Once the gate arm rose, the two of them brazenly drove away from the service station.
Several patrol cars were parked in the service station's courtyard. The patrol officers were in a room playing cards, and Evelyn even caught the faint scent of barbecue.
Two kilometers past the Source River Dam, they saw a brightly lit town. The Second Base and the surrounding towns had a stable power supply, and there were more pedestrians on the road. Refugees in tattered clothes carried patched cloth bags as they headed into the mountains to dig for roots and pick leaves.
After the polar night, the temperature had risen to ten degrees Celsius, and the frost on the trees had all melted. With the relief rations from the base gone, the refugees had no choice but to try their luck in the mountains. There was no game left nearby. The lucky ones might catch a rat or a rabbit; the unlucky could only dig up some roots to take home and boil into a thin soup.
