Tipping Point (Book 2): Ground Zero

by Rain Stickland

  They were pretty far from the sandbar that had scraped at the keel, so at least there was no silt or sand stirred up to impede visibility. It was dark under the boat, though, which meant Mac had to turn on her light. Then, with a shrug made awkward by her diving equipment, she turned on the second light she’d brought with her. Now she was grateful for the redundancy, because she wanted to be sure she didn’t miss anything.

  Air hissed and burbled as she used her fins to propel herself down to the bottom of the keel. The manual had said the boat had a maximum draft of just under five feet, which meant they couldn’t go into waters shallower than that without running the risk of serious damage. Running aground would likely mean using the dinghy for the rest of their journey, just the same as catastrophic damage to the boat would.

  From what she could see, there was nothing worse than scraped paint to mar the keel. Not that she thought the owners would be happy about that, should they be alive to complain. Still, that sort of damage wouldn’t cause them any problems on this particular journey. Mac ran the light over the entire keel, front to back, and bottom to top. It wasn’t until she got to the front, right where the keel curved down from the hull, that she saw anything to concern her.

  Just barely visible, a line, possibly a crack, ran back about six inches from the front, on both sides. She would need to keep an eye on this. To conserve what oxygen she could, for future forays into the water to check the hull, Mac decided to return to the surface. She had already been submerged pretty close to the ten minutes she had planned on taking.

  “Well, you broke the damn boat, Neil,” she accused as soon as she spit out the regulator.

  “Seriously?”

  “Actually, I don’t know what you’ve done. There’s visible damage, but it might not cause us any problems. I just don’t know. We’ll have to keep checking it. Here. Take these,” she said, and tossed her fins up to him so she could climb back into the boat without them getting in her way. She heard him curse as they slapped him in the chest, probably soaking his shirt. She reached up and waited for Neil’s hand, placing her foot on a small rail. Neil mostly hauled her up over the back railing, though.

  “Okay, explain what you meant,” he said, after giving her damp mouth a relieved kiss. Then he stripped off his sodden t-shirt, giving her an idea. She grinned wickedly.

  “Nope. Not until you explain the tattoo,” she bargained. She’d been trying, on and off, since he’d been shot, to nag the details out of him, but he wouldn’t give them up. He had a compass rose covering part of a shoulder blade. Thankfully it hadn’t been damaged by the bullet that had punched through his lung, because she actually really liked it.

  “You’re kidding me, right? You realize you can’t win that argument, I hope. Every time you try we end up in bed together,” he reminded her. Her shoulders slumped.

  “Damn it. Fine. There’s a really fine crack, but I can’t tell if it’s serious. It’s fibreglass, so I don’t know what it will do. There’s no force on it right now, because it’s not travelling forward. Then again, maybe it was already there and it’s a normal thing. I doubt it, but it’s a possibility I suppose. Whatever it is, I won’t feel comfortable unless we’re keeping an eye on it, and by that I mean me. I can show it to you next time I go down to look at it, though.

  “We should go into the lowest part of the boat and lift up all those panels in the floor. Make sure there’s no water inside. I have no idea if that’s possible, either, but I’m still going to check all that on a regular basis. If I use the tanks to check the hull, I’m only going to have enough air to check it a few times. So I’m thinking I’ll space out the more thorough checks, and then occasionally free-dive to take a look at it with just the mask on. I can hold my breath long enough for that, no problem,” she finished.

  “It’s too bad we don’t have an underwater camera. It would make things a lot easier.”

  “Damn. I knew I was forgetting something. Should have ordered one from Amazon,” she said, her sarcasm apparently annoying enough that Neil gave her a dirty look.

  “You’re hysterical. I was just thinking that maybe the owners might have left one on board somewhere. It wouldn’t surprise me. Makes sense if you’re on the water enough to own a boat like this. From the little I know about boats, even a used one would probably go for a hundred grand, at least. Even double that. We haven’t really gone through their things, so maybe we’ll find something.”

  “I suppose. Just feels weird to do that. I know we stole their boat and everything, but invading their privacy just makes it seem worse. The stuff in the cabin was different. It was all related to the boat itself, and provided some valuable information. Their other stuff is more personal.” She held up her hand to stop him from chiding her.

  “I know they’re probably dead. Maybe some part of me is still in denial that this is all really happening, which is completely ridiculous. Not spending much time off the farm hasn’t helped. We haven’t seen much emptiness that would provide evidence of most of the world’s passing. Even when we went scavenging, we saw people living fairly close to us. That makes me think we might recover. And maybe someone who is still alive is the owner of this boat, and has a right to their privacy.”

  “Okay, honey. If you want to stay out of their stuff, I understand. We can take turns doing quick checks underwater. It’s only for another week, barring further complications.”

  “It could very well take us longer than that to get back. We’re operating under engine power, sure. We made sure we had enough oil to get us here and back, so thankfully we won’t have to rely on the current. However, the trip south was the easy route,” she said.

  “In what way?”

  “We’ve been going with the current. We’ll be going against it on the way back, though there are apparently some eddies on the Canadian side of the two big rivers. The current reverses there, but I don’t want to risk going too close to shore. Especially now. Shallow waters aren’t our friend anymore,” she said, eyeing him balefully.

  “Yeah, yeah. I broke the ship. I broke the bloody ship,” he mimicked in a terrible attempt at a British accent. She recognized the paraphrased line from Galaxy Quest, and laughed.

  “That you did, cowboy. And we have no replacement beryllium spheres on board. Guess we’ll have to find another planet that might have some. Or maybe Ian will be carrying one. But speaking of Ian, I think we’d better get this broken ship moving. He left about five hours ago, which gives us three to get there if we don’t want to leave him exposed. God only knows what things are like in Cleveland.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be fine, honey. Worry and fret; that’s all you ever seem to do. Well, when you’re not rescuing those macho men in distress,” he said.

  “It’s obviously not that he can’t protect himself, generally speaking. It’s just possible he could be outnumbered if there’s someone alive who thinks he has something they could use. He planned to carry at least one handgun, though, so violence isn’t likely to be something he can’t deal with.

  “It’s more the health issue. He’s got insulin with him, but he may have burned too many calories. He won’t know if his sugar has dropped until he starts feeling the symptoms, because he doesn’t have any test strips left. So, yes, I’m worried. That’s why I brought candy bars, granola bars, some milk that’s still frozen, and one of the last remaining cans of frozen orange juice. We might have to get his sugar back up really fast if he’s low. I’ve seen diabetics bottom out, and it’s fucking scary. Not to mention potentially fatal. Besides, if I wasn’t worried about him, I wouldn’t have made this damn trip in the first place, ruining my great good looks just for his benefit,” she said with a grin.

    

  The worrying and fretting were all for naught. They made it to Cleveland with half an hour to spare, so Neil took the boat in toward the yacht club area very slowly, Mac at the front of the boat to make sure the waters weren’t too shallow. As they approached Edgewater Park, however, Mac
shook her head and called out for Neil to stop. She walked awkwardly on the slanted deck until she was able to lower herself and go into the cabin.

  “Too shallow?”

  “I think so, yeah. I’m looking at the boats they have docked over there at what I assume is the yacht club, and they don’t seem very big. I can’t really tell exactly how deep the water is, either. No point taking chances when we’ve got the dinghy. Probably be safer to row ourselves in, too, rather than make noise with the motor. We’ll still be able to see if someone gets a little too curious and tries to board her.”

  They had to unload everything from the dinghy first, because they had made sure it held all their vital stuff in case the boat sank for some reason. Now they didn’t want the extra weight, and wanted more room for three people. Otherwise Ian would have to squeeze in. In addition to a small quantity of insulin, and a syringe, Mac made sure she had everything she needed to bring his sugar up, too.

  Once they had lowered the dinghy into the water, and climbed down into it, it wasn’t long before they had managed to row themselves to the shore on the east side of what looked like a long pile of giant, asymmetrical stone cubes jutting into the water from the beach. They pulled the dinghy out of the water, but kept it as close to the cubes as possible. They were hoping no one would notice the new addition to the area. Late afternoon gave the place some pretty deep shadows, which Mac knew would help. Ian was supposed to meet them just east of the beach, but from where they were they couldn’t see him.

  “That looks like the willow tree he mentioned, where those other big cubes are sitting. Are they supposed to be a retaining wall maybe? I kind of want to call this thing here a breakwater, though I’m not sure if it’s the right word for it. It’s not a dock, that’s for sure, but those cubes can’t be a natural phenomenon,” she said hesitantly. She didn’t like not knowing what she was talking about.

  “You’re probably right. It seems like it would be the right word for it, anyway. That other long thing sticking out on the other side of the willow looks like a pier. It’s too far above the water to be a dock,” he said, pointing further east toward the yacht club. “And those concrete things sticking out in the middle of the water would be pretty dangerous for boats.”

  “Not that it matters much anymore. The whole world has gone to shit, and I’m sitting here worried about what someone called a pile of rocks,” she said, laughing at herself. Neil gave a soft chuckle.

  “Well, we can have fun debating it some other time. Why don’t we go find your friend, so we can get our asses back home some time before summer kicks in.”

  “Hey! This is my first time in Cleveland. Give me ten minutes to look around, would you?”

  “Does Wet Foot, Dry Foot apply, do you think?”

  “Hardly matters since I have no intention of becoming an American citizen. Assuming there is such a thing anymore. Be kind of interesting to see what the Peace Bridge looks like in Niagara Falls now, though. If there’s any sort of government left at all, I doubt patrolling the border is a big priority. Though the GPS was still working on the boat, so that could mean the US Army is still maintaining the ground stations, but that’s not a for sure either,” she said.

  “In what way?”

  “Well, from what little I know about how it works, the ground centres have to adjust the clocks on the satellites to match real-time on the planet, and then there’s the orbits. I guess they don’t stay the same all the time and have to be reset to new location information, and until they’re reset they’re marked as bad data so the receivers don’t use the information for navigation. I didn’t quite understand it as I was reading it, but it told me enough that I knew GPS would eventually become unreliable without the ground stations. Still, I figured it was worth having a receiver anyway. It’s probably going to be the last thing the US military will allow to fall apart, if there’s any kind of organizational structure left.”

  “That actually sounds hopeful,” Neil said.

  “How’s that?”

  “Well, it makes me think that the armed forces would prioritize their needs, such as food, clean water, defense, navigation, and maybe power. I guess I just think they probably made sure right from the start that they had a plan to keep themselves going. They would be thinking of stuff like protecting the ground stations, and how many MREs they had left. It’s possible that the vast majority of civilians were fucked, but there may still be a lot of people who used to be military.”

  “Maybe. Neither of us knows anyone we can talk to on the radio who’s still in a major city, so we can’t get any hard information. Which, of course, is what makes this little jaunt a lot more dangerous than we’ve been treating it thus far, so I guess we’d better keep our heads in the game. You were right. Let’s get Ian, and get the hell out of here.”

  By unspoken agreement they had both brought their handguns with them. Not knowing if there were humans left alive in the city, or how desperate they might be, they weren’t going anywhere on shore without weapons. Neil’s was a Sig Sauer 1911 Stainless Super Target. It wasn’t her weapon of choice, but they’d hardly gone shopping for it. It had come from a bunch of wannabe thugs who had taken advantage of the early chaos from the collapse of the power grid. Neil had kept it simply because he didn’t already have a handgun. Mac had already owned the Gen 4 Glock 22 she now carried.

  Of course, they both carried proper survival knives, too. She had purchased her KA-BAR Becker 22 from Neil, in fact, which was how they had met. It had saved her life a few times since then, so she was even more fond of it than she was of knives in general, and that was saying quite a bit. Neil carried a Cold Steel Leatherneck SF, but she only knew the model because it was stamped on the blade. Not that they had a shortage of knives, since Mac and Billy had emptied Neil’s store of its stock shortly after Neil had been shot. Everyone on the farm had taken a knife from that stock, and there were still plenty to go around.

  They were quiet as they walked along the sand toward the elevated rocky area, and kept their eyes peeled for any movement. It wasn’t until they were a few feet away from the willow tree that they heard a whining sound. Mac was instantly alarmed, and ran to the other side as she pulled out her gun.

  Ian was lying on the ground, with his German Shepherd, Bella, lying there with him, alternating between nosing his rib cage and turning her head to lick his face. Mac holstered her gun and dropped to her knees on Ian’s other side.

  “Ian? Can you hear me?”

  His hazel eyes snapped open, but he seemed to have a hard time trying to form words, so Mac shook her head.

  “Just tell me. Is it high or low?”

  “Low,” he whispered.

  “Kinda figured. Neil, can you help him sit up a bit? His muscles are going to be useless at the moment if he’s this bad. Here, Ian. I’ve got some orange juice for you. We’ll get that into you first,” she said, as she tilted the spout of the plastic bottle until the juice started running into his mouth.

  “Hang on. This isn’t coming out fast enough. You’re conscious, so you can swallow it fine. Let me get the lid off.”

  She managed to get the entire litre of orange juice into him, and after a few minutes he started coming around a bit. As the extreme lethargy dissipated, she noticed that he was shaking. He still had some way to go before he was back to normal, so she handed him a candy bar.

  “We’ve got milk on the boat, but I wasn’t sure if it would keep if we had to wait for you, so we’re keeping that for later.”

  “Okay, thanks. Fuck, I hate that feeling,” Ian said. She could still see the sweat on his face, and knew it must have been a bad episode.

  “Well, you should be feeling better soon. Did you bring food with you or anything?”

  “Not much. Fish don’t keep well in a backpack, and what I did have I had to share with Bella. She has to eat what I do, now that the kibble is gone. We ate a good meal before we left, and had one on the road, but I burned up a lot of energy coming here.”


  Ian’s blood sugar was finally back up enough that he could eat one of the granola bars to sustain him, though he gave the second one to his dog. It wasn’t very good for her, Mac figured, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and Bella needed to eat.

  It was another twenty minutes before Ian was okay to head back to the dinghy with them, but as they were standing up to go Neil suddenly went rigid. Mac swung around, her gun back in her hand without her even having to think about it.

  12 ~ A JAILBIRD IN HAND

  “So how did he get here? And if he wasn’t the one setting off the sensors, who the hell is?” Cam’s questions had both Chuck and Gilles shrugging. Unsurprisingly, it was Gilles who chose to answer.

  “He came on a bicycle and used the directions your mom gave him last August, which included coordinates. He has a GPS, but he followed the road to get to the driveway. I guess your mother described the concealed entry well enough that he knew what he was looking at, but didn’t know how to get in. Since he knew she had cameras, he just waited for someone to see him, basically.”

  “That doesn’t solve our other problem, though. Since it’s the same group of sensors going off every time, I think maybe we’ll have to put at least two people in that area until the person is caught, rather than spreading them out to walk the whole perimeter. I’d really like to know why they aren’t showing up on camera, though. We’ve got stuff missing, and we can’t afford to allow that. Whoever this is, they know we’re here, and if they were a decent person just trying to survive, I think they would have introduced themselves by now,” Chuck said, speaking for the first time since they had gathered to discuss Mitch.

  “I agree,” put in Billy.

  “I’ve had a thought about the cameras, Cam,” said Gilles.