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Tip #50: Prep Time

  - I hated it when people say “With enough prep time, Batman wins.”

  - I hated the fact that they were right.

  - Except that one comic where he got infected in a zombie apocalypse. Ironic, huh.

  - I guess he didn’t have enough prep time.

  ---

  “Do we really have a choice?” Alex asked, her eyes on the concrete underpass where we were hiding. She fiddled with a screwdriver, her foot bouncing in quiet rhythm, not from fear, but from something else. Anticipation.

  I sighed, leaning against the wall, arms crossed, watching her. “That’s the thing. Gail doesn’t seem like someone who offers choices.”

  Alex smiled faintly, “He’s... efficient.”

  “That’s one way to put it.” I muttered. “Another way is ‘cold-blooded,’ or ‘possible war criminal.’”

  “I don’t know. I think he’s kind of cool.”

  I looked at her.

  She looked away.

  Suspension bridge effect. That stupid psych paper I half-read in college. High-stress situation + intense emotion = misplaced attraction. Still. I didn’t like how her voice got softer when she talked about him. Or how she actually blushed when he said “move out” like it was an action movie catchphrase.

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  Meanwhile, my gut was screaming. Gail didn’t make me feel safe. He made me feel… like a wrench in someone else’s machine.

  Still, we met him the next day.

  He didn’t waste time.

  “Here’s the plan,” he said, flipping open a folder full of maps, diagrams, and handwritten notes that would make a military logistics officer weep tears of joy.

  Alex leaned over the table with sparkles in her eyes. I stayed back.

  “There are four key points in their fortress,” Gail said, pointing with a knife. Not a pen. A knife. Of course. “Power. Vehicles. Armory. Personnel. We hit all four. Coordinated. Precise. Loud in the right places, silent in the others.”

  He looked at us. “You memorize the plan. You prep. You train. Then we execute.”

  He stood, crossing his arms. “No freelancing. No improvising. You do your job, or people die. You got me?”

  I nodded slowly. Alex nodded like she was saluting.

  He handed us a copy of the notes and waved us off with a single grunt.

  Back at Overhole—the main base, still my least favorite name for a shelter—we laid out the diagrams.

  “I can handle the power grid,” Alex said, her voice soft but eager. “I could set the overloads myself, then help with looting.”

  “Right,” I said, flipping to the next part. “I take the vehicle depot. Knock out tires, siphon gas. Maybe rig a couple traps. Also help with taking out a bandit or two.”

  Silence followed.

  Then I added, “Unless we don’t.”

  Alex looked at me. “What do you mean?”

  I tapped the table. “We don’t know his real endgame. What if he’s using us? What if we’re just pawns for something worse? Or what if Jules is in there for a reason and Gail’s just—just cutting through people to make a point?”

  Alex frowned. “He gave us food. Didn’t kill us. Trust goes both ways.”

  “I don’t want to trust him,” I said, too quickly. “I want to survive.”

  She folded her arms, quiet.

  “You’re thinking of Jules,” she said softly.

  I was. I didn’t answer.

  This wasn’t a game. This wasn’t looting a store under cover of gunfire. This was war. And Gail was the general. And we were the cannon fodder.

  I stared at the maps. The carefully scribbled notes. The colored paperclips, like some manic office worker survived the apocalypse.

  If we followed through, and we succeeded, we’d cripple the bandits. Maybe even take over. If we failed? We’d die.

  But what if Gail got what he wanted… and turned on us?

  I didn’t know what scared me more—following him into the lion’s den… or betraying a man who could crush me with one arm.

  Either way, prep time was ticking.

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