Barb looked down as more information scrolled across the screen. Carlton Farms was an organic farm, less than an hour west of here. The truck was registered to the business. No infractions in the last three years. Title up to date. All from the squad car’s cache. But the odds it had changed in the last two hours were remote.

Barb relaxed. Maybe a donation of supplies from the farm for locals who’d been affected? Charlottesville hadn’t been hit nearly as hard.

Even so. Best to be sure.

“Command, car 148. Stopping at St Mark’s Episcopal. See what looks like relief work. Going to check on safety of all involved.”

“Roger, car 148,” came the reply.

Barb pulled her patrol glasses on. There was the same warning in the lower right – CONNECTION FAILED – WORKING OFFLINE. She popped the radio earpiece in her ear, made sure that was live. It was. Then she let herself out of the squad car, and walked towards the moving-van-sized vegetable truck. The glasses painted their own IR imagery on the scene. The vehicle’s drivetrain was hot. The empty cab was warm. And as she came around, she saw that there was heat leaking from the large contained back.

Shouldn’t they want the area where the food went kept cool?

She was looking at the truck, this thought dawning on her, when the small side door of the church opened, and a man she’d never seen before popped out.

Barb turned in time to see the look of surprise cross the man’s face, before he ducked back inside, pulling the door closed behind him.

“Truck’s here,” Levi said. “Time to go!”

Rangan nodded, grinned, putting the most sincere excitement he could behind it.

Here we go! He sent to the boys.

They were still dubious, but they went along with it.

Abigail and the women named Janet and Laura herded the boys up the steep stairs and through the hatch in the floor. Janet and Laura would be coming on the first part of the journey, it seemed. Levi waited downstairs with Rangan. Then the driver, a man named Juan, came down too, and together they helped Rangan slowly ascend the stairs, one foot at a time, until he was at the top.

Painful, definitely painful. But so much better than two days ago.

“OK,” Juan said, when they were all gathered upstairs, in the anteroom by the side entrance to the little church. “I’ll go unlock the back of the truck. Then we all go out, and hop right in. There’s mattresses in the back to sit on, and some candy bars, and I’ve got it all warmed up for you boys. Just remember, you have to be quiet the whole trip, OK? Just a couple hours the first leg. Everybody’s used the bathroom already? Nobody has to go?”

The boys all nodded dutifully, looking at Rangan.