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April's text in black pen: It was over very quickly. The first car drove past me and I could see two men in the backseat. One of them was bloody. The other looked right at me in the eye as they passed. He'd been coming out of the building with Bill. I ran the rest of the way to the building and there was Bill. Dead. Lying on his side against a bike rack. There were two wounds in his chest, about six inches apart. I started screaming his name and looking around for a police officer. The car at the curb was pocked with bullet holes and there was a dead man lying half in half out of the driver's seat. The men who has come out of the building threw him out onto the sidewalk and dragged Bill's body into the car while the other pointed a gun at me. They were wearing black... fatigues, that's the word. Military-style clothes. The men who showed up in the cars at first, they wore suits.

April's text in red pen:

(underlined and pointing to "the eye as they passed. He'd been" in black-pen text) DR.

Guidebook:

Take Pompeii for example. The entire city was destroyed and its citizens killed in 79CE by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius, but if you fast-forward a few hundred years, people had already rebuilt new settlements on top of the volcanic mud and ash. By the time the ruins of Pompeii were rediscovered, an entire city existed on top of it Conversely, the Anasazi who lived in the Four Corners of the American Southwest didn't disappear because of an earthquake or a war; their civilization collapsed because of long-term drought and population pressure. The same causes probably contributed to the collapse of the Classic Mayan culture. The story is the same all over the world. Single shocks don't destroy sophisticated cities and cultures; long-term disruptions do.

That's because the systems that keep sophisticated cultures working-trade, agriculture, government - are robust enough to respond to single events. But long-term events place pressure on all those systems, and because the systems are interconnected and interdependent, that collective pressure eventually causes them to fail.

April's text in pencil:

(pointing to "government") So much for that. President's dead, or that's the rumor.

Guidebook:

And long-term regional disasters make it difficult for help to reach affected areas. A hurricane comes and goes in a few days, hitting a defined area. A bomb goes off and devastates a circumscribed area. Then the event is over and those outside can help. But nobody could help Chernobyl or Fukushima, or Mesa Verde, or Easter Island...

Another problem with this kinds of catastrophic events is that, by the time you know it's a disaster, it's already happened. There's no way to prepare for something when the resources you would use to prepare are already destroyed or compromised or out of reach. You have to be ready before the worst happens, and ready in a different way. You can board up your windows if you know a hurricane is coming, but what

April's text in orange pen:

(pointing to "or Mesa Verde, or Easter Island...")

or us. CERA pulled out yesterday. JTF is fighting armed gangs, there are other Army units now... none of it helps. Everyone is sick.

April's text in red pen:

Me too now. The doctors can't help, nobody can help

Appearances

 * Tom Clancy's The Division