The World Ends In 27 Days

Zeyu understood vehicles better than he understood anything else, including women.

And he considered himself an expert on women.

He understood how much weight could be placed over an axle before the suspension began failing, how narrow a road could become before an eighteen-wheeler lost the ability to turn and exactly how many centimeters of water a conventional engine could enter before the driver became a passenger.

Warehouses, to him, were a hell of a lot less interesting.

Unfortunately, the nine separate supply lists covering Hanchuan’s dining table required more warehouses than vehicles.

Zeyu moved the breakfast dishes onto an empty chair and spread a city map across the center of the table. Zhiyi had already divided each shelter’s requirements into universal supplies, disaster-specific equipment and property-specific systems. Now those supplies needed somewhere to go before Shichen’s renovations were complete.

The obvious solution was to send everything to the properties.

It was also the fastest way to create a map of their entire survival network for anyone patient enough to examine the delivery records.

"Nothing goes directly to a shelter," Zeyu announced. Not like he needed to, everyone understood what was at stake as well as he did.

Zhiyi looked up from her calculations. "Construction materials already do."

"Construction materials are supposed to go there. Four years of food for six people aren’t," he gently reminded her.

A supplier delivering industrial ventilation equipment to an unfinished hotel would see an ordinary construction project. The same driver returning with thousands of sealed food containers, water-treatment supplies and enough hygiene products to outlast a small military unit would begin asking different questions.

Zeyu circled an industrial district southeast of the city.

"The main suppliers deliver to commercial warehouses. None of the leases use the companies that purchased the shelters, and none of the warehouse records identify the final destinations."

Hanchuan opened the property-management system on his tablet. "How many?"

"At least nine."

Shichen looked at the map. "One for each shelter?"

"One assigned to each shelter," Zeyu corrected. "That doesn’t mean it has to be beside it."

A warehouse located directly across from Jinhai Tower wouldn’t be able to conceal anything.

On the other hand, the same warehouse positioned ten kilometers away among dozens of distribution centers could receive six months of deliveries without attracting attention.

When the time came to transfer the supplies, Zeyu’s vehicles could take one of several routes and approach the tower from a direction unrelated to the supplier’s original delivery.

Zhiyi traced the road between the industrial district and Jinhai with one finger. "The western route crosses two low areas."

"They won’t flood for months after the first heat event begins," countered Zeyu with a shake of his head.

"That assumes the storm drains remain functional during the first infrastructure failures," replied Zhiyi, looking over at him. "And that isn’t a safe assumption to make."

Zeyu examined the map again.

The western route was shorter by eleven kilometers. It was also dependent upon three underpasses, an aging bridge and a section of road the city already closed during heavy rain.

He crossed it out. "Okay then," he agrees, slowly nodding his head. "We use the northern approach."

"But that adds twenty-seven minutes," she reminded him, giving him her full attention.

"It also continues existing," he smiled back.

Zhiyi nodded and moved on to figuring out what was needed for the Beichen Tower and what warehouses would be able to be used.

Zeyu smiled despite himself. Working with her was easier than working with engineers who seemed to become personally offended when someone found a flaw in their design.

Zhiyi didn’t care whose route survived. She only cared that it did.

The properties outside the capital created different problems.

The Reservoir Safe House required access through a private road that would become recognizable if the same delivery vehicles repeatedly entered it.

Xiling Data Archive possessed two tunnel entrances but limited turning space for large trucks.

The Beiyuan Geothermal Station and Nanshui Pumped-Storage Station required warehouses outside the city, positioned close enough to reduce transfer time without sitting directly along the final approach.

The Longyuan Military Archive had multiple entrances and enough interior space to receive enormous loads, but sending suppliers directly to an abandoned government facility would attract attention long before the first truck was unloaded.

Zeyu marked separate commercial zones for all four distant sites.

"These need loading docks, reinforced floors and enough ceiling height for pallet storage," he said. "Climate control for food and medicine. Backup generators for anything temperature-sensitive."

"Separate ownership," Jingwei added. He had been silent while reviewing the map from beside Shichen. "If one company leases all nine, the connection can still be reconstructed."

Hanchuan began assigning subsidiaries without needing the reasoning explained.

Some warehouses would be leased by Pei Holdings through companies that already managed food distribution. Others could belong to Zeyu’s automotive network, Qinghe’s medical suppliers, Jingwei’s mercenary suppliers, or Shichen’s construction subsidiaries.

No false documentation was required.

They possessed enough legitimate businesses to make every purchase appear ordinary when examined separately.

Together, the purchases would look insane.

That was someone else’s problem.

Zeyu opened a list of available commercial properties and eliminated anything without multiple access roads.

A single blocked gate could trap years of supplies inside a building they could see but couldn’t reach. He removed warehouses located below the projected flood line, buildings with unsupported upper storage and anything dependent upon a shared loading yard.

Zhiyi watched the available options decrease. "There are only eleven remaining."

"We need nine."

"That leaves two without alternatives."

Zeyu paused.

Of course, she wanted alternate warehouses for the alternate shelters.

"One backup receiving site inside the city and one outside it," he decided. "They don’t hold complete shelter inventories. They take redirected deliveries if one of the assigned warehouses becomes unavailable."

That satisfied the immediate objection, but Zhiyi had already reached the next part of the problem.

"How do the supplies move from the warehouses to the shelters without the drivers learning both locations?" she asked, cocking her head to the side.

"They don’t use the supplier’s drivers," Zeyu replied.

He enlarged the fleet records from his company. He had access to cargo vans, box trucks, refrigerated trucks, flatbeds, fuel tankers and heavy transporters. Vehicles could be rotated between routes and loaded inside closed warehouses.

But the drivers created a greater problem.

Professional drivers would remember repeated destinations even if the paperwork contained different project names. Replacing them for every trip increased the number of people exposed to the locations.

"We compartmentalize," Jingwei said. "One team loads. A separate team drives. Construction crews at the properties unload. No one except us sees the entire movement."

"And no driver handles more than one permanent site," Zeyu added.

The rule increased the number of personnel required, but they had twenty-three days before the first Heat began and years before every site needed to be fully occupied. Construction crews already knew the individual properties where they worked. What they didn’t know was that eight other sites were being prepared for the same six people.

Zhiyi wrote the restriction beside every route.

Zeyu continued refining the system until each shelter possessed an assigned warehouse, two viable transfer routes and vehicles capable of reaching it under the conditions expected before its disaster phase.

The Flood towers required boats and elevated transfer points for anything moved after the water began rising. The Freeze shelters required tracked vehicles and fuel caches positioned along routes that might disappear beneath ice. Heat transfers needed to be completed before softened roads made heavy trucks unusable.

By early afternoon, the map no longer resembled a collection of properties.

It resembled a circulatory system.

Warehouses surrounded the city and extended south toward Nanshui, west toward Xiling and north toward the reservoir. Routes connected them without revealing why those specific buildings mattered.

Hanchuan reviewed the final eleven properties Zeyu selected. "Lease all of them," he said without question.

Zeyu leaned back. "Nine assigned warehouses and two backups?"

"Yes."

"For how long?"

"Buy them if the owners will sell. Lease them for ten years if they won’t."

Zeyu looked toward Zhiyi.

She was still examining the northern route to Jinhai Tower, searching for a failure he hadn’t considered.

"All right," he said, opening the first acquisition file. "Nothing goes directly to the shelters."

By the end of the day, eleven warehouses belonged to companies that appeared to have nothing to do with one another.

The first supply orders could begin.

And there were only 22 days left.