"Okay, listen up!" Sheila knocked her knuckles on the conference table and brought the final briefing to order. "We've got an outstanding weather report, vehicles and crews are ready. We are good to go at daybreak..." she smiled as she waved at the huge flat screen display we had installed several days ago and checked her watch for the time, "which means we're in luck. We have thirty-minutes for one last run-through."

"Time for a quick cup of coffee before we start?" I made it halfway across the room to the beverage cart before she could respond.

To cover my transgression, I returned with two steaming cups of Colombian nectar. Sheila's serving fixed precisely as she liked it, black with a splash of cream and a dash of sugar. Sometimes it's easier to obtain forgiveness than it is to gain permission.

"Careful. Payback's a bitch," the commander murmured with a half-smile and a roguish wink as she accepted my South American peace offering. I attributed her spirited behavior to pre-mission jitters. She was entirely in tune with the antsy and excited mood in the room; I felt the same way, an urge to be moving.

Obsessive attention to detail was one of my boss's annoying pain in the ass leadership qualities. The devil lives in the details, and she had me chasing demons and termites in the woodwork for two weeks as we worked the kinks out of the operational details for the Sisterhood's supply excursion.

"I assume you've all had an opportunity to memorize your group's itinerary and route." The chief held her thumb up and scanned the faces of the assembled teams for confirmation. A sea of nodding heads and a forest of rising thumbs replied in the affirmative.

"Excellent, class! Practice makes perfect; let's do one more review. We don't want another Colfax cluster-fuck." Sheila changed her voice from slightly alto to a nasal falsetto as she mimicked a grade-school teacher from Hell.

The Colfax Avenue Debacle, as I found out later, was a legendary fuck-up of epic proportions. Several years after the founding of the colony, a "secret" resupply mission landed on the front pages of the Denver Post.

Divine intervention from the Airbag Gods prevented any serious injury when a wrong turn down a one-way street put the convoy on a collision course with the Denver Fire Department. The hook-and-ladder truck's steel and chrome bumper sustained minor damage while the Sisterhood's SUV sat crumpled in the middle of the street like a wad of discarded aluminum foil. Thank God for seatbelts.

I stifled a groan and pulled out my notepad and prepared to take notes. Not so much as a record of events but as reminders of anything added to my to-do list. I preferred pencil and paper to my laptop. The battery on my writing stick never ran out. I, on the other hand, needed a caffeine charge. Five o'clock is too bloody early; I would rather my mornings to start closer to noon.

The schedule called for each of our four groups to hit one pick-up point after another until we completed our assigned shopping lists. In addition to explosives and other survival items, each four-person unit would buy as many .223 rounds as they could get our hands on along with at least eight AR-15s.

Sheila adjusted her paperwork and called the roll. "Belinda, you are the head of the Alpha contingent, and you'll be hauling a half-ton of gear and three thousand pounds of ammonium nitrate."

The chief clicked the remote control at the giant television mounted on the side wall of the meeting room and transformed the view of shadowy mountains outlined against the star-studded sky into a MapQuest travel route resembling an exploding chrysanthemum blossom.

A Dodge dealer on the outskirts of Golden, Colorado would be the next to last stop for Belinda's squad where three of her team would purchase a trio of heavy-duty four-by-four pickups. The newly acquired transports would be loaded with as much fuel as they could carry before returning independently to home base.

The lace curtains framing the ninety by fifty-one-inch ultra-high definition image enhanced the illusion of an outward-looking window with a stunningly vivid panorama of the valley and the western Rockies. Virtual-windows were one of the original ideas the Sisterhood dreamed up during a brainstorming session on security. Strategically placed on barren surfaces in common areas within the cabin, the video feeds did double duty by providing both scenery and a glimpse of the world beyond our shelter's walls.

"Darlene, you'll be heading up Bravo company, and your primary load will be a thousand pounds of black powder and a ton of Tannerite. Drive carefully," Sheila noted as she switched to Bravo's route.

Like Belinda's group, Darlene's vehicle ended its run with a hat-trick at the last stop, a Toyota dealership located a few miles to the northeast of Denver.

Instead of a rabbit, they would be pulling three electric hybrid trucks out their hat. The new purchases would be cram packed with cargos of high-efficiency solar cells which could be mixed and matched to construct a wide array of sun-powered devices to provide electricity and recharge our squadron of drones while working in the field.

Ruthlessly efficient, the leader’s policy required hazardous cargos of bomb material to return home under the command of one driver. Losses would be limited in the event something went wrong, as in a smoking crater and the thundering echo of cargo gone bad.

Charlie Team had the most straightforward run with only a single stop to load three-thousand pounds of sheet metal, tools, and supplies for our blacksmiths and metallurgy workers.

"Wonderful! One last thing before we head out. At the suggestion of my assistant," Sheila pointed toward me, "I'm going to amend our objectives to make this a tactical training exercise. Think of it as a scavenger hunt. The first to complete their goals and check in at the rally point wins." She flicked her control, and a gold star appeared at the indicated reunion point.

"Thanks. Make me the heavy," I muttered as I cringed in my seat.

"What'll we get if we come in first?" Brenda, the Quartermaster, asked with a lecherous smirk.

"Pay to play!" laughed Martha as she danced and seductively wriggled her hips from side to side.

"It will be a delight to win." Martha slapped her rear end and giggled as she challenged Sheila to a hip bump.

"I'll take that as a motion. So moved. We have a proposal on the floor. Losing crews must pleasure the victors in any way they desire. Is there a second?" Sheila asked with a wicked and sultry smirk.

"Second!" Shouted Jennifer with a provocative laugh. The Princess of Pheromones rubbed her crotch and licked her lips as she smiled and we locked eyes.

"Third," the frisky Frost Queen gleefully yelped before bursting into laughter.

"Discussion?" The colony's director invited the expedition members to weigh in. Barking spiders and snoring crickets answered her call. "Hearing none, all those in favor say 'aye.'"

I turned in my seat, and Sheila held her finger to her lips. "Shhh, not your vote," she whispered.

"Fabulous," I grumbled as I slumped in my chair.

A group orgy? I was getting too old for this shit.

The frosty summits of mountains on the western horizon glowed with the reflected glory of the eastern sunrise as our convey emerged from the darkened tunnel into the twilight of dawn. We were on our way.

The morning mist lay across the meadow like a sleeping cloud. To the right and left, the three other vehicles followed exit protocol and fanned out across the canyon's floor to minimize damage to the grasslands by not to riding in another truck's path.

"Are you two looking forward to getting back to town?" Sheila took her eyes off the pathway to glance at Darlene who sat behind my seat in the crew cabin.

"Fuck yeah! I'm going to score some sexy panties and naughty nighties," my lady love laughed as she playfully kicked the back of my seat.

"How about you, Sky? Are you looking forward to civilization?" My boss's eyes narrowed as she searched my face for the answer.

Sheila was so proficient at reading body language she could've made a living as a human lie-detector. Talking to her was like playing poker with the cards face up. To my left, I noticed Seraina had shifted in her seat and was paying close attention to the questioning byplay between the colony's leader and me. Since our time pretending to be Eskimos in the snake cave, my wilderness love had become a bit possessive, like she didn't want me to leave the hive.

"Am I looking forward to going back? No, not really. There's nothing there for me. Liberty Mountain is my home and family." I smiled and rested my back against the cab's door.

"What're you worried about?" Sheila ignored my words and tight grin and read the concern in my eyes. If the balloon ever goes up and the world turns to crap, invisibility was the Sisterhood's best chance to stay alive. Every foray into town left a trail of breadcrumbs.

"Nothing's wrong," I responded with a guilty shrug. I felt silly fretting about something which probably would never happen. I doubted humanity would be foolish enough to dive into the abyss. Then again, given the current state of world affairs, who the fuck knew?

By the time we broke from the treeline, the last clouds had vanished, and the sun ruled the sky, a blazing orb in an impossibly blue heaven.

"How about a pit stop? I gotta tinkle," Seraina declared two hours into our journey to the approval of Darlene who shared more information than necessary when she announced, "I gotta poop as well as take a wiz."

"Me, too." My boss leaned forward and peered through the windshield for a safe place to stop.

The power of suggestion worked its magic, where ten seconds ago I didn't need to go, I now needed to piss like a racehorse.

The thin crest of granite along the saddleback ridge along which we traveled wasn't much wider than our vehicle. Too steep and treacherous for travel, the fifteen-hundred-foot drop descended into narrow canyons on each side of the trail. As far as I could see, mountains marched northward; the rocky wreckage left over from the collision of the North American and Pacific continental plates.

"We'll rest here," Sheila said as she stopped the truck and shifted from drive into park as she set the emergency brake and tapped out a shortcode with the stop lights. Three long, one short, followed by three long flashes, the signal to relax and hold in place. A quarter-mile behind us, Brenda's headlights answered in reverse, one short and three long blinks of acknowledgment. Message received.

The ladies scrambled to the driver's side to do their business while I strolled over to the edge of the cliff on my side and pissed into thin air. The wind twisted my golden stream into a yellowish mist before it could reach the bottom.

"Let's see what the kitchen team dreamed up for our meals-on-wheels," the commander said as she lifted the one-gallon thermos jug from the tool compartment at the back of the transport.

A puff of fragrant steam danced in the breeze as our leader released the catch and rotated the lid. The prize of the pantry turned out to be a gallon of hot, gravy-thick stew topped with plump dumplings and packed with cubes of rich, succulent venison seasoned in a blend of traditional spices and wild and flavorful plants.

The Zen of Excellence guided almost every undertaking of the Sisterhood. Chores were opportunities to shine rather than drudgery. Computer-generated to-do lists were both random and democratic. In addition to our assigned jobs, we were also expected to give at least thirty minutes a day doing the shit no one wanted to do.

The quest to excel was hard-wired into the culture of the colony. Like everyone else, Sheila took her turn mucking out the stables, mopping hallways, tending crops, or doing any of the scores of household routines which kept the community running smoothly. Rank was a measure of responsibility and had nothing to do with privilege. Do the best you can in whatever you do. No more. No less. The code was contagious. Despite myself, I kept trying to find ways to be a better assistant and a better man.

Two minutes after high noon, our convoy arrived at the rally point located a few hundred feet off the State Highway.

"Gather around." Sheila held her arms wide, and we joined her in a group huddle which gradually compressed into a group hug. "One last reminder, for the sake of us all, don't get involved with the cops. No fucking traffic stops."

Sheila took a deep breath before continuing. "While everything we're doing will be on the sunshine side of the law, the hardware we're carrying is bound to attract attention. A group of women driving a truckload of weapons, ammo, and explosives is WTF moment. Yah think?"

The commander scanned the eyes huddled around her. "Sisters, we live in paranoid times, if you see something say something. Legal or not, we will freak them the fuck out," she paused. "Homeland Security will be our new best friends for life," as she snarled and scratched the air like an angry lioness.

I choked back a snicker as my boss mimicked her favorite Walt Disney character from the Lion King. It was a Hello Kitty connection. People attach themselves to the weirdest shit. There is no accounting for taste.

Two hours and thirty minutes later Sheila was distracted by the GPS display, and she missed the tail end of the yellow traffic light. We sailed past a waiting state patrol car and through the red light at the intersection of East Colfax Avenue and Colorado Boulevard. Barely a heartbeat passed before the glare of flashing blue light filled the rearview mirror to the wailing shriek of police sirens.

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