Chapter 8

I took the invitation.

"I will not come. But you two are welcome to tour my warehouse."

Damian clearly had not expected me to accept anything at all. He read the line about the warehouse as sour bravado soon enough.

"Fine. Wedding night, I bring everyone over."

That was exactly what I wanted.

I needed them standing outside Northridge when the world ended. I also needed enough witnesses to watch $2.4 billion in shares, a million-dollar wedding, and every identity they were proud of turn into garbage in under a minute.

After Damian left, Emma called from the back of the hill.

"The real intake pipe has been cut open. The cut is fresh. Whoever is feeding him did more than steal drawings."

I went out there. Someone had run a cutting wheel down the thick-walled duct and opened a long slit. If I simply patched it, the next attack would still start here.

"Do we report it?" Emma asked again.

"No. Tie this dead line into the trap room."

"That will make them think they really have found the way in."

"That is the point."

The work lights below lit that cut open seam. Somebody had stopped being satisfied with watching me waste my money. They were getting ready to make this grave a real one.

What they did not know was that I decided which way the door of that grave opened.

In the last four days before the end, I slept nine hours.

Day one, the real intake system was tied into the sheltered face of the hill and the filter layers and lead plate were sealed in. Day two, the deep well, the cistern and the purification gear passed a full load test. Day three, the last of the diesel, medicine and ammunition went into the vault. Day four, every networked control was cut, and Northridge went offline.

I sent a one-time set of coordinates to the people from the last life who had proved reliable.

The message was one line. Arrive before eight in the evening on August 24, accept quarantine, and you will be given shelter. No exceptions after that.

Some treated it as a scam. Some wrote back saying they could not leave their families. Some asked whether I had finally lost my mind.

I did not explain the war.

Once word spread, Northridge would be surrounded by the military, the government, the press, and countless panicking people before the end even arrived. All I could give them was one chance to choose. I could not make them believe.

With eleven hours left on the clock, an older electrician named Ben Carter called back.

Last time, when Northridge lost power, Ben was the one who led a crew to restart the well pump by hand. Later, when people were fighting over the storerooms, they demanded that he hand over the switchgear keys. He refused, and he died at the control room door.

"Those coordinates you sent, that is Northridge?" he asked.

"Yes."

"I can come, but I bring my wife and my two grandsons."

"All four of you will go through quarantine. And knowing how to fix wiring does not get you extra food."

"Fair enough."

"Before eight tonight."

A child was crying on the other end. Ben lowered his voice. "The freeway is starting to back up. The news says it is only a military exercise."

"Take the old logging road on the west side. Do not go through downtown and do not stop on the main road."

He thanked me and hung up.

Forty minutes later his location signal stopped at the mouth of the logging road and did not move again. I called back and got nothing but a busy signal.

I stared at the screen for a long time, and in the end I left his name on the list and did not give those four slots to anyone else.

Coming back had not made me all-knowing. I could remember the disaster and I could stockpile supplies, but I could not drag every person who deserved to live off a road that was already choked shut.

At 7:20 Ben's call finally connected.

"A tree came down. The car cannot get through." He was out of breath. "We are on foot. Can you hold the door?"

"Eight o'clock exactly, the outer door closes."

"The boys cannot run fast."

I looked at the distance left. A healthy adult would need forty-five minutes.

"Follow the transmission-tower service road north. At the third fork, there is an electric truck with no plates. The key is behind the visor."

That was an emergency vehicle I had placed in advance, meant for my own evacuation.

Ben was quiet for a moment. "Then what do you do?"