Chapter 5:

[Nick Ryder]

"Wait... you were in DC?" Nick raised an eyebrow. "How bad is it? I mean... it's still sort of the seat of the government, our country's archives..."

[Rebecca Talon]

"All went to shit," Rebecca said with dismay. "Just like every other damn place we've been too. The White House burned, the Capital Building and Smithsonian vandalized, and the Pentagon abandoned. They set up a refugee camp, all that did was bring disease. First cholera, and then the plague. Those that didn't die from a disease or starvation either left the city or joined one of the survivor gangs. Several of those gangs feast on human flesh. Not much left alive in the city. Pigeons, dogs, cats, rats... people. You name it have ended up in the cook pots."

[Nick Ryder]

"What a mess." Nick shook his head. "One of Julie and my mutual friends that made it out in the early days, the one that delivered her fuck off and die message... she was saying it was bedlam, but sounds like it got a whole lot worse. We're going to need to figure out how to adapt and fast. Figure out the new rules of the world, of science... we can't even get steam generators to work."

[Rebecca Talon]

"Nick we don't need to reinvent the wheel here. Everything we need to know to survive is out there. We have to adapt, and we have to teach ourselves to survive again without modern conveniences."

[Nick Ryder]

"I spent two weeks trying to get an old steam powered submarine working... water cell batteries for electricity, which was always my go to trick, chemical batteries, as low tech as you can get... " Nick ran his hand through his hair. "Nada."

[Rebecca Talon]

Rebecca grinned, "Every day at noon we fire... well, we try to fire one round from an M-16 off the deck of the Constitution. It's beome a bit of a tradition. Every day, the same story. The bullet plops out the end of the barrel and drops harmlessly to the deck. I think the sooner we accept the current situation the better off we'll be."