Ashley did her normal thing after her shift at the guild. She went home to the apartment that she shared with Kate. Kate had effectively moved in and now was quite settled, though their schedules were now drifting a bit farther apart. Ashley needed to do more administrative tasks, but she was still trying to level up as much as she could.

  Ashley could smell her pits. It wasn't the most pleasant of smells, but it was nearly December.

  After such a long day with so many in and out of the building, she was fully ready to take a steamy shower. It was one of the only things that kept her going besides Kate herself. It was refreshing and renewing in so many ways.

  When she turned the faucet for the water to brush her teeth expecting the normal output of water and that water ground to a halt, she became a little bit alarmed.

  At first she jiggled the handle several times.

  The water couldn't be out could it? But her horror increased as not only did if her bathroom not have any water pressure, but also the kitchen and the shower. She checked and there was still some water left in the toilet thankfully. She decided to hold it for a little bit.

  If this was a localized thing then she could say that it would be okay, but she's a sick feeling that this was not going to be just her.

  "Please just be my apartment. I really need this shit to not be a problem right now."

  For the first time in a long time, Ashley was glad that she hadn't taken off her work clothes.

  She ran back downstairs. The first thing that she was going to check was going to be the shop.

  There were two sinks inside of the bodega and if one worked then she would be super happy. If neither one worked she would... cross that bridge when she was ready to burn it.

  She checked in the door and no one seemed to be freaking out so at least that part she could accept. She walked in and immediately patted bagel on the head. He, smiled before she continued down the way.

  "Please work... please work..." She got to the corner where the beer fridges met the end of the grill and she turned into the employee only area. No one stopped her because why would they?

  She went straight to the first thing she could find and turned it on.

  Brown water dripped out, very slowly. Within ten seconds it slowed to a crawl and then stopped.

  Ashley frantically tried every single faucet in the bodega which was to say all three of them to include the one in the bathroom.

  "Bagel, I think we might have a real problem on our hands."

  "What's going on?" Bagel called out from across the way.

  She checked the tiny bathroom that the employees got to use in the back of the bodega and found it too didn't have any water, much to her chagrin.

  "Bagel. The water stopped running."

  The cat looked at her blankly as if he was accessing a subsystem to figure out what she was saying. It made sense because he hadn't gone up with an understanding of what running water was and how much people had thought about that. If he didn't understand how bad it was going to be almost immediately then perhaps she needs to educate him.

  "Bagel, we can't go without water for more than two days. This will immediately become a crisis no matter what we do. I understand that we set something up recently but we need to be on the same page about this. This is a five alarm fire. We need to fix this immediately or we're going to be shit out of luck here. People will die."

  Bagel took a deep breath. "Ah."

  He was always so thoughtful when he wanted to be.

  They spent a lot of time setting up a water filtration system in the East River. They had done that as a sort of insurance for something like this happening. The system had kept the water flowing but they always knew that it couldn't last forever.

  They had even set up a office with someone to run it for them in the building behind them. The building that he built above the Chinese food restaurant now housed the engineering department that was going to create his great works.

  Ashley and Bagel rushed up to the second floor where Vince was dozing off.

  "Just like a man to be asleep when we need him," Ashley said, approaching Vince's desk.

  On the desk he had several plans laid out that looked like bridge or structure repair type plans. He also had a giant drawing of the current water filtration plant that they were very much creating whole cloth.

  "What what's going on? What do you need? Ashley? Oh hello boss."

  Vince stretched like he had not a care in the world and it showed. He was wearing a button down shirt like he was still a white collar worker.

  There were no white collar workers in the apocalypse.

  Ashley, realizing that they never installed a tap faucet into this part of the building was going to have to bring him someplace else to show him. But he would probably just trust her word. They had a good working relationship so far and everything indicated to her that they would be able to get through this together.

  "Vince you are going to need to come quickly up your production because we're about to have a fucking riot on our hands."

  She briefly explained the issue.

  "So every boss you've tried so far? Two buildings? Across the street from each other? We're going to need more data of course, but yeah I can call in the boys. What time is it?"

  Janet, the ever helpful swirled above him. "The time now is 1:00 p.m."

  "I guess our flex time arrangement just got out the window, didn't it. Oh well, there's always emergencies right? Mr. Bagel, I feel like I need to address something very important which is that now we're going to have to have people show up with jugs of water emptied if they want filtered water. And I know that's not your job but they're going to show up and they're going to want to leave with something so..."

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  "We're going to need to find something for them to carry the water in?"

  "Unless we're going to set up a shower point or some sort of alternate restroom situation. Yeah that's what we need to do. People could still use their toilets I think, but then they're going to have to replenish the water with something. A full tank only has a few liters in it so that's doable." Vince's face grew darker. "But now you have to understand that people get very ugly about water. There's a reason that they made those tunnels so well designed to carry the water all the way from upstate down to here. And I have a feeling that I know how this happened. It probably got clogged up with mobs or something completely absurd like that."

  "Do we have the water here to replace the system?"

  Vince sucked air through his teeth. "We have the water. And potentially we get to have the filtration done really well. The real issue is the pipes. We don't have enough pipes to retrofit everything and even if we did? We would have to prioritize places, so it sounds like my best option for you right now is to set up a mobile shower unit by the water filtration plant as well as a series of porta potties?"

  "That's going to smell terrible and it's going to be like we are in a dang festival all the time." Ashley expected terrible things. It's what you did when you were a woman.

  But this?

  This was unconscionable. She needed her special shower. And now what she had to do bring all of her stuff down to the adventurers guild office walk to a special shower set up by Bagel and what... shower there? It didn't make any sense

  It was like it took so much away from her, but this last thing caused her to leak tears slowly. They'd gone so far and gotten so much but in the end she was going to have to use a porta potty.

  Eventually they were going to have to talk about where that was going to go. It was not her favorite topic by any means because she never wanted to discuss where poop went or pee but somebody had to do it and she knew that if she stuck around it would fall to her and perhaps NYPD or the Sanitation department might be able to help but it could be a hit or miss situation. Not every city agency had actually been able to retain any of its authority or manpower.

  Peoples lives had been destroyed and taking out the trash was a bit less important when you were staring death in the face.

  "We're going to have to figure out a way to get the sanitation people to fix this." Bagel looked like he was ready to really give this problem to anyone who could take it. "I don't understand how this is going to really affect anything, but I can also refresh and restock some fresh water inside of the Bodega. We're limited to how many there were when the system set up but it should be fine."

  "That makes a lot easier but then that means you're going to be wearing yourself out doing that. We got to figure out a way to do this. Water is not like energy drinks or coffee. If you don't get those things you're not going to die within three days."

  "Speak for yourself," Vince said, lifting his hand off a crushed can of Blue ox next to two other empty cans. "I don't need to drink water ever."

  "Well that's one way of doing things. But Bagel... so showers and baths? But I think mainly showers are going to be a thing."

  "If this goes long enough you guys can just go for a swim in the East River," the cat said.

  Ashley crossed her arms."That's... There's so much wrong with that statement that I can't even address. I need you to understand that people are going to have to be really, really desperate to jump into the East River."

  Moving from sad to indignant felt like a positive move. If she could keep that up then she'll be super happy. If she was happy then maybe she could not think about how she was going to have to join some communal shower or something until they fix the water.

  Vince cracked another can of Blue Ox. "You know what we need to do? We need to send the drones up to scout out the aqueduct. If mobs are clogging up the pipes and this is why then we need to figure out if we can unclog it. This is going to become such a problem."

  That was about when Gladys arrived and once again Vince gave his summary and Ashley gave her summary so that they could all understand.

  It was going to be one of those times where the community had to come together.

  She was going to have to get Kate. Kate was not going to like this. This was going to complicate their fun times together.

  But they would work through it. The system had shown up and it had taken almost three months for their water source to be affected. In three months, they still had power and they still had each other.

  I actually pulled out her phone to text Kate.

  Ashley: We're going to get through this together

  Kate: What the fuck who starts a conversation like that. What's up?

  Ashley: Look you know how I love you, right?

  Kate: Fuck. That had? I'm on my way where are you?

  Ashley: Engineering.

  Kate: moving

  She closed the phone and waited for the whirlwind of beef and the shitstorm of ridiculousness that she was inhaling. It didn't feel right that the system waited this long to give them this kind of problem. They'd conquered most of Staten Island.

  Staten Island was fine. They had spent a considerable amount of effort trying to contain the mess there that had resulted when too many people abandoned the borough early on.

  Now? They needed to save Manhattan and the other boroughs.