The next day after breakfast Billy settles at his desk working on the assignments that he'd been given for a few hours. There's a wooden bookcase filled with second hand fiction and non-fiction books and Jay settles down with a book to read. Courtney is busy sweeping up the platform while Kara and Pietr clean everything up from breakfast.

"Billy, how do you charge the generator?" Rick asks, looking it over.

"Foot power, there's a set of pedals in the corner there I hook up to the generator. A few minutes pedaling at a time several times a day usually has the generator fully charged. I'd thought of getting a larger one but I'd be looked at for buying gasoline unless I'm filling the truck."

"Yes, the police tend to take notice of teens buying gas."

"Not to mention they tell you not to use generators in enclosed spaces. There's usually a story on the news about a generator in the garage attached to a house gassing the people inside." Courtney says. The others nod. "Unless you left the garage door cracked open enough to get air but not enough for anybody to get inside. . ."

"And I don't have enough stuff that needs the power beyond the television, the campstove takes care of most of my food needs. During the winter I generally have a pot of soup or stew on the wood stoves as well as water." Pietr nods in satisfaction.

"Do you have lights?"

"Yes, I have several lanterns that I use in the fall and winter when the days start getting shorter as well as candles." Billy points to a couple boxes. "I haven't put them out yet since we got enough lights after dark but with the crackdown. . ."

"Can you see the light from outside?"

"No, the ventilation windows are too far up. I lighted them one night then went outside to look." Pietr walks over and looks at the lanterns and jugs of lamp fuel. He looks over at Billy. "I buy them at hardware stores, supposedly I'm picking them up for my boss. Who is having an outdoor party."

"Billy, is this woodworking equipment?" Jay asks, inspecting the building over the tunnel.

"Yes, I brought it from a local furniture maker that was going out of business due to health problems. I worked with the Amish on and off on their homes or making furniture and want to work on the buildings in the future."

After lunch Billy takes the empty water containers down the tunnel to be filled while Rick empties the compost toilet tank since it's getting full. There's a couple sets of bins in the garden room and Rick dumps it in a bin separate from the others.

"Where do you get your plants?"

"The Amish, they usually have extras they start to sell at farm markets and pass some along to me along with seeds and 'extra food that will just go to waste'. I also buy seeds at dollar stores and order them online. I don't grow much at a time, but I can grow all through the winter. It supplements what I can get in the store."

It's beginning to grow dark when Billy brings out the candles. They don't put out much light but they don't need to see much beyond washing up and settling on cots or camp chairs, making sure the candles are far enough away they won't get knocked over by a careless elbow. Billy goes up the stairs, cracking the door to get a little fresh air into the tunnel.

"How is it out there?" Courtney asks, coming up behind him.

"Dead, there's no lights anywhere but the street lights." He slips out the door and walks out into the street with a bag, picking up stuff that goes in another building and coming back in the door. The bag goes back beside the door.

"Have you thought about putting in a garden outside?" Courtney asks when they lock the door and go back down the stairs.

"I have in the past. It's easier to grow them down here though, at one or two plants nothing goes to waste."

The next day Jay comes up behind Billy who's standing listening at the door. Billy holds up a hand and he nods, he can hear the sound now. A movement at the door has Billy reaching down, petting a cat who walks down the stairs. They listen through the cracked doorway, shutting it and locking it from the inside. Going down the stairs they find the others waiting. "Groups of the aliens are patrolling the streets, gathering up people."

Billy puts some cat food down in a bowl and water in another one, petting the cat as she eats.

"Friend of yours?"

"Tawky Tawny, she's a good friend and she's a link to the wizard that gave me my powers."

"Yes, and you need to pay attention to the others. Stay inside." She says, lifting her head from the food. The others don't even blink, they've seen weirder than a talking cat. "If you do, don't go much further than the buildings. Go over the plans you made to join them for workrooms and whatnot. It's not safe to even be out during the day, like you saw they're gathering up people who don't seem to have a reason to be out. Expect stores to be closing too."

"Shit." Jay moans.

"Hipdeep." Tawky says sourly. "With the checkpoints supplies are already being delayed getting to stores, I don't doubt the aliens are trying to starve out people before they have to leave."

Pietr quickly looks over at the supplies. Sighing with relief when Billy points to boxes of biscuit mix, peas, beans, lentils, soup mixes, rice. . . anything dried that will last for a while. "How long do you expect it to be?"

"No more than three more days. You can last that long. The fourth day you can start venturing out." She jumps onto a pillow and starts washing herself. Billy opens a bag of soup mix and starts it soaking for dinner that night.

"How are we on supplies?" Jay asks when Rick, Billy, and Courtney head out to fill the water containers or check on the plants.

"Good, we might run low on fresh fruits and vegetables but we have enough beans and other dried foods for two weeks easily. If the aliens weren't shutting everything down we could have brought them at the store."

Pietr goes down the ladder and checks out the room under the platform Billy thought he might use for a cool room. As Billy had said it was meant to be used for storage and so it already had shelves in place. Billy comes up behind him. "The only problem using that is there's no place for the water to drain. Even with the sawdust the ice will eventually melt. I could use a broom and mop to get the water out here though."

"Dry ice?"

"Too expensive. Yes, you saw bags in stores but it was for a cooler, not a room." Pietr nods

"Billy?" Jay asks quietly as he goes to the stairs.

"I'm grabbing some of the seed catalogs I get in my other name. There's some seeds you can't find in the stores and the Amish generally grow only one or two varieties." He says as he rummages through a box against the wall, bringing out the seed catalogs and starting a list of what he wants to grow if he grows outside again. Rick grabs another piece of scratch paper and starts sketching out a greenhouse. "Plastic sheeting is cheap, it's not a permanent greenhouse and you'd have to take it down come winter before it got damaged."

"Yes, I'd been looking into them. PVC piping is cheap enough to put together and take apart. The problem is if I put one up the plants don't get rainwater."

"No running water in the other buildings?"

"No."

"How do you get light into the other room?"

"A series of mirrors stuck up on the walls and ceiling to bounce the light around. I read about it years ago and found a book at the library sale again that showed me what to do."

Billy stands at the doorway later that night, Jay standing behind him as they look out the doorway. With the only light streetlights it's spooky out and Billy goes out to gather the small items falling around them. Jay looks up at the sky as Billy fills the bag three times and dumps it in another building then hurries back to the door when they hear vehicles, watching through the doorway cracked open as they see vehicles going up the street. Parts are falling off even now and they shut and lock the door.

"I've never seen it so quiet out. Even in the middle of the night." Billy shudders.

"It was this quiet during the war, people were living under blackout conditions." Jay says. Sometimes he feels so old as he looks at the younger JSA members. Courtney turns off the radio. "More alien propaganda."

"Had to expect it, that's why underground radio stations got the real news to people in occupied areas during WWII."

Jay sits bolt upright later that night, he'd heard something. Dim light from the stairs is a candle. Walking up he finds Billy and Pietr listening.

"More aliens?"

"Yes, I don't know what's going on." Billy says. "Everything around us is already shut down and there's nobody on the streets, why are they patrolling?"

"They're looking for something. . .or somebody."

"What about the others?"

"Safe either hiding in their secret identities or hiding in the Justice League satellite." Jay says as a vehicle comes back up the street.

The sound of loud crashing has them hurriedly locking the door and heading back downstairs, finding Rick, Kara, and Courtney awake. The light coming from the windows vanishes and Billy quickly blows out the candle.

"What's going on?" Courtney asks quietly.

"I think they're breaking the streetlights." Rick says just as quietly.

"Sounds like it." It's only exhaustion that sends everybody back to their cots. It's almost noon when they wake again and Billy sneaks up to the door, looking around. "Yeah, they broke all the streetlights." He can see them laying in the street.

"Why? They already have everybody off the streets."

"Because they could." Jay says. "I'm sure this caused massive power outages too."

"Which is probably their intention. If they are out on the streets getting in supplies they can grab them. If there are any stores open." Rick says quietly. The others nod.

It seems to grow dark impossibly early everybody thinks as Billy bypasses the candles and brings out a lantern, filling it with oil and lighting it as Pietr starts working on dinner. Everybody forces themself to eat and lay back down, sleep taking a long time to come. The next morning Billy hangs up a blanket allowing Kara and Courtney some privacy to do a quick wash up, the others replacing them when they're done. The dirty water is put in the growing room and they refill the containers with clean water. Everybody is tired that night, forcing themselves again to eat dinner though sleep comes quickly.

"Today?" Pietr asks the next morning.

"I'd wait until tomorrow." Kara says. Billy and Jay nod. "Keep listening and if we don't hear anything in 24 hours we can go to the door and look around." The others nod. After breakfast Billy settles at desk to work some more on his assignments. Kara is winding the radio and they listen to it at the top of the hours a couple times, turning it off when they find nothing new.