CHAPTER FIVE: THE WRONG KIND OF EMERGENCY

The next morning, a notice appeared on the schoolhouse entrance.
The city had suspended all activity pending a building inspection.
A local reporter interviewed residents on the sidewalk while a utility worker checked the rear service panel.
I stayed away from the camera crew.
I was more interested in why the event had happened without anyone telling the neighborhood.
At the library, I searched public announcements for the Civic Preparedness Initiative.
Its website contained cheerful photographs of volunteers in bright vests helping smiling seniors onto buses.
A banner advertised the Better Tomorrow Preparedness Showcase, scheduled for Friday at the county convention hall.
The program promised practical demonstrations by organizations competing for a substantial emergency-training contract.
Graham Pike was listed as executive director.
Vera Lang appeared under community outreach.


That explained her orange wristband but not her silence.
I called the senior center named in the flyer Dolores had described.
The coordinator, a woman named Leah Benton, sounded surprised to hear that residents had been taken to the abandoned schoolhouse.
She had been told the rehearsal would occur at an accessible community college gym.
‘Nobody asked me to send volunteers into a condemned building,’ she said.
She sent me a copy of the invitation, with the names of the organizers clearly printed.
A sentence at the bottom promised that all participants would be supervised by trained staff.
That afternoon I returned to the alley and found Owen leaning against the fence.
He wore a high school sweatshirt and carried a skateboard.
He said he had come to see whether Martin was all right.


I told him the hospital had reported Martin in stable condition.
Owen’s shoulders relaxed.
He asked whether I believed he had done something wrong.
I said reporting a missing person was the right thing.
‘Graham told us the whole thing was supposed to look real,’ Owen said.
‘What did that mean?’ I asked.
He explained that an evaluator would watch edited video of the exercise, not the entire process.
Participants had been told to act frightened when the fog appeared.
A few were given instructions to wait behind locked doors until a simulated rescue team arrived.
Owen had objected because one volunteer had asthma.
Graham told him that a professional would monitor everyone.
‘Was there a professional?’ I asked.
Owen shook his head.
‘Just us.’
He pointed toward my camera mount.
‘Graham said that camera would ruin the timing because it could show the volunteers arriving before the alarm.’
I asked whether Vera had heard that statement.
Owen nodded.
‘He told her to handle the camera before we started.’
I felt my stomach drop.
Vera had been given an order, but she had decided to carry it out.
Owen looked at the sealed schoolhouse.
‘I thought volunteer work meant helping people,’ he said.
‘It should,’ I answered.
I gave him the name of the officer taking statements.
He took a photograph of the contact information and rolled away slowly on his skateboard.