Acadia Event by M J Preston

Author:M J Preston [Preston, M J]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781948239738
Publisher: WildBlue Press
Published: 2020-01-27T22:00:00+00:00

5

Acadia did not fall without resistance; there were attempts to stop the Skent as they pushed into the buildings. But most people became submissive and were taken with little or no fight. It would be a stroke of luck that saved Chase Fenwick and Lenny Aranuknuck’s lives on the day the event happened. The two of them were crowded inside a cab of the grader that sputtered along Telegraph Road at a slow rate of speed –15 km/h to be exact. As far as Chase could tell, the grader’s fuel filters were freezing up, a byproduct of sitting for too long in the extreme cold.

Lenny was at the controls, while Chase sat off to the side, his back pushing against the cab window. Both men had kept their sense of humor, sharing a laugh as the big machine almost stalled three times. Chase wasn’t all that concerned; the power was on, and that meant that they were taking care of business in his absence. Still, he had a responsibility as chief of operations. He was still puzzling over what had caused the event, speculated it had to do with the chamber, and hoped that Ronny and Nick Anderson hadn’t blown the place sky high.

The stroke of luck that would save their lives was the busted radio inside a grader. When Chase noticed that it was inoperable, he was plenty unhappy. The driver should have never taken a vehicle out of the machine pool with a busted radio. Out here, communication was everything, and it frustrated him to no end that he was unable to touch base and find out what the hell was going on.

“Maybe it broke when everything happened,” Lenny said.

“Nope, there’s an out of service tag on it. Two days old.” Chase flicked the tag with his middle finger. “Jesus, you talk to people, and still they don’t listen. Dumb—dumb—dumb.”

Lenny said nothing. He knew the policy. There was no arguing about it. He figured the driver was going to be in for a shock when he found out that the Chief of Operations had commandeered his vehicle and found the busted radio. What Lenny didn’t know was that the driver, along with about 90 others, was being corralled inside the cafeteria by an invading force.

The second thing that saved their lives was the clogged-up fuel filters. Approximately 800 meters from the main building that housed the cafeteria, the grader started chugging hard and then lurched until the engine cut out. As they coasted approximately 100 meters, Chase and Lenny were in sync, calling out, “Come on, baby, you can do it!” The vehicle came to a stop—Lenny cranked it over—but it wouldn’t catch, and on his third try, he felt Chase’s bare hand fall onto his shoulder.

“Lenny, stop cranking it! Now.” His voice was calm but authoritative.

Lenny was focused on the voltmeter, wondering how many cranks he had left. “It might catch, Chase.” Chase didn’t answer, but his hand tightened on Lenny’s shoulder and before he could look up:

“Oh, dear sweet God.

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