John Wallace was very well off, and had been well connected before the disaster. He and his fraternal twin sister had inherited a small fortune, when their parents had been killed in an accident. The result was that the two were taken into the home of a relative, and educated by their trust fund. The relative drew a huge salary as director for the trust, and as provider for the children's well being.
When they had graduated from school at the age of twenty-three, both were given the remains of the education trusts, as per instructions, only to find most of the ten million had been eaten in "fees" that their uncle had placed against the money, as director of the trust.
While the twins were in school, all tuition and fees had been paid, and they had been given a liberal monthly stipend of 3000 a month. But the director of the trust drew a salary of one million a year, per child, for a total of two million dollars a year out of the education trust!
When the two graduated, there was practically no money left. The uncle had been ingenious with his creative billing of the trust fund. John had tried to tell his sister what their uncle was doing, but she was either blind to it, or chose not to believe her brother. At twenty-five they had both inherited the bulk of their parent's estate, which was almost one hundred twenty-five million per child.
John took his and left, since he and his sister had grown so far apart during college. Their uncle had driven a wedge into their lives that seemed impossible to overcome.
Their two lifestyles had become totally different. He lived in the dorm, which the trust paid for. She chose to live in a ritzy apartment, that the fund only partially covered. He ate most of his meals in the student cafeteria, and went off campus only occasionally. She lived the high life. She bought a flashy new car every year. He drove a secondhand used car. He invested and saved most of his three thousand a month. She spent hers, and was broke towards the end of every month. He took a part time job to make extra money. She thought that was crazy.
She was very liberal in everything she did, while he was thoughtful and mostly conservative. He liked neither the Republican party, nor the Democratic party. He was firmly in the camp of the 'third party' people.
While it might not be the thing to do within his peer group, he believed that nether party was actually serving the voters interest. There was too much 'back room dealing'; and 'special interest money' was being eaten much too enthusiastically, by both parties. All this, while they both were telling voters, "We are not concerned with these special interest people, we are YOUR man." Riiiiight. And man walks on water without God's aid.
John excelled at all his business classes, which was his major. He got his regular math courses out of the way, and went in for business accounting. He finished college with a three point eight grade point average.
By the time he had graduated, he had over half a million in his own investments. The more he invested, the more he made. It seemed that he had the 'golden touch'. Occasionally, he took a loss, but those were rare.
He had made contacts, and joined several political clubs while in college. He maintained those contacts after graduation. He was always looking to increase his sphere of influence. He worked six days a week. Five were spent investing, and Saturday was spent researching new prospects. Buying was done Monday, from a list he compiled Saturday.
He worked part time as a consultant for an investment firm, who had heard of his "knack" for picking a 'sure thing'. They had quickly placed him in charge of their largest accounts. They actually wanted him full time, but part of his willingness to work for them, was that they allowed him his own hours.
In the first year at the firm, he brought in millions of profits for his customers. This translated into good profit for the company, bonuses for him, and good PR for everyone. His personal reputation was made.
His personal fortunes grew very quickly after that. He worked three days a week and was pulling in a quarter of a million in salary alone, not including bonuses, by the end of his second year.
The only bump in his meteoric rise was an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission, who could not believe that he was this lucky without some sort of 'insider' information.
He volunteered and took not one, but two separate lie detector tests. Both of which he passed easily. He answered questions, and opened his financial books willingly to the government. Their conclusion was he was extremely lucky and astute. No evidence of cheating was found.
When John reached his twenty-fifth birthday, he found himself in an attorney's office. It was the attorney who was acting as executor to his mother and father's will. This attorney was totally separate from the uncle that had finished raising John, and his sister, Tracy.
This was the man who would now release and sign over all assets of the family's fortune (a total of two hundred fifty two million and change, after taxes). This included cash, stocks, bonds, and properties that had been administered by the law firm. It was divided evenly between the siblings.
Tracy barely said anything to him, which made John sad. They had been so close until they went to live with their uncle. He knew the man was a con artist, but his sister was firmly in the uncle's camp, and would hear nothing bad about the man. John spent the next three years after that breaking the tie between his sister and uncle. He did succeed but it took time. The uncle had eaten far into his sister's portion of her inheritance by then.
Still, when the police came in and charged the uncle, his sister had been shocked. Her perfect world had collapsed around her ears. This often happens to people who don't live in the real world. While she still had the majority of her fortune left, the uncle had siphoned off an incredible amount before John's detectives were able to get enough on the man to have the authorities bring charges.
While he made a few overtures to his sister, she was now withdrawn, and he ached to see her suffering. He backed off and gave her space, hoping she would recover enough so they could restore the relationship they had previously enjoyed.
He knew it was going to take a long time for their relationship to recover. The uncle had manipulated, and almost brainwashed his sister. People had a tendency to believe, see, and hear what they want. Her worldview was now in turmoil. It would require time and patience to set it right.
In the meantime, he increased his fortune and influence by a much larger factor. Money was power. He supported independent candidates in elections, where he could. He was most active at the state and federal level.
He settled in South Carolina. It was a beautiful area. A river was close by, which ran beside his home. The view was beautiful. He deliberately chose a slightly elevated area, away from the cities and close to a water source. He developed his own power and water sources, and actually made money, selling electricity to the local power company.
He was a believer in the distinct possibility of a coming disaster. He built an underground shelter, able to withstand a 'near miss' nuclear air burst. Since he was far from any major city that would be a likely target, he doubted any missiles would be coming his way, for any reason other than being lost.
He made sure that he always had five years of supplies in his underground storage. There were also several ways to exit/enter the shelter, if any one particular egress was blocked or damaged for some reason.
He built the shelter a short distance away from the house he had built. While he would have to leave the house to gain access to his shelter, it was close enough that he could get to an entrance on foot, or by car.
Having built in such an isolated area to begin with, he spent the money to build a site further north into the hills. There he had a small hydroelectric dam built. It was completely automated, and rated to withstand earth quakes of 8.0 magnitude, as well as prolonged total submersion by flooding.
Both his home and the underground shelter were powered by this power plant. The shelter had two alternate power sources, and the house had a back up diesel generator that was 60MW and more than powerful enough to handle the requirements of his home... several homes, if it came to that. A three-month supply of diesel was stored in a neatly disguised fuel tank.
The shelter had a separate generator, fuel for a year, and if that failed, it had a series of large batteries of the type that was supplied to the Electric Boat (US Submarine manufacturing) company. He could power the shelter for some time on those, alone.
He spent millions upon millions having the shelter built, and equipped, and supplied. He constantly updated the electronics in the shelter. Everything within it was heavily shielded, to prevent EMP (electro magnetic pulse) damage. This is a by-product of a nuclear burst, and can easily wipe out all non-shielded electronics.
He planned for 'worst case' scenarios. The shelter was well able to filter out biohazards such as chemical and biological weapons-level agents. He also had liquid oxygen stores, and the ability to grow an algae that produced oxygen as a by-product. He had air scrubbers (chemical CO2 removers) installed. These took care of all foresee-able oxygen problems.
The shelter had been built to house and feed twenty people for five years. He doubted that he would have that many people in it with him when the time came, but it was better to plan for more than you really needed.
The years went by. Slowly his relationship with his sister re-grew, but it was still a bit rocky. His sister had produced two children, a boy and a girl. He himself had never married. All the women he had ever met were either brainless 'southern belle' types, or were money hunting, not man hunting. He firmly believed that while producing an heir was important, he wanted to marry for love, not just to generate a child for his legacy.
His home was built very sturdily and was also rated to withstand an 8.0 earthquake. He built it with materials that would last. The house, for its size, was a little over three and a half time more costly than a normal house would have been.
He believed in quality, and demanded the best everywhere he went. He gave his best, and expected it in return. Expenses were not spared with his construction projects.
He purchased a few military grade weapons, and put them in secure storage, in his shelter. He purchased a couple of exotic vehicles, from a manufacturer in Louisiana. The vehicles, called 'Guardians' were rated to withstand all light weapons and machine guns, up to and including a .50 cal. machine gun, and RPG's. They had the ability to be sealed and to operate in a contaminated environment. They were NOT 'available to the general public'.
One vehicle was placed in a separate storage facility located several miles from the shelter, while the other was placed in a specially constructed underground garage located adjacent to the underground shelter, and connected via tunnel.
No expense was spared in the planning and building, or supplying of his home, his shelter, or the hydro dam. He had lived through the cold war, and had seen first hand the horrors of the endless civil wars when a government broke down. He would be prepared.
To that end, he hired a small group of mercenaries, as guards for his home. They would be his security/strike force after they all emerged from the shelter. There were ten mercenaries, altogether. Two of these men acted as his bodyguards during his business trips. One was hired to fly his helicopter, which he used to commute back and forth between his home, and his office in Charleston.
He had tried to get his sister to consider survival in a disaster situation, but she just looked at him like he was crazy. She just knew America could solve the world's problems, and she threw herself and a lot of her personal wealth into bandaging the "third world's" knees.
He despaired ever getting her to see reality; but he knew she felt good doing things for other disadvantaged people. He gritted his teeth, smiled, and wrote her checks occasionally for this or that charity she was sponsoring. This made her happy, and improved their relationship a bit.
She was totally shocked and unprepared when the asteroid was spotted, and the earth responded by sending missiles and even a manned shuttle of some sort up to try to divert the largest chunks which had broken off from it. While the asteroid had its course changed, the resulting meteor strikes on the earth's surface had been devastating.
John moved quickly. He ordered a team to fetch his sister and her children. They knew her location, courtesy of his gift of a satellite phone that had built in tracker. He had decided it would be good to know her location at a moments notice.
It took the extraction team several days to get to her position, which was only a few hundred miles away, and fight their way back. Loss, none. His sister had railed at the high-handed kidnapping of herself, and her two children. She quieted and went silent as the news worsened, and the world changed.
It got really bad. While they were snug in his home, with the power flowing uninterruptedly and smoothly, the rest of the world's cities stopped transmitting one by one. Sometimes singly, sometimes in groups.
He had a watch kept on the river. It was finally rising. It leveled out a couple times, but then would start rising again, and again. He worried.
Finally, he decided that it was time to get into the shelter. They would ride out the rest of the storm and flood in safety.
He moved his family and guards from the house. They went the short distance to the nearest entrance, and entered, sealing the exit firmly behind them. It could no longer be opened from the outside. None of the outside doors would respond. They all locked, when he had entered and powered up the shelter to full operational status. This was for security purposes.
It had been a good decision as two access points close by were soon underwater, leaving only the third small personnel entrance/exit, which was located some 6,400 feet away and was at a slightly higher elevation. The shelter integrity was intact. Supplies were no problem, nor were sleeping arrangements.
He set the kids up in the entertainment room. There they set up a
'school computer', and watched movies or played games. He set tasks for
the entire group, to keep them busy. Everyone had a job. They were all
to learn how to operate every piece of equipment, and to know what
everything was for. They settled in for the long haul, since they could
no longer exit until the floodwaters receded.