Bryan kept walking, eyes on the address in his hand, and answered without looking back. "You think they'd care about that? Sometimes, the only thing that matters is the profit you can hold in your hands. As far as they're concerned, if things go sideways, it's someone else's problem. There'll always be somebody to clean up the mess."
Sarah's mind churned. She fell silent, overwhelmed. The implications hit hard, and she needed time to process.
"But if something like that happened, the military wouldn't just ignore it, right? They'd catch those people and work their way up the chain—" Allen, who'd been listening, piped up with his own thoughts.
"Use your head."
Bryan pressed his hand down on Allen's head and ruffled his hair. "If people are running an operation like that, you think they'd let anyone know who they are? They'd probably wear masks the whole time, not give away a single detail. But hey—let's hope I'm just being paranoid."
He found the building they were looking for and picked up the pace. "Alright, enough about that. We're here. Let's go."
Anna's residence was a converted office building. After the military had cleared the QZ, buildings like this couldn't go to waste—they'd been repurposed as housing.
The tower was over forty stories tall. With no elevator, residents on the upper floors had to trudge up and down dozens of flights just to get home. Bryan didn't envy them.
Thankfully, the address indicated the thirteenth floor. Not ideal, but manageable. Even so, the climb would've been brutal for anyone who hadn't been training.
Knock, knock, knock.
They reached the thirteenth floor, and Bryan circled around until he stopped before a set of double wooden doors. He rapped his knuckles against them.
Footsteps sounded from inside almost immediately. The door cracked open, just a sliver, and a familiar face peered through the gap with wary eyes.
"Oh! How are you here already?!"
The moment she recognized Bryan, Anna's eyes lit up with surprise. She pulled the door wide open. "I figured it was late enough that you'd come tomorrow instead."
"Anna!"
Sarah let out an excited cry and rushed forward, wrapping herself around Anna's arm in a display of shameless affection.
Anna smiled warmly, reaching up to cup Sarah's cheek with gentle eyes.
"We dropped Dick off in District D first. It's a decent distance from here to District A, and we had to find the place, so we're a bit late." Bryan explained the delay.
"Come in, come in."
Anna's converted office space was at least twice the size of Lucy and Daphne's apartment. Miscellaneous furniture and debris had been shoved into a corner, where a small office room still stood. In the center of the open space sat a lone bed surrounded by a sparse collection of daily essentials.
"How have you been? How's school treating you?"
Anna ushered them in, poured water into cups, and set them down before the trio. Then she asked about their lives at school.
Sarah launched into an animated recap of the past three months—everything that had happened, the friends they'd made. She spared no detail.
As Sarah and Allen chatted away, Bryan quietly stood up and began walking through the space.
After a full circuit, his impression could be summed up in one word: barren. Beyond basic toiletries, a single set of freshly washed clothes hung on a line by the window. That was it.
He thought of Lucy and Daphne's apartment. He'd been so focused on gathering information that he hadn't even looked at their living conditions. Regret nagged at him.
He couldn't help interrupting the conversation. "Anna, how come you don't have… anything?"
The three chatting stopped. Sarah and Allen looked around the space with fresh eyes. Their brows furrowed.
"Life outside the school isn't nearly as comfortable as what you've got."
Having just heard about their school life from Sarah and Allen, Anna knew the comparison all too well. A wistful smile crossed her face. "We work every day. The supply cards we earn go almost entirely to food and basic necessities. That's how it is for pretty much everyone outside the school zone."
"How is that possible?"
Sarah had assumed life outside would be decent—not great, maybe, but not this bad.
She thought of Lucy and Daphne's place. Were they struggling just as much?
"It wasn't like this when I first arrived."
Anna let out a soft sigh. "Back then, even though we had mandatory daily labor, the food rations were fairly generous. But then wave after wave of survivors poured into the QZ. More workers, yes, but the strain on the food supply was enormous."
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and managed a forced smile. "It's fine. This won't last forever. Things will get better."
"Sarah." Bryan spoke up suddenly, addressing Sarah across the room.
"Hm?" She looked up. "What is it?"
"The stuff. Take it out."
"Oh! Right!"
Sarah quickly swung her backpack around and began unloading its contents onto the table, item by item. She turned to Anna. "Don't worry about it, Anna. We can redeem things with credits at the school store. We'll bring you supplies every month from now on."
Anna stared at the growing pile—it covered half the table. Snacks and food, but also clothes, shoes, and other personal items. What shocked her most were two small bottles: vitamins and anti-inflammatory medication. Extremely precious commodities inside the QZ.
Those two bottles had cost Bryan a long internal debate. Together, they'd run nearly a hundred credits—an astronomical sum that had completely drained his balance and required contributions from Sarah and Allen to cover. The expense had physically pained him.
For students who weren't performing well in school, a number like that was unthinkable.
But he'd reasoned it through. In the apocalypse, food was relatively obtainable. Medicine, on the other hand, was finite—every dose used was one that couldn't be replaced. In the future, there might not even be a way to get more. The opportunity was here now. After careful deliberation, he'd committed to the purchase, and going forward, he planned to set aside a portion of each month's credits specifically for medicine and vitamins.
"No. Everything else I'll take, but these go back with you."
Without a moment's hesitation, Anna picked up the two bottles and tucked them back into Sarah's backpack. Her refusal was absolute.
She didn't need to know the exact price to understand these were extraordinarily valuable.
Sarah pulled the bottles back out. "It's fine, really. We can get more at school."
"No. I won't take them."
"Just keep them."
Bryan had been watching the standoff from the side. Reading Anna's expression, he knew she wouldn't accept them if they pushed. He thought for a moment, then tried a different approach.
"Anna, just hold onto them for us. Think of it as storage. You're keeping them safe until we graduate and leave the school. We'll come pick them up then."
Anna's hand, already pushing the bottles back, froze in midair. Her gaze dropped. She hesitated—then said nothing more.
Seeing that the resistance had broken, Bryan pressed gently. "Going forward, most of the medicine we get will probably end up here with you. And if you ever need to use some, don't be polite about it. That's what it's there for."
Silently, Anna found a small box and placed the two bottles inside. She pressed her lips together. She understood exactly what Bryan was doing—giving her a guilt-free reason to use them if she needed to. "…Thank you."
"Alright, it's getting late. Let's get some sleep. We've got things to do tomorrow."
Bryan stretched with a big yawn and started rearranging the furniture piled in the corner, pushing desks together to improvise beds. He still had questions he wanted to ask, but there was no rush. They were here now. Tomorrow would be soon enough.
...
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