“And risk.”
Silence settled between us. I watched her process it—the scope of what I was describing. Not a few bad days, or a rough week waiting for the National Guard.
Then she asked the real question.
“How long do you estimate we can stay here?”
I’d run the numbers enough times.
“With significant rationing,” I said, “months.”
The word thick between us; she leaned back, letting it settle.
“That’s a long time,” she said.
“Yes.”
Her eyes searched mine. “And you think we’ll need it?”
“I think we prepare as if we will.”
She was quiet for a moment, turning the pen over between her fingers.
“We need to have a plan beyond this place too,” she said. “There’ll be evacuation zones. Military response. Governments don’t just collapse overnight.”
I heard the hope in it. Dangerous, but probably necessary for Sloane to keep going.
“Maybe,” my voice was vague.
She studied me. “You don’t believe that?”
I let out a sigh. “If they were going to stop it, they would have.”
Her jaw tightened. She didn’t want that to be true. Neither did I.
“So we hold here,” I said. “We conserve what we can. We wait for a government response, and if no one comes—”
“They will,” she finished.
We settled the food plan—rationing, preservation priorities, system shutdowns—and the room grew quieter in a different way. Sloane glanced toward the small couch along the office wall, then back at me.
“So where are we supposed to sleep?”
I followed her gaze. The couch would barely fit one person, let alone two.
“I thought about that,” I said. “There’s a second couch inthe employee lounge. We can drag it in here and set them across from each other.”
It wasn’t perfect, but it was a plan.
I remembered something else. I crossed to the director’s closet and pulled out what was inside: a battery-powered lantern, a rolled sleeping bag, two pillows, and a stack of paperback books with yellowed edges.
Sloane watched from across the room.
“What’s all that?”
“Hurricane Isolde,” I said. “Eight years ago, the storm surge flooded the lower access roads. The director got trapped here for two days, no power, no one able to reach him.” I set the items on the desk. “He swore he’d never get caught unprepared again.”
Her fingers brushed the sleeping bag.