LOSS System: Last Store Standing

As noon approached, the temperature continued to rise. Blinding sunlight covered the wasteland, distorting the distant scenery in the heat. Even the ground inside the fence, which had only recently been sprayed with water, was already drying out again.

By then, Warren had finished the clinic’s preliminary plans. He put the drawings away and asked Dale to drive him to the new trading post.

When Leonard saw them preparing to leave, he came over. “Can I go to the trading post too? I need to speak with Jack about something.”

“That should be fine,” Warren said. “I’ll talk to Jack first, then have Dale come back for you.”

“All right.”

Warren soon arrived at the new trading post and told Jack that Leonard wanted to see him.

“Did he say what it was about?”

“No. Only that he needed to speak with you.”

Jack sent Dale back to pick him up, then joined Warren at the table as he spread out the clinic plans and called Megan over.

Megan studied the drawings and pointed to one side of the room. “The medicine cabinet is too close to the sink. Move it over here.”

Warren marked the change with his pen. “What about the bed?”

“This position works, but leave more room beside it. Otherwise, it’ll be difficult to move around while treating someone.”

They quickly became absorbed in the details. Once they started discussing where to place the lights, Jack quietly left them to it.

Dale returned with Leonard not long afterward.

The moment Leonard stepped beneath the canopy, he spotted the two machines mounted on the outer walls behind the trading post. He stopped for several seconds, then hurried over to one of them, unable to hide his delight as he examined the running machine.

“CAWRUs? Where did you find these?”

Jack briefly explained how Henry and the others had recovered them from the electronics mall.

“Is something wrong with them?”

“No. They’re running perfectly.” Leonard kept his attention on the machine. “You’re using them to reduce the humidity, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. It was getting too damp around here.”

Leonard ran a hand over the casing. “I never thought I’d see them still working after more than fifty years.”

“You’ve used them before?” Jack asked.

“No. I designed them.”

Everyone beneath the canopy immediately turned toward him.

“You’re the idiot engineer?” Warren blurted out.

Leonard’s smile stiffened. “That was me.”

Warren immediately realized how that had sounded. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to say it like that.”

“It’s fine. People called me much worse things back then.” Leonard waved it off and returned his attention to the CAWRU.

Jack’s interest had already been stirred.

“What exactly were you thinking when you designed this thing?”

“Coastal homes were always damp, and the air carried salt,” Leonard explained. “At first, I only wanted to build a more powerful dehumidifier and keep the water it collected.”

His voice became slightly less confident as he continued.

“Then I started thinking that if the machine was meant for coastal homes, only collecting water from the air seemed wasteful. The ocean was right there. Why not pump seawater into it too?”

Warren gave him a strange look. “Sounds like you had seawater on the brain.”

“Looking back, I probably did,” Leonard admitted. “But at the time, adding a desalination function seemed perfectly reasonable. Coastal homes were already near the ocean.”

The canopy fell silent for several seconds.

Jack held back a laugh and pointed at the machine. “Even so, why combine dehumidification and seawater desalination in the same device?”

“I thought water was water,” Leonard said. “There was no point building two separate systems. The water collected from the air and the seawater pumped into the machine could pass through the same purification core. The output would be the same quality, and we wouldn’t need two separate sets of pipes.”

“You do know how badly people criticized the CAWRU back then, right?” Warren asked.

“Of course. I did consider the energy consumption. I just thought that if the dehumidification, air purification, and water recovery worked well enough, people would accept slightly higher power usage.”

Warren glanced at the two CAWRUs humming away on the outer walls.

“Slightly?”

Leonard avoided the question.

Jack finally burst out laughing. Now he understood exactly how Leonard had earned the title of “idiot engineer.”

Once his laughter died down, he remembered why Leonard had come.

“I almost forgot. What did you want to talk to me about?”

The embarrassment vanished from Leonard’s face.

“You know word about this place has already spread, don’t you?”

“You and Daniel came here because of those rumors,” Jack said.

“That’s right. And judging by what happened last night, plenty of other survivors must have heard about this place too.” Leonard’s voice became serious. “But that isn’t the problem. Another rumor is spreading alongside it.”

“What rumor?”

“Someone has set his sights on this place.”

The atmosphere beneath the canopy changed at once.

“Who?” Elias asked.

“A raider. According to the rumor, he plans to hide among the refugees coming here and find a way inside.”

“Only one person?” Jack asked.

“Yes, just one,” Leonard said. “But don’t assume one man can’t do anything to this place.”

“Why?” Cass asked.

Leonard waited a moment before revealing the name.

“Because they call him the Poison King.”

Almost everyone beneath the canopy reacted. Warren set the clinic plans aside, while Elias, Mort, and several people working nearby grew serious.

Only Jack and Megan seemed confused by the name.

“Is the rumor true?” Elias asked.

“I don’t know. I only heard it on the way here, and no one seemed to know where it started.”

Jack glanced around at the others. “Who exactly is this Poison King? Why is everyone reacting like this just from hearing his name?”

“No one knows what he looks like or who he really is,” Mort said. “He’s an expert at disguises and poison, and he can even hide the smell of blood on himself. Unless he chooses to reveal himself, no one can identify him.”

“No one has ever seen his real face?”

“Everyone who saw it is dead,” Mort said grimly. “Once he sets his sights on someone, no one escapes. You may not even know when he made his move. By the time you realize something is wrong, it’s already too late.”

Jack could hardly believe what he was hearing. “Wouldn’t that make him invincible?”

“You’re basically right,” Mort said. “At least in some ways, he really is.”

No one spoke after that. The lighthearted atmosphere from the CAWRU discussion had vanished, leaving only the low hum of the two machines on the outer walls.

Elias addressed Dale. “Bring Henry here. Tell him the Poison King may be targeting this place.”

Dale immediately left for the shelter in a CUEV.

Jack silently asked, “LOSS, can you identify the Poison King?”

“No.”

The system’s answer was immediate.

Jack didn’t pursue the question.

Dale soon returned with Henry, who entered beneath the canopy and asked, “What happened?”

Elias explained the rumor Leonard had heard, then laid out his plan.

“We don’t know whether it’s true, but we can’t afford to assume it’s false. If the refugees come to trade tonight, everything continues as usual. Nothing changes on the surface, and no one outside can know we’ve been warned.”

He indicated an empty area near the trading post.

“Everything brought in for trade will be stored separately. Nothing goes to the convenience store or the shelter. The drone follows its usual patrol route, and we don’t suddenly increase the number of flights. Anyone checking the perimeter or leaving the canopies goes with someone else.”

Henry added, “We’ll assign the same people to receive the goods. They wear gloves whenever they handle anything. If something seems wrong, they put it down immediately. No inspecting it themselves and no passing it to anyone else.”

“If anyone seems suspicious, don’t approach them casually,” Mort said. “If the Poison King realizes he’s been exposed, whoever is closest to him will be in the most danger.”

With no further objections, Elias gave the final instructions.

“That’s the plan. Trading continues as usual tonight, and every other arrangement stays the same. Everyone who heard about the Poison King keeps quiet. No matter what anyone outside asks, not a single word leaves this canopy.”

The group was about to disperse when Leonard suddenly spoke.

“Wait. Aren’t we forgetting one place?”

“What place?”

“The water pit. There’s no fence around it. What if the Poison King poisons the water?”

“We don’t need to worry about the pit,” Elias said. “Even if he replaced every drop in there with poison, it wouldn’t affect us.”

“Why?”

“That isn’t our water source. Jack filled the pit afterward.”

Leonard stared toward the pit. “How is that possible?”

“It’s the truth,” Elias said. “Though I don’t know why Jack chose to fill it either.”

He addressed the others again. “Any other questions?”

No one answered.

Elias was about to end the discussion when a quiet cough came from nearby.

Everyone’s attention shifted to Jack.

“I disagree.”