As Mack continued his reverie he remembered (like everyone else) exactly where he was and what he was doing when the first pulse hit the electric grid – at the NYC zoo learning about animals he could add to the eco-system on Veilhella, for his clients who paid big bucks to make their survival vacation as real as possible. After EMP-0 zoo security systems across the nation were disabled allowing wild animals of all kinds to roam freely. Many didn’t survive, some headed for the hills and others it seemed – spanned the waters and ended up on the islands, where over the years they adapted.
Compared to the rest of the country, that was only now beginning to look anything like civilization again, Veilhella was a near paradise-in spite of the wildlife population. At the main camp site were several gardens, make-shift green houses, gravity fed indoor plumbing, and may other “luxuries” that hadn’t been seen in the US since EMP-0. (tmb)