Ethan stared at the paper. Yesterday everything had been normal. Now there was no formula on the shelves. No milk in the fridge. What was happening here?
Baking.
He spun on his heel and jogged down the aisle, conscious of shoppers piling goods indiscriminately, clearing whole shelves into their carts, arguing and shoving. Ethan had a vision of the store an hour from now, cleared down to greeting cards and magazines and school supplies. Maybe no one had thought of . . .
Where the evaporated milk should be was just a glaring hole.
Ethan squatted down in front of it, stared at the back of the shelf, hoping a can or two had been missed. Knowing they hadn’t.
Another store.
The front of the Sav-A-Lot was jammed, the checkout lines overflowing. The checkers looked stunned. Ethan pushed his way outside.
It was mid-November, cloudy and cold. He jumped at the honk of a horn, an Audi that barely slowed. The parking lot was overflowing, a line of cars backing out to Detroit Avenue. He climbed in the truck and tuned in WCPN as he spun out of the parking place.
“—reports of massive shortages across the entire Cleveland metro area. Police are asking everyone to remain calm. We’re joined now by Dr. James Garner of the Department of Transportation and Rob Cornell of the Department of Analysis and Response. Dr. Garner, can you break this down for us?”
“I’ll try. Early this morning there was a series of devastating attacks on the shipping industry in Tulsa, Fresno, and of course Cleveland. Terrorists hijacked more than twenty trucks and murdered the drivers.”
“Not just murdered them.”
“No.” The man coughed. “The drivers were burned alive.”
Jesus Christ. There had been a lot of attacks in the last years. Terrorism had become a fact of life in America. They’d all almost gotten used to it. Then March 12th had happened, the explosion in the new stock exchange in Manhattan. More than 1,100 people dead, thousands more injured, and suddenly there was no ignoring the unpleasant schism developing in America. But as hideous as that attack had been, there was something worse about this, something more brutal and intimate about pulling a living soul from his truck, pouring gasoline on him, and striking a match.
“—in addition, supply depots in all three cities were bombed. Fire crews stopped the blazes in Tulsa and Fresno, but Cleveland’s depot was destroyed.”
The announcer cut in. “All credited to the abnorm group calling itself the Children of Darwin. But these are major cities, with thousands of deliveries.”
“Yes. But because of the attacks on drivers, insurance carriers had no choice but to withdraw coverage across the board. Without insurance, trucks are prohibited from even leaving the yard.”
Ethan had made two stoplights but caught the third. His fingers tapped at the wheel as he waited.
“You’re saying that after one day without deliveries, stores go empty?”
“The modern world is intricately connected. Businesses like grocery stores operate under what is known as just-in-time inventory. If you buy a can of beans, the scanner tells the computer to order more, and they arrive in the next shipment. It’s an incredibly complex arrangement of systems. The Children of Darwin seem to understand that. Their attacks target the weak points in our own systems.”
“Mr. Cornell, you’re with the Department of Analysis and Response. Isn’t preventing this sort of attack what the DAR is for?”
“First of all, thank you for having me. Second, I would like to remind everyone, including you, ma’am, to keep calm. This is a temporary problem caused by a violent but small terrorist organization—”
Ethan sped east, past a restaurant, a car lot, a high school. A new luxury market had opened near the river not long ago. It was pricey enough that people might not have thought of it. Even if you’re right, you won’t be for long, so plan your moves. First goal is baby formula, whatever vegan moonbeam variety they have. Then milk. As much meat as you can pile in the cart. Skip the perishables, go for canned and frozen vegetables—
The road to the store was jammed, cars honking and flashing, double-stacked in a single-wide lane. Forty yards ahead, he could see a mob surrounding the entrance. As he watched, a woman tried to force her cart through the crowd. Cries went up, and the ring of people tightened. A man in a business suit yanked at her shopping bags. The woman yelled, but he filled his arms and spun away, knocking the cart over in the process. Cans and bottles spilled across the pavement, and everyone dove for them. A thin guy tucked a chicken under his arm like a football and sprinted away. Two ladies with expensive hair fought over a gallon of milk.
“—again, we expect to have this problem under control soon. If everyone can just stay calm and work together, we’ll get through this.”
There was a crash, and the front window of the grocery store collapsed. The crowd surged in, yelling.
Ethan turned the car around.
When they’d moved to Cleveland, the real estate agent had assured them that Detroit Shoreway was the neighborhood they were looking for: a mile from the lakefront, two from downtown, solid schools, tree-lined streets, and a friendly community of people “like them”—basically all the advantages of the suburbs without being one. A great place to raise kids, the agent had said with a knowing look, as though visualizing sperm and egg meeting.
It had taken some getting used to. Ethan was a native New Yorker and mistrusted any place where you needed a car. Hell, a couple of years ago if anyone had suggested he’d end up in Cleveland, he’d have scoffed. But Cleveland was where Abe had set up his lab, and despite the fact that the guy was the most colossally arrogant prick Ethan had ever met, he was also a genius, and the second-place spot at the Advanced Genomics Institute was too good to pass up.
In the end, he’d been surprised. Much as he loved Manhattan, you could live in the same apartment for a decade and never meet your neighbors. It was a pleasant contrast to dwell amidst the simple Midwestern kindness, the backyard barbecues, and the I’ll-get-your-mail-you-can-borrow-my-lawnmower-we’re-all-in-this-together vibe.
Plus, he loved having a house. Not an apartment, not a condo, an actual house, with a basement and a yard. Their house, where they could turn the music up as loud as they wanted, where Violet’s midnight cries weren’t waking a downstairs neighbor. He was a reasonably handy guy, could wire a light fixture and drywall a nursery, and it had been such pleasure to make the place theirs one sweaty afternoon at a time, and then to sit on his front porch with a beer and watch the sun set through his maple trees.
Now he wondered if he’d been fooling himself. Manhattan might be congested and expensive, DC might be sprawling and hectic, but there was no way the markets wouldn’t have milk.
Yesterday you would have said the same about Cleveland.
He killed the engine and sat in the dark. Tomorrow he could drive out of town, hit the highway, find formula somewhere.
Yeah, but she’s hungry tonight. Man up, Daddy.
Ethan climbed out of the CRV and headed for his neighbor’s house, a solid gingerbread thing with ivy devouring the southern half. They had three boys spread out at metronomic two-year intervals, and the rough sounds of play thumped through the walls.
“Hey, buddy,” Jack Ford said when he opened the door. “What’s up?”
“Listen, I’m sorry to ask, but we’re out of formula, and the stores are cleaned out. You have any?”
“Sorry. Tommy’s been off it for like six months.”