"Teddy. Pause, breathe. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. It's more important to me that you get here safe than fast."

"I want to be safe too! Okay, yes, I'll be careful. Pack just essentials. Clothes and food. I have a kitchen knife. Okay, we're going to do this. Just be cool."

"Good. You've got this. See you when you get here."

He hangs up.

The manager waves her over, seeing that she's done. "First thing's first, do you know how to shoot?"

She steps over and nods. "Haven't made enough time for practice as I'd like, not quite as accurate as I'd like, but I'm decent." She chuckles to herself. "Decent enough to have a preference for simple, reliable guns over anything else, at least."

"Well, we can get you armed if you'll just step over that way and demonstrate some basic competency to Mr. Willis. I want everyone in this building armed if they can handle it. Come back and talk supplies after that, yeah? The construction stuff will be good, we're trying to decide just how to reinforce everything. But that's talk for later."

She nods firmly. "Point me toward Mr. Willis, then?"

He's thataway. In the outdoor lot.

The place is really busy. There are people hammering and moving things around. Someone is running a self defense class in the fishing section. People trying to organize supplies. Sitting in the aisles talking and worrying. There is a cop who has some guy in handcuffs and is trying to talk on his radio but having a hard time.

She looks around and finds the most "shooting range"-looking area, and walks up to whomever looks most In Charge™ of it.

"Hi! Are you Mr. Willis?"

It's kind of makeshift, as a range, but they seem to have made an improvised backstop out of bricks, rubber mats, and wood, next to the outer wall of the store.

"Yes ma'am, I presume you're here for a weapon? Tell me the three basic rules of gun safety."

She nods and lists off, "Assume it's loaded, finger off the trigger until you're ready to fire, don't point at anything you don't want a hole in. Expanding further, always know what's behind your target (including through walls in some cases), know how to holster your gun safely, and remember that semi-automatic pistols can have a round in the chamber even after you pull the mag."

He gives her a couple more tests and has her demonstrate handling and safeing an old M1911 for a bit, but is pretty clearly already favorable.

"So are you walking out or sticking around? I'll have someone run to confirm your contribution first if the latter, otherwise I hope you've got cash or kind."

"Sticking around," she replies with a smile and a nod. "I've got some supplies to go list off still — the manager wanted me to come see you first — and I have the rest of my friends coming as well. One's driving just himself and some essentials, though he's reasonably skilled at a good few things, and the other is bringing what she described as 'a u-haul full of construction shit' along with someone she recruited along the way."

Then she tilts her head and grins charmingly, patting her purse. "I do have cash, though, if it's needed."

"Arright, well come back with a Fort Bass badge and I'll issue you a weapon. Good luck in... Two and a half hours, now."

Sable nods, smiles, and heads back to the manager. "All approved of by Mr. Willis. He's ready to equip me as soon as I come back with a badge."

"Yeah, I know. We're gonna have to do runners to keep everyone coordinated as soon as the walkie-talkies stop working. So! Why don't you tell me what supplies you're bringing- Got anything beyond 'construction shit' for that truck you mentioned? And I want as many heads as possible to take a look at this to see if we're missing something stupid."

He waves her over to the big drafting table with fort diagrams. Current plans seem to indicate walling off parts of the parking lot with sandbags, reinforcing the gimmicky lookout tower to an actual lookout tower, and building shooting positions on the roof of the Bass Pro Shop and neighboring Floor & Decor, along with various retractable ladders to the other businesses close to the highway (they've got buy-in, at least from the employees who showed up today). They're adding more roof access points from inside.

"I'm mostly worried about these houses and stuff behind us - I want to see them coming. If monsters come through the maze of suburbs and apartments back there, we'll have almost no warning. I want to clear the trees at least, for better sightlines, but folks are still in there, so... All we can do is wall up the back side really well. And I don't know how much we can get done in another two hours- Rome wasn't built in a day, let alone an hour, and a single U-haul full of materials will help but isn't going to turn us into JBLM..."

"I've got a good few bags of canned food and spices and rice and other staples, a few more of OTC meds and supplements and essentials like toothbrushes and toothpaste, basic first aid stuff, an air mattress for myself, and best of all these."

She pulls the three books out of a bag and sets them on the table. "I had ebooks of these, since I wasn't counting on the apocalypse taking exception to existing technology on a metaphysical level. Got them printed out while I was shopping. I figure these can help fill any important knowledge gaps, and help us reconstruct whatever technology the System will let us build."

A thought occurs to her. <Hey System, how does the activation health reset handle things like my hormone therapy?>

Meanwhile she looks over his map and plans. "Hmmm. You've got a good foundation here. I agree with you about that residential mess. I think we should prioritize checking the nearby homes for residents once or twice a day, and anything that's empty two days in a row gets torn down for clearer sightlines and raw materials. Also, we can try making a run out to the hardware stores for rolls of wire mesh fencing, especially once Bys gets here with the truck. I'll gladly dump some of my cash into that. We'd have to fortify it better over time, but it would help us better bridge the gaps between our heavier sections of wall as we build up."

System Inquiry Detected

All sapients are being restored to a minimum baseline level of health for the Tutorial.

Some Classes come with cosmetic changes!

"Well, if you're willing to throw them into the pot we'll get 'em tallied. Lisa here is our logistics queen."

Lisa holds up a middle finger towards their general direction while continuing to write on graph paper.

"Keep something back for yourself too." He opens a small bag and holds out a small metal badge that says BASS PRO SHOP, with 'FORT' added in sharpie. "I'm cutting off sending people out for runs further than a block or two at two hours. If I can, it's kind of the wild west right now. We've already seen some modern cars stop working. Computer fuel injectors. I'll make a note about the houses, but we have no idea what's coming- Better to plan for that when it happens."

She nods, pins the badge to her jacket, bags back up her books, and steps over to Lisa, shuffling the content of her bags around a bit. She winds up handing off about half the canned goods and spices, keeping at least one jar of each spice for herself for sure. She also contributes two thirds of the toothpaste and toothbrushes, and half the medical supplies.

Lisa rattles off shelf locations without looking, while adding tally marks for her stuff. "Deposit only unless you tell me, I've got someone watching the shit."

She loads it all into place. "Makes sense. I'll talk to you if I need anything from your stocks."

Then she finds somewhere out of the way to stash her bags, and heads back out to Mr. Willis.

Who is happy to issue her a gun and some ammo! They're not going to do range practice until closer to zero-hour, though.

This is about the time that Abyssia's rented U-haul truck shows up. She has people unloading bags of cement, units of lumber, fence kits, cinderblocks and bricks, and the like even before looking around for who's in charge.

She looks over the selection, first frowning at all the Glocks, then spots a lovely set of SIG Sauer pistols left.

And then she spots it. A SIG Sauer P365 chambered in 9mm with a few tasteful matte rose gold accents. One of her favorite models of pistol, from one of her favorite manufacturers, with pretty detailing. She claims it immediately, along with a holster, a box of ammo, and two spare magazines, and immediately settles in to carefully inspect it before loading it, making sure it's safe, and holstering it carefully.

<Ink and Salt, Sable, you are such a girl,> Hailey teases.