Ringo Snippets

River Of Night - Snippet 23 ### Tom looked at Risky once more. Given the set of her jaw, it seemed unlikely that she was going to relinquish the girl without a fight, or at least a very convincing explanation. The kid was still clinging to Risky, who moved her around the SUV to shelter behind the front wheel. "Kap, how many?" he asked, without looking up. "Seven," came the reply. "Eight now. Nine. They all have longs." Tom considered just loading the trucks and running away. But this was the first organized group that they had seen since New...

River Of Night - Snippet 22 "Maybe a third of the place," he growled. "Up ahead a few blocks." "Let's just do the sweep and move on," Eva said, adding, "I want to get back before dark."  Biggs nodded and raised his fist over his head, pumping it once. The line of forty or so men waiting next to the parked convoy left their vehicles and began sweeping through the outlying homes of the abandoned town. Korbish took station on the side furthest from the leader. As the line of armed men combed through the town, the labor gang of fifty chained...

River Of Night - Snippet 21 CHAPTER 6 The fitful breeze stirred a fading American flag and rattled the halyard against the aluminum flagpole. Another small Southern town, of the kind Tom and the rest had seen several times before The sameness was simultaneously comforting and unsettling. There were the usual two churches, elementary school and a medium sized chain supermarket. There might be a hardware store. A pharmacist. An auto shop. Perhaps two hundred homes, ranging from double wides to stick-built construction. The usual number of long...

River Of Night - Snippet 20 Harlan Green gestured casually as he stepped back, the movement of his arm encompassing both the numerous Gleaners, the work-gang and the newest prisoners. "Make them believe it." he said. Biggs's eyes flickered to Loki for a moment, but he didn't even hesitate. His posture remained upright and he raised his voice for the benefit of the large crowd, while looking directly at Harlan. "Governor Green, I humbly apologize for wasting your time with that trash. It won't happen again," he enunciated carefully. Harlan...

River Of Night - Snippet 19 "Naw, Mr. Green," the broader man said, chewing on a candy bar with his mouth open. "It was the second place we hit and we'd already mostly filled the trucks, so when I saw you coming I stopped, figured we'd finish after talking to you." Harlan dropped his initial appraisal of the prisoners that he had to convert into productive assets and rounded on Biggs. "You left the town incompletely secured after you took people out?" he asked mildly. "You left potential assets behind armed with knowledge of our tactics and...

River Of Night - Snippet 18 ### Tom's close call in the garage had become a minor matter of contention. It was time for a formal debrief, Bank of the Americas-style. "Go on," Tom said, turning to place his back to the counter of the farm kitchen they'd used overnight. He jumped up and twisted around to use the countertop as a seat. "Gimmee the rest, because so far this isn't news." "The first thing that's going to help is realizing that we're not fighting people," Kaplan said, writing on the white painted wall with a piece of charcoal that...

River Of Night - Snippet 17 "How can it not be critical?" Jason said, carefully not raising his voice. "You could've saved a lot of people! Ones with important skills." "Could have is the operative phrase, Mr. Young," Green said, raising one finger in ritual protest. "At this time, nearly everyone has been exposed to the virus that is going to be exposed to the virus. The calculus is clear. Fifteen percent of those exposed die. Three quarters become mostly insensate cannibals and the remainder recover and... live. Of course, the surviving ten...

River Of Night - Snippet 16 Bill Rush had missed that memo. "That's my point," Bill said. Clearly still upset, he managed to not raise his voice this time. "They're giving up. They aren't fighting it anymore." Mike sympathized with Bill. Everyone was upset and with reason. The unprecedented spread of H7D3 was terrifying. Like many industries, electrical utilities had a real time view of demand for their product. The amount of electricity demanded by the grid had begun dropping slowly at the two week mark into the plague. The trend had...