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put new boards up over the windows. "Just what are we protecting?" Wheeler asked in his usual manner. "You." Palmer replied.
        
        Wheeler brushed back his shock of white hair and picked at a scab on his chin. "I ain't worth protecting. None of us are. Truth hurts."
        
        "So why don't you kill yourself instead of bitching all day long?" Isabella barked from a cot across the room. The reverend shot her a look. Wheeler shrugged. "Mother Theresa here says that suicide's a sin. I'll go to Hell if I do that. Apparently Hell's something worse than this putrid shithole." All things considered the shelter wasn't in awful shape. Palmer knew that Wheeler just thrived on misery. He was scared to feel a shred of happiness, lest something tear through those boarded-up windows and take it away. Palmer could barely hold her tongue around the man. He never helped to scrounge for supplies, never comforted any of his equally-distraught companions. The world owed Wheeler, always would, and that was that.
        
        Something thumped against the board Palmer was hammering. She cried out and Oates pulled her away, turning his hammer to wield its claw as a weapon. "Whoever's out there, speak up!"
        
        "Patrol Officer!" A young male voice.
        
        It was a common ruse among most cities in the badlands, thieves posing as P.O.s. "Let's see some ID!" Oates shot back.
        
        A laminated card slipped between two of the slats and into Palmer's hands. Michael Weisman, it said. Based in Miami, it said. "Long way from Florida." Oates called, reading over her shoulder.
        
        "Florida's gone. I've been here for months. I just want to check up on you."
        
        "No one checks up on anyone," Wheeler spat. Two other men, J.J. and Yeats, trudged into the room. "What's going on?"
        
        "We got ourselves a P.O. outside." Oates muttered. He peered between the boards. "It's Weisman all right."
        
        "The ID's fake," said Wheeler. "Don't even think about letting him in!"
        
        "Come around to the front." Palmer said to Weisman. As she left the room with Oates she glanced at Wheeler. He stuck his tongue out and flipped her off.
        
        She and Oates cleared the crude barricade from the front entrance and unlocked the door. Weisman was wearing his uniform, though it had clearly seen better days. He patted a pistol strapped to his hip. "How many you got in here?"
        
        "Ten." Palmer extended her hand and introduced herself. "Do you have any food?" Weisman asked. "Medicine? Plumbing?"
        
        "Pipes are fine." Oates slapped Weisman on the shoulder and ushered him in. "You're looking at the Harbor's best plumber. We're getting a nasty soup of ground water and seawater, but I threw together a filtration system."
        
        With sandy brown hair and deep eyes, Weisman was good-looking. Damn good-looking. At fifty-something, swatches of gray among her long blonde locks, Palmer rarely felt attractive nor attracted. But damn. Smiling sweetly at the P.O. she led him into the building. Oates stayed behind to restore the barricade.
        
        "How long have you all been in here?" Weisman asked next. It sounded to Palmer like he was taking mental notes. "Most of us have been here a year or so. We took a young woman and her boy in last week, and that's it."
        
        "Has anyone been assaulted recently?"
        
        "No, not at all."
        
        "And how many of the ten are men?"
        
        "Uh, six."
        
        "And there haven't been any problems."
        
        "You sound surprised, Officer Weisman."
        
        "Mike, please." He stood in the doorway of the community room and returned the questioning stares of its inhabitants. "Any of the men ever leave the shelter?"
        
        "Oates - our resident plumber - he leads supply runs every