Page 114 of One Adult, Please

The walkie crackles one last time. Grace’s voice, powdered-sugar sweet and edged with something fiercer. "Beck. Joel. Come back."

Come back as in: you'd better come back because the group heart situation has a strict no-vacancy policy on permanent departures.

"Copy," I say.

Joel doesn't say anything. He just runs faster.

That's his copy. That's always been his copy.

27

STRANGERS AT THE HIP GATE

GRACE

The first thing I notice is their shoes. Because shoes are the first thing you learn to read in the apocalypse. Wrong people have wrong feet. They drag, they shuffle, they've lost the memo on heel-toe walking and are working from a corrupted file. Living people have intentional shoes. Shoes that know where they're going.

The people standing at the east entrance of WonderSphere have purpose shoes. Boots, mostly. Sneakers. One guy in sandals, which is either a bold tactical choice or evidence that the apocalypse caught him at brunch. They also have guns, and there are fourteen of them and they're looking at my hip gate the way I looked at it on day one.

"Grace." Joel's voice in the walkie. He and Beck are at the barricade, twenty yards from the entrance, positioned behind the reinforced ticket booth barrier that Beck built out of park benches, a candy kiosk, and a bumper car. "Mixed group. At least six are armed. Rifles, two handguns visible. They've got a point person. Tall woman, front of the group."

I'm watching from the operations center window. Grant is beside me, Captain's on the windowsill making small irritated noises at the glass. Below us, across the big middle, the east gate is visible. Fourteen people in a ragged cluster. Some standing. Some sitting on the pavement, leaning against each other.

There are kids. At least two that I can see, tucked behind adults. Small shapes wearing jackets too big for them and expressions too old for them.

"I'm coming down," I say into the walkie.

"Grace, wait for..."

I'm already in the stairwell. I catch my toe on the second-to-last step, grab the railing, and keep moving.

I reach the barricade. Beck's crouched behind the bumper car section, axe ready. Joel's beside him, wrench in one hand, walkie in the other.

Grant arrives thirty seconds after me, breathing slightly harder than usual because he lingered to secure Captain.

"I need to talk to them," I say.

"You need to stay behind the barricade," Joel says.

"Joel, they're people."

"They're armed people."

"We're armed people. Beck has an axe and a dolphin. I have a decorative oar. We're not the poster children for disarmament."

"Grace," Beck says. "Let me go first."

"This isn't a line. This is a conversation. I'm going to walk over there and I'm going to talk to that woman. I'm going to ask her what she needs because that's what you do when people show up at your door."

"People with guns."

"People with guns who have kids."

I watch Beck's face cycle through something fast and complicated, and then he nods. The Beck nod that means: I hate this and I'm letting you do it and I'll be right here if it goes wrong.

Joel doesn't nod. Joel runs the scenario through whatever internal simulation software he uses to predict outcomes. The simulation is clearly producing results he doesn't like because his entire body is radiating a frequency that says NO in capital letters.

"Joel," I say. "Trust the crayon plan."