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April's text in black pen: That's what I'll tell the police. Something happened there. It wasn't a robbery. It was more like a military operation. Bill, what were you working on? Why did someone think it was worth killing over?

Guidebook: do you do to prepare for radioactive contamination that will already have happened by the time you get the first warning? (Hint: It involves a lot of duct tape.) What do you do to prepare for a slow-motion, permanent catastrophe that won't look like a catastrophe until it's too large for you to do anything but grapple with the new status quo?

April's text in blue pen: (Pointing to "duct tape") O miracle!! Seriously, it can do anything.

Guidebook: These are the kinds of questions this book answers. No civilization survives forever, but imagining the end of a civilization is typically the province of disaster novels and religion nuts. That's a mistake. None of the world's vanished cultures knew their end was coming until it was already well under way. We can make different choices; we can be attentive to signs of collapse before it's too late to save ourselves

Because this book isn't about short-term preparedness and disaster survival, it will not contain certain things. You won't find contact information for CERA, New York City government departments, your phone company or gas utility, your insurance agent, or a place where you can buy good boots. In this kind of collapse this book prepares you for - a virus, a dirty bomb, whatever it may be - these supposedly steadfast resources and agencies will no longer even exist.

There is that question again: What would you do if you knew no one was coming to help you?

Read on and find out.

April's text in orange pen: (pointing to "Read on and find out.") - I'M DOING IT

April's text in red pen: 12/26 JTF pushed out of Hudson Yards, down into Chelsea. Rikers Gang, some rogue military elements going after them. Rikers completely in command of everything up near Hudson Yards, spreading up into Hell's Kitchen.

The Dark Zone is completely walled off now, concrete and barbed wire. From what I hear it's like the end of the world in there. I haven't been north of 50 in a couple of weeks, since I had to sneak out on the Red Cross truck. The only thing that would get me to do it is if I found Merch. It's be just my luck if he's hiding out in Harlem.

April's text in pencil: Not Harlem. DZ. Is it worth it? Maybe I should just forget the whole thing. T+31 and I'm still alive, starting to figure out how this Brave New Dumpster Fire of a World works... but I still don't know what happened to Bill. Merch does. That settles it.

Looking back, not so funny... not when you've seen people murdered by duct tape, and then realized you've gotten so cold that you look at the bodies and wonder how anyone could waste duct tape that way when there are so many other ways to kill someone WHAT IS HAPPENING TO US?

Appearances

 * Tom Clancy's The Division