Breakout (Final Dawn) Read Free Page A

and if it’s something you’d like to do, please write your name down.”
         “We’re also going to need farm hands. In the back of the feed barn, before the meteorite hit, we stashed two fifty pounds sacks of corn, one fifty pound sack of raw sorghum, and one fifty pound sack of wheat kernels. We don’t know if the seeds are any good after all this time, but since they were in the shade even when the temperatures went above freezing, we’re hoping the cold helped them survive.
         “In any event, we’re going to plant them once we hit twenty straight days above fifty degrees and hope for the best.
         “If they don’t grow, all is not lost. We’ll still plant the seeds that Karen produced in her greenhouse last year. But if Karen’s seeds are the only ones that grow, we’ll have to save her entire yield so we can plant a much larger crop next year. Either way, there will be a lot of work to do in the fields the next few months. So we’ll need three bodies for that. Again, I’ll make a note on the white board that we’re looking for three farm hands. If you’re interested, please write your name up there.
         “The only other thing I have for you is a request. We’re pretty sure that Brad and Bryan made all the repair s to the apartments over the past couple of weeks. But in case they missed anything, please let us know so we can make repairs quickly. We want to stay on top of things like leaky faucets and electrical issues so that little problems don’t turn into bigger ones.
         “Does anyone else have anything to share with the group ?”
         No one did.
         “Okay. Thanks for your attention. Have a great day.”
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 4
     
         Mark had breakfast and then walked back over to the security station to talk to John again.
         John was still watching the monitors, while at the same time setting up a new ham radio.
         “I’m going to start scanning the airwaves while I’m sitting here. See how many people are left alive out there. I might be able to get a reading on what life is like in San Antonio and San Angelo. Find out if the survivors are friendly or hostile.”
         “It seems I read somewhere that it’s possible to determine somebody’s location by listening to their radio waves. Is that true?”
         “Triangulation. It’s a lost art. Back during World War Two that’s how they got a fix on enemy ships and troop concentrations. But it’s not that easy. It requires three radios, working in concert with each other. Each radio determines which direction a transmission is coming from and the approximate distance, based on the signal’s strength. All three of them do that, and the point at which the three estimations line up, that’s the general area where the transmission is coming from.”
         “How accurate is it?”
         “Oh, it’ll get you in the ballpark, but you still have to do some searching to find the exact spot. And in any event, that’s not something we should have to worry about.”
         “How come?”
         “Well, for one thing, we won’t be tra nsmitting. At least not often. For someone to track us, we’d have to be putting out a prolonged signal. We’ll be listening ninety nine percent of the time, just monitoring the transmissions of others to try to get a feel for what’s going on out there. At least until we’re sure it’s friendly.
         “If we do talk, it’ll be in occasional short bursts, just to ask a question or make a brief comment. But we won’t be on long enough for anybody to get a fix on us.
         “And besides, nobody will have any reason to think we’ve got anything they want. We’ll never mention that we have livestock, or crops, or anything else that might attract the wrong kind of attention. As far as anyone else is concerned, we’ll be just another Joe Schmo with a ham radio in his garage, trying to make new