I leaned my bow against the wall and sat on a stool by Joe’s work bench. I clicked the mic on my radio and reported that I had made it to Joe’s house and everything was OK. I knew Denise would worry about me until I reported in. When I was finished, I turned to my companions and said “Sooo…. Apocalypse huh?”

“Yeah, Joe said. And the only difficult part is pretending I’m not excited.” Which caused all four of us to laugh.

“Where’s the team?" I asked.

We had been a part of a small group of individuals that would meet up every so often to discuss preparations in case of things happening, not unlike what was happening now. We didn’t prep or plan for a full-on apocalypse, but planned for contingencies for natural disasters, prolonged power grid failures, and things of that nature. The team consisted of the four of us and a handful of other guys. We had small stockpiles of food and other supplies including seed banks, medical supplies, and most importantly toilet paper. When the pandemic hit, none of us had to buy toilet paper for almost a year. While other people were stupidly buying toilet paper instead of food, we just sat back and laughed. I mean really, if you don’t have food to eat, what do you need toilet paper for?

“No clue," Joe said. We haven’t heard from anyone else. We thought we weren’t going to hear from you either. I mean this is the third day and you’re just showing up.”

“Hold on, Johnny said. Before we get into everything, how did you know what our levels and classes were?” Johnny was a young kid in his twenties. He was an Army combat medic in the reserves. He had been employed as a community service officer for a police department in another city, awaiting a spot at the academy. Unfortunately he had been called up to serve overseas before getting his slot. He had also been an assistant K9 trainer in his department, which is where I first met him.

“Relax Johnny," I said. It’s a skill called "inspect" and I think everyone can eventually get it. I can walk you through it if you like.” I took the next few minutes to briefly explain what had happened to me and how I got the skill. Then I had them run through the same exercise I did with Alex, helping all three gain the skill.

“Ok so," Joe began. As far as what we’ve done here, we’ve stuck to the plan. We’ve pulled most of our supplies and have our people staying between this house and my farmhouse. We’re cooking over fire and shitting in a big hole, but other than that we’re doing pretty much okay. We try to patrol the neighborhood as best we can. However, there aren't that many of us with combat experience and sometimes looters or bandits will hit a house in our area.”

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“That’s why I wanted to find you," I said. We need a better option for all our people. Somewhere defensible, where we can all thrive. And I think I have just the right place.”

"Where would that be?" Pete asked. Pete was about the same age as me and was an ex-Marine infantryman with two tours in Afghanistan. After he got out of the Marines, he became a full-time blade smith with his own small-time knife making company called “Grasslands Cutlery.” He liked to focus on bush-craft style blades and sold most of them on Amazon and eBay. His knives were very high quality. I owned a couple of his blades in the past.

“The new high school on the east side of town," I said. And what’s more, I have a shareable quest to recover it.”

“Recover it," Joe asked. That means it’s probably occupied.”

"True," I said. But think about it. We’re only three days into this disaster. Whoever is there isn’t going to be at a much higher level than we are. And I’m positive they won’t be nearly as prepared as us. But let me tell you the best part. That recently installed solar farm they installed on the parking lot’s overhead covers, is an EMP hardened system. That means the property will have power. At least in the daytime.”

“How do you know that?" Johnny asked.

“Because I was the campus cop when they built that solar farm. And I know that place like the back of my hand.”

“Okay, that’s a decent point, Johnny said, but how do we get power at night when we need it the most?"

"No problem at all." I replied. We make battery banks using deep cycle batteries.”

“Okay, Joe said. You know I’m in. There’s a quest for it, which I assume gives experience.”

“It does," I confirmed.

“It has defensible buildings and fields for our livestock and farming."

"Yes, exactly," I replied.

“But," Joe continued, "it's probably occupied and we have no clue as to the amount of people that may be there.”

“True,” I said.

“We need to do some serious recon on the place," Joe said. "I wish we had some working surveillance drones we could put in the air.”

“Do you have any that don’t work anymore?" I asked.

“Yeah, Joe said. I have a couple of them. They were nice too, they had screens on the remotes that you could view the cameras from, with night vision and everything.” I just looked at Joe and smiled brightly.

"What's that smile for?" Joe asked.

“What if I could get those drones working, I asked. As well as possibly fix other smaller electronic issues the EMP caused? I’m not saying we could get our PC hard drives working, or access the internet for streaming Netflix or anything like that. But what if we could fix appliances such as washers and dryers? Oh did I mention the school has its own water well? That means hot water showers and flushing toilets.”