The apocalypse came suddenly, as apocalypses usually do, but there were those who said it’d been a long time growing. Growing was the right word for it, although the religious extremists and radical survivalists didn’t know it. They spoke of the arrogance of scientists and multibillion dollar conglomerates, the evils of cloning and stem cell research, the greed of politicians and CEOs. They prophesied doom at the turn of the new millennium and again in 2012. But binary code and ancient Mayan calendars had nothing to do with the end of the world when it came in 2036. And none of them had ever heard of the experiments taking place deep underground, where thousands of human clones slept in suspended animation, walking, breathing delivery systems for the deadliest chemical weapons ever developed. Everyone knew bioengineering was the new frontier. No one knew it would be the last.
Dawn Taylor counted her stock of canned food one more time, somehow hoping the first three counts had been mistakes. “Two hundred and four,” she finished. Nope, not a mistake. She sighed. Three people, each eating two cans a day, that gave them . . . thirty-four days. Just over a month. The weavelly flour and rice would give out before that. They needed to cut back their rations, but how could they continue to forage for supplies if they were weak from hunger?
More needed to be done. Nickey was working feverishly on ways to clean up the water. He’d found a more or less intact chemistry set on one of his foraging missions and spent most of his days muttering over it, testing various compounds on water from their pond. Maybe she could use her prewar hobby to help with the food shortage. She’d never tried to garden in ground covered with ash and most likely filled with dangerous biochemical residue, but maybe she could find a way to protect the plants. She knew a bit about chemistry herself, after all.
“Where can we find more chemistry supplies,” she asked David as he walked past her with a book in hand. He thought for a minute. “The old military base probably has all kinds of useful supplies. If we can get in and if it isn’t infested with Zs and if we don’t run into any looters.”
