Amber by Dan-Dwayne Spencer (e book reader .TXT) 📕

can do is provide you with nourishment for your trip. Let me show you our community kitchen. Frankly, you all look hungry now.” She headed in the opposite direction of the clinic. “It will also allow me to inform Arland of the rules.”

Frowning, I strolled beside her, “Rules? I thought hippies all believed in anarchy—life without rules.”

“Some may,” Flower said, “But, because we made them to suit us, here we abide by these rules. Perfect rules for a perfect community. We have rejected the outside rules and the imperfect system they ironically consider a society. For us, the rules outside the commune do not apply here.”

Roger’s excitement escalated to exuberance. “Do those rules have anything to do with drugs?”

Flower smiled, “Now you’re trying to get attention by spouting off about something you think I disapprove of.” She looked into Roger’s eyes and told him. “I see you, Roger Reynolds, There’s no need to demand to be seen. You are not invisible here.”

Roger’s grin stretched from ear to ear. “I guess it’s a habit. I’ve been invisible for so long it will take time to readjust…I mean I would if I were staying.”

“I want to meet this genius person who’s so smart,” I said.

“If you want, I’ll introduce you.” She replied. “He’s kinda reclusive.” Her expression immediately changed; she looked as if a light went on in her head. “You’ve already met him. I saw him help you up after you fell. He’s older and has a gray ponytail; anyway, as you may already know, he’s the one who set up the electrical system using solar power.”

The eastern treehouse was a mirror image of the western treehouse. As we climbed the stairs around the oak trunk, I glanced up at Flower. “I thought Stoney set the system up.”

“Stoney oversaw the installation of the system. We are a commune. We work together and share ideas, as well as, the labor to see it through. Together we share the rewards of both.” She gave me one of her sunshine-filled smiles. “Each to our own gifts and the effort of the whole.”

There was her mysterious choice of words again. I suspected Flower had more secrets she wasn’t sharing.

At the top of the stairs, where the clinic sat in the western treehouse, the room had been turned into a stainless-steel kitchen. I assumed its creation to be more of the enigmatic professor’s doing. Everyone dove into one of two refrigerators full of vegetables. Rose took large slices of cucumber and made sandwiches with it. Surprisingly, even Roger thought they were not bad. He admitted he could get used to being a vegetarian if all the veggie sandwiches were as good.

While they raided the refrigerator. Flower came and stood by me as I looked out of the window. From the high vantage point, I could see out into a field adjacent to the huts and trailers. Little blue lights flashed amidst a glittering barrage of yellow lightning bugs. For every blue flash, a multitude of yellow twinkles answered in return. Like an ocean of Lilliputian stars poured straight from the heart of the Milky Way, they glimmered in the dark night.

I said, “All this electronic machinery here and in the clinic can’t be operated from car batteries. There’s got to be more to it.”

“The pole lights run on the car batteries. All the rest of the commune’s electrical power comes from a series of very large nickel-iron cell rechargeable batteries housed in huts behind the treehouses. It’s pretty complicated and I don’t actually understand how it works, but I’ve been told it was invented by the guy I mentioned earlier, Thomas Edison. What a gift he had.” She sighed in awe.

I gazed out of the window. “The blue lights out in the field, they don’t move. What are they?”

She said, “Oh, we attach those blue lights to our photovoltaic collectors. As long as the lights flash, we know the panel is operating correctly.”

“Why would you need to know if they were working correctly when it’s dark out?” I replied.

No sooner had the words came out of my mouth, I noticed darkness from several places where blue lights had been flashing. Flower gasped, “Oh, no. It’s happening again. I’ve got to alert the others. We’re under attack.”

Chapter Nine

Sheriff Briggs

It was Rose who reacted first. She ran out the door and along the decking to a metal box mounted on a pole. Flinging it open, she pressed a concealed button inside. An earsplitting alarm sounded. People raced into the Roundhouse. Flower addressed them from the staircase. “They are destroying the photovoltaic collectors in the field.”

All the residents rushed out to the eastern field, flashlights in hand. We boys followed.

Everyone approached the collectors cautiously. We tried not to make any excess noises as we walked side by side between the primitive solar panels. At the far end, someone had smashed a dozen of the black boxes into pieces. Raw splinters protruded from the inside of Photovoltaic panels. They also broke the 2x4 boards making up the frame, shattered as a child might tear into a paper bag.

I heard a man’s voice call out, “This took a lot of strength to break those planks into two pieces like this.”

Farther to the east, a fire blazed up in a field. Stoney’s unmistakable voice rang out, “They have set the cornfield on fire. Get the sandbags and water buckets.” The hippies ran toward the field, all but Stoney, who ran toward the river. “I’ll unroll the hose and prime the pump,” he cried.

With the entire population of the commune fighting the fire, I heard more popping and cracking coming from the field behind us. There in the flickering light of the blazing field, I could see a half dozen young men, vandals with sledgehammers destroying more photovoltaic collectors. They were