Changes in the City

With his coupons now in hand, Kaden went back to the car.

When he arrived, he noticed that the old man was missing. He figured that the man had just gone for a short walk, so Kaden got in and waited for him.

He didn't need to wait long, after half an hour the old man showed up, not in the best of moods.

"I went to go get us some food, but none of the places would accept my money. I even offered fifty dollars for a meal, but they wouldn't take it. Said something about coupons, and that I could get one if I went and got registered," The old man sighed, sitting down in the driver's seat, his stomach grumbling, "I'm so hungry but I figured I'd come back and get you first."

Kaden flashed a smile and pulled out the three coupons he had worked for, "You need these now."

The old man inspected one closely, smiling, "Ration coupons? I see, how did you get them?"

"I helped the soldiers clean up the wolf corpses," Kaden shrugged, "Wasn't too bad. Anyway, what is this about getting registered?"

If it was what he thought it was, it sounded like the one's in command of the city wanted to get a tally on everyone.

"Not entirely sure yet, but supposedly all citizens have to register and be assigned a job. You get one ration coupon for registering, after that you have to work to earn them." The old man explained what he had been told.

So yeah, it was exactly as Kaden had suspected. It made sense, but it also give off a bit of an eerie dystopian vibe.

"How have they set all this up so fast?" Kaden felt almost baffled, it shouldn't have been possible to do all this so fast, "I suppose we better go register then."

They went and got a quick meal first though, using two of Kaden's ration coupons. After they had eaten their fill, they headed straight to the registration office.

Outside of the building that handled the registration process, there was a long line spanning at least two blocks.

Luckily they had gotten something to eat first, because this was looking like a four hour wait, minimum.

There wasn't much to do in the queue but wait, so it was a very bored and tired Kaden who finally got to the front. He almost didn't register it when a woman called on him, urging him to hurry up.

Kaden ran up to the desk where a cranky woman was waiting for him, clearly dissatisfied with how long he'd taken to come over.

Slightly to his left was the old man, being lead through the process by another person.

"Identification," The woman behind the desk droned monotonously, reaching her hand out.

Kaden dug out his student ID and handed it to her.

She took it and looked at his information, noting down things like his name and birth date on her computer.

"Any particular skills or education?" The woman asked, not looking up at him.

"Ugh, none," He didn't really have anything. Well, there was no shame in it, he was still a student.

The woman just nodded and wrote something down, "Cleanup crew it is then. Your job will be to cleanup after animal horde attacks."

"Attacks? You think there is going to be more?" Kaden was shocked, how were they so sure? He had his own ideas, and thought the same, but it seemed like they had confirmed it.

"I don't think anything, I just assign the jobs like I've been told to do. Now look into the camera here," The woman wasn't the slightest bit interested in having a conversation with him.

Kaden frowned but looked into the camera that had been set up. The camera clicked, snapping a picture.

The woman then put a white blank plastic card into some sort of machine. When it was done, she handed the finished card back to him.

Kaden wanted to take a look at it, but was hurried off by the woman behind the desk.

He got out of her way and left the building to wait for the old man. He didn't blame her really, she had probably been at it for a long time. Not to mention, there were still many people left who needed to be processed.

On the outside, he took a proper look at his new identification card.

At the top it had a seven digit number printed in black. Below was his name, followed by his birth date. Under those was the job he had been assigned. On the right side there was a picture of him frowning. Seeing it made him chuckle, it was a good picture.

As he stood there admiring the card, the old man came out. In his hand was also a brand new identification card.

Kaden took a peek at the old man's card, "Frank Burbank? You never told me your name before."

"You little rascal," The old man rolled his eyes, "I've told you to call me Frank a million times, you just never listen to me."

"Whatever," Kaden shook his head, the old man was probably right, "Says here you're construction crew?"

"Yeah, I've done a little bit of construction before. What did you get?" Frank Burbank, the construction worker, inquired.

Kaden chuckled at his own image of the old man with a hard hat and steel toed boots.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing really," Kaden waved him off, "Anyway I'm cleanup crew, it's the same thing I was doing this morning."

"Well you said it wasn't too bad, you satisfied?"

"Mhm," Kaden nodded, "Could be worse."

Both of them were feeling hungry again, it had already been over four hours since they ate because of the long line to get registered. They took the ration coupons they had gotten from the registration process and went to one of the food places they knew.

A line had also formed there. They had just waited in line for four hours to register, now there was another line here. It seemed that doing anything in this city now included waiting.

Kaden saw that the people who got to the front, walked off with a of dark green packet in their arms.

This line was much faster, and they only had to wait around fifteen minutes.

"Coupon please," The man who was manning the store said.

"Here. Can I get the double combo please?" The old man handed over a coupon and tried to order what he had gotten when they ate here earlier.

"We don't have that anymore, all you can get is a ration packet," The man took out a dark green plastic packet with civilian ration stamped on the front in white block letters.

"Is this all you can get?"

"Yep, it's all we've got now. The city administration has made some changes because of the ration coupons," The man shrugged, "Can't do anything about it."

"Right, thanks," The old man took his packet and left.

Right after, Kaden exchanged his coupon for a similar packet.

It was hard to keep up with the changes taking place. It had only been five hours since they last ate, and there they had been able to choose anything they wanted. But now another change had been made.

They went back to the car and sat down to eat their packet.

Kaden tore open the plastic seal and was less than thrilled by what he found.

He emptied the contents on the dashboard, and a few items came out.

A small can of beans, a piece of what was likely cooked wolf meat, some crackers, and a juice box. Well at least his packet was full of protein, but it wasn't exactly a nice meal. '

He took a look at the front of the packet where 'Civilian Ration' was stamped in those big white block letters.

If there was a civilian one, there was probably a military one too. He would bet that that was where most of the food went to. Civilians, as they were, would just get enough to survive.

It was annoying and made him angry, but he knew that it was necessary in order to feed the growing population of the city and keep the defense force strong.

His eyes turned towards what the old man had gotten, and it was largely the same as his. The can of beans was the only difference, as it had been swapped out for a can of tuna instead.

To Kaden, the meal was decent, it was just the size of it that bothered him. Because of his childhood, he was the furthest thing from a picky eater. As a child, he had been used to rummaging the kitchen for whatever scraps there were.

At school, back when he had actually being going to school, he happily ate the provided lunches. When people couldn't eat their entire meal, he always ate what was left over.

This all pointed to the same thing, he could eat whatever, but he also ate a lot. This meal wouldn't fill him up for very long.

In only a few minutes, the entire meal had been devoured. As he was sucking down the contents of his juice box, he could feel that his stomach was still yearning for more.

He took out a can of tuna from the supplies in his backpack. Those supplies had been meant for emergencies, but he would have to take from it until he found a more permanent source of food.