The Survival Protocol

When Harper mentioned the span of decades, the room went completely still. Arthur and Cora traded a heavy, shadowed look, their earlier reservations about store shelves swallowed by the sheer weight of what was coming. Neither of them brought up legalities or morals again. The reality of a thirty-year collapse had settled between them like lead.

Arthur leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees as he stared out the floor-to-ceiling glass. Beyond the terrace lay the dark silhouette of the open ocean.

"We live right on the shoreline," Arthur said, his voice thick with concern. "If the climate goes that bad, won't there be a tsunami? And if the water rises, where the hell are we supposed to run?"

The two residential towers Arthur had bought into sat in the most desirable pocket of the district. The complex was flanked by a steep green mountain on the left, faced the sea directly out front, and connected to the coastal arterial road on the right. It was thirty stories tall, and they occupied the top floor. Looking out every morning, there were only low-rise luxury villas below them before the surf met the sand. The view was unobstructed. Waking up to ocean breezes had always been Arthur’s pride, and the thought of abandoning the place tore at him.

Harper shook her head gently. "A tsunami will hit eventually, but not for at least fifteen years."

She had only laid out the first three years of the timeline earlier that morning. Giving them the full truth in one dose would have crushed them, but after a full day of preparation, their nerves had begun to steel.

"The first three years will bring catastrophic rainfall and regional flooding," Harper continued. "Our complex sits on an elevated coastal shelf. The first floor is structurally level with the fifth floor of any standard building downtown. The floodwaters will submerge the city streets, but they won't reach our lobby. This tower remains standing for over ten years, and later on, the authorities turn it into a centralized survival base. Beyond that decade mark, I can't guarantee anything, but we have time here."

Arthur let out a slow breath through his teeth. A decade was a solid foundation. If they could hold their ground for ten years, they could adapt to whatever followed.

Cora adjusted her wire-rimmed glasses, her doctor’s instincts kicking in. "What about the infected individuals you talked about? Did researchers ever develop a cure or an antiviral treatment later on?"

"No," Harper answered without hesitation.

Harper watched her mother’s hands tighten in her lap.

"That is the hardest truth we have to face," Harper said. "We cannot hide behind locked steel doors forever. Eventually, supplies run low, or circumstances force us down to street level. If you get scratched or bitten, you are gone. There is no vaccine, no miracle cure, and no reversing it once it enters your bloodstream."

Arthur looked down at his stomach, pulling his shirt slightly tighter over his modest paunch. His youth had been spent hauling crates and working physical labor, but years of comfortable office work had softened him. Right then, he resolved to cut his meals and start heavy conditioning at sunrise. He was not going to slow his daughter down when things went bad.

Cora looked down at the table, her brow furrowing. "Then standard antibiotics will vanish overnight. Sepsis, simple lacerations, bacterial pneumonia... without a functioning supply chain, minor injuries will become fatal."

"Every single blister pack will disappear," Harper said. "The minute public order breaks, pharmaceutical supplies will be hoarded by the regional command and the elite. That is why our cash needs to go where it counts right now. You spent decades in clinical medicine, Mom. You know every essential drug needed during mass casualty events and plagues. We need to buy out every common antibiotic, painkiller, and trauma dressing we can find. Don't hold back because of expiration dates. Everything placed inside my dimension stays in its exact original state forever."

Cora’s shoulders dropped slightly, and a faint, relieved smile touched her lips.

The supernatural nature of the space still sounded like a fairytale to a woman trained in hard science. A dozen times today, she had wondered if grief or stress was playing tricks on her mind. Yet seeing the keys vanish from Harper’s fingers had shattered her doubts. Even if this turned out to be an impossible delusion and they lost every cent to their name, she would not leave her child unprepared for the dark. Money could be earned back. She only had one daughter.

Harper leaned across the table toward her mother. "I also need you to map out the distribution routes for the regional hospital warehouses and the disease control centers. What pharmacies carry over the counter is only a drop in the bucket. Anesthetics, concentrated antivirals, surgical narcotics, and emergency blood expanders never touch retail shelves. When the power grid drops on the first night of the collapse, I am going into those depots to take everything. I need full surgical kits, autoclaves, and trauma instruments. You are a chief surgeon, Mom. If one of us takes shrapnel or broken bones, you will be our frontline medic."

"Consider it done," Cora replied. "I'll start placing orders through my clinic accounts first thing tomorrow morning."

The heavy silence returned, thick with the reality of what they were planning. Declan picked up the remote and clicked on the television set.

Harper had already swept the primary living room screen into her storage space that morning, so Declan had hauled the spare television over from his apartment next door. The screen flickered to life on a local news broadcast. A field reporter was standing in front of yellow police tape along a wooded coastal path, describing the discovery of two elderly men found mutilated the previous night.

The family watched the flickering screen in silence, the violent imagery steering their thoughts straight back toward combat.

Declan leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "How long does the transformation take after an exposure?"

"In the first few weeks, while the virus is still unstable, it takes between three and seven days," Harper answered. "Once the mutations stabilize, a bite will turn someone in ten seconds."

Declan grimaced, his jaw setting hard. "So standard kinetic trauma won't slow them down? It has to be the head, just like the films?"

"Only the head," Harper confirmed. "Destroying the brain stem is the only reliable way to stop them."

Declan clicked his tongue, drumming his fingers against his knee. "Legal firearms are impossible to source in large quantities here. Even if we somehow found black-market handguns, none of us have tactical shooting experience. A missed shot under pressure just wastes lead and draws every runner within five blocks. I should focus on high-draw hunting crossbows and carbon bolts."

"Crossbows are quiet and reusable," Harper agreed. "As the city destabilizes, private collectors will look to trade weapons for food. I will take whatever hardware I can find during the initial chaos. But for close-quarters defense, we need something reliable."

Harper turned her gaze toward Arthur, who had been sitting quietly through the tactical exchange.

Her father came from a rough rural town, and in his twenties, he had defended his fruit carts with raw knuckles and blunt tools. He had never lost his appreciation for heavy cold steel. To this day, he kept a custom-ground machete slid beneath his mattress, just in case an intruder tried the front door.

Harper met her father's eyes. "Dad, do you still have your contacts at the metal fabrication shops? We need combat-grade blades that won't snap on bone."

Arthur’s eyes flashed with sudden energy.

"I know the owner of a specialty forge outside the industrial park," Arthur said, pushing himself up from his chair. "Give me until tomorrow morning. Actually, forget waiting. I'm calling his personal line right now."

"Make the order as large as he can handle," Harper called after him. "Tell him we need delivery within the week. The timeline might accelerate. We cannot be caught waiting on a shipment."

"I'm on it," Arthur said, pulling his phone from his pocket as he strode toward the foyer to step next door for privacy.

Cora watched her husband’s hurried retreat, shaking her head with an affectionate, rueful sigh. "Look at him. He hasn't moved that fast in five years. You know how he is with martial arts and action films. Give that man an excuse to buy weapons, and he forgets his blood pressure entirely."

Cora’s passing comment struck Harper like a bolt of electricity.

Action movies. Recorded media.

Harper sat bolt upright, turning her focus onto Declan. "Declan, how many enterprise-grade external hard drives do you have access to?"

Declan blinked, caught off guard by the sudden shift in topic. "A few in my office. Why? What are we archiving?"

"Everything," Harper said urgently. "We need to pull down television series, feature films, documentaries, music libraries, and instructional manuals while the global network is still functioning."

Declan looked confused. "How long does the network stay operational?"

"Ninety days at the absolute maximum," Harper explained. "During the first month, civilian authorities maintain the servers, telling the public that order will be restored. But once the mutated strains breach the perimeter bases, technical infrastructure collapses. Relay stations will lose power, undersea cables will sever, and the internet will go permanently dark. When we are trapped indoors during three months of continuous storms, isolation will destroy our morale if we have nothing to keep our minds sharp."

Declan stood up from the sofa, pulling his key fob from his pocket. "Say no more. I'm going out right now."

He was already tapping through the contacts on his smartphone, heading straight for the entryway. As a senior systems engineer, his professional circle was filled with hardware wholesalers and server administrators.

Cora stood up quickly, walking after her son as he slipped his shoes on at the door.

"Declan, don't speed on the expressway," Cora called out, her voice tight with motherly concern. "And take care of your sister!"