Texting is free, calls aren’t. With a score that won’t update, I don’t want to pay for the call, so I decide to text Corey back.

‘What do you mean you found a way out?’

My phone buzzes a second later. ‘We can meet up and talk about it later. This is bad, things aren’t going to get better. Go to the store and get all the food you can. Fill your bathtub and sinks with water.’

‘How do you know?’ I respond.

‘Can’t talk about it, just do it and I’ll be in touch. Trust me, bud. You want to be prepared for the long haul with this one. The Big Five might not be cracking down yet, but they will, and a lot of people are going to die.’

I shake my head, he’s talking nonsense. ‘Look, from an economic standpoint, they can’t afford for a lot of people to die, this is all a mistake,’ I type, sending the message and returning my phone to my pocket.

‘Not mistake--intentional. Talk later. Get food, fill sinks and tub with water. Not joke,’ Corey responds. I’m used to long paragraphs and proper grammar from him, his brevity is frightening. How could he know what’s going on when the Big Five didn’t? At least they’re making it appear that they don’t know what’s going on. I shake the thought out of my head.

“Vivian, I’m going out to buy some food. Fill the sinks and bathtub with water,” I say.

“Mike? What’s wrong? Who texted you?” she asks frantically.

“Corey, he thinks things are going to get worse, and I just want to be cautious. I’m not going to spend any of my score, just going to use up the last of our vouchers. Stay here and I’ll be back in fifteen,” I say.

“Okay, please be careful,” she says, clearly worried.

“I will, baby, I love you,” I say, giving her a smile and pulling my coat off the rack by the door. I see our neighbors, the Cowans walking into their apartment across the hall and I wave, but they just frown and rush inside, shutting the door behind them.

I rush down the large flight of stairs and when I exit on the street, it’s already getting dark. I pull my hood over my head, there’s freezing rain and I don’t want to be caught outside for too long.

I walk toward the store on Sycamore, avoiding eye contact with the people walking on the street. Everyone seems to be acting weird, the score increases weighing heavily on everyone’s minds. I approach the store and see there are extra security personnel working, holding their shock batons at the ready and monitoring the gates of the store. Someone in front of me walks into the store and the lights flash red. The man raises his hands, yelling and saying that it’s not his fault that his score is so high. The security guards shrug and push him back.

“Please, I need food for my family, I can pay!” the man shouts, moving forward again.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

One of the guards whacks him with his shock baton, hitting the man in the gut and causing him to sink to his knees in the grimy slush that’s formed on the concrete outside the store. “You can’t pay, so beat it or we'll beat you!”

The man looks like he’s going to try again, but stands and staggers back, running away from the store and back into the freezing rain. I approach cautiously, pulling my phone from my pocket and trying to update my score but it still won’t load. Freezing droplets of rain blot the transparent holo screen and I wipe them away with the sleeve of my jacket, pulling my arms in closer to warm me while the rain continues to fall. “Hey, I can’t update my score, but I’ll leave if it flags me red, so don’t hit me, okay?”

“We won’t hit you as long as you aren’t an asshole,” one of the guards says, lowering his baton and waving me forward.

The other guard chimes in. “Look, we’ve been working all day, and our replacements can’t get here cause the curfew. As long as you don’t cause trouble and you’re green, then we won’t have any problems, buddy.”

I nod and walk forward slowly, moving out of the rain and into the store. The gates flash green and I’m cleared to go inside.

“What’s my score?” I ask them.

“We can’t see it, pal. Just go in and shop, we’ve got work to do,” one of the guards says. I nod and walk inside the store, not wanting to irritate them.

Grabbing a basket, I load it up with cheap canned foods that are packed with calories. If this problem is going to take a lot of time to resolve, I want to be prepared. With Vivian pregnant, she needs to eat at least two thousand calories a day. I can afford to lose a few pounds, but with the canned food I’m buying and what we have at the house, I think we’ll be fine for closer to a month. Surely everything will be resolved by then.

I go to the cashier and spend all my remaining vouchers, not wanting to touch my unknown score. “Can you see your score?” I ask the teenager. He pulls out his phone and nods, clearly not happy with the number. “My phone’s having some network issues or something,” I say, giving him a nervous smile and taking my bags.

I check my phone as I return to the street, carrying my bags and rushing through the rain. It’s already 10:38 PM, and I don’t want to be on the streets when the curfew starts. People will be defiant, and the Corporate Police might be ruthless tonight to prove they aren’t messing around. I need to text my boss to find out when I can work, I need a score stipend, and without the graveyard shifts, Vivian and I aren’t in a good place financially. My score is still displayed as the swirling circle animation. Damn thing.

The sleet is starting to pierce my jacket now, and I start jogging, careful not to slip on the mush that’s accumulating on the street. I finish the jog to my apartment building and enter the stairwell. I hear yelling coming from upstairs, but I can’t quite make out the voices. There’s a man, a woman, and another man yelling, but the words are distorted by the echo of the stairwell. I run up to try to see what’s going on. The words are coming more clearly now.

“Your vouchers and score chips, hand them over or die.”

“We need them to survive, come on,” a man says, I keep climbing, moving slower now.

“If you shut that door, I’m going to kick it down and kill you,” the other man says. I look through the narrow window on the main door on the sixth floor. They’re on the floor below mine, and it looks like this goon is going door to door stealing everyone’s savings at gunpoint. I pull my phone from my pocket and try to call the Corporate Police, but I don’t have a signal. I curse, but raise my phone to take a picture of the man. I forget the flash is on, and he whips his head to face me as the phone goes off. I cast a quick glance at my screen, it’s a perfect image of his face. The man yells and starts running toward me.

I curse and start up the stairs, sprinting as fast as I can and gasping for breath as my heart pounds in my chest.