Anne should be at the hospital, she knew. The situation out there was sure to be bad and getting worse, and that meant that the hospitals needed every pair of hands they could get, before their ability to do much good went away. Sure, the medicine would still be good after the apocalypse, and many of the diagnostic methods didn't depend upon electronics, but how many of those medicines were made locally, without machines being involved in the process? It wouldn't be the dark ages, or even the 1800s, but still, doctors wouldn't be much good after their supplies were gone.
But she could do good now, she knew that. She could save lives that were in danger now, not at some theoretical future time. But she felt frozen, unable to do anything, even leave the house for a few hours. She'd held Mary until she'd gotten bored and squirmed away to go and play, aware of what was happening but not yet old enough to be interested in "boring adult stuff" for long. But while Mary might not be having a problem (yet), Anne wasn't handling the news well. How could she? She didn't have the first idea of how to handle even the knowledge, much less the situation itself.
The phone rang, and she almost jumped at the sound. "Hello?" she said tentatively.
"Anne."
"Duncan!" she exclaimed, tears prickling at her eyes. "Oh, thank God. Thank God." There'd been a time in her life when she'd sworn that she'd never act like this, like a woman in a romance novel, dependent on a man for everything as if she couldn't do anything for herself. But already she couldn't handle the new world, and it wasn't even here yet. And Duncan was four hundred years old; he'd know what to do.
"Anne," he said, "I need you to calm down. It's not as bad as you think it is." He sounds so confident of that fact that she's pulled upright by the force of his voice, the tears drying on her cheeks. "We have a plan. Here's what I need you to do…"
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