Remnant: The Golden Hour

Four days into pumping out cans and replacing the two, in-op pumps with a single working one and Jim Cooper caught a slug from the harassing fire high in his upper chest.

Jim and the crews started to see patterns as they worked the problem. Not every one of the 42 cans had been attacked. The cops were the first to notice, it was the cans on the southern edge of a gang’s turf. Since the general slope of the land was from high-in-the-south towards Lake Erie not too far to the north, it was clear that the gangs were attempting to make their competitor’s turf untenable.

It was novel to have gangs embrace von Clausewitz’s “absolute war” concepts although it wasn’t much of a reach from “If I cannot have it then I won’t let you have it either”. Somebody was coaching and guiding the gangs.

By all rights, the hit should not have been that big of a deal. It had clearly missed the lung-heart area. The cops called 9-1-1 express. An ambulance was dispatched….and the EMTs started hitting “check-points” at each Autonomous Zone as it attempted to reach the worksite. Some road-blocks let them through. Others forced them to detour.

The trip back to the hospital was the same in reverse except there had been changes in personnel. Some of the ones that had let the ambulance through forced them to go around.

Mr Cooper’s autopsy indicated that his subclavian artery had been compromised.

He died eight days before retirement.