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I suppose I should have expected that Dr Cale’s people were a the best in the world, and had been even before the population of the world started to drop precipitously But they didn’t all share her "a person’s a person" attitude toward the chimera, or her sympathy toward the sleepwalkers, who had, after all, not asked to be designed with dangerously high levels of hu to worry that she would have a er What felt like half her technicians didn’t want to broker a peace between the two sides: they wanted to wipe the other side out co a world where allergies and autoimmune disorders would return to their proper place in the hu suppressed by tapeworms that could turn traitor at any moment

It was sort of hard to blame them for that I probably wouldn’t have been too thrilled at the idea of harboring my own replace quarters, and the doors opened on a sugar-scented, candy-colored wonderland As always, the sight of the party level sentout of control, replaced by a strong desire to run laughing through the cookie garden until the Buttercrealanced to the side Nathan was grinning at ain

"I just really like it here," I said defensively

"I just really like it when you’re happy," he said, laughing, and stepped out of the elevator, leaving me with little choice but to follow hied by no more than six staff rottos and private rooms that it was iiven time The elevator opened into the arrival area, which sumdrops and didn’t have a specific "candy" the candy scentsexperience, since this was also the only place in the building that was properly set up as a dining area There was a cafeteria, but it was s, and pretty arden

The smell of bacon wafted from what used to be the sticky toffee oasis, but had beco and hot soup in the afternoon, thanks to its plethora of heat la to the flyers in the old er’s office, the sticky toffee oasis had been the only party destination to offer fondue as an option for the birthday boy or girl I wasn’t really sure why anyone would want to eat toffee-flavored fondue on the steps of a plywood and plaster pyramid Clearly, my lack of a human childhood had warped me in some way

Daisy was on duty at the hot bar when Nathan and I caht smile, which faded so, Nathan," she said "Sal"

"Morning, Daisy" I picked up a plate "Nathan said there affles?"

"Third tray," she said, pointing with her tongs before refocusing her shter, if that was possible "I saved you some haood"

"Mmm, ham," said Nathan "Did you know that most natural tapeworm infections in the United States ca our produce from South America? Salad tainted with human feces turned out to be an excellent trans faintly nauseated "Is that your way of saying you don’t want any ham?"

"I try to avoid pork as a rule" Nathan picked up a plate of his own "Breakfast potatoes?"

"That, I can do," said Daisy, looking relieved She opened the second of the silver serving platters and spooned a heaping pile of potatoes onto Nathan’s plate "The fruit is down at the end"

"I knoay around the hot bar," said Nathan, with a shtness, but was kind, which was really iven her "Thanks for breakfast"

"Thanks for eating," said Daisy Her blanch becae juice"

"Okay"

I took my plate of waffles and previously frozen berries, stopped in front of Daisy long enough to take the haive me a tapeworm, since the che it asroot--and flashed her a toothy smile before I turned and followed Nathan deeper into the party floor, looking for a table

He finally settled at an empty picnic table that had been painted to look like it contained our recommended daily allowance of chocolate chips I slid into a seat across fro that it had been oats, but no cows That would have requiredsoil and fences

Captain Candy’s had been designed to serve three disparate purposes: tourism, research, and food production It still served three purposes They just weren’t what the original architects had had in mind The wonderland areas were stillareas The research and develop space, with so to paint the walls white and others--like Nathan andNo one’s ever come up with a universal color scheme for the apocalypse, and if ours wanted to come in neon and peppermint stripe, well That was okay