THE LAST 100 DAYS

Sealed Gates

Chapter 12: Sealed Gates

"Don't answer it," Ethan said. "Marcus. It's a trap."

The radio crackled again, clear and warm. *"...underground station, Delancey Line. Water, medics, beds. We need hands. Anyone with hands is welcome."*

"Or it's exactly what it sounds like." Marcus didn't look up from the dial. "We have two days of food, Ethan. Sixty-three mouths."

"Nobody offers a free bed in the apocalypse."

"Then we find out what it costs."

Dana's son coughed, wet and rattling, from the cot behind them. Nobody spoke. Ethan watched Dana's hand tighten on the boy's blanket.

"We go," he said. "Five people. If I raise my hand, we run."

They crossed nine blocks of black growth. Noah mapped every step. At the end, a rusted stairwell dropped into the dark, and a voice called out of it.

"Hands where I can see them!"

Armed men flanked the entrance, wearing matching armbands. They searched every pack, took Marcus's crowbar, and kept Cole's wrists cuffed after they saw the faint heat rising from his skin.

Then the stairs opened onto the platform, and Ethan stopped.

Hundreds of people. Not sixty. Hundreds. Families on blankets, medics moving between rows, kids running between pillars. A real kitchen. Real order.

*Someone built this in eight days.*

"Impressive, isn't it?"

The man who stepped out of the crowd wore a clean tactical jacket and carried himself like a wall. Mid-thirties. A scar through one eyebrow. His eyes took Ethan apart piece by piece and filed every piece.

"Victor Kane," he said, extending a hand. "I run this station."

Ethan shook it. Grip like a vise.

"Ethan Vale."

"I know." Victor smiled. "Your friend with the fire talked to a scout of mine. Sixty-three people in a pharmacy, surviving for a week with no weapons. That's either luck or leadership." He tilted his head. "Which one are you?"

"Neither. I'm hungry."

Victor laughed, and it sounded almost warm. "Then eat."

---

It took Ethan four hours to understand the station.

The workers got full portions. The wounded got half. The old got a quarter, and the ones who couldn't lift anything ate last, if there was food left. A line of men with armbands stood at every ration table.

"Strength earns supplies," a guard told him flatly. "That's the rule."

"And if you can't work?"

"Then you're not contributing."

Ethan watched a woman with a broken arm hold out a tin cup for broth. The server looked at the cup, then at her arm, and ladled half.

"Please," she whispered. "My son hasn't eaten since yesterday."

"Rules are rules."

Something inside Ethan went quiet and cold.

He crossed the platform before he could think. "Give her a full one."

The server blinked. "Who the hell are you?"

"Give her a full portion."

"That's not your call."

"Then whose is it?"

"Mine."

Victor stood behind him, hands clasped. Two guards stepped in at his shoulders.

"Walk with me," Victor said pleasantly.

"No."

The platform fell silent. Hundreds of faces turned.

"You're feeding a woman who can't work," Ethan said, loud enough for every row to hear, "while men who guard the pots eat double. That's not order. It's a toll."

"It's math." Victor's voice stayed level. "Eleven hundred calories a day per laborer. Anything else means someone starves. You think I like this?"

"You look like you do."

A flicker crossed Victor's face, and it was not anger. It was recognition. He knew a challenger when he saw one.

"Mercy is a luxury, Ethan," he said softly. "You had it in a pharmacy with sixty people. At four hundred, it kills everyone. The first week taught me one thing. The weak don't survive, so we survive *despite* them."

"Then you're building a graveyard with a nicer door."

Murmurs rippled through the crowd. Someone near the back clapped once, then stopped, like he'd scared himself.

"You think cooperation beats strength?" Victor said.

"I think nothing in this city is weaker than a man standing alone," Ethan said. "Whatever's coming is bigger than any of us. If we only feed the strong, we lose the people who can think, who can heal, who can carry what the strong can't."

"Pretty words."

"True ones."

Victor stepped closer. His voice dropped, for Ethan alone. "You're dangerous, you know. Not because you're strong. Because you make them believe it."

"I make them believe in each other."

"Same thing."

A scream tore down the tunnel.

Every head snapped toward the entrance. A boy in an armband sprinted down the stairs, face white. "They're in! They're in the upper stairwell! Dozens of them!"

Victor's expression sharpened into something cold and efficient.

"Seal the gates," he said. "*Now.*"

"Sir," the guard stammered, "there are forty people still on the stairs. Families. They were just coming in from the surface."

"Seal. The. Gates."

The great steel shutters began to grind down. Through the narrowing gap, Ethan saw them: mothers with children on their hips, an old man leaning on a cane, all running toward a door that was closing.

"No," Ethan said.

"This isn't a debate."

"*They're people.*"

"They're forty," Victor said quietly, "against four hundred."

Marcus caught Ethan's sleeve. "Ethan. Don't."

Ethan looked at the gap. At the faces. At the hands reaching under the shutter.

Then he pulled free, sprinted across the platform, and threw his shoulder against the descending steel.

"Cole!" he roared. "Burn the hinges!"

Cole stared at him, cuffed and shaking. Then he looked at the people outside.

The cuffs began to glow white.