Chapter 128: Closing the Net
Owen and Samuel smoking was no secret. After all, discretion wasn’t their forte. While others toiled, they lounged outside, puffing away without a care. It didn't take long for everyone to figure out that Steven was their supplier.
After a moment's hesitation, Steven smiled. "Supplying everyone might be a bit challenging."
The other building managers immediately got anxious.
"Steven, you can't play favorites!"
"Our request isn't that high, just one pack a day, that's all!"
"This is my only request!"
Steven sighed helplessly, "Alright, I'll do my best. Starting tomorrow, I'll supply cigarettes to all the building managers who need them."
Seeing this, even those who didn't smoke couldn't help but step forward with their own requests.
"I don't smoke, but I love chewing gum. Could you get me some?"
"I'd like some alcohol, even the cheapest kind will do!"
Steven, looking beleaguered, said, "Alright, alright, I've noted all your requests. I won't play favorites; everyone will get something!"
The managers left satisfied, grinning over their promised supplies. After they dispersed, Dennis and Walter expressed their indignation. "Mr. Rogers, aren’t you being too accommodating? Giving them food is already a significant favor, and now they're asking for more!"
Steven, however, remained unflustered. "Their requests are reasonable enough. I can't play favorites. It's fine, just let it be."
His demeanor left everyone bewildered. No one could have imagined that the once ruthless Steven could become so lenient. But since Steven was the one procuring the supplies, they held their tongues.
Upon completing the distributions, Steven returned home. He took a hot shower, then lounged comfortably on the sofa in his pajamas, staring at the ceiling.
"It's about time," he murmured.
The internal strife had already taken a toll on the other apartment buildings, resulting in significant losses. Hundreds more were injured in the fighting, most of whom wouldn't survive their wounds. Even if they did, they wouldn’t pose a threat to him anytime soon.
Steven had taken a morning stroll around the neighborhood, counting the number of active individuals. About 700 people remained.
Moreover, cigarettes and alcohol had been used as bait to lure out the building managers from each apartment. In other words, it was time to close the net.
Steven saw no reason to delay further. In the short term, there wouldn't be any major conflicts in the apartment buildings. Continuing to wait would only enable the injured to regain strength from the food he supplied, eventually posing a greater threat.
"Tomorrow it is," Steven decided, his eyes narrowing with a flash of cold intent.
The next day, Steven left the neighborhood as usual. He had divulged nothing of his plans, not even to Henry. This mission was crucial, and failure would make future actions more challenging and risky.
Steven trusted no one.
After leaving the neighborhood, he headed straight to the supermarket. He gathered a large quantity of food from the shelves, primarily bulk cookies, chips, and bagged bread tied with straps. Today, Steven specifically selected better quality food than usual and brought more of it.
"If they can have a hearty last meal, I guess I'm being kind enough." Steven said to himself with a grim smile.
After accumulating a generous pile of provisions, Steven retrieved the rat poison he'd procured from his secret stash in the extradimensional space. With the food already having succumbed to spoilage, the added poison would be undetectable.
Donning a gas mask he'd scavenged from a military bunker, Steven meticulously dusted the food with the lethal substance. Every meticulous sprinkle consumed nearly thirty minutes of his time.
'Samuel and Owen might be wary of the food and have someone test it. But those greedy guys won't share their cigarettes and alcohol with others.' He thought. 'Long-time smokers and alcoholics lose their usual caution in front of cigarettes and alcohol. I'll poison them instead!'
Steven extracted a few packs of cigarettes, pausing as he removed their plastic seals. The cigarettes he had given to Samuel and the others before were already unwrapped, a deliberate move anticipating this very moment. It was all part of the ruse. After all, when scoring cigarettes was a rare windfall, minor imperfections in packaging were hardly questioned.
Then, he carefully inserted the rat poison into the tobacco of the cigarettes.
The alcohol posed a trickier challenge. Steven first dissolved the poison in alcohol and then used a syringe to inject it through the bottle caps. The technique might have been crude, but by the time he returned with the goods, it would be nearly dark. The eager drunks wouldn't notice such minute discrepancies.
After two hours of painstaking effort, Steven bundled the tainted food into bags and secured them to the sled hitched to his snowmobile.
The snowfall had lightened today, but the wind still bit with a vengeance. Steven leaned against the mall wall, finally managing to light a cigarette, taking careful, measured puffs. Inhaling too deeply risked freezing his lungs in the frigid air.
"Maybe today marks the end," Steven muttered under his breath. "This plan has unfolded surprisingly smoothly."
Thus far, the occupants of the neighboring apartment buildings played their roles perfectly, like marionettes dancing to his strings. But this seamless cooperation felt surreally unsettling to Steven.
'It’s all too convenient,' he thought, skepticism etched in his features. 'They’re not idiots; why are they so easily ensnared?'Steven chuckled dryly, squinting at the horizon.
'This faux harmony won’t last. Those guys aren't dunces. They’re bound to retaliate. Are they biding their time? There’s a traitor in Building 25, but their identity eludes me. Are they hiding among the living, or have they met their end already?'
He posed these questions to himself, but the silence offered no answers.
He wasn't Sherlock Holmes; his skills in deduction weren’t his forte. But he possessed something more tangible in this apocalypse—a fortress and firearms.
Steven flicked the half-smoked cigarette to the ground, grinding it beneath his boot. "No matter your schemes, in the face of brute force, your clever plots are rendered futile."
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