Finding Shelter

3

Everyone went by their last names at the camp. Including Wilson and Grant. It gave the camp a vaguely military feel.

Wilson was seated at his folding card table in his tent. He was going over the clipboards full of paperwork, trying to patch a hole in one of the supply chains. In the past, this kind of work would have been made easier with computers. But, with a little patience, a pencil and paper still did the trick.

Wilson’s tent was a large camping tent, the cheap kind that families buy when they know they’re only going to be using it once or twice a year.

There were better tents at the encampment. Real camping tents. Tents with even more space. Tents that didn’t have tears in the sides and holes in the bottom.

But Wilson had never been the sort of man who had craved luxury. He’d never been the type to try to one-up his neighbors. He was always more or less content with the possessions he had, so long as they were practical.

He cared more about whether something worked than how it looked. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for everyone in the militia. As far as Wilson was concerned, this was wrong. After all, it was a militia, not a summer camp. And, what’s more, the world was different now.

But despite the chaos of the world, and the mission they were trying to accomplish here at Grant’s camp, there were men who weren’t satisfied unless their tents were the best around, their boots new, and their clothes free of rips, tears, and stains.

Wilson was different.

Even before the EMP, Wilson had cared about ideas. About goals. Objectives. About what he was doing in the world.

Nothing had changed since the EMP.

Before the EMP, Wilson had been a high-powered lawyer. He’d always fought the good fight. Pro bono cases, and things he really believed in were his specialty.

He’d been the sort of lawyer who’d made half a million a year easy, and that was with him not even chasing the money the way plenty of his colleagues did.

He’d been respected as lawyer. Very respected. Colleagues constantly consulted him, and international organizations had always been pestering him to give talks at conferences.

He’d always showed up at the conferences in his old scuffed shoes and wrinkled suits. As far as Wilson was concerned, his job required a suit, and that was as far as he was obligated to take it. For him, the job he was doing was more important than his appearance. Everyone already recognized his talents.

The post EMP world was no different. After Wilson had gotten hooked up with Grant, it hadn’t taken long for others to recognize his talents. Of course, the work here was quite a bit different than it had been before the EMP. But the ideas were the same. The requirements were similar. Organizational skills were crucial. As were people skills.

The way it stood now, Wilson was something like the personal secretary to Grant, the enigmatic and sometimes mysterious leader of the military camp.

He was nothing like a secretary in the pre-EMP sense of the world. He didn’t do much paper shuffling or filing. There were no phones to answer, although sometimes walkie-talkies and various types of radios were used, especially for certain missions.

Wilson’s own understanding of Grant was still growing. And now he understood that, if anything, Grant was really more of a politician than anything else. Well, a politician and a thinker as well.

Not many others understood Grant as well as Wilson. And that was because no one had as much personal contact with Grant as Wilson did.

It was Wilson who delivered Grant the daily briefs. It was Wilson who acted as the liaison between Grant and the rest of the militia camp. It was Wilson who plotted with Grant late into the night, trying to find the solution to some particularly difficult organizational problem.

Wilson truly believed in Grant and his mission. He wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t.

If Wilson didn’t care about restoring order to the country, he would have been off doing something else. Most likely trying to carve out a comfortable lifestyle for himself. There were plenty of others doing it among the wreckage of the country. There were plenty of others who were just starting to get comfortable. Wilson got reports on them all the time.

Wilson couldn’t have done what Grant did. There was just no way. Grant had that charisma. He could walk out of his tent right now and people would just start following him around. Trying to talk to him. Trying to understand what he was thinking.

Sure, a lot of that had to do with the fact that there wasn’t a single person in the camp who didn’t recognize Grant on sight. But Wilson suspected that it was just who Grant was. He’d always been like that. Even before starting the camp. Just one of those magnetic people. No matter what they did, people were interested. No matter what they said, people listened.

Fortunately, Grant happened to have good ideas. Brilliant ideas.

Wilson was as fully committed to them as Grant was.

Bringing back order to the US? Completely squashing the incredible chaos and violence that had wrecked the nation since the EMP? It almost sounded too good to be true.

But that’s where the plan came in.

It was systematic.

It was novel.

It was unique.

It was simple.

It was brilliant, no matter which way you looked at it.

A sudden noise outside Wilson’s tent door interrupted his train of thinking.

It was someone clearing their throat. There wasn’t any way to really knock on a flimsy tent door, so a lot of the men and women would clear their throats instead.

For some reason, the noise had always annoyed Wilson.

“What is it?” said Wilson, his voice clearly conveying his annoyance.

“Sorry to interrupt, sir,” said the man, without continuing. Wilson didn’t immediately recognize the voice.

“Just get on with it. Come on in.”

The tent flap moved aside, and a short, stocky man entered. Wilson recognized his face, but he couldn’t recall his name at the moment.

The man entered awkwardly and moved to where he stood in front of Wilson’s table.

Apparently, he saw no need to state his name.

Wilson glared at the man. “Well,” he said. “Spit it out. What is it?”

“Ah, yes,” sputtered the man, who was apparently nervous as well as awkward. He moved his mouth around for a few moments awkwardly, without any sound coming out. Finally, something seemed to spark in his eye, and he spit it all out. “One of the eastern outposts picked up a man,” he said. “They told me to report it to you.”

“Picked up a man?” said Wilson. “Well, that’s hardly news. What was he doing? Why was he picked up?”

“He’d heard about the movement, sir. He’d heard about Grant. He wanted to join up.”

“So?” said Wilson, growing more annoyed by the minute. “I don’t see how any of this is news. We have new recruits coming in every day. They’ve heard the news. They’ve heard about what we’re doing, either from gossip or from the fliers. Why wasn’t he taken to the barracks for new recruits? Why are you telling me about this all?”

“He refused to go, sir.”

“Refused to go?”

“He’s stubborn, sir. Wanted to talk to Grant himself.”

Wilson let out a dry laugh. Grant wasn’t known for giving audiences to complete unknowns. Especially not people picked up by an outpost or a patrol. “I don’t think that’s going to happen,” said Wilson.

“Well, sir, he’s making things quite difficult.”

“Is he now?”

The man nodded. There was fear in his eyes, which were darting around nervously. Fear that wasn’t just for Wilson and his position. Was it fear for this audacious stranger?

“Send him in. I’ll talk to him.”

The man nodded and stepped once again through the tent flap.

Wilson sighed as he watched the man go. This, unfortunately, was a large part of his job. He had to smooth out the wrinkles in the camp so that Grant could occupy himself with more important things.

In mere moments, the man returned, this time with another man. Had he been standing outside the tent door all this time?

It was all highly irregular. A new recruit allowed to go as he pleased throughout the camp, waiting outside Wilson’s office.

Wilson studied the man. He walked with a slight limp. He was a little taller than average, and of medium build. Carried some muscle, but not a lot. Fairly thin, as most people were these days.

There was an intense look on his face. At least a week’s worth of thick stubble.

There was an intense intelligence in his eyes. An intelligence that Wilson didn’t see often.

The man carried himself like he was someone. Like he didn’t have anything to prove.

He had a commanding presence.

In a way, he reminded Wilson of Grant.

But there was no one like Grant except Grant himself.

“Name?” said Wilson, deciding to discuss the irregularities later.

“Max,” said the man.

“We go by last names here, generally.”

“Let’s just leave it at Max. Are you Grant?”

“Nope,” said Wilson. “But I’m as close as you’re going to get to Grant today. You’re lucky to be talking to me.”

“Well,” said Max. “That’s fine. I just wasn’t getting anywhere with your lackey here.” He nodded his head to indicate the nameless man who’d brought Max in. “I knew I needed to move up the chain of command.”

Wilson had seen this sort of thing before. It was a test. He was trying to see if using the word “lackey” would made anyone angry. Anger was a good way to test a man. Not to mention an organization.

Wilson wasn’t falling for the bait. He’d hear this man out, whatever it was he wanted to say. It was all highly unusual. But, then again, Grant himself was in many ways highly unusual. And there was just something about this Max. Something about his presence. Maybe he really did have something to offer. Something unique.

“So spit it out,” said Wilson.

“I heard you’re looking for local militia leaders,” said Max. “I’m here to volunteer, provided everything is up to my standards.”

Wilson’s jaw dropped. “So you’re coming here, a complete unknown, demanding a leadership position.”

Max nodded. “That’s right,” he said. No hint of a smile on his face. His face was dead serious.

“What makes you think we’d do that?”

Max shrugged. “I have the necessary skill set. And I heard you were looking for leaders.”

Wilson said nothing for a few moments, his eyes not leaving Max’s face.

This was completely ridiculous. Completely absurd. A complete waste of time. He’d been duped, apparently, by Max’s “presence,” whatever that was. But he wasn’t taking any more of it. He had things to do. Important things.

Wilson was getting more annoyed by the second.

“All right,” he said, taking his eyes off Max’s. “Enough’s enough. Throw him in the stockade with the others. I’ve had enough of this.”

“Yes, sir,” snapped the lackey, whose name Wilson still couldn’t remember.

Max said nothing.

“Come on, buddy,” said the lackey, grabbing Max forcefully.

Max didn’t resist, but he didn’t go willingly either. He just stood there.

In an instant, the lackey had his sidearm drawn and pushed into Max’s side.

“You don’t have any cuffs?” said Wilson to the lackey.

The lackey shook his head.

“Let me see if I have some.”

Underneath the folding card table desk there were a couple crates packed with odds and ends. After a moment of rummaging through one of them, Wilson came up with a pair of plastic binders that functioned as handcuffs. Likely they’d been scavenged from a police station.

Wilson grabbed the binders and tossed them to the lackey, who, without hesitation, snapped them onto Max’s wrists.

“Maybe we can talk again,” said Wilson. “After the stockades have taken some of the arrogance out of you.”

Max said nothing, but he stared Wilson down as he was led out of the tent, cuffed, at gunpoint.

Good. That was how the camp was supposed to run. Efficiently. No nonsense. People with crazy ideas got sent to the stockade. People causing problems got locked up. There was too much to do to get bogged down in the nonsense ideas of every crazy individual who came by.

Now that the nonsense was over, Wilson could finally get back to work. He grabbed a couple of his clipboards and stared at them. But he couldn’t quite get himself to focus on the work.

There was something about that man, about Max, that stuck with him. Something strange.