V

CH1

Kate Beckett woke to her own internal clock, yawned and stretched, and felt a couple of bones pop. Not that it actually hurt, but still. "Ow." She figured it should've hurt even if it didn't. She searched her meager possessions, made a choice on what to wear today, then got up and headed for the showers. "Karpowski," she greeted her. "Beckett," Roselyn responded with a nod. Kate thought about making a comment about drawing the short straw and getting shower duty but didn't.

Most everyone had this down to a science and Kate was no different. She turned on the water only long enough to get her hair wet and hopefully her body. She squirted out a tiny amount of shampoo that came from one of the hotels in the city and washed her hair with one hand while doing her best to use the same water to get her bath pouf wet. Then she applied a dab of gel, likely from the same hotel and started washing.

When it came time she turned on the water to rinse it all away and was almost done when Karpowski blew her whistle causing Kate to reach out and turn off the water. She used her pouf to wipe away the remaining suds and grabbed a towel. "See you later," she told her as she passed her with her towel wrapped around her.

Kate was lucky for two reasons: one, she had a little seniority and second, she was a female. The New York Police Department just didn't have that many women in it. The result was that she had a tent to call home. Granted it was one of those little three-person dome tents, still it had space for an inflatable twin mattress, a sleeping bag, bed sheets that in this case had Spiderman all over them along with a pillow. It wasn't to her taste but beggars couldn't be choosers and in these times everyone was a beggar.

She climbed into her tent, thankful for all those days that she spent in yoga class as she contorted her body to put on her panties, bra, slacks, and a top. Finally her power boots went on. She gathered up her weapon, checked it and the extra clips, and put everything in its place. No one bothered with handcuffs anymore since there was no need for them. She didn't need her radiation detector either.

After she crawled out of her tent she was met by Ann Hastings. "Hey Ann." Out of everyone still in the precinct, Ann was the person she liked the most. Roy Montgomery was a close second. "Hi Kate. Ten bucks says we go out on patrol today," Ann said as they headed for the stairs. She couldn't help but notice that Ann was sniffing her from a distance. Kate had done the same before. Probably Ann wouldn't get time in the shower till tomorrow or the day after. "Even if money was worth anything I wouldn't take that bet," she countered as Ann chuckled and Kate smiled her first and likely only smile for the day.

Downstairs they had to go through one of the men's sleeping areas to reach Captain Montgomery's office where he already had three men standing at his door. "Nice of you two to join us." Roy used to be nicer but that was before. Now he was a little sadder and more abrupt with everyone. The fun, if there was any to be had in his job, had been taken out of it. "Yes, sir," Ann stated. "Sorry, sir," Kate offered, not that either of them were actually late.

"Today I want a tour of our holdings and for you to find out if anyone has encountered any gangs that came through. Gather any intel you can. From there move on to these three locations and do a search. Pick up an empty backpack on your way out. That's all, get moving." He walked back into his office.

It was just the five of them this time; the surviving police officers had been assigned to five-person teams. They traded off what they did each day. Roy did his best to get everyone two days off but it didn't always work out that way.

Kate's team consisted of Ann Hastings, L.T. Toliver, Dwight Haskell, and Stan Holiwell. Thanks to the times, not everyone in the precinct used to work here though they all had been in law enforcement at one time or another. "Let's go ladies." She took them downstairs and checked with the guard at the doors before taking a peek out then moving across the street to one of the buildings that they had control over.

It used to have a row of businesses on the ground floor and apartments on the floors above. Today the ground floor was all boarded up; the fire escapes were still there except for most of the second floor. If you came down it you had to drop over an entire floor to reach the ground.

They crossed the street with their hand weapons out and ready, and lined up along the building while Kate went to the one and only door that still worked in this place. She gave three quick, soft knocks. "Porcupine," she called out and heard the door being unlocked and opened. "Harry," she greeted him as the others all filed inside. "Anything?"

"All quiet last night," he told them. "We're going to take a look around then leave. You still got your horn?" She watched him pull out his air horn and show it to them. It was this building's emergency horn. If Harry sounded it the police units across the street would come charging over, carefully, but still come charging.

Kate went up the stairs since the elevator was down and with good reason. It needed power to operate and while the precinct had little generators spread out all over, even they didn't use them much. Gasoline was hard to come by and was worth more than gold. Food and fresh water were the top priorities followed by weapons and rounds, then a safe place to stay. If you had that then came gas. Everything else followed based on what you found.

She greeted people as they went up the stairs and down the hallways, checking doors and stopping to talk to people. Finally reaching the roof, they each took a parapet to look out over and just watch for a while, always with their weapons ready. They ignored the people tending the garden that had been painstakingly built by hauling bucket after bucket of dirt up to the roof. They also had an elaborate rain catching system to water the garden.

There were no cars out on the road. Okay that was wrong; there were cars, trucks, even the occasional motorcycle. However, none of them worked anymore and they had made sure of it per Roy's orders. You didn't leave something the enemy could use against you. The vehicles had all been long since sucked dry of every drop of gas they could get out of them along with countless others. Even the gas stations had been drained dry using pumps to get every last drop out of the buried tanks.

It was past lunch when Kate decided to move on. From there they went down the back fire escape, dropped down to the ground, and carefully moved down the alley till they reached the first street. There they were forced to stop. Out in wide-open streets was dangerous, just ask Williams that. If you could since he was the last of his team to die just as they had reached him.

Kate gave silent signals that they were going to move across and take the next alley. All of these buildings had been cleaned out of everything they could possibly use. She ran bent over to the closest abandoned car and looked around before moving to the next one. She moved from car after car till she was at the entrance to the alley and took a peek before starting down it. Her team was right behind her with Ann bringing up the rear.

She checked doors all the way until they reached the next street. A quick look at Roy's list and they went down the street on one side using abandoned cars as cover till they reached the building on his list.

The place had what looked like burned out businesses on the ground floor which was not uncommon in the city these days. Most of the hotel's sign was missing though the housing for it was still there. It was a five-story building with a brick facade. The entrance to the hotel was a little door that opened into a narrow set of stairs. What made things bad was the junk partially blocking the stairs.

Kate made her silent signals and went in through the broken glass door without opening it. She was forced to carefully pick and choose where to place her feet as she went up the stairs. Once at the top she found a small desk area. She signaled for the others while she looked around and looked behind the desk. The back wall had a door with two doors on this side of the desk. She was betting one lead onto a hallway to the hotel rooms while the other lead to an emergency stairwell as was required for each building. Especially since this building didn't have an elevator.

Once everyone was up she pointed at the door behind the counter. L.T. went over the counter carefully with Toliver as his backup. Inside they found a small office that had another door. Holiwell and Hastings took one door while Kate took what she figured was the stairwell. She was right and found that it only went up. She sighed since she was betting this building had a basement, meaning those stairs were somewhere else. Still they had four floors to search and take what they could find. Holiwell and Hastings went down the hallway with L.T. and Toliver while Kate watched the stairs they came up as well as the stairs leading up to the other floors.

She was starting to wonder if they had been silently ambushed when they finally came back and each of them was carrying a comforter filled with stuff. "Sheets, comforters, pillows, people's personal items like antiperspirant and other things." Ann was grinning. Kate's eyes opened wide. Maybe this cheap rundown hotel with the burnt-out ground floor might just get them something.

Kate led them up to the next floor and guarded the stairs up and down while the other four began searching rooms, one at a time. This time she could watch them going down the short hallway and come out of rooms laden with even more bundles. By the time they reached her they each had two handfuls of comforters filled with stuff. "We can't carry much more," Ann warned her. Kate was empty-handed so they left their bundles with her while they searched rooms. They came back with two bundles for her to carry.

They finally left and went back down the stairs. The main stairs with the trash was the only place that slowed them down. They had two more buildings to go to on Roy's list but they were already heavily laden with what they had found.

It took them twice as long to make it back to the precinct that had been turned into as safe a place as they could make it. The surrounding streets and sidewalks were blocked with double rows of abandoned cars empty of gasoline. If someone besides them did have working cars they weren't going to find it easy to reach them using them.

Kate and the others were smiling wide as they dropped their bundles and started opening them to inspect what they had. Eight comforters, eight sets of sheets with pillow cases and pillows, eight towels, thirty-two bars of soap, eight bottles of shampoo, twelve sticks of deodorant, eight tubes of toothpaste, eight used toothbrushes, eight razors, eight containers of shaving cream, eight pairs of shoes, three pens that worked, a little bit of blank paper, two knives, four guns with a little ammunition, a few prescription drugs, eighteen rolls of unopened toilet paper and eight that had been, and last but certainly not least, a manual camera that actually used film along with four rolls of film. They had gotten lucky and one of the civilians still knew how to develop the film, he just needed a dark room and the chemicals. For this reason alone they didn't use the cameras much. Maybe when they had more time they would come back for the mattresses themselves.

A digital camera required the use of batteries and those were in short supply these days. Roy liked all of it. "This was just the first two floors of a five story building and likely a basement. We'll go back again tomorrow," Kate informed him. "Nice work, no trouble across the street?" Roy was curious. "All quiet sir," she replied. "Next time take the basement. If you find nothing go back upstairs." He was pleased. The items would be distributed. "Take the rest of the day off. Move out again in the morning." He headed for his office.

He sat down and added what they had found to his inventory list. If they could clean out that low-cost hotel it would help a lot. Maybe there was something in the basement. Since the phones no longer worked he left the fourth floor and went down to the third because he had another idea.

"Hearts?" Ann asked looking at Kate. "What are we playing for?" she questioned, because if it was worth it she would consider it. "Shampoo bottle?" Ann suggested. "Not much good without water," she countered. Ann looked at the four-man team that took their turn when Kate and hers were off.

"If they'll go for it I'm in." Kate watched Ann walk over to the four men and work out a deal. Two of them turned to take a quick look at her before turning back into the conversation. Eventually Ann walked back over to her. "One bottle of shampoo and one razor." Kate groaned. The men used razors to shave their faces though at the moment most of them had beards which made scissors a precious commodity for them. However, those that wanted to be clean-shaven needed razors and naturally the women did too if they wanted to shave their legs and armpits. "Your shampoo bottle and my razor?" she offered. Ann took it and signaled that they were in.

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Kate and Ann were walking up the stairs with their hard-won possessions. Ann had a stupidly simple Bic razor that had a few uses left in it and Kate had a full tiny bottle of shampoo. What she wished was that she had water to use some conditioner. Long hair these days was a liability so she'd had her hair cut like it was when she made detective. It was easier to keep clean and used less shampoo and water. It also helped to keep the back of her neck cool.

Ann and Kate stored their new items in their respective locations. "Dinner?" Ann caught up to her. "Sure. Hopefully we'll actually get something this time," Kate groaned since food was another problem everyone had. Most people didn't have electricity to keep the freezers or refrigerators running.

Roy had managed to find a few gas-powered generators to run some of their appliances. Cooking what they did have was another problem. The propane was gone, charcoal briquettes were in short supply and weren't going to last much longer. Fresh anything came from the garden that was now on their roof as well as the roof across the street.

They still had some meat but it wasn't from a cow. If you didn't ask or think about it, it was possible to actually swallow it. "What have we got?" Ann was behind Kate who was straining to look. "It kind of looks like stew but it's more of a soup." That was actually good news. "Bread?" Ann asked while praying hard. "A little it looks like." Ann silently thanked someone for listening.

It turned out to be a little thicker than Kate was thinking, still it was a little soupy and it came with a tiny piece of bread that they both used to soak up everything left in their bowls. "You know what this means right?" Ann asked her then said, "Probably running low on gas for the generators." Kate nodded. It meant they were using up what was in the refrigerators before they lost what little electricity they had and it spoiled.

"We need something more than sheets and comforters and soon," Kate pointed out. What they had found was good and they needed it, but they couldn't eat it. "We're going to be vegetarians soon." Ann didn't like that idea. "We need in that basement tomorrow. I have a good feeling about that it and those burned out stores." Kate needed to instill hope in her team.

"More rooftop gardens maybe?" Ann said. "Which require water," Kate countered which was also in short supply. "We may need our cars and go farther out. Long Island perhaps? The Hamptons? Those people are rich; they may have what we don't," Ann suggested. "I'll talk to Montgomery in the morning. Maybe he knows something we don't. But what I need now is some sleep. See you in the morning. We hit that hotel again, I want what's in that basement." Kate was thankful she'd been able to keep up her workout regimen to keep in shape. She was pretty sure it was why she was able to still work hard.

Ann had confided in her why she was in such great shape as well. Kate was thinking back on that day as she crawled into her tent and stripped down after brushing her teeth with a tiny amount of toothpaste and no water.

Kate had understood why both of them had gravitated towards each other. They had both lost everyone close to them. It had made them sisters and they acted like it. For that they were both thankful.