Brian's accidental death barely caused a ripple. Everything at the base went on as usual.
Blackberry Ranch Library.
Every morning, Jim organized books, wiped away dust, sorted them, and assigned catalog numbers. In the afternoons, he taught the children there.
That day, in a backpack recently brought back by a search team, he found a USB drive sealed tightly inside a waterproof pouch.
With no real expectations, Jim plugged it into the old computer in the library used for cataloging books.
The screen lit up, and the file directory opened.
Jim's breath caught.
Among a pile of family photos and personal files, one folder was clearly labeled "Hydropower System Maintenance and Troubleshooting V2.1."
His fingers trembling, he clicked it open. Inside were detailed PDF documents, structural breakdown diagrams, flowcharts for common troubleshooting procedures, and even several video files explaining how to disassemble and install key components.
Jim immediately realized how valuable the material was. He practically ran to find Elena, who was checking the area around Black Bear Creek.
"Professor Elena!" Jim was no young man, and after running so fast, his voice trembled with excitement.
He turned the laptop screen toward her. "Look! I found this!"
Elena's eyes lit up the moment she saw the directory.
She grabbed the computer and quickly skimmed through the contents, muttering to herself.
"Lubrication standards for turbine bearings, calibration of the guide vane adjustment mechanism, dynamic balancing of the generator rotor...
My God! This is incredibly detailed! It's far more systematic and complete than the scattered manuals we found before!"
She looked up, unable to hide her excitement. "This material is priceless for the construction of the Blackberry Ranch Phase II hydroelectric power station, especially for future maintenance and troubleshooting!
Jim, you've made a huge contribution. I'll report this to Calista right away."
After receiving the news over the radio, Calista immediately said to Elena, "Organize your team at once. Prioritize studying and absorbing this knowledge.
Make sure that when construction begins in spring, you can apply these theories in practice."
Then she instructed Ellie beside her,
"Record this. Jim discovered key technical materials. Count it as a major contribution and award the corresponding credits.
This proves once again why we needed to establish a library.
Ellie, further improve the library's management and lending system. Open it to all residents and encourage everyone to learn, especially practical skills of all kinds.
Set up a simple registration process to make sure materials aren't damaged or lost."
Jim was so excited he did not know what to say. He had never expected that burying himself in piles of papers could produce such direct results.
Encouraged, Jim poured even more enthusiasm into his classes.
He also began studying the books in the library himself. He no longer limited his lessons to survival biology, but started incorporating more basic knowledge related to rebuilding civilization.
Jim's students were still mainly children like Duane, Little Jimmy, and Alan, but a few new faces had begun appearing here and there: two female workers, and a young guard who was interested in machinery but lacked the basics.
On a slightly larger wooden board, Jim wrote simple arithmetic problems and common words with a chalk pencil.
"Today, let's calculate something," he said gently. "Suppose our search team brings back fifty pounds of corn, and the base currently has two hundred people. If we divide it evenly, how much does each person get?"
"Now let's think a little further," Jim continued guiding them. "If we give combat personnel and manual laborers ten percent more first, then divide the rest equally, how should we calculate that? This affects everyone's rations, so it's very important."
He also began teaching them how to read key instructions, such as "diesel generator operating precautions," "growth cycles of common vegetables," and "basic wound treatment steps."
Jim told everyone, "Being able to understand these instructions might save your life, or a companion's life, at a critical moment. It can also help us make better use of the tools and equipment we find."
The classroom was still crude, and the lessons still revolved around survival, but driven by the most basic needs, knowledge had become precious again.
Meanwhile, as the search teams recently brought back more fuel, the weapons repair workshop also restarted, and another form of turning knowledge into practical use was underway.
The mechanically skilled people in the base each had their own responsibilities, including maintaining the base's vehicles, existing equipment, and several aircraft. Only John, the newcomer, had not been assigned a task, so Ancheta pulled him in.
Under Ancheta's guidance, John began trying to replicate weapon parts.
Several badly worn or damaged firearms were spread across the workbench. Missing a few small but crucial parts, they had been reduced to scrap metal.
The base currently had no precision machine tools and no suitable steel.
"We can't think in terms of making exact copies," Ancheta said to John, pointing at the drawings. "We have to find ways to use what we already have to achieve a similar function.
Look at these scrapped car parts, and those broken machines we found earlier..."
John studied them carefully. He picked up a spring removed from an old typewriter, then took a hardened bicycle spoke and measured it by eye.
"Maybe we can use a file and a grindstone to shape the spoke into something close to a firing pin. It definitely won't last as long as the original, but it might work in an emergency..."
The only tools he had were a rough file, a hammer, a vise, and a small hand-operated drill press.
Wasting materials was normal.
But through repeated failures, John gradually figured out a few crude methods: using different quenching techniques to change the hardness of ordinary steel rods, and using discarded bearing balls as substitutes.
The success rate was still pitifully low. Out of ten attempts, one might not even succeed.
But when John finally installed a carefully filed and heat-treated bicycle spoke into a pistol that had long been jammed, then watched it successfully complete a dry-fire test, both Ancheta and John let out a breath of relief.
Ancheta picked up the crude but effective "knockoff" firing pin and examined it carefully. A rare hint of approval appeared on his face.
"You've got the right idea. Keep going."
John wiped the sweat and grease from his forehead and nodded hard.
As Calista inspected the base, she saw Jim bent over his work in the Blackberry Ranch Library, heard the children reading in the corner of the hall, and then passed by the Rock Fortress weapons workshop, where Ancheta and John were focused on their work. It only strengthened her earlier belief.
Collecting and preserving the embers of civilization was not just sentimental. It was a powerful survival resource in its own right, an invisible force that could be transformed into food, energy, weapons, and order.
Calista had Ellie speed up improvements to the library system, and even began considering a more systematic skills training mechanism for the future, once conditions allowed.
...
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