By the time Beth finished reading The Book, her eyes were heavy, but her mind was still racing. The good news was that no imminent risk of being eaten by zombies. The bad news was that there were plenty of other things in the future to make her and her family miserable. She closed her eyes, her mind jumping from point to point. Somewhere, somehow, she fell asleep.

  She woke up to the squeak of Calley turning over on the air mattress. Beth missed her own room. It was just a little space jammed in next to larger kitchen extension, but it was hers. She missed her bookshelves, filled with her favourites from childhood, that would open naturally to her favourite scenes when she picked them up. She missed the sun that only reached inside her room to warm her bed on clear winter afternoons. She missed checking every day for the first daffodils under her windowsill to push out the ground and promise that spring was on its way.

  Enough of that.

  After getting ready and eating breakfast, she sat down with The Book and pen and paper. It was time to strategize. Start with the big picture first. Things weren’t going to return to normal. There would be no flights home. All fuel, aviation fuel and diesel for boats included, would become reserved for military use. Beth’s university was never going to re-open. Her father’s original job wasn’t going to exist for much longer to let him work remotely. They’d be in Pines for as long as the book could predict – and the book was predicting two years out.

  Because of aliens.

  Aliens.

  The Book was frustratingly vague, but there was enough to put together some pieces. The earth was the site of their proxy war. One side was turning people into zombies. The other side was offering supernatural abilities to fight those zombies, and a food substitute to keep them alive long enough to do it. Beth might have believed in the benevolence of the ‘War Relief Foundation’ at least a little, except that they provided extra assistance on payment. And that payment was proof of zombie kills. Nothing else. Tokens could be found at the base of the spine of the infected, just under the skin. It was only one step more civilised than asking the survivors to gather ears. Beth couldn’t resist checking her own neck. Nothing. It seemed at least the other side wasn’t also being offered bounties for the number of uninfected they could kill. Yet.

  Beth’s visceral reaction was utter loathing for them all. It wasn’t fair. If they had an argument, they should keep it to themselves. Uncle Alex didn’t deserve to die to score points for beings he didn’t even know existed. The child in Beth wanted to cross her arms and refuse to participate in their sick little games. But the Book provided hints about people who didn’t participate. The aliens didn’t bother targeting them. They didn’t have to. They just let them all fade into obscurity as the rest of the world surged on past them. It was the existence of superpowers, far more than the existence of zombies, that would break normality. Humans would never return to the old ways of doing things again, not even if every trace of the infection was wiped out.

  The Beth in The Book played along.

  Which was nice to know, she supposed. But why would she even need two different defensive abilities? And why were abilities in a limited supply, anyway? It seemed designed to make people distrustful of each other. That on top of the other difficulties in transitioning. Humanity was in for some rough months and years until the situation stabilised.

  The electronic banking system would collapse first. After that, fiat currencies would follow suit in many places, particularly those without a local mint. The winners and losers of the wealth game would shift. People with the monopoly on violence had access to the infected, which meant access to Zombie tokens. Tokens meant access to more and better literal superpowers. Superpowers meant access to a monopoly on violence. Zombie tokens would become the means of international trade, such as it existed. Humanity would come to treasure the very symbol of their enslavement.

  Locally, every group would find some supplementary system. Pines would sneak in their own slowly. In the beginning, it would just be presented as a bonus. People who worked or volunteered with the government would get ‘Contribution Points’ that could be used for some perks. Being jumped to the top of a waiting-list. A few additional food ration cards. An extra ear paid to their concerns. Slowly they would be more essential for everything.

  Employment would become unrecognisable. With the collapse of civilisation and every modern convenience, there would only be three industries actively expanding. The military, agriculture, and domestic service. Her family would not be interested in any of those options. Not many people would. But if they did nothing, they’d lose their choice. By the end of The Book, the government was encouraging sharecropping in the name of public order. It didn’t take much imagination to see that they might move from encouragement to force. Only an official job, earning Contribution Points, was a guarantee of immunity.

  Which circled her back to the last, most disturbing prediction in The Book. Her own personal fate. In The Book, her father hadn’t found a replacement job. He had hidden his problems from the rest of the family, going deeper and deeper into debt to keep food on the table. The Beth in The Book had taken on some informal jobs and started growing food on a little allotment. In the new economy, that meant that her credit rating was substantially better than anyone else. At some point, without her knowledge, the debt had accumulated under her name. Eventually, The Book claimed, the family had been left with only one choice. They’d ‘volunteered’ Beth as a worker on a grain farm, with the entire sign-on bonus going just to clear the debt. The Book ended shortly after that with a tiny and unhelpful line:

  Continued in Book 2.

  Beth hated reading it and hated having to think about it. It wouldn’t be like that. Her family wasn’t going to sell her. Peter wasn’t going to refuse to help. Beth herself wasn’t going to just allow herself to be sold. Standards might have changed, but the government wasn’t going to endorse actual slavery.

  It didn’t matter. Beth would make sure they never went into debt in the first place.

  She put her first step into play at breakfast two days later. “Alistair is picking you up this morning, isn’t he? Would it be possible for me to come with and register separately? I am nineteen, after all.”

  “Why would you want to do that?” asked her father.

  Because if The Book was right – which it wasn’t, Beth knew, but if – then her father wouldn’t be able to take out loans in her name if they were part of different households.

  Beth said, “If there’s any advantages they provide on a household level, like job or housing allocations or similar, then if I’m registered separately, we’ll get it twice.”

  Beth didn’t expect the government be naive when it came to benefits like rationing, but household registration would be used for more than that. It would be the first step in finding a job, trading on the official market, and being allocated land to grow food on. It would be the determining factor in who got to stay and who had to leave.

  “We don’t need that,” said her father. “We wouldn’t want to accept any kind of handout, anyway. Don’t worry about it. I can handle everything.”

  His objection made Beth feel better. Of course, her father would want to take care of everything without worrying her. The Book must have just misinterpreted his efforts.

  “Of course you can, Dad,” she said. “But you have to admit that it might take some time for us to find larger accommodations, what with everything that’s going on. What if there’s some kind of lottery for new places? I think we should take every chance we can.”

  “I want my own place,” said Oakley. “Can I also register?”

  “You’re thirteen,” replied Beth repressively.

  “It can’t hurt,” interrupted Sophie. “We do need the space, and we haven’t had any luck finding a place ourselves.”

  Sophie didn’t enjoy tripping over Oakley on the way to the kitchen any more than the rest of them did.

  “Oh well,” said her father, “I guess I can’t see that it will do any harm. If you want to, I suppose you can come with.”

  When Alistair arrived, he was only briefly surprised at Beth’s request. He was very gracious in inviting her to join them. He didn’t say anything about her being too young, and it all being unnecessary.

  “Do you know what paperwork we’ll need?” Beth asked him.

  “Just your passports,” he reassured. “And I have mine. As a permanent resident, I can sign a declaration that you’re staying here. Proof of address is a problem for quite a few people, so it’s a valid alternative.”

  Beth hadn’t made the connection that she would be attempting to register separately while still sharing the same house. If there were additional benefits, then that might be something that would raise red flags. Would Pines consider it some kind of fraud?

  “You can sign, but Peter can’t?” asked her father.

  “No,” agreed Alistair. “As a student, it doesn't matter how many months a year he lives in Pines, he’s still counted as temporary.”

  The minor mystery was finally solved. Beth had originally wondered if they hadn’t sent Peter to take them because they didn’t trust him to drive one of their cars.

  “Is he registered under your household?” asked Beth, then realised the question might come across as a little inappropriate.

  “No, separate registration,” answered Alistair without offence.

  Beth was relieved. That meant it was at least possible to register more than one household at the same address, at least in some circumstances.

  Passports in hand, they walked to where Alistair had parked. Alistair and her father made easy conversation as they drove into the town centre. At the first pause, Beth spoke up.

  “How are things going on the mainland, have you heard?” she asked. “The news is being suspiciously silent.”

  Beth knew already, but the desire to confirm it was overwhelming. The Book had been mistaken before, after all.

  “It’s pretty grim,” said Alistair. “If you remember when you left, they were still reporting dozens of cases. Yesterday it was thousands. They’re still fighting, but they’re losing ground.”

  “What’s happening with the vaccine?” asked her father. “Surely they’ll be deploying that soon.”

  “It takes a while for vaccines to work through safety testing,” reminded Beth.

  “And unfortunately, no-one has reported any progress at all,” said Alistair.

  “None whatsoever?” asked Beth.

  She knew from The Book that societal order had broken down before any could be developed, but she hadn’t realised it was that impossible. Perhaps she should have, considering that it was an illness that didn’t even originate on earth.

  “No,” said Alistair. “With it being one hundred percent fatal, it’s been very difficult to find a starting point.”

  “What about children?” asked her father. “Aren’t they claiming children aren’t at risk? Or are they lying about that?”

  “Children don’t seem to get it in the first place,” said Alistair. “It’s not that their immune system reacts against the infection. The infection doesn’t seem to target them at all. There are people investigating to see if we can figure out how, and whether we can take advantage of that more broadly, but frankly it’s nothing we’ve ever seen before.”

  “What about those people who got bitten by vampire bats?” asked her father. “That’s natural immunity we’ve had for ages.”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “That only applies to normal rabies,” explained Alistair. “As incurable as normal rabies is, it’s in a different class to the new disease. It’s hard to come up with anything that assists with our natural defences when our natural defences don’t seem to be reacting at all, children or adults.”

  Her father knew about the difference with rabies already, since that had been explained in the same show that had informed them of the vampire bat bites giving immunity. But Beth knew he’d be recycling the same talking points the next time the conversation happened.

  “How’s it going with the evacuation?” asked Beth. “The second quarantine should have ended this morning, right?”

  Alistair took a visible moment to think before shrugging to himself. “It hasn’t been made public yet. I only know because I’ve been helping out in my grandfather’s office. But I suppose it isn’t anything that can be hidden. They’re extending the quarantine. They had a few positive tests.”

  “That’s terrible,” said her father automatically. “I hope the rest of the people on the boat are okay.”

  “It should be fine for them,” said Beth, knowing that wasn’t true but still hoping it was. “The people showing positive would have been negative before they boarded, so they’re only just in stage two. Barely infectious at all. Most follow-on infections don’t happen until stage four. I’m sure it can be properly handled with some sensible isolation procedures.”

  “They’ll be doing everything they can,” said Alistair. “It can be beaten. The outbreak down the road at Greenmouth is under control now. I’m sure we’ve learnt a lot of lessons.”

  And the boat would teach them some more. Eventually, with enough ‘lessons’, along with a more general acceptance that infections were one-hundred percent fatal, they’d make it legal to kill people on the first positive test. Beth wanted to be horrified. She wanted to think of all those Uncle Alexes, except worse, because they’d all still entirely in their right minds when they were shot. But she also couldn’t help wondering how many people on the boat could have been saved if it was already policy.

  “Wasn’t it a good thing that I made sure we took the first boat?” asked her father. “And with everything that’s been happening on the mainland, I’m very glad I got us out when we did. I said to you, didn’t I Beth, that it was going to get bad. When that riot happened when we were shopping, I just knew that was the sign.”

  “Yes, Dad,” agreed Beth with a straight face. “We’re all very grateful you convinced us to evacuate when we did.”

  There might have been something in Beth’s tone, because Alistair gave her a sharp look in the rear-view mirror. Beth shrugged, feeling embarrassed. She hadn’t meant to make her father look bad in front of Alistair. She just wasn’t used to having anyone who noticed. She would have to be more careful.

  Alistair stopped in a multi-storey parking some ways out of the town centre, and they walked the rest of the way on the pedestrianised streets. The town hall was immediately obvious. It took the full corner of an intersection that had been converted into a paved area for buskers and protesters. The building looked like a theme park had absorbed a cathedral. Every window had two flag poles, each with a unique flag – half of which Beth didn’t recognise. There were flower baskets in thematic colours under the windows, between the windows, hanging from the eaves, and on the ground. The entrance was a wide portico; each decorative column covered in colourful notices. A further half dozen A-frame signs announced something or pointed at something. Beth wouldn’t have been surprised if one of them offered the special of the day.

  In all the confusion, it was still obvious where they needed to go. The queue gave it away. She checked the matching sign, just to be sure, and then joined the back. It was a normal queue. A queue full of people who were bored, rather than scared. A queue where the concern was only for queue-jumpers, not for people turning into ravening monsters. A queue no different from any before the infection.

  When they entered the actual hall, Beth was unsurprised that the queue continued, snaking back and forward, even if her father expressed shock. Beth stepped slightly out of position to greet an enthusiastic dog. She crouched down, holding out her hand to let the dog sniff it. Instead, he took the chance to thoroughly bathe her fingers with his tongue. Beth scratched behind his ears and stroked down the side of his body, assuring him that he was a wonderful boy and conveniently helping to remove the dog slobber at the same time. From her viewpoint she could see two people with inappropriately expensive suits came out of a side corridor. No mistake – they were heading towards Alistair. Alistair shook his head, waving them off. One nodded and disappeared back in the direction he’d come from. The other retreated only as far as the wall and then hovered in place. Alistair ignored him, so Beth pretended not to notice. She stood back up and wiped her hands with a tissue.

  As they passed the ropes that designated the formal start of the queue, one young functionary handed them the forms they’d need to fill in, while the other handed a small pile of printed information pamphlets. Not perhaps to the same standard as before the infection, but certainly a good try.

  Our Safety Depends on Everyone: What the New Emergency Measures mean for You

  Step Forward and Help Out: Volunteer Positions

  Rationing, and Our Promise You’ll Always Have Enough

  Twenty Nutritious and Tasty Meals with Rationed Ingredients

  At the end of that section of the queue was a series of counters with pens tied down at intervals. When Beth and her father reached them, they carefully filled out their forms. Previous address. Current address. Names of all members of the household. Dates of birth. Occupations. Occupations. Beth was tempted to lie. So, so, tempted. Either to put herself down as a service worker, or at very least to claim she was studying at Pines. But she knew just how bad she was at lying, and how easy it would be to trip her up. She sighed and put ‘Student’ and her real university. She handed over the declaration to Alistair with the information filled out. He added his passport number and signed. The last form was for details for their ration books.

  “Is there a particular store you’d recommend we sign on at?” she asked Alistair.

  “Sign on at?” asked her father, who hadn’t reached that far. “What is this, the dole?”

  “No, Dad,” said Beth. “The government is guaranteeing to supply certain foods for each person. They need to know where we’re collecting it from in order to deliver the right amount.”

  “I don’t know about that. Taking emergency reserves like we’re some kind of refugee…” her father trailed off.

  Alistair politely didn’t point out that they were some kind of refugee.

  “They aren’t giving it to us,” said Beth. “This is just permission for us to buy it. So that everyone gets their fair share.”

  “It isn’t free?” checked her father.

  “No,” agreed Beth. “That would be an implicit admission of the failure of capitalism, and we can’t have that.”

  “Nonsense,” said her father. “Of course it’s better if they sell it. Can’t have people taking advantage. And, if nothing else, they can use that money to buy more food.”

  Beth didn’t quite roll her eyes. Alistair quietly recommended a good store within walking distance of Peter’s place, and they both filled it in. They gathered the papers and joined the next queue on the other side of the tables.

  “Why do you think charging for the food is performative?” asked Alistair.

  Beth eyed him, but he sounded like he genuinely wanted to know. She also resisted the urge to tell him that performative didn’t mean what he thought it meant. It was a lost battle, anyway.

  “I have watched the news,” said Beth gently. “The food crisis is because of a lack of imports. There’s nothing to buy. The government is already putting every sensible penny they can into growing or acquiring more food already, and some unsensible pennies on top of that. The money they’ll get from selling the emergency reserves isn’t ‘going’ anywhere, not in any literal sense.”

  “Beth here thinks that governments can just print money,” contributed her father.

  “Technically, of course they can,” said Beth. “I know they try not to because of the long-term consequences. If a government doesn’t balance its budget with taxation, it’ll be balanced with inflation, and all that. But the problem here is a sudden lack of supply. They’re not trying to guide future investments or anything. They’re trying to keep people alive when there’s literally no other option. Whether they sell food and tax less, or give it away and tax more, it’s just shuffling numbers around for them. But for the people buying it makes a huge difference. It’s effectively taxing the poor to give to the rich.”

  “The government does have economic experts,” said her father. “I’m sure they know what they’re doing.”

  “They also have political experts,” said Beth. “And I think we all can guess which experts they listen to more.”

  “Enough, Beth,” said her father. “This is hardly the time or the place.”

  “I think that’s a very interesting way of looking at it,” said Alistair. “Thank you for sharing.”

  The infuriating thing was that Beth could not tell if Alistair was mocking her or supporting her. Before she was forced to decide how to react, a woman approached from outside the ropes.

  “Captain de la Haye! It’s good to see you. I was hoping for the chance to congratulate you on your promotion.”

  “Thank you,” said Alistair, and then just left it at that. No return greeting, no introductions.

  The woman waited for a few moments then laughed awkwardly. “Well, I hope we can see each other again soon and really catch up.”

  Alistair nodded. Nothing else.

  The women smiled and, after an uncomfortable pause, walked away.

  “Did you know her?” asked her father. “We aren’t keeping you, are we?”

  “No, not at all,” said Alistair. “It was nothing important.”

  Something Beth judged to be entirely true. Whoever that woman had been, she had been nothing important to Alistair.

  Eventually they reached the front of the queue. Her father was taken away first for the interview portion. Beth opened up the volunteer pamphlet. She’d been desperately curious but hadn’t wanted to check in front of her father. A volunteer position might still pay out in Contribution Points, which would soon become even more valuable than ‘real’ money. But volunteering was an idea that would take some groundwork before she could talk her father around. She didn’t want him refusing without thinking about it. If he took a position, it would make it harder for her to change his mind later.

  “Are you thinking of contributing?” asked Alistair.

  Beth nodded. “As your father pointed out, we have no way of knowing how long it will be before we can leave, but it’s unlikely to be quicker than a month. I might as well do something constructive with my time. Volunteering will also look good on my CV. What about you? You said you were helping out with your grandfather, right?”

  “Similar to you,” agreed Alistair. “The military is undergoing somewhat of a transition at the moment, so I might as well make myself useful while that’s getting sorted out.”

  Beth scanned the pamphlet, but every position on offer was worse than the next. Picking up litter. Cleaning soup kitchens. Handling medical waste. There was no way, no matter how cunning she was, that she’d be able to talk either her father or Sophie into choosing any of these. She supposed that made sense. Pines didn’t have to make pamphlets for any of the jobs people wanted to do. Volunteering would not be a solution to her plans. Beth wondered if it would be inappropriate to ask Alistair if he knew of anything she or her family could do. Not right away, but once her father had officially lost her job. It probably would be inappropriate. They had only just met, and he knew nothing about them. He was already doing them a favour, and not even of his free will. He had been voluntold by his mother. He might think of them as unimportant as the earlier woman.

  “Is that sorting out going to be turning the Royal Militia into a proper military base?” she asked instead.

  Alistair laughed. “I wouldn’t imply they aren’t already proper military where anyone can hear you. The territorial army would not be amused. That said… I couldn’t possibly comment.”

  Beth didn’t need him to. The Book had referenced the impact of the military at such a significant scale that they had to be doing something.

  “May I ask what made you suspect anything in the first place?” asked Alistair.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” asked Beth. “They’ve given permission to start clearing operations in Greenmouth. There’s a bunch of other bills for more emergency measures coming down the pipeline, too. They’ll need a very present military to handle all of that. I imagine anyone who thinks about it will realise that a permanent and significant military base is an inevitability.”

  “I think you’ll find it isn’t obvious,” replied Alistair. “Most people aren’t thinking of the implications of the implementation of any of those emergency measures. You cannot honestly tell me that either your father or your brother is thinking any deeper than how it will or won’t apply to them, personally.”

  Beth’s breath paused. She somehow hadn’t expected Alistair to be so open about his feelings. Even if she knew, and he knew she knew, that he didn’t have any particular respect for her brother. She’d expected them to continue the polite plausible deniability he’d maintained during the poker game. Beth realised abruptly that, no, she absolutely could not ask him for any favours. Certainly not on behalf of her father. Her father returned and Beth realised that Alistair was only an inch or so taller than her father’s boosted 5’9’’. Alistair had left the impression of being much taller.

  Beth was called aside for her own interview. Despite knowing that everything on her forms was honest, Beth was worried. What might they do if they did take offence at her wanting to form her own household? She should have insisted she go first, so that she could have been added on to her father’s if that happened. Would they let her do it now? What if they didn’t let her register at all, and they refused to give her a ration book? What if they suspected her of something? Could they throw her out of Pines completely?

  The interviewer was bored but thorough. She asked about Beth’s previous address, how she’d come to Pines, where she was staying and what her future plans were. Beth couldn’t judge how convincing she was. When the interviewer came to the form declaring Beth as a household of one, she started to frown. Beth’s stomach clenched. She scanned down to occupation and frowned harder. Beth was now lightheaded as well as nauseous. She shouldn’t have chanced any of this, not without some proper consultation with someone. Beth wasn’t a real adult yet, and it was painfully obvious even to this interviewer.

  Then interviewer turned over to the next form, Alistair’s declaration. She almost seemed to shrug. Without any further examinations or questions, she grabbed a stamp and flipped between pages. Two signatures later, and it was complete. The interviewer transferred numbers and some details from the paperwork onto a bright yellow ration book. She handed that over with Beth’s copy of her certificate of residence. For the duration, Beth was a fully accredited resident of Pines. Beth had done it. The relief made her momentarily even more dizzy.

  Or perhaps, more accurately, Alistair had done it. Beth had vastly underestimated the power of the favour he had already done for her. Beth wished she could offer him some sort of compensation, to make it equal. But in truth, she didn’t have anything to offer. The foreknowledge that The Book gave her could be valuable, but only if she explained where it came from, which was out of the question. Alistair accepted Beth’s profuse thanks and he father’s much milder echo easily. He drove them back home and politely refused to come up. Then he was gone.

  Beth excused herself to her room. She opened The Book to see what changes her ‘separate households’ strategy had caused.

  No update.

  She switched her reader off and on again, just in case that helped. It didn’t.

  She’d been through this before, she reminded herself. It didn’t immediately change after she talked everyone into leaving for the evacuation boat early, and that had succeeded just fine. The entire farming complication was still two years out. Maybe The Book would wait and accumulate more changes before updating. Perhaps more changes in how she prevented her family from having to fall into debt again. It would be fine. She would just have to work harder and make more changes.