End of Days - Chapter One "Laissez-Faire"

Sunset Valley – End of Days
Chapter One – "Laissez-Faire"

River’s Journal – Week of June 18-24th

We moved to a nice spot over-looking the ocean. According to Haruo it carries a lot of potential. Though what we’re going to do with it is still up in the air. Across the way there is a nice park that has a large pond in it. I’m sure at the very least, we can fish for our dinner. Which is pretty much what we might as well do since Haruo has gathered together enough wood to provide us with a camp-fire.

Fishing has to be one of the most boring activities someone can engage in. Fishing-rod in hand, one stands at the edge of a pond, after casting, just waiting for the fish to bite. It could take minutes...or hours. Meanwhile, you either turn your brain off or you end up lost in your thoughts until, if you are lucky, a tug on the line alerts you to the fact that you have been successful at getting a fish on the hook. I could think of better ways to while away the time than standing around waiting for a fish to bite.

But for us, this is survival. Sure, we have §18,623.00 but we need to have at least §100,000.00 to start building our first accommodations. And that is going to take a lot of work. We don’t have a gem-cutting machine nor any idea where the gemstones can be found, let alone where we can take them. For right now, the only thing that we can do is fish, sell our extras, pick flowers and make sure that we can make enough to make a hut of some sort that can fit five or six people, depending on if Bebe gets a boyfriend or something like that.

Right now, what we have is a property...that is going to need to be kept up. And that’s the hard part. It’s hard to do the things necessary to keep a property in tip-top shape when you have absolutely very little money and everything is being saved to build a home on it.

Our first day involved the move and then pretty much immediately we went into collecting mode. Haruo decided that he was going to start a garden for us, planting the seeds that he had in his pockets and then afterwards went hunting in order for us to have meat. Bebe, Clarissa and I went fishing since nothing beats hours on end staring at the water reflecting sunlight until you nearly go blind. Phil joined us down at the pond.

At this point, Sunset Valley was a placid town, not too large in any case, but a rather sizable one with enough amenities to satisfy those who wanted something to do. The beach was not too far away, and the town core, Central Park, was right in the center with the shops and the halls of town government bordering it. It was good enough of a town for us to not want to move away at any rate – at least, for now. For me, it was because Mom still lived here. For Haruo, it was because I wanted to stay.

Haruo’s truck was what was able to move things that were large for consignment. It was lucky that he had one or we would be very hard-up for doing much of anything. So he would be the one that would take large objects over to consignment. The rest of us were stuck to taking gemstones and smelting or collecting foodstuffs. But at least with five of us combined tackling problems that cropped up, we certainly wouldn’t be starving.

Haruo kept himself busy by planting things and finding seeds as well as locating gemstones that he would later cut. And there were things that he would be able to sell to the store. As he gardened and harvested, his skill with gardening grew more and more and he was able to find fruits and vegetables of higher quality, so he would sell the lower end quality food thus giving us a much better quality garden in the end.

We, less Haruo since he was busy at the time, took advantage of free food. With a sumptuous buffet set out in front of us thanks to a picnic basket...well, why not? It would take care of at least one meal. Phil and I had a hamburger while Bebe and Clarissa decided on hot-dogs. After all, if someone was going to make that available to us, then we were going to partake.

When we came back to our property on the evening of the first day that we were living on our property, we were so exhausted that we, the girls that is, laid out our towels on the ground and had a nice nap.

Phil decided that instead of laying out a towel and lying on the ground attracting grass fleas, he was going to go and fish some more. Well, whatever turns his crank.

For sleeping, we had tents. Clarissa and Bebe decided to take one tent, Haruo and I took the center tent – after all, Haruo was my boyfriend and well, nothing beat beating a chill in the air and keeping the cold of a morning away than a warm body next to me. Phil on the other hand took the third tent and had to sleep solo. With the five of us, there was one person who was the odd one out who had nothing other than the blanket to chase away the night chills and the morning cold.

Monday morning brought a cloudy morning, but by about three in the morning, the starry skies had returned and we woke up to a nice bright and presumably going to be really hot day, which seemed to be unusual since about mid-morning, I awoke to a thunderclap which was an anomaly in an otherwise cloudless day.

You know they say that sometimes a bolt strikes out of the blue.

Once we had breakfast, I went hunting for vegetables and fruits to help Haruo with his garden. After all the sooner we grew our garden, the sooner that we wouldn’t have to worry about starving. After all, we were conserving our monetary resources and saving up as much as we could gather. Raiding other people’s gardens helped with much of the resources that we needed in terms of food.

Phil, on the other hand, decided that he was going to continue his dumpster excursions and try to see if he could find us a kitchen table. So far all it’s yielded are gemstones that people have thrown away and some kitchen chairs. It’s amazing what people throw out. And most of what he found was perfectly usable with a little cleaning. I really don’t think that I could personally dive head-first into a dumpster without feeling like I was going to empty the contents of my stomach all over the ground, but Phil somehow manages. Clarissa, surprisingly, decided to join him in that escapade. Well, I guess, we’ll manage somehow.

After he came home, Phil mentioned that he went to see the guy over at the consignment store and he also talked to Sue Scotch at Aleister’s Elixir Shoppe. There he was able to turn in quite a lot of things including the toads that he’d had from yesterday’s fishing.

In between my hunting for harvestables and usable seeds, I got the urge to set off one of the fireworks over at Central Park. Luckily for me there was no fine for doing so, but it certainly was pretty.

Phil had cobbled together a make-shift toilet and shower so both Haruo and I were able to get clean. As well, it provided us a little privacy which was sorely lacking in having to live in tents and do everything right close by each other. It’s always reassuring to have other folks with us, but it also provides us with practically no privacy to be together and with the stressors that we have right now, time for just the two of us is what Haruo and I need.

But Haruo is saying that we have to get underground...soon. The broadcasts that we’ve been listening to on the radio have been unsettling to say in the least. The Soviet Politburo has been quietly maneuvering to take out Gorbachev and move their pro-old regime in which will result in the resumption of hostilities between the Western and Eastern blocs. And what Haruo fears is that the resumption of hostilities will go hot, in other words, armed conflict. And if two super-powers go at it, then we are royally screwed. I hope that Haruo’s fears have no basis in reality, but I fear that they do.

Bebe, Phil and Clarissa were over in the park making sure that they were able to fish in order to supplement our foodstuffs. Fish would be necessary for us in the coming days as the news grew more dire. The news was telling us that Soviet bloc T-72s and T-64s were massing on the East German border with West Germany. And the Soviet Union was massing for an all-out push through the Fulda Gap. It appeared as though the Soviets were deciding that now was the opportune moment to take over Europe and NATO was not going to allow for that since elements of the V Corps of the US Army, VIIIth Armored Division and the XIVth Armored Division were moving their M1A1s into place to combat the 8th Guards, and the 1st Guards Tanks of the Soviet Army. This was not a great time to be nonchalant about the world situation.

Meanwhile Mikhail Gorbachev was doing his level best to rout the hardliners in his cabinet who were making preparations to go to war. The Soviet General Secretary did not want war with the West. But his top military leaders did. Unfortunately, it was a matter of who was in a position to make decisions and that would ultimately dictate where the chips fell.

We knew that Sunset Valley was a primary target since we had a military base not far north of where we were. CFB Gnome was the primary launch site for Canadian Space Exploration missions that weren’t out of Cape Canaveral down in the United States. That meant potentially that one of the big ones was headed our direction. And they probably wouldn’t hesitate to hit our seat of government power either. Sunset Valley’s city hall was bound to be turned into a baked charnel house.

With all this, all Haruo and I had were each other and despite the ominous news, we were doing what we could to remain focused on the task at hand which was to get underground as quickly as possible. Haruo was running himself ragged trying to accumulate seeds that we were going to need and fish that we were going to be able to eat.

We would discuss things over a campfire while the others were off doing what they were doing. I knew I was in denial of the events happening half a world over and so were the others. But I knew that Haruo was focused on a goal for the first time in his life and that also galvanized me into action. We had no other choice. I could see the rest of the town had decided their own fate. Nobody was doing anything other than to say, “We don’t know what’s going to happen and by the time it happens, it’s going to be too late to do anything about it anyways.” Haruo, on the other hand, was focused on our survival in the days ahead and that he was going to make sure that he came out the other end of this pending disaster unfazed and intact. He was a far-cry from the indecisive, hen-pecked individual that had escaped his mother’s clutches.

I knew the rest were doing what they could and well, that was all that anyone could ask of them. As long as they didn’t descend into caterwauling madness due to the mental strain that was imposed on all of us, things would keep moving forward.

Our early morning meetings were designed to make the most efficient use of our day’s activities towards getting us prepared for what was to come. And Haruo was relentless in his goals. If we were not doing our part, he made it very clear as to what needed to happen for it to improve. I had never seen him like this, but I could feel the desperation behind it, the attitude that “I’m not going to die in this and neither are the people who are closest to me.”

We ate and got busy with the things we had to do. Clarissa headed to the Falls just over the hill from the military base to do some fishing while Phil went dumpster diving to look for usable furniture to give us something to sit on when we were tired. Haruo had to go talk to someone regarding the plans for the site that we were going to build our bunker on. Even though we had the impending doom to contend with, we still had to follow government regulations and building codes. Ridiculous though the bureaucracy may seem, it would serve to protect us in the end. Haruo, on the other hand, decided that he was building over and above code regulations. When the code dictated two feet for wall thickness, he insisted on four feet with inlaid lead sheeting to keep our shelter from radiation seepage from the outside.

I appeared to be coming down with a massive case of hay-fever. It was annoying, but one had to just work through it.

When Haruo came back, he had a great big pot, I recognized it as Lord Vladimir’s Conjuring Cauldron. He did say that on the other side, we could use it as a big pot for stew. But he also did some conjuring for gemstones. That was going to be our quick way to make money enough to build a bunker quickly. If we could get some very valuable gemstones, we could get them cut quickly and make some money on consignment.

Sue Scotch over at Aleister’s had gotten her hands on a RBG Gem Cutter which was an advanced gem cutting machine that also smelted metals. It was far more advanced than the Gem-U-Cut which helped matters immensely insofar as profit. And she’d already gotten back some of the money that she’d spent for it because it wasn’t cheap. Frankly, it cost §50,000.00 and that was a huge chunk of money to spend on such a machine.

Towards the late afternoon, early evening, Clarissa, Phil and Bebe came back and then headed across the street to the park to do some fishing to make sure that our stockpiles were large enough to make sure we had enough to eat while we were stuck in the bunker. I informed Haruo that we may have to use some of that money in order to make sure that we topped up our meat-stocks.

Towards nightfall, Haruo did some more conjuring to see what gemstones we could get and hopefully we would have enough that we could start building.

We were exhausted to the point where we all fell asleep rather quickly, the tents weren’t much more comfortable than sleeping on open ground but at least it provided a layer between us and the grass fleas which seemed to love quite a number of us and it made it very itchy. We found that we were scratching constantly to try and deal with the bites that we had received from them.

Morning was early. Going to sleep at around 8:45PM meant that we were up at four in the morning. The sun doesn’t come up until at least five in the morning so we still had an hour of pre-dawn and well, Haruo was up the earliest of all of us. At least as far as I knew since he was quiet slipping out of our tent.

I soon followed after he headed out to do some hunting to fill our meat-stocks. He was getting better at it and as such, was able to nail down quite a few steaks. Don’t ask me what animals they came from, but at least it was meat that we could utilize after some good solid cooking over the camp fire. We made sure that the meat was well-done.

We had more immediate concerns than the pending war in Europe and the potential for it to spark into actual conflict. Namely the fact that we needed to gather enough money to build us a deep subterranean bunker well out of the blast zone. We’d already known that Sunset Valley was a target for a nuclear attack, due to the military base’s proximity, so what we needed to do was protect ourselves.

Bebe and Clarissa were next up and got themselves breakfast from the make-shift fridge that Phil had managed to cobble together from stones and an old refrigerator that no longer had a door. Somehow even though it appeared as though Phil was a few bricks short of a full-load, he was a whiz when it came to making things work. For that we were eternally grateful. At least, if anything, it kept our perishables cold.

The sun rose on a rather cloudy day, but like most summer days, the morning mist and haziness cleared to bright sunshine. It was far better than rain as far as I was concerned which was mostly what consisted of British Columbia weather in the spring-time. At least rain during the summer was warm, but you didn’t want to be wet in the mornings. Mornings were still chilly above the 49th Parallel even at the height of middle of June.

Clarissa headed down to Central Park to do some fishing. Luckily for her, she was able to make some catches that stocked up our fish in preparation for the long sojourn in what would become our bunker. We would probably have no access to food and we would have no choice but to rely on fish stocks that we had in order to get us through the lean times, which meant that we had to fish enough for us to have proper fish breed-stock so that we wouldn’t run out midway through waiting for the radiation from all-out nuclear war to clear. Hopefully the Warsaw Pact wouldn’t be sadistic enough to resort to using territory-denial weapons such as salted nuclear arms (nuclear weapons laced with cobalt 59 that when detonated would release large amounts of gamma-radiation emitting Cobalt 60).

When Haruo came back from hunting he set about doing some conjuring with Lord Vladimir’s Conjuring Cauldron again. I had warned him about conjuring too much but, of course, males are stubborn and bull-headed and well, he rearranged his brain-cells again when he impacted the ground. Out of exhaustion thanks to conjuring too often, I assume.

When he recovered consciousness, he gathered up all the gemstones that he’d conjured and headed over to see Sue at Aleister’s in order to cut the gemstones and consign them. Evidently once five o’clock post-meridiem rolled around, the additional money that we’d received from the sales of the consigned cut gems was enough to purchase several new items that we were going to need in order to make more money.

Clarissa decided to take on the mantle of family alchemist. Conjuring and alchemy had a rather sordid reputation in the past with a lot of fakery, however, somehow, Lord Vladimir’s Conjuring Cauldron and Aleister’s Alchemy Station actually worked. How that collates with the Law of Conservation of Mass or the First Law of Thermodynamics dictating that an object cannot be created from nothing and if deconstructed, that said object would have to be reduced to components whose sum is equal in mass. Yet things were being created from nothing when the conjuring cauldron was utilized. Rudolf Clausius and William Thomson would be spinning in their collective graves.

The rest of the week went much like the previous days. We did what we had to. Some of us fished, some of us hunted and the rest tried to utilize the new items that Haruo bought so that we would have a leg up on what came down the turnpike. And Haruo’s cousin Masaharu joined us and I could see that Bebe was immediately smitten. Hopefully it works out better for her than the guy who dumped her in middle-school. None of us have forgiven Jay yet and probably never will.

River’s Journal - June 25 -July 1st, 1989

Thank the Watcher, the bunker was done in record time. It appeared that one day we had a big vacant empty lot, the next a large bunker was taking shape and it would ultimately keep us safe since the excavation of the bunker had lowered the surface of our lot deep into the ground which a wall and a concrete ceiling reinforced with steel rebar of multiple layers. This meant that radiation wouldn’t get in to flood the main surface area with contamination.

The floor of our surface had been sunk thirty feet with brick and concrete forming the walls that surrounded us. From there the ground surface would allow us to plant our harvestables. Our fish on the other hand would be subject to living their lives in a large pool of water that would be our breeding ground for aquaculture. At least that would make sure that we had a good variety of foodstuffs to keep us all fed.

We also managed to get two sets of dairy cows and four hen-houses into the space that was required. Plus we had additional space if necessary to move the cows to if they bred – we’re still trying to figure out how to breed the cows without the intervention of a bull. Because if there is one, it certainly isn’t apparent to us where exactly it is. Hopefully we’ll be able to snag a bull before we close up...and seal ourselves in to wait out the radiation. Or we may just have to genetically engineer cows and chickens to replenish our feed-stocks.

Our garden got a boost with donations of plant-stock in order to save them from extinction. So we have a lot of things that we have to do in order to make certain that these plant species survive. And with the conjuring cauldron and being able to conjure up necessary items to plant, with some luck, hopefully we should be able to make certain that these plants will become hardy enough to survive once we return to the surface.

Meanwhile, up topside, while we were digging in to the bunker, the rest of Sunset Valley went along in what appeared to us to be ignorant bliss or just trying to not think about the impending heating up of the war in Europe. Everyone else in town appeared to go about their daily business as if the war did not exist across the Atlantic. The news however discussed China making preparations for war against the Soviet Union if the Soviets were going to kick-off against the West. China, as insular and Marxist as they were, didn’t want any part of a war against the West, but if they were about to get annihilated, their viewpoint was in the interests of either sitting and standing idle while nuclear weapons were lobbed in their direction, or take out their enemies both the Soviets and the West, then they would launch in a last-ditch effort to remove both threats and go down fighting.

Day after sunny day passed as we worked down in the bowels of the bunker. Clarissa chose to learn alchemy, while Masaharu worked on potions and Bebe although she was a technophobe decided to work on her science skills. That was rather astounding to say in the least since the science station was highly technical and technology-related.

Phil on the other hand decided to tackle robotics which he had heretofore shown no interest in technology related matters. Yet he took to it like a fish to water. And was making nanites and trait chips like nobody’s business.

Bebe was learning science at the science station, irradiating bugs and making other scientific discoveries which surprisingly didn’t leave her too stressed with learning something that she was previously scared of. But at least it certainly helped matters as finances would be necessary in order to subsist in the post-apocalyptic society that we would be facing. And Bebe, bless her for overcoming any discomfort that she had in using that machine, stuck to it and learned as much as she could to the point where she could clone objects from samples. She was a trooper for doing that.

Masaharu kept at it producing one potion after another without failure. He decided to make multiple sleep potions to help us all maximize our waking hours. He also ended up trying his hand at conjuring like my boyfriend did, but he realized too late that the floor was as hard as it appeared. It was surprising with how hard he’d hit the floor that he’d escaped giving himself a solid concussion.

We used our body-clocks to determine what the time was. We didn’t have the benefit of seeing the sky outside. For all we knew it could be daylight out, but we went to sleep when our bodies were tired and got up when they weren’t. It appeared that we’d all paired off unofficially. Of course, I had no eyes for anyone else other than Haruo and he was the same towards me as a mate, so we both slept in the same bed.

Bebe and Masaharu paired off too and slept together.

And well, I don’t know what Clarissa sees in Phil, but the two of them were together as well. Phil, of course, being our robotics expert as well as our chef was someone one doesn’t insult. When he can make things that are supposed to defend our bunker as well as cook our food, we make absolutely certain that we are on his good side. You don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

Phil had made us all some breakfast calzones. And we ate those. And they were delicious. And in fact, Phil had done quite a bit of research, a first for him, since he when we were in school, was not one for studying. But knowing that we faced at minimum a month to six months in the bunker depending on how severe the nuclear fallout was, whenever the conflict happened, we needed to make sure that we had sources of, as he said, “We need Vitamin D...if we don’t want to end up with a raging case of scurvy.” Someone was listening during history class.

It wasn’t too long after that Phil made a breakthrough and constructed our first plumbot. Phil called him F3L-1X or Felix for short. He was our stocky heavy duty plumbot that would be part body-guard, part conjurer. The main reason behind this was that Phil suspected, as was soon borne out, that Felix would be incapable of wearing himself out while conjuring, unlike my boyfriend, who would practically pass out, risking severe concussion, after five conjurings. Felix could, without fail, conjure repeatedly for as long as his battery held out which was only consumed by regular activity during the course of the day. The conjuring cauldron had no effect on him. So he would be the one providing gemstones from now on and he would be the one going outside the bunker to be selling said gemstones.

We’d had multiple discussions on what we could do to ensure that supply lines were still available after everything went to hell in a handbasket. Haruo’s solution was to bring the storekeepers into our bunker and have them keep the supply lines running. We needed a consignment person to take our gemstones; a storekeeper to sell our harvestable wares to as well as a bookseller. We would also conspire to bring in a relics salesperson who could provide us with the international relics that we could utilize as bargaining chips when we met up with other survivors. There were a lot of things to take into consideration as we prepared for the unthinkable.

At the start, Felix would use either my bike or my boyfriend’s however we decided that it would be best if we got him his own and we splurged a bit on that because we got him a hoverbike that he could ride. It was much faster than our two-wheeled form of locomotion.

“We need to make sure that we have a means of transferring our gemstones into money…” my boyfriend stated to Bebe who was chowing down on her breakfast calzone around mid-afternoon. “Even if we don’t have a functioning world any more, we still need a system of barter to be able to trade between groups of survivors. Even if we have no use for gemstones, others may find it useful as a form of currency and we can get the necessary supplies we need.”

“I suppose so. And as long as I can clone the gemstones that you conjure, I’ll be able to make sure that we have that ready currency to be able to barter.” was Bebe’s ready response to Haruo’s concerns.

I retreated to Haruo’s and my bedroom to paint while Bebe went directly to the science station to irradiate a ladybug.

Haruo went downstairs to go milk the cows and collect the eggs.

From some of the exterior camera shots to keep the security of the bunker, we could note that there was one heck of an electrical storm going on outside. In the news evidently a woman had gotten hit by lightning. Evidently she was Pauline Wan. I didn’t know her personally, but I knew her by her reputation.

Next morning, Haruo went out to do some hunting and I set out to sell some of my paintings. My first sale was to my old room-mate when I was living with my mother. Evidently she and her daughter are doing well. Molly was now with Leighton Sekemoto and they evidently were happy together because evidently, Molly was in the family way.

After spending some time with her and with my mother just chatting, I headed back up to the bunker as the sun was aiming to set.

It felt good to be home and be with my boyfriend.

How much longer did we have? The news that we were subjected to every day was not promising. Marshal of the Soviet Union Dmitry Yazov was ordering troops into the Kola Peninsula in an effort to intimidate the Finns into capitulating their territory. It wasn’t working and the Finns were getting ready for war bringing their military to high alert. Finland and Sweden were not NATO countries, so they weren’t about to have unnecessary aggression on their part but NATO was concerned as the potential for armed conflict would rise enough for NATO to jump in if those territories were overrun by Soviet troops. Frankly, it was out of self-interest. An attack on one of the neutrally aligned countries would end up involving territory expansion and thus leave NATO open to losing its potential buffer against a Soviet division buttressing right up against the border of a NATO country. UN Secretary General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar expressed concern when Gorbachev was under pressure from Kremlin hardliners that military action must be taken in order to prevent NATO from deploying MX short-range nuclear tipped missiles in Europe. He was indicating that NATO perhaps may have to intervene in strengthening UN affirmed peace-keeping missions along the border with Soviet aligned nations and territories. And it wasn’t unheard of, of the possibility that Yazov might in fact, start a full-scale invasion of Germany through Poland and East Germany leveraging the holding of Warsaw Pact nations into a spear aimed right at the center of NATO defences that were assembled in West Germany.

Haruo was insistent that we had enough food to be able to save our family members. Evidently Mom had married Cycl0n3 Sw0rd and well, they had a little one named Greg. We also saved Morgana and Molly and her two daughters, Sandi and Deidre. The jury’s still out about Thornton since he seems to be very interested in Jamie Jolina. If he has cuckolded Morgana then tough beans, he fries. And since we needed people to man the registers, the family members brought in would man those and allow us to keep commerce running while we were trying to work our way out of the quagmire that we would end up in if these politicians couldn’t come to an agreement and everything went to hell in a hand-basket.

With the children, since the parents were tasked with manning the tills, we got the joyful chore of raising these little urchins. It’s nice to know that the man that I love, cares about my family as well. Unfortunately his family isn’t the type of family that cares much about anything other than their own well-being, that probably comes from his mother being a narcissist and his father being an enabler. I still wonder how my boyfriend turned out the way he did with those kind of parents – that after being ignored and essentially unwanted, that he would still carry some sort of empathy towards others.

When Molly turned up only she, Sandi and Deidre showed up. What happened was that Leighton was actually seeing Monika Morris on the side. And as it turned out Leighton had been cuckqueening Molly. It also turned out that Deidre wasn’t even his child. It had turned out that Xander Clavell was the father. He had impregnated her before he dumped her. As it was that didn’t go over too well with Molly and she had dumped him. Of course, Molly had also been cuckolding Leighton with Xander Clavell so it really was retribution after the fact and both had cheated on each other. Molly really didn’t have much of a motherly instinct so the kids were pawned off on us. The only child that got mothered by his biological mother was my step-brother and we managed to save the husband too. Cycl0n3 was quite pleased to have been spared the horror that was about to be unleashed. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that, despite the May-September marriage which might have raised some eyebrows if we really cared about that, the reason why he was being saved was the fact that he was good and faithful to my mother and took care of Greg. And hey, it provided us with practice child-minding since Haruo and I planned to have a few of our own though sometimes I wondered about the sanity of bringing up children in what potentially could happen.

Evidently, according to Bebe Hart, her mother, Dorie, after her divorce from Gus Hart, turned into the crazy cat lady of Sunset Valley. She was now living in the house known as Mosquito Cove along with five cats. I’m sure she’s probably going to get more. At least that’s what Bebe suspects since she says her mother wasn’t always quite there. According to my boyfriend, rather unkindly, she had always been a few sticks short of a bundle. And you know how kids talk when they were going to school; kids had no discretion. As Mark Twain once said, “Children and fools always speak the truth”.

As usual, the dirty-laundry aired out and well, Thornton was busy with Jamie Jolina, then with the town bike, Pauline Wan (because she was ridden so often). It appeared that our Heavenly Watcher got busy and granted some divine retribution. Because yet another news headline appeared that the town magnate had gotten electrically shocked with a freak lightning blast.

Back at our bunker, things were proceeding as normal as we could with listening to the broadcasts about worsening world events in Europe and the Middle East was turning into a bonfire since the Israelis and the Lebanese were locked in pitched battle over the Gaza which had heated up since the Israeli-Arab war of the 1970s. Evidently, if they weren’t fighting they weren’t happy. And of course, Egypt buying arms from the Soviet Union kept pouring coals on the fire to stir the antagonism into a raging flame of hatred.

My boyfriend and I tried to get as much sleep as we could because if thing went to hell in a hand-basket over Europe and the Middle East, then we all wouldn’t get much sleep either unless we wanted to be immolated in the middle of our dreams. Mom may not have been too happy with the fact that Haruo and I were intimately sleeping together, but well...it was pretty much all weird times so none of it truly mattered in the big scheme of things. If things went the way that my boyfriend was figuring they would, none of our book of dated morals would matter a hill of baked beans.

We’d be too busy trying to bring humanity back from the brink of extinction to worry about that kind of thing.

Meanwhile, F3L-1X (Felix) and F4R-M3R (Farmer), yes, Phil created a second plumbot to exclusively take care of the farm upstairs. Felix did go and milk the cows and collect eggs from the chickens. After Felix did the milking the cows thing, he came downstairs and started cutting gemstones, which we would send up to my mom at the consignment register to sell off. Haruo had definitely figured out a way of making sure that my mom, her husband and my step-brother were safe. And I was grateful to him for that. However I felt sorrow that he was prepared to lose his own parents no matter how abusive his mother was. He was prepared to sacrifice his own father since his father had turned on him and was enabling his mother’s behavior towards him. And that, to him was unforgivable.

The nice thing about the RBG Gemstone cutter was that it didn’t make the horrendous noise that the Gem-U-Cut did. Heavens be to the Watcher, that Gem-U-Cut made enough noise to wake up the dead. The last time that Felix used it to cut Tiberium, Bebe and Masaharu were incensed because they got woken up out of a sound sleep. I’m surprised Phil, Clarissa, my boyfriend and I were able to sleep through the whole thing. But they were in the gem-cutting room ranting at Felix for doing this at 3AM in the morning. Oh well.

The weather had turned in the last few days and we were getting a good soaking of rain. While the rest of the town was going through the motions, we were busy in the bunker trying to get everything ready to go into lockdown since the news that we heard on the radio and on the TV was getting worse. Peace talks with regards to arms reduction had stale-mated and the Soviets had walked away from the table, leaving poor Mikhail Gorbachev at the table with no-one to bolster his position. The hardliners who were at the table were making their point that Gorbachev had no power whatsoever and that their edicts were the ones that would sway control over the Politburo and their leaving the table while the General-Secretary was left with egg on his face punctuated the loss of control over his own cabinet.

Things were incredibly busy over the next few weeks since we were too busy and I got busy with my painting which I was finally able to get a decent easel in the bunker. I used that time to do some therapeutic painting. It certainly progressed to the point where I was painting masterpieces worth thousands. Sometimes, I’d just get to the point where I’d get out of bed and head for the easel and my sweet would have to coax me to get something to eat.

Phil and the rest of the bunch did what they had to do. Phil cooked and tried to find a way to ease his stresses. He wasn’t enjoying the situation and was nearly going stir-crazy.

Haruo was able to work on his martial arts and get his black belt...and complete it in the amount of time, but it would still be a road of life-long learning. He broke boards but of course, as Bruce Lee said in Enter the Dragon “Board no hit back”.

Hence the reason he took opportunities to spar with Masaharu who had managed to get his martial arts skill level up to brown belt. And they went at it with no-holds barred because if we ran up against nasty survivors that were bent on removing us from existence, we would have to fight and hopefully we wouldn’t suffer losses.

Haruo was committed to training all of us and it meant that we would have to learn the hard way. He was not going to go easy on any of us. Eventually, Haruo and Felix, who had been given the Limitless Learning trait chip, got their skills up to the point where they could break space rocks and the kwoon (studio) was littered with gemstones. Mainly because Felix had such a slow battery drain that he would be able to break space rocks for hours then he would go and cut them and keep my mom busy with finding buyers.

It was rarely that we ever saw Felix in the charger. But sometimes he did come close to burning out and had to make a hasty run to the charger that was conveniently set up along the wall.

However right now, Claire spent her time studying books and gleaning whatever knowledge she could gain from them. She was a voracious reader and that would help us with her encyclopedic knowledge “when the balloon went up” according the military slang that my boyfriend liked to use. Before this whole thing, my boyfriend had been a voracious reader of Tom Clancy novels and other military related novels.

Phil always managed to keep us fed well...and occasionally my boyfriend would also cook – surprisingly. Bebe was voraciously downing an oatmeal raisin cookie my boyfriend had made. While Claire and my boyfriend were each partaking a piece of the pear cobbler, another one of the things that my boyfriend had made. Surprisingly he was a good baker. At least I hadn’t heard the fire-alarm go off at any rate while he was baking.

One of the changes in our relationship was mine and Haruo’s going from girlfriend-boyfriend to fiancée-fiancé relationship. Of all the places that he would choose to propose. But considering the way that things were going. Our private washroom was the place after a shower was the place where he decided to pop the question. My sweetheart, the ultimate romantic, ~rolling on floor laughing~

At least that might be a suggestion for any children that we have when they get to the age where they’re planning on proposing to any significant other.

I was able to sell a piece to Claire Ursine and I was on my way back from the sale when I heard the news that the Soviet Union had delivered a formal declaration of war against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and were preparing for all-out war. There was panic in the streets of Sunset Valley while I headed back up on my bicycle praying that missiles weren’t launched before I got there. Luckily I’d made it with minutes to spare as everyone was huddled around the TV.

When I stepped into the room, my worried fiancé had a noticeable exhale of relief. “I’m back…” while the rest of the group levelled worried expressions at me.

“Thank the Watcher, you’re safe!” he said with an exhale of relief as I went to stand beside him, my tears starting to flood my eyes, My Watcher, what are we doing to the future of our planet? Haruo said soberly, “It’s on…” and those two words made my heart fall into my feet. It meant that everything that my fiancé had stated had just come to be.

My eyes filled and overflowed as I brought my hands to my face and sobbed for the brief horrific future that my former classmates would experience. Through the gaps between my fingers, I could see the launch of intercontinental ballistic missiles that spelled our impending doom, though we were safe in the bunker provided that the Soviets or China had not re-targeted one of their large yield missiles to dead-center on our bunker assuming that it was a military center. I could hear the grey-suited announcer intone in the voice an undertaker would utilize, “The Soviets have launched their SS-24 Satan missiles...may the Watcher rest our souls”

“Thirty two minutes to impact… We take this moment to thank our Watcher and as we go into the immortal long night of humanity’s brief existence on this planet, we pray that some of us are able to make it through this experience and come out the other end. From those of us at Sunset Valley’s CTV office, Goodnight...Sunset Valley…and Good-bye…”

Inside our bunker, we watched the screen go from the CTV closing screen to static.

Ensconced in our safe spot, we could only imagine the horrors that the citizenry of Sunset Valley were going through. The first indication was when our bunker was rocked by what appeared to feel like an earthquake. That meant the first detonation of a nuclear weapon had hit CFB Gnome.

Watcher help them...

Then our bunker was rocked more violently due to another detonation that felt much closer than we had expected.

We had watched those documentary films that our teachers had made us sit for over the course of the Cold War. The aftermath of nuclear conflict that was now playing out before our imaginations outside our bunker as we felt the earth shake. We could only imagine what those we considered our former friends and fellow citizens of Sunset Valley, what other fellow Canadians and other nations who were being attacked right now by Warsaw Pact and Soviet forces were feeling or going through.

When the shaking subsided, we could only imagine the scene outside.

...the imagery of mushroom clouds rising tens of thousands of meters into the air, the atmosphere a radioactive miasma...with far worse to come.

There would be a firestorm that would send radioactive ash into the atmosphere to encircle the globe, causing worldwide temperatures to drop tens of degrees quite possibly sending the earth into a radioactive ice-age. Tens of millions of survivors will die of starvation.

Watcher help us...