The end of the world had a craft table with iced coffee and twelve kinds of tape.
That was where I met Zed, my sworn enemy for the next six hours. He had been assigned the red team. I was blue. Our badges said RUMBLE FOR RESOURCES in a typeface that looked as if it had been assembled from broken fence boards.
“Are you Ruby?” he asked. “They told me not to talk to you.”
“They told me you were a wilderness expert.”
“I make camping videos. Last month I got lost between the parking garage and this building.”
“Good,” I said. “Then we’re evenly matched.”
I worked in a grocery stockroom. I had entered the show because the grand prize was four hundred crates of shelf-stable food and household supplies, delivered to any addresses the winner chose. The Halden Street pantry, where my aunt ran the Thursday pickup, needed about half that much to stop turning people away before the next donation drive. I had not told the producers that in my audition. They wanted a personal apocalypse, not an inventory problem.
The director, Lyle, came to the table wearing a headset and the expression of a man who could hear eight problems at once. “Ruby, tell the camera what you’ll do if Zed takes your water.”
“Ask him why.”
“Then?”
“Depends on his answer.”
Lyle turned to Zed. “You see what I mean? She won’t give us a line.”
“I could take her coffee,” Zed offered.
“Please don’t. That belongs to the crew.”
The first set was an abandoned supermarket constructed inside an old furniture warehouse. The shelves held cardboard cans, empty plastic bottles, and one very convincing roast chicken made of rubber. Three actors waited by a painted bus stop. According to the rules, each was a stranded neighbor. We had ten minutes to load a cart for them, then the judges would score what we chose.
Lyle gave us a countdown. Zed shot down the aisle like a man who had been promised a motorboat. I went to the bus stop.
“What do you need?” I asked the first actor.
“Something to keep my papers dry.”
The second wanted a way to carry a sleeping toddler. The third said she could not lift a heavy box. They were reading from character cards, but none of that made their requests less clear. I returned to the shelves for a folder, a soft carry strap, and a light bag. I left the rubber chicken where it was.
At the buzzer, Zed’s cart looked ready to supply a small empire. Mine looked as if I had gone shopping for a badly planned picnic.
“She forgot water,” Lyle whispered, loudly enough for my microphone to catch it.
“It’s a prop round,” I whispered back. “Nobody here can drink the bottles.”
The judge opened Zed’s boxes. He had plenty of everything, but the actor with the toddler could not carry it, and the one with the papers had no dry place to put them. I won that round by two points. Zed leaned over the scoreboard.
“You talked to the actors,” he said.
“They were standing right there.”
“I thought that was a trap.”
“Maybe it was. For you.”
During the break, he found me at the craft table. He had a lemon biscuit and the wary look of someone expecting another trick. “The crew says the final round is in the ruined transit station,” he said. “There are four people to move and only two handcarts.”
“The crew told you that?”
“A light technician. I think he felt sorry for me.”
I offered him a biscuit napkin. “He didn’t say whether the carts belong to teams.”
“You’d share?”
“If the people in the game need moving.”
He stared at me. “You know we’re competing.”
“I read the badge.”
I didn’t tell him about Halden Street. He didn’t tell me why he needed the prize. Lyle appeared before either of us could ask. He wanted a shot of us glaring at each other across the table. We gave him two expressions that may have looked like suspicion if the camera stayed far enough away.
The transit station was a painted platform, a row of cracked benches, and a blue light that made everyone look unwell. The four “survivors” were actors again. One had a large suitcase. One would not leave without a cardboard dog. One said his knee hurt. The fourth was fine but kept telling the others what to do.
The rules were posted on a board in big letters: ONE POINT PER PERSON AT THE SHELTER. TWO POINTS PER RESOURCE CRATE. FIVE MINUTES. TEAMS MAY TRADE AT THE MARKED TABLE. Nothing about handcarts.
Lyle sent us to opposite ends of the set. At the horn, we each grabbed a cart. I took the actor with the sore knee and the one with the dog. Zed took the suitcase and the bossy one. We met at a narrow door to the shelter, where neither cart would fit beside the other.
“You first,” he said.
“You have more crates.”
“I have one crate and a suitcase. He’s carried three empty ones to look dramatic.”
The actor with the suitcase was still holding it like a shield. The bossy actor told us we were wasting time. A camera rolled closer. Lyle made a gesture for Zed to push ahead of me.
Instead, we parked both carts. We walked the four actors through the door, then carried in the crates. It cost us a little time and made a poor chase scene. The person with the cardboard dog arrived last because she refused to let anyone else hold it.
At the buzzer, everyone was inside. My crate count tied Zed’s. The first-round points made me the winner by two.
Lyle came over smiling with all his teeth. “Excellent. Ruby, tell us how you beat him.”
“He held the door.”
“We can do another take.”
“The scoreboard has the score,” I said. “That part you can film.”
He looked toward the judges. The judges looked at the rule board. Nobody offered him another take.
When the cameras were finally pointed at my face, I said the prize would be delivered to Halden Street and to the Northbank meal room. I had learned about Northbank from Zed during the long reset between rounds. He made camping videos to pay his rent; twice a week he unloaded boxes there. Northbank needed supplies as badly as we did.
“Two addresses?” Lyle asked from behind the camera.
“The contract says any addresses the winner chooses.” I had read it while waiting for makeup. “There are two.”
He checked. I watched him check. The legal assistant behind him nodded, and he gave the camera a thumbs-up so small it could have been mistaken for a twitch.
The show aired the next month. They kept the shot of Zed and me glaring over the craft table and cut the part where he offered me his biscuit. They kept the rubber chicken, which gained a small following online. They also kept the score, the four actors coming through the door, and the two delivery addresses. I could live with that edit.
On delivery day, my aunt called from Halden Street. “These crates are too big for the back room,” she said.
“How many?”
“Enough that I’ll need people to help sort them.”
“I know a wilderness expert.”
Zed arrived with a handcart and got lost between the pantry entrance and the loading door. My aunt liked him immediately. She put him on boxes while I made a list of what had come in. It was less dramatic than television and took the whole afternoon.
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