Friday, September 29, 2017

Flash Fiction Friday: Target Cox Junction Part II

Welcome to the latest installment of Flash Fiction Friday. Hopefully, you enjoyed the Part I of Target: Cox Junction. Once again, I will remind everyone this story is purely my imagination and not suggestive to knowledge of actual destruction plans. Thanks for reading!


Target: Cox Junction Part II

By,
Jennifer E. Miller

Once Sockeye regained his footing, he gripped the post and pulled it up. It slid vertically from the concrete hole, but not all the way; like it was just loose. Annoyed, Sockeye wondered how long it sat needing repair.
He pushed his radio talk button. “Bordman!”
“Yo!”
“Schedule maintenance to come out here asap to repair fence post...” he squinted at the worn typeface on the label. “…A5.”
“Sure thing.” Jay Bordman paused. “Everything all right out there?”
“I think so.”
“‘I think so’ isn’t yes.”
“Keep an eye on our monitors, Bordman,” Sockeye said.
“You got it, sir.”
Their radio communication ceased for the time being.
It’s just a repair, Sockeye thought to himself.
With the sun on his back, he gazed beyond the fence at the landscape carved from eons of erosion. It was littered with crumbling rock and dotted with shrubbery. Further up the hillside was a dense forest of trees engulfed by wilderness.
Disgruntled, Sockeye approached the stairwell to make his descent back to the lower catwalk. He scanned one more time over the long, narrow concrete straightaway. Everything looked normal.
As he lowered his head to watch his step, something glistened near one of the metal supports. Furrowing his brow, Sockeye walked to the object, squatted down, and picked it up.
It was a painted rock, about the size of his palm. He was aware of this trend. Artists paint rocks and leave them in public places for others to find. His kids got a big kick when they found them. But this rock had a large red X on the front. Turning it over, Sockeye found numbers and a few words written hastily in permanent marker. It had today’s date followed by “the salmon shall be free.”
“Shit,” he said, his heart began to pound.
Someone put the rock here. In a restricted area.
He pushed his radio.
“Bordman?”
“Yes?”
“Anything unusual on the monitors?”
“No, sir.”
“What about last night’s logs?”
A short pause and the radio squawked again, “I don’t see anything. Is there a problem?”
Is there a problem? Bordman’s question echoed in Sockeye’s mind. He retraced his activities: rock, fence post, walking the dam, first stairwell, raven with yellow legs, memo—
Sockeye interrupted his own thought. Ravens don’t have yellow legs.
He got back on the radio. “Bordman, you still got that department memo handy?”
“In my inbox; haven’t deleted it yet.”
“Good. Open it and look at the photo of the protestors.”
“Got it.”
“What is the animal printed on their shirts and signs?”
“A raven.”
Sockeye swallowed.
“What color are the legs?” he was pretty sure he knew what the answer was.
“Yellow.”
Shit.
Sockeye pressed the radio talk button again. It seemed to weigh a ton under his thumb which was shaking.
“Evacuate everyone.”
“Now?” came a surprised Bordman.
“Now. Precautionary.”
Jay Bordman knew better than to ask for details.
“Sure thing, Ripton. What code?”
“Code 999.”
“Say that again?”
999 was the code for an emergency attack and to evacuate immediately. The code was created after 9/11 if terrorists were to target the dams. Sockeye felt this scenario was legitimate enough to qualify as code 999. Nevertheless, it was surely alarming to his coworker.
“999,” Sockeye repeated.
“Roger. Now get back here.”
Get back here. Sockeye felt like he got punched in the gut. He’d walked across. If he drove his ATV he could’ve zipped back in a few minutes. He couldn’t get off the dam from this side, it was enclosed by the fence; not that there was any place to go except the wilderness. He had to run back across the top straightaway or down the stairs through the inside of Cox Junction facility.
He wondered if he was being paranoid. Then he looked at the rock, which was cool in his palm. No, better safe than sorry.
Holding onto the rock, he began his return path, racing down the steps to another exterior door. As he fumbled with his key card his cell phone dinged. The gentle sound alarmed him; surprising he heard it over the mighty rush of the river. There was no cell service in the area. Inside, they used their phones over wifi. But it wasn’t available outside.

He slid it from his pocket and examined the screen. It had detected a new wifi network. Sockeye’s heart nearly stopped at the network name: RavensDam1.
(To be continued...)
Copyright 2017 Jennifer E. Miller

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