Chapter Two - A Night Without Night

Her tone was sharp, but her hands shook. Elliot caught the edge of a drone propeller in her bag and understood immediately that she was not just some kid tagging along. She had skills. She also had a price. Their destination was an emergency cache site below the old district, rumored to be shared by county officials and hospital staff. Water. Temporary cooling units. A little diesel. They had to move at night because daylight was suicide. The problem was that night no longer meant relief. It meant 126F dropping to maybe 112F, which was cooler only in the way a furnace door left open is cooler than the blast inside. They had barely left the freeway when the first heat-destroyed tire carcasses appeared along the shoulder.