The industrial warehouse buzzed with muted activity as Raven sat on the lowered tailgate of the Ironhowl X4, rolling up the sleeves of her jacket while the sun pressed through a bank of low clouds. It was officially January 2nd. Eight days to go until the fall. The world still spun, still moved, but there was something fragile under the surface. The air tasted thinner. Quieter.
She tapped her phone screen and brought up her contact list, scrolling to the rarely-used logistics line for one of her father’s bulk food supply managers. She found the name Carl Mendoza and hit dial.
The line picked up fast. "Yeah?"
“Carl,” she said, calm and measured. “It’s Raven Salvatore.”
A pause. “The daughter? Haven’t heard from you since… hell, ever.”
“I need a supply run scheduled. Today. Big one.”
“You placing an order for your father?” he asked, skepticism crawling into his voice. “He finally decide to stop making you handle all his grunt work?”
Raven’s voice didn’t shift. “No. He’s still delegating. I’m still faster.”
Carl sighed. “All right. What’s he want this time?”
“I need the following delivered to the warehouse. Ten tons of bottled water. Ten tons of eggs. Ten thousand pounds of frozen chicken. Five thousand pounds of raw chicken. Ten thousand pounds of frozen beef. Five thousand pounds of raw beef—full carcass cuts, every part of the cow. Same amounts for pork. I want full breakdowns. Bone, fat, organs, everything.”
There was silence on the other end of the line.
Carl finally spoke. “That’s… not a supply order. That’s a bunker stockpile.”
Raven let a small smile crease her lips. “Then I’m doing my job right.”
“Anything else?”
“Three thousand boxes of high-performance energy drinks. Variety case. Max caffeine. I want Ragnarok Surge, if you still carry it.”
Carl laughed under his breath. “That stuff’s borderline chemical warfare. We haven’t had a case go out since the Doomsday Expo last year.”
“Time to clean out the inventory.”
He muttered something she didn’t catch. “Anything else?”
“That’s the base order.”
Carl sounded like he was flipping pages. “I can start scheduling deliveries. Standard routing—should hit your father’s warehouse by the end of the week.”
“No,” Raven said. “I want it delivered within twenty-four hours. Same warehouse drop site as the last run.”
“Rush trucking on that scale’s gonna cost triple.”
She stared ahead at the frost forming on the warehouse’s loading bay. “My father doesn’t take no for an answer.”
Carl exhaled slowly. “Fine. I’ll make it happen. Expect trucks by tomorrow afternoon.”
Raven hung up.
The cold edged in against her fingers, but she ignored it, pulling out a protein bar from her jacket and biting down. The sugary aftertaste lingered as she checked her phone again—new order confirmation already in place.
Just as she started walking back toward the warehouse entrance, a clean digital notification scrolled across her field of vision, soft and gray-blue.
> **[Notice: Sanctuary Livestock Module Stable. Storage capacity optimizing. Sustained food production enabled.]**
>
> **[Supplementary Module Detected: Crop Cultivation System Available for Activation]**
>
> **— New Module Unlocked —**
>
> **[Sanctuary Crop Cultivation System Active]**
> - Supported crops: corn, wheat, rice, barley, oats, soybeans, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, spinach, tomatoes, onions, peppers, beans, sunflowers, medicinal herbs, cooking herbs.
> - System will plant, water, fertilize, and harvest without host intervention.
> - All crops stored in appropriate stasis conditions upon harvest.
> - **Time acceleration: 5:1.** For every one hour on Earth, five hours pass within cultivation modules.
Raven flicked the message away with a mental swipe.
Unlimited meat. Unlimited crops. No spoilage. Five times the growth rate.
The apocalypse would run out of people long before she ran out of food.
She turned toward the refrigerated bays and started loading crates onto the dolly for manual transfer into Sanctuary. Cold fog steamed off the insulated steel doors.
As she loaded the next pallet, her mind wandered back to the Ragnarok Surge order. She remembered how it had helped her stay awake for days back in the wasteland, when sleep meant death and every step could be your last.
Water kept you alive. But caffeine bought you time. Bought you just enough twitch, speed, and awareness to dodge a grab or kill a stalker before it pounced.
People stocked up on water. They forgot how important energy was.
Ragnarok Surge had been her guilty secret. Two cans and she could kill anything in her way.
She smiled as she stacked the first energy drink pallet against the back of the warehouse wall.
Sometimes, a little chemical high was all it took to survive.
The bay doors hissed closed behind her as the next truck began to back in.
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