This is a reboot. If you read the original thread, you will recognize some of what is written here. The posts here are highly edited, though, sometimes with new characters. I hate to say this, but if you want to understand this thread, you'll have to reread these new posts in their entirety. Sorry.
Naomi Wilde had reported for her very first day of duty at the Roosevelt Island NYPD/PSD location at 6pm, six full hours before her shift was due to begin; her excitement of being transferred from duty in Queens to that in Manhattan was easily seen in her face, even more so since she was actually on Roosevelt Island and not the larger island of Manhattan.
The Desk Sergeant, another female cop named Helen Davis, tasked Naomi with completing her transfer paperwork, then told her, "There's beds in the back. You might as well get some sleep 'cause Union rules say I can't put you out on the streets early without some sort of emergency."
Naomi made her way to the back of the small satellite station and laid down on one of the four empty bunkbeds. She was too excited to fall asleep initially; she was simply too excited. But finally, after an hour of staring at the bottom of the bunk above her, she drifted off. Then, as if the Desk Sergeant was a fortune teller when off duty, that emergency about which she'd been speaking came.
At precisely 11:11pm, the backroom was bathed in absolute darkness and silence, where previously there had been soft wall mounted nightlights and a white noise machine not far from Naomi's sleeping place. The 23-year-old cop was awoken by voices on the far side of the door which, of course, was impossible to see at the moment. She sat up to listen, and -- from the distant, muffled conversation -- very quickly realized that the station and likely the city beyond it was in the midst of a blackout. She wondered why the emergency lights in the room's corners hadn't turned on, signaled by the loss of electricity from the power grid.
Naomi reached for her utility belt, found her flashlight, and depressed the button: nothing. That was strange as -- like she had every day before duty for her 3 years on the job -- she'd tested it moments after she'd strapped it, her side arm, her Taser, and her other equipment to her waist. Carefully, trying to recall the layout of the room, Naomi made her way from the bunk, around the lunch table, and to the exit of the back room. She opened the door expecting to see the lobby bathed in the soft, red glow of the emergency lights, but here, too, the room was in near pitch darkness.
"What's going on?" she asked the barely visible Desk Sergeant, who was giving directions to the two beat cops assigned to the tiny station's Second Shift. "Why aren't the emergency lights on?"
"Don't know," the Sergeant said, adding, "Don't know why nothing's on." Helen pointed toward the station's front entrance and said, "Take a look. Everything's dead, and I mean everything!"
Naomi made her way out the door to the street and looked left, right, forward, and upwards; there wasn't a example of manmade illumination to be seen, from streetlights to store frontage displays to automobile headlights. In fact, traffic had come to a stop, with cars here and there and everywhere, from still in their lanes to bumped up against other cars or crashed into sidewalk mailboxes, bus stop enclosures, and street signs.
A rushing sound off to the right and across the street was finally recognized as a damaged and spraying fire hydrant when the wind shifted and the mist of some of the escaping water wafted over her. And while that sound concerned the police officer, it was the next one that sent a chill of fright up her spine: in the distance, a horrifying explosion was followed by another, then another, then several so close to each other that Naomi couldn't separate them from one another.
She went back into the PSD office, asking for instructions and a replacement flashlight. Helen told her, "Their all dead, like I said." The Sergeant laughed, asking, "Don't suppose you know how to make a torch, do ya?"
"Candles," Naomi responded. "We need candles. Where's the nearest bodega?"
Although the address below is the real world location of a business, I altered the name of that business slightly: Wholesome Factory becomes Wholesome Cafe & Grocery.
April 3 2022, Sunday, 11:11 pm Wholesome Cafe & Grocery 530 Main Street, Roosevelt Island, Manhattan
Maria Gonzales had locked the doors of her family's cafe and grocery barely more than two hours before the blackout; Sundays they ended their work day earlier than their normal 11pm closing time. She'd been deep into the weekly inventory and reordering for those items not on automatic replenishment when every thing around her went black.
A power outage would typically startle any young woman all by herself, but -- as happened with the Police Officers down the block from her -- this absolute pitch blackness was a new experience. In the windowless back storage room, Maria found herself fearful of breathing, let alone moving.
After finding her cell phone dead and, therefore, its flashlight App dead as well, Maria set aside her clipboard, reached her hands out before her, and swept them back and forth as she carefully made her way toward the door through the stacks of yet-to-be-sold inventory. She made it to the sales floor, then to the front door, where she looked out upon a thoroughly dark world. She found just what her friend, NYPD Sergeant Helen Davis, was finding down the street: a world without electricity.
Maria flinched and squealed lightly in fright at the sight of movement in the dark just beyond the glass. The figure moved up to the door and knocked. Maria recognized the uniform but not the face. Still, she opened the door and asked, "What's going on, Officer?"
"Blackout," the Police Officer answered simply and -- though she didn't know it yet -- not entirely accurate, asking, "Do you have candles? The station's emergency lighting failed, too. Weird." She shoved her hand out, smiled, and said, "Sorry. I'm Officer Naomi Wilde ... new to the Minnehanonck station ... first day actually--"
Taking the offered hand, Maria giggled at the officer's words. When Naomi donned a confused expression, Maria explained, "Most people don't know that word, Minnehanonck ... not even the people who live or work on the island."
Naomi laughed, too, explaining, "I'm a bit of a history buff. Plus, I was told that if I knew the name and history, it would impress the locals ... and my Sergeant."
"Well, consider me impressed, Officer," Maria responded as she gestured the cop inside.
"Naomi," the woman in blue corrected. "Please, call me Naomi. So ... candles?"
"Sure, of course," Maria said, adding, "Wait here. The store's so dark that ... well, you get it."
She made her way through the store carefully; her parents were always shifting displays around to highlight items they were pushing hard, yet Maria still managed to reach her destination only bumping into a few things on the way. Soon, she had a Bic lighter glowing before her, using it to light the path to the shelf offering emergency and decorative candles and more.
"Here you go," she said upon returning to Naomi with a cloth shopping bag out before her. "No charge for our women in blue." She giggled again: "I couldn't run them through the register if I wanted to charge you anyway."
"I don't think we're allowed," Naomi was saying, holding out the $20 her Sergeant had given her. "Helen, my supervisor -- she says she knows you -- she gave me this to give to you."
Maria was reluctant to take the money but did. She handed Naomi the bag; she listed its contents of emergency candles, decorative ones -- "French Vanilla," she explained, "You'll like that" -- Bic lighters, a small box of matches, and two small cardboard boxes. "They're little miniature souvenir oil lamps. Make sure you let them sit upright for at least five minutes before you light them. They'll last you through the night, in case the lights don't come back on by then ... which I'm sure they will."
While she'd been showing off the bag's contents, Naomi had been holding the lit Bic. Maria reached her hand out to take the Officer's wrist and maneuver the lighter up higher, enabling her to see the new-to-Roosevelt cop a bit better. Maria smiled, liking what she saw; she'd spent her teens confused regarding her sexual preferences and only recently -- after an encounter with a bosomy bleached blonde at a dance club -- had come to realize that that preference most definitely was for women, not men.
"Hopefully we see each other again when it isn't so dark and scary out?" Maria said, her tone a bit suggestive thought not entirely flirtatious.
Naomi returned the smile, saying only, "Definitely."
They made their farewells, and Naomi headed outside again, but she only got a few steps before Maria called to her, "Naomi, do you know what's going on? I mean, what happened to the cars? And what were those explosions? Are we being attacked by terrorists?"
Naomi shrugged, then remembering that it was nearly pitch black with the exception of the lighter's flame, answered, "We don't know yet. None of our radios work. Cell phones are down. We're really in the dark, figuratively as well as literally."
She began to turn but then hesitated. She took a step back toward the store clerk: "Maria ... it was Maria, right?" She got confirmation, then continued, "If you want, you can come down to the PSD with me ... or, if you have things to do here, come down later. The doors are always open, 'specially in a blackout."
Maria's smile reached its widest; she had a sense that Naomi was flirting with her as opposed to simply performing her duty: protect and serve. She said, "I will, later, but ... right now I need to stay with the store until my parents get here. If the blackout is affecting them in Queens, they'll hoof it right over here."
"Hoof it?" Naomi responded questioningly.
Maria laughed. "Family expression. They are both bike riders. They'll show up soon enough." Her line of sight rose, and pointing past the Officer, Maria asked, "Is that ... is that a fire?"
Naomi turned, studied the glow in the distance, and said, "Yeah ... I'm pretty sure it is."
They talked about the explosions from earlier, but with no evidence one way or the other, it was all speculation. Naomi finally said, we need to get up higher to look around. Know anyone who lives in one of these taller buildings?"
Maria smiled, responding, "Yes, as a matter of fact, I do."
Sunday, April 3 2022 -- Noon-ish (11 hours before the blackout) 555 Main Street, Roosevelt Island The Island House condominium building
The two images below both represent Beverly. Just ... go with it.
In the second image, Beverly is in a bikini. It's not racy, but it is a bikini. It's not important that you see her in a bikini, so ... don't open the link if you don't want.
It was already midday before Beverly Harperregained consciousness after an alcohol fueled Saturday night that had reached all the way to the dawn: dinner, drinking, dancing, drinking, sex, drinking; it was just another Saturday night for the 21 year old.
She arose from a stranger's bed -- also rather normal for a Sunday morning -- and padded off naked to search for the unfamiliar abode's bathroom. Catching sight of herself in the bathroom mirror, Beverly giggled; her father -- a breeder of racing thoroughbreds -- would have described her as having been ridden hard and put away wet.
She peed and padded back into the bedroom, then the living room, looking for signs of the owner. The man with whom she'd performed an array of lewd but pleasurable acts in locations throughout the luxury condominium had left a note for her on the kitchen counter: Family thing in New Hampshire. Back before midnight. Food and drink in the fridge. Please don't leave -- still got that one thing you said we could do today.
Beverly was fairly certain he was speaking of yet another sexual act. With her body feeling the way it did, she murmured to herself, "Are you sure we didn't already do it?"
Regardless of whether or not she owed him something new and as-of-yet-unexplored, Beverly had no reason or desire to leave. The man's home was incredible, a nearly 2 million dollar condominium in the Island House complex. And, of course, there was the fact that he'd left one of his black cards for her to use -- as he explained in the note -- in any way that will make you happy enough to make me happy tonight ... again!
"Awfully fuckin' chipper for a man who didn't get a wink of sleep last night," Beverly told herself, smiling at recalling just what he had been doing during what should have been his sleeping hours. The man -- Robert Deering, according to the credit card -- had been absolutely insatiable during those hours, which was a serious turnaround for Beverly as she was usually the one who just couldn't get enough between the sheets, above the sheets, or even nowhere near the sheets. About his stamina, she mused after seeing the still-powdery mirror on the bedside lamp table, "Thank God for cocaine."
She showered and slipped back into her LBD and heels, then headed downstairs with the man's credit card held tightly in her hand. Robert had left instructions with the 24/7 doorman to let Beverly in and out as she pleased. Out she indeed went, getting breakfast, shopping for more casual clothes, catching lunch, picking out a bikini to use at the Island House's pool and Jacuzzi, and -- after a short but badly needed nap -- once again heading out for dinner and a cocktail.
While sitting down to lunch, Beverly had sent a text to her friend, Maria Gonzales: Surprise, bitch! I'm just across the street at some cafe called Nila's. I fucked my way into a black card. Come join me. The desserts here are incredible.
Maria hadn't been available for lunch, but the pair did meet for dinner. They talked about their very different lives; while Beverly spent her time hunting down men like Robert Deering, who didn't hesitate to spend their hard-earned cash on her, Maria spent hers divided between college classes, the bodega, and her extensive family. Ironically, each of the young women envied the other for the life they led.
They went their separate ways, making plans to see each other soon. Beverly used the black card at a dozen more places before returning to Robert's condo; she bought food, snacks, and drinks so her lover would have something to fill his belly upon his return late tonight; she bought lingerie and a few other special things for yet another night of 'til the dawn romping about the beautiful apartment.
But instead of Robert returning at some time past midnight, the Blackout arrived at 11:11pm.
Beverly had been sitting in what had to be the most comfortable armchair ever designed, looking out upon the Manhattan skyline to the west, when suddenly the entire world simply went black. She'd seen her share of blackouts in the past, but this was something she'd never experienced before: no high-rise lights up and down the far shore of the East River; no automobile headlights on the FDR; even the boats that had been moving left and right on the water below her suddenly disappeared with nothing but the low light of the waxing crescent moon shining down upon them.
She stood and moved to the west facing windows for a better view. Beverly was a city girl who had never been in a real wilderness area, a place where you could scan the horizon in every direction and not see artificial light in one form or another; she'd never seen a dark so dark in all her life.
But that dark didn't last long. Within seconds -- ten, fifteen maybe -- the night was lit up by the most horrifying flash, followed quickly by the rising red and orange of exploding fuel. Beverly knew in an instance that it was an explosion, and her immediate thought was that terrorists had blown up the power station providing electricity to New York City.
Suddenly, there was another fiery explosion off to the left, and a moment later there was a third far to the right. Another seconds later out of Beverly's direct line of sight drew her out onto a balcony, and from there -- over the next couple of minutes -- she would count dozens of similar explosions, near and far.
The thought of simple terrorism was quickly replaced in Beverly's thinking: they were under attack. Who was behind this? Russia? Obviously! The whole War in Ukraine thing and the accompanying tensions between Russia and the US had only been getting more heated every day.
But, if it was going to attack the US, wouldn't Russia have done so with nuclear weapons? Beverly looked out at the fireballs rising into the air in every direction and -- despite not being a military expert or war historian or anything like that -- didn't see this as the first step of a Russian invasion of America. No, this was something different; this was...
And then she saw something she hadn't seen before, and it all came to make both total sense and deep confusion. In the glow of one of the most recent explosions, Beverly caught the fiery glow reflecting off a jet airliner's fuselage and wings as it dived rapidly toward the ground at a steep angle. A moment later, another fireball rose into the sky, followed a few seconds later by yet another booming explosion.
They're falling out of the sky ... the planes ... dozens, maybe hundreds of them. They're just ... falling out of the air. Looking at the locations of the crashes and contemplating her location on Roosevelt Island, Beverly realized that the explosions were all aircraft -- small planes to gigantic airliners -- that had been taking off from or about trying to land at one of the greater metro area's many local, national, or international airports.
Suddenly, there was an explosion just across the East River. Beverly hadn't seen a plane falling from the sky and crashing there, though. She couldn't know it now, of course, but a fuel tanker truck that had lost power had crashed, begun leaking, and subsequently exploded under Rockefeller University Hospital. During the night, the world renown health care facility would be utterly destroyed by the conflagration, as were several other buildings in its vicinity.
Beverly rushed back inside to find her cell phone, only to find it dead. She went to Robert's laptop, his television, and his stereo radio: again, no joy. Everything electrical in the apartment was simply dead. She rushed to the bedroom to change out of the lingerie and robe Robert had unknowingly purchased for her and donned the more casual clothes his card had also purchased her.
But at the door, Beverly hesitated, wondering Where the hell you gonna go? Instead, she moved back to the windows and simply watched the mayhem unfold. Her mind ran wild with explanations of what she was seeing.
Her heart just about leaped out of her chest when a pounding came at the condo's door. Beverly spun to look toward it; the glow of the distant fires were the only illumination in the apartment. The pounding repeated, followed by a familiar voice: "Bev! Beverly Harper! Are you in there?"
She rushed for the door, crying out as she banged her shin on an unseen piece of furniture: "I'm here! I'm here!" Arriving to unlock and open the door, she found in the light of a couple of small lanterns the familiar face of Maria Gonzales and the unfamiliar one of a woman in a NYPD uniform. "Thank God!" Beverly threw her arms around the slightly taller Maria, hugging her tightly before pulling back and asking in panic, "What's going on out there? I ... I saw planes falling out of the sky."
"This is Naomi, she's a cop," Maria said as the three of them entered the condo. Greetings were exchanged, and Maria explained the reason for their visit: "We need to see what's going on."
They moved to the balcony and looked out upon the madness. There were dozens of fires, spread across the metro area and beyond in every direction. Between them, they decided without any doubt that the explosions had, in fact, been falling airplanes; Naomi ventured the correct assumption regarding the fire that was slowing consuming the hospital.
"How is this happening?" Beverly asked. "Are we under attack? Is this Russia?"
"Could be, but I dunno," Naomi said. She, too, couldn't imagine that this was how Russia would take on the assault of the United States. Then, something came to her: "EMP."
Beverly had no idea what that was, but Maria explained without having to be asked to do so, "Electro-magnetic pulse. It's ... a bomb. Kinda like a nuke but ... instead of blowing up a city, it just kills everything electronic."
They spent a couple of minutes discussing that as a possibility before returning inside again to decide what to do next. Naomi was quick to say, "The two of you should stay right here. It's the safest place for you right now."
"What about the store?" Maria asked, concerned. "What if it gets looted?"
"Can you stop that from happening?" Naomi asked. "If a bunch of thugs with guns and sledgehammers come a'knockin', are you going to be able to stop them?"
Maria didn't want to confess that she'd be at the mercy of such people, so she only kept quiet. Naomi continued, "You stay here, you keep the doors locked. I have to get back to the PSD and check in with the Sergeant. Don't leave here!"
They all agreed with Naomi's plan, and the Officer left to get back to her job.
Sunday, April 3 2022 -- Afternoon, before the Blackout Roosevelt Island
The Henderson Family -- Viola and her children, Ben and Angela -- had taken the Roosevelt Island Tram to the island of the same name for a day of touristy stuff, something they often did when Viola's Husband, Terrance, an MTA driver, was covering a Sunday shift for the very nice overtime money it offered. With a combination of walking and riding on the free Roosevelt Island Red Bus, they'd taken in the Blackwell House, the Light House known by the same name, the Octogon, Four Freedoms Park, and the incredible view of Manhattan from that park and from other locations.
They'd had lunch and dinner, and timing their departure from the island perfectly, they'd intended to be on the return voyage of the Tram in time to see the sun going down between the skyscrapers of Manhattan's Midtown District.
Their plans changed, suddenly, when Angela -- who had been showing signs of fatigue -- suddenly leaned away from her mother and brother and puked all over the ground. Viola thought maybe she'd just eaten too much at first, but checking the 6 year old's forehead, she found Angela burning up with a fever.
They caught a taxi to an Urgent Care a few blocks away, and after a couple of hours of waiting, Angela was seen and diagnosed with a simple case of food poisoning. The Registered Nurse treated the girl with fluids and more, and after keeping her around for another hour or so to ensure she would be fine, sent the family on their way with lollipops for the kids and a hefty bill for their mother.
They'd missed the sunset by hours, but as the Tram was still operating, they took a second taxi to the station and boarded the aerial transport.
It left the Roosevelt Island Station at 11:10 pm.
A minute later, when the Tram car was a quarter of the way to Manhattan and over the East River, the Blackout struck. The car rocked forward, then back, then again both ways several times in ever decreasing distances until finally it settled almost perfect still in a windless night. There were varying levels of disappointment and/or fear initially; the Tram Operator found his radio as dead as his Car, and without it told everyone to remain calm and that the power would certainly come back within minutes, in not seconds.
That didn't happen, of course, and soon -- just as was Beverly Harper -- the occupants of the stalled vehicle were seeing the same fiery explosions all across the Metro Area as aircraft fell to their final and tragic destinations. Regardless of how frightening they were, the crashes with their bright fire balls and thick black smoke were all at what Viola thought were safe distances from her and her children.
Then, several minutes after the last of the explosions, one more occurred directly to the north of the Tram Car, on the Manhattan waterfront. Someone said they thought it was on the Franklin D. Roosevelt East River Drive and might have been a crashed fuel truck maybe; someone else pointed out that the fire looked to be directly under the Rockefeller University, which Viola thought she remembered was primarily a Medical School and also had a hospital in the facility.
Over the next hours, they watched as the fire engulfed not only that building but several others around it. There was no sign of response by fire responders at all: no fire trucks, no police cruisers, no ambulances, no fireboats on the East River. The fire, left to its nature, simply ran wild.
Naomi Wilde was only 3 hours into her first shift at the NYPD's Roosevelt Island Public Service Department, and yet it was already the most exciting day of her 3 years on the job. After leaving Maria and Beverly at the luxury condo of the latter's one night stand, Naomi headed back across the street toward the PSD, just half a block away.
She found the sidewalk mobbed by at least two dozen people, a combination of Island residents, other New Yorkers, and tourists. On the sidewalk, two fires burned in metal containers, intentionally built to provide light to the area.
"What can I do?" Naomi asked her Sergeant once she fought her way through the crowd to the business side of the front desk.
"Hondo!" Helen Davis called toward a group of men and women standing off to one side. A large, rather intimidating man wearing a cowboy hat, denim jeans, and a leather jacket came nearer. The Sergeant tossed him a reflective vest, saying with an feigned apologetic tone as she waggled an extended finger toward his outfit, "Sorry it doesn't match your bad boy look."
"Reflectors?" he asked, chuckling. "Not sure there's anything out there to reflect off me, but..."
To Naomi, Hellen said, "This is Frank O'Connor. Round here, we call him Hondo"
Naomi smiled, saying, "You do look like him a bit ... only bigger still." When the big man didn't respond, she clarified, "John Wayne ... Hondo?" She shrugged, explaining, "Grampa was a big fan of The Duke."
"Hondo here is Coordinator of the Roosevelt Island Neighborhood watch," the Sergeant told Naomi. "Go with him. He'll introduce you to the Block Captains. You're filling in for our Neighborhood Watch Liaison, who -- wouldn't you know it -- just happens to be the Officer you replaced. Congrats. Now, go! Go find out what we're facing."
Naomi confirmed the order and followed Hondo and the others out to the street. By the time they got outside, they found Vladimir Federov speaking to the crowd. Vladimir was one of the other two Officers RIPs Officers on duty at the time of the Blackout. (The nickname came from the station's acronym, RIPSD)
From the park bench on which he stood, Vladimir was trying his best to explain how the current situation prioritized how the RIPs would deal with those situations, be they issues of life and death, missing persons, vandalism and/or looting, and more.
The crowd was talking over Vladimir for the most part; each of those surrounding him thought his or her problem was the most important one, of course. Hondo pushed through the crowd and joined the lean,5'8" Officer on the bench; his own barrel chested, 6'6", 270# size quieted some of the crowd immediately, but it was when he scuffed the end of a road flare, bringing the bright red burning flame to light and hollered "Shut up!" that silence finally reigned.
He chastised the crowd for the way it was acting, then told them, "We're all a bit scared ... and we're all a bit panicked. But trust me: the world isn't going to end tonight. We're not going to learn anything about what happened or solve anything acting like a mob of lunatics." He looked to Vladimir again, telling him, "Go ahead, speak your piece ... again."
The Officer once again asked people to move off in three directions: life and death emergencies into the PSD; missing persons to the left of the doors; and everyone else to the right. "We will get to each and every one of you in priority order."
Hondo said with a firm voice, "And if you think that your expensive quiche thawing out and getting ruined is a life-or-death situation and get into that line ... you're gonna find yourself tossed out into the street and not helped at all."
"Continue your good work, officer," the big man encouraged Vladimir as he descended to the sidewalk. He joined Naomi again, telling her, "C'm'on, I'll introduce you to the crew."
But a moment later the pair were cut off by a panicked woman: "The Tram ... it's stuck, hanging over the river. There's people in it."
Hondo and Naomi looked to each other with the same expression that came from the same thought: How come no one thought of that yet? Naomi's reason, of course, was that today was her first day working on the island; Hondo's was that -- despite having lived on Roosevelt Island for almost 5 years -- he'd never once ridden the aerial transport so it simply wasn't his first thought.
(OOC: My thanks to our hostess for allowing me to write Maria as a primary character and share Beverly as a secondary character. I have another primary character or two in mind, but I will start with Maria.)
.....................
At the condominium, after the blackout but before Naomi's most recent post:
Maria and Beverly gave each other a tight hug after Naomi departed. The latter told the former, "I'm so glad you're safe."
"Me the same for you," Maria said, immediately saying, "I have to get back to my family's store."
"We agreed to stay here."
Maria shook her head and turned for the door. "I can't. If I'm not there, the store'll get broken into and looted."
"You told Naomi you couldn't stop that if it happened, remember?"
Maria shrugged, then pulled a small revolver from her jacket pocket. "My father bought it for the store, for the nights I was alone."
Beverly was obviously shocked, just staring at the gun with wide eyes. As Maria turned to leave, Beverly said, "Wait! I'll go with you."
"You sure?"
"No, I'm not! We should stay here, like Naomi said! But ... you're going, so, I'm going, too."
Beverly went to her new lover's closet, pulled out a casual, comfortable coat, and put it on. While she stood inside the walk in closet, she saw a bag for baseball equipment. She considered taking one of the aluminum bats for protection. But she turned away without it. She didn't know whether she could actually hit someone with what was essentially a club, even if they were threatening her.
"Let's go," she told Maria back at the door. She flashed an actual, traditional key. "I found this in a drawer while I was snooping. It fits this door. The power is out, so the keypad doesn't work. We need to ask the doorman if the key will get us in and out of the building."
The pair of friends headed downstairs, where the doorman told them that the key would get them in and out. But then he added, "I'm sorry, Miss, but if you leave, I won't be able to let you back in, not without Mister Deering's approval."
Beverly started, "But I have permission to--"
"Sorry, Miss," the doorman said, shrugging. "Rules. You leave ... you leave until Mister Deering says you can come back again."
"Stay here," Maria said immediately. She took her friend's hands, squeezing them. "It's safe here. And when the power comes back on and you can call or text your boyfriend--"
Maria was using the word boyfriend rather freely. Beverly had only met Robert Deering a week ago, had coffee with him once after that, and then had their one magnificent night of dining, partying, and fucking. She saw Beverly smile at the use of the word, too. Looking to the doorman, Maria continued, "Then he will be able to tell ... what's your name...?"
"Peter," the doorman said. He tapped his nametag. "Peter Jackson."
"The movie maker," Maria said. They shared a smile. She looked to Beverly again. "Peter will keep you safe in here, and everything's going to be fine. The power will come back on in a couple of hours, maybe sooner. And tomorrow, which is actually today, you and me and Naomi will all sit down to espresso and scones and laugh about how scared we were over all of this silliness."
Beverly tried to argue for Maria to stay again. But after another hug and a whispering reminder about the revolver, Maria headed out. It was less than a hundred yards to the bodega. Despite the number of people on the street, Maria was there in no time at all with no problems at all either. She unlocked the door, entered, and quickly locked it again. She looked at all the vulnerable windows. When the family bought the store, Maria's mother had suggested security gates to prevent looting. Her father had been for the idea. The local ordinances were against it, though. Roosevelt Island wasn't Bushwick or Crown Heights or even Midtown, each of which had been horrifically looted and even burned during the 25 hour long July 1977 blackout of New York City.
Maria strolled about the bodega. She considered how the power outage would affect the store's contents. The refrigerated units were deenergized, obviously. Some of what was in them would go bad. Some of it would survive for days and still be marketable. That was, of course, if it was still here when the power came back on.
She began assembling candles and those little tourist lanterns and lighting them all about the front of the store. She wanted potential looters to know that someone was their to stop them. When she finished, the bodega had a rather homey, traditional feel to it, Maria thought.
There were a lot of people on the street. That concerned Maria, of course. But often, passersby would see her in the glow and wave to her. Several asked if she was okay. Most of those who did were locals she knew as bodega customers. One asked if he could buy candles for his own place. Maria was hesitant to unlock, but she knew the man well. She sold him candles, then gave him a big cloth bag full of refrigerated food and ice cream at half price -- cash, of course, as the card machines didn't work.
Tiring, Maria eventually sat in a chair near the front door and fell asleep. She figured being visible but asleep to potential troublemakers was still better than not being visible at all. But that sleep didn't last long. A solid rapping at the door awoke her. Maria was afraid at first, grasping at the pistol in her coat pocket. Then, she was flooded with joy at seeing her father pressing his face to the glass. He was already using his own key to get in. As soon as he was, Maria's arms were clutching him in a desperate bear hug.
"Where's mama? Where're my siblings?" she asked. It was silly asking
"She's at home, watching over your brothers and sisters," her father answered. They locked up again, and after half an hour of discussing the situation, he told her, "Go to the back and get some sleep."
Maria didn't argue. She was exhausted. There was a cot in the back for nights when one of the family members worked so late that going home wasn't worth it. She laid down, pulled the blankets up tight to her head, and was asleep within seconds.
OOC -- I, too, wish to thank ItsJustMe for letting me take over a character she created. (I will create a profile for "Hondo" soon but wish to wait until I see the format you use for your own characters. And I'm sorry if the image I chose doesn't look enough like The Duke to fit the comments made earlier about him by Naomi.)
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Monday, April 4 2022 -- A bit after 3am
"The Tram ... it's stuck, hanging over the river. There's people in it."
Frank O'Connor -- better known as Hondo -- and Naomi gave each other questioning looks, after which he chuckled. "That would never have occurred to me."
He told the woman who'd hurried up to them with the news, "I'll get to this personally, ma'am, but let me get these folks on their way first"
Hondo looked back to Naomi, then to the others gathered around him. "Officer Wilde, these are your Neighborhood Watch Block Captains."
He pointed to and named the 5 men and 4 women, each of whom greeted Naomi. He gave guidance specific to this night's situation to 7 of the Captains, each of whom confirmed their orders and headed off. He asked the 8th Captain to cover the 9th Captain's area, then told the 9th, "I have something special for you and your people."
After explaining what he wanted from the woman named Kimmie Dolan, Hondo led Naomi and the woman who'd come to them for help the three-quarters of a mile to the Roosevelt Island terminal of the tram. They lit their way as best them could with a pair of the souvenir lanterns that had been given to Naomi by the girl from the bodega.
(Hondo knew Maria, of course. In fact, he'd once tried to interest her in going out for coffee, lunch, dinner, or whatever, only to be very politely shot down. That had been quite a blow to the man who, by all measures, was tall, dark, and handsome and, as such, was chased by women as often as he himself chased them. It all made a little more sense to him -- and relieved his fear that he was losing it -- when he learned that the beautiful Latina had eyes for others of her own gender. Whew!)
They'd managed to increase the performance of the little lamps by wrapping aluminum foil over one side of cardboard sheets and then curling the cardboard around the backside of the lamps. It helped a bit, but Hondo couldn't help thinking just how much he missed his Police-Issue, 4 D-cell Maglite.
All along the way, the pair of them caught sight of people out and about with no apparent reason for being where they were. A dozen times or more, Hondo used his intimidating stature to intervene in potentially criminal situations: one pair of men had been loitering outside a jewelry store; another man had been trying to get into a building's side door and ran off at the sight of the three who'd happened upon him; and a trio of men were following and making lewd comments to a pair of teenage girls.
(After Hondo ran the men off, he turned on the girls and snapped at them, "Go home! What the fuck are you doing out here alone in the dark in the middle of a blackout? Jesus Christ, where are your parents?")
Eventually, they reached the Roosevelt Island terminal for the tram. A crowd was standing near the waterfront, some of its attendees standing around either of two fires blazing away in metal trash bin. The fires were providing heat for those around them, but that wasn't the primary reason for the blazes; most of the people there had been drawn by the situation 1,000 feet out and 250 feet above the East River: the stalled tram car.
"Anyone able to tell me anything about this?" Hondo asked with a loud booming voice. Several people began talking all at once, but the big man waved them all silent and clarified, "I mean, does anyone know who's up there, how many are up there ... stuff like that?"
"I think my daughter's up there," one man spoke up quickly. "She was on her way to see her mother in Midtown, and I'm sure that's the car she was on."
A woman in medical scrubs named Vicky Bloom -- who Hondo was familiar with in the biblical sense -- stepped his way, smiled, and said, "Yeah, I think I know someone up there, Frank. A girl who came to the clinic earlier."
She talked about Angela Henderson's bought with food poisoning, adding, "She should have spent a night in the hospital for monitoring, but her mother said no, that she'd be okay. I ... I think it was more about insurance costs than anything else. I don't like the idea that she'd stuck up there."
Hondo asked, "You know for certain she's up there?"
"Yeah, I was going to ride with them, but..." Vicky responded. She hesitated, then glanced toward a man standing by one of the can fires; Hondo didn't recognize him, but the man was most certainly his on again, off again lover's type. She finished with a very explanatory, "You know."
"Yeah, I think I do," he said, smirking devilishly. He glanced at the car, then asked Vicki, "If we wait until sunup...?"
"I would rather you didn't," she said, wanting very badly for a rescue to be started ASAP. She added a soft but meaning, "Please, Frank."
"Anything for you, Vicky," Hondo said. He didn't say it with a flirty or suggestive tone, but he knew that she knew his mind was filled with fantasies of being naked and sweaty with her in the very near future. He turned to Naomi, saying, "Okay, so ... this is gonna be an adventure."
He led her to the backside of the terminal's building, checked a set of double doors -- they were, of course, locked -- and then looked around himself. He found yet another metal garbage can, tipped it over to dump its contents, then righted it and began throwing some of the spilt garbage back inside. He explained, "We don't want to set anything on fire that's gonna poison us or go boom."
Once he was ready, he lit the contents of the can and -- like out near the river's edge -- they had heat and light. He looked to Naomi and said, "Now we wait for the cavalry."
It was obvious in her eyes that she had no idea what the man was talking about. Hondo pointed to the set of double doors and explained, "There is gear in here for ascending on the cables and lowering people down to the water from the car. The Captain I gave instructions to ... she's going to the fire station to get the keys to this door or -- if they don't have a set -- get the gear necessary to force it open."
He sat on a stack of boxes near the fire, held his hands out over the growing flames, and said, "All we can do right now is wait."
Hondo let his eyes take a walk up and down the police officer's form before smiling a bit wider. "In the mean time ... why don't you tell me something about yourself, Officer Wilde: married, single, engaged ... available for something ... wild during a blackout."
The humor in his voice was meant to imply that he was only joking. But honestly, Hondo wouldn't have said no to Naomi inviting him to find a bit of isolation if she wanted to pass some time during the power outage.
Soo Jin "Jinny" Cheong was more than overjoyed by the blackout. She and her all girl street gang, based in a Korean-heavy neighborhood of Borough of Queens, didn't hesitate to take the opportunity to enrich themselves. They hurried out into the unprecedented darkness of the unusual power outage to begin their night long looting of a nearby commercial-heavy neighborhood.
This kind of behavior was common nature for the girl who went by the nickname Jinny. It didn't match her name at all, though. Her given name, Soo Jin, translated as treasure, excellence, or truth, depending upon the region of Korean the naming parents originated from. Her surname of Cheong was even more of a contrast, meaning quiet or gentle.
Jinny may not have been either quiet or gentle, but treasure was most definitely something she liked. Since her early teens, she'd been involved in criminal activities all aimed as filling her pockets with cash. Her closed juvenile record included dozens of charges for theft and burglary. She'd spent a total of nearly 3 years in one form of detention or another. She hadn't minded it, really, as her home life (which included a sexually abusive uncle and cousin) sucked. Also, while locked up, she made some good friends and even better contacts, and she learned a great deal about how to commit crimes without ending up behind bars.
Since turning 18 -- she was 22 now -- and entering the arena of adult charges, convictions, and jail sentences, Jimmy had gone to great extremes to avoid being arrested, charged, and convicted of something that could see her put away in real prison. She'd been fairly successful at this. Sure, she'd been picked up often and even charged several times, but not once since reaching the age of Majority had she been convicted of anything more than a non-incarceration misdemeanor.
Tonight, in concert with an ever-growing crowd of looters and rioters, Jinny and her girls were involved in clearing out a jewelry store, a (relatively, for Queens) upscale clothing store, an electronics store, and more. The downside to this blackout, obviously, was that they had to pack away their loot by hand. It didn't make sense to her that cars, trucks, motorcycles, and other such vehicles would be affected by an electrical grid power outage.
Jinny might have been a gansta, but she was no idiot. She'd seen movies and television shows about the damage done by electromagnetic pulse weapons. She was certain that that was what had happened. She had the same thought many others had had since the lights went out: Russia.
Didn't matter why or who or how to Jinny tonight, though. Her mind was firmly on getting what she wanted.
As the evening went on, she found a shopping cart and, with one of her Girls sharing protection of it, began filling it with their loot. It was getting near 3am when Jinny heard her fellow gang member crying out and cursing someone who apparently was stealing their treasure. From inside the store she was currently perusing, Jinny came running out to find her friend on the ground. She was being punched by one man while a second one was ripping her clothes from her torso, likely preparing to rape her.
While this was happening, a third guy had snatched the cart and was pushing it away at a quick clip. Jinny pulled the stainless-steel bodied Beretta from her belt, aimed it carefully at the back of the man stealing her stolen shit, pulled back the hammer, and carefully squeezed off a shot. Her friend's cries for help and the wannabe rapists' laughs were interrupted by the loud explosion. The man stealing the cart jerked and fell down, the cart getting away from him.
Nearer her, the other two men stood tall with shocked looks on their faces. One froze at the sight of the gun pointing right at his chest, the light from a nearby structure fire glinting off its shiny surface. The other man hesitated only a moment, then turned to run away, not willing to risk death just to put his cock inside a warm, wet hole.
By now, Jinny was burning up with anger. She redirected the pistol's aim and popped off three shots at the fleeing man. She hit him two, maybe three times, sending him face first onto the pavement. The third man lifted his hands up and out, blurting out what he thought was a forgivable excuse: "We were just having fun, baby. We thought she looked like she wanted--"
That was all the farther he got before a bullet went through his upper chest, tearing through his trachea. Three more shots exploded in the night, each of them hitting the man as he was falling toward the pavement. Jinny's attention moved between the three dead men. If she had looked beyond them, she would have seen others scattering into the night, fearful that perhaps they were the next to be shot.
"Come on, we gotta go," she told her friend as she ran for the still rolling shopping cart. "Let's go!"
Miraculously (or maybe not, considering the night), the pair got back to Jinny's apartment without any more hassles, let alone involvement by the police. They dumped their cart of booty and rummaged through it for a while before Jinny went outside to survey they neighborhood. There seemed to be large, roaring fires in every direction, in addition to the occasional sound of gunfire.
She and her friend headed out again to see if they could find any of their Girls, which they eventually did shortly before dawn. Jinny did some more looting, but only for small stuff she could carry in a cloth bag she'd found.
At one point, looking at how many stores had been broken into, looted, and in some cases set a blaze, she thought to herself, There ain't gonna be anything more of value to steal round her tomorrow.
That was when she looked down the street to the northwest and saw the dark hulk of the Roosevelt Island bridge. She grabbed her friend by her newly acquired leather jacket, pointed, and said, "Tomorrow, if the power ain't back ... we make a visit to Minnehanonck."
Her fellow gang member asked, "To where?"
Jinny ignored her friend's lack of historical knowledge, saying, "I'm going home. Gotta look through out take and maybe find someone to fuck."
She smiled wide, finishing, "This has been a good day."
It was after 4am before Neighborhood Watch Captain Kimmie Dolan showed up at the Tram Terminal, accompanied by a new face. She introduced Carlton Grimes to Officer Naomi Wilde, explaining, "He was the only one at the fire station."
"I'm sorry, Hondo," the big, buff, Black fireman apologized. "There's panic everywhere. The three on shift with me split to check on their families. I've never seen anything like that before. None of us have ever seen anything like this before." He expressed the same feeling others had about the Blackout being caused by an EMP weapon, then explained, "None of the equipment was functional, so the guys -- and gal, sorry -- didn't see any reason for sticking around and leaving their families sitting in the dark scared to death. I mean, have you seen the fires? Those were jets fallin' out of the sky." Some automatic gunfire off in the far distance preceded Carlton's comment, "And have you heard the gunfire? What the fuck?"
The three -- Hondo, Carlton, and Kimmie -- chatted about the situation a moment before Naomi pointed to a long, heavy metal bar in the fire fighter's hand. With a touch of humor she asked, "So, I take it that's our key to this door?"
Carlton answered the question by stepping up to the barrier, ramming the wedge end of the bar in between the two matching doors, and pulling back. With a great grunt, he forced one of the doors to pop free. He tossed the bar aside with a loud, metal on blacktop clanging, and waved a welcoming hand toward the opening. "Ladies first."
"Oh, hell, no," Naomi said. She gestured Hondo forward instead, saying, "Brawn before beauty."
There was laughter, and -- seeing Hondo snatch up his own -- Naomi offered her bodega lantern to Carlton, telling him, "You're next. I'll guard the rear."
...............................
Almost a football length above the East River, the initial general panic of the passengers in the stationary Tram Car had faded and only a few of the 15 people on board were still verbally expressing their fear or anger. On their chairs near the Manhattan, front end of the Car, the Hendersons were all holding each other tightly against another concern: the growing cold. The heaters in the Tram weren't working any more than were the lights or emergency phone, and people were beginning to feel the feels like temperature which -- in the past 5 hours and up here in a wind that was beginning to strengthen -- had dropped to the low 40s.
"I can see people down there," a guy near the Roosevelt Island, back end of the car said. Answering another person's question, he added, "I dunno, I can't tell if they're working to get us out of here or not. Maybe they're just standing around."
"Laughing at us," someone said, leading to some back-and-forth comments between passengers who did or didn't find such conversation humorous. The same person who'd made the joke said, "I'm more concerned about that!"
He pointed off toward the Rockefeller University Building, which by now was nearly fully engulfed in a still growing conflagration. Viola studied the flames a moment, then quietly asked someone near her who'd agreed with the worried comment, "Why should we be worried about that?"
The man just beyond her son pointed not to the Rockefeller but to the building beside it. "One building sets the next on fire, then the next, then the next ... and before you know it, it's right out there--"
He pointed directly ahead, toward the Manhattan Terminal of the Tram, finishing, "--melting the cables that're keeping us up in the air."
In her arms, Angela began crying again, signaling that she'd awoken again from her sleep; she murmurred, "I want Daddy. Where's Daddy?"
Viola hugged both kids tightly, telling them, "Don't worry, Daddy'll be at the end of the Tram ride to meet us, I promise."
Of course, Viola couldn't be certain of that for a multitude of reasons: first, Robert couldn't be certain that his family had made this particular transit on the Tram, thus he might not have any idea that they were up here; second, the family resided in and Robert worked in Greenville, the southernmost portion of Jersey City, which put both the Hudson River and the island of Manhattan between him and his family's current location; and, very obviously, the Blackout seemed to be affecting the entirety of the New York Metro Area -- including automobiles -- which meant that Robert couldn't use either the family car or public transportation to get to either the Manhattan or Roosevelt Island Terminals ... neither of which Viola thought she and her children were likely to get to anytime soon!
