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 somebody’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.”

“You amaze me, Fred.”

“Sometimes they can help if somebody wants to get out of the city. But a lot of people still here don’t want to give up the city, even if they have to fight.”

Arlys unlocked the door.

“Aren’t you going to wear a mask?”

“You know they don’t do any good, don’t you?” Arlys looked over at Fred. “You know as well as I do if you’re going to get it, you get it.”

“They make some people feel safe. I thought that’s how you felt.”

“Not anymore.”

They stepped out and Arlys locked the door. “We’re not going to get separated, but just in case, do you have your key?”

“Don’t worry,” Fred assured her.

Arlys nodded and they began to walk through air that carried the stench of burning and blood and piss.

“How many people do you estimate, Fred, you’ve seen or spoken with in these safe zones? I won’t go on air with it. Off the record.”

“I don’t know exactly. I know they’re trying to keep a count, but it changes. People come, people go. People are still getting sick. Still dying. We—they—try to take the bodies into green areas, parks, at dawn. It’s still cold enough so, you know.”

“I know.” But when the temperatures warmed again, the decay would be horrific. And those who had died indoors …

She’d caught the smell in her own building. The smell of decay.

“You can’t really have funerals or memorials, exactly. There are so many,” Fred added. “Somebody says some words, and … You have to burn them. There are rats, you know, and dogs and cats and … They can’t help it, so you have to burn them. It’s clean, and it’s kind, I think.”

“You’ve been to these … memorials?”

Fred nodded. “It’s so sad, Arlys. But it’s the right thing to do. You have to try to do the right thing, but there are so many. A lot more than they say.”

“I know.”

From under her pom-pom cap, Fred slanted a look up at Arlys. “You know?”

“I have a source, but … It’s like not broadcasting the safe zones. If I go on air with everything he tells me, they’ll stop me. And they might get to him.”

“You wouldn’t tell. You wouldn’t reveal a source.”

“I wouldn’t tell, but there might be a way to trace him from me. I can’t take the chance. I have a protocol—he gave me—if I ever go on air with what he asked me to hold back? I have to destroy the computer I’m working on, my notes, everything. And go.”

“Go where?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Because he told you in confidence.”

“That’s right. But if—”

“Shh! Hear that?” Even as she spoke, Fred grabbed Arlys’s arm, yanking her back from the corner of Sixth. “In here.”

As Fred dragged her through the broken display window of what had once been a shoe store, Arlys heard the engine.

“It sounds like a motorcycle. Raiders?”

“They like motorcycles. You can get around the wrecks.” Fred put her finger to her lips, drew Arlys away from the broken glass, into the shadows.

Arlys started to speak, but Fred shook her head fiercely.

She heard the sound of more glass breaking, wild laughter. Then the roaring engine thundered by, began to fade again.

Fred put her hand up, a wait signal, for several seconds more. “Some of them can hear like bats. And sometimes they travel in groups. You can’t take chances.”

After letting out a breath, Arlys looked around. The empty shelves ran up the walls on both sides. If there had been display tables, someone had hauled them off.

A few shoes scattered around the floor, a couple of handbags, some socks.

“I’m surprised they left anything.”

“The bad ones take what they want, bust the rest up. They’ll pee on things, even poop on them. They don’t want the stuff, but they don’t want anybody else to have it. Mostly right now, they do stuff like this.”