Ground Zero: Book Summary
The fog closes in, obscuring Ryan’s view of Trader and Abe. They consider going back to help them, but the current is too strong and there is no way that they can take the others on board. Very reluctantly, they return to the redoubt. They spend five days resting and recovering from their various wounds before finally jumping out.
Ryan has to slam the gateway door eight times before it finally triggers the jump. He finds that the doorway is partially open and can’t close it completely. They all suffer from bad nightmares about freezing.
The others recover first, but wait for Ryan to finally come around before they go out to explore the new gateway. The walls of the new gateway are a sky blue. Right in the control chamber they can tell that the gateway suffered hard during the war. As they head into the rest of the redoubt, they find that many of the redoubt’s personnel were unable to escape when the war took place and died in the facility. Nuke damage is everywhere, and the base is slightly radioactive.
They spend no time in locating the exit and leaving. The main sec door is partially blocked by rubble and they find evidence once again of someone, either a young person or a woman from the size of the tracks, has been in the redoubt.
Once outside J.B. determines that they are near the ruins of Washington D.C. From where they are standing they can make out a huge mountain, topping five thousand feet in height. It’s an active volcano.
Figuring it is best to get away from the radiation, they head towards the nuked ville. Many homes in the suburbs are still standing and they take shelter in one for the night. In the middle of the night, Ryan goes to do nature’s bidding and finds himself under attack from a samurai. He is able to kill the smaller man and goes back to tell the others what happened.
A second samurai attacks, pinning the group down using nothing more than his long bow. They are unable to do anything for nearly two hours. Doc, unable to hold it any longer is forced to go outside. After he finishes his job, the second samurai takes him hostage. Mildred blows the bow right out of his hand. He retreats, and Doc fires after him, unsure if he hit or not.
After the brief encounter, they head into the ruins, and pass a large number of shanty towns. They finally come to an inn called the Lincoln inn, located in a shanty town called green hills. The bar keep recognizes Ryan and J.B. and offers the group a free room and food for as long as they want it because of trader helping him so many years before. They take up his offer and go clean up. The inn keeps name is Peter Clinkerscales.
Peter warns the group to stay away from Baron Sharpe because of Krysty and Jak. He tells the group that Sharpe likes to collect muties of all types. He is also sure that a group of Sharpe’s sec men are in the bar.
Despite the warning they go to watch the entertainment. They spot a small, young woman in black who turns out to be the most powerful Doomie that any of them have ever seen. She predicts quite a lot, and then when she reveals a dark secret about one of the audience, Ryan and the group are forced to kill him to save her. She leaves right after that.
Jak joins a dart game and is accused of cheating. A firefight breaks out and the nine men that entered are all killed. Peter asks them to leave in the morning and not to come back because of the bloodshed. He is fearful of reprisals.
After breakfast they head into the ruins once again. During a storm they stop in the ruins of a church and meet up with Emma once again. Reluctantly, she joins them, but warns them if she goes, one of the group will meet death because of it.
It isn’t long after they leave that both Krysty and Emma are hit with powerful visions of stickies. They find a building with twelve of the mutants, as well as three human captives. They go in, guns blazing but are only able to rescue on of the three. The survivor is a member of Baron Sharpe’s sec men. His name is Joshua Morgan.
They decide to escort Joshua back to his ville. On the way they encounter a second patrol. Once the leader of the second patrol learns of the rescue they become a lot friendlier and offer the group hospitality in the ville. They decide to take up the offer.
They meet baron Sharpe who thanks them for rescuing the man, but really doesn’t care all that much. The reason is he is schizophrenic and Mildred recognizes it almost immediately. He does order his people to give them rooms for the night though. They learn that he had been very ill about a year before and it affected his mind.
He then takes them to see his zoo. When they all get to it, Sharpe changes his mind and sends in one of his sec men to guide them instead. The zoo is filled with all kinds of mutant animals, everything from beavers with inner jaws, to a unseen mutant living below sand in a special cage. Only Ryan, J.B. and Dean are able to continue on with the tour.
After the tour they are given rooms and Ryan finally gets Emma to reveal how she got her Doomie powers. She explained that she was always a partial doomie but it wasn’t until she nearly drowned that they emerged to their fullest.
In the middle of the night Joshua Morgan comes up and asks Ryan to come with him. Claims that they have a woman who used to ride with Trader in the infirmary, and that she wants to see Ryan before she dies. At first, he doesn’t recognize her, but then it hits him. She was one of his lovers when he rode with trader. A woman named Jenny Bolam. She contracted rad cancer and it is ready to claim her. She warns Ryan that Sharpe has humanoids in his zoo. She dies in his arms.
He returns to the others, quite upset at the death and tells them what he learned. They decide to leave right then and there, as it's only about an hour before dawn. On the way out they run into one of the sec men, named Joaquin who insists that they stay behind and leave after breakfast, as if they leave now, Sharpe is bound to be very upset. They have no choice but to agree or fight.
Over breakfast Emma is hit by a vision and blurts out Tornado. They are able to convince Sharpe that she was just imagining things and didn’t say Tornado. After the meal, they leave towards the hole. They all want to see what is left of Washington for themselves. The suburbs they are travelling inn has become a tepid swamp. They spot the tornado coming and at the same time they are attacked by a group of ghoulies. They are able to kill most of them, but are forced to split up and find shelter.
Ryan took a house that had no floor and finds himself in the basement which has become a pound full of quicksand. A ghoulie fell in with him and is sucked idown, drowning. After the twister passes the others find Ryan and eventually free him from the stinking morass. When they go to find Jak Doc and Emma, they figure that Sharpe’s men must have taken them captive when they saw the tornado. They head back towards the ville to rescue them.
After feeding the captives, Sharpe decides to take them to see the rest of his zoo. They see that he has a stickie female, a scabbie, and two others. He plans to put Emma and possibly Jak in the zoo.
Ryan and J.B. show up, and they wait until dark before trying to get in. They take a young sec man hostage and use him to get into the ville. At the last minute the man panics and Ryan is forced to kill him, but they get inside.
Doc is finally able to convince Joshua Morgan that he has to use the shitter and will not use the one in the cell because of Emma’s presence. It takes a lot of convincing but Morgan finally gives in and takes him. While inside Doc is able to get Morgan to tell him where the weapons are stored. Even though he doesn’t wish to, Doc ends up stabbing Morgan through the heart with his rapier, killing the man. He feels quite bad about it.
Ryan and J.B. encounter little resistance in the ville and Ryan nearly kills Doc when they run into each other. He is only just able to stave off his attack. The small group head to get their weapons, then off to rescue Jak and Emma.
Jak and Emma are together, and he very much wants to be with her, but she knows that she is going to die and that there is not a thing that they can do to prevent it. She also knows that Sharpe will die shortly after she does. She sees herself dying in a sea of blood. Jak is determined to save her, no matter the cost. Sharpes men come for her.
Sharpe demands that Emma tell him how he’s going to die. She explains that she sees him with a tongue of silver, falling through a mirror then disappearing into nothing in a desert. He doesn’t understand it, but accepts it. He then takes her to the zoo. She resists him while in the zoo and he beats her, smashing her teeth and cutting her tongue. The girl is unconscious and her throat begins to fill with blood from her wounds. She drowns.
J.B. Doc and Ryan run into Joaquin and a group of sec men. He tries to act tough, and bluff them, but it doesn’t work. Ryan and the others blow them all away. They then go to release Jak and then try to rescue Emma from Baron Sharpe.
When they arrive at the zoo Jak finds Emma, very dead. He goes after Sharpe who dares them to try something as he slowly draws his weapon. With speed that rivals a striking cobra, he throws a knife and hits Sharpe in the mouth, The blow causes Sharpe to lose his footing and he falls through the glass, landing right inside the desert cage where his favorite unseen mutie lives. The creature destroys him.
Jak is saddened at the loss, but he’s lost so many times, it’s hardening him. They make their way back to the redoubt, and no one bothers them at all. They enter the redoubt, finding that Doc had indeed hit and wounded the second samurai. They find his blood soaked discarded helm. The group jump out.
End of Ground Zero.