"There's another problem too," John said. "Although the map doesn't show it, there are two bridges that we have to cross... dead downtown too. I think one's a canal of some sort, and the other spans the Oswego River. You think the quake took them out?" he finished, looking at Gary.
"It's possible I suppose. But, like I said, there's no real way to know till we get there," Gary replied, frowning.
"What about a boat?" Annie asked.
"No good," John replied, "good idea, but the banks are too high. It might be something to keep in mind though. If we have to we can take to the lake and skim around the roads. There are quite a few marinas all along 104, so if we had to go a ways before we could get back in, it would at least get us back somewhere down the line, even if the water's still down."
"You think it is?" Frank asked, looking at Gary.
"Well, it was farther back. A lot depends on whether the locks in the Sea Way held or not..."
"...I don't imagine they could possibly have all been down. I'm not positive, but I think it drops somewhere around twenty two feet from the Atlantic to Ontario, and the levels of all the lakes are different too. Most people don't know that, 'less you live up here of course. I'd bet though that they held, at least so far, or at least the ones that were closed. If not I think the lake level might have already started to rise again. Unless... Well, could be like I said before. There could be a whole new river cutting through the middle of the country. If so I wouldn't want to bet on anything." Gary drew a short breath and then continued.
"I got side tracked with that damn fault line right after I read the article about it. You know, one of those things that sort of grabs your attention. Hell, until I read it I wasn't even aware we had any fault lines up here. You hear earthquake, you think California, not northern New York."
"But I thought you said you read about it in school?" Annie said.
"No... What I said was you could. I checked it out at the library. You know, I just couldn't believe it, and I learned a long time ago not to always believe what you read in the paper, so I went to the library and asked. No offense Frank," Gary said grinning.
"None taken, hell, I used to write some of those articles, and I didn't even believe them myself half the time."
Gary chuckled. "Well, as it turned out I wasn't the only one. I had to wait better than a week to get the book I wanted. It was worth the wait though. The book was written by a fellow name of Jack Frederick. Guess he was living somewhere up here at the time. I haven’t ever heard of him though. He told all about the fault line, and the locks. Got into a lot of boring shit, and used a lot of fancy words, but the gist of the whole thing was that he felt the thing was getting ready to go at any time. Course he wrote it back in the fifties, and I suppose when nothing happened right away people just forgot it. Till the article in the paper anyway..."
"...He thought it was more likely to go before the big one ever hit California, and I guess writing that book was his way to call attention to it. I'm running at the mouth here, but bear with me and I'll try to get to the point. See, he thought the whole damn continent would crack right down the middle, with a hard enough quake. The newspaper article was aimed at that side of it too. He also thought that it would eventually drift apart, course that goes back to the theory that the continents are not finished moving yet. But he thought it would move pretty quickly initially, leaving a huge gap more than three or four miles wide and running from north to south. If that's true then it'll probably be even worse through the middle states, as the land's all low to begin with."
"So," Gary continued, after a brief pause, "you'd have one hell of a big river, and then almost an inland sea in the middle of the country. In effect it would pretty much cut the country in half, I guess. Course, who knows? Science ain't based entirely on fact like most people think it is. It's just a bunch of theories, and whoever gets the most people to believe their particular theory comes out on top, I guess. Thing is a lot of people forget it's just theory and start to believe everything they say."
"This guy though, he did a lot of research on it, and I think the reason no one wanted to believe him is 'cause it's a scary thing to think about. So, I guess that's it. It still boils down to the same thing. Maybe, maybe not. We'll never know till we get there, and we ain't going to get there if I keep running my mouth, are we?" Gary smiled, as he finished.
"You do talk up a storm," Frank agreed, "but at least to me it’s interesting stuff. I spent a long time as a reporter, and I have to agree with a lot of what you said. Hell, like I said, half the time I don't even believe what I myself write, let alone anyone else," he laughed as he finished.
"Seriously though," Frank continued, the smile leaving his face. "I still don't know what the
