Dinner smelled like tin and charity: reheated stew thick with root vegetables, a few slices of jerky, and a loaf of bread split for five.  

The main hall’s long table rattled with plates and conversation as Hancock Fortress ate its evening ration of noise.

Gene sat at the head, an unlit cigarette tucked behind his ear for show. Kayla carved a piece of jerky with military precision and handed it to Freya. Liz was already narrating the day to an imaginary audience—her voice light, conspiratorial—while Alyssa quietly annotated nutrient values on a scrap of paper. Reina watched the monitors with a detached sort of patience, eyes flicking between the grainy feeds and the food in front of her.

“North annex got a visitor,” Reina said without looking away. “She’s eating alone: bread and warm milk.”  

The sentence landed on the table like cold water.

“No shame in that,” Freya piped up. “Bread and milk are a feast if you haven’t had them in a while.” She smiled at the thought, then passed the thermos toward the corridor camera feed.

Gene glanced toward the monitor that showed Nara hunched over a small plate in the annex—single lamp, one tin of bread, a chipped cup of warm milk. He felt a tug of something nameless—pity, perhaps, or the simple satisfaction of seeing a person not collapse from hunger.

Kayla cut a glance at him. “Are you planning to let her stay in the main house for a while? Observe her up close?” Her voice had a slow edge, like a blade being tested on a whetstone.

The table went quiet. For a half-second the air condensed; Gene felt the room’s temperature drop as if someone had opened a freezer door. The women around him sat straighter, hands pausing mid-gesture. Even Liz’s smile thinned.

“Eh—” Gene started, trying to reach for a casual shrug, “let’s—uh—play it by ear.”

“Play it by ear?” Kayla echoed, narrowing her eyes. “So you’re planning to collect another roommate how many? Three? Six? The fortress has a quota now?” Her tone sharpened into teasing accusation.

A murmur spread. The question—half-joke, half-serious—was the same that had floated between them whenever a new person appeared: how many more mouths? How many more opinions? How much more jealousy?

“I don’t know,” Gene admitted. He wanted to be honest and not get pinned to a ridiculous promise. Inside, there was a selfish part that thought, yes, never enough; it was a childish, absurd urge to gather people like trophies to prove you could keep them fed. He swallowed that noise. “We’ll vet her. Maybe she stays the night in annex. Maybe she moves to main later. Maybe she leaves.”

Liz leaned forward, eyes bright with mischief. “You called it. You’ve got a soft spot. You’re turning into a supplier with feelings. Scandalous.” She waggled a finger and made a small show of fainting.

“Don’t dramatize my life,” Gene said, though a half-smile betrayed him.

Kayla’s voice dropped, conspiratorial now. “If she takes a proper hot shower in the main, she’ll be one of us for sure. The real test is hot water and a bed that doesn’t move.”

Freya grinned. “Hot showers are like a marriage proposal in this world.”

“Then maybe we’ll keep her until she gets hot water,” Alyssa said dryly, more analytical than amused. “Humans attribute disproportionate emotional value to mundane comforts—”

“Save the dissertation,” Kayla snapped. “We’ll decide after vetting.”

Across the hall, Gene’s mind nudged a dark corner: the men who had coerced Nara into spying. He pushed the thought down but couldn’t erase the ugliness of it. A man who asks for carbines in exchange for fruit was a kind of hunger Gene recognized. It wasn’t just food they wanted. It was leverage, and maybe, worse, initiation.

Dinner continued, plates scraped, spoons clinked. When the chatter softened, Gene pulled his phone—an antique, barely more than a slab of metal—and dialed the annex line. He didn’t need to; he could watch the feed. But there’s something in calling that feels like a promise.

The line clicked; Freya answered with the same warm, soft voice she used for the dog. “Hello? Annex?”

“Nora—Nara?” Gene cleared his throat. “How’s the annex? You eating okay?”

A muffled sound—cup against lip—then Nara’s voice, low and steady. “Bread and milk. Hot enough. I—wanted to tell you something.”

Freya, on Gene’s end of the line, blinked and listened, then covered the receiver with her palm and mouthed the words she heard: “Her group—moving. Might come this way.”

Gene’s jaw tightened. He put the phone down softly, like anyone who had just been handed a small, heavy stone. “They’re coming,” he said simply.

Reina’s head snapped up from the monitor. “How sure?”

“Probable,” Freya relayed, after passing a glance to the annex camera. “She said they might be preparing to leave.”

Silence rolled through the table like a second wave. The stew tasted suddenly metallic in Gene’s mouth.

Reina’s expression flickered into something that wasn’t humor. She allowed herself a small, dry smile. “If they come with hostile intent, they will become corpses.”

It was practical, uttered as if discussing engine parts. But the sentence had teeth.

Kayla nodded, cold and efficient. “Our walls don’t care who wants to break them. They’re built for people who think like that.”

A ripple of grim satisfaction passed around the table. The fortress had layers of defenses Gene refused to boast about; he would only say things like: the gates are heavy, sensors work, routes are watched. Enough to make an uninvited raid cost more lives and ammo than it was worth.

Gene let the smile he gave them be small and humorless. “If they come with malice,” he said, voice flat, “they’ll end up as Reina said—corpse collection.” He wanted it to be a joke and recognized the truth in it. “If they’re just hungry, they’ll be turned away. If they threaten the annex, they won’t sleep again.”

Freya’s hand found the dog under the table and patted its coarse fur. The dog thumped back as if it understood the promise.

Later, after plates were cleared and the generator hummed a steadier note, Gene allowed himself one small, private indulgence: he watched the annex camera until Nara’s small lamp guttered and she lay down. She turned the bread over in her hand like a talisman and placed the last sip of milk to her lips. For a second the fortress and the ruined world beyond felt far away.

He pushed his chair back, the legs scraping a map of old routines. He didn’t know whether he’d made the right call letting her stay. He only knew the rules of Hancock: people come with needs, and the fortress keeps a ledger of what it can afford to give.

Outside, the wind skated across broken roofs. Inside, arguments would flare at dawn about watch rotations and soup recipes. But for now they ate, and planned, and waited for the paper trail the world left behind.

If the men came, Gene thought, Hancock Fortress would not be an easy prize. And if they tried to exploit kindness for weapons and leverage, they would learn, the hard way, that certain doors in this place do not open without a price.