I left half my force along the highway, where they could watch the front door. The rest of us began a slow circumnavigation of the building at a distance, looking for opposition, for any sign of life.
The building was so massive, it took more than two hours to work our way around it, riding our Bikezillas out in the deep snow blanketing the fields around the warehouse. The distribution center’s parking lot hosted hundreds of semitrailers. Mostly they were huge blobs of snow, but here and there the wind had blown the side of a few of them clear enough that I could tell what they were. More semitrailers were backed against docks on all sides of the distribution center, like carbuncles clinging to the body of the building. Nothing moved. It was possible that the roof had been cleared off soon after the eruption and the building abandoned later. I hoped there were some supplies left inside, that we wouldn’t have to limp back to Speranta defeated and prepare for dozens of funerals instead of one wedding.
When we got back to the front of the building, I moved everyone closer to its walls, within rifle range of the glass pedestrian door. I called out, “Ed, Trig, and Francine—you’re with me.” I turned to Darla. “Keep everyone else out here covering the door. We’ll have a quick look around and be out in fifteen minutes. If—”
“If you’re not out in fifteen minutes,” Darla said, “I’m going to storm in there and rescue your ass.”
“I’m counting on it.” I leaned in, gave her a kiss, and left. We pedaled a Bikezilla to within fifty feet of the door, laboriously turning it to be ready for a fast getaway
The door was unlocked. I stepped inside—the daylight coming through the doorway illuminated a small outer office and reception area, as if the light were afraid to venture farther into the warehouse.
I stood there, waiting for my eyes to adjust. Then Ed stepped up beside me, carrying a lit lantern. I opened the door at the other side of the room and saw a bullpen filled with rows of desks. Papers were scattered here and there. The walls were decorated with posters listing rules:
Name badges must be worn at all times, No UNESCORTED VENDORS IN THE BULLPEN, and the like. Ed’s lantern cast crazy shadows around the room. He had brought Trig and Francine inside with him.
The back wall of the bullpen was made of painted cinderblock, not drywall like the rest. An aisle between the desks led directly to a metal door set in the back wall. I tried the handle—it was unlocked. I stepped through with Ed close on my heels.
Beyond the door was a massive, open room filled with huge metal racks. The racks were stuffed with pallet upon pallet of food, thousands of pounds of it just in the tiny bit of the warehouse I could see: canned corn, boiled potatoes, beef stock, and more. Directly in front of me, there was a row of pallets—dozens of them—that held industrial-sized cans of tomato sauce—enough tomato sauce, it seemed, to feed the country of Italy for a decade. Our food problems were solved!
A row of people rose from behind the pallets as one, as if some invisible signal had been passed. Every one of them had a pistol, and every pistol was aimed at us.
Chapter 55
“Hands up!” A woman commanded.
I raised my hand and hook. There was nothing else I could do. They were under good cover, behind the chest-high wall of tomato sauce, about twenty feet in front of me. There were at least a dozen of them, all armed. Of our group only Ed and I had guns, and they were on our backs.
“Down! On the floor! Now!” the woman yelled.
I lowered myself to the floor.
“Keep your hands up!”
I was facedown. I didn’t see how it was possible to raise my hands—maybe if I were seriously doublejointed? I stretched my arms over my head, laying my one good hand against the cold concrete floor.
I heard boots against the concrete and then felt something small and metal press against the back of my neck. A gun barrel, I feared.
“This guy’s got a hook,” a man’s voice said from directly behind me.
“We caught Captain Hook?” the woman said.
“He’s not much older than Peter Pan.”
“I’m Alex,” I said.
“Shut up,” they said together.
“What do we do with them?” the man asked.
“We’ve gotta kill them,” the first woman said.
“I can’t just shoot him!” the man behind me said.
“We can’t let them go,” the woman said.
“Um, why not?” I asked.
“Shut up,” they repeated.
“If you do shoot us,” Ed said calmly, despite the fact that his head was mashed against the concrete floor like mine, “the rest of Speranta will come looking for us. They know where we are.”
“We know exactly how many of you there are,” the woman said. “Twenty-six more outside. We can deal with them.”
“And if you’ve seen everyone on our patrol,” Ed said, “then you know they aren’t carrying much in the way of supplies. Just some trade goods. If we don’t come back soon, the whole town will be out poking around here.”
“Spranta?” the man said. “There’s no Spranta around here.”
“Speranta,” I said. “It’s new. Look, we don’t mean you any harm. We were just out looking for food—”
“Told you they were here to take our food!” the woman said. “We need to shoot ’em, Dean.”
“We’re not here to take anyone’s food. We didn’t even know you were here. You mind if I get up, so we can talk this over? Take my gun—you can always shoot me after we talk.”
“All right, let’s hear what he has to say, Thelma,” Dean said, and I felt my rifle being lifted from my back. The strap was wrapped around my shoulder. I rolled very slowly and sat up so Dean could lift it off me. He was young, maybe mid-twenties, and black. I stayed sitting on the floor, figuring I was less threatening that way
The woman was young too—they seemed too young to be in charge. On the other hand, I was a teenager leading a village, so who was I to say they were too young?
“I’d like to not get shot, of course,” I said, “but I’d also like to trade. You’ve obviously got a lot of food, and while we’ re growing what we can—”
“What are you growing, snow carrots?” Thelma asked. “Kale and wheat, mostly In greenhouses.”
“And you’re heating these greenhouses how?”
I told her about our old greenhouses, heated by wood-burning hypocausts, and the new model, heated by electricity from the wind turbines. Thelma seemed skeptical, but Dean was clearly interested. I was very careful not to tell her how many people lived in Speranta or let on that so many of them were newcomers and wounded. I didn’t want to say anything to dispel the impression of strength Ed had given them.
“So here’s the deal,” I said. “You’re going to run out of food eventually.”
Dean and Thelma spoke over each other:
“Got enough for fifty-seven months,” she said.
“We’ve got thirty-four months of supplies,” he said. They glared at each other, and I spoke up quickly before the glaring match could turn into an argument. “This winter might last ten years. You help us get through the next six months, and we’ll pay you back double by weight what you lend us now.”
“Riiight,” Thelma said, “we send you off with a bunch of our food, and we never see you again.”
I thought about it for a moment. Something Ben had said flitted around the edges of my mind. That we would inevitably become a feudal society. Nobles had sealed bargains with an exchange of hostages, right? Royal children or whatever. “We know where you are. We’ll show you where Speranta is. And then we trade hostages. We’ll send five people here to live and work with you. You send five to us, and we’ll teach them everything we know about growing food in a volcanic winter.”