The meeting with Armando Hezon had just started and although the news from Armando was good, Shane Weaver still felt very uneasy about the news.  Shane was already a busy man and now he would have to assemble his army along with geologists, engineers, roughnecks and the materials needed to go after the oil.  As the leader of the New Mexico Survivors Group, it was his job to protect the people and still supply the resources they needed and oil was one of the most important resources.  He turned to Armando and asked “How long will it take to get an oil crew together with all the materials?”  “Four months” came the reply.  “Four months” Shane mused.  That was quite a long time to keep this operation discreet he thought.  “Get after it” he said to Armando.

As Armando left, Shane sat back in his chair and thought back to the days when he didn’t have to worry about any of this.  It seemed to be forever, but in reality, it was only just under two years.  Yep, November 2016 was only a year and eleven months ago.  That was when the second American Revolution began.  It lasted just over a year but the loss of millions of Americans and the destruction was the worst part of it all and now there was the fighting between survivor groups for resources.  There was very little oil to be had since the oil fields in Texas and Oklahoma had been destroyed and turned into contaminated waste lands.  Could he keep this new oil development a secret during the months to come? Over the next few months, Shane would have to discretely begin to assemble his army with his biggest concern being that if another group discovered his plans, a war for the oil could break out.

Zachary Woodrow had never liked Shane.  They were always fighting as kids with Zach losing most of the fights.  They never really got along.  Finally, Zach had his chance to set the score straight with Shane.  Zach had been secretly sending information to James Morlin’s Texas Free Group in Eastern Texas about all the activities of the NMSG and now the new find of oil should be enough to bring Shane down if James did what Zach hoped he would do.  It took a few weeks for Zach to arrive at Morlin’s headquarters in East Texas from the NMSG headquarters in North Western New Mexico.  He felt it was time to leave the NMSG permanently and decided to take this information to James personally.

As leader of the Texas Free Group, James Morlin had his own problems and most were similar to those of Shane Weaver.  He also had to protect his people and also make sure they had the resources they needed to survive.  After a brief meeting with Zach, James quickly called a meeting of his top staff and invited Berry Silva, a well known geologist, to attend.  The meeting lasted several hours.  Tomorrow, James would have to send out his own geologists to the mountains of South Eastern New Mexico to see if this was true.  Shane also instructed Tom, his brother and second in command of the TFG to begin assembling an army that could take and hold the oil field in New Mexico and told Berry to have his people start gathering the equipment and men to get the oil.