Khalil's Dad, Mister Roy, had joined our forces in an effort to try and unite civilizations through a trade network and pressure Vincent out of leadership with everything that we had. At first, I never realized how important Mister Roy was to our cause, but his unlimited knowledge caused us to have an advantage.
He never explicitly told us what his job was, but he knew so many things. Many things about the places around us, how to get there, and what kind of leadership each place had.
"I came here because Khalil wanted to check out his old school to see if any supplies were here, but when we were scouting from the riverbank, we saw a truck roll in about a week ago. We were hidden for a decent bit and waited to see if you people were dangerous. When we caught Leon up on the roof one day, we decided to knock on the door," Mister Roy explained, looking back to Khalil while explaining, and then at me. I was still really happy that Khalil lived through everything so far. If only he met Korin...
"Where were you before? You said you knew a lot about our surroundings, you're more of an ambassador than anybody yet," Dad said. We gathered around a table near the front of the school, where a map of the general area supplied to us by Trevor and Dustin stood on the wall. Mister Roy started to mark a ton of places on the map with a pencil.
"That way we can erase anything if need be..." Mister Roy started, giving the pencil back to Dad before starting his explanation.
"As you could've expected, these places are small, but ever-expanding. I've only seen four in a hundred-mile radius, and two of them are very, very far from us. Blocked by hordes of the dead... but, this one place, opposite from Vincent's small area, it's Anpanzos, you know that one store everybody went to for a while?" Mister Roy asked Dad. He nodded, pointing toward an intersection about three miles away from the Elementary School. Mister Roy had already marked it, but Dad now knew what he was talking about.
"There, there's a man named Jeremiah that took the store under his guide, it's a supermarket, big enough to still have shipments airdropped from the government. There, you could get fresh produce, new supplies, water purifiers, and everything you could ever imagine. It's already a trade market underneath smaller civilizations all around," Mister Roy stated.
To my surprise, Khalil ended his silence by giving a notebook to Dad. He was a good artist, and drew a landscape picture of the front of the store, with a helicopter dropping in a pallet of goods. Khalil documented all of his travels with pictures and notes on the side to describe them in fond detail.
"Amazing duo you two are... charting things like that. Impressive, okay, so, do you propose that we talk to Jeremiah first? Is he agreeable or... violent?" Dad asked cautiously. I think he could tell that there was a definable relationship between Mister Roy and Jeremiah, and he didn't want to intrude.
"Jeremiah himself is fine, but his guards are something else, let me tell you. It's nothing to worry about, the dude is a big baby, and won't give us any problems. If we want to talk to him about trading, you'd need something worth his while. Like, some product that you might have. What do you have?" Mister Roy asked, looking around at the school.
"Just our own place. Maybe our produce isn't aligned? We hunt deer around here, and that being near an intersection, I assume the deer aren't plentiful with the abandoned cars everywhere?" Dad asked Mister Roy. He shook his head and Khalil showed another page in his notebook. This time, the drawing was off the road, with abandoned cars set up in a way to block deer from leaving once they entered an intricate trap, full of bait, vegetables, and traps.
"Amazing... Jeremiah really is a smart guy. We should go here first... what do they need the most of?" Dad asked Mister Roy.
"People, if you were to ask me. It's a small community, with only a few great minds. And, when I say people, I mean... like-minded people. They're aggressive, they're destructive, and they're very closed-off. Even I tried to get with them, but it's like they closed off their gates ever since they became one of the people to get the airdrops with all of the supplies on them. They have the trading network like I talked about, but it's like a primitive drive-thru. They don't give away anything unless you have guns, ammo, or people to offer," Mister Roy stated.
"So, what, it's like a worker trade? What do they need that much firepower for?" Mom took a turn to put her input on the conversation and Mister Roy turned toward her, waiting to give her more information after she was done talking.
"That's a really good way to put it. They want people to perform maintenance around the place, and if you supply, you get stuff from the airdrops. It's an interesting form of payment, but the dollar is in shambles after the collapse, so we need a new form of currency," Mister Roy explained.
"What if we temporarily help them out? We get some of our electricians in there to do what they need to, and in exchange, they give us a little bit. Do we have to stay there if we want things?" Dad asked Mister Roy next. He shook his head, giving a more in-depth explanation of how the exchange works.
"So, you'll ask them what they have to be done and offer to help with a negotiated price. If an electrician is there to do his job and it gets done, he can leave if he wants, but he's guaranteed work and supplies if he stays. Sure, dropping in is easy, but what if they replace the thing that you have? What if your electrician skills aren't needed and you fade out and die? It's a last-resort type of place, one you don't want to sit in on for too long," Mister Roy explained. I nodded, understanding much more about this human trap set in place.
I didn't like the sound of it, but from Dad's mind, there weren't many leads to go on. It was a chance he would have to take, I assumed.
"Then, we'll start tomorrow, and I want to get something that will intrigue them in our offers. I'll talk to this Jeremiah guy, and we'll go from there," Dad explained, looking toward everybody else. He waited for our approval and then nodded while looking at Mister Roy.
"I'll go with you, and so will Khalil," Mister Roy said.