Here's a little dialogue that I wrote today. Hopefully this will give you a little tease to get you interested in the sequel. If you haven't already, check out the first novel in the series, Fortress Beverly Hills.
The campfire reminded me of days a long, long time ago. Camping. Vacations. Relaxing. One by one and two by two the others melted away to sleep in their own homes and tents until only David, Julia, Byron and I were left. "It's a shame, you know." Julia said, breaking a long silence.
"What is?" I asked, not really having any idea what she would say. A shame that the fire was almost out? A shame they'd been found by the Fortress and it's powerful technology (a thought I'd had myself the first time they found my little community)?
"Well, we could have saved a lot more people." She said sadly.
"Yeah," her husband Byron said, "A lot more."
"How?" I asked, waking up a little. We hadn't yet discussed their community and how they came together and I was endlessly curious, particularly since their story was sure to be similar in many ways to my own experiences at Parcover.
"Well, it was over ten years ago when David came to our farm and it was not long after that he and his family became customers of the farm."
"I think it's twelve years ago now." David said.
"And it wasn't long after that that we became friends." Byron said, his eyes shining in the moonless night.
Julia continued, "One night we were sitting around a campfire not much different from this one after we had an event at the farm. I think it might have been Halloween." The men both nodded. "David told us that he and his family were preparing for, well, for the apocalypse-"
"Whatever that meant at the time." David interjected with some self-deprecating humor lacing his voice.
"Byron and I weren't even thinking about the end of society, we were only thinking that we needed to do something different than the industrial farming we'd experienced most of our lives." The couple glanced at each other and I thought I saw Julia shiver slightly. "Anyway, we talked further with David and we realized that that our concept of completely 'off-the-grid' farming would have great appeal to David's family and any other family that was preparing for a breakdown of that grid."
I thought through the concept and decided to voice it as it was forming in my head. "So, an alliance between Preppers and Sustainable Farmers."
"Exactly."
"Those groups were pretty different politically." I said, thinking through the likely drawbacks to such an alliance.
"Perhaps, in terms of our philosophies on of the issues of society at the time. But our core strategies on how to approach our families' futures meshed perfectly. Preppers felt that something 'out there' was going to cause our way of life to come to an end and we needed to prepare for it." David said.
Julia chimed in, "Sustainable farmers felt that the way of life 'out there' needed to change and we were building a new way of life that we thought would work."
David continued, "Preppers at the time were all about stockpiling food and defending your stockpile."
"A sustainable farm was even better than a stockpile, it was food they could defend that wouldn't run out at some future time." Julia followed. "We were also greatly in need of a consistent, committed consumer base willing to pay a little more for our farmed vegetables and meat. We immediately realized that Preppers could provide that base because they would have a vested interest in keeping us in business in case the apocalypse they were preparing for did happen. At the same time, sustainable farmers like us felt that the lifestyle we were building was under threat from powerful government forces pushing farmers to industrialize. It was in the back of our minds when we met David that with a good number of well-trained-"
"And well-armed" David butted in.
"-families like his protecting us... Well that wouldn't be a bad thing." Julia appeared to be sheepish about this, but Byron clearly wasn't. I could read on his face the conviction that protection was a major motivation behind his enthusiasm for their alliance.
David had waited patiently and spoke once Julia had stopped. "Once we had that conversation all those years ago, we realized we had a concept that would work and we started recruiting Prepper families to be part of this collective.
Byron's deep voice begain and we all turned to look at his darkened face, "We were worried, though, that if we made it public that we were building an alliance between a sustainable farm and the local Preppers, the government and its agencies would come and shut us down."
David nodded, "The idea was dangerous."
"Obviously!" I said loudly, almost jumping off my seat. "We had the same thought when we started building Parcover. What we were doing wasn't illegal-"
"But that's the thing," Julia interrupted, "Even if it isn't illegal when you start doing it, they find a way to make it illegal."
"And they find other ways to make your life miserable." David said darkly.
"So, to finish the story," Julia continued, "we kept quiet what we were doing. Only the local Preppers, our base of existing customers who bought into the idea, and our neighbors knew what was going on. And they were all sworn to secrecy. Now I wish we'd been more public with the idea because we might have saved a lot more lives."
"I don't know hon," Byron took her hand, "Would we have survived if more people knew we were here?
"I still think we made the right choice." David said, "I only hope that a few other folks were smart enough to find a farm like this one and keep it safe."
No comments:
Post a Comment