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April's text in pencil:

In a few places I've seen solar panels rigged up and spliced into building electrical supplies. Do they have hot water?? What could I trade for a shower?

Guidebook:

your water is electrically pumped up to your floor. Along the way, that water is treated with fluoride and other additives to remove potentially harmful microbes and change its acidity to prevent in from picking up lead and copper from old pipes.

April's text in pencil:

(pointing to "fluoride") Reminds me: I need a toothbrush

Guidebook:

Now you have coffee and water. Your coffeemaker was probably made in China, and almost certainly not in the United States. So, like the beans, it required a combination of ship, rail and truck to get it to the store where you purchased it. Once you had it out of the box, the first thing you did was plug it in. This brings us to ELECTRICITY.

Approximately 95% of New York City's power is generated outside the city, from a combination of hydropower, oil - and natural gas-fired turbine plants, nuclear, and a smattering of solar and wind. That power is transmitted at high voltage to transformers in various locations throughout the city, where the voltage is stepped down to a level your outlets and wiring can handle. Electricity also powers the filtration and treatment plants that ensure the city's water supply is safe.

After you make your coffee, you throw away the grounds or put them down your garbage disposal. If you throw them away, that trash eventually makes its way to the curb, where a truck picks it up and takes it to either a barge or a rail yard. There, your coffee grounds and millions of tons of other trash make the long pilgrimage to out-of-state landfills or incinerators.

TO SUMMARIZE: Your morning coffee depends on the continued function of transportation, power, water, and waste systems, spanning not just New York City but all of planet Earth. You, like just about everyone else, take those systems for granted. But consider: What would happen if they broke down?

April's text in blue pen:

12/24 I don't have to consider. It's been a week since I had a cup of coffee. If they ever lift the quarantine I'm going to fly straight to Costa Rica and never leave.

12/8 A cup of instant this afternoon. Terrible stuff but also wonderful. I almost felt civilized for a minute. Now I'm dreaming of a hot shower again. Drew and Miko's place has spoiled me.

April's text in black pen:

Power's already out in lots of places. Still on at Eva's we don't expect it to stay that way. There was vaccine for about 12 hours yesterday. They told us to stay home and teams would go door-to-door until it ran out. Radio says a lot of people didn't want to wait and there was a big riot over near Hudson Yards where the main CERA distribution point is. TV stations are off the air and internet's down, nobody's got cell service, so it's hard to know what is really going on. Eva + I are staying out in case CERA comes by. I don't want to go anywhere anyway - except I would like to find a cop and see if they have a report on Bill. Is anyone going to do anything???

Appearances

 * Tom Clancy's The Division