The Cache - Wake-up Call

Neo was dead tired. He had pulled an all-nighter again playing his favorite online MMOG* called "Depth's of Hades". He was Level 17 and climbing due to his dedicated persistence, and he had joined up with group of Adventurers seeking to escape the "Depths".

He tilted his head back let go a long, drawn out yawn, and then stretched out his cramped back muscles, first twisting left and then right. Glancing at the clock, he saw that it was five after nine in the morning, time for him to hit the sack. He had texted Jasper that he would meet him at the local hangout, and had seriously considered going, but 2 days of near straight gaming had wiped him out.

Instead of meeting Jasper, he plopped into bed, his tired mind marveling at how comfortable it felt. In a few moments he was fast asleep. A few minutes later, his phone began vibrating as he received a desperate, cryptic text message from his father, a message telling him that S had HTF, a code that it was time to Bug-Out. Lost in a deep sleep, he missed the motion sensors being tripped as black clothed men peered into windows as best they could, twisting and lifting on door knobs, and then finally pounding on the front door. Not wanting to cause alarm in passersby and create an audience, they withdrew to surveil from a distance.

Back at headquarters, a tech was combing thru Neo's text messages. He relayed to the grab team that the target had agreed to meet a "Jasper" at the local convenience store and had received a strange message from a unknown source. All but 2 of the men in black left to apprehend him when he showed up at the store.

A quick social media search turned up pictures of Jasper and Neo which were sent to the Grab teams. Jasper was nabbed as soon as he stepped between the black Suburban and the accompanying black Ford van, dragged into the back of the van and then rendered unconscious. Neo, unaware of the events transpiring, slumbered on.

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Neo awoke 12 hours later, and lay there in his bed, thoughts lazily drifting from one thing to another, none of which had to do with the dishes on the counter or vacuuming the living room.

He would have been happy to just lie there, but his stomach was rumbling and he had to take a leak. Reluctantly, he crawled out of bed and entered the bathroom, skipping turning on the light as the kitchen light was always left on and it gave enough light to see what he needed to see. After washing his hands, he wandered into the kitchen and began digging around in the fridge to scare up something to eat. He was still tired and did not feel like cooking, so he took some leftover chicken and a large heap of potato salad, calling it good.

Back in his room, he plopped on his loveseat, turned on his TV and began streaming a video while he consumed his repast. He wondered briefly where his Dad and brother were as he had not seen or heard them, but decided Dad was most likely in bed and his brother out with friends.

Then he remembered Jasper. He reached for his phone but it was not in his pocket but on his night stand, and he was too comfortable to get up and cross the room to get it. He was wrapped up in an arctic fleece blanket and he decided Jasper would have to wait.

Being warm and comfortable, and now with a full stomach, his eyes began to get heavy and soon he had fallen back asleep. This time of year the days were shorter, and it got dark normally at 3:30 – 4 pm.  With the heavy cloud cover, it seemed as though his home town was in some permanent twilight, with a fog coming off the ground, obscuring objects far off and softening the outlines of those nearby.

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Neo slumbered on until his body clock woke him again with a rumbling gut and a need to pee. Having taken care of his most urgent needs, he stumbled sleepily into the kitchen and glanced at the clock on the microwave on his way to peer uninterestedly into the fridge. He had slept another 12 hours, unintentionally.

He took out a jug of milk and drank three large gulps from it. His dad always chided him whenever he saw him doing it, but his youthful nature always led him to ignore that warning and do it whenever Dad wasn’t watching.

He felt he had a good relationship with his father, and did not do it out of disrespect; it was of him feeling like his own man, wanting his own set of rules. Of course he would not admit it, but he wished he had a good job so he could move and get his own place. Then it would be different. He could play loud music and have friends over whenever he wanted, and there would not have to be the OpSec his father drilled into he and OughtSix.

He turned on the electric kettle to heat some water for his hot chocolate and oatmeal. He liked dried cranberries and flax seeds with a tablespoon of chia seeds sprinkled on top of it, with just a bit of brown sugar. It filled him up and kept him from getting hungry for quite a while.

He returned to his room with his new sustenance and settled back down in front of the TV. He was binge watching a popular Sci-Fi series and was nearly into season 4 of 5 seasons. His dad had turned him on to it a couple of weeks ago and he had been watching a season at a time with only short breaks in between.

He was enjoying this freedom for as long as he could because he knew that the next year he would have to choose between a vocational school or a job and community college. He was going to look into online college courses to eliminate the wasted commute time of an hour each way.

His dad had told him that online college courses were the wave of the future, with the traditional system an antiquated leftist indoctrination system with little actual learning, just progressive programming. He had looked into it anyway and came away with the same conclusion. Besides, the costs were enormous and he would be carrying that debt for far too long into his adult life.

With his year of freedom halfway over, he was starting to get more serious about his path forward and had been studying video game design on his own, learning the programming language and building modules for expanding older games that lived on in cyberspace beyond the support of the game developers.

During a break between episodes, he glanced at his watch and saw it was lunch time. He felt like a nice hot bowl of soup would fill the void nicely and set out to fix one. He decided to heat it on the stove top rather than use the microwave. Looking in the cabinets under the island was always an adventure. He and his brother just shoved stuff in rather than organizing it as their dad had requested.

As he was searching for a pot, one of the Grab team left to check out the house was making his rounds, and just missed Neo as he squatted to find the pot he wanted. The Jackboot moved past his bedroom window, pausing to listen for sound, and hearing none resumed his circuit of the house. This was done every shift change.

Unaware of how close he had been to being discovered, Neo triumphantly retrieved the pot he wanted and began to make a double-can pot of chili. He liked to add mushrooms and olive slices to it and sometimes a bit of jalapeno juice for a bit of kick.

Of course, his activity in the kitchen roused the cats and they began to hover around their empty food and water bowl. “Bunch of little pigs, aren’t you!” he told them. They agreed by rubbing against him and circling their bowls, meowing, churring and purring when he petted them.

 Disentangling from the mass of fur, he filled the bowls and went to stir his chili. It was hot enough for him and he filled a bowl, setting the pot back on the burner and turning it off.

Taking his food, he retired back to his room and picked up where he had left off on the binge watching. He settled down on the couch and wrapped himself up in his warm blanket and his chili. He thought about his phone on the desk behind him, it’s charging cycle complete but he was too comfortable and this episode was pretty good, so it lay there once more forgotten, its warning message still unheard.

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Neo awoke with a start. He thought he had heard footsteps outside his window! He jumped up to check, but saw no one. Checking the alarm clock next to his bed, he saw that it was shortly after 6 pm. He listened but heard no noises in the house but that he was making. This was very odd as he had not seen nor heard from his dad or brother for three days running.

It’ was not that it had never happened before, it’s just that he would usually hear one of them in the kitchen making food or his brother using the bathroom, taking a shower or brushing his teeth. He heard a noise again, as of someone trying the backdoor and he started to get nervous. Reaching in the closet he pulled out his SKS and fed clip of ammo into the magazine. He did not chamber a round yet and lay the weapon on the bed.

The cold steel and smooth wood made him feel a bit better, and having the magazine full and ready to go was a comforting feeling. He needed to see if anyone was home though.

Sitting down at his computer, he loaded a web browser and surfed to the web page that displayed the home security camera feed that his dad, Wilson had installed not more than a month ago. He had not used it previously and it had to do some updates before it was usable.

He got up and went to his brother’s bedroom to check on him but the room was dark. Flipping on the light switch he could see that the bed was empty. He reached over and put his hand on the computer but it was stone cold. He shut off the light and closed the door before leaving to check on his dad.

Wilson’s room was cool and dark, and turning on the light showed an empty bed. Extremely puzzled and a bit nervous he checked out the window to see if Wilson’s car was there, but its parking space was empty. Thinking that they had perhaps gone somewhere together gave him a bit of relief while loosing a bit of peeve.

“They could have at least let me know they were leaving” was the thought that was running through his mind. He went back to his room and picked up his cell to check his messages as they might have texted him while he was sleeping or charging the phone.

He had 30+ messages so he began going thru them, skipping the social media notifications and only listening to or reading those that seemed to have some importance to them.  The last four were from Jessie, Jasper’s sister and another unfamiliar number.

The first two from Jessie were text messages that just said “Call me, k?” and the other from her was a voice message that was less than polite.

“Neo WTF are you? Jasper has been missing for 2 days now and you were the last person he was going to see. Call me NOW!” So he called and left a message when she didn’t pick up. “Hi Jessie, I haven’t seen Jasper for 4 days, we never met up as a I fell asleep and my phone was dead. Let me know what you find out. Later”

He yawned and stretched and puzzled over Jasper’s disappearance. He then checked the last message on the phone from the unfamiliar number.

“Your scattered bodies.”

It was code.
His dads “bug-out now cause S has HTF” code! He quickly checked for the date and a chill ran up his spine!

It was over 3 days old! He had lost 3 days because of not checking his phone. He swore every word he could think of as he put on his socks and then his jeans. His mind was racing a mile a minute: “What am I supposed to do?” he thought. “What, what, what?”

As he was getting his shoes on he heard a pounding on the front door. A quick check of the browser window showed 3 burley men in black at the front door with one at the back door and one at the slider.

Neo began to feel light headed as the panic spread thru him. His heart was racing a mile a minute it seemed. Then he remembered!

Carefully hidden in the doorway to his room was a trapdoor that his dad had built as an escape in case of fire or circumstances such as he was now presented with. The trim work at the bottom of the doorjamb just inside the room was on a spring loaded hinge and could be lowered to reach inside and trip the latches that kept the trapdoor closed tightly.

The trapdoor itself could only be opened if the door were open so he grabbed the SKS and opened the passageway to safety. He latched the trapdoor above his head and descended the short ladder into the small room that lay below. In its wall was a small door that opened into the tunnel that joined all the escape tunnels from each bedroom to the Fallout shelter that had been constructed the other side of the root cellar.

In this room they each had a cabinet for gear and clothing. He entered this passage and was rewarded with the soft red light of LEDs that were turned on by the motion of someone entering the passageways. He moved to the steel door that entered into the room and opened it. It was warm in the room, but not overly so, and he moved to his cabinet that was against the western wall. They each had one that contained seasonal clothing and their BOB’s. It also had their combat gear vests and he donned his now.

At the Command Center, he turned on the monitors and loaded the web browsers that displayed the security cameras feed. He was just in time to see the three men on the front porch enter the living room after battering the front door open. He swung his pack up on his back and headed for the final passage.

This passage led out to the garden shed and through the false wall in the back into the darkened alley behind their home. He knew the route, he and OughtSix had traveled it several times monitored by a stopwatch wielding dad in the dark of night under fully loaded packs, just minus the rifles.

He knew he was late to the game having missed his wake-up call, but as he closed the passage door behind him he felt the confidence in his skills that had come from repetition when his life did not depend on the outcome of the exercise.