Reborn before the outbreak, Now they beg at my gate

CHAPTER 4: A KIND STRANGER

"I did not write this," I said, and my voice came out steadier than my hands.

"I did not say you did." Nora Vale watched me over the plastic bag, her gray eyes unreadable. "But you read it three times. Your lips moved on the last word."

I folded the page along its old creases and pushed it back into her palm. My fingers were ice cold, and I curled them into my sleeve so she would not see them shake.

"Someone is playing a joke on a dying man," I said. "That is all I can tell you."

"Perhaps." She reached into her jacket and drew out a plain white card. She held it out between two fingers, exactly as she had held the note. "If you ever decide you want to tell me the rest, my number is on the back. I answer at any hour."

I took the card because refusing would have looked worse. Then I walked out of the warehouse club with my empty cart abandoned in the aisle and my back straight, and I did not let myself breathe properly until I was sitting in my car with the doors locked.

Someone knew my name. Someone had known it in a city where I had told no one anything, in a week when I had not yet done anything worth noticing. The only explanation I could think of made my skin crawl, and I refused to say it aloud even in the privacy of my own head.

The blue panel hovered in the corner of my vision, patient as ever.

Task 2: Acquire 30 days of antibiotics. Time remaining: 70 hours 12 minutes.

I started the engine.

The first pharmacy refused me within ninety seconds. The second one refused me within sixty, and the third pharmacist, a gray-haired woman with a name tag that read Patricia, looked at my list of requested amoxicillin, azithromycin, and ciprofloxacin and actually laughed.

"Honey, I cannot sell you that quantity without a prescription from a physician, and no physician would write one." She slid my list back across the counter. "Are you opening a clinic?"

"I am organizing a community kitchen," I said, because the lie was already in my mouth. "We serve about two hundred meals a week, and we would like a basic medical supply on hand."

"Then you need a licensed distributor."

"I do not know any."

"I know you do not." She said it kindly, which made it worse. "Try the foundations. Somebody will point you in the right direction."

I stood there while a line of customers shifted impatiently behind me. Forty-five days had become forty-four, and the world had already begun to slip, and I could not even buy a bottle of antibiotics without a stranger's permission.

My fingers had curled into fists on the counter when a warm, unhurried voice spoke from over my shoulder.

"Patricia, would you be willing to accept a signed supply voucher from a registered relief organization?"

I turned.

The man standing behind me wore a navy wool coat despite the heat, and he carried himself with the calm of someone who had never once been in a hurry. He looked to be in his late thirties. His hair was neat, his smile was easy, and he had the kind of crinkled, friendly eyes that made strangers want to confide in him. A slim leather folder was tucked beneath his arm.

"Mr. Pierce," Patricia said, and her whole face brightened. "I did not see you there. Of course I can. For you, I can do anything."

"Please do not say that too loudly. I have a reputation to protect." He laughed, and the people in the line laughed with him, and I felt the mood in the little pharmacy lift as if someone had opened a window. He turned to me and held out his hand. "Gideon Pierce. I run the Pierce Relief Foundation, which does a great deal of unglamorous work with food banks and clinics. I could not help overhearing. I hope you do not mind."

I hesitated, and then I shook his hand. It was warm and dry and firm.

"Leo Hart."

"A pleasure, Mr. Hart." He opened the leather folder, uncapped a pen, and began to write on a printed form. "You said a community kitchen. Which one?"

"It is a new project," I said. "We are still in the planning stage."

"Even better. New projects need friends." He signed with a flourish and slid the form across the counter to Patricia. "Please fill his order from our account. Whatever he needs, within reason."

"Mr. Pierce, I cannot let you do that," I said quickly. "I cannot pay you back."

"Then think of it as an investment." His eyes crinkled again. "In my experience, the people who plan for the worst are the ones who make the best neighbors."

The words landed oddly. I studied his face for any hint of meaning, and found nothing in it except open, friendly curiosity.

Patricia was already counting boxes. She stacked amoxicillin, azithromycin, ciprofloxacin, and doxycycline onto the counter in tidy towers, and every time she reached for another carton, Gideon thanked her by name and asked after her daughter's wedding. By the time the pile was finished, half of the people in line were smiling at him as though he were an old friend.

I paid for what I could cover myself, and he covered the rest. When I carried the bags out of the shop, he held the door open for me.

"I would be glad to hear how the kitchen turns out," he said, and gave me a plain white card of his own. "Dr. Vale spoke very warmly of you."

My foot caught on the threshold.

"Dr. Vale?"

"Nora and I are old friends. She called me this morning to say she had met a remarkable man at the warehouse club." Gideon smiled apologetically. "I hope that does not make you uncomfortable. She worries about everyone. It is a flaw of hers."

"No," I said, after a pause. "Of course not."

He tipped his head in farewell and walked away down the sunlit street, one hand in his coat pocket, whistling softly. I stood on the pavement watching him until he turned the corner.

Then I carried the bags to my car, set them on the back seat, and placed my hand flat against the cardboard.

The boxes vanished.

Task 2 complete. Reward: storage expanded to 20 cubic meters.

Relief washed through me, warm and dizzying, and I leaned my forehead against the steering wheel for one long breath. I had done it. I had one more piece of the fortress in place.

Then the panel flickered, and a new line of red text scrolled slowly across it.

WARNING: Timeline deviation detected.

Cause: external interference

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Hidden task unlocked: Identify the Variable.