was never here, instead spending his time at the beach in Mexico; it had been up to Preston to manage, to make and institute policy, to make the hard decisions when society was collapsing right outside their gates. Then Maxwell shows up and these two nerds demand to see him and not me ? All the while, Maxwell has declared war on all the poor starving SOBs who just need help. What a hypocrite, a Christian that won’t help his fellow neighbor.
“Mr. Tanner, we really need to see Mr. Thompson. This is very important. It affects everyone here at Cicada.” Dr. Merriweather was insistent.
“Actually, it affects everybody in the world,” Stoneridge corrected.
Max could have used a drink, bad. It was a feeling he hadn’t had for many years now, not since Basra. He puzzled over where this urge was coming from. Thankfully, he had no time for either drinking or wondering why he wanted one. The runners had returned safely. And now that it was dark, the next phase of his plan was to take place. It would be the one thing that would remove all aggression from the Squatts.
He walked briskly down Cicada’s main gravel road, called Russell Avenue, having just thanked the men and women who volunteered for what could have been deadly service. Rather than continuing straight to the watchtower and Operations below, where much of Cicada’s arms and a fair amount of its munitions were kept and where Cicada’s guards would usually suit up for an operation such as this, he turned right instead. He went around the Research Facility and marched straight up Max’s Court to his residence across from the Rec Facility. He didn’t have everything there, but he had more than what he and his partner needed to run his planned op quickly and quietly. The primary reason for the alternate prep venue was to avoid the scrutiny of others, especially Preston or the Kings.
He learned from both the Bible and the US military that to effectively control a population, there had to be a respect, which came from fear, which came from the rule of law, which must be policed absolutely by a higher power. This cause and effect was sometimes brutal and misunderstood by others who scrutinized their actions, believing a “kinder, gentler” policy was more humane. But that was always the opinion of a lazy few who were on a winning side. What Preston didn’t seem to realize was that they were losing right now. Once he had them back on a winning side, they could argue what was morally right or wrong ad nauseam. Until then, the last thing he wanted was to have to explain himself. Once the results of his policy were visible, Max believed few would complain about it.
What Cicada needed was quick policy execution so that it could immediately reap its benefits and not waste its valuable resources on unnecessary skirmishes. How could his Cicada family work and play under the threat of constant attack? And with some luck, Max hoped they could find out how a hodge-podge group of squatters got their hands on military explosives.
He angled to his residence; cutting across the empty road named after him and approached his small detached home, right next door to an ancient adobe dwelling known as the First House. It had stood long before his great-grandfather added to it a hundred and fifty years ago. Today, it was maintained as a museum and reminder of Cicada’s roots. The old mud-adobe building sagged from time and the elements.
Like a real-life demonstration of old vs. new, Max’s residence—and many of Cicada’s buildings for that matter—was made of a composite concrete block, consisting of a special polymer compound and concrete. The concrete was more for weight than anything else, as the polymer compound was as strong as steel and had an RF of 100 in the walls and ceiling. This construction turned out to be genius when the environment turned into 365 days of summer. Despite the unreliability of their power (and therefore their air conditioning), they mostly
“Mr. Tanner, we really need to see Mr. Thompson. This is very important. It affects everyone here at Cicada.” Dr. Merriweather was insistent.
“Actually, it affects everybody in the world,” Stoneridge corrected.
Max could have used a drink, bad. It was a feeling he hadn’t had for many years now, not since Basra. He puzzled over where this urge was coming from. Thankfully, he had no time for either drinking or wondering why he wanted one. The runners had returned safely. And now that it was dark, the next phase of his plan was to take place. It would be the one thing that would remove all aggression from the Squatts.
He walked briskly down Cicada’s main gravel road, called Russell Avenue, having just thanked the men and women who volunteered for what could have been deadly service. Rather than continuing straight to the watchtower and Operations below, where much of Cicada’s arms and a fair amount of its munitions were kept and where Cicada’s guards would usually suit up for an operation such as this, he turned right instead. He went around the Research Facility and marched straight up Max’s Court to his residence across from the Rec Facility. He didn’t have everything there, but he had more than what he and his partner needed to run his planned op quickly and quietly. The primary reason for the alternate prep venue was to avoid the scrutiny of others, especially Preston or the Kings.
He learned from both the Bible and the US military that to effectively control a population, there had to be a respect, which came from fear, which came from the rule of law, which must be policed absolutely by a higher power. This cause and effect was sometimes brutal and misunderstood by others who scrutinized their actions, believing a “kinder, gentler” policy was more humane. But that was always the opinion of a lazy few who were on a winning side. What Preston didn’t seem to realize was that they were losing right now. Once he had them back on a winning side, they could argue what was morally right or wrong ad nauseam. Until then, the last thing he wanted was to have to explain himself. Once the results of his policy were visible, Max believed few would complain about it.
What Cicada needed was quick policy execution so that it could immediately reap its benefits and not waste its valuable resources on unnecessary skirmishes. How could his Cicada family work and play under the threat of constant attack? And with some luck, Max hoped they could find out how a hodge-podge group of squatters got their hands on military explosives.
He angled to his residence; cutting across the empty road named after him and approached his small detached home, right next door to an ancient adobe dwelling known as the First House. It had stood long before his great-grandfather added to it a hundred and fifty years ago. Today, it was maintained as a museum and reminder of Cicada’s roots. The old mud-adobe building sagged from time and the elements.
Like a real-life demonstration of old vs. new, Max’s residence—and many of Cicada’s buildings for that matter—was made of a composite concrete block, consisting of a special polymer compound and concrete. The concrete was more for weight than anything else, as the polymer compound was as strong as steel and had an RF of 100 in the walls and ceiling. This construction turned out to be genius when the environment turned into 365 days of summer. Despite the unreliability of their power (and therefore their air conditioning), they mostly
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