Well now, gather 'round, partners--settle in, get your coffee, check your magazine. Ain't no time for a weak gut when the world's gone to shit and the only thing keeping us honest is the hum of a trusty Yaesu between the teeth of the apocalypse. This here's what happened last spring, just after we'd finished running drills on the new Faraday cage--me, Todd, and the boys. Yeah, Todd. Don't go getting any wrong ideas, ma'am. He's one of us, solid as my .45's trigger. Wouldn't have it any other way.
So there I was, squatting in the bunker's comms pit like a damn mole with a radio--just me, my trusty old TRC-8000, and a box of MREs that tasted like government-issued regret--when the static cleared up like a shot. Soft as a whisper, but clear as a bell: We weren't the only ones left with the juice to talk. Turns out some old-timer in the badlands of West Virginia had managed to keep his tower running, just like the boys and I planned.
"Yee-haw," I mutter, nudging the mic. "This here's the Desperados. You're not alone, pardner." Silence. Then--pop--back came the crackle, and the old-timer (he called himself Doc, of all things) laid it on the line. Said the raiders were moving east, cutting supply lines. Said the cities were on fire. Said--fuck--the national guard was turning on their own. Now, I ain't one to spread panic without cause, but Doc's voice had this edge to it, like he'd seen the devil's own handiwork.
Todd leans in then--no shit, the man's shoulders could block a hurricane--and he nods at the screen where the feed from the solar array was blinking red. "We got power for another hour. Maybe two." I could've sworn he was talking about the sun, the boys, the entire goddamn militia when he said it. Like it wasn't just a warning light, but a damn oath.
So we locked it down. Prepped the boys for a scouting run, topped off the fuel cans, checked the ammo racks. Doc was giving real-time updates, and I swear on my momma's .38 that if I didn't know better, I'd think the man was ours. Back-to-back, shoulder-to-shoulder--that's how you survive, ain't it? That's how you win.
Then the signal died.
Not like it faded--like it choked. One second, Doc's voice was steady as a metronome; the next, just white noise. I hit the mic again, but there was no answer. Just the hum of the bunker, the distant crunch of boots on gravel outside (that'd be the boys, probably), and the sickening thunk of a spent shell hitting the far wall.
Todd claps me on the back--hard--like he's doing it to the whole damn compound. "We hold what we got," he says. Simple. Final. And that's when I know: we're all we've got left.
So I crank up the generator, call the boys back, and get to work. No time for grief. No time for anything but preparedness. The Digital Desperados ain't folding. Ain't running. We're adapting. And when the dust settles--and it will settle, because the world don't stop for nobody--we'll be the ones left standing. Trusted. Tried. Together.
Now if you'll excuse me, pardners, I got a Faraday cage to test and a .45 to clean. The future's a bitch, but she's our bitch. And we ain't about to let her have it easy.
---
--COWBOY
Digital Desperados Commando | Bunker 7 | Frontier Grid
._/|_ Stay frosty, partner.
| \> - Cowboy
Digital Desperados Grid-Down Division
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