Ken’s new apartment was one of those plasteel monstrosities. Just a big, white, rectangular box. It looked like an old motel, only without color or texture. Sometimes Ken got hit with an odd sense of disorientation when he looked at these new structures. They reminded him of the video games he played sometimes as a kid, where you’d run into a new area and things looked like some bizarrely simplified version of themselves until the graphics finished loading. Unfortunately, the graphics on his new home never did load.

His place was on the third floor, right in the middle. So he grabbed his bag and trudged up the stairs. The stairwell was clean, other than a buildup of crud in a couple of corners, and had been made as a textured grate to keep people from slipping. Once up on his walkway, the place didn't look quite as unfinished. Welcome mats sat in front of most of the apartments, and bright curtains hung in the windows. A few doors used the hook built in front of them to hang a planter box or some other bit of kitsch. The railing itself may have been that plain white plastic-looking stuff, but the view almost made up for it. The building was on just enough of a hill to see over most of its surroundings. Sure, there were plenty of other stupid plasteel buildings filling up the view, but Madison still had plenty of trees, and Ken could easily see the state capitol in the old downtown across the lake.

Opening his new door with an eight-digit code, he chucked his bag inside and turned back out to inspect the view more thoroughly. Instead of looking at the scenic vista across the water, he inspected the area immediately around his new home. A small parking lot below him was quiet. A variety of cars mostly filled it up. A few cars were spotted from recent rainfall, but otherwise, they all looked clean and used. At least there weren't any clunkers on blocks filling up spaces. There weren't any people standing around that he could see, either.

On his left was a stretch of more ugly white apartment buildings. On the right was a wide road. The side of the road had several loading docks spaced out along a big turnaround. The ledges stood two or three feet high and were covered with wide shelters keeping sun and rain off anyone working the back of a truck.

Across the lot was an ancient red-brick building. It stood about two stories and sprawled over its lot, almost looking like it was just another plant growing out of the old bushes and trees that filled the space around it. The side facing him had a few big windows dotting the wall and was otherwise adorned with a big logo or something formed by the bricks. Three circles, spaced over a crescent. It almost looked like a mutant smiley face. As Ken watched, a car pulled into the lot below him. Two men got out and walked around the side of the brick building below.

He wasn't going to argue with Major Brown, but he really hated where they decided to have him live. That old red brick building below was the local "Nest" of the Order of Owls. There was a dossier he'd left in the shredder at his old station that told him that the building was occupied around the clock, but that no one actually lived there full time. It was just a couple of big open rooms, a handful of offices, and a big indoor basketball court and gym. Another page of that shredded dossier showed the layout of the place.

His musings were interrupted by a loud bell from the loading docks. Half a dozen trucks had pulled up and were now backing into the docks. Meanwhile, a steady stream of people were coming down the streets, forming into a big crowd. Ken counted fifteen police officers in full riot gear were standing on the ramps, keeping people back while the trucks lined up. Or maybe they were private security - looking closer Ken realized he didn't recognize the armor they were wearing. The helmets looked a lot more streamlined than what Ken used to wear, and the boots looked like they had a rubber tread instead of the cleated types he'd had. But he wasn't an expert either, and who else outside the government would have that sort of gear? Maybe a local department had sprung for their own models, instead of relying on what the state handed down.

The trailer door on the first truck opened up, revealing racks filled with large canvass bags. Three isles, with five shelves, each packed with sacks that looked they were made out of cardboard cloth. If he'd been closer he could have seen the rough texture of the disposable things. He couldn't remember what they were made of, it was some plant that grew quickly that could be harvested for its tough fibers. No one wore clothes out of it, but the stuff had replaced most canvas and nylon use. It was tough and strong, but wore out quickly and usually felt rough and scratchy. It was also supposed to be biodegradable and all that jazz.

Without any prompting, the people below were lining up at the ramps. Using a thumb trick he'd learned in crowd control training, Ken estimated around three thousand people waiting for the trucks. Slightly more than half were men, with maybe a couple hundred children. They'd split into five lines, each in front of an officer holding a scanner. Ken watched one of them as the armored man pointed it at an ID and then at the face of the woman holding the card. That done he waved her through to the truck behind him and went to scan the next person.

Ken pulled out his wallet and double-checked the ID that major Brown had arranged for him. He already knew, but he felt like checking; Ken would be in that crowd tomorrow. Each of those bags was full of food. It was mostly flour and vegetables, along with a semi-random assortment of other luxuries. You'd probably find some fruit, some spices, maybe some canned meat or a condiment. Each bag was meant to be a week's worth of food for two people. You could use the same ID card to pick up perishables and non-standard dietary foods from distribution centers set up around the state.

About three years ago the state had quit paying unemployment, food stamps, and all the other cash-based unemployment systems. Instead, they dramatically expanded the old WIC program that used to get specific fresh foods to babies and expecting mothers. There were a few other programs that handled things like rent and debt relief, those were mostly handled through the same systems that used to handle medicare and such. When the big box stores started to shut down, even the dimmest state senator realized that they needed a distribution system to replace it.

And thus the allotments and the trucks. Everyone who qualified got an ID, the ID gave times and locations to pick up food as it was distributed. They'd also indicate various special dietary needs or other disabilities, but for the most part, those issues were sorted by the ID holder.

The lines moved pretty easily. For the most part, a person stepped up, got scanned, grabbed a bag, and left. A few people grabbed more than one bag, those would stagger off the ramp and be met with family members who took their own loads. It looked like the officers only let one person up at a time, no matter how large the household was. Ken snorted to himself, it wasn't as though the guards weren't already letting people through as fast as they could scan them through. Not only were dozens of people moving between the guards and the trucks, but it also looked like no one was paying attention to what people took either.

But, no, people were. A shout drew Ken's attention and he saw two men. One was sprawled on the ground with three of the sacks next to him - smaller containers had tumbled out in a messy arc around him. Another man was standing above him and shouting at him. From his vantage point, Ken couldn't hear what the words were, but he could tell that everyone seemed to be on the side of the shouter. A trio of guards bulled through the crowd and trained their rifles on both men. From there Ken couldn't make out many details, but it looked like two of the bags carried back up to the truck, and one man was on his hands and knees gathering up stuff that had scattered from a torn sack.

Now that he was looking for it, Ken spotted a bunch of men standing in the crowd of people. They stood out, not moving with the lines. Instead, they were waiting in their own open spaces, or at the edges of the crowds. Once or twice it looked like they got involved in an argument as people moved back and forth in the lines. But mostly they just stood and watched as the people got their food and went back home.

As fast as it looked like the process was moving, it took almost two hours for the last sack to get lifted out of the truck. All in all, it seemed orderly enough. No fighting beyond some shouting, and even there the shouts were good-natured more than confrontational. It seemed like most of the people liked each other, though they quieted down when they approached the guards at the trucks. The guys who were watching the crowd didn't seem to participate much in the shouted banter. They just watched.

In the end, everyone had their IDs scanned, took their calorie allotments for the week, and were trudging back home. The police closed up the trucks, riding in the cabs back to wherever the distribution center was. It had gotten dark, but there were lots of big lights around the docks. It wasn't difficult at all to see what was going on down there.

Ken kept watching - as the crowd got smaller he counted almost fifty men who'd been standing around. Halfway through a handful of them had peeled off and left. Ken didn't see all of them leave, but he'd noticed two go to the Owl's building. After the cops left they held a quiet little meeting in the lot, one man clearly taking the lead and talking to the rest. Then they scattered, clumping up as they went in different directions. Four of them were chatting as they went into an apartment directly below Ken's new place, but Ken was focused on the one who'd been guiding the little meeting. Along with two others, he waited for everyone else to leave. He answered a few questions from the others, but mostly he just slouched there, relaxing for a minute while his subordinates got moving. Then he and the other two who'd been waiting went down into the Owl's local chapter building.

With a yawn, Ken turned and finally went inside. A few boxes were already waiting for him, neatly labeled and stacked against a wall in the kitchen. There was a plastic folding table set up in the kitchen, but it didn't look like there were any chairs yet. Ken found the bathroom, used it, and explored his new rooms. It didn't take long - the front door opened into a little kitchen space that he was probably supposed to use as a living room too. The bathroom door was across from the front door, and a side door took him to a little bedroom. Whoever had brought the table and boxes had dumped a mattress on the floor. Or maybe someone else had left it there.

Ken paused for a second, looking at the boxes. He could see the one marked "bedding and towels." It was at the bottom of the stack, right under a box marked "papers."

Ken went to his bedroom, shut the door, and laid down on the bare mattress.

He had just considered grabbing his jacket to use as a pillow when he fell asleep.