e escorted out of the hall by Jason in groups of five, taken to their homes, allowed to collect up what was theirs, then were driven to the city limit at 5th Street Hill and was effectively kicked out. Jason had no sympathy for them. They were offering them a chance to live _safely_, but many of them wanted nothing of it. They reminded him of the old saying _it is better to rule in hell than serve in heaven_, for that was their mentality. Some of them weren't like that, but their mistrust of Symone was so deep-seated that they couldn't be trusted to stay near her, for they were violently prejudiced against _any_ Faey, and not just the _system_. Even Faey who had gone against that system themselves were hated and reviled. Those he did feel a bit sorry for, but Symone had proven herself a hell of a lot more than any of them had.

By noon the next day, the 14 people left were untied and sitting in chairs in the bingo hall. Jason and Symone were still armored, but both had their helmets off. Neither of them looked very tired, but in actuality, Jason was _exhausted_. But he'd never show them that. "We won't hold you here much longer," he told them, standing up on the raised area where they used to call the numbers. "But before we let you go, we need to arrange some things. You'll receive a share of the food here to hold you over for a little while, while we organize how we're going to do things. For right now, I'd like all of you to come over into Chesapeake, or the buildings right around the downtown bridge in Huntington. There are lots of empty houses over there, and it's safer if we're all closer together. We're going to abandon most of Huntington for right now, mainly because we won't need it. Tomorrow, we're going to sit down and have a meeting. We'll find out who can hunt, who can fish, who can farm, and who can fix things. Then we start doing what we're good at and start preparing for winter.

"We have three primary interests," he told them, sitting on the dusty table on the dais. "First, we secure a viable food supply _without_ stealing it from other people. Hunting, fishing, farming, gathering. Second, we restore power to as much of Chesapeake and parts of Huntington that we can, both because I think you're all tired of living without power, and getting some freezers going will help us have more food put back for the winter. Third, we get as much farming in as we can before winter. What we can't hunt, grow, or forage, we buy from squatter groups using the guns and equipment that your former gangs had stockpiled. Security is _my_ problem," he told them. "This armor and some of the Faey weapons I've managed to get should be enough to discourage just about anyone. And if that doesn't, _she_ will," he said, pointing at Symone. "As you know, we humans have no defense against Faey telepathy, and believe me, right now she's as much in this with us as anyone else. If her people get their hands on her, she'll probably be executed."

"What did you do, miss?" one of the men asked curiously.

"Nothing much hon, I just shot up a military base and rescued my beau from their custody," she winked. "My man's a human, and I'd much rather have _him_ than _them_, if you get my meaning."

Their thoughts told him that many of them were impressed by that, because after all, she _was_ out here with them. "Keeping everyone safe will be our job, but don't worry, we won't make you _depend_ on us. In a couple of days, after everything settles down, you'll each be given back a pistol and a rifle, for protection and for any hunting you might want to do. We're also not going to just be the guys who replaced the old gangs. Everyone will have a say in how we do things, I'm not going to _tell_ you what to do. We're trying for the good old days, people. Just trust that I'll do my best to keep us all safe, and that I'm not going to try to be a king, and let's all try being what we used to be, not what the Faey have made of us."

That got him a few nods, and a rumble of consent among them. "Okay, Luke, is the Deuce outside?"

Luke, who was standing by the front door, nodded.

"Alright, me and the lady are going to drive you guys back to where you have your stuff. If you have vehicles or know where to get one, load them up and bring them up to the downtown bridge, but _do not cross it_. It's still trapped, and I don't want anyone getting hurt. If you don't have vehicles, just let us know, and we'll swing back by where you are in a couple of hours and get your stuff moved over. Everyone understand?"

They all nodded.

"Okay people, let's get moving. I'd like everyone settled into a new place before nightfall, so everyone can get some sleep. Including me," he chuckled. "Remember, if you drive over in a car or truck, stop at the bridge but _do not cross it_," he emphasized.

They all stood up, and just a cursory look at their thoughts showed him anxiety, worry, uncertainty, but a little bit of hope. They'd accepted the new order of things because of fear of being alone, or hope that it might actually work out, but one thing he got from these 14 people whom Symone had cleared was that just the _chance_ that they'd get power back made them enthusiastic.

Small favors, he guessed.

                                        * * *

By nightfall, they had everyone more or less situated. By midnight they were done. Jason was very tired, but he also felt very good.

He'd been surprised at the number of vehicles those old gangs had had. It took a few hours for them to move them all into Chesapeake, parking them on and around Route 7, and every one they brought was filled with the stockpiled goods of the gangs who had owned them. They brought clothes, furniture, their rations of food, personal effects, tools, boxes and boxes of batteries of all kinds, and just about anything Jason had ever seen that was battery operated, anything they thought might be of use and anything they didn't want taken when the scavengers in the hills descended on the city like a pack of wolves when it became common knowledge that the city had been abandoned.

But they certainly wouldn't find much. The former gang members knew where everything was, and they were very efficient about stripping virtually anything of use and bringing it with them. As per Jason's request, any large-scale tools or equipment were left in the houses beside his, which had become the official storage buildings for tools and were close at hand to be defended, because they were going to need tools. Surplus clothing or gear that had been gang property rather than personal property was also stored in the houses on his block, to be handed out or traded as it was needed.

Jason finally crawled into bed about two in the morning. He was utterly exhausted, but he had hope.

That next day was just as busy. Jason sat down with everyone, including Clem and his group, on chairs and benches assembled outside his house. As per his request, nobody had claimed a house on either his block or the one his house faced, a safety zone around him and their communal property that would help protect critical equipment in case of attack. It left him plenty of room to set out traps without worrying about killing someone by accident. What started as an official meeting quickly became an unplanned barbecue when Mary and Ruth brought out two entire butchered deer and started cooking it for everyone. In that 14, Jason was pleasantly surprised to find an engineer, one Steve Harris, a short fellow in his late thirties with prematurely balding blond hair and a pair of glasses taped on one side hanging precariously from the end of a narrow nose. His face was narrow and drawn, but his blue eyes were excited. Steve, it turned out, had been an electrical engineer for an oil refinery in Texas before the subjugation, and his knowledge of industrial electrical systems would be absolutely critical for building a new power grid in Chesapeake. What made it even better was that he'd been trained in basic Faey systems, having gone through their school, and had been working as a systems technician in Columbus. He'd been in the west end gang, but out of happenstance more than anything else. He'd ended up in the wilderness after he'd hit a car in a traffic accident, and had panicked and ran away because he had already had two arrests for drunken driving. A third arrest for _anything _would mean being packed off to a farm, and he'd been terrified of that idea, so much so that he risked death in the wilderness rather than face a farm. He'd managed to live long enough to make it to Huntington, and after the west end gang caught him, he offered to fix things for them in exchange for food and protection. Steve was by no means a survivor or warrior.

Steve was the only true technical find in that group, but Jason found himself with quite a few proficient hunters, and a few that were rather good at gardening, and several who were good at car repair. There was also a carpenter and a construction worker in that group.

Jason liked the odds now, though. With him, Tim, and Steve, they should be able to come up with something.

That would be later though. After a good meal, they held their first town meeting.

"What's a town meeting for?" one of them asked, a tall black man named Leamon Lacy, who had the body of a basketball player and an impressive flat-top.

"Well, there's, what, twenty-two of us?" Jason asked, then he nodded at his count. "We need some kind of _official_ leadership. I told you I won't order you guys around. So, we're going to elect a city council and a mayor. Three council seats who advise the mayor, and the mayor who'll be responsible for most day to day decisions. Anything important comes up for a vote by the council, and major issues are voted on by the whole community, not just being decided by a few people," he cautioned. "Just like the way things used to be."

"Couldn't this mayor just change the rules?" Leamon asked.

"Well, I guess so," he said, glancing at Tim, who just shrugged. "If you guys let him, anyway."

"Okay then, I nominate _you_ for mayor, Mister Jason," he announced. "You I think I can trust, cause you've done everything you said you'd do so far. I don't think I trust any of these other yahoos."

"You're one of us yahoos, Lacy," someone called with a laugh. "But I'll second that nomination."

Jason was a bit flustered with that, because in short order, he was elected mayor of the community. Leamon Lacy, the old gang boss Regina Thompson, and Clem were elected to the city council.

After that was dropped in his lap, they finalized their immediate plans. The hunters would fan out and start bringing down game that would be stored in every working freezer that they could find that they could fit into the house on the other side of his house from the storage house, which Jason was going to patch into his working electricity so they had a way to store it. Ruth would take her farming group down east of the bridge and start cultivating that land out there, at least after Luke and a few men went down there and tore down some houses to make room for farmland by using a bulldozer that Luke had managed to get running. Tim and Steve were going to get the electricity going in the house by Jason's for the freezers, and Luke was going to take a few of the younger, more burly men out and find those freezers, then go clear room for Ruth's farmland. There were only 21 people and several major tasks, so some people found themselves working on a farm in the morning, then running out and hunting in the afternoon, for example.

Jason tracked down the community's best tailors, and got a group of four who had extensive experience. He told them about the phase cloth he had, how it was bulletproof, and assigned them the task of making each and every person a shirt or jacket and a pair of pants with the phase cloth as a lining. Getting people into armored clothing quickly was very important, for it would help protect them if a large group of armed attackers raided their community. How they accomplished this task was up to them, but it was a task that was very important, and one they had to accomplish quickly.

They also elected two "deputies," Luke and Irwin Preece. They would be given Jason's two hunting plasma rifles, and they would be at Jason's call if he and Symone needed reinforcements while dealing with invaders. Both Luke and Irwin had been in the army, and both had seen actual combat, back in the second Gulf War on top of the battle experience they'd received out in the wilderness, so they were sensible choices. Jason, Symone, Luke, and Irwin were the group's official "army," responsible for protecting the community from outside aggression.

It was rather late, so Jason called the meeting to an end and told them they'd get to work tomorrow, and they spent the rest of the night getting to know each other and enjoying the venison that Ruth and Mary had graciously cooked for them.

Jason was surprised at the willingness of these people to work together, but their thoughts and their attitudes showed them to be sincere. Not two days ago, most of them were enemies, but now they were working side by side. He was a bit surprised, at least until he looked at them and heard their thoughts, and heard the _hope_ that was blossoming there. These were the people that Symone had assured him were most receptive to the idea of living in a community that worked together instead of stole what they needed, and she had been proven right on the mark so far. They were willing to give it a try, even if things seemed unusual, and they were just a little intimidated by Symone and her power. They hoped that it would mean a chance to get electricity in their houses. They hoped that it would put a stop to the violence and insanity that their world had become. They hoped for a chance to raise children in a safe place. They _hoped_.

And that was a good thing.

The lack of children had been something that Jason hadn't really thought of until he heard it in their thoughts. None of the gang members had children, not even infants. The only child in the entire community was Mary and Luke's daughter, Jenny. That struck Jason as odd until he asked Regina, who explained calmly that all _her_ women stayed on birth control pills, that having infants around was a major liability for a group that made its living through armed conflict. And in a way, he realized that that was probably the truth.

Late that night, Jason, Tim, and Symone sat on his porch, enjoying the surprisingly cool night air and watching a thunderstorm move in from the northwest. _You know, setting up power in a wide area is going to attract my people,_ Symone warned him.

_I don't see why,_ Jason replied. _I'm sure that a few squatter groups out there somewhere have managed to get power back on somewhere._

_And I'm pretty sure that that attracted my people too,_ she answered. _I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but let's not light up all of Huntington_.

"Well guys, I'm _really _tired, and I want to get an early start in the morning," Tim said with a yawn. "Not sure how much use I'm going to be with this cast, but I'll do my best."

"I'm sure you'll do just fine," Jason told him. "You want to do the patrol first, or me?" he asked Symone.

"We need to install a better sensor system," she grunted. "It'd be nice if we could see them coming from the hilltops."

"We'll add it to the list," he said. "Right now I need to go call Jyslin. She hasn't answered her phone for like four days now."

"You haven't tried to call for two."

"Well, if I don't call, then she didn't answer, did she?" he asked with calm logic.

She laughed as he got up, then she smacked him fondly on the backside. "I'll armor up and go look around," she said. "Then it's bedtime for me."

Jason went inside and to his room, then sat down in front of his panel. He called Jyslin's number, and was relieved when she picked it up within three seconds. It was audio only, a picture of her on his screen. "What?" she demanded.

"It's about time," Jason said.

She appeared immediately, and Jason gasped. Her hair was a frazzled mess, and her eyes looked hollow and slightly unfocused. There was a bit of dried blood on the corner of her lip as well. "What happened?" he asked immediately.

"I just got back from a long chat with the Secret Police, that's what," she answered wearily. "They seem to think I know something, given how you vanish, then Tim expresses, and Symone steals him out from under the nose of House Trillane and gets them both killed trying to escape." Of course Jyslin knew that wasn't the case, but he realized quickly that they probably had a tap on her communications, so she had to play this carefully. "That's three people gone, and I'm in the middle of all of them."

"They're looking for me?"

"Of course they're looking for you, dink," she said waspishly. "And they know you talk to me. They want me to try to convince you to come back, because nobody has the fainted bloody fucking idea where you are, and there's certainly nothing that anyone can do to find you using your panel. They've already tried tracking your signal, but they can't figure out where it's coming from. How did you do that?"

"A good magician never reveals his secrets," Jason smiled.

"Well, you have about half of the comm people over here tearing out their hair," she told him. "One guy swears your signal is coming from the moon. So, are you coming back?"

"Hell no."

"Well, I tried," she grunted, closing her eyes and rubbing her temple gingerly.

"Are you alright, Jyslin?" he asked.

"I'll be alright," she said with a sigh. "Having a little chat with mindbenders is never very fun, especially when they think you're hiding something. They drug me behind the _topo_, but they found out I don't know any more than what I told them, that I really did have no idea you planned to run, and I have no clue what wild hair got up Symone's ass to make her do what she did. I'm still a bit shocked that Tim expressed, but it's not like it matters now." He had no idea what that expression meant, but that last part told him that Jyslin's formidable telepathic ability had managed to repel the mindbenders who had probed her, fooled them using her ability that she knew no more than what she claimed. Jyslin was a _very_ powerful telepath, and was more than a match for the average mindbender. Though she was young, Jyslin had been a fully expressed telepath for a _long_ time, since she was just a little girl, and that gave her the experience to cross swords with telepaths twice her age. "And all that time, I thought he was having an allergic reaction to something Symone was wearing or using, with the nosebleeds and headaches and shit, just like you did for a while." She saw his concerned look. "After a long sleep and pain pill for a splitting headache, I'll be alright, Jayce, I promise."

"I'll let you get some rest then, hon," he said compassionately, sincere worry flooding him.

"I think that's a good idea," she grunted, putting her head in her hands. "I would tell you to call tomorrow, but I don't think you will."

"Not when they expect it, that's for sure," he told her. "I hope you feel better."

"I will, I just need time."

He sighed. "I miss you."

She gave him the longest look, the bleariness gone from her eyes. "I miss you too," she said in English. She put her fingers up against her monitor, and he did the same... and in the strangest way, it was almost like he could feel her touch. God, he could use her support right now, with all these new people around, and him being thrust into the unwanted role of leader. If anything, he had always felt more secure with Jyslin near him. He could use her smile, and her sense of humor, and her wisdom, and her electrifying touch-

Well, best not to dwell on that.

"Call me soon, alright?" she asked quietly.

"I will, I promise."

She gave him a longing look, then took her hand from her display. Then her image vanished from the screen. He closed his eyes and blew out his breath, worry for Jyslin flooding through him. God, he hoped she was alright. No telling what those mindbender _bitches_ did to her, but Jyslin was a strong telepath, a strong woman. They'd never get anything out of her. He felt the oddest pride that she'd be willing to risk so much for him, that she saw him as that worthy. He also felt pride in her strength, and that she felt he had strength similar to hers.

Well, he'd make her proud, as proud of him as he was of her, that was for sure. He'd do what needed to be done, what was expected of him, and what he had to do to fulfill his promises and keep everyone safe. He had duties now, duties and obligations. He had brought them on himself, but he would carry them out. There were 34 people here now, 34 people who would look to him for protection, protection he had promised to provide to them. And he would provide that protection. He would do what he could and he would keep them safe.

                                        * * *

_Kiraa, 11 Toraa, 4393, Orthodox Calendar_
_Wednesday, 2 September 2007, Native Regional Reckoning_
_Chesapeake, Ohio (Native designation), Orala Nature Preserve, American Sector_

The cheer that roared across Chesapeake was almost deafening when the lights came on.

Ten days, that was all it took to restore power to almost fifty different buildings on seven city blocks, a stunningly short amount of time given the amount of work it took. But it worked, and it worked well.

The secret had been in the planning. Tim, Jason, and Steve pored over old electrical grid layout maps of Chesapeake for almost a full day, though that wasn't the subject at hand for most of that day. The subject was how to generate the electricity. They kicked around several ideas, from pulling a generator from a large building to using the PPG by itself to building their own, but each either would be too hard to implement or wouldn't provide the power to handle the demands on it. The answer was a combination of home built and the PPG. Steve and Jason used components out of the workshop that Kumi had bought for him to build a generator out of flux cabling and a microprocessor to control the cabling's magnetic field, with a core yanked out of a pole transformer. Generators usually required that the conductor cut through lines of magnetic force, usually accomplished by turning a core of coiled copper wire inside a magnetic field created by huge stationary magnets. But Jason had flux cabling which created a dynamic magnetic field, just like the magnetic catapult in his railgun, which would creating a _moving_ magnetic field cutting through a _stationary_ core. The only requirement they had was getting a core big enough to handle the power demands that would be placed upon it. Writing a software program to create the necessary 60 Volts had taken all of an hour, and it had been _Steve_ who had written it. Steve, it turned out, had quite a bit of experience with Faey TEL language, having learned the basics in school, then finishing his education of it himself out of curiosity.

It took them three days to build the generator. It was about the size of a washer and dryer side by side, flux cabling carefully wrapped around the insulated core with industrial wiring connected to the core. They tested it and confirmed that it did indeed work, though they couldn't test its ability to carry a load until they hooked it up to something.

Temika dropped by right after they finished the generator. At first she was _very_ cautious, for she had heard all kinds of rumors about what had happened down here, and her first contact with anyone was with people she knew were gang members. But it didn't take long to assure her that Jason was still there. He gave her some lunch and explained what had happened and what they were doing, and after that she left very quickly. She left so fast and without any word that he worried that she was never coming back.

After that, they spent four days setting up their grid. The main thing they did was isolate their habitation area by creating a local grid block, then they inserted the generator in an abandoned store beside the bridge, between the two "minigrids" they had designed. The west grid was residential, and the east grid was to power anything down at the farm that Luke and his bulldozer were still making. After that was done, they installed pole transformers on the pole just outside the generator, which had taken nearly a day because the pole didn't have mounts and those things were damn _heavy_. Then they went out and took the bulbs out of every street lamp that was within the grid while everyone else went into each unoccupied house on the grid and shut off circuit breakers.

Once that was done, they tested the grid for nearly two full days without turning it on, using test equipment. They searched for bad sections of wire, faulty transformers, and any shorts in the lines that would overload the grid and make the generator shut down. After all three signed off on it, they decided to turn it on. They had to have a little ceremony of sorts, of course, so they waited until morning the next day, so they'd have a full day of light to find any problems if it didn't work.

Tim did the honors. He was the one down at the generator-what everyone now called the "power plant"-and he flipped the switch. Both Jason and Steve were holding their breath when he called over the little hand radio that he was bringing up the grid, but they released that breath explosively when the front porch light of the house across the street from Jason's came on.

And they cheered for nearly ten minutes. A few of them danced around. Getting power back was like a dream come true for most of them, and that simple fact more than anything else had made it worth throwing their hat in with Jason. That night, they would sleep in houses that could be lit up just by flipping a switch, not lighting a candle. Some of them would sleep in air conditioning, those whose houses had them and whose units still worked.

Then they got back to work. Jim Wilson was assigned the task that day of bringing the freezers up in stages, the freezers that had been put in the house beside Jason's. They couldn't all be turned on at once or they'd overload the house's wiring, so Jim had to go over every hour and turn on five more freezers, until all 24 were going. The house's wiring started overloading at 15, and the breakers couldn't take anymore at 18, so a change of plans was devised on the spot. The freezers distributed evenly through the houses from that house beside Jason's to the one at the end of the block, which consequently gave them much more room for more freezers. Luke, who was done with bulldozing out room for farms, and Leamon Lacy went out and found more freezers and brought them back while Jim Wilson started turning the freezers on, five at a time, in each house. Jason didn't like the idea of spreading the freezers out among several houses, since it decentralized their food storage, but the house by his just couldn't handle the electrical load, and besides, every house on his block was defended by nature of its location in the middle of the community. People lived on every side of him, just not on his block or the block facing his house.

People started snagging window units out of empty houses after that night, as those without any air conditioning, or with broken air conditioners, sought them out, and there was something of a comical mad dash on the empty houses for working appliances. After seeing people setting things out on the sidewalk, though, Jason called another town meeting that night, and they organized a coherent trash disposal system. They designated the old parking lot of the K-Mart down on Route 52 to be the town's dump for inorganic trash, which was nearly five miles away. That put it more than far enough away. Luke, however, wasn't totally happy about that, and asked that everyone bring their broken appliances to him and Leamon first, to see if they could fix it. If they couldn't, they could strip them of usable parts, then what was left could be sent on to the dump. Organic trash would be taken down to the farm and dumped on the compost heap to serve as fertilizer for their crops.

Those crops were already growing. They only had about two months of growing season left, so Ruth, who was the farm forewoman, had planted fast-growing crops that they could harvest before the first frost. She was confident that they'd get a good yield, and that combined with the food they had stockpiled already, and at the steady rate that the hunters were bringing in meat, she was confident that they'd have a comfortable winter.

When the power was back up, it gave Jason too much time to worry about Jyslin. He hadn't called her yet, since they'd be expecting it, but there really wasn't much he could do for her. She'd resisted the mindbenders, and knowing her, they wouldn't bother her again, but he just felt bad that she had to go through that. She suffered because of him. Jyslin had really put her neck on the line for him, and for Tim and Symone as well, when by all rights she should have turned them in. It was her Imperial duty. The only thing that had stopped her was their personal relationship. It wasn't even love-at least not love like most people would expect-it was just that they _liked_ each other.

He tried to keep his mind off Jyslin with work. The abandoning of Huntington had drawn in a great number of scavengers, most of which were the former gang members, who had indeed waited to see what would happen. While Jason was busy with the power and Luke was busy with his numerous projects, it had been Irwin and Symone who had kept watch over the city. Irwin had already gotten used to his plasma rifle, and he was a _nasty_ marksman. He and Symone had had a friendly competition, and he proved the equal of Symone's sniper rating. Symone taught him how to ride the airbike, and he traded patrols with her. The armor making group had hurried to get Irwin the first finished pieces of phase cloth armor, which consisted of regular clothes sewn with thin cotton linings that held the armor cloth between them. They'd used some old sheets they'd taken from the gang stockpiles, and though Irwin complained that it felt weird, and that it was a tad hot to wear in the early September heat wave, he certainly didn't mind _too_ much. After the power was restored, 