Out of the Fire

Part 8 - First Recon

The family joined the queue for the modest but adequate hot breakfast served from the bain-marie by a couple of young teenagers. Mary received a sleepy smile in response to her cheerful morning greeting, while Little Joseph received a more enthusiastic response as he happily chatted to the girls.

"Poor things," Joe said as they found a table, "They have to get up so early to prepare for breakfast."

"I hope that is the worst thing that happens to them here, don't forget what they have left behind, they probably really miss their television and Facebook." responded Mary.

"True enough," agreed Joe. Just then Little Joe let out a squeal and took off, looking around, Mary saw that he had just spotted Aunty Jean, Uncle Brian and Elle joining the breakfast queue. Jean and Brian joined Joe and Mary and after a few minutes fooling, the two kids even settled down to eat, chatting happily. Breakfast for everyone consisted of a slice of toasted sourdough, a well fried egg, a scoop of mashed root vegetable that today was potato and a paper thin slice of fried steak. As they ate, Mary asked about Jean's health, Jean being almost six months pregnant.

"You ask me that same question every morning," complained Jean, "I feel fine, the same as yesterday, and the day before and I'm sure I will feel fine tomorrow, stop worrying. I have done this before remember," she stated, only half pretending to be annoyed.

"I do worry, the hospital here doesn't even have a machine that goes ping, in fact there isn't even a hospital here," replied Mary.

"There are doctors, as you know, because I work for one, and any number of trained mid-wives."

"True," Mary conceded, "How is the nurse training going?"

"Once I got over the yuck factor, I have started to really enjoy it, and it is easy, people aren't constructed as complicated as I thought they were, certainly not as complicated as quantum calculations." Jean reported.

"Hey Brian, have you figured out how come the GPS system survived the EMP and stayed operational for five hundred years?" Joe asked.

"Well since we haven't heard a single radio signal that we didn't make ourselves, and we have been scanning for them, I doubt that anyone is maintaining them. The best we can come up with, is that they were sufficiently hardened against EMP and have enough fuel to maintain their orbits, more than the government admitted to anyway," replied Brian.

"Wouldn't they have drifted out of sync over that time?" asked Jean.

"You would think," agreed Brian, "But as we are only guessing about why the GPS still works, we don't even have a theory on why they are still so accurate."

"Well I hope they don't all decide to fail now, it is really convenient, having them is a real bonus." concluded Joe.

Breakfast over, they returned their plates and cups to rinse station and rinsed and stacked them for the dish washer. Jean took Little Joe's hand as Mary gave him a kiss and told him to be good, Joe squatted down and gave him a hug and told him to have fun and they would be back after work.

In the months since their arrival Jean had started work in the medical centre as a trainee nurse and was by all accounts a natural at it. The medical centre consisted of one of the larger pre-fabricated buildings on the other side of the town square. It had also sprouted a couple of the larger, multi room tents as hospital wards erected beside the building. Next to the medical centre was the combined Junior School and Child Minding centre occupying three of the buildings fronting the square. Jean shared her time between the Medical Centre and helping at the prep school where Little Joe and Elle attended.