After four bananas, she sampled the other fruit. Every kind was miles better than store-bought.
Then a meal from her space: beef and peppers, spicy chicken bites, sauteed greens, and fish chowder. She finished everything. Too full now, she lay back on the sofa and let her stomach settle.
The downtown warehouses were cleared. Only the coastal stock remained. A warehouse and a half of coal, plus the salt. Three days. She'd get it in three days.
She booked a flight to Country M. B City in three days, buy the Crown Heights apartment, then abroad for gasoline and weapons.
A rare chance to rest. She opened the trending news and videos. Almost nothing interested her.
Some young star on some show. Another celebrity cheating. Gossip all the way down. She frowned and kept scrolling until something worth reading appeared.
Several headlines stood out in red.
OFFICIAL WEATHER ALERTS BECOMING MORE FREQUENT.
COUNTRY M HITS ANOTHER RECORD LOW.
EARTH'S ORBIT SHIFTS.
GLACIERS MELTING.
She opened the Country M story. She'd be there in days. Articles, pictures. "Minus forty Fahrenheit after just one week. And still dropping."
There'd been signs. So many signs in her first life. She simply hadn't paid attention.
A hundred thousand or so upvotes. Some commenters predicted the apocalypse. Less than ten minutes after one of those posts, its author's avatar went dark.
AAA_Underwear_Wholesale has been suspended by a moderator. Everyone piled on. What nonsense. What century were they living in? Who would believe that?
Phone away. She sent her awareness into the space and sorted last night's haul, keeping the different meats apart.
Refrigerators, ice makers, a grain mill, induction cooktops, a washing machine. Everyday appliances together.
Generators, battery banks, solar panels, underfloor heating, electric heaters. Each in its place.
Water would get used up. She surveyed the metric tons of bottled water, the tanks filled to the brim. Enough for three lifetimes.
Six ice makers came out. Time to make ice. In the third year, the extreme heat had pushed temperatures to 176°F. Nobody dared step outside.
Heatstroke. People dried to husks as they walked, then cut up and eaten.
She'd been living with Uncle Robert's and Uncle David's families then, in a hundred-person bunkroom that stank beyond belief. Even in her dreams, all she'd wanted was a sip of ice water.
The machines hummed. Each batch went into her space. They worked fast, and the ice piled up. She left them running.
Three o'clock. Sunglasses, sports-car keys. She drove a Bentley out of the community.
Stopped at a light, she lowered the top. The breeze carried some of the heat away.
E City stayed hot year-round. Never snowed. At its worst, the temperature climbed past 104°F.
People on the crosswalk glanced at her white convertible. Fitted white T-shirt, slim jeans, a figure hard to miss. "Hey, beautiful! Can I get your number?"
Laughter. Whistles. She watched the last second tick down, then hit the gas. The Bentley roared past him.
Four years ago. Could have been yesterday. She parked beneath the mall, rode up to the first floor, and took two carts.
Nuts. Snacks. She was buying stock. Fill both carts, check out, elevator down, purchases into the car. Then upstairs again.
The third time the staff saw her, they stared. Was she emptying the snack and nut sections? They couldn't refill the shelves fast enough.
"Can you really eat all this?" The cashier's hands ached from scanning.
"Relatives' kids are visiting. More than a dozen of them. I don't keep that much at home. Honestly, this might not be enough." Not a blush. Not a skipped beat.
The cashier wanted her gone. She suggested other shops, specialists in snacks. Emma thanked her, dropped the bags at the car, and took her carts to those stores.
Four specialty shops, side by side. More trips up and down. Cookies, crackers, and jerky filled the last two loads.
Carts returned. Enough stockpiling for today. Another mall tomorrow. Dinnertime already. She rode up to the fifth floor, where restaurants offered food from far beyond E City.
A seafood grill. One whole fish, about 3.3 pounds, and plenty of sides. Enough to fill her up.
She ordered ten more, around 4.4 pounds each, cooked and delivered to her villa in Ziyuan.
By the time she left, the sky was dark.