Prepper

Chapter Ten

I admit, once you get in a routine, things get easier. I wake up, I jump rope, it's automatic. My calves no longer ache so bad the following day that I walk like my legs are wooden. I can easily keep up a steady rhythm for fifteen minutes, which is no small feat for me. I follow-up with intervals of burpees, push-ups, pull-ups, core drills, there are a surprising number of effective exercises that do not require a trip to the gym. The flab has started to melt away, replaced by a more defined, dare I say masculine shape, something that is not lost on Kate who tends to make racy comments any time I remove my shirt in her vicinity. Saucy mink.

All narcissism aside, what is more important is the endurance and strength I have gained. I can hit harder, move faster and with more fluidity than ever before. I also find I don't tire as quickly. I have never been into sports, but I now have something approaching athletic prowess. The new found physical abilities has given me a confidence I have not known before. Not all my anxieties have run for the hills, but it is a pleasant side effect to have fewer worries rather than more. I think that is what drives me.

I meet with Ari as much as I can, every other day or so and he shares his knowledge of Krav Maga, among other things. Sometimes we just sit and talk, which is a nice break. Conversations with Ari are never dull. He tells me I'm just getting the essentials, but it seems like a lot of skills to me. I can disarm an opponent, whether he has a gun or knife and I have learned how to best retain whatever weapon I may have. Which, Ari has taught me, can be just about anything; gun, knife, sharp stick, dull stick, or my favourite - an eighteen inch long piece of rebar.

Today is a quiet day, Ari rocks slowly in an antique oak rocking chair as we sit in his living room. He is trying to bestow upon me some of the vast knowledge he has acquired through years of combat experience and real life and death struggles. Some of his stories are incredibly humbling, others down right terrifying. He doesn't sanitize much, and some of the details are horrid. I've just had it so easy, while he's paid such a price for his freedom. I take in as much as I can, I know it is important that I do. When he finishes a particularly gruesome story involving a disabled Merkava and the demise of its occupants, whom he and his team were too late to save, he opens the floor to me.

"Connor, what's on your mind?"

I tell him about what I witnessed on the outskirts of the city, with the tent and that Schafer guy and his devout followers with their cross insignia.

"Hmm." He says, and I'm worried that's all I am going to get. Then I start wondering if I am just over-reacting to everything and being paranoid. That is one of my tendencies. No so much that I scare easy, but I over-analyze and end up spooking myself. "This is not unexpected, this is exactly the thing you need to keep an eye on. As power and authority are evacuated from a region, something will fill that void. More often than not, this is not a good thing."

"What do we do about it? What can we do about it?"

"We don't do anything. You keep it on your radar, you gather information - quietly. Do not appear inquisitive or observant, obtain your intel as secretly as you can. You need to know as much about them as possible and the less they know of you, the better. Meanwhile, you keep doing what you are doing - building your skills, developing your network of allies, shoring up your defences."

And he's lost me, again. I'm staring at him like the Victrola dog. "Network of allies, Ari? What the hell?"

"Your friends, family, neighbours - your contacts. Anyone you know you can trust, all the people that - what's the expression? Have your back. Who do you trust with your life?"

"Uh, nobody." I say. It's easy to qualify this - I did a trust-fall once at a Christian church camp as a kid - nobody caught me, I spent a few hours in the local hospital and got sent home from camp early due to a concussion. I think it knocked the God out of me.