10 Seattle, Washington, October 30, 1745 Hrs (October 31, 0045Z)

Seattle, Washington, October 30, 1745 Hrs (October 31, 0045Z)

Michelle pulled the car issued to her by the state into the garage and shut off the engine. She had found the memo and had sent an email to the director asking for permission to forward it to the contact listed at the Statewide Terrorism Analysis and Crime Center (STACC) in Ohio. She had reread the memo, and reread the data that had been disseminated from the Statewide Terrorism Analysis and Crime Center (STACC) and it was almost as if someone had read the memo and was planning on using it as a play book. She couldn't shake the thought out of her head. That memo had terrified her when she wrote it and it terrified her now. She grabbed her laptop bag, which had the walkie she had been issued by the state attached to it, grabbed her coffee mug and got out of the car and headed into the house. Samantha and Rebecca were standing in the kitchen. "We've packed the food, and our stuff. Just waiting on you so we can leave." Rebecca said, smiling. "How was your day?" "Uh..." Michelle said, sitting the laptop bag on the counter. Rebecca and Samantha looked at the walkie. It was in it's usual place and it often traveled with them, regardless of where they were going. "I'll tell you about it on the drive. Let me go change. Samantha, can you put my laptop bag and purse in the van and make sure my walkie gets on the charger." The walkie in the van wasn't exactly necessary because the state had installed a radio in the van for Michelle because so she could use the van and charge the mileage which would be cheaper than a hotel room. "Okay, Mom." Samantha said, and took the two items off the counter and carried them out to the van, and stowed them in their proper spots. Samantha sat at the table in the back and buckled the seat belt. She was allowed to drive the van A few minutes later, Michelle and Rebecca came out and got in the front two seats. Rebecca was driving and Michelle plugged an address into the GPS that was built into the radio. Once it had calculated the route, Rebecca put the van in gear and pulled out onto the street. "So do you two remember the memo that I wrote and sent to the section chiefs about how the electric grid might be attacked?" Michelle asked. "Yeah," Rebecca said, not taking her eyes off the road. Since Michelle could see Samantha, the teenager nodded. "Well, there was an alert sent out by the Statewide Terrorism Analysis and Crime Center in Ohio today, about a van that had been spotted within seventy five miles of each of the three nuclear power plants that are in the state of Ohio." Michelle said. "It was practically a play by play of that memo. If I seem like I'm lost in thought, I'm trying to figure out how someone would have gotten a copy of that memo." "I'm going to be lost in thought as well, I've got the first draft of an essay due on Friday of next week." Samantha said. It was not uncommon to use the time when they went camping to be working on school projects for the girl. She often had papers due or other projects and she worked better if she was away from most things. "I might need to connect to the Internet for stuff, but I think I've got everything on my laptop or on paper in my backpack. Speaking of, I could probably do some reading while we are driving down the road seeing as it's going to be eight before we get to the campground." "Please either use the reading lights or pull the curtain," Rebecca said. Her reasoning was that it was starting to get dark and by not having lights on in the back of the van, it wouldn't interfere with her ability to see the road. One of the things that Samantha had done was replace the reading lamps that had been installed in the van with dual color ones that were red and white. The advantage of the red light was that if you had any night vision, you didn't lose it when the light turned on. It was good for Michelle as she could work out of the van as opposed to working out of the backseat of a car or adding another body to the state's communication truck. "I'll use the red lights." Samantha said, flipping on the reading light and pulling her laptop and the printed papers out. She leaned back as far as she could and started reading. She was so engrossed in her reading and taking notes that she didn't notice that they were backing into the campsite. This one had shore power available, which was a plus as it was forecast to rain over the next few days. "Okay, we're here, lets make camp." Rebecca said. "Samantha can you get us hooked to shore power and I'll get the van leveled and the awning out." The van had a self leveling system that only required someone to push a button and it did the rest on it's own. "I'm going to start dinner..." Michelle said. There was a rotation for what they cooked in the van mainly for simplicity. Most of the food they had brought was breakfast type foods, but there was some other stuff as well. Samantha got up and went to the back of the van and opened the back door, pulled out the cords for shore power and plugged the connections in. Noticing that there were connections for the black and gray water tanks she pulled the hoses out and connected them to the connections. She went back into the van. "Shore power, gray, and black water are hooked up." She said, sliding back into the dinette. There was a white water connection, but they never used white water hookups when they were camping. The water usually came from a well and you never knew how clean it was... They actually had the filtration stuff in the van to be able to take water from any source and make it safe to drink. It may not taste good, but it would be safe to drink. The van shuddered slightly as it leveled it self out. The leveling process took around twenty minutes but could take longer depending on how uneven the ground was. "Do we still need red or can we switch to white?" Michelle asked. The only light that was on in the back of the van was the reading lamp above the dinette. "We can go to white," Samantha said. It'll make marking my notes up easier. "Just start low and work up from there..." Due to the number of lights that were white in the van versus the overall space inside the van it could get way too bright very fast, and another issue Samantha had was photophobia, which was a sensitivity to bright light. "Oh, I was going to use the strips and set them to cool..." Michelle said, touching a button next to the door. The LED strip lights came on around the interior of the van, they were pointed at the light colored ceiling and that would diffuse the light, but they did a good job of lighting up the van. Michelle turned them on and when they were brighter than the reading lamp, Samantha reached up and turned off the reading lamp. The van shuddered again as the leveling system made fine adjustments. Within about an hour the system would be done and the van would be level. Rebecca opened the drivers side door and pulled out the inserts for the front windows and put them in their places. "What's the low supposed to get down to tonight?" Rebecca asked. Samantha grabbed her phone and pulled up the weather app. "Looks like the low forties." Samantha replied, glancing up at her mother. "Thinking about turning on the heat?" "Yeah..." Rebecca replied pushing buttons. "Sixty eight sound good?" Samantha was good with sixty eight so she nodded. She had brought a thick pair of footed pajamas that she would invariably put on, and depending on what happens outside, may not take them off until they got home. Michelle reached up and hit the button on the fan in the rear of the van to allow air to pull the stale air out. She hit a button mounted on the wall and turned the front fan on it's slowest setting but it was pulling air into the van and the circulation would keep the smells of cooking dinner from hanging around in the van. "Mom, are you going to need the monitor? I think a second display might help me write this paper easier." There were actually two monitors, both mounted on arms behind a panel that would flip and latch up so that it would be out of the way of the specially designed mounts the monitors rode on. Samantha pushed a lever and the monitor sprung slowly away from the wall. She adjusted it to where she wanted it and plugged her laptop in. The monitor lit up and she was presented with two displays. She logged in to the laptop and got to work on her paper. She hoped to have the first draft done before she went to bed so she could work on doing some minor tweaking to it before it was due on Friday.