TEOTWAWKI (An Original Novel - Episode # 142)
We Got Tired of Eating Rats
Karlee said gently.”We met Karl/Carl when he retrieved our house from the flood, then made a pest of himself because he wouldn’t leave. He waited on us hand and foot. The both of us had been badly injured and he contributed significantly toward our full recovery. He is probably the reason that I didn’t miscarry Carla. We’ve grown to love him as a son.”
“I/we love Carla.” both Carl and Karl murmured. “She knows that we are here. We share dreams.”
Henry was wide eyed. He was almost spooked.
“Before.......” Karl seemed to change the subject. “Before I escaped and ran away from the Viper Lab, only one of us could be conscious at one time. “
“You hot-bunked” Henry said in awe.
He saw that no one knew what he meant so he explained.
“It means two occupants to one bed. When one of them gets out the other one gets in.”
“That’s exactly right” Karl/Carl said in unison. “Either one of us could be awake but not both at the same time.”
“That left no time for the body to relax.” Karlee explained. His body was becoming seriously stressed.
“It did.” Carl recalled “We’d run it into the ground, time after time. Five days or a week without sleep and it would collapse into unconsciousness. THEN the body it would rest. Those were the only times that we could be with each other.”
“While the body slept we got to know each other as best we could.” Karl said. “We talked about things. We had our own virtual reality.”
“Then the body woke up and we were reduced to sending notes” Carl replied. “Until we drove it to exhaustion again.”
“One day I got a break. I took advantage of it and escaped the Viper-Lab” Karl whispered. “I ran away and stayed stayed hidden.”
“We lived on the streets for a couple of years. We learned how to pace ourselves, to rest. Other wise the body would not have survived. One of us would sleep while the other relaxed and stood watch. We still couldn’t both go to sleep at the same time. The good thing about that part was that no one could sneak up on us.” Carl said.
“ The winters were the worst.” Karl shuddered. “I got so tired of eating rats. One day I heard of Rock Island. It sounded like paradise. I went there. It was.”
We lived there for another few months. It seemed suspiciously easy compared to living in RiverTown. Little did we know that the Dragon Lady was involved” Carl nodded to the Dragon Lady. She nodded back.
“One day we snitched a neuroloop.” Karl said “It was then that I first met my brother face to face while awake. In a manner of speaking of course. Up until then, as I’ve mentioned, we’d left each other notes.”
“The plan is” Karl said with another wild change of topic. “ Is that we go with you.”
The Dragon Lady and the other’s present had been very quiet while KC, Henry and the Skirmishes had been speaking. They felt as if they were overhearing a private conversation although there was no reason to think so. Apparently KC was taking the opportunity to come out of the closet publicly.
The Dragon Lady said “ I believe that’s where I come in.”
Henry looked at her. He was lost. The dragon lady smiled.
“You, Daniel, Melvin and his Marauders” She nodded at Melvin who was sitting not too far from her side “ and a very few others are experienced Oil Prospectors. You’ve been there and done that and survived. You may be unaware but other’s have been there, done that and disappeared. A small, but sadly growing percentage of the long hunters disappear. They may fall prey to Viper, which is still looking for us, or something else. We don’t know. We suspect that we’ve been very lucky until now.”
“We want to step up the Carbon Prospecting.” She said.
Shelby spoke for the first time. “We’ve established the water-tribe, we’re Sea-Steaders with a tech based upon SSmoke. That means carbon. We need as much carbon as we can get as soon as we can get it. We want to salvage as MUCH oil as we can while it’s still rather easy to do so.”
Everyone at the table looked at him “Easy?”
“For certain values of ‘easy’.” Shelby said “With the increasing depth of the water it will just get more difficult. We should be picking the low hanging fruit while we can. Salvaging oil at four hundred feet is easier than from a thousand. Do you agree?”
“The water is still rising?” Henry asked.
“About three inches a day.” The Dragon Lady said. “It’s five hundred feet higher now than from before the rain began.”
Everyone sat and thought about that for a time.
To Be Continued
Yarn
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In my Blog I write about,
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the possible lifestyles that we will encounter after
TEOTWAWKI happens.
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It WILL happen, one way or another,
probably something in between.
One thing is for sure and for certain though,
the world will NOT remain the same.
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So Come on Down!
Sit a spell.
I got the Coffee on.
The Hobo Picture is a Public Domain image from
Samantha at the Worlds Fair
by Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
Illustrated by
Baron C. De Grimm published by
Funk and Wagnall's Company 1893
Unless noted
All other Illustrations are from
Pixabay
(I'll just say thank you over here....) /cry
(blink)
you're welcome....I think.
:)
ah! episode 142 has just come .......have to read it immediately :)