Visitors From Terra:Twilight Contingency

Chapter 3

3.

It had taken Ricardo close to two days of nonstop driving to reach California, he had finally hit his limit and managed to crash into a cash-only hotel for a few hours. He now stood at one of the few remaining scenic overlooks just off the highway of City Vista Point. Binoculars pressed to his eyes, he scanned along the burned remains of Pine Mountain, leading onto Mr San Antonio. Despite being more than a week after the fires had been put out, he could pick out California national guard actively patrolling the mountain.

They were in full kit and of all things armed, for a moment Ricardo felt sorry for the part time grunts then again theirs was "not to reason why". This only confirmed what he found out from some of the locals down the road in Wrightwood. He had stopped in at a popular breakfast joint called the Evergreen Café, posing as an out-of-town bird watcher. Some good food and an even big tip to the kind waitress got him the lowdown of what had been happening locally.

According to her the government swooped in soon after the fire started, that the locals heard an explosion that must have been the gas leak. The small town of MR Baldy had to be evacuated as the fire apparently started just north of their and spread out. Half of the town of Mt Baldy had burned to the ground before firefighters managed to contain that front. From their it was a week-long battle to put it out, however the army and the feds as she put it moved in quickly after words.

"They basically occupied the whole damn town, kicked everyone out and won't let them back in. I mean I know that senator died up there, you know probably fooling around on his wife like they do. That's just not right letting people back into their homes you know, them all of them construction guys booking up all the hotels around here. Plum strange, you want some more coffee?" She had told him after he declined the extra cup.

Ricardo watched the national guardsmen continue their trek for a moment longer before getting back into his truck. Getting past the patrols would not be too hard at night, despite their training most of the veteran combat personnel had filtered out through the years. After the disaster in Taiwan had sent more disaffected military personnel out the door as soon as their contracts were up. Meaning that more than likely the reserves patrolling did not have real-world combat experience yet, and if one did, he probably did not care and was riding his time out.

Ricardo spent a few more hours at different locations figuring out where the patrols where, and where not. Checking back on his map, they had a roughly 10 -kilometer loose perimeter around Mr San Antionio that encompassed the small town of Mt Baldy as well.

"That's got to be their mustering area to whatever they're doing out there, now who's doing the construction in the middle of a disaster zone?" Ricardo muttered to himself, driving back into town to find the nearest hotel. Sure enough, the parking lot was half packed with white work trucks with the black and white logo of Kimber and Brute plastered on their sides.

"Curiouser and curiouser..." Ricardo muttered as he caught sight of the bright yellow vested workers as they appeared to be getting off from their shift, hanging out in the parking lot. He had heard of the things that Kimber and Brute were doing, promising new electric vehicles, and tunneling projects and high in the sky science projects. The idea of stealing one of their trucks along with ID's crossed his mind, but a roadblock quickly appeared killing that idea. As he drove slowly, he peered into the truck cabs. He saw the flash of a bio-metric chip on a photo ID left on the dashboard next to an orange hard hat.

To fake that would take too much time and even with his contacts would be a stretch, that settled the matter it was going to be a long walk tonight in the dark. The burner cell phone buzzed on the seat next to him as he pulled out of the hotel parking lot, David had come through with some equipment and an address in Heritage Park.