User:Utsler

From the Log Books of Joseph Utsler

 I had spent the last twelve years prior to the outbreak working for the Burden Road Fire Dept in Osmondville. 
 In that time I had moved steadily up the ranks to the post of Battalion Chief, overseeing the training of CTs. 
 Command Technicians are trained in communications and organizational skills. This is a person who must be able to take in information and organize it, as well as, present it to command in a way that makes sense. 
 Think of the old war movies. Is the officer making the decisions, the actual person who is carrying, and talking on, the radio? Is the commander the one getting information about units and drawing on a board? No. The radio operator, even in a small unit like a platoon, relays information to, or from, the officer. 
 The fire service works much the same way, but now I'm letting slip a hint of my personal obsession with WWII era communications technology. 
 At age 18, frustrated with being stuck in a small town squandering (as i saw it) my potential, I began an attempt to build an exact replica of the German Enigma encryption machine. 
 While this endeavor was doomed to eventual failure, the project incited in me a love of the the complex simplicity of shortwave and long range communication. 
 I had a family in the F.D. I had friends and students, we were Volunteer Heroes, and we rejoiced in the damp, sooty aftermath as a band of brothers after victorious battle. 

 And then the board lit up... Initially it was traffic accidents, a rash of them spreading from the SW corner of the Axtence Bldg, to the north. Then structure fire alerts at both factories and warehouses to the south. 
 System glitch was the general consensus as we pulled out of the station, but before we made scene at the first alarm we were traffic jammed by a mob of people abandoning their cars and fleeing to the East. 
 By that time the channels were flooded with backup requests and reassignment BCs, police requested on scene at Axtence Bldg for apparent "Riot" control. 
 We were the type of men who were used to running into the danger that others fled, so we grabbed what gear we could carry, axes, prybars and oxygen tanks and proceeded West on foot. 
 The next few hours are a horrific blur, one that there is no need to describe to you, if your alive to read this then you have survived the same nightmare. 
 I lost many friends that day and in the ones to follow, learning the rules of this new war we wage is a difficult burden to carry. 
 Suffice to say, that even though the F.D. Turn-Out Gear is made of Nomex and Kevlar I found nightfall in an abandoned cinema with an extremely injured last surviving team member, near dawn he turned, and I gave him the only peace left to those with that awful taint.  
 Staggered by the scene at sunrise I immediately began the trek first back to the station for our radio transmitter and then to my home, which was in shambles. 
 I scavenged some radio repair parts and log books and turned my back on a home that I now regretted ever resenting. 
 Many days I scouted ruined buildings, hastily barricading and sleeping facing the cades with my axe at hand, many nights they came, bastards must have smelled me, so I scrambled out fire escapes and across the eves of derelict businesses. 
 Then I met Sheldon Cooper PhD, self proclaimed, I've seen the books he carries, Human anatomy 101, General Practitioners Handbook and a Pharmaceutical Reference Dictionary. I don't raz him though because its obvious to me he has all but memorized them in the weeks since Z-Day. 
 Finally together we scavenge enough fuel to power a battered generator and hook up our Transmitter, oh those days of static drive us to the brink, my obsessively repetitive broadcasts of "Maintaining Radio Resistance" and "You Are Not Alone" about drove our poor doctor to the brink, but then, 
 "The static hisses to a clear silence". 
 Glorious clarity! Scrambled transmissions, but I make out "Brockliss Grove", and "Reclaimers". 
 Knowing that Sheldon had not yet regained enough strength for a rooftop clamber that far, I left him well caded and stocked with Faks to guard the radio transmitter and recover from his wounds. 
 Upon arrival, I met a couple of rough looking but quite alive survivors by the names Norbert Nighthawk and Snorfish actively working to restore a simulacrum of normality, Brockliss pd and Remigius hosp were back online. 
 I immediately alerted Sheldon of the situation by radio, he then made his way to Remigius and instituted himself as Chief of Surgery. (by far the most qualified medical personnel left in this hell hole) and we were soon joined by an elite group of folks just like ourselves. 

We cower no more. We no longer fear the sounds in the night. Now we strike back at the tide of nightmare that dares to wear the faces of our fallen friends and family.

We are the Reclaimers, and you are not alone!

Maintaining Radio Resistance -Utsler @ Overwatch