When they exited the shopping center, Olivier and Stéphanie had their arms so full that they kept dropping boxes and clothes. Despite their struggles, they laughed like children, joking that they should have taken a cart.

They arrived around lunchtime and tried to be as discreet as possible to avoid being spotted by Marie. They stashed their treasure in a discreet corner of the property and went to find Mathieu, who was busy in a part of his field.

Normally, all the planting should have been done by now, but with all his tractors and other agricultural machinery out of order, everything had to be done by hand! The small team had been busy weeding and plowing Mathieu's fields, which covered several hectares! While a large part had been done by tractor with the help of a satellite guidance system before the blackout, there was still some work to be done for a good corn harvest. The grain had to be sown quickly to have a harvest before the cold weather set in.

Without the help of machines, he had to transport the grain to his plot with a wheelbarrow! They were far from the comfort Mathieu had enjoyed until then thanks to his gigantic loan. The good news was that with this crisis, there were no more banks, no more money, and therefore no more debt!

Before the blackout, he had been under pressure and was almost ready to sign the papers to sell his land, probably to build a parking lot and a new commercial area.

According to him, if the weather stayed good, they could harvest by mid-November.

But his worries were great. He was afraid that the weather would not be good, that disease would kill his crop prematurely, that his plants (very water-intensive) would die of thirst during the summer, and that hungry looters would attack him and the fruit of his labor, their labor.

Mathieu was relieved to be able to count on the help of Stéphanie, Marie, and was reassured to see Olivier and his wife Emma join him on the farm. Their daughter, Zoé, was still too young to participate in the work. Then there were Jérôme and his wife Léa, as well as their children: Baptiste, Kévin, Justine, Sylvie, and the young Lucas. Not everyone could help, but everyone did their best, motivated by the promise of a good meal.

For the moment, the increase in the size of the team posed no problems, but even a slight bad harvest could have very serious consequences. They depended mainly on stocks and what they could find around the farm.

"Mathieu? We're back!" announced Stéphanie once their findings were carefully hidden.

"Ah, you're back! How did it go?"

"Yes, we didn't run into anyone."

"Phew! That's good! So?"

"We brought back lots of stuff, and not just for Marie. Clothes, chocolate, and candy too!"

"Chocolate and candy? Where did you find those?"

"In a shopping center on the other side of the highway," the girl replied proudly.

"Ah, yes, I see which one. I used to go to the O'Parinor shopping center, which is much bigger and a little closer to the airport."

Olivier scratched his head, imagining all the things they could find there.

"Do you think we should go there? Maybe we can find more food and water for everyone?"

"Hmm, no, it's better to avoid it. It's bigger, but also more well-known than the other one. There will probably be people, and they could be violent if they see you with food. Of course, if there's anything left. As for water, we have the pump, and it works very well. Come on, let's go eat. Do you want to give her the gift at lunch or tonight?"

"Hmm, lunchtime is fine!"

The meal was served and devoured by the budding farmers. Stéphanie left the table first, citing an urgent need, and as he was about to announce to everyone that it was time to get back to work to finish planting the corn, he turned to Marie.

"...but before that, I think there's something important to do. Marie, haven't you forgotten something?"

"Did I forget something? What? Did I not put away the tools?"

"It's not that," he said with a big smile. "Something more important!"

"What?"

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

Marie turned around in surprise and saw Stéphanie standing behind her with a box full of sweet treats.

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They were the first ones in a long time, as the girls had taken almost nothing with them when they left their homes two weeks earlier. In this box, there were macarons of all colors! Yellow, brown, beige, pink, purple, red, green! It was like a rainbow!

The young woman couldn't hold back her tears and thanked everyone, but it wasn't the end. Stéphanie handed her a beautiful thick coat in a classic style that fit her perfectly. She also handed her a very pretty red hat topped with a little black pompom and a small pair of light brown boots with a border and lining that resembled sheep's wool.

"With this, you're all set for this winter!"

"Thank you, Stéphanie! It means so much to me! Thank you so much!"

The sun had set for several hours, and there were almost no stars visible in the night sky due to a veil of clouds. The moon was also barely visible, forming a very thin crescent above Paris.

In the light of a few scented candles, the farmers celebrated because after spending another afternoon on the plot where corn would be grown, only a fraction of Mathieu's property, they had finally finished sowing their grain. This work should have been completed long ago, but due to the lack of machines, the team had to make many trips between the warehouse where the grain was stored and the field.

The atmosphere was joyful: Justine and Sylvie sang a popular song, accompanied by their older brother, Baptiste, who played his guitar. They were soon joined by everyone else, even if the rest of the team didn't sing as well as they did.

However, they were interrupted by a very late visitor.

Thanks to their sharp senses, the two dogs who now lived in this house had heard him coming from far away. It was a lone rider, wearing a uniform and police equipment. She looked tired and had been drawn to the noise as she searched for a safe place to spend the night.

"Thank you, sir, for accepting me under your roof. Um, who are all these people? Your family?"

"Oh, no, madam," Mathieu honestly replied. "They are my employees. They joined me after the blackout and are helping me in the fields. These two young ladies were the first ones to come to my house, and these two lovely couples came later."

"I see," Karima Ali commented simply, nodding her head.

"But what were you doing out so late, and alone?"

"I was on a mission," she said, sitting on a simple wooden chair, a thousand times more comfortable than a horse saddle. "Now that there's no more communication, the only way to deliver a message to someone is to send someone there. I was given a horse, a map, and a letter to deliver."

"Ah, yes, indeed, that must be difficult for you. I hope the recipient of this letter wasn't too far away."

"I want to laugh and cry at the same time just thinking about it. It's not very far, no. By car, it was only an hour. But this time, it took me a day and a half."

"A day and a half?! That's crazy!"

One of Jérôme and Léa's children, the youngest one, struggled to comprehend. He had had trouble coming to this farm from his house since he wasn't used to walking. Staying on a horse for so long, even if it seemed cool at first glance, must have been extremely painful!

"It wasn't easy," the young woman confirmed, "but when you have a mission, you have to see it through. On the way there, I tried to make the journey in one go, but it wasn't possible. I had to stop in the middle of nowhere because I couldn't see anything. I hadn't planned anything, so it wasn't easy. In fact, I hardly slept that night. I found an abandoned car and spent the night there."

"And your horse," Justine asked, "did you tie it up?"

"Yes, to the door. I continued my journey at the first hour and left after speaking with the officer I was supposed to meet."

"Well! What an adventure!"

There was then a moment of silence in the room that was broken by young Lucas.

"Madame police officer, when... when will the electricity come back?"

Both adults and older children took on a serious look. To them, it was like asking about Santa Claus.

Karima Ali felt embarrassed. She wanted to be honest, but faced with this child with hopeful eyes, she couldn't say anything immediately. She knew what she had to say, and when she looked at the expressions of the people around her, she understood that there was no point in lying to them.

"I... I don't know. But I'm sure there are a lot of people working very hard on it. In the meantime, we have to be brave and do the best we can to help our families. You're wise, aren't you?"

The young policewoman tried to divert young Lucas' attention by asking him a new question that had nothing to do with the one he had asked. They talked like this for a few minutes before his mother sent him to bed with little Zoé.

Only the adults remained. Even though young Sylvie was only fourteen, she was only a year younger than Stéphanie. Her parents knew that they could tell her certain things.

"What is our situation? Please be direct."

Although she had been ordered not to talk too much about it in order not to sow further chaos where there was already enough, Major Ali agreed to answer these people who had welcomed her warmly and fed her.

"It's not good," she admitted in a low voice. "Maybe you've noticed some changes around you? Some plants and animals are dying. We think something happened to our nuclear power plants. If that's the case, electricity won't come back on a national scale. Maybe locally, but nothing is certain. Batteries, light bulbs, computers, everything fried or even exploded. Even things that weren't connected to anything. I don't know anything about electricity, but I feel like it will take time for those who know about it to build a rudimentary electrical system. The main problem, I think, will be making light bulbs. Of course, it's only if it's possible."

A stifling silence fell over the room, and all the faces turned dark.

"I see, so that's how it is," murmured Mathieu to himself. "So we're in for years. Eventually, it won't come back in our lifetime."

"Yes."

Mathieu, like all the adults present, was quite familiar with what had happened in 1986 in Ukraine, at Chernobyl. They knew what had happened even if it wasn't necessarily in detail. They knew mostly that only one reactor had exploded and that the radiation had spread across Europe within a few days. Even France had not been spared, something the government at the time had sought to conceal to avoid panicking the population and wiping out an entire industry.

If this name had not been mentioned by the young policewoman, everyone thought strongly about it when it came to the power plants. They had indeed noticed changes and seen birds falling from the sky, but they couldn't flee in a random direction and hope to find welcoming land as well as be safe from radiation. They could only do their best to survive.