Year One (Chronicles of The One #1)(27)

“Consider it done.” He rose. “I’ll be back,” he told Katie.

“I know you will.”

“All right, Katie, let’s have a look.”

“Dr. Hopman?”

“Rachel. It’s Rachel, since we appear to have formed an alliance.”

“Rachel, when you’re done, can I hold my babies?”

“Absolutely.” And the spark that had died inside her over the past horrible days rekindled.





ESCAPE

How shall man escape from that which is written;

How shall he flee from his destiny?

—Ferdowsi





CHAPTER SIX

While Katie nursed her daughter for the first time, Arlys Reid decided to take her show on the road. For days now she’d depended on Chuck’s reports, on what she could dig out of the shaky Internet, with the few observations from her quick hikes to and from the studio mixed in.

She’d wanted to be a reporter, she told herself as she checked the batteries in her tape recorder. It was time she went out on the street and reported.

She didn’t check with her producer, her director. Whatever happened, the decision would be hers—and part of that decision, she knew, weighed from holding back the worst of what Chuck had told her that morning.

Help wasn’t coming.

As she got up to put on her coat, Fred looked over from her desk.

“Where are you going?”

“Out. To work. I need you to cover for me, Fred. Just say I’m taking a nap or something. I want to get a man-on-the-street segment. If I can find one who doesn’t want to rob, rape, or kill me.”

“Not going to cover.” Fred stood up. “I’m going with you.”

“Absolutely not.”

Little Fred—all five feet, one inch of her—just smiled. “Absolutely am. I’ve spent plenty of time out there. Somebody’s got to get the Ho Hos and chips, right? And two’s better than one,” she added, swinging on a bright blue jacket covered with pink stars. “There’s a market—well, kind of a hole-in-the-wall place—across Sixth on Fifty-first. It’s boarded up, but some of us know you can pull back a couple of the boards and squeeze in.”

She pulled a pink cap with a tail ending in a bouncing pom-pom onto her curly mop of red hair. “There’s still food, so we can pick up a few supplies. Nobody takes more than they need. We made an agreement.”

“‘We’?”

“It’s like … the neighborhood. Who’s left. You don’t take more than you need so everybody gets a share.”

“Fred.” Arlys shouldered on her briefcase and studied the little redhead with the perky, freckled face. “That’s a story. You’re a story.”

Eyes of soft, quiet green clouded. “You can’t broadcast it, Arlys. Some people, if they find out there’s food they’ll take it all. Hoard it.”

“No address—not even the area.” To seal it, Arlys crossed a finger over her heart. “Just the story. One about people working together, helping each other. A bright spot. Who doesn’t need a bright spot right now? You could give me some details—not names or locations—just how you came to the agreement, how it works.”

“I’ll tell you while we’re out for the MOS.”

“All right, but we stick together.” Arlys thought of the gun in her bag.

“You got that. And don’t worry. I’ve got a way of seeing if some body’s friendly or an asshole. Well, some assholes aren’t looking to kill you or anything. They’re just assholes because they always were.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

They started out.

“You know, Jim’s not going to like you taking chances.”

Arlys shrugged. “He’ll like if I get a story out of it. There are real people out there, just trying to get through another day. How do they do it? What happened to them? People need to hear about other people getting through. It helps them get through.”

“Like not taking more than you need from the market.”

“Like that.” As they walked down to the lobby, Arlys outlined a general plan. “We head west to Sixth, keeping an eye out for anyone on the street. A group of people, we steer clear. Groups can turn into mobs.”

“Mostly at night,” Fred commented. “But in the daytime, too.”

“I haven’t been out at night in three weeks except to get the hell home after the evening broadcast. I used to love walking at night.”

“You just have to know where to walk, have to go out in the safe zones.”

“‘Safe zones’?”

“Where more good people go than bad. Some of the bad, they’re not really bad. They’re just scared and desperate. But some are scary bad, and you need to stay away, know how to hide.”

It could be, Arlys thought, her MOS was right in front of her. “How do you know about safe zones?”

“You talk to people, and they’ve talked to people,” Fred told her when they reached the lobby. “I didn’t say anything because if we broadcast it maybe the bad ones will find the safe zones. I thought, if we have to shut down, when we do, I’ll tell everybody else so they can try to get to one.”