The brass clock on the mantle behind the Candlewake front desk struck three on November thirteenth, its chimes muffled by the wet snow banking against the exterior walls.
That afternoon the gym work party had finished. Bolted bars, two tested exits, sound stove and flue, sixty assembled sleeping places: Marisol walked the fixed boundary while Owen read its cell gauge. Six installation units had been debited; five dusk units were now allocated. Nine school residents moved from the cafeteria into the gym, freeing twelve cots for care and quiet receiving. The eight temporary patients stayed in the cafeteria and classrooms. The forty-five-place rescue manifest could fit beside the gym’s nine, with six spaces left. Nothing outside the installed walls gained protection.
Marisol put the thirty-six-unit gym receipt beside yesterday’s one remaining classroom unit. Six installation units were spent, five assigned for tonight’s gym, and three for the existing cafeteria and two classrooms. Twenty-three remained after those allocations. Tomorrow’s eight-unit school dusk would leave fifteen; the following two dusks would need one more actual unit. The incoming four-unit medical cell, accepted after transport, would cover that deficit before any unmeasured condenser yield was credited. Every allocation came from a physically received cell.
