From the Fire II Read Online Free PDF Page B

(e)XPERIMENTAL SUSTENANCE.
    (f)URNACE / (h)EATERS.
    (g)AS MASKS / (l)EAD SHEATHS / (e)NVIRONMENTAL SUITING.
    (g)ENERATORS / (f)LYWHEEL / (t)READMILL.
    (g)OVERNMENT / (e)NFORCEMENT / (p)OTENTIAL INTERFERENCE.
    (g)RAND TETON / (s)HOSHONE / (y)ELLOWSTONE.
    (h)OLOCAUST SCENARIO / (i)MPACT EVENT /(n)EMESIS THEORY.
    (h)UNTING / (f)ISHING / (g)ATHERING / (h)ERBALSM.
    (i)NFRASTRUCTURE / (s)YSTEMS TRIAGE.
    (l)IGHTS / (e)LECTRICITY / (g)RID PRIORITIES.
    (m)APS / (t)ERRAIN / (h)YDROLOGY.
    (m)EDICAL / (d)ETOXIFICATION / (f)AMILY HISTORY.
    (n)EWS / (f)ORUMS / (i)NTEL.
    (r)ADIATION / (b)IO / (c)HEM.
    (r)ADIO / (c)ODE LISTS / (i)DAHO.
    (r)ECLAIMERS / (s)UB-TANKS / (g)RATING SCHEMATIC.
    (r)EDUNDANCIES / (o)VERLOAD PROTOCOLS.
    (s)ALVAGE / (f)ACILITY PROXIMITY.
    (s)CENARIOS / (p)AN / (f)IRE / (f)LOOD / (l)OADOUTS.
    (s)CHEMATICS.
    (s)HELTER (OVERVIEW).
    (s)HELTER (PORTABLE).
    (s)UPPLIES.
    (t)ELEGRAPH / (m)ORSE / (e)LECTROMAGNETIC COILS.
    (t)ELEPHONE / (c)ONTACTS / (o)UTREACH (POTENTIAL).
    (t)OOLS / (r)ETOOLING.
    (v)ENTILATION / (a)IR COMPRESSION / (o)XYTRANS.
    (w)ASTE DISPOSAL / (g)LASS / (p)LASTICS / (r)ECYCLING PARAMETERS.
    (w)ATER / (f)ILTRATION / (w)ELLSPRING.
    And, at the rightmost end of the line of volumes standing upon the floor, the sole red binder:
    (w)EAPONRY / (m)ERCY …
    ~
    Tom’s voice arose within her mind, so pure in its reluctance to speak the words, it was as if he was just behind her and whispering into her ear: “God forbid if ever, the mercy.”
    So that’s what he always meant. Sophie sighed. Killing me, killing our daughter if it was hopeless. I have a lot of reading to do. And nothing I want to, nothing I can bear, nothing I can, I.
    Nothing …
    And what else, Sophie, if not reading? What else are you going to do?
    Again, the horror began to trickle in around the walls that she was still frantically reinforcing in her mind. She felt too much like a beast reduced to slinking on all fours from corner to corner, a fantastical monster reduced to an actuality beyond its own control, a mind-death coiled inside the stone and steel of the ever-constricting Cage.
    She stood up and turned away from the semicircle of binders, pacing. She left the work table. She was limping, she realized. Her right hip socket clicked every time she took a step.
    The spinning,
    the spinning is almost done.
    Girder to girder,
    she’s crawling upon the ceiling.
    If you look up, the feasting.
    And only then.
    It’s a game, Sophie.
    How long
    can you keep from looking
    at the ceiling, seeing
    the spider-skin of yourself
    shivering up there and gazing down at you?
    How long can you keep from seeing
    the smile of the feast?
    “I am alone.” She pounded the wall. “Alone!”
    Pacing would accomplish nothing. She went back to the binders.
    She read the spine titles again, and finally selected (h)OLOCAUST SCENARIO / (i)MPACT EVENT /(n)EMESIS THEORY. Hefting the binder and catching the few three-holed pages that had torn away and were trickling out of its bulky sheaf, she made her way back to the laundry pile and sat down. She surrounded herself with Tom’s jackets and jeans, tightened the bandages around her hands, and she began to read.
     
    * * * * *
     
    Hours, a newfound Thermos of water and a cup of spinach, a can opener and a food heater. It was strange how the world would fall away when she was reading, no matter how grim or daunting the tale set out before her. The only difference in Tom’s writings — as opposed to the horror tales she favored on her own — was that the hypothetical, the unthinkable, had become the real.
    She made her way through printed survivalist forum threads, Wikipedia articles, NSA briefs (many still printed “SECRET” and one even “EYES ONLY,” surely it had been criminal in some way to be gathering these outside the agency), and she began to fathom just how the world had ended.
    The reports on estimated fallout drift in event of a thermonuclear war were by far the most disturbing. Prevailing winds would