Revolution 3.0

Alaska/British Columbia Border

2 July, 2030 0500 hrs

Black Mike Sullivan held stopped dead in his tracks and held up his fist at about head height. He was crouched on one knee with the other boot on the ground, muscles wound up, ready to spring himself up to his feet in case of trouble.

I stopped in my tracks, Raised my fist for the guy behind me and stood stock still, my eyes scanning the forest between Mike and the ridge we were approaching. Nothing but old growth willows and the occasional towering fir, framing the green cacophony of mid-level plants and the leaf-brown and moss-green forest floor. I unfocused my eyes a little, not looking for details, but rather movement. It took me a minute, but I saw it. Off to the south, about 50 yards out, there was a large brown mass of fur rummaging around in a field of large, dark green bushes.

I crept up behind Mike. “Brown. What's he doing?”

“Something weird.” replied mike without taking his eyes off the bruin.

“Go around?”

“Hafta. He'll be at this for hours.”

I scanned the area and pulled up the map function on my diptych. “If we cut north for about 10 klicks we can run the ridge south until about a mile north of the target. Easy walk down the valley to do our recon.”

Sullivan grunted.

“Can't sit here all day Gunny.”

He grunted again “Your right about that sir. You lead the men on this leg ell-tee, I'm going to take a minute and watch our friend here, make sure he's not going to be a surprise for us later.”

I grunted, turned and waved my hand in front of my face.

New orders. Danger Close. Go left and form column on me. Noise discipline, move with stealth. Pass the word. I signed.

I saw thumbs ups from everyone I could see, which was only Lefty and Ace, the rest were either too far back in the line of march or too well hidden for me to see, but I knew that the word would be passed.

***

We humped up the gentle slope of the rising plateau, making good time after we were well away from the bear. Between my compass and my diptych I managed to keep us on course and in 6 hours we made the ridge. Through my Zeiss Optikas I could see the AlCan snake it's way along the broad valley with the widening blue bulk of the White River at the southern end.

The traffic this time of year was what I'd call heavy, but compared to pics I'd seen of highways in the lower 48 it was sparse. Perhaps a dozen Semis and a half-dozen cars per hour rolled past our bivouac as we dug in.

Oblong pop-up domes lined with thermally reflective material were scattered through the trees on the southern slope of the ridge, forming the base of the camp. Then ghillie netting was strung between the trees covering the tents, and a small area between them and along the southern flank. Beneath that thermally reflective and radio absorbent panels were strung. So long as we were under the panels and we didn't produce too much heat, we were invisible to anything except ground penetrating radar and ground-level, Mark-I eyeballs. Slit trenches dug and covered with the dirt and sod standing by to go back in the ground. Leave no trace was the SOP of the outfit.

On the military crest of the ridge, about 100 meters away I ordered an OP rigged (the same basic setup as the bivouac, but only for 2 guys and using only one tent. Clear lines of sight were formed through the brush using gardener's tape and forward and flanking cover was created using deadwood, rocks and some of the new Spectra panels we'd packed in. Not enough to hold up to sustained MG or sniper fire, but enough to deflect or trap the outdated 5.56 or 5.45 rounds that a reaction force or convoy guards would be rolling with. After all, this was Canada, eh? Not Islamabad or Tehran.

All the way down the slope was a forested valley of which about 50 meters ran between the beginning of the rise and the poorly maintained, two-lane blacktop of the Alaska-Canadian highway. The mission was, to set up a marking system on the north-bound side of the road. This would automatically mark military trucks that moved north bringing troops, supplies and materiels into Alaska.

Supposedly it was an automated system that used a pressure counter kind of like the DOT used to track road usage. A pressure-sensitive cable that did not respond to less than a certain weight or other than a certain wheel pattern ran across the road and into an unremarkable gray box. A cable from the box ran to the marking device which was basically a giant WD40 nozzle attached to a large reservoir of some kind of clear paint that absorbed sunlight and slowly released UVA. It was invisible to the naked eye save as some kind of transparent film and was supposedly indistinguishable from any of the other road shit that got on vehicles on long journeys.

However, to a UAV operator using a UV filter, the spay stood out like blood on a bridal gown. Made the trucks real easy to pick out and track. Or bomb.

We waited to set up the marking system until midnight.

***

***BEGIN CHATLOG***

[IRC2][Dalnet: Grogan's Garden] [ALL AGES PLEASE WATCH YOUR LANGAGE SFW ONLY]
2037 hrs [UTC-0], 3 July 2030

FragileMouse [UTC-8]: Started doing roadwork today. So fucking tired....
Anishababy [UTC-7]: Roadworkers are so hot. Always hardbods but never the shitty attitude gymrats have.

Gogher [UTC+2]: Anishababy, you think everything is hot.
RangerDanger [UTC-5]: Yeah she does. Little tramp.
Anishababy[UTC-7]: I do not. And I am NOT a tramp you @$$hole!

Canucklehead [UTC-6]: You're gonna be sore AF tomorrow Mouse. Be sure to use some Tiger Balm or you're gonna have a hard time of it, yah?
Anisahbabay [UTC-7]: Tiger Balm is so hot.
FragileMouse [UTC-8]: Yeah, I know. I'm just glad this is a union gig, y'know? Lots of hours, good pay, can't really get fired.

RangerDanger [UTC-5]: Lol$lut.

Gogher [UTC+2]: kek

***END CHATLOG***

And that was how I informed my command structure that we were operational. Via a secure satellite uplink that let me use 4 year old tech to tell a room full of teens, dorks and nerds that I finally had a job. Except that Canucklehead wasn't a Canadian. He was a sixty-odd year old black man from Michigan who'd moved up to Willow 10 years ago, after spending 30 years in the US army signal corps. He'd bounced his access all over the fucking place until anyone looking into him would swear on a stack of bibles he was in Edmonton, Alberta.

After I logged off, I turned to Black Mike. “You want to sleep, I'm still kinda wired.” He'd rejoined us just about the time we'd just finished setting up the OP and he didn't look unpleased with my efforts. Yeah, I know I was the officer and her was the non-com, but I'm an air force brat. I've been around enough to realize that he knew better than I did how this op should go and what all to do. I asked his advice anytime I was uncertain of what to do. I usually followed it. Gunny Sullivan had been in the Corps a long time.

“No thanks, sir. After my quiet time with brother bear, I'm good for another 8 hours and you've been up and running since this time yesterday.”

“OK. What was wrong with him anyhow? Berries shouldn't be ripe for another month.”

“After a couple hours he moved off enough for me to check the patch. Half-ripe watermelon berries. About a half acre of them. The collapse of the pacific salmon fishery has fucked his life up the same as the rest of the Pacific Northwest. He headed off to the south. I don't expect to have any trouble from Mr. Bear.”

I grunted. I hadn't even thought about the bear being an issue. Damn. “Ok. I'm gonna rack out then. Wake me by 1700?”

“Aye-Aye sir.” he answered reflexively.

I crawled into my tent and closed my eyes, certain I would have trouble sleeping. My mind was awash with worries about the op. Would we be discovered? Would the marker work properly? Would someone notice it if it did work properly? There was always the threat of drone strikes. And now I was worrying if the Salmon fishery would recover in my lifetime? In my kids' lifetime? Fucking Japs. Fucking Fukushima. Fucking DNR. Fucking....