicle, part of a plan by the Ancient government to stash supplies in bunkers just before the Atomic War. They had found a couple of these bunkers -- the first was a large unmanned depot named "Alpha", discovered in 2101 -- and put the contents to good use. While an important part of their culture called for the preservation and protection of Ancient technology, they presented no sense of being the "true owners" of everything the old U.S. Army had owned. The term "Morrow Project" was known to them, but they assumed it was the name of the Government program to build and fill the bunkers. They did not know about cryogenic sleep.
  

• The Foundation had been, well, founded by a mix of faculty and students from Humboldt State University, and a battalion of military engineers within the California National Guard. The Guard unit had been activated after the Loma Prieta earthquake, and was still mobilized at the time of the Atomic War. Long story short, the Humboldt State people and the National Guard people, along with a lot of other refugees, took shelter in Trinity Dam. Until 2100 or so, they were slowly expanding out from the area around the Trinity Shelter (as they called it).

• Communists from the Columbia River were sneaking around, infiltrating Foundation communities, and supporting guerilla movements in the Coast Range and around San Francisco. The Rainbow base, near the ruins of Arcata, was part of a plan to intercept shipments of Communist arms before they reached Nicaragua the California coast.

• The Foundation had built a small fleet of simple aircraft since the Atomic War; since 2110 or so, they had begun a more ambitious program building helicopters and pulsejet/ramjet aircraft.

• A trading group, the Cartel, paid the Foundation to establish and man small forts along a trading route that ran from Willows, down to Barstow, and out to New Mexico. Last year, a nihilist group, the Doom Riders, had begun raiding Cartel towns; the Cartel, and other groups, launched a war that wiped out the Doom Riders.

• A decade or so ago, there had been a short civil war within the Foundation -- the Schism. A small group of ultra-conservative soldiers, opposed to freeing the "thralls", had attempted a coup, and driven out of the area. They had stolen quite a few armored vehicles, and gone to Texas. Their leaders were (as far as these generals knew) General Kincade and General Ming.

• The Foundation didn't sell Ancient technology, but they would certainly trade items for items, information for information, if doing so increased their knowledge of science and technology.

   

     Some questions the generals had:

• How did you get your vehicle and equipment?

• We found it in a secret underground bunker.

      The team expressed an interest in visiting the coast, which the generals thought was worth the trip. The team was given a pass, allowing them to travel within the Foundation's lands; they were required to check in at a town every day or so. A set of radio frequencies and times were set up (and noted by the aides).

      A couple of Project computers and laser disc players were in the hands of the Foundation, but 40 years of use had pretty much worn out the electronics. They were certainly willing to trade aircraft plans for other technical info.

      After a nice, filling dinner, the Morrow team were put up in rooms in the citadel, with showers, beds, and flush toilets. Luxury!

Tuesday, 19 September 2141

weather:  high temperatures 100° F (at 4 p.m.), low 63° F (at 8 a.m.). Clear skies, calm or light winds form all around the compass. Humidity during the day, 19% (at 4 p.m.) to 63%. (at 8 a.m.)

     After breakfast, the Morrow team headed out from Fortress Dis, west into the Coast Range. They followed the route of the Ancient state highway 299 up into the forests -- grown thick and tall over a century and a half.

     The road was wide and well-graded ...

"Well, what do you expect from a country founded by army engineers?"

     ... with sturdy wooden bridges. After about 90 kilometers in two hours, they came to the grassy valley of Willow Creek -- the graded road turned west towards the coast, while the route to the Fillmore bunker led north into the trees.

This small town had been the "Bigfoot Capital of the World";

the actual site of the famous "Bigfoot film" was northwest of Orleans, along Bluff Creek.

     The old route of State Highway 99 was passable by the armored car for about 5 kilometers, but they came to a place where the road was washed out, the hill had slid down onto the road, trees had grown over it -- and more ominously, the burned-out, rusted hulks of a few military vehicles stood by the road, remnants of some ambush decades ago.

      At this point, Begay, Turner and Doc Paula exited the vehicle, and prepared to march north. They took a well-repaired CB radio, and a Morrow Project "radio battery", capable of powering the radio for 12-20 hours.

• Midland CB radio,with antenna, 2.8 kg, draws about 8-10 watts of power when transmitting, about 6 watts when receiving only.
  

• Project radio battery, 0.36 kg, holds 120 watt-hours of power. Maybe more than one battery? The team has several.

     From this point to the Hoopa reservation was about 20 kilometers; from the reservation to Orleans, another 40 kilometers. The Fillmore bunker was about 8 kilometers into the hills from there.

     The armored car, with Booth, Benefiel and Tayler continued on to Rainbow, where they settled in at the quiet fishing town, walking on the beach and talking with mariners.

On to A Night At The Fillmore