If there was one thing John had learned navigating through the council meetings back on Willow Creek Drive—a time that seemed decades ago now—it was that the voting system they’d used to decide policy had crippled the committee’s decision-making process. As a result, one of his first acts as mayor had been to select several department heads. His second was to let them know that he and he alone would have the final say. John would listen to their advice and take that into consideration, but gone was a time when he would be forced by raised hands to make life-or-death decisions.
At least that had been his goal when the people of Oneida had elected him mayor. But here he was, only a few days later, forced once again to put more innocent lives on the line.
The department heads were all present along with a handful of their aides who stood with their backs against the wall. John began the meeting by relaying the details of his conversation with Colonel Higgs. A deathly silence settled over the proceedings. Everyone wanted to do their part, but who among their friends and fellow neighbors in town would be asked or even sent to defend the line along the Mississippi?
Moss was in charge of security and fire rescue and John turned to him first. “I’ll need a list of names. All able-bodied males and females between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five.”
“But that could be as much as thirty to forty percent of the population,” Moss protested. “Who will defend us against gangs of raiders or—”
“Forget raiders,” Dan Niles spat. “We need folks to keep the town from drowning in its own filth.” He was a large, red-faced man whose breath wheezed in and out of him like a broken accordion. John had chosen him to head the waste management department. With nearly two thousand residents, Oneida would need a way to clear garbage and dispose of human waste.
“We’re not going to send all of them,” John replied. “Only as many as we can spare. But our contribution to the war effort will be more than just soldiers and sentries. The colonel mentioned the difficulty they were having keeping the troops fed and armed. I think I have a solution.”
Diane stared at him from across the room with a knowing grin. He’d put her in charge of food management and this next part was going to affect her directly.
“You’re killing us with suspense, John,” Shelley Gibson said. She was a strikingly beautiful engineering student from the University of Tennessee who had been home for the summer holidays when the EMP hit. John had put her in charge of the water department.
John tapped the pencil against the table three times. “Soybeans.”
For a moment, no one said anything. Diane was the first to speak up. “Excuse me?”
After that everyone broke in at once. For a moment, the resistance in the room made John feel like he was talking to Colonel Higgs again. There was nothing more frustrating than the way people opposed anything that was different before giving it a fair shake.
“All right, settle down,” he said, but to no avail. A second later he slammed his open palm against the table’s cherrywood finish. “Hear me out before you go rushing to judgment. I’m not sure if any of you know, but soybeans used to be the number one cash crop in Tennessee. The state has over a million acres planted and nearly fifty million bushels harvested last year alone. It’s a crop we can use for food and eventually for fuel. Did you know that each acre of soybeans can make fifty-six gallons of biodiesel? That’s fuel we can use to run cars, the trains that travel through our town, the military vehicles that help to defend us and it might even help us turn the lights back on.”
Now the room was dead quiet and John knew he had their attention. “There’s plenty of land around Oneida we can use to cultivate, but I’m thinking there may be a better way.”
“John, I know at least three farmers in the area who grew soybeans,” Dan said.
“That’s exactly where I was going,” John told him. “Why start from scratch when there may be farms that, until recently, were already operational?” He turned to his wife. “Diane, that’s something I’ll need you to look into. I also stumbled upon a cannabis farm not far from here.”
“I feel a Rob Ford moment coming on,” Ray Gruber blurted out to gales of laughter. Ray was one of Marshall’s trusted lieutenants who John had commissioned as vice mayor. It was Ray’s job to take over running the town if John was away or if something were to happen to him. A thin, sinewy man in his mid-forties with a thick Tennessee accent, Ray was sharp-witted and always the first to smile.
John cracked a smile. “Sorry to disappoint you, but no one’s getting high,” he told them. “As some of you may know, there are hundreds of more productive uses for the stuff. Making nets, ropes, textiles. Hemp seed oil can also be used to create paint, varnish and maybe even light lamps.”
“I’m still dreaming of being able to take a hot shower,” Shelley said, her normally silky blonde hair looking matted and dull.
Now the energy in the room had changed.
John turned to Diane. “A shed at the pot farm also had books on hydroponics, which I’m sure you and your team can use to increase the yield.”
A worried look clouded Diane’s features. “The only problem, John, is that we’re approaching fall. The best time to plant soybeans is in the spring.”
John nodded. “Then we’ll need to build a greenhouse. Because crops being fed hydroponically can be packed closer together, a greenhouse a hundred feet by thirty feet can produce as much as one acre’s worth. If need be come winter we can heat the space with wood stoves.”
Diane and the people under her all seemed to slump at once.
“I never said this was going to be easy. In the coming days and weeks we’re gonna be overworked and undermanned. I know that as well as anyone, but giving up isn’t an option.” The words no sooner left his mouth than John thought of Emma, who was likely still in her room, staring out that window, drawing. It was a horrible feeling trying to convince people to forfeit their innate human desire to sit around doing nothing when a member of your own family was perhaps the guiltiest of all. Diane must have sensed the change in his expression because she gave him a look which said, Don’t worry, we’ll sort her out.
“We also need to start collecting diesel engines salvaged from trucks in and around Oneida to power the pumps and to act as a generator for the town,” John added, muscling through the concern he had over his daughter’s recent behavior.
Ray, the vice mayor, stuck his hand up. “I’m afraid our power problems won’t be solved for good until we build around five or six permanent magnet generator windmills each capable of generating forty-eight thousand kilowatts. It’ll mean building a large bank of twelve-volt batteries inverted into the town’s substation. But the real pain’s gonna be finding the inverter, rectifier, fuses and other components we need to transform AC power to DC then back to AC at the proper load so we don’t fry everything. I think at least some of those pieces can be found right here in town. Blades from the props of grounded Cessnas at the Scott Municipal airport as well as the motors from treadmills over at Hal’s gym. The rest we might be able to scavenge from hardware stores in the area.”
“The Ace Home Center on Industrial Lane has practically been stripped bare,” John said. “That aside, a windmill is a great idea, Ray.” This was a good example of how bringing a group together to share ideas was better for everyone.
John was no sooner finished thanking Ray when a member of Moss’ security team with curly brown hair named Devon poked his head into the conference room.
“Mayor, can I see you for a moment?”