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  I know they are real. I have genuine compassion for people living in poverty. But I don’t understand it. Out of the blue, the thought that I’ve made a grave mistake in not bringing Amanda overpowers me.

  She would understand.

  Not because she grew up in poverty.

  But because of standard deviation.

  As humans, we can understand each other within limits, and one of those limits is the standard deviation. Being within the same range means it’s easy to understand another person. Being one standard deviation in either direction–in this case, economically–means we can understand, even if we cannot know the other person’s lived experience.

  Two or more standard deviations blows that sense of understanding to smithereens.

  And right now, as I try not to have both a cat and a dog pee on me in the same week, I’m pretty sure we’re looking at far more than two standard deviations of where the hell am I?

  A redheaded woman, young and bright eyed, walks past me on her way to a building with a steel door. She unlocks the front door and gives me a lowered-brow look. I’m an outsider, that glance tells me.

  And I’ve just been noted by an insider.

  “Andrew,” Gerald says, scanning the area. We dispensed with sir a while ago. “This place is safe. Ish. But where is the sultan?”

  My phone buzzes with a text.

  VFW is all it says.

  Gerald spots the place before I do, pointing across the street, up a hill.

  “There.” He looks at his own phone, finding the Google link. “Closest VFW hall.”

  “Why would the sultan meet me at a veteran’s hall?”

  “Because he’s unpredictable and nothing he does makes sense?”

  “You’re observant, Gerald.”

  “That’s why you pay me.”

  The hall is so close, it’s easy to walk a few blocks. Every yard is unkempt, cigarette butts haphazardly strewn on grass, in the margins between greenery and concrete, on the asphalt like a piece of warped art. I’m in a suit and so is Gerald, so we stand out. People look through open windows but not a single door opens.

  Kids ride bikes down the long, steep hill, looking at us but ultimately too engaged in their own play to stop. It’s a place full of humming activity but it’s all simple. People getting into cars on side streets and gunning engines. Children running and biking. The slow crawl of non-residents driving through.

  The VFW looms.

  “I should have let him land his helicopter in my backyard,” I mutter as we approach the worn, white clapboard building with a sad, sun-bleached sign. “What the hell does a VFW hall in an economically depressed city have to do with billionaire preppers?”

  “No idea,” Gerald says, “but this reminds me of Westside.” Gerald teaches art classes in a rundown part of Boston.

  “Really? I’ve been there. This is nothing like it.” A dog with entire patches of fur missing limps by, tail wagging with happiness as it spots a kid playing on a faded red plastic slide.

  “You’ve been there at night, and walked to exactly one bar. Try going there during the day.”

  “It’s the same?”

  “Poverty has a way of being the same, no matter what the circumstances.” He shrugs. “So does being rich. There’s a sameness you can’t break out of.”

  “Try telling that to the sultan, Gerald. He likes to imagine he’s the only rich person on Earth.”

  “Then he’s as delusional as the person who buys a lottery ticket for a chance at riches.”

  “At least people who buy lottery tickets imagine all the ways they’ll help others.”

  Just then, Gerald pushes open the door to the VFW. A wave of rotted wood and soured alcohol assaults my senses. None of this adds up. Gerald’s deep frown tells me we’re on the same wavelength.

  “I think we should go,” he starts, until we’re interrupted.

  “ANDREW!” the sultan bellows. Before I’m grabbed in a bear hug, I realize the place is totally empty except for his security team. Then it’s full-contact sultan. He smells like sandalwood and antiseptic.

  “Omar,” I say, giving in to the hug. He’s like this all the time, extremely physical and touchy. The kind of guy who stands three inches away, nose practically touching, when we talk. Doesn’t bother me most of the time, especially when we’re talking about nine-figure deals.

  Make it ten and he can sit in my lap.

  Ten muscle-bound guys, big as bears, make Gerald look like an extra in a sandlot kids’ movie. Omar doesn’t go for subtle when it comes to anything, including security.

  Especially security.

  “Welcome to hell,” he says, sniffing once. “What is that scent?”

  “Fitchburg,” Gerald mutters.

  “It’s the scent of opportunity!” A deep voice with a slight Texas twang catches my attention from behind the bar, where I realize there is a man in a ten-gallon hat pouring about a quarter of a bottle of Jack Daniels into a large tumbler of cola.

  “Andrew, allow me to introduce my friend Deacon Squire. I believe you’ve heard of him?” Omar says with a gesture that makes his diamond-encrusted Apple watch glow in the semi-dark.

  “Call me Deke!” the man bellows, still pouring. Half the bottle is gone before he stops. My liver starts to whimper.

  “Deke,” I say, trying to get a sense of the guy. Blowhard billionaires are a dime a dozen. A blowhard Texas billionaire? Been there, done that, have the belt buckle. I know exactly who Deke Squire is. Self-made oilman, and there aren’t many of those left in the world. He’s closing in on my dad in terms of age but looks ten years younger.

  “Yankee! Let’s call you Yank, shall we?” Deke laughs with a deep sound that Amanda would call “macho bullshit.”

  She would not be wrong.

  “My name is Andrew.” I watch as he drinks the entire tumbler in one smooth, long swig.

  Deke takes his time, accustomed to using delay as a power technique. We all are. He’s not using new tools here. “Just joshin’. Sheesh,” he says, smirking. He turns to the sultan and mugs. “Don’t judge all Americans by the uptight Northerners.”

  I don’t respond.

  Gerald doesn’t either.

  The sultan’s used to pissing contests. So am I. This is one I don’t care about, so it’s easy to disengage. Deke and I have no business that overlaps. We’re not competitors. Actually, that alone is quite odd. You’d think our paths would have crossed before now.

  “Andrew is a Jane Austen fan,” Omar informs Deke with a satisfied sniff. “Unlike most Americans, he enjoys Pemberley as much as I do.”

  “No one could equal your devotion to Austen,” I inform him. He beams.

  “You a literature fan?” Deke asks, his voice neutral.

  “I am.”

  “And a prepper!” Omar pronounces in a pleased tone, with a flourish of his arm, the Apple watch flashing again.

  “Never would have taken a McCormick for a prepper,” Deke says, his next breath a loud groan of judgment. “James doesn’t strike me as the type.”

  “I’m not James.” My smile is careful, calculated.

  A snort. “No siree, you’re not.” He rubs his hands together with glee. “Let’s get started.”

  “Started? With what?” I look around the VFW pointedly. I smell a familiar odor.

  And then it hits me.

  Louie’s Last Stand.

  This place smells like the decrepit casino my dad owns in Las Vegas.

  “Let’s get started with our business venture,” Deke says cryptically, guiding Omar and me towards the back of the kitchen.

  Self-made billionaires are a different breed from people like me, who inherited. They have a roughness, a cowboy-like edge, whether they’re from Texas or Finland or Brunei.

  “You are going to love this, Andrew. We have the sex robots in prototype right now,” Omar whispers in my ear as we walk past a stainless-steel table covered in cutting boards, listless cooks chopping greens. Omar’s secu
rity guys thread between us. They smell like asphalt.

  I nearly pause in place, but the scent is driving me crazy, so I keep moving. “Did you say–”

  “Yes! The most advanced artificial intelligence applied to metal pussy. You can control the temperature, the moisture level, the–”

  “You expect people to have sex with robots in... whatever place you’re taking me?”

  “Only if we can’t get enough women in the bunker.”

  Now I do halt. “Bunker?”

  “Keep going.” He points toward Deke, who turns around as he steps down. We’re going deep into the bowels of whatever this hallway is, and I don’t like it.

  Neither does Gerald, who takes the opportunity to move in front of me, creating a barrier between my body and Deke’s as we descend a series of steps made of concrete painted pale grey, the LEDs along the edge of the ceiling thinning out until the light is dimmer and dimmer.

  “Stay!” Omar orders all his guys, like they’re well-trained dogs.

  They do as told. I don’t ask, and Omar doesn’t tell Gerald to stay, so he continues with us. This does not upset me in the least.

  I hear the hiss of an air duct. Systems turn on, my ears adjusting. Are we headed into an underground bunker?

  Or a serial killer’s lair?

  “Where are we going?” I call out.

  “Just wait and see, Yank,” Deke calls back. “It’s best experienced all at once.”

  Omar puts a hand on my shoulder. “He is right. Trust us.” Leaning forward, he gets so close to my ear that I turn. Our eyes meet.

  “Do you wear glasses or contacts, Andrew?”

  “What? Neither.”

  “Good. No Lasik needed, then. What about your wife?”

  “Why are you asking me about our eyesight?” I ask as we go down yet another set of stairs. This is three stories deep already. Much more and my ears will start to pop.

  “Did you read none of the prepper materials I sent you?”

  “No. I did not.”

  He’s offended. “Why not?”

  “Because that’s not how I make decisions.” Time to be the tough guy. “If you can’t convince me with experience, then no deal. Reading up on it in advance doesn’t do a damn bit of good.”

  Silence. We take a few more steps before he finally says, “I like the way you think.”

  “So where’d you buy in New Zealand?” Deke calls back as we pause on a landing. From the looks of it, we have one more set of stairs to go. I look down and see glow strips lighting the rest of the way to a set of dented doors with a small plastic box at eye level.

  “Buy?”

  “Your land. New Zealand. You know.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Anterdec has resort properties in New Zealand, but–”

  “Ah. Smart.” Deke taps his temple. “Disguise your New Zealand hideout as part of the company.” He gives me a look that says he’s re-evaluating me. “I know your brother handled that big New Zealand deal a couple of years before he left. Never realized you were thinking that strategically.”

  Never, ever refuse to take credit for something brilliant that others attribute to you.

  Especially when you’re confused as hell about what they mean.

  “Right.” I take a deep breath and stand tall. I make a note to have Gina research this New Zealand thing.

  Turns out I don’t have to, because immediately Omar says, “Half of all billionaires have land in New Zealand now. It’s our bug-out location.”

  “Bug what?”

  “Bug-out. A place to go when the shit hits the fan.”

  “SHTF,” Deke says somberly, pronouncing each letter with that Texas drawl. Ess Aych Tee Eff.

  “A bunker,” I say, nodding. “But in an isolated island nation far away from major nuclear powers.”

  Omar’s face lights up. “You know more than you reveal.”

  I wink at him. Gerald frowns. I never wink. “That’s right.”

  Acting like you know what you’re doing is ninety percent of actually knowing what you’re doing.

  “Then you’re gonna love this,” Deke says as he presses his eyeball against the small plastic box near his head. A retina scan takes place, his hand on a panel.

  The door opens.

  “Negative air flow,” he says, the whoosh of air pushing my hair off my face. “Cuts down on contamination in the event of pandemic.”

  My body tenses. “Pandemic?”

  “Ebola is just waiting to sink its teeth into the U.S.,” Deke says nonchalantly, as if we’re talking about termites infesting a house and not a pathogen with the capacity to kill forty to seventy percent of those infected. “Any good emergency bunker has a contagion protocol.”

  “Of course,” I say as he ushers Omar, Gerald, and me into the bunker, the metal door shutting behind us.

  We’re in a holding tank of some sort, the walls covered in plastic, the shiny metal underneath and painted concrete below us neat as a pin.

  “I’m not going to make you go through full decon,” Deke says, eyeing my suit. “No one needs a cavity search when they’re looking at an investment.” He winks. “Unless you’re into that kind of thing.”

  “Investments, or cavity searches?” I joke. “Because I’m really into money. Rectal probes? Not so much.”

  Hearty laughter greets my comment.

  But Deke never answers my question.

  I don’t ask it again.

  “The chances of societal collapse are enormous, Andrew,” Omar tells me as we enter a long, wide hallway that reminds me of any generic research facility in a sci-fi film, all greys and transparent plastic sheeting, concrete and steel. Two armed guards with assault rifles and flak jackets give us respectful looks.

  “We have to prepare,” Omar continues. “Climate disasters. Governments toppled. Pandemics. It is not enough to secure our fortunes in shell companies and offshore accounts.”

  Deke nods.

  “We need to be protected from the worst of humanity,” Omar declares.

  “Looks like you’re protecting yourselves from humanity, period.”

  They both nod.

  I go cold.

  For the next twenty minutes, I’m treated to a discussion of energy storage, evaporation techniques for water collection, air filtration systems, power sources, and stealth planning. It’s focused more on systems and has an element of one-upmanship that makes my mind turn off.

  I let emotion take over.

  Not external emotion, of course. None of these guys get to see one flicker of that.

  Instead, I let myself take in their emotions. People are highly readable when you’re not in reactive mode. You can learn a great deal from someone who is explaining a process to you.

  The meta-awareness is better than any truth serum.

  Omar’s into the whole billionaire prepper thing because he’s rich and bored, and has the attention span of a hummingbird. Deke’s in it for bragging rights and maybe a profit angle. The slick way he’s using phrases like “ten-thousand-year clock” and “cryogenics opportunities that synergize with research labs onsite” makes me wonder how much money some of my peers are dumping into this.

  Deke isn’t selling hope.

  He’s selling fear.

  Fear is a greater motivator.

  I’m not buying any of this. Not one bit. I could stop this show right now, open my mouth, say my piece and leave.

  I don’t.

  I don’t because underneath the bluster and the spectacle, there is a truth.

  That truth is this: we’re fragile. I’m fragile. Amanda and I are not as prepared as we could be for disasters beyond our control.

  Economic collapse? We’re fine.

  Natural disaster and power sources go down? Not fine.

  Contagion? Definitely not fine.

  The other contingencies? Like social revolution and armed gangs roaming the streets? I can’t control for that. In fact, now it’s time to say somethi
ng.

  “Deke, Omar, this is great.” I smack the wall, hard. The gesture means nothing to me, but I’ve learned that it holds power for some men. “But what about agility? Flexibility? Portability? In the face of some social collapses, you don’t want to be stuck in place in a bunker. You want to be able to pivot. Move. Stay mobile.”

  Deke grins and walks us into a gorgeous underground living room, with “windows” built into the walls, the “glass” an LED screen that flashes various scenes from above ground. Not the actual scenery of Fitchburg, Massachusetts. Some careful designer selected each scene for its beauty and tranquility, I’m certain.

  “We’ve got that covered. Bug-out bags and four wheelers galore, here. We make sure there’s a bag for everyone, two four wheelers per family, and whatever else your pocketbook can handle.”

  “Nothing about this is connected to money,” I inform him.

  His laugh is expected, grating and harsh. “Everything is connected to money, Andrew. And you sure as hell ain’t no clone of your old man. He’d have a damn heart attack if he heard his hand-picked CEO heir sayin’ that.”

  “You want me here, Deke, or my dad?” I turn to leave, Gerald right behind me.

  Three steps. I make it three steps before he grudgingly says, “Stay. You ain’t seen the best of it yet.”

  “So far, none of this impresses me.”

  “Really? Maybe I overestimated you,” Deke says, looking at Omar like he’s the reason I’m not going along with all this.

  “Or maybe your set-up just isn’t that impressive,” I reply before Omar can open his mouth.

  “You say nothing about this is connected to money,” Omar asks me, ignoring Deke. “What do you mean?”

  “I have the money to invest. You know that. I could buy an island. We have so much, a group of us could band together and buy our own country.”

  Omar frowns. “I already have my own country. Why would I need to share one with any of you? Sharing power is silly. I would hate to decapitate my friends. Been there, done that, own the t-shirt, as they say here in America.”

  Deke and I just stare at him.

  “Not my point, Omar, but thanks for that display of empathy,” I tell him, turning back to Deke. “This isn’t about the money. You’re not initiating all of these contingency plans to save your money. You’re not investing your own and investors’ capital because you think you’ll make a huge profit. All of this,” I say as Deke walks us behind an underground waterfall and the scent of garlic and lemon fills my nostrils, making my stomach growl, “all of this is about fear.”