Iris and Nevin do not understand what Thomas means by base until they see what is in the basement.
"Let's get the pushcart and bring these boxes to the elevator. We are taking them to the fifteenth floor," Thomas says.
"What is in these boxes anyway?" Nevin asks, and he slides a cutter under the tape and lifts the flap. Inside are bottled water, instant noodles, small packs of uncooked rice, canned goods, chocolate, and other snacks. He checks another box and finds the same mix. He looks up and meets Iris's eyes, then both of them look at Thomas.
Now they understand what base means, and that they will be staying here longer than a few hours or a day. They still do not know why. The world took a hard hit, but they believe the government is working, rescue teams are moving, power will return, roads will clear, and things will go back to normal.
Thomas told them earlier that they are free to leave, and they chose to stay after hearing the alarms and feeling the shakes, but they did not expect this much food. A quick count says the supplies can keep them fed for one to two months.
"Load them," Thomas says.
They stack boxes onto the pushcart and roll to the elevator. The panel is dark from the lockdown. Thomas takes a key from his pocket, fits it into the service slot, and turns it. The indicator lights up. The elevator powers on and the doors open.
They hold the cart steady and start lining the first load inside.
"Bryan, we have extra unused boxes beside the cabinet. Assemble those, fill them with the relief clothes, and seal them," Thomas says, pointing to the stacks of shirts and pants still in plastic. The company keeps surplus for outreach drives, so this room has plenty.
Bryan understands why without more words. The delivery guy and a guard saw the food boxes earlier. This chaos will not settle soon. If they come back and check the basement, the stack needs to look the same even after the food is gone. They will move the food upstairs and replace the basement pile with identical boxes packed with clothes.
Thomas leaves Bryan to work and rides up with Nevin and Iris.
They step onto the fifteenth floor where the cafeteria is, and as they enter, they stop in shock. Part of the kitchen ceiling has collapsed, panels hang loose, dust blankets the counters, and a support pillar leans into the edge of the serving counter while pots and trays lie under broken tiles.
Iris remembers Thomas telling her not to stay at the counter. She had been standing there earlier. Seeing it crushed now, she feels a chill.
They move closer. Thomas studies the damage and looks up through the hole near the kitchen ceiling. Beams and pipes from the floor above are visible.
"Security guy, can we reach the sixteenth floor from here? There is a hole here in the kitchen area. Can we pass through here to access the sixteenth floor?" Thomas asks, still checking the opening.
"Okay," Nevin says, scratching his head. The elevator is working, but he stays with Thomas.
Thomas goes to the supply room off the kitchen, the same storage where they cleared the flammables earlier. He shifts a few light panels and trays, finds a ladder, and drags it under the gap.
"Hold it steady," he says.
Iris watches from the side while the two work. She tries to recall what else Thomas did earlier, then it clicks. He turned off the gas valve. She moves to the range and sees that parts of the ceiling hit it. A steel tube from the fallen panels has smashed into the gas inlet where the hose used to be. Sparks jump from broken light fixtures overhead. She is amazed.
How did Bryan and Thomas know the kitchen ceiling would give way. She can picture what would have happened if the valve was still open. One spark and the whole cafeteria could have blown.
"Oh my!" Nevin shouts.
He has found a clear opening in the broken ceiling that reaches the sixteenth floor. He points his light through and goes still. During the meteor fall, the top of the building took a strike. The sixteenth floor is not gone, but the damage is obvious. Now he understands why they did not try the other elevator to reach the upper floors.
Their building has twenty floors and two elevator banks. The one they used stops at fifteen. The other bank serves the higher levels, and the strike tore through that shaft. From this angle the cab looks crushed in the rails. A few more inches and their own elevator might have been hit.
"What do you see. Are you on the sixteenth floor. Make the hole bigger and align the ladder," Thomas says.
His voice pulls both Nevin and Iris back into motion. Nevin pries loose a bent frame and lifts out broken tiles, then clears the edge and lines up the ladder under the gap. Iris understands what Thomas wants next, so she pushes the cart closer and sets the brakes.
Normal employees cannot access the top floors, but people talk. Everyone has heard that the bosses not only have offices up there, but they also have private rooms on the same floor. If they are going to stay here for a while, it makes sense to find proper beds.
Thomas knows the layout because of his grandfather. He leads the way up the ladder and through the gap.
Nevin is the opposite. He has never set foot on the sixteenth floor. When he peeks through, he goes quiet. The first room looks like a small hotel suite. There is a bed, a sofa, a desk, even a tiny bar by the window. He glances at Thomas as if to ask if this is real.
The meteor strike hit the top of the building hard. The top to seventeenth floor took the blow and kept the worst of it from falling through. It is easy to see that the seventeenth to twentieth floors were now gone or beyond use.
On the sixteenth floor, two executive rooms can still be used. They are next to each other. The rest of the floor is a mess. Sections of the ceiling have collapsed. Large debris blocks much of the hall. Most doors will not open.
They test the two rooms. The walls hold. The doors close. The bathrooms run a trickle of water. They can use these.
"Good," Thomas says. "We will make this our sleeping area."
They climb back down and start moving supplies. They make three runs from the basement to the fifteenth floor, stacking boxes in a corner near the cafeteria entrance.
When the last pile is in place, they return to the basement to help Bryan finish the swap. He seals the fresh boxes of relief clothes and sets them where the food used to be. From the doorway the basement looks the same as before.
They leave the basement as if nothing has been taken.
After they finish moving the boxes to the sixteenth floor, they pull up the ladder and reseal the hole. From a quick look, the fifteenth floor now appears untouched since the meteor fall.
Iris sits on the sofa and takes in the room. She is amazed at how careful the plan is. Bryan and Thomas thought of everything.
"Okay, we finished the hard part. We can rest a bit," Thomas says. "Do not go outside the room. We do not know if other rooms will give in. We have what we need here."
They settle in the receiving area. The room has a sofa, a small table, and a large TV on the wall.
"Why not introduce ourselves. We have time," Bryan says. He has accepted that they are a team now. The things Thomas told him about the dream still make his skin crawl, but it is already happening.
"Let me start. I am Bryan, assistant head of the sales department. I am a close friend of this guy," he says, pointing at Thomas. Thomas smirks.
"I am Nevin, apprentice security for this building. I was hired two months ago," Nevin says.
"I am Thomas. I am a regular employee," Thomas says, still playful. No one corrects him. It is true he does not hold a big position, even if he is the grandson of a major investor.
"I am Iris. I am the assistant chef," Iris says, a little shy.
"Good," Thomas says. The word comes out with a lighter tone than before. A chef on the team means real meals, even in a hard time.
They talk a little, then Iris looks around and picks up the remote. She turns on the TV. They may be safe for now, but she still hopes the calamity will pass soon.
The anchor appears on screen. Her hair is messy, her eyes tired, her voice strained.
"We begin with breaking updates on both the local and global situation," she says, glancing down at a crumpled sheet of paper.