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walls.
    Two of the units were set up as dorms, each with a kitchen. One for men and one for women, for those single persons that were part of the MAG. The rest were single family housing units. The commercial power line was installed, and service lines connected to all the buildings.
    Brady had substantially more housing availability than he did members of the MAG, but had wanted the extra for the probable late joiners he fully expected when things became really bad.
    They certainly weren’t bad that late winter of 2008. The Summer Olympic Games had gone off without a hitch and China was the new darling boy on the block. The Chinese leadership had calmed down North Korea and supposedly put a stop to their nuclear weapons arsenal acquisitions. They had also backed off their rhetoric about Taiwan.
    Even the Middle East was in cooperative mood, with half a dozen different peace talks going on among the various Arab/Muslim countries and Israel. The US’s only presence in Iraq now was their new embassy compound. The Sunni – Shi’ite internecine warfare was being kept low key. Gold prices began to drop, as did oil prices.
    Brady lost another major investor and three minor ones. He bought out their equity and began looking for more people, concentrating on the local population. He didn’t find any. People were saying a true peace across the globe was in the works. Of course, that didn’t affect natural disasters. But even those had slowed down, the planet seeming to be in a resting state. At least that was the way Brady saw it. And he didn’t trust the final World Peace talk. He continued his personal preps.
    It continued that way into 2010, then, as they say, balloons started going up all over. Heavy blizzard from Montana, North Dakota, and the UP of Michigan all the way down into Iowa, Nebraska, and Wyoming.
    The Yellowstone Caldera began acting up. Mt. Vesuvius had a major eruption. China and Russia cancelled a scheduled joint military exercise, with harsh words for each other. Two of the new Republics went communist again. North Korea did another nuke test and a long range missile test within days of each other. China marshaled forces on the coast opposite Taiwan, when Taiwan began talking about an independence initiative. California had yet another major earthquake.
    Oil prices jumped. Gold prices jumped. Former members of the MAG jumped to get back in. Brady let them, at full price, cash on the barrelhead. Two more of his ex-employees joined the MAG as minor investors. Three of the employees of the various contractors that had worked on the site joined. One as a major investor, two as minor.
    Another local farmer, retired, wanted in. He and his family were welcomed. They would be the MAG greenhouse supervisors, as well as take care of the farm animal population when the animals were purchased. Brady had wanted some on-site production in addition to the agreement with the other farmer. Other members of the MAG would help.
    Brady brought in another concrete contractor and added five-foot-high, two-foot-thick, crenellated parapet walls on top of the existing walls and buildings that comprised the compound building perimeter. The place suddenly took on the look of a rather short castle. But it was finished.
    After contacting everyone in the MAG, they arranged a test run, with all but two people able to schedule a trip to the site. Both of those people had been there during the building process and knew the way.
    The final purchases that Brady had made came in well before the first day of the test run. It was the community vehicles and equipment for gardening and maintenance. With the equipment on hand the contractors that were part of the MAG made the final connections of the tunnels to the various buildings. And exterior entrances were made for the ‘water tank’ blast shelter to use instead of the original access hatches.
    Brady welcomed everyone and gave a tour of the place as people began arriving the first day of the