Karl's hands gripped the armrests of his expensive chair to stand. They lacked the star crested ring that Frank and Melinda had. Karl's heavy footsteps led to the large glass windows. Gunnar followed him to gaze over the wreckage.

"This all started as an idea, a reaction to all the notices we kept getting about superstorms and a changing climate," Karl said.

Gunnar nodded remembering the flyers that would go up around the neighbourhood, the messages they'd broadcast at the community center when he walked Vita to her dance lessons. They'd flash across the screen of his cheap cell as he tried to check his messages too. The first ones had scared him enough to keep Aida home and to spend a little getting extra food for the house. But after five urgent warnings, it had been just another ad to scroll past.

"No one was taking them seriously. But we knew something was coming and we needed to fight the apathy, to find people of all ages who had the vision to create and strive for something better. We needed to make change even if the rest of society wouldn't."

It was easy to talk about change when you had the money to change something. His family couldn't even make it a month without the food bank, so he wasn't about to drop cash on solar panels, fancy lights, or eco-bullshit. It didn't matter if you saved cash in the future if you didn't live to see it.

"That's why we recruited people like your sister to help us."

"And Rob Wells?" Gunnar asked.

"Rob is part of a rehabilitation project to take in those who've lived through the storms and give them a safe space to live. We realized that we needed a bit more help to maintain our facility than we anticipated. Your incident with him has launched an investigation into how we've chosen to integrate them into this facility."

"Am I part of the same rehabilitation project?"

Karl looked back at Gunnar with steel-blue eyes that gave him the chills. "We went to Rob, whereas you have found a way to come to us. That puts you in a category we hadn't quite accounted for."

Likely a dangerous category that they hadn't fully decided if they wanted quite yet.

"I wouldn't have come if it weren't for Aida."

"If the two of you had been together during the storms, we could have kept you together."

Karl's tone reminded Gunnar of his teachers back at school. But the man couldn't be telling the truth. Gunnar wasn't one of those people who knew how to make something better and smarter. He just got by with what he had. But he wondered, if someone offered a safe space for the two of them at that moment, would he really have turned it down, even if the people seemed a bit off? Mr. M didn't have his head screwed on all the way, but Gunnar had joined the group. Though looking back on it all, Vita had probably drawn him in the most.

Crap, he had stopped listening ages ago. He had to start doing a better job of looking interested or else he wouldn't get to talk to Aida. Karl was just staring at him.

"How many people has this facility saved?" Gunnar asked.

"Nearly three hundred."

Gunnar's eyes swept back over Vegas' toppled hotels. They'd stolen people from Vegas to Albuquerque that he knew of, and there were maybe three hundred in here? That left so many people dead or if they were lucky, surviving in little groups.

"That's hardly anyone."

Karl returned to his private bar to pour himself another drink. "Keep in mind we are a group of private citizens doing the best we can. Did you see the government step in to help? Did you see any other international help while you were out there?" Karl tried to make eye contact, but Gunnar kept his eyes on the horizon.

"No," Gunnar said. He wasn't used to the government caring about him and his family anyway. At least the treatment was equal now.

"Even the most influential weren't strong enough to survive the storms, but we were due to careful planning and the secure basement of this hotel."

That was a bit suspicious, but Gunnar bit his tongue. It brought back a few memories of Olivia, Mr. M and the others arguing when they first arrived. The ice cubes in Karl's glass clanked together as he tipped it back.

"We make sure that our people are all well-fed, have access to medical care and education. Your sister is part of our medical internship program that we can visit in a few days' time. We have been working toward finding some promising cures to some of the new viruses that are affecting those in and out of the facility and finding ways to care for those who faced the disaster and its consequences head on."

"Like Rob and the others you brought in?"

"Yes, there are still more out there we imagine. We're reassured by you and Matt. The human race is resilient, or pockets of it are, but with the death that surrounds you, viruses and disease are bound to breed. You put a lot of people at risk, entering this facility without undergoing quarantine."

It had only been a few months since everything was normal, though he hadn't really been counting. Karl was acting like they had spent years on the outside.

"Luckily, our tests confirmed that those you had contact with were healthy."

Gunnar wondered if those checkups while he had been in jail were to see if he was healing or to see if they should throw him back out into the wild.

"There's no crazy virus turning people into zombies or anything if that's what you mean."

"Not yet, anyway. But enough talk, we'll head down to the engineering room to see how our innovation team is doing."

Karl set down his half-drunk glass, dug through one dresser drawer and handed Gunnar a lanyard to wear. A blue and gold triangle decorated the black plastic. Gunnar frowned as Karl headed toward the elevators. That top cable could snap, and then he really never would talk to Aida or Vita again. They walked over together, and Karl held his pass up to the door. A minute later, the doors flew open.

"After you," Gunnar said and forced a smile, just in case this happened to be a trap. Karl accepted the gesture with a smile as they entered the elevator.

Gunnar's stomach turned, and he gripped the bar tightly as the little box flew closer and closer to the demolished city. They'd crash right into it if the death crate didn't slow down. Soon they were back in the underground. Gunnar uncurled his fists when they stopped moving and followed Karl out onto a new floor. The security guards greeted Karl and Gunnar politely.

Everyone got out of Karl's way as soon as they saw him. It helped that he power-walked like a man not to be messed with. People avoided staring too long and gave him short greetings. He didn't go out of his way to be liked or social, which Gunnar could relate to. Karl went through an unmarked door to a windowless room. Drawers lined the walls filled with wires, batteries, panels, plastic pieces, tools and wheels.

A man with shaggy, black hair scribbled away on the whiteboard with some numbers letters and a picture of a 3D rectangle with different arms sticking out of it. He muttered a few things to himself in a language Gunnar didn't understand then erased all of his work.

"Hello, Wonseop."

The man jumped and whirled around quickly.

"Good afternoon Sir and,"

"This is Gunnar. He's here to learn a bit more about some of your projects."

Wonseop's hands shook before he collected the scraps of paper spread all over the table.

"Okay!" Wonseop clapped his hands together and took a deep breath. "We have been working on some robots that could help us clean up a large area nearby to grow some crops. They run on solar power, and we can control them well... most of the time. We're still trying to fix some of the bugs in the range of the controls and smooth out some of the robots' movements." Wonseop looked Gunnar over. "Are you trained in robotics?"

"No, I er--"

"His talents lie elsewhere," Karl said. "Would you show us the prototype?"

Wonseop led them over to an area where a woman in baggy clothes and a guy with black-framed glasses inspected a mini car that could have fit a dog half the size of Hunter or maybe a small kid.

"Is it ready?"

The team did a few checks and tests that Gunnar didn't understand before they sent it into the room next door with a big glass window showing off a cluttered floor. Planks of wood, cement blocks, a few rocks and some cardboard boxes had been set up around the room. Gunnar kept his mouth shut about the fact that there was a lot more out there than just bits and pieces of debris.

Wonseop and his team drove the little machine toward the cardboard boxes and sent the shaky arm toward them. Its grip missed the box then tore into it without getting a good grab. The team cursed and passed the remote to a woman with baggy pants and her hair pulled back in a ponytail. The robot arm moved a little more smoothly, and she got a hold of the box on the second attempt. The planks of wood were easier for the robot to grab but slipped often from its grip.

Karl didn't say a word. His silence caused the team to whisper to each other and tremble in fear. To their credit, they kept trying to move the materials into a pile.

Gunnar tried his best to keep his leg from trembling when Karl turned his attention toward him. "What do you think, Gunnar?"

"I don't know much about robots," he mumbled.

"I didn't ask what you thought about robots; I asked what you thought of the project." Karl's tone was blunt without being cruel or condescending, which kept Gunnar from swallowing his next words.

"Couldn't you just send out a bulldozer?"

"Who would drive it?" Karl challenged in the same neutral tone.

"You could hook it up like this to drive on its own."

"We don't have the fuel for a bulldozer," Wonseop said harshly, arms crossed over his chest.

Gunnar's eyes shot to the floor and he played with the hem of his sleeves. He should have known better than to say something around smart people.

Karl placed a hand on Gunnar's shoulder. "I like Gunnar's thinking. We need something bigger and more efficient. What other ideas do you have?"

Gunnar squared his shoulders. He thought to Rob and Vita for a moment, the spark that had torn them apart would reduce a whole field in hours.

"Are you saving the materials for anything?" Gunnar asked.

"No they're hazardous, contaminated materials," Karl replied with a furrowed brow.

"Could you burn them?"

"That doesn't solve our problem," Wonseop countered.

The woman's mouth went round for a moment, and she nodded. "We burn the area before going in."

"It would save you moving a lot of the crap. Like that box." Gunnar pointed at the mess of torn cardboard.

"It isn't ideal for the soil. It would deplete a lot of the nutrients, not to mention the toxins that could cause explosions that could spread this way," Wonseop countered, his words rushing to the end of his sentence.

"Then we pick an area further from our site and set up a perimeter," Karl said.

Wonseop turned to the man with wide eyes. "But we discussed the robot. It's the safest and best way to-"

"It isn't the fastest. We want time on our side. We can use your robots once they're ready, but until then, we'll use Gunnar's method and drones to find the ideal location." Karl strode out about as quickly as he entered the room.

Why exactly did Karl need this turned so quickly? It had seemed like this community had more than enough things and space to keep them alive. Gunnar left the room to keep up with Karl who seemed to be five steps ahead of everyone.