Page 71 of Up in Smoke

A hungry but surviving population would be easier for Mansfield to control.

Monday, June 29, 2043.

Asylum, Oklahoma.

The Alley.

As breakfast could happenany time in the morning, and the storms plaguing me in my sleep did a good job of waking me early, I had a breakfast of salsa, leftover chips, and a can of chili I’d found in the cellar supplies. According to the clock in the sitting room, Mansfield or one of his minions felt nine was later in the morning. I kept my ears pricked forward, which tested my patience and annoyed my fox, as she wanted to chitter a myriad of threats at those who dared to sour our morning.

Mansfield had opted to show up, and I remembered the woman from my vision, one of his right-hand minions.

I would need to take care around her, although I needed to take care around anyone who associated with the ruler of Asylum.

“Please come in,” I greeted, holding open the door. “Thank you for coming so early in the day.”

Mansfield chuckled, stepped inside, and held out a package wrapped in brown paper. “After I went home last night, I remembered I had this, and I thought you might appreciate it. Sandro might enjoy it as well, and I thought it would be best in your hands.”

I accepted the box, and its heavy weight startled me. I placed it in the crook of my arm and smiled. “Thank you so much, Benedict. This is very kind of you. Hopefully, I’ll be able to offer some insights on your budget.”

“I’m looking forward to discovering what you may learn as well. This is Josephine. She’ll be able to answer any of your questions about the budget, and she will make certain I receive any notes or recommendations you might be able to make regarding the budget.”

“Pleased to meet you, Josephine. Would you prefer to work in the sitting room or the kitchen? While Sandro has an office, he’s been working on some poems, so I don’t know what I can move or not, so I just stay out of that room.”

“Either is fine,” the older woman replied.

I led her to the kitchen, offered her a glass of water, and placed the box on the counter to deal with later. Mansfield saw himself out, and without wasting any time, Josephine placed a thick stack of papers on the other side of the table.

After I sat across from her, she said, “This isn’t as organized as I prefer, but we’ve been trying to make this budget work for a few weeks. Mr. Mansfield is hopeful your financial insights will give us a better idea of how we can streamline the budget.”

I began looking through the papers, organizing the groupings of line items by type. In addition to a general budget, the pages included how much per item or group of items Mansfield would pay, timeline for arrival, and time until the next shipment. I went to the drawer in the kitchen where Sandro stashed miscellaneous odds and ends, pulling out a pack of pencils, a sharpener, and an eraser. “Can I make notes on this?”

“You can. That’s a printout of the current version of the budget.”

I checked the back to discover the sheets had been printed on one side, an utter waste of paper in my opinion. Rather than complain, I’d make use of the extra space to be more thorough in my recommendations. I started with the necessities first. Without food, people starved. Starved people had a tendency of rebelling—or dying, which would defeat the entire purpose of Asylum.

A hungry but surviving population would be easier for Mansfield to control.

The budget, while complicated, included everything I needed to make sense of it, including the population within Asylum, which worked out to a little under ten thousand people. The population in Tulsa remained an unknown, and a note on the bottom of the first page indicated Mansfield wanted to do a census to discover how many lingered in the city above.

The gaping hole in his knowledge would make a mess of his budget, especially when it came to general expansions. A series of ten sheets implied he meant to build a mass dormitory for thousands upon thousands of people, offering shelter during the storms although they would not be considered permanent residents of Asylum.

His approach to the transient residents cost him a lot of unnecessary money, as he’d taken the single meal approach versus larger meals with better calories, and cheaper ingredients. On one sheet of paper, I made a list of various foods that could be made to feed people easier, using rice and other filling grains often acquirable in large supplies for a pittance compared to the type of meals I expected Sandro’s family to make.

I also made a point of listing specific soups and breads that could make ingredients stretch for longer while providing good calories along with a recommendation of investing in a cavern or two specifically for livestock, excess supplies, and a dairy to gain access to cheeses and milk—and meat when the dairy cows aged. Then, because common sense didn’t seem to be in abundance in the basic creation of the budget, I made a note of the general versatility of sheep and sheep dogs, which could take advantage of the abundant grasses thriving in the Alley and shelter in caverns during the storms.

I finished my exploration of the food budget with a notation about the versatility of beans, their ease of being grown, their ability to be dried long term, and their health benefits.

Using his numbers, I mixed up how he could distribute the grains and other foods he did have to feed more people a better diet, one that would allow a healthy working base. It annoyed me my early education came to my aid.

I hadn’t thought learning about history from hundreds upon hundreds of years ago would come in so useful for something like streamlining a budget.

Once I finished going over the food budget and supply list, I moved on to other things, asking Josephine questions about the miscellaneous maintenance bills, which had enough holes to hide an entire munitions depot for an army in it. She explained they left large buffers to account for the ventilation systems. I doubted she spoke the truth, but I marked the maintenance bills as important, recommended better planning around the purchasing of necessary spare parts and expanding the ventilation systems, and moved on.

After several hours of beating my head against the budget while Josephine observed in silence unless I spoke to her, I accepted defeat, organized the papers, and slid them back to her. “The things I know about, I wrote out notes. The things I don’t know about, I made a note of that, too. I hope Mr. Mansfield finds something useful in this. I think I did the best with the food budget. The rest are things I simply have no experience with.”

The woman took the papers and rose. “You tried despite your lack of experience. That says a lot about your character, Mrs. Moretti.”

I supposed it did. I stood and walked with her to the front door. “I appreciate your patience.”