We took our guns from our packs. I heard the sound of twigs breaking just out of sight, then a pleading voice: “don’t shoot, don’t shoot. We’re unarmed.”
A man stepped into the shadowy light of our almost expired campfire. Two smaller figures followed after him, pushing their way through a thicket into the clearing of the pine tree we'd chosen for our tent. The three of us were standing with our guns trained on them. I motioned them to come close to the firelight. When I perceived they were children I relaxed, told them to take a seat by the fire and I threw some more wood on it for more light. We sat down across from them, keeping our weapons in our laps. The man looked worried and tired so I offered him a cup of the last of the coffee, which he thanked me for. As the fire grew I could see one of the children was a boy of about eight and the other a girl perhaps twelve. They were all wearing the Amish garb, some of the buttons undone as if they had been hastily thrown on.
The man began: "Sorry for this intrusion but I heard your voice from our house. I was just about to close my window and go to bed. It’s not that far off and so quiet here at night any sound travels. All my neighbors were sound asleep. They go to bed early because they rise two hours before dawn. So I took the opportunity to sneak up and find out who you were. I lay on the ground over there, where the field ends and could see your campfire and hear every word you said. I must have lain there for an hour, drinking in your fine speech about freedom. I was so moved I ran home to fetch my children. I have a request for you.”
“You can’t tell from our clothes but we’re not like these people. We had no choice but to join them or starve to death. There was only us three left. The rest of our party had died. This is my son and daughter. We had been a group of four campers, eighteen of us further north, living off the salmon mostly. Then came the drone attack. It was only pure chance that I’d wandered off that morning to go fishing with my young ones. The rest were killed or badly injured.
"Five of us struggled on, but when they died and winter came, with just us left I had to beg these people to take us in and just as you said, we had to conform to their ways. Now I’m begging again, for you to take us away from here, far away. I’m just a plain American like yourself, caught up in these mad times and thrown in with these strange people. But when I listened to your speech tonight it all came flooding back, what we used to be. If you don’t take me, please take my children. I just can’t watch and see them slowly indoctrinated and brainwashed like these people, smiling false smiles because they’re told to. It’s not a life. It’s a cult caught up every second in evading some imaginary eternal damnation."
His speech was just as impassioned as mine had been a little earlier. I wondered if one begets the other. But I could see he was in deep earnest and not lying. I sympathized with this fellow and quickly told him ‘yes’, we’d take him and his children far away and we’d have to set out right now. It was already well past midnight and his neighbors would be rising in a few hours, as he informed us and we certainly didn't want a confrontation with them. Guns against pitchforks would only end in an ugly and useless bloodshed. There had been too much of that before.
I already had an ulterior motive in taking this man to our retreat. The children were a given, a welcome addition to our little tribe and they’d fit right in. But the man had a valuable story I was burning to hear. He’d lived through the drone terror and could tell me what it was like. Dora wouldn’t, she’d always evade the question and Beth and Amira didn’t see it. They were blind those years and living in basements. I was too deep in the woods. So I needed to know how the last of the humans were killed, those scattered in the most remote places and in hiding, because if I knew how AI had found them I’d have some insight into finding the few who survived.
We packed our gear swiftly, the man and his children eagerly helping and thanking us over and over and we set out through the dark woods, each of us wearing Dora for her night vision guidance and each of us holding the hand one of our new guests. I took the little boy and the lead.
We reached the truck at dawn and headed back the way we came, into miles of emptiness and all of us in great spirits. The children, Emily and Eric, sat in the back between June and May who were excitedly telling them of the woods around their new home and the company they were about to meet and the horses they could ride. Ted sat in front with me. I wanted to know what sort of background he had before the troubles and was surprised to hear that he’d been a computer engineer with an AI research group and saw it all coming. That’s why he and a group of others packed up to live in the outback, just as I had done. Now I had thousand questions for him and realized what a rare find I'd made. But I put that off until we reached home and everyone could hear his story.
An hour down the road, under the shadow of Mount Shasta in a town called Weed Ted asked if we could make a quick stop in front of any clothing store. And quick it was as the three of them shed their hated garments and picked out a colorful assortment of new ones. We arrived back in Bohemian Grove by mid-afternoon to a warm welcome. That evening we had a feast with flowing wine. After the meal and the young ones in bed, Ted began his story.
