The Dimensional Sanctuary

Declan pulled up to the curb outside the largest electronics depot in the district, killed the engine, and marched straight to the wholesale counter. The highest capacity portable drives in stock were twenty-terabyte enterprise units, priced at twenty-three hundred dollars each. He did not waste time haggling. He cleared out the remaining stock on the shelf, taking thirty drives in total without flinching at the invoice.

Under normal standards, a single terabyte held roughly a hundred feature-length films, meaning twenty terabytes could house two thousand standard movies. But raw high-definition files and uncompressed Blu-ray rips ate thirty to fifty gigabytes per title, reducing that capacity to a mere few dozen per terabyte. Factoring in television series, documentaries, instructional videos, survival schematics, and audio libraries, six hundred terabytes gave them a solid digital buffer.

Back at the house, Declan and Harper booted up every desktop, laptop, and tablet across both floors. Declan paid premium subscription rates to max out download speeds on every platform, queued up vast libraries of educational courses, offline encyclopedias, entertainment series, and agricultural manuals, and let the machinery run.

Declan remained stationed in the study, watching data bars creep across the monitors. Harper took the opportunity to retreat to her bedroom, locked the door, and slipped into her pocket dimension.

A deep sense of relief washed over her the moment she appeared on the grass. The chaotic mountain of supplies she had tossed inside earlier had bothered her all afternoon. After a full day of frantic purchasing, the original rustic shack had undergone an overhaul. In its place stood a sprawling three-story villa with an excavated basement and an expanded front garden.

Harper began mapping out the floor plan in her head. Her father and brother would eventually gain physical entry, so the space needed clear functional zones.

The basement offered ideal soundproofing. She designated the main lounge as a private media room where the family could watch movies or unwind without broadcasting their presence to the outside world. The adjacent storage vaults would hold trade leverage: one room dedicated to hard liquor, another reserved for cartons of cigarettes and premium coffee beans. A third room would house non-perishable survival staples like instant noodles, freeze-dried rations, beef jerky, and vacuum-sealed eggs. Those items would serve as public camouflage whenever they had to interact with scavengers outside, masking the fact that they were eating fresh meals behind closed doors.

The ground floor was built for daily comfort. It featured a large living area, an open kitchen, a dining room, and three private suites, each with an attached bath.

The second floor was reserved for long-term domestic goods. Harper earmarked three rooms for seasonal clothing, winter footwear, and personal hygiene products like paper towels, pads, and soap. The remaining rooms on that level would store paper books, reference guides, tools, and any rare valuables they might trade for down the line.

The third floor would serve as their medical haven. She planned to turn the largest corner room into a sterile surgical suite, using the adjoining spaces to stockpile pharmaceuticals, surgical kits, and diagnostic hardware.

Behind the villa lay an open yard spanning roughly a thousand square feet. Unlike the fertile soil out front, this ground was paved with thick concrete. Harper intended to erect commercial warehouse racks across the pavement, categorizing non-food hardware with clear labels. If the dimension expanded further, she could stack standard shipping containers directly onto the slab.

With the layout finalized, Harper set to work moving boxes.

She quickly discovered that focused mental intent allowed her to shift crates through the air without touching them. The telekinetic control was efficient, but after five minutes of continuous lifting, a sharp pulse of dizziness forced her to stop. Pacing herself between physical handling and telekinetic stacking, Harper spent three solid hours sorting through crates of canned goods, dried grains, bottled water, and household gear.

She wiped the sweat from her brow, stepping back to admire the orderly stacks just as a sharp chime chimed in her mind.

*Ding! Apocalypse Farming and Livestock System activated!*

*Task: Within twenty-four hours, secure live domestic animals. Chickens (0/10), ducks (0/10), geese (0/10), pigs (0/3), sheep (0/3), cows (0/3). Reward: One functional aquaculture pond.*

Harper raised an eyebrow. An aquaculture pond meant unlimited fresh fish, shrimp, and clean aquatic farming right inside her domain.

She exited the dimension and gathered everyone in the living room to share the news.

The next morning, the family split up right after breakfast. Cora took a rented sedan to visit independent clinics and licensed dispensaries across town. Declan left to track down tactical crossbows, carbon bolts, and personal defensive gear through his private contacts. Arthur and Harper took a commercial flatbed truck he had rented overnight and headed toward the wholesale agricultural market outside the city limits.

Arthur had initially tried to leave Harper at home to spare her the stench of the animal pens. Harper pointed out that stuffing several tons of live animals into a single truck without multiple cross-city trips was physically impossible without her pocket space, leaving Arthur no choice but to bring her along.

Arthur looked every bit the rough suburban contractor, but his roots ran deep into rural soil. In his youth, he had cleared acreage, slaughtered hogs, and bartered livestock long before he ever ran retail stalls. He knew how to assess muscle mass, teeth, and feathers with a single glance.

Walking through the poultry enclosures, Arthur handpicked ten healthy, free-range chickens weighing around two pounds each, selecting eight laying hens and two breeding roosters, along with five specialty heritage birds.

Moving down the aisle, he pointed out sixteen ducks, securing fourteen hens and two drakes.

For guard duty and meat, he added twelve geese, taking ten females and two ganders.

In the livestock barns, Arthur examined the swine pens, selecting three healthy pigs: one vigorous young boar and two breeding sows.

He moved over to the sheep pens and selected a strong ram alongside two young ewes.

At the cattle pens, he spent twenty minutes inspecting joints and hooves before picking one bull and two cows.

As he turned to finalize the paperwork, Arthur caught sight of a row of wire hutches. He immediately pointed toward them. "Throw in two breeding rabbits as well."

Rabbits multiplied fast, lived on scrap forage, and provided high-protein meat even if larger feed supplies ran low.

Before leaving the livestock row, he spotted a pair of young donkeys tethered by a feed trough and bought both on the spot. Donkey meat was prized for flavor, and the beasts could easily drive a stone mill to grind dried grains and soybeans when fuel ran dry.

The bill came out to seventy-six thousand dollars.

The pen supervisor scratched his stubble as he tallied the slips, eyeing Arthur's boots and truck with open curiosity. "You buying for a commercial meat plant, mister? That's quite a spread of live stock for a private haul."

Arthur flashed a warm grin, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket to offer one to the man. "We're setting up an agritourism family farm out past the county line. City folks want to bring their kids out to pet the calves, feed the ducks, and eat farm-to-table stew. We can't afford fancy show breeds, so standard sturdy stock works best. City kids don't know the difference anyway."

The supervisor laughed, nodding in understanding. "That makes sense. City folks will pay good money just to let their kids chase a rooster."

Arthur paid cash on the spot and had the yard hands load the cages and pens into the covered bed of the flatbed truck. Arthur drove the vehicle two miles down a deserted service road behind an abandoned grain silo. After checking the perimeter for security cameras or passing vehicles, Harper touched the side panels of the truck bed.

In a fraction of a second, the squealing, grunting mass of livestock vanished into the holding pasture inside her pocket dimension.

A clear chime echoed in her thoughts, confirming the completion of the objective and granting the aquaculture pond.

With the pond unlocked, Arthur wheeled the truck around and headed straight for the central wholesale seafood market near the docks.

They walked the damp concrete aisles, buying large batches of freshwater fingerlings and mature breeders: largemouth bass, channel catfish, tilapia, rainbow trout, bluegill, and common carp. Arthur had kept ornamental goldfish in home tanks years ago, but edible aquaculture was unfamiliar territory. He cornered the wholesale vendors, asking blunt, detailed questions about water aeration, feed pellets, and winter temperature tolerances.

While Arthur took notes on his phone, Harper walked toward the edge of the pavilion where the saltwater vendors operated. Rows of illuminated glass tanks displayed live crabs, lobsters, sea bass, and clams in bubbling artificial seawater.

Harper stood quietly in front of the glass. In her previous life, she remembered the terrible reports from the third year of the fall. Coastal industries had collapsed, nuclear cooling facilities had ruptured, and unchecked industrial runoff had poisoned the global sea shelf. Within four years, ocean life was either mutated or dead, and anything pulled from saltwater was lethal to eat.

Arthur wrapped up his conversation with the freshwater dealer, walked over, and noticed Harper staring silently at the saltwater tanks.

Arthur draped a heavy arm over her shoulder. "What's caught your eye, sweetheart? You craving fresh crab? I'll buy out the tank right now."

Harper looked up at her father, her voice barely louder than a whisper. "No, Dad. It's just... in a few years, the entire ocean will be ruined. Nuclear runoff and chemical leaks will poison the water completely. We won't ever be able to eat real seafood again."

Arthur's face darkened, his jaw hardening into a tight knot. He had spent his whole life within driving distance of the coastline, taking it for granted that the sea would always feed them. Hearing that even the vast ocean would turn toxic made his blood boil.

Arthur spat an oath under his breath, then gave her shoulder an affectionate squeeze. "Then we'll raise our own marine stock at home."

Harper sighed softly, shaking her head. "Saltwater species need continuous water changes and precise salinity balances. We won't have enough synthetic sea salt or clean ocean water to keep them going long-term."

Arthur squared his shoulders and turned toward the saltwater vendor. "Then we keep them alive as long as humanly possible, and whatever doesn't make it goes straight onto the dinner table before it spoils."

Arthur strode directly to the head vendor's glass counter, pulled out his wallet, and began barking orders. He bought every live crab, lobster, grouper, and saltwater shrimp in the tanks. Before the vendor could catch his breath, Arthur pointed at the massive commercial glass aquariums, the high-flow filters, and the commercial oxygen compressors lining the stall, demanding a price for the entire hardware setup.

He was determined to build an indoor marine farm in their living room if it meant his daughter could enjoy fresh seafood after the world fell apart.