Fuel (Best Laid Plans Book 1) Read Free

water, no flushing toilets or other waste management. And you're about to find yourself in an area populated by millions of people who also don't have food or water and desperately need it.”
    His friend's smile faded. “I don't think it's quite that bad,” he argued. “And anyway what about your grades? If you take off now you'll have to do the entire semester over.”
    Trev couldn't believe his friend still wasn't getting it. “In a week, a few weeks at most, our college educations are literally going to be the least of our worries.”
    Before Matt could respond two hands clapped down on Trev's shoulders. “Hey, man! Catching us to talk about what went down last night?”
    The new arrival was Matt's roommate, Chad. Trev had played pick-up basketball, volleyball, and even video games with them and a few others around the dorm and knew the group pretty well.
    “Trev's heading home,” Matt said. Trev did his best to suppress his annoyance at the blunt admission. “He thinks things are about to turn bad.”
    “You're leaving just a few weeks into fall semester?” Chad asked, voice thick with disbelief. He moved around so they were all standing in a sort of triangle off to one side of the hallway. “You'll get incompletes in all your classes. And because what, gas prices will go up a bit more and prices in stores might go up too?”
    Trev just shook his head. Chad was one of those people who liked to argue about everything but never actually changed his opinion, so explaining would probably just be a waste of time. An annoying waste of time.
    Even if he'd wanted to, what would he say? The economy had been hovering on the brink for a year now. A lot of people had been betting on the nuclear war in the Middle East being what toppled everything and sent them back into pre-industrial society, but a miraculous recovery had been pulled off by people on all sides. They'd all limped along for months now, pretending it was business as usual and willfully blind to the fact that things couldn't continue. And maybe some believed that after the Middle East Crisis the American way of life was indestructible and nothing would bring it down.
    Trev knew better. “Listen,” he said, directing his words mostly to Matt. “You know this area has become one big sprawling line of cities, a dense population cluster filling most of Utah and Salt Lake valleys. That's millions of people packed into a small space, and how much food do you think is actually kept on hand to feed all those people? Most businesses trim their operations so they don't have any surplus stock cutting into profits, meaning delivery trucks usually come every week or even every few days to restock grocery stores, restaurants, bakeries, and everything else. Now that all those trucks don't have fuel we'll be lucky if the cities have one or two weeks' worth of food. And that's not counting the inevitable rush as people try to buy up as many supplies as they can before everything's gone.”
    Chad opened his mouth to argue and Trev hurriedly kept going. “Now think about all the newsworthy riots of the last ten years, and the comparatively minor events that set them off. Compare that to millions of people knowing there's no more food being brought in and what they've got is quickly running out. Even before the cities start running out of food rioting and looting will run rampant.”
    “But you can't know any of that for sure, right?” Chad argued. “Maybe knowing how serious the situation is will bring people together.”
    It was hard not to laugh at that, although nothing about the situation was funny. “In small, tightly knit communities maybe. In cities? People riot over soccer losses.” He turned back to Matt. “Anyway I'm just saying you should keep your ear to the ground and be ready to leave in a moment if things start looking bad. I think you'll be surprised at how quickly that happens.” He offered his hand for his friends to shake, then turned and hurried